AN EARLY HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY:

WHEN IOWA IS

‘THE WILD WEST’

- an Iowa Century Museum -

CARNEGIE

HISTORICAL MUSEUM

PREHISTORY

ICE AGE Pleistocene

Migration

PALEO-INDIANS

Hunters & gatherers first occupy Iowa at

the end of the Pleistocene glacial period.

13,500–10,500 years ago

Clovis Points

IOWA is covered by tundra, conifer forests and deciduous forests.

Tooth shapes of these 15,000 year-old molars indicate mastodons browse tree

branches, while mammoths graze grasses. Fossils of these extinct Ice Age (Pleistocene) creatures resembling elephants have been

widely found across Iowa.

MASTODON (LEFT) AND MAMMOTH (RIGHT) TEETH

ARCHAIC-the longest period of Iowa prehistory,

lasts about 8,000 years. Populations increase in Iowa despite a changing climate.

In the Late Archaic (5,000–2,800 years ago) the climate becomes similar to modern. Larger populations create

The Late Archaic sees the first mound building in Iowa, as well as direct evidence of domesticated plants, and

large, long-term settlements.

St. Charles LANCE POINT 5000 B.C.

new subsistence strategies.

WOODLAND PERIOD

Native Iowans shift away from hunting & gathering.

More domesticated plants come into use . . .

. . . wild food is still important.

Hand-built CERAMICS, bows & arrows, burial mounds and evidence of political and social hierarchy become common

at Iowa Woodland sites.

1000 B.C. – 1000 A.D.

BOB HALL, CIRCA 1980

Banner Stones and ceremonial flint blades he dug as a boy from burial mounds on the home farm

c. 1915.

EARLY RECORDED HISTORY

1673

1st recorded Europeans in Iowa,

Jesuit Father Marquette & Louis Joliet

Last voyage of the CARNEGIE MUSEUM’s Birch bark canoe, paddled by Bill Kay- Van Buren County . . . . . . October 1969

1803 Louisiana Purchase 4 April 1804 Lewis & Clark mention the IOWAY in their journal.

The Carnegie Museumhas seventy-five artifacts of a type referred to in the expedition records.

THE IOWAY

Iowaville, an Ioway village on the Des Moines River near Ottumwa. The Ioways live there between about 1770

and 1824. They hunt, trap, farm, & trade . . . and . . . defend themselves against other groups.

1836 relocation of the Ioways from Western Missouri to Wolf River, Kansas.

Corporate Charter of the Iowa Tribe of the Iowa Reservation in Kansas and Nebraska -- Ratified June 19, 1937

Chief Mahaska of Iowaville McKinney & Hall diplomatic portrait

BLACK HAWK WAR

Both Abraham Lincoln and early Jefferson County

settlers serve in the Illinois Militia . . . . . . 1832.

The U.S. Army moves the Sauk Indian tribe from Illinois to Iowa. The Sauk have run-ins with the native Ioways and don't like Iowa. Chief Black Hawk leads them back to plant their old fields. 

Seeing  Indians on their land, white settlers panic & shoot two Indians dead . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Black Hawk

retaliates.

BLACK HAWK PURCHASE

Horse Wife Son

KEOKUK & HIS FAVORITES :

Circa 1910 litho reproductions of portraits by George Catlin

George Catlin pays scant homage to Keokuk’s old rival.

BLACK HAWK

By George Catlin

SAC & FOX ELDER

Catlin is most famous for documenting tribes of the Great Plains but spends a surprising amount of time painting in Eastern Iowa.

THE MES-KWA-KI Meskwaki means

“PEOPLE of the RED EARTH". 

They are originally from Wisconsin.

The Meskwaki come to Iowa in the mid 1800s after wars with various European settlers & other tribal groups. 

The Treaty of 1842 relocates them to Kansas.   Chief Poweshiek's band returns to Iowa and purchases settlement land near Tama. 

The French call them "Reynards" or foxes - the Sac (or Sauk) have a similar language . Both groups are designated “Meskwaki “by the federal government.

Ribbon-work by Mrs. Bill Leaf, circa 1915

POW-A-SHEEK

McKinney & Hall lithograph from an 1830’s oil portrait

painted in Washington, D.C.

Sauk & Fox War Dance

JOHN HUFF BORN 1811

First man of European descent known to visit Jefferson County in 1835 . . . makes

barrels and fills them with wild

honey. $ $ $ $ $

John Deere steel plow 1835

McCormick Reaper 1834

BREAKING SOD

Tough root system

THE MYSTERIOUS IRON CROSS

Bill Perry 1953The first settlersencounter it ona limestone bluffnear Libertyville.

As a Parsons Collegegeology student, Billfinds a hand–forged iron spike embeddedat the site. This maybe a cross fragment.

POW-A-SHEEKencampment is near Lockridge in 1836 when William Coop is born. He is the first pioneer

child born in Jefferson County.

William Coop & Friend 1981bronze statue by Christopher Bennett

JOHN RUSH PARSONS 1840’S

Plows six mile furrow from his farm to Fairfield . . . . Now Highway 34

Huge sod-breaking plow

Eight yoke of oxen

Judith Ward is a descendent.

In 1837, two years after

Ann’s death, Mrs. Rutledge moves to Birmingham and

brings this walking wheel with her.

The LINCOLN Romance

BONNIFIELD CABIN 1838

. . . where Nancy Bonnifield gives Fairfield its name in 1839.

Listed on the NATIONAL REGISTER of HISTORIC PLACES

Restoration work 2005

Buffalo Hunt by George Catlin

The last sightings of American

Bison in the wild

Buffalo Danceby Catlin

IOWASTATEHOOD

1846

Texas Statehood, December 29, 1845

Iowa Statehood, December 28, 1846

JOEL TURNEY

Builds wagons for the “49ers” on their way to California . . . In 1888 he moves

the business from

Trenton, Iowa to

FAIRFIELD.

1858 - Irish Catholic

workers lay Fairfield’s

first railway line.

RAILWAY SERVICE

THE WIDEAWAKES

This flag is carried in Jefferson County’s

largest political rally.

1860

The torchlight parade sees 25,000 people in attendance.

Ink drawing byW. H. Jackson

– PATRIOTIC IOWA –

More Iowans serve per capita than any other state.

From

Fair

field

Lincoln Sat Herethe President and Fairfield’s U. S. Representative,

James Falconer Wilson, sit for

Brady Studio portraits.

1862-

LEWIS B. PARSONS, JR. 1818

- 1907

1863 – Lincoln signs promotion to rank of Captain

1865 – Lincoln, Grant & Stanton write testimonials praising his work as QUARTER MASTER .

Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee,

James F. Wilson calls on Lincoln at the White House

!!YOU’VE WON!!It’s official.

THOMAS EMERSON

MAPLETHORPEwalks from his farm near Wellman to the Iowa City train depot for this newspaper.

1849 - 1922

Emigrated from England at age ten.

1865 JAMES F. WILSON

Our Congressman rides the LINCOLN

Funeral Train.

The Byrkits were Quaker Conductors on the UNDERGROUND RAIL ROAD

Archie ByrkitRIFLE

McCormickReaper 1834

William Louden, the Cyrus McCormick of Jefferson County . . . . . . . . 30,000 custom barns on every continent, except Antarctica

WILLIAM LOUDEN

INVENTOR, 1841 - 1931

1867 LOUDEN Hay Carrier

Stephenson Coverlets

the family shearthe sheep, spin & dye the wool

Jacquard weave

SYNERGY

Louden Hay Carrier =BIGGER barns

1867

Split rails keep foraging critters

OUT !

BIGGER barns =

More hay

1870’s barbed wire keep

BIGGER herds IN !

DRAFT HORSES

By the 1880’s imported horses

replace oxen. They are faster.

THE END

Mark ShaferCarnegie Historical Museum

25 August 2010

CREDITSCarnegie Historical Museum

A Fair Field by Susan Fulton WeltyFairfield at the Turn of the Century by Mark Shafer

Maasdam Barns Preservation CommitteJefferson County Historic Preservstion Commission

Wikipedia GOOGLE Image SearchMrs. Gwen Wells William PerryBill Cay Mrs. Vera Young

Fairfield Public LibraryKeith Shafer Mrs. Edith Jordan

Jefferson County Heritage Trail

Southeast Iowa is the land

of his shirt-tail relations

IF ILLINOIS IS THE LAND of LINCOLN,