So far as Lucas County's history is concerned, two 1899 letters from James G. Robinson to Henry Gittinger, at the time editor and publisher of The Russell Union, are about as close as we can get to information straight from the horse's mouth. He was the only one of our earliest settlers to have left behind a written memoir, although sadly a short one. That's Robinson and his wife, Francis, above.
Robinson was 78 during July of 1899 and a resident of Farnhamville, on the Calhoun-Webster county line, when he wrote the letters. He had moved his family from Lucas to Calhoun county during 1872 after an apparent excursion into Kansas.
Both letters were written and published in The Union during July of 1899, with more promised. But James died of an apparent heart attack on Aug. 19, 1899, and the story-telling ended. The issues of the Union in which the articles were published no longer exist. But Henry republished the letters on Sept. 2, 1909, in The Chariton Leader, which he then owned and published.
James staked his claim in what became Lucas County during April of 1848 --- just west of where U.S. Highway 34 now crosses the Lucas-Monroe county line --- and brought his family up from Davis County, where they had lived since 1844, during July.
At the time, there were 20-30 families at most living in the county, Chariton did not exist and caravans of Mormon pioneers bound for Utah kept the dust flying (and the ruts deepening when it rained) on the old Mormon Trail as it meandered through the future sites of Russell and Chariton, then turned southwesterly at Chariton Point toward Clarke County bound either for Garden Grove or Mt. Pisgah.
Robinson was a skilled writer. I loved the line, "Although a little circumscribed in our sleeping accommodations, we had for kitchen, dining room and parlors, the south half of Cedar township." It's our loss that he didn't live long enough to write more.
Here's the text of his first letter; I'll transcribe the second another day and have a related side trip or two planned as well:
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Editor Gittinger: An item in your paper a short time ago, stating that a half century ago on July 4th, the county of Lucas, state of Iowa, was organized, brought forcibly to my mind some of the events of that early time, and perhaps I might give some reminiscences that would interest some of your readers.
But having to depend entirely upon memory, having no records at hand, much that would be of interest will have to be left out.
I made a claim in April, 1848, and in the following July brought my family to Lucas County, and settled down in the grass where afterwards sprang up, and then after a hard struggle vanished, the little village of LaGrange. We had to use the bed of our ox-wagon, which was covered with a heavy canvas, in which to store away our household goods that needed protection from the rain and wind storms, and also for sleeping apartments, until I could erect a log cabin.
Although a little circumscribed in our sleeping accommodations, we had for kitchen, dining room and parlors, the south half of Cedar township.
The wind sometimes made our lard lamp a little troublesome, yet the lights that were hung out at creation's first dawn were never obscured, only by a cloud occasionally.
I put some poles under our wagon bed, where it had been placed on posts high enough to prevent any obtrusive rattler from crawling in on us unawares, and on these poles we trained our chickens to go to roost, but while we slept the wolves stole our poultry.
There were but few families living in the county at that time. The first election I attended after coming to the county was at the house of a Mr. Van Cleve, living on the Wells prairie, ten or eleven miles southeast of Albia, or Princeton it was then.
In 1849 an election was held for the purpose of electing the necessary officers to organize the county. Notices of which had been previously posted by the sheriff of Monroe county.
I do not remember the exact date of the election, or time of the first meeting of the officers. Our territory extended to the Missouri river, including the counties of Clarke, Union, Adams, Montgomery and Mills. A few weeks before the election a call was made for a union convention, or caucus, to nominate a ticket to be voted at the coming election.
Iowa had the previous year cast her first vote for president, and party feeling and prejudice ran high, and convictions were deep. A union convention was called not because our party zeal had abated. A few of us had been thrown together, strangers in a strange land, and undergoing alike the harships and privations that attended pioneer life; such surroundings create a sympathy and friendship seldom found in other avenues of life. And another incentive for such a movement was, there were not enough of us to make two tickets and give either of them a respectable vote at the election.
The convetion was held at Chariton Point southeast of the present town of Chariton. I was not present but was told W.A. Townsend, who lived there at the time, had cut down a little scrubby oak tree and had taken the limbs for firewood, and the members of the convention, including the chairman, were all seated on that log.
The ticket nominated was, for recorder and treasurer, Samuel McKinley, democrat (great uncle of Carmi McKinley, present candidate for treasurer on the democratic ticket. -- Ed.); sheriff, Samuel Payne, whig; commissioner's clerk, W.A. Townsend, democrat; clerk of the courts, W.W. Waynick, whig; commissioners: W.T. May, democrat; J.W Phillips, whig; J.G. Robinson, democrat. The entire ticket was elected by sixty or seventy majority, or plurality, just as you may call it. The entire situation at this time proved the fact that this was a day of small things, but they should not be despised.
We were farming like our fathers had done before us, cutting grass with the scythe, and making the hay with a hand rake; the small grain was cut with the old turkey wing cradle, no other kind of harvester thought of. The ground was crossed off and corn dropped by hand and covered with a hoe. No threshing machines, no railraods and none expected. A state road had been laid out from Ottumwa to Council Bluffs, which passed through the county, but no one could follow it five miles, and none tried to; none of the streams were bridged, and in traveling we followed around on the divides, heading the streams where they could not be crossed handily.
There was not a mail route or post office within our borders. The first mail route was from Albia to Chariton, a boy carrying the mail on horseback three times a week. He passed by my house on his beats, and accommodated me much by carrying letters to the Chariton office, and bringing my mail on his return. (signed) J.G. Robison, Farnhamville, Iowa, July 15, 1899.
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