This is a continuation of yesterday's post featuring news clips related to Lucas County prior to 1867 from various newspapers published elsewhere in an attempt to fill a few of the gaps left by the fact only one or two issues of The Chariton Patriot, launched during 1854, have survived from those years. Yesterday's clips were from 1866; today's, from 1865.
Curiously enough, the most widely reported news from Lucas County in 1865 seems to have involved an event that, while sensational, apparently never happened. Some version of the following paragraph was published during late August and early September in newspapers from California to Vermont. This was lifted from The Alton (Illinois) Telegraph of Sept. 1, 1865:
"A rumor comes from Chariton, Iowa, that a difficulty occurred there on Monday between some returned soldiers and the attachees of Palmer's Hippodrome (a circus), which resulted in the deaths of six of the showmen and one soldier."
I've been unable to find anything anywhere to suggest that there was any truth whatsoever in this report, suggesting that it was indeed just a "rumor." Oops.
A couple of deaths were reported accurately, however, providing insight into how two citizens of Chariton died during that year.
That's the tombstone of James Holmes, who died Nov. 28, 1865, above (Doris Christensen/Find A Grave) at Oxford Cemetery. Here's a report from the Quad-City Times (Davenport) of Dec. 16, 1865, that provides the circumstances:
"John J. Logan has a contract to furnish 500 ties for the B. & M.R. Railroad, to be used on the first four miles east or Chariton. We also learn from the Patriot that on Tuesday, James Holmes, in the employ of Dr. J. D. Holmes, in his mill in Chariton, as engineer, was found dead on the shaft, his neck broken, skull fractured, and arms and legs mangled. It is supposed that he was caught in the machinery while engaged in greasing it. He was a sober, industrious and intelligent man."
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| Doris Christensen/Find a Grave |
And here are the sad circumstances of the death of little Fred Rose M. Penick, who died on July 30, 1865, and was buried in the Chariton Cemetery. This report, from The Quad-City Times of Aug. 10, 1865, got the name wrong, however:
"A boy five years old named Wm. Penick, Chariton, Lucas county, fell into a cistern on Sunday last and was drowned."
As the report of James Holmes' death suggests, construction of the Burlington and Missouri River Railroad west through Chariton to the Missouri River, stalled since the start of the Civil War, was resuming.
Another Quad-City Times report, this from Nov. 15, 1865, provides a few more details:
"Col Greisel, of the B. & M.R. Railroad, has just returned from where he has been to obtain laborers. He succeeded in hiring about fifty, and will commence work on the road between Ottumwa and Chariton."
The tracks would reach Chariton during early July, 1867.
As always, Iowa's weather was variable. This report, plucked intact from The Patriot by the Quad-City Times on June 6, 1865, relates to drought:
"The chinch bug, caterpillar, cut worm, corn eater, potato bugs (several new varieties and very destructive) and other insects not herein mentioned --- together with the extreme dry weather, have put a damper on this section of the State. Prospects are blue, bluer, bluest, and unless the wind "blues" some rain this way soon, the good people of this county will have to be maintained at the State poor farm --- or else emigrate."
But on July 1, the Quad-City Times reported:
"Lucas county was flooded during the late freshet. Many of the bridges on the Chariton River and Whitebreast were either greatly damaged or washed away. Whitebreast was ten feet higher than ever before known, we glean from the Chariton Patriot."
As work on the new railroad across southern Iowa resumed, the days of the Western Stage Coach Co. were numbered, but as this report from the Quad-City Times of Nov. 2, 1865, suggests, the company was carrying on:
"The Western Stage Company, always alive to the demands of travel in those regions which are untraversed by railroads, are running a daily coach and four from Chariton, Lucas County, to Leon, Decatur county, to intersect the Southern route to Nebraska."
And finally, here's a report of an actual crime taken from The Burlington Weekly Hawk-Eye of March 18, 1865. Ottawa was located in Clarke County along the road connecting Chariton and Osceola, north of the current town of Woodburn, which hadn't been founded yet:
"A friend of ours residing in Clarke county sends us the following item: 'A bold and daring robbery was committed in this county on Friday night. The particulars are as follows: About 7 or 8 o'clock at night five men with their faces blackened entered the house of Mr. Chambers, about one mile east of Ottawa, on the Osceola and Chariton road, and demanded of Mr. C. his money, having their revolvers in their hands. Mr. C. handed over about $20. They were in the act of shooting his daughter when Mr. C. struck one of the men with a chair, knocking him down. While in the act of raising the chair to strike a second blow, Mr. C. was shot in the arm, close to the shoulder, shattering it very bad. The wounded man is now suffering very much from the wound. Some of the men will no doubt will be caught as it is thought they can be identified. We think Judge Lynch will be called on to hold court as soon as they are caught as this is the only way to deal with such characters.' "
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