Chapter VIII: Introduction: By Reuben G. Thwaites (6)

The conditions in a new and rapidly growing city cannot be properly understood without careful consideration of such material facts as we have been considering. But there is yet another story to tell. It is doubtful whether any cities in the United States of the size contain so many beautiful pictures and fine libraries. The Minneapolis Public Library is well known to all interested in library management by reason of the liberality and novelty of its methods. In the spring of 1859 Bayard Taylor delivered a lecture in the village and gave the proceeds, less than one hundred dollars, to a library association, which took the name of the Minneapolis Atheneum. Later Dr. Kirby Spencer devised to it a fund which now yields about $8000 each year, for the purchase of books of a certain designated class and character. The Atheneum was not a public library, but it was liberally managed by the trustees and the community was enabled to use it under reasonable restrictions. The trustees finally took the lead in the establishment of a public library into which the collection of the Atheneum was merged. The law created a library board with limited powers of taxation. Public-spirited citizens contributed a valuable site on which there was erected a building not surpassed by any structure of its kind in the country for convenience and general efficiency. In addition to the central building, there are two branch buildings, one erected by the city and the other presented to the city by ex-Governor John S. Pillsbury, who had already made his name synonymous with public generosity by his liberal gifts to the State University. The first librarian was Herbert Putnam, afterwards of the Boston Public Library, and now the Librarian of the Congressional Library at Washington. His successor, an eminent scholar, Dr. James K. Hosmer, has continued building upon the foundation laid by Mr. Putnam. The system gives to the public a much greater liberty of access to the books than had been considered safe and desirable in other large libraries. The plan has been successful and there have been no losses or injuries to the books which would justify the withdrawal or restriction of such freedom. The library now contains 113,000 books, and during the past year the circulation was over 600,000, which was an average of three books for each inhabitant of the city.

The picture gallery and school of the Minneapolis Society of Fine Arts occupies the third floor of the Library Building. The city owns a number of good paintings, which it purchased at the sale of the gallery that formerly belonged to the Exposition Company. Several fine paintings have been presented to the municipality by Mr. J.J. Hill of St. Paul, whose wealth has also been used to advance and cultivate the taste for artistic work in the city of St. Paul. When the collection of casts selected by General Cesnola for the Metropolitan Museum of Art arrived in New York before the building was ready, it was promptly purchased by citizens of Minneapolis, and donated to the Exposition Company, which was then holding annual exhibits. It is now the property of Mr. T.B. Janney, by whom it has been placed in the Public Library, and thus for all practical purposes dedicated to the art education of the people. Mr. Hill in St. Paul and Mr. T.B. Walker in Minneapolis have private collections which include many famous and valuable pictures.

A start has been made in the work of beautifying the city and honoring illustrious citizens by the placing of Fjelde's statue of Ole Bull in Loring Park and Daniel C. French's statue of ex-Governor John S. Pillsbury in the grounds of the State University. A law has recently been passed which provides for the creation of permanent art commissions in St. Paul and Minneapolis. It is hoped that these bodies will prevent the purchase or acceptance of unworthy pictures or statues by the municipalities.

In proportion to the population the parks in Minneapolis exceed in acreage those of any other city in America and of all but three foreign cities. There are twenty-two parks and parkways, not counting numerous parklets formed by the intersection of streets. At the present time the park board controls 1552.81 acres. In the centre of the city lies Loring Park, with its beautiful lake and well-kept verdure. Starting from this point, Kenwood Boulevard carries us along a wooded bluffy region from whose heights are obtained changing views of the Lake of the Isles, which is now entirely enclosed by a boulevard. A short half-mile south is Lake Calhoun, along the eastern terrace of which we pass to the borders of Lakewood Cemetery and thence through Interlaken, rich in the beauty of its wild woods, to the shores of Lake Harriet and its pavilion. At the south angle of the lake the boulevard leads off to Minnehaha Creek, which is the outlet of Lake Minnetonka and flows easterly through a romantic valley until, falling over the Trenton limestone within a half-mile of the Mississippi, it forms the romantic Falls of Minnehaha. Around the Falls of Minnehaha there is a park of one hundred and twenty-five acres, containing a zoological garden and bordered by the grounds of the Soldiers' Home, which for all æsthetic purposes is a part of it.

Another matter of striking interest is the bicycle-path system, which crosses the city in every direction and extends for miles into the country. The paths are constructed and sustained by a license tax of fifty cents on each wheel which uses them. During the past year this tax produced more than $20,000, all of which was expended in the construction and maintenance of the paths.

The State University is the crowning feature of the non-commercial institutions of the city and State. The first class was graduated in 1873, and ten years thereafter the graduating class numbered thirty-five. Its great weakness, as of all Western institutions, was the lack of proper preparatory schools, and President Folwell devised a unique plan by which the State high schools became feeders for the University. There are now about 3500 students in the University, making it the second or third largest in size in the United States. Upon the foundation broadly laid by the first president of the institution, President Northrup has since 1884 builded until the institution now has a magnificent income and an equipment second to few in the country.

Another notable feature in connection with the local government in Minneapolis is her method in dealing with the liquor question. After a period of controversy an ordinance was passed under which a line was drawn around the downtown district. Within this patrol limit saloons can exist upon the payment of a license fee of $1000 a year. As a result, the residence part of the city is entirely free from the demoralizing influence of the saloon.

In a general way the difference in population expresses the present relation between the two cities in other respects. In appearance St. Paul is more metropolitan than Minneapolis, as it is more compactly built. St. Paul lies along the side of a steep bluff. It is rugged and diverse and has the narrow streets and crowded appearance of a large city. From the crest of the hills, many magnificent residences look down upon the river. Westwardly the city straggles over the rolling country until it reaches the Minneapolis line, enclosing in the meantime the State Fair Grounds and centres of population which were originally separate municipalities, such as St. Anthony Park, Merriam Park, and Hamline. Minneapolis is built upon an almost level plain, lying between the river and Lake Calhoun, broken toward the north by a line of high ground parallel with and a mile west of the river. Its streets are broad and the houses set well back in ample grounds. Enclosed grounds are the exception. In St. Paul the fashionable residences are largely concentrated upon the crest of the bluff, while in Minneapolis they are scattered in various localities. There is also a general lack of concentration in the business districts of Minneapolis, which does not exist in St. Paul.

St. Paul's wholesale trade, if we exclude lumber and flour, is greater than that of Minneapolis. It is also the head of practical navigation on the Mississippi and the railway centre of the Northwest, although all trains reach both cities. The Minneapolis and St. Louis and the "Soo" are the only railways with headquarters in Minneapolis, while St. Paul is the headquarters of the Chicago and Great Western and of the great transcontinental lines, the Northern Pacific and the Great Northern.

The electric street-railway system in both cities is owned by one company, but the business is conducted in each city under a local management. There are 150 miles of track in Minneapolis, and 123 in St. Paul. Two busy interurban lines connect the centres of the two cities. The public-school systems are of the same general character and stand well the comparison with those of other cities. St. Paul has many children in the parochial schools. Her park system is extensive and beautiful and comprises about 1100 acres. The most extensive is Como Park, which lies in the interurban district and is a popular resort for thousands of people during the summer months. St. Paul has a large number of successful denominational educational institutions, such as Macallister College and Hamline University. The most conspicuous building in the city is the new white marble capitol now being erected by the State at an expense of over $3,000,000. The St. Paul Public Library is not equal to that of Minneapolis, but her citizens have the advantage of the use of the library of the Minnesota Historical Society, which is the miscellaneous State library.

A great deal of nonsense has been written about the characteristics of the people of these two cities. To render the situation more interesting and romantic all manner of inherent racial and sociological differences have been invented. Their struggle for supremacy has been described as exceeding in bitterness the ancient rivalry of Hooks and Kabbeljaws. Nothing could be further from the truth. The municipal and commercial rivalry was natural and beneficial, and was ordinarily kept within reasonable bounds. Both cities bounded upward under the impulse thus given to energy and enterprise. Each without the other would itself be less. The people are of the same type,--restless, ambitious empire builders. They have striven mightily and manfully in business and politics, but mingled amicably in social intercourse. What differences in character do exist are largely due to the different race elements which compose the population. If God sifted three kingdoms to obtain the seeds with which to plant New England, he resifted New England and the kingdoms for the planting of the Northwest. The present population is diverse, but the predominant element is the old Saxon blood.

For purposes of comparison, Ramsey County is St. Paul, and Hennepin County is Minneapolis. By the State census of 1895, Ramsey County had 147,537 inhabitants, of which 140,292 were in St. Paul; Hennepin County had 217,798 inhabitants, of which 192,833 were in Minneapolis. Bearing this proportion in mind, the following table, which gives the nativity of the population of the counties, is of interest:

Ramsey. Hennepin.

Native born 96,486 146,848
England and Canada 7,036 9,646
Ireland 5,468 4,339
Germany 16,593 11,337
France 281 264
Sweden 10,665 22,480
Norway 3,087 12,762
Bohemia 1,245 815
Poland 1,541 1,093

This does not show the number of the descendants of such foreign born residents now in the counties who are included under the head of native born. It appears that the percentage of native born is much larger in Minneapolis than in St. Paul. Thus, Ramsey County with 70,261 less population, had 1129 more Irish and 5256 more Germans than Hennepin County. In Hennepin, the Norwegians and Swedes form a large element. St. Paul with its German and Irish born citizens, is Democratic in politics and strongly Roman Catholic in religion, while in Minneapolis the Scandinavians and Republicans predominate. The sons of Maine, Vermont, New York, and Ohio maintain flourishing societies, but are completely eclipsed by the sons of Norway, Sweden, and Denmark. They are everywhere, in all positions and all kinds of business, from the highest to the lowest. Coming of the old Germanic stock, they take to self-government and officeholding as deftly as the sons of the town meeting. At present it is not a homogeneous people but an aggregation of all the elements,--a seething cauldron of the races, the residuum of which we believe will be a type of genuine American citizenship, broadened and liberalized by the ancestral outlook upon the world.

It is fashionable at present to speak lightly of Buckle's theory of the influence of climate upon the character of a people, but it is certain that we cannot understand the development of a people unless we know something of the climatic conditions under which they live. The northwestern climate is much better than the reputation it succeeded in establishing in the early days before the blizzard centre moved eastward. While not strictly like that described in the old hymn,

"December as pleasant as May,"

there are few pleasanter localities in which to spend the entire year. It is a climate for thinking and doing. Spring and autumn are delightful beyond the power of description, and the heat of midsummer is tempered by the myriad lakes which dot the surrounding country. In midwinter the thermometer takes an occasional downward plunge which sadly disarranges the record of averages, but for four days out of every five between December and March the sun shines gloriously through an atmosphere of mountain brilliancy. Then there is in the air a hidden food of life, upon which has fed the strenuous race of men which within the short space of one life has builded two great cities where none were before.

FOOTNOTE:

[13] The prediction was fulfilled the following year, when it became necessary to construct elaborate works to save the waterpower.

DES MOINES

IOWA'S CAPITAL CITY

BY FRANK I. HERRIOTT

The beginnings of the city of Des Moines are not shrouded in romance or shadowy tradition. Thrilling episode and epoch-making events do not abound in her history. Cannon have never thundered against the gates of the city, nor hostile armies marched and counter-marched within her environs. Not even the blood-curdling war-whoop of the Indian ever struck terror into the hearts of her pioneers. Yet the story of the capital city of Iowa is neither prosaic nor uninteresting. Her origin and early history typify the beginnings of civilized life throughout almost the entire State of Iowa; and since the seat of government was transferred to the city in 1857, her history is in epitome the history of the great commonwealth of which she is the capital.

The origin of the city's name is a moot question among antiquarians. Popular etymology has derived _Des Moines_ from the early associations of Trappist monks at or near the mouth of the river,--_la rivière des Moines_: but Dr. Elliot Coues regarded this as spurious etymology. Some local historians have contended that the name arose from the fact that the valley of the Des Moines River was inhabited by the Mound Builders: numerous mounds were found in what is now the heart of the city; hence, the "river of the mounds." The French explorer Nicollet ascribes its origin to the Algonquin name _Moingoinan_, and the earliest map showing the journeys and discoveries of La Salle, Joliet, and Marquette designate the river by the Algonquin name. In later times the French _voyageurs_ and traders clipped the word, for we find _Des Moins_, _De Moin_, _De Moyen_, _Demoin_, _Demoir_ and sometimes _Demon_. The French settlers probably had in mind the great "middle region" between the Mississippi and the Missouri when they referred to the _De Moyen_ or _Des Moines_.

The city of Des Moines was originally a frontier fort. Unlike the majority of such in the West in early days, this outpost at the "forks of the Raccoon" was not established to protect the whites from the Indians. On the contrary, Fort Des Moines was founded to guard the Sac and Fox Indians, to secure them in the peaceful possession of their hunting-grounds and to protect them against rapacious land agents, the encroachments of the whites and the bloody Sioux. And the event was typical of the relations of the national Government with the Indian tribes of Iowa.

When Iowa became known to the people of the East the tide of emigration soon began to run high and strong toward the Mississippi. It is not extravagant to say that never have more beautiful lands been opened for human settlement than lay beyond the "Father of Waters" in the hunting-grounds of the Sacs and Foxes. "_Une ravissante contrée_" exclaimed in 1842 King Louis Philippe's son, Prince de Joinville, as he gazed upon the gorgeous green of the river bluffs, forests, and valleys, and meadows and prairies of Iowa. The wonderful stories related of the marvellous fertility of the soil and the attractiveness of nature in this Western Mesopotamia gave a tremendous impetus to emigration. But the national Government firmly held back the tide. The Mississippi was patrolled by troops to prevent the settlers invading the lands. Colonel Zachary Taylor and Lieutenant Jefferson Davis, both later to achieve great fame, were among those who guarded the rights of the Iowa Indians and ejected overzealous frontiersmen and "squatters." But the pressure of population westward was irresistible; and small pretexts were sufficient to break down the barriers. The war with the Sacs and Foxes under their great leader, Black Hawk, came on and by the treaty of 1832, known as the "Black Hawk Purchase," negotiated by General Winfield Scott, a tract along the Mississippi fifty miles wide was opened for settlement. This strip was rapidly populated and in 1836 the Keokuk reserve was ceded to the United States. In 1837 a large tract adjacent on the west, aggregating 1,250,000 acres, was purchased from the Indians. In a short time the settlers began to clamor for the opening of the beautiful lands in the Des Moines Valley and beyond, and to petition Congress; and on October 11, 1842, Governor John Chambers, the second Territorial governor of Iowa, negotiated a treaty at Agency City which obtained title to the rest of Iowa. By its terms the Sacs and Foxes were permitted to remain three years in their beloved hunting-grounds before their departure for Kansas. It was the latter provision that led to the establishment of Fort Des Moines.

In May, 1834, a military camp styled Fort Des Moines was established at the mouth of the river near where Keokuk now is, but abandoned in 1837. As early as 1835 Lieutenant-Colonel Stephen W. Kearny had been ordered by the War Department at Washington to "proceed up the river Des Moines to the Raccoon fork" and reconnoitre with a view to the selection of a military post. He reported adversely, however, believing that a fort should be established farther north near the Minnesota line; and nothing was done until the treaty of 1842 was ratified. Then General Scott, in order to protect the Indians from molestation by the whites, directed that troops be stationed near the Agency buildings then located a few miles south and east of the present city. Captain James Allen of the First Dragoons selected the "forks of the Raccoon," and in May, 1843, a steamboat came up the Des Moines River and landed soldiers and supplies. The soldiers set about building the fort, which, when completed, consisted simply of the officers' and men's quarters, one-story log huts with puncheon floors, a storehouse, hospital, and stables, all so arranged as to form a right angle, the sides of which ran parallel to the banks of the converging rivers, and came to a point at their junction. There was no stockade, embankment, or outlying moat on the exposed view or any other protective feature.

During the time the fort was garrisoned there were a few whites permitted to occupy lands near by,--a representative of the American Fur Company, traders, a tailor, a blacksmith, and gardeners, persons who served the fort in some way,--but the population never exceeded two hundred, soldiers and all. Captain Allen and his dragoons had to give all their time to restraining restless bands of Indians and crowding back the eager settlers who were on the eastern boundaries of the purchase awaiting the departure of the Indians. The latter, although they manifested a disinclination to leave their old haunts, and trouble was anticipated when the order came for them to move, nevertheless peacefully withdrew under their great chief Keokuk.

Even before the Indians' title to the lands had expired many whites had slipped over the borders, dodged the dragoons, spied out the most desirable places for settlement and determined to claim them as soon as they could be entered. Many a story is told of men roosting high in trees for days to keep out of the sight of the troops. On the night of October 10, 1845, men were stationed in all directions from the fort ready to measure off their claims. Precisely at twelve o'clock, midnight, a signal gun was fired at the Agency house. Answering guns rang out sharply in quick succession from hilltop and valley for miles around. The moon was shining dimly and its beams ill supplemented the fitful gleams of the settlers' torches as they hastily made their rough surveys, marked by blazing trees or by setting stones or stakes. Men helped each other. Two friends would run in two directions and each fire a gun when the terminus was reached. When the sun came up a new empire had come into being and the order and industry of the white man had displaced the listless, unprogressive life of the savage.

The rush of the settlers into the region about Des Moines ahead of the surveyor's chain led to the development of an institution of peculiar interest in Western history. Not only was it unique, it was also a striking instance of the spontaneous growth of an institution of government. It was almost if not quite the realization under almost ideal conditions of the theory of Jean Jacques Rousseau that Government arises from and rests on a Social Compact. It was known as a Land Club or League or Claim Association, and it played a large part in the organization of government in Iowa. It overrode the law of the land, or rather it blocked the natural course of the law; yet at the same time it maintained order and secured under strict regulations equity for the early settlers when the enforcement of the law would have worked harsh injustice, and possibly have produced serious outbreaks against national authority.

When Iowa was first opened for settlement the pioneers could not preempt lands or secure title to them until they were surveyed; and then only at public sale. But the surveyor lagged far behind the pioneer, who considered not the law, but, anxious for a home, hurried into the new tracts and settled on his claim. The "squatter" had no legal title to his claim, nor could he obtain it by priority of occupancy; and he knew that any stranger or speculator with a longer purse string could purchase his land and oust him and his family the moment the Government should offer it for sale. It was the likelihood of this dire contingency that led to the formation of Claim Clubs or Associations in nearly every locality in Iowa. These clubs were composed of all the settlers in a township or county. They adopted a constitution, elected officers and conducted their affairs by definite procedure. They governed all matters relating to the amount and character of claims, their occupancy, improvement, abandonment, transfers, and disputes. The decisions of the club were rigidly enforced. Claims were recorded and the members were under solemn agreement not only to guard each other from interference but to prevent lands claimed from being sold to strangers at the public sales. Unhappy was the fate of a man who had the temerity to "jump" a claim or to outbid a claimant. Tar and feathers or unceremonious banishment or even harsher treatment was not unlikely. At the sale the club selected a member who would bid in the members' claims. He was accompanied by a posse whose presence always prevented outsiders from bidding as the law contemplated. If the Government officials were not always in sympathy with the settlers, at least they were always discreet enough to manifest no disapproval of the proceedings.

These Claim Clubs of Iowa aroused fierce opposition in the East. Calhoun and Clay denounced them as "conspiracies of lawless men" who so terrorized would-be purchasers that bona fide sales were impossible, and they urged that vigorous measures be taken to abate them. Webster came to the settlers' defence. He pleaded for what he called their "reasonable rights" under the circumstances. The Government had delayed the surveys; yet the settlers had been encouraged to go into the new lands and make their homes; to dispossess them would work severe hardship; the clubs, although outside the pale of the law, had enforced order and maintained to a marked degree all the forms of law and government, and violence was extremely rare. To Webster's eloquence was due the passage of the early preemption laws. They were not liberal enough, however, and in 1848 a strong Claim Club was formed at Des Moines.

Although the treaty of 1842 opened the lands in 1845 they were not surveyed until 1847 and title could not be obtained until late in 1848. Meantime claims in large numbers had been entered. In 1848 speculators and "landsharks" came in and roamed about regarding the settlers' claims with envious and designing eyes. Fear of them was a leading motive in the formation of the Claim Club of 1848. Strangers were closely watched. Any suspicious action led to the suspect being warned that discretion was the better part of valor. There were some disturbances but none were serious. The most notable arose within the club itself. One Perkins jumped his neighbor Flemmings's claim. The latter appealed to his club members. A "war" ensued in which Perkins narrowly escaped hanging. When the sale took place at Iowa City, 125 miles east of Des Moines, the club's agent bid in at $1.25 all of the claims and soon thereafter the club ceased to play any part in the life of the community.

The first local government to which the inhabitants of Des Moines were subject was the county government of Polk County provided for by the Territorial Legislature in January, 1846. The town government was not organized until 1851. By this time Fort Des Moines had become a thriving place. It was an important way station on one of the main stage routes to the West. In 1852, the establishment of a Government land office brought to the town for the entry of lands the multitudes of speculators and settlers then rushing into Western Iowa. In the days of the gold fever and during the border wars in Kansas and Nebraska her ferries and hostelries did a bustling trade.

In those early days life was free, easy, simple, and buoyant. The population of Fort Des Moines was made up of people from both Southern and Northern States. They lived in log huts or simple frame buildings. Pork and "corn-dodgers," coffee, sometimes made of parched corn, and tea, often made from native plants, constituted in the main their diet. They had to go many miles to get their flour ground. Oxen were generally used in drawing wagons and ploughs. Stage coaches were the common carriers until the railroads entered the city in 1866. Prior to 1858 the State constitution prohibited the establishment of banks of note issue and the money of the citizens was chiefly "wildcat" and "red dog" currency. In 1857-58 the City Council so far trenched on the powers of Congress as to issue "City Scrip," with the twofold object of paying the city's debt and affording the citizens a circulating medium. As the scrip did not become popular, in a short time the city called in its paper and redeemed it. Like most frontier towns a certain reckless disregard of the sober customs of the Eastern cities characterized the social life. Sunday was a sort of gala day, when horse and foot races between whites and Indians, accompanied by more or less gambling and carousal, were not infrequent. But the garish and reckless life soon gave place to the staid habits of well-ordered communities, and since the Civil War Des Moines has justly sustained the reputation of a "conservative" Western city.

The navigation of the Des Moines River was a great factor in the first years of the city's growth. Steamboats came up the river from Keokuk in the spring and summer months and brought most of the city's supplies. The people living along its course soon perceived that the river could be made a great waterway for commerce. Those were the days of "internal improvements." Congress was induced in 1846 to give to the new State every alternate section of unsold land in a strip five miles wide on either bank of the river to be used for the improvement of the channel. A River Improvement Company was formed. River traffic increased rapidly and the people went wild over the project. As usual the matter soon drifted into politics and decided the fate of political parties. Demagogism ran riot. A story is told of two candidates for Congress in 1850, campaigning together, who rushed across a field to greet a farmer. The first one to reach him, extending his hand, cried:

"Hurrah for river improvement!"

The farmer so eagerly sought proved to be a scarecrow.

The net result of all the excitement and speculation attending the various efforts to improve the river was failure and collapse. The State after expending immense sums abandoned the task in 1862. Worse still, complications arose over the extent of the grant from the Government, and left the people above the city a sorry heritage of costly litigation that continued till 1892 over the titles to their homes. The entire experiment was an instructive illustration of the futility of most of the attempts at "internal improvements" fostered by congressional land grants.

In the summer of 1894 the river achieved notoriety in connection with the epidemic of "Commonweal Armies" that disturbed the public that year. One division, mobilized at San Francisco under a "General" Kelley, when it reached Council Bluffs was refused transportation by the Iowa railroads. The horde then marched overland, levying on communities for provisions, reaching Des Moines Sunday evening, April 29th. The citizens, in much trepidation, lodged the tramps in an abandoned stove factory. The people were frantic to pass them along, for their sojourn threatened plague, pilfering, and multitudinous evils. But the tramps refused to walk farther. The citizens were in despair. Finally some genius suggested that the army be floated down the river. The "General" agreed to evacuate the stove works when the fleet of flatboats was ready to launch. On May 9th, amid general rejoicing, Kelley and his army floated away. The _voyageurs_ reached the Mississippi only to suffer ignominious discomfiture.

In ante-bellum days the subject of slavery made life and politics keenly interesting in Des Moines. Many stanch Southerners and not a few abolitionists generated an electrical atmosphere. The first resident Governor, James W. Grimes, who later brought Iowa fame in the United States Senate, spoke out strongly against the arrogance of the slaveholders and the border outrages. The city was on John Brown's "underground railway," and the spiriting of slaves through the town gave zest to public discussion. When Brown came through with the slaves he had captured in Missouri he stopped over night, February 16, 1859, with James C. Jordan, a State senator. The next day his ferriage was paid by the editor of the _State Register_, John Teesdale. One of Brown's most trusted companions, who died by his side when Lieutenant Robert E. Lee recaptured Harper's Ferry, was a Des Moines boy, Jeremiah G. Anderson, who had joined Brown's forces in Kansas in 1857.

One of the most dramatic incidents in Iowa history grew out of the ill-fated expedition against Harper's Ferry. With Brown were Edwin and Barclay Coppoc, of Springdale Ia., the Quaker village where the conspirators were drilled. Edwin was captured and hanged. Barclay escaped and after exciting adventures in Maryland and Pennsylvania got back to Springdale, where the entire community armed to prevent his capture by the Virginia authorities. On January 23, 1860, an agent of Governor Letcher, of Virginia, called on Governor Samuel J. Kirkwood with a requisition for young Coppoc. Kirkwood discovered flaws in the papers, among them that no indictment had been found or crime charged, and he refused to honor the requisition. The agent became excited. Just then two members of the Assembly, Ed. Wright and B.F. Gue, came into the Governor's room, overheard the conversation with the agent, and discovered his object. They left and immediately dispatched a messenger to Springdale to warn Coppoc, who was hurried off to Canada. Slavery sympathizers in the Legislature soon heard of the matter and introduced a resolution calling on Kirkwood for an explanation of his proceedings. He sent in a ringing message in which he said:

"Permit me to say in conclusion that one of the most important
duties of the official position I hold is to see that no
citizen of Iowa is carried beyond her border and subjected to
the ignominy of imprisonment and the perils of trial for crimes
in another State otherwise than by due process of law. That
duty I shall perform...."

In the uncertain days preceding the Civil War, when the friends of liberty in the North were timid, Kirkwood's message had the effect of a tocsin call.

When Sumter was fired on and President Lincoln called for troops, Simon Cameron, Secretary of War, telegraphed Kirkwood that one regiment was expected from Iowa. The Governor was not then in the city. The messenger who carried the telegram from Davenport to Iowa City found him out on his farm working in a field. On reading the message he musingly asked:

"Why, the President wants a whole regiment of men! Do you suppose that I can raise as many as that?"

Within a few days ten regiments were offered him. Iowa sent nearly 79,000 men to the front, who played a conspicuous part in the great struggle. Des Moines contributed her full share; among the number three became generals, one, M.M. Crocker, being an especially brilliant officer under Grant in the campaigns in the West.

The history of the Western States is rife with struggles over the location of county seats and State capitals, the incidents of which are often picturesque and exciting. The selection of Des Moines as the capital city of Iowa was an important event in her history. Largely in consequence thereof the city has become not only the metropolis of the State but its chief nerve centre too.

Iowa's first territorial capital was Burlington. From 1841 to 1857 it was at Iowa City, when the State archives were moved to Des Moines. The change was not made without a spirited contest, the marks of which are seen to-day in the State's constitution. For, in order to placate the people of Iowa City and secure permanency for the arrangement, the constitutional convention of 1857 inserted the provision that the State University should forever remain at Iowa City, and the capital at Des Moines,--a piece of log-rolling not unlike that resorted to by Alexander Hamilton when the national capital was located at Washington. There was a deal of politics and dissension in Des Moines over the selection of the site of the capitol; so much indeed that the animosities then engendered exercise a baneful influence in dividing the city even now. A superb site was chosen on a high hill in East Des Moines whence one can look over the hills and dales of the river valleys for miles around. The first capitol was a plain three-story brick structure, donated by the citizens of the east city as a part of the inducement to the commission to locate where they did. After the Civil War the building became inadequate; the ravages of time rendered it unfit for a repository of the State's precious papers; and the people of Des Moines began to agitate for the erection of a capitol commensurate with the needs and dignity of the State. Thereupon followed a contest whose incidents were most interesting and instructive.

The urgent need of a new capitol was generally admitted. But the justness or propriety of a measure is not alone sufficient to secure legislation. The jealousy of rival towns was fanned into fierce opposition. Their representatives fought an appropriation with tooth and nail. Two million dollars was magnified into unheard-of proportions. Time-serving politicians who admitted privately that the State needed a capitol badly, tore passion to tatters in portraying the poverty and distress of the taxpayers. With a State "full of barefooted women and barefooted children" they asseverated such an expenditure would be criminal. Such "politics" long prevailed. In 1867, the people of Des Moines elected to the House of Representatives, Hon. John A. Kasson, to conduct the fight for the appropriation. No better man could have been chosen. He had attained distinction as Assistant Postmaster-General under President Lincoln, and as a member of Congress. With what tact, patience and diplomacy he carried on the contest his career since as our country's envoy to the courts of Austria and Germany indicates. For five years Mr. Kasson struggled with recalcitrant representatives through trying vicissitudes before he got the appropriation. As it was, he escaped defeat by but one vote to spare, and that vote he would have lost but for the timely aid of a Catholic priest, Father Brazil, of the city. The opposition resorted to the rascally ruse of getting a bibulous member who was friendly to the measure dead drunk and locking him up to prevent his attendance at the time of the vote. On being informed of the trick, Father Brazil sought out the recreant son of Erin, secured him, and marched him up to the House chamber just as the roll was about to be called, and sat severely by until his charge had answered "Aye."

It took twelve years to build the capitol. During practically all of that time its construction was under the absolute control of three commissioners, John G. Foote, Peter A. Dey, and Robert S. Finkbine, and the stately structure that now adorns Capitol Hill is a monument to their intelligence and integrity. Not an unwise expenditure nor a dishonest or corrupt transaction was ever charged against their stewardship, and the people of Iowa hold their names and services in grateful memory. It is a sad commentary on our public morals that the erection of a State capitol without suspicion of corruption is so exceptional as to be noteworthy and the proud distinction of the people of this Western commonwealth.

From a frontier fort and a huddle of huts, Des Moines has grown to be a stately city whose corporate limits include fifty-four square miles and a population of nearly 70,000, almost double the population of any other city in Iowa. Her citizens boast that "without riots, booms, or conflagrations" she has steadily grown in strength and stature. Her industries and commerce make the city a hive of activities. Seventeen railroads radiate from Des Moines, enabling the city to become the wholesale and retail jobbing centre of the State. Sixty miles of electric street-railways and fifty-eight miles of paved streets make her suburbs readily accessible. There are vast deposits of coal and clay under and about the city. The smoke of three hundred factories, large and small, tinge her atmosphere with the hues of Pittsburg. Among insurance men the city is called the "Hartford of the West," as fifty-one insurance companies have their headquarters in Des Moines and employ five thousand people. In her various colleges and schools of law, medicine, and commercial practice there is a population of nearly six thousand. Thousands of visitors annually come to the State Agricultural Fair and to the political and educational conventions that assemble in the city. Congress has recently provided for the establishment of an army post just south of the city limits, and the War Department is about to expend several hundred thousand dollars in erecting barracks and in the preparation of drill-grounds for troops.

Few cities in the West possess scenery of greater natural beauty than that which greets the eye in and about Des Moines. The junction of the rivers near the centre of the city gives her topography a configuration similar to that of Pittsburg. On the south and east her limits are marked by a range of wooded hills through which the silver stream of the united rivers makes its way. The view of the landscape across the river valley to the horizon's edge which is visible from most points is particularly pleasing to the eye in the spring and summer months. The main part of the city between the "Forks" is in a forest of native oaks, elms, and hickories so dense that the looker from the Capitol dome can scarce perceive the residences. To the attractions of nature the landscape gardener and architect have added much. Nearly five hundred acres of parks give the people fine pleasure resorts in the hot summer months. Many handsome wholesale and retail houses and manufacturing establishments grace her thoroughfares. The city has nearly completed a beautiful Public Library, located on the west bank of the Des Moines River, and, as a result of the years of devotion and unremitting labors of Mr. Charles Aldrich, the State has begun the erection of the Historical Library, which will be one of the chief attractions of Des Moines.

ST. LOUIS

"THE FUTURE GREAT"

BY WILLIAM MARION REEDY

Situated at the heart of the continent, midway between the East and West, the North and South, St. Louis is a unique mixture of the characteristics of all sections of the United States. In the early seventies a weird character named L.U. Reavis wrote a book called _St. Louis, the Future Great City of the West_, in which he advocated the removal hither of the seat of the national Government and predicted great things for the city. The fourth of American cities in population, St. Louis is preparing to hold a World's Fair in commemoration of the one hundredth anniversary of the purchase of the Louisiana territory, on a scale of magnificence which attracts universal attention. With the completion of the Chicago drainage canal, destined soon to be a ship canal connecting Lake Michigan with the Mississippi River, with the necessary improvement of the Mississippi to its mouth, and with the certain construction of an Isthmian canal, St. Louis is sure to be in as close touch with the world at large as if it were a seacoast city. Always the natural commercial centre of the Mississippi Valley, since it became the focus of a mighty network of railroads St. Louis has been the market of the prosperous West, the new South and the great Southwest, with its wealth of agriculture, mining, manufactures, and its almost magic development, shown, for instance, in the fact that Texas is now only a few thousand behind Missouri in population, and must in consequence of the recent discoveries of enormous oil lands soon overtake States like Illinois and Ohio and Pennsylvania. The prophecies of the city's greatness are coming to realization. Its future is here, but bright as the future is, it is not so bright as to allure us into forgetting the picturesque past.

The old town on the Mississippi has ever been modest to a degree that has caused the thoughtless to make mock of its conservatism, but the steadiness of character and the regard only for the realities of progress which have marked St. Louis have their justification in that they have resulted in a city known in times of depression and panic as "the solid city." A city that owns itself, with a proper sense of dignity, it has never advertised itself in the modern meretricious fashion. And so the story of St. Louis, an honest tale, will speed best being simply told.

St. Louis was founded by Pierre Laclede Liguest and a few companions, all French _voyageurs_, in 1764; at least it was in that year that Laclede's lieutenant, Auguste Chouteau, cleared away the site of the present city. Laclede Liguest, or, as he is sometimes known, Liguest Laclede, a merchant of New Orleans, had from the French Government a monopoly of the fur trade in the Missouri River country. He left New Orleans with his family and a small party in August, 1763, with the intention of founding a town near the confluence of the Missouri and Mississippi rivers. Shortly after the town was laid out occurred the cession to Great Britain of the Illinois country, on the east bank of the Mississippi. The French inhabitants of that country having followed from the north in the wake of Marquette in 1673, and of La Salle in 1678, hated the English, and began to move over to the new town, which soon grew into importance. A trading point for the Indians, Laclede and his companions so managed them that there was none of the friction which marked the contact elsewhere of the English and the natives. When the laying out of the city began a band of one hundred and fifty warriors, with their squaws and papooses, outnumbering the whites five to one, appeared and camped near the strangers. The Frenchmen treated the savages with such tact and kindness that they not only did no harm, but even of their own volition assisted in the work. The first cellar was excavated with the aid of the squaws, who carried off the clay in baskets, and were paid in beads and other trinkets which Laclede had brought up from New Orleans. The Indians became so friendly that they were a hindrance rather than a help, and finally, to induce them to depart, Laclede hinted that the French soldiers at Fort Chartres were to be summoned.

Shortly after the little village was begun, news came that the territory of Louisiana had been ceded to Spain. The French Governor, M. d'Abadie, who announced the fact to the people with tears, is said to have died of grief. St. Ange de Bellerive became Commandant or Governor-General in 1765, instituted a government, and demeaned himself in such manner generally that unto this day he is remembered affectionately in every published history of the town. The first two grants of land in the village were made to Laclede by De Bellerive, August 11, 1766. The Spaniards do not appear to have paid much attention to the village of St. Louis, for there was some doubt whether De Bellerive had any authority to make grants. Although the best authorities agree that De Bellerive acted with the authority and consent of the Commandant-General of New Orleans, it seems that he was practically elected Governor by the inhabitants. It is amusing to read in a history of St. Louis and Missouri, published in 1870, that De Bellerive in 1776, began to make grants, "hoping for a retrocession of the country to France, when the grants would be legalized by confirmation." The first marriage in the new colony was celebrated April 20, 1766, the contracting parties being Toussaint Honen and Marie Baugenon. The first mortgage was recorded September, 1766. It was specified that payment should be made in peltries, though no definite value was attached to the number of deer hides to be delivered by Pierre Berger to Francis Latour.

August 11, 1767, news came that Spain was making ready to take possession of the country. The transfer had been made by secret treaty in 1762. The people accepted the situation in a sort of dumb rage. The following year a body of troops arrived under the command of a man named Rios, acting under the authority of Don Antonio d'Ulloa, Governor of Louisiana. To the joy of the inhabitants, De Bellerive was not disturbed in his office, and the Spanish troops left in the summer of 1769.

It was the great distinction of De Bellerive that he was the friend of Pontiac, the Ottawa chieftain, and about the time of the departure of the Spaniards, Pontiac arrived at St. Louis. He represented all the poetry and nobility, the grandeur and genius of the Indian character. After Red Jacket, he was the greatest Indian the New World had known. Dreaming of driving the English into the sea he had confederated the tribes between the Allegheny and the Mississippi, the Ohio and the Lakes into a league against them. He had been known and beloved by the gallant but unfortunate Montcalm at Quebec. He had participated in the ambuscade in which Braddock with his life had paid the penalty of narrow-mindedness, and had planned the massacre of Michilimackinack, in which more than two thousand of the English had lost their lives. The French "loved him for the enemies he had made," and he was "fêted and caressed," says an early chronicler, "by many of the principal inhabitants of the village." St. Ange de Bellerive entertained the warrior at the house of Madame Chouteau, but Pontiac was now a broken man. His dream of driving back the English beyond the Cumberland had faded. His allies had been seduced from his support by presents and by firewater. He, too, had made the acquaintance of the fiery liquor, and drink was then such a passion with him that De Bellerive and his friends not only endeavored to prevent the sale thereof to him in the village, but tried to dissuade him from crossing the river to Cahokia in response to the invitations of certain of his friends there. Not to be dissuaded, Pontiac crossed the river in the uniform of a French officer, which had been given him by Montcalm. Wandering on the outskirts of the village of Cahokia, he was tomahawked by a Kaskaskia Indian, who had been given a barrel of whiskey to do the deed by an English trader named Williamson. His friend De Bellerive had the chief's remains brought to St. Louis, and they were buried somewhere in the vicinity of the site of the present Southern Hotel, in the corridor of which was placed, in 1901, a handsome tablet to the unfortunate warrior's memory. Whether Pontiac was assassinated in accordance with official English instructions, or met his death in consequence of a private grudge, was long a matter of dispute, but there is no doubt that the passionate and sympathetic Frenchmen believed for many long years that the chief was killed to relieve the English of the danger of his presence and a possible utilization of his undoubted abilities by the Power in possession of the west bank of the Mississippi. Pontiac's death, however, was promptly avenged upon the Illinois Indians by members of the tribes with which he had been in alliance.

Next came Don Alexander O'Reilly to take charge of the territory of Louisiana. He arrived at New Orleans at the head of three thousand men to enforce his authority. There was need for the soldiery, for though seven years had elapsed since the cession of the territory, the Spaniards had never actually taken possession. The people were still French to the core. When they heard that Don O'Reilly was coming they even conferred together upon the advisability of meeting him with force and preventing his landing. The head men of the town counselled against this, however, and their advice prevailed, but such was the spirit of insubordination, so many were the execrations heaped upon the Spaniards, so frequent were the threats of violence against them that Don Alexander had at once to adopt stern measures. He promptly arrested a dozen of the ringleaders, had five of them publicly shot, and the others, except one who committed suicide, sent as prisoners to Cuba. The Spanish code was put into operation throughout the territory, and O'Reilly's deputy, Lieutenant-Governor Piernas, arriving in St. Louis in 1770, took possession of St. Louis, with the help of De Bellerive, wisely conciliating the villagers. The village settled into peace. The church, for which ground had been set aside even before the founders of the town had prepared to build their own homes, was dedicated, June 24, 1770, with solemn ceremonies. Where that first church of flattened logs set on end with the interstices filled with mortar stood, there stands a church to-day, and, says Elihu Shepard, since that time "the worship of God on that block has not been suspended for a single day." All De Bellerive's acts were formally confirmed by Piernas, and the little settlement forgot its woes under a benign administration, which recognized village prejudices, and shut its eyes to the loyalty everywhere apparent to France.

Piernas narrowly escaped assassination at the hands of an Osage chieftain who thought himself insulted at a meeting at the Commandant's house. The Osage, while drinking with other Indians, divulged his intention to kill the Governor, whereupon a Shawnee warrior stabbed him to the heart. The slain chief was buried with honors in the big mound to the north of the village, an eminence that gave to St. Louis for many years the name of "The Mound City."