CHAPTER XIX

THE TOWNSHIPS-REEVE, MORGAN, WEST FORK, OSCEOLA, INGHAMTHE FIRST SETTLEMENT MADE IN REEVE-MORGAN ONE OF THE INITIAL THREE TOWNSHIPS ORGANIZED—THE EARLY FARMS,

TOWNS AND INHABITANTS.

REEVE TOWNSHIP

That part of Franklin county which is now the domain of Reeve township was selected by the first settlers for their new homes. It was here that J. B. Reeve, the first permanent settler, located. In the autumn of 1852, in company with Addison Phelps and a Mr. Moore, while prospecting for claims the party caught up with John Mayne, his wife and child, who were looking for a place to camp. They all decided to remain together that night and set up their tents on the spot which afterwards became known as Mayne's Grove. All of them were pleased with the surroundings and concluded to locate there. Mayne squatted on section 23 and built a log house 16x16 feet. Reeve and Phelps boarded with Mayne that winter and ate their meals on a table contrived by stretching a beaver skin over a wash tub. Hunting and trapping and getting out logs for a cabin consumed the winter months, and when the milder weather arrived a habitation was erected. Reeve brought oxen and joining teams with Mayne, managed to break up a few acres of prairie which were planted to corn, and in the fall a good crop was harvested. Mayne was essentially a pioneer hunter and trapper and looked it in his six feet odd, dark skin, and the evidence of unusual strength portrayed in his great limbs and muscles. Before his corn had been gathered Mayne sold his claim to G. D. Sturms and then went on section 28, remaining there a year, when he removed to Hardin county. By spring Phelps became displeased with his venture and started for the east, whence he came. The abandoned claim was taken up by Leander C. Reeve, a brother of James B. Reeve. Leander came in the spring of 1853 and remained until 1857, when he sold out to S.

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H. Carter and returned to his former home in Ashtabula county, Ohio.

In the year 1854 the little colony in Franklin county was increased by the arrival of the following named persons: S. Garner, Isaac Miller, C. M. Leggett, John G. Mitchell, H. J. Mitchell, Hyman Mitchell, William May, J. Springer, Dr. S. R. Mitchell, Jacob Wright and a Mr. Webster.

The arrivals in 1855 now remembered were: F. M. Springer, Levi Jones, Isaac Mulkins, J. S. Mulkins, Solomon Staley, W. Conway, Benjamin Butterfield, James Soper, Martin Soper, James Morris, James Rucker, James Johnston, L. Shroyer, Henry Shroyer, W. J. Shroyer, Nathaniel J. Shroyer, Amos Roberts, Erastus Baker, William Freeborn, A. Jones, F. A. Denton, William Higgins, the Whitesides and Fortners and Dr. L. H. Arledge. S. H. Carter made his first visit to Franklin county in 1853, and entered land on sections 21 and 22 in Reeve township. He moved here in 1862, and died in Hampton in 1906.

In the '60s, among others who made settlements in the township were John Imlay, J. M. Soper, Albert Pickering, Amos Sheppard, George W. Wilton, Amos B. Hudson, Garrett Luke, Isaac Way, Philip Kratz, Mrs. Susan Cole, John Meyer, O. D. Andrews, A. D. St. Clair and Warren Towle.

The reader's attention is directed to an article in this work written by the late L. B. Raymond, in which is given an extended narrative of the very earliest settlements in the county. Many names appear there that will not be found in this chapter.

Reeve was one of the first three townships erected out of Franklin township, which was then coextensive with the county. When organized in 1855, it comprised township 90, ranges 19, 20 and 21, and township 91, ranges 19, 20 and 21. From time to time territory for four other townships was taken from Reeve, and in 1880 Reeve was organized with its present boundary lines as township 91, range 20. Mott township is to the north of it, Geneva on the east, Grant on the south and Hamilton on the west.

The largest body of timber existing in the county when John Mayne and J. B. Reeve entered it was in this locality selected by these pioneers for a location and since known as Mayne's Grove. The timber covered six sections of the township. The land is watered and drained by Mayne's creek and its branches and here is to be found some of the finest farming land not only in Franklin county but in this section of the state. The soil in common with that

of the whole county is of a most excellent quality—a dark, rich loam which produces every crop indigenous to this latitude, in abundance. Live stock also finds good pasturage and plenty of water.

A word or two in regard to the men who had the hardihood to come into this new country and open it up for settlement: H. J. Mitchell was born in the State of New York. At the age of fourteen he found himself in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, and in the fall of 1854 he located in Reeve township, Franklin county, where he married Octavia Smith, who was the first person to teach a class of children the elementary principles of an education in Franklin county. Miss Smith had come to the county with her sister, Mrs. John Mitchell, from Wisconsin, in the spring of 1854, and that summer taught school in a small log building erected by the settlers on the hill about eighty rods northeast of the site of the present residence of S. G. Rennick, near the old Reeve cemetery. She was then sixteen years of age, and at the age of seventeen married Hial J. Mitchell. Mr. Mitchell engaged in farming, and both he and his wife became widely known throughout the county. Both of them have passed

away.

Francis M. Springer was born in Jasper county, Illinois. He came to Franklin county in 1854 and settled at Maysville, where he helped survey the town site. Mr. Springer saw the early growth of the county and took a prominent share in forming its onward course. He held several local offices.

Levi Jones and his sons, M. B. and T. W. Jones, were all here in 1854 and helped shape the course and policy of Franklin county in its infant days. Levi Jones was a member of the first board of supervisors. M. B. Jones is now a resident of Hampton.

Orson G. Reeve and J. Rumsey Reeve, sons of J. B. Reeve, were boys when their father, the first settler, came to the county, and both of them are now residents of Hampton, the county seat, which their father was chiefly instrumental in maintaining in its important position in the county. John Rumsey Reeve is established in the lumber trade, while Orson G. Reeve, who recently retired from the Reeve township farm, is now the present representative from the county in the State Legislature.

Isaac C. Mulkins came to Franklin county and settled in Reeve township in 1856. He erected a log house, wherein he spent the first winter without any chinking between the logs. There was no floor and being without a stove, he cooked his meals on the ground inside the walls of his cabin. Mr. Mulkins was a member of Com

pany H, Thirty-second Iowa Volunteers, the only company of soldiers raised for the Civil war in the county. Among the children who came to Franklin with Mr. Mulkins was his son, J. S., who was then a mere lad. He grew up with the community and in 1870 married Maggie Creighton.

Benjamin Butterfield was another one of the men who braved the uncertainties of a new country and settled in Reeve township on section 29, in 1855. He remained on the place, which he greatly improved, until his death in 1878. Mr. Butterfield had the distinction of being the first justice of the peace elected in Cook county, Illinois. John S. Butterfield, a son, came with the family in January, 1856, and soon thereafter married Mary J. Jones, of Geneva township.

Lewis Shroyer was one of the first settlers in the township, coming from Indiana in the spring of 1855. He was one of the first farmers in Franklin county. Henry Shroyer was elected school fund commissioner in August, 1855, and succeeded Judge Reeve as presiding officer of the county.

James J. Johnston, a native of Ireland, in the early part of 1855 found himself in Washington county, Iowa. In the fall of that year he came to Franklin county and located on section 2, Reeve township, where he resided for many years. In relating his experiences of the early days in Iowa, Mr. Johnston at one time said: "When I came to Iowa in the spring of 1855 there was not a mile of railroad west of Dubuque, and when we wanted flour we usually had to go to Cedar Falls a three days' journey—and when we raised anything to sell it had to be taken to that place. We also had to dress our own pork and haul it to Cedar Falls or Waterloo. I sold pork the year before the war at that town for $2 per hundred, and my wheat for 33 1-3 cents a bushel." Mr. Johnston died August 18, 1899.

J. M. Soper was an early settler of Reeve township and became one of the leading farmers of the county and was for many years engaged in buying and selling stock. He was born in the Green Mountain state and came of worthy ancestors, his father having been captain in the War of 1812 and his grandfather in the Revolution of 1776. Mr. Soper was raised on a farm and coming to Franklin county in 1856, followed the tilling of the soil, which was his natural inclination. He not only accumulated a competency but also gathered around him a host of friends who held him in the highest esteem.