HOW “CLAIMS” WERE MADE.
   The claim-making of the early settlers in Iowa was a mode of settlement peculiar to that portion of the public domain which was occupied prior to its being surveyed by the General Government. Newhall, in his “Sketches of Iowa,” states that by mutual concession and an honorable adherence to neighborhood regulations, claim-making was governed by a pro-tem law, which answered the purpose of general protection for the homes of the settlers until his land came into the market. So general did this usage become, and so united were the interests of the settlers, that it was deemed extremely hazardous as well as highly dishonorable for a speculator or stranger to bid upon a claim even though it was not protected by a “pre-emption right.” More than one “war” was waged when such attempts as that were made, almost invariably resulting in the rout of the interloper. Blood, in some instances, was shed in defense of these recognized rights. When it was clearly understood what improvements constituted a claim, and when the settler conformed to the “bylaws” of his neighborhood, or township, it was just as much respected for the time being as if the occupant had the Government patent for it. For instance, if an emigrant came into the country of location, he looked from county to county for a location. After having placed himself, he set about making an improvement. To break five acres of ground would hold his claim for six months; or if a cabin was built, eight logs high with a roof, which was equivalent to the plowing, he held it six months longer. He then staked our his half-section of land, which was a full claim, generally one-quarter timber and one quarter prairie, and then his home was secure from trespass by any one. If he chose to sell his “claim,” he was at perfect liberty to do so, and the purchaser succeeded to all the rights and immunities of the first settler. As an evidence of the respect in which these claim-rights were held by the people of Iowa, we quote here an act of the Legislature Council of the Territory, passed January 15,1839, entitled, “An act to provide for the collection of demands growing out of contracts for sales of improvements on public lands.”
   “Be it enacted, that all contracts, promises, assumpsits, or undertakings, either written or verbal, which shall be made hereafter in good faith, and without fraud, collusion or circumvention, for sale, purchase or payment of improvements made on the lands owned by the Government of the United States, shall be deemed valid in law or equity, and may be sued for and recovered as in other contracts.
   “That all deeds of quitclaim, or other conveyance of all improvements upon public lands, shall be as binding and effectual, in law and equity, between the parties for conveying the title of the grantor in and to the same, as in cases where the grantor has the fee-simple to the premises conveyed.”
   Previous to lands being brought into market, each township, nearly, had its own organization throughout the Territory. This was to prevent unpleasant litigation and to keep up a spirit of harmony among neighbors, and the better to protect them in their equitable rights of “claim” purchase. A “call-meeting” was announced something after this fashion: “The citizens of Township 72 north, Range 5 west, are requested to meet at ‘Squire B________’s, at Hickory Grove (or as the place or the time might be), to adopt the necessary measures for securing their homes, at the approaching land sales at B________.” After a short preamble and set of resolutions, suited to the occasion, a “Register” was appointed, whose duty it was to record the name of each claimant to his respective “claim.” A “bidder” was also appointed, whose duty it was, on the day of sale, to bid off all the land previously registered, in the name of each respective claimant. Thus, everything moved along at the land sales with the harmony and regularity of clock-work; but if any one present was found bidding over the minimum price ($1.25 per acre), on land registered in the township, woe be unto him!
   When any controversy arose between the neighbors relative to trespassing (or, in common parlance, “jumping a claim”), it was arbitrated by a committee appointed for that purpose, and their decision was considered final.
   Newhall describes a land sale, which may bring up to the minds of some of the old settlers a remembrance of one of those absorbing periods. He says:
   “Many are the ominous indications of its approach among the settlers. Every dollar is sacredly treasured up. The precious ‘mint-drops’ take to themselves wings and fly away from the merchant’s till to the farmer’s cupboard. Times are dull in the towns, for the settler’s home is dearer and sweeter than the merchant’s sugar and coffee. At length the wished-for day arrives. The suburbs of the town present the scene of a military camp. The settlers have flocked from far and near. The hotels are thronged to overflowing. Bar-rooms, dining-rooms and wagons are metamorphosed into bedrooms. Dinners are eaten from a table or a stump, and thirst is quenched from a bar or a brook. The sale being announced from the land office, the township bidder stands near by, with the registry-book in hand, in which each settler’s name is attached to his respective half or quarter section, and thus he bids off, in the name of the whole township, for each respective claimant. A thousand settlers are standing by, eagerly listening when their quarter shall be called off. The crier passes the well-known numbers; his home is secure. He feels relieved; the litigation of ‘claim-jumping’ is over forever: he is lord of the soil. With an independent step he walks into the land office, opens the time-worn saddle-bags and counts out the $200 or $400, silver and gold, takes his certificate from the General Government and goes away rejoicing.”
   A meeting of the claim-holders of lands in fractional Townships 69 and 70 north, Range 2 west, was held in the Methodist Church in Burlington, June 19, 1939, for the purpose of preparing for the impending land sales. Hon. Charles Mason presided, and George W. Kelley acted as Secretary.
   On motion of Joseph Morgan, the meeting resolved to elect two sets of officers to conduct the business of entering the lands at the proper time. The meeting adopted the order of procedure, which follows: A Register was chosen for each township, whose duty it was to prepare a map, with the several claims indicated thereon; a bidder and assistant bidder were chosen to attend the sale and make the purchases. Conflicts of claimants were submitted to a committee of three, who had the power to settle all disputes. In event of a refusal by both parties to arbitrate, the case was to be submitted to a committee of five. Claimants were authorized to take as much as 320 acres. An equable arrangement was made between adjoining claimants, where their claim-lines and the Government survey failed to coincide. All persons over eighteen years of age were entitled to the privileges of claimants.
   Benjamin Tucker was chosen Register for Township 69, and George W. Kelley, Register for Township 70.William Stewart and James Anderson were bidders for the former; George W. Hight and Royal Cottle, for the latter town.
   The standing committees were: John Darbyshire, Joseph Morgan, E. Wade, Peter Smith, Jesse Hunt—Township 69; William R. Ross, Levi Scott, James Hatcher, Oliver Cottle, Henry James—Township 70. All claims were required to be registered before August 1, 1839.
   By proclamation of President Martin Van Buren, the lands were to come into market October 1, 1839, but the sales were postponed in part of the district until March, 1840, when the tract on which Burlington stands was sold.
   The following is a statistical table of monthly receipts at the Burlington Land Office, during the first year and four months of its existence. Perhaps no safer criterion can be drawn of the pre-eminent character that Iowa had already attained, than the receipts which this table exhibits of a country that only so late as June, 1833, was first subject to occupancy by the white man. Of every hundred acres, it was estimated that ninety fell into the hands of the actual settlers.

HOW PIONEERS LIVED.
   In choosing his home the pioneer usually had an eye mainly to it location, and for that reason settlers were oftener than not very solitary creatures, without neighbors and remote from even the common conveniences of life. A desirable region was sure to have plenty of inhabitants in time, but it was the advance-guard that suffered the privation of isolation. People within a score of miles of each other were neighbors, and the natural social tendencies of man-kind asserted themselves even in the wilderness by efforts to keep up communication with even these remote families.
   The first business of a settler on reaching the place where he intended to fix his residence, was to select his claim and mark it off as nearly as he could without a compass. This was done by stepping and staking or blazing the lines as he went. The absence of section lines rendered it necessary to take the sun at noon and at evening as a guide by which to run these claim-lines. So many steps each way counted three hundred and twenty acres, more or less, the then legal area of a claim. It may be readily supposed that these lines were far from correct, but they answered all necessary claim purposes, for it was understood among the settlers that when the lands came to be surveyed and entered, all inequalities should be righted. Thus, if a surveyed line should happen to run between adjoining claims, cutting off more or less of the other, the fraction was to be added to whichever lot required equalizing, yet without robbing the one from which it was taken, for an equal amount would be added to it in another place.
   The next important business was to build a house. Until this was done, some had to camp on the ground or live in their wagons, perhaps the only shelter they had known for weeks. So the prospect for a house, which was also to be home, was one that gave courage to the rough toil, and added a zest to the heavy labors. The style of the home entered very little into their thoughts-it was shelter they wanted, and protection from stress of weather and wearing exposures. The poor settler had neither the money nor the mechanical appliances for building himself a house. He was content, in most instances, to have a mere cabin or hut. Some of the most primitive constructions of this kind were half-faced, or, as they were sometimes called, “cat-faced” sheds or “wike-ups,” the Indian term for house or tent. It is true, a claim cabin was a little more in the shape of a human habitation, made, as it was, of round logs light enough for two or three men to lay up, about fourteen feet square-perhaps as little large or smaller-roofed with bark or clapboards, and sometimes with the sods of the prairie; and floored with puncheons (logs split once in two, and the flat side laid up) or with earth. For a fire-place, a wall of stone and earth-frequently the latter only, when stone was not convenient-was made in the best practicable shape for the purpose, in an opening in one end of the building, extending outward, and planked on the outside by bolts of wood notched together to stay it. Frequently a fire-place of this kind was made so capacious as to occupy nearly the whole width of the house. In cold weather, when a great deal of fuel was needed to keep the atmosphere above freezing point-for this wide-mouthed fire-place was a huge ventilator-large logs were piled into this yawning space. To protect the crumbling back wall against the effects of fire, two back logs were placed against it, one upon the other. Sometimes these back logs were so large that they could not be got in in any other way than to hitch a horse to them, drive him in at one door, unfasten the log before the fire-place, from whence it was put in proper position, and then drive him out at the other door, for a chimney, and contrivance that would conduct the smoke up the chimney would do. Some were made of sods, plastered upon the inside with clay; others-the more common perhaps-were of the kind we occasionally see in use now, clay and sticks, or “cat in clay,” as they were sometimes called. Imagine of a winter’s night, when the storm was having its own wild way over this almost uninhabited land, and when the wind was roaring like a cataract of cold over the broad wilderness, and the settler had to do his best to keep warm, what a royal fire this double-back-logged and well-filled fire-place would hold! It must have been a cozy place to smoke, provided the settler had any tobacco; or for the wife to sit knitting before, provided she had needles and yarn. At any rate, it must have given something of cheer to the conversation, which very likely was upon the home and friends they had left behind when they started out on the bold venture of seeking fortunes in a new land.
   For doors and windows, the most simple contrivances that would serve the purposes were brought into requisition. The door was not always immediately provided with a shutter, and a blanket often did duty in guarding the entrance. But as soon as convenient, some boards were split and put together, hung upon wooden hinges, and held shut by a wooden pin inserted in an auger-hole. As a substitute for window-glass, greased paper, pasted over sticks crossed in the shape of sash, was sometimes used. This admitted the light and excluded the air, but of course lacked transparency.
   In regard to the furniture of such a cabin, of course it varied in proportion to the ingenuity of the occupants, unless it was where settlers brought with them their old household supply, which, owing to the distance most of them had come, was very seldom. It was easy enough to improvise tables and chairs; the former could be made of split logs-and there were instances where the door would be taken from its hinges and used at meals, after which it would be rehung-and the latter were designed after the three-legged stool pattern, or benches served their purpose. A bedstead was a very important item in the domestic comfort of the family, and this was the fashion of improvising them: a forked stake was driven into the ground diagonally from the corner of the room, and at a proper distance, upon which poles reaching from each were laid. The wall ends of the poles either rested in the openings between the logs or were driven into auger-holes. Barks and boards were used as a substitute for cords. Upon this the tidy housewife spread her straw tick, and if she had a home-made feather bed, she piled it up into a luxurious mound and covered it with her whitest drapery. Some sheets hung behind it for tapestry added to the coziness of the resting-place. This was generally called a “prairie bedstead,” and by some the “prairie rascal.” In design, it is surely quite equal to the famous Eastlake models, being about as primitive and severe, in an artistic sense, as one could wish.
   The house thus far along, it was left to the deft devices of the wife to complete its comforts, and the father of the family was free to superintend out-of-door affairs. If it was in season, his first important duty was to prepare some ground for planting, and to plant what he could. This was generally done in the edge of the timber, where most of the very earliest settler located. Here the sod was easily broken, not requiring the heavy teams and plows needed to break the prairie sod. Moreover, the nearness of timber offered greater conveniences for fuel and building. And still another reason for this was, that the groves afforded protection from the terrible conflagrations that occasionally swept across the prairies. Though they passed through the patches of timber, yet it was not with the same destructive force with which they rushed over the prairies. Yet by these fires much of the young timber was killed from time to time, and the forest kept thin and shrubless.
   The first year’s farming consisted mainly of a “truck patch,” planted in corn, potatoes, turnips, etc. Generally, the first year's crop fell far short of supplying even the most rigid economy of food. Many of the settlers brought with them small stores of such things as seemed indispensaible to frugal living, such as flour, bacon, coffee and tea. But these supplies were not inexhaustible, and once used were not easily replace. A long winter must come and go before another crop could be raised. If game was plentiful, it helped to eke out their limited supplies.
   But even when corn was plentiful, the preparation of it was the next difficulty in the way. The mills for grinding it were such long distances that every other device was resorted to for reducing it to meal. Some grated it on an implement made by punching small holes through a piece of tin or sheet-iron, and fastening it upon a board in concave shape, with the rough side out. Upon this the ear was rubbed to produce the meal. But grating could not be done when the corn became so dry as to shell off when rubbed, some used a coffee-mill for grinding it. And a very common substitute for bread was hominy, a palatable and wholesome diet, made by boiling corn in a weak lye till the hull or bran peeled off, after which it was well washed, to cleanse it of the lye, it was then boiled again to soften it, when it was ready for use, as occasion required, by frying and seasoning it to the taste, another mode of preparing hominy was be pestling.
   A mortar was made by burning a bowl-shaped cavity in the even end of an upright block of wood. After thoroughly clearing it of the charcoal, the corn would be put in, hot water turned upon it, when it was subjected to a severe pestling by a club of sufficient length and thickness, in the large end of which was inserted an iron wedge, banded to keep it there. The hot water would soften the corn and loosen the hull, while the pestle would crush it.
   When breadstuffs were needed, they had to be obtained from long distances. Owing to the lack of proper means for threshing and cleaning wheat, it was more of less mixed with foreign substances, such as smut, dirt and oats. And as the time may come when the settler’ method of threshing and clearing may be forgotten, it may be well to preserve a brief account of them here. The plan was to clean off a space of ground of sufficient size, and if the earth was dry, to dampen it, and beat it so as to render it somewhat compact. Then the sheaves were unbound and spread in a circle, so that the heads would be uppermost, leaving room in the center for the person whose business it was to stir and turn the straw in the process of threshing. Then, as many horses or oxen were brought as could conveniently swing round the circle, and these were kept moving until the wheat was well trodden out. After several “floorings” or layers were threshed, the straw was carefully raked off, and the wheat shoveled into a heap to be cleaned. This cleaning was sometimes done by waving a sheet up and down to fan out the chaff as the grain was dropped before it; but this trouble was frequently obviated when the strong winds of autumn were all that was needed to blow out the chaff from the grain.
   This mode of preparing the grain for flouring was so imperfect that it is not to be wondered at that a considerable amount of black soil got mixed with it, and unavoidably got into the bread. This, with the addition of smut, often rendered it so dark as to have less the appearance of bread than of mud; yet upon such diet the people were compelled to subsist, for want of a better.
  Not the least among the pioneers; tribulations, during the first few years of settlement, was the going to mill, the slow mode of travel by ox-teams was made still slower by the almost total absence of roads and bridges, while such a thing as a ferry was hardly even dreamed of. The distance to be traversed was often as far as sixty or ninety miles. In dry weather, common sloughs and creeks offered little impediment to the teamster; but during floods and the breading-up of winter, they proved exceedingly troublesome and dangerous. To get stuck in a slough, and thus be delayed for many hours, was no uncommon occurrence, and that too, when time was an item of grave import to the comfort and sometimes even to the lives of the settlers; families. Often a swollen stream would blockade the way, seeming to threaten destruction to whoever should attempt to ford it.
   With regard to roads, there was nothing of the kind worthy of the name. Indian trails were common, but they were unfit to travel on with vehicles. They are described as mere paths about two feet wide—all that was required to accommodate the single-file manner of Indian traveling.
   An interesting theory respecting the origin of the routes now pursued by many of our public highways is given in a speech by Thomas Benton many years ago. He says the buffaloes were the first road engineers, and the paths trodden by them were, as a matter of convenience, followed by the Indians, and lastly by the whites, with such improvements and changes as were found necessary for civilized modes of travel. It is but reasonable to suppose that the buffaloes would instinctively choose the most practicable routes and fords in their migrations from one pasture to another. Then, the Indians following, possessed of about the same instinct as the buffaloes, strove to make no improvements, and were finally driven from the track by those who would.
   When the early settlers were compelled to make these long and difficult trips to mill, if the country was prairie over which they passed, they found it comparatively easy to do in summer, when grass was plentiful. By traveling until night, and then camping out to feed the teams, they got along without much difficulty. But in winter, such a journey was attended with no little danger. The utmost economy of time was, of course, necessary. When the goal was reached, after a week or more of toilsome travel, with many exposures and risks, and the poor man was impatient to immediately return with the desired staff of life, he was often shocked and disheartened with the information that his turn would come in a week. Then he must look about for some means to pay expenses, and he was lucky who could find some employment by the day or job. Then, when his turn came, he had to be on hand to bolt his own flour, as, in those days, the bolting machine was not an attached part of the other mill machinery. This done, the anxious soul was ready to endure the trials of a return trip, his heart more or less concerned about the affairs of home.
   These milling trips often occupied from three weeks to more than a month each, and were attended with an expense, in one way or another, that rendered the cost of breadstuffs extremely high. If made in the winter, when more or less grain-feed was required for the team, the load would be found to be so considerably reduced on reaching home that the cost of what was left adding other expenses, would make their grain reach the high cost figure of from $3 to $5 per bushel. And these trips could not always be made at the most favorable season for traveling. In spring and summer, so much time could hardly be spared from other essential labor; yet, for a large family, it was almost impossible to avoid making three or four trips during the year.
   This description of early milling applies rather to the pioneers west of this county than to those who settled near the Mississippi and Skunk Rivers, but it was not uncommon for people here to cross over into Illinois to get their grinding done.
   Among other things calculated to annoy and distress the pioneer, was the prevalence of wild beasts of prey, the most numerous and troublesome of which was the wolf. While it was true, in a figurative sense, that it required the utmost care and exertion to “keep the wolf from the door,” it was almost as true in a literal sense.
   There were two species of these animals-the large, black, timber-wolf, and the smaller gray wolf, that usually inhabited the prairie. At first, it was next to impossible for a settler to keep small stock of any kind that would serve as a prey to these ravenous beasts. Sheep were not deemed safe property until years after, when their enemies were supposed to be nearly exterminated. Large numbers of wolves were destroyed during the early years of settlement—as many as fifty in a day in a regular wolf-hunt. When they were hungry, which was not uncommon, particularly during the winter, they were too indiscreet for their own safety, and would often approach within easy shot of the settlers’ dwellings. At certain seasons, their wild, plaintive yelp or bark could be heard in all directions, at all hours of the night, creating intense excitement among the dogs, whose howling would add to the dismal melody.
   It has been found, by experiment, that but one of the canine species—the hound—has both the fleetness and courage to cope with his savage cousin, the wolf. Attempts were often made to capture him with the common cur, but this animal, as a rule, proved himself wholly unreliable for such a service. So long as the wolf would run, the cur would follow; but the wolf, being apparently acquainted with the character of his pursuer, would either turn and place himself in a combative attitude, or else act upon the principle that “discretion is the better part of valor,” and throw himself upon his back, in token of surrender. This strategic performance would make instant peace between these two scions of the same house; and, not infrequently, dogs and wolves have been seen playing together like puppies. But the hound was never known to recognize a flag of truce; his baying seemed to signify “no quarter,” or at least so the terrified wolf understood it.
   Smaller animals, such as panthers, lynxes, wildcats, catamounts and polecats were also sufficiently numerous to be troublesome. And an exceeding source of annoyance was the swarms of mosquitoes which aggravated the trials of the settler in the most exasperating degree. Persons have been driven from the labors of the field by the unmerciful assaults.

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