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EDITED BY John C. Parish
Associate Editor of the State Historical Society of Iowa
| Volume I |
September 1920 |
No. 2 |
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Copyright 1920 by the State Historical Society of Iowa
(Transcribed by Gayle Harper)
A ROMANCE of the
FORTIES
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It was
Sunday, and most of the inhabitants of the little Iowa village
of Quasqueton were assembled at the town boarding house for
their regular exchange of gossip and stories. On this
particular occasion the ordinary town talk was probably
superseded by a more absorbing topic, namely, the unsuccessful
elk hunt of the day before. Again and again in the past weeks
a lone elk had been chased in vain by the hunters of Buchanan
County.
Many and varied were the theories
devised by these pioneer Nimrods to explain the failure, one
being that the elusive elk was only a phantom of its departed
race and kind.
Breaking
abruptly into the midst of their discussion, rode a man and a
girl, both on spirited black horses; and the attention of the
group shifted immediately to these newcomers. The man was a
commanding figure, tall and well built. He had about him an
air which strongly impressed one with the fact that he was a
person not to be trifled with yet the sprinkling of gray in
his black hair lent dignity and charm to his appearance. The
girl, on the other hand, was as striking in point of
loveliness as her companion was in general appearance and
bearing. She was fair in feature, graceful and bewitching in
manners, attractive in form and speech. With the advent of
this unusual couple it is safe to say that everyone speedily
lost interest in the elk hunt.
Upon being
asked the customary pioneer question whence he came and
where he proposed to go he made the startling declaration
that he was Bill Johnson, the far-famed Canadian patriot of
the Thousand Isles of the St. Lawrence River. A gasp of wonder
followed this remarkable revelation, for in the early forties
the daring exploits of the renowned Canadian were fresh in the
minds of all frontiersmen. But a few years had elapsed since
the so-called ''Patriot War of 1838", which was a revolt of
certain Canadians against the administration of Sir Francis
Bond Head, then Governor-General of Canada. And by far the
most conspicuous figure in the revolt was Bill Johnson, whose
adventures, deeds, and escapades in the region of the Thousand
Isles of the St. Lawrence, where he had been compelled to flee
from justice, would fill a volume. So it is little to be
wondered at that this abrupt, unexpected appearance of the
notorious rebel should have affected the villagers as it did.
Before they had time to recover from
their surprise, he plunged into his tale. He told how he had
long been a terror to the British Dominion, how he and his
family had lived on and indeed owned many of the islands in
the St. Lawrence, and how he had been forced to flee from
place to place to escape the British. He concluded by saying
that since his daughter and he were now the only living
members of his family, and having tired of the dangerous
fugitive life on the islands, they had decided to leave Canada
and settle down in Iowa. Interest changed to wonder, and
wonder to awe, as he fluently recited his tale of daring
adventures and hair-breadth escapes; and by the time he had
finished, admiration was written on the faces of all.
Johnson purchased a farm within two
miles of Quasqueton; and for some time the social life of the
community centered about him and his daughter. While he
probably came and went in every day life like the other
pioneers, one can easily imagine the effect he had on his
neighbors: how the story of his arrival spread from cabin to
cabin; how the loud talk in the village grocery store toned
down to a subdued whispering behind his back when he stepped
up to the counter to buy, only to break out again stronger
than ever the moment he left; and how he was followed by
admiring glances and busy tongues wherever he went. It is even
possible that the children in their daily games played at the
daring exploits of the heroic figure.
It came as a rude shock to many in
the surrounding community, therefore, when they learned that
their prominent neighbors had been made the victims of an
unspeakably cruel outrage. According to Johnson's version, a
party made up of about eight white men and a band of Indians,
entered his house on a wintry night, dragged him from his bed
out into the bitter cold, tied him to a tree and gave him some
fifty lashes on the bare back. Then they ordered him and his
daughter to pack up their belongings and leave the county
within two hours. Since there was nothing to do but obey, into
the bleak night they went, with twenty-five miles of windswept
prairie between them and refuge. It was cold, so cruelly cold
that one of the rioters is said to have frozen to death,
another froze his feet, while many others of the party were
frost bitten before they reached their homes. To Johnson, when
he learned this, it must have seemed that poetic justice had
overtaken his persecutors who had driven him from his home
into the cold death an unmerciful beating.
In Dubuque, Johnson commenced
proceedings against the rioters. The trial proved to be a
lode- stone, for hundreds of spectators crowded into the court
room, no doubt as much to view the famous Canadians as to see
justice done. Nor is it to be overlooked that the charms of
Kate proved irresistible she captivated the court from the
judge to the janitor. So enamoured with her beauty and charm
was the judge that he is said to have forgotten the dignity of
his position in that he left his elevated station and escorted
her to the door. And we are told that "The cohort of loungers
mounted the tables and benches, the bald headed jurors and the
phalanx of attorneys stood with amazed countenance and open
mouths at the unprecedented proceedings."
The trial went hard against the
offenders. Four of them Spencer, Evans, Parrish, and Rawley
were convicted, one sentenced to the penitentiary for two
years, and the others fined two hundred dollars each. Stern
justice must be meted out to those who dared encroach upon the
rights of law-abiding people taking up residence in Iowa.
One of the absurd sequels of this
trial was the effect on the young men. Although everyone at
the trial, including the judge, was completely bewitched by
the lovely Kate, it was the young bloods, and especially the
editorial gallants who were most sorely smitten. After the
trial they vied with one another in showering compliments and
sweet flattery upon her through the editorial columns. Andrew
Keesecker of the Dubuque Miner's Express, carried away in his
ecstasy, wrote a rhapsody in which she was pictured as having
"heavenly charms, deep blue eyes, matchless grace, piercing
glances, queen-like dignity, soul-subduing countenance. As a
result, he was made the laughing stock of the whole press of
the West, a fact he deeply resented. The ridicule of John B.
Russell, editor of the Bloomington Herald, he must have
regarded as a personal affront, for he came very near fighting
a duel with him over it. Apparently what prevented these
pioneer knights from entering the lists for a deadly tilt over
the fair lady was disagreement as to place of meeting.
From Dubuque, Johnson and Kate went
into Mahaska County, settling near the Skunk River. There a
new turn of affairs took place in their ever eventful lives.
Heretofore the famous Canadian had not been bothered much by
the love-stricken admirers of his fair daughter, for they had
been content to gaze and admire from a distance. But now a new
problem confronted him when a man actually dared to make love
openly to Kate.
Job Peck was
the long reputed rowdy and terror of the Skunk River country.
One day when he was hunting deer, he saw smoke curling up from
the chimney of a recently vacant cabin. Curious to learn who
its new occupants were, he proceeded to reconnoiter, and when
his eyes fell upon Kate the Cleopatra of the Iowa frontier
it is reported that he immediately shed his desperado
characteristics. One can almost picture his desperate efforts
to live down his doubtful reputation, break from his
swaggering habits, and make a favorable impression on the "new
girl". And hereafter, he made frequent wanderings to the
little cabin in the timber; his deer in the chase seemed
always to lead him to that locality. But even though Kate
seemed disposed to return his affections, the old man would
have none of their foolishness. And one day, rifle in hand, he
ordered young Peck oft' his premises, threatening him dire
vengeance if he ever prowled about the place again.
These threats probably kept the
love-smitten Peck well out of the range of Johnson's rifle in
the day time, but evidently did not cause him to abandon the
dictates of his heart. For one evening when Johnson was away,
Peck eloped with Kate to Benjamin McClary's place in Jefferson
County, where they were married. When the father came home and
learned what had happened, he followed in hot pursuit and
arrived at McClary's cabin just after the young couple had
gone to bed.
With drawn
pistol he entered the cabin and climbed up into the loft where
they had retired for the night. At the point of his gun he
forced his daughter to get up and dress and descend the
ladder. Then he followed, put her on a horse and rode away
with her. Peck, meanwhile, suffered the humiliation
unresisting. It was hopeless to remonstrate or argue with an
armed man. And was not this the fearless rebel who had struck
terror into the hearts of many a Britisher in the Thousand
Isles?
Several days passed. Then came a
wild dismal night with the wolves howling a blood curdling
chorus in the timber near Johnson's cabin. The Canadian
himself sat on a rude stool before a log fire, puffing away at
a corn cob pipe. There was a flash of light, a sharp report,
and he fell to the floor shot through the heart. Suspicion
pointed toward young Peck, and who was arrested and held for
the murder in a Washington County jail. But though it was
generally conceded that he was guilty of the crime, in the
trial he was acquitted.
Recently
there had come unexpected developments. For some time Bill
Johnson and his bewitching daughter had given new zest and
color to the ordinarily hard life of the pioneers of Iowa.
Unthought-of events had followed each other in such rapid
succession that the people hardly knew what to look for next.
Then came the news out of the East that the man who had passed
himself as Bill Johnson the Canadian patriot was not that
noted character, but rather was the degenerate son of a worthy
Welsh Canadian that he was a criminal and an impostor, and a
man of low repute. The real patriot Johnson, it was learned,
was held in high esteem, even by his enemies. Then it was
learned that in the Dubuque trial, Johnson and Kate had
perjured themselves; and upon this discovery, the Governor
remitted the penalties laid upon the assailants in the winter
night attack. These men set out to arrest Kate for having
committed perjury; but she was aided by those who were still
subject to her charms, and made her escape.
That the person whom they had
accepted and entertained so royally should turn out to be an
impostor was a fact bitterly hard for the Iowans to accept.
But the evidence was not to be doubted. The first clear
intimation that the Bill Johnson dwelling among them was not
the Canadian patriot came in the form of a statement in a New
York newspaper, denying that the Johnson of Canadian memory
had been lynched in Buchanan County, for he was at that time
residing in New York State, and was in good health. Shortly
afterward a letter followed, from a number of inhabitants of
Greenville, Maine, which revealed the facts that Iowa's hero
had at one time resided in the vicinity of the Canadian
patriot and learned all about him; that while in Maine he had
variously passed as Killey, Willis, and Salone, and had been
engaged for the most part in swindling schemes. And finally,
an Iowan, A. C. Fulton, while in Canada, looked up the record
of the individual who had claimed to be the hero of the
Thousand Isles, and found that he was an impostor and would
have been welcomed back by the Canadian authorities with open
arms and a rope halter. So the people in Clayton, Buchanan,
Dubuque, and Mahaska counties had to swallow their
disappointment and admit that a rogue had hoodwinked them.
There are several versions of the
later career of Kate and Peck, and it is difficult to say
which is correct. But there is one of them and it sounds as
plausible as any that brings the romance to a natural and
happy ending. However, there were long and unhappy days for
Peck during his imprisonment, and for several months following
his release, when he knew nothing of his wife's whereabouts.
No doubt his darkest hour came when he searched in vain for a
trace of Kate, trying bravely to fight off the fear that
perhaps she was lost to him forever. Finally he learned that
from Iowa she had fled to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; whereupon
he set out for the East.' At his journey's end he found Kate
living with refined, cultured people, in whose home she
delighted him with a display of her accomplishments upon the
piano. From Pittsburgh, the happy couple moved back to Iowa,
settling at a point near Oskaloosa, where they lived several
years; later they moved still further west. In California they
lived happily together until Peck's death. And the last heard
of the one time vampire of the Iowa frontier was that she was
again married and to a devoted husband.
WILLIAM S. JOHNSON |
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