CHAPTER XVII.

In the early days, anywhere in Oskaloosa and almost anywhere in the vicinity, a good well of water could be obtained by digging from fifteen to twenty feet, and when our little home was located on that beautiful spot we had no thought that there would be any difficulty in finding water, as others had done. But when Gorrell got ready to dig a well he and Wat supposed they would have it completed in three or four days, but disappointment awaited them. As soon as Wat had gone through the rich, black loam he struck a dry, hard clay. They expected to strike a vein of water down about twenty feet, but they dug and drew out that dry hard clay until they had gone fifty feet straight down in the ground without striking a drop of water; then they encountered a slate stone, so hard the fire would fly from the pick as they tried to dig. Gorrell had an old well-digger come and give his opinion of the prospect. The old well-digger's opinion was, there were several feet of that hard slate, and immediately under that slate was a vein or strata of coal and if they found water at all it would not be good. So after all that hard work of digging straight down through clay as hard as rock without the least prospect of finding water, the thing had to be abandoned. We were disgusted with the thought of a coal bank on our place - we had no use for coal. Nobody but blacksmiths had any use for coal, and they could find all they wanted by digging in a hillside or bluff down on Spring Creek or Muchakinock. There was plenty of wood around here, and what did anybody but a blacksmith want with that dirty, foul-smelling stuff? So at intervals, as Gorrell found time, he would shovel the clay and slate back into that hole until it was all filled up. The failure to get water took a good deal of the charm off of that charming spot. Hauling and carrying water became irksome after a while, and we decided to move our house to a grove near the southeast corner of our south forty, where we knew we could get a well of water.

When the country was first settled, people died and had to be buried, many more in proportion to the number than now. In those days water was so near the surface in most places that a grave was apt to have water in it when a body was placed, therein. That seemed horrible to us, and when that well was dug and the ground found so dry, the thought naturally came to us that it would be just the place for a cemetery. We often talked about it, but had no idea of selling the land for any purpose, especially for a cemetery. We expected that to be our home as long as we lived, but we talked so much about its being a proper place for that purpose that I got to imagining I could see graves all over that ridge, and on those gentle slopes to the east and to the west and down in the grove to the north. Sometimes I would be alone all day and have nothing to do but sew carpet rags and piece quilts and think and imagine. I never was what people call "lonesome." If I had no other company I could enjoy myself very well communing with my own thoughts.

When we first went to housekeeping we had no land fenced; ten acres had been broken the year before, and Gorrell made rails and fenced it after we had moved; he raised his first crop of corn on his father's farm and gathered it after we went to our own home. The days were getting short and the evenings cool, and when I would be looking for him in the evening I would have a bright fire burning in the fireplace and open the door so he could see it as he drove up with his load of corn. I would have the supper all ready to take up, biscuit or corn bread in the skillet, coffee boiling on the coals, and if we didn't have quails we had sausage. We didn't have a cow at first, but mother Phillips kept us supplied with milk and cream; she was always good and never forgot her children. How my heart would bound with gladness when I would look out and see my husband coming. I would throw a shawl over my head and run out to meet him, get in the wagon and help him throw the corn out; then while he was putting his horses in the stable and feeding, I would run in and get my supper on the table; and see that the fire looked all right. I always expected a compliment and never failed to get one. A bright fire sending a glow all around on the whitewashed walls of our little humble home, and a smoking supper on the table gave a look of cheerfulness and comfort which was sure to be appreciated by my husband, and he never failed to let me know how much pleasure it gave him. Little acts of kindness and little words of praise are the things which go a great way in making a happy home.

As I have already stated, the failure to get water made us decide to move our house where we should have built it in the first place. Though not quite so handsome a location, it was nearly a half a mile nearer town. We found plenty of water, splendid and soft, at twenty feet. We were much attached to that first home, and many pleasant memories lingered around it. There we first set up a home of our own, and there our two little boys were born. We lived there more than three years before we could find time and courage to tear down our house and move it away. After we moved away and the place became a common, with blue grass growing all about there, it was still beautiful. The town cows, with their many toned and discordant bells, cropped the grass, and when they had satisfied their appetite, laid down and chewed their cuds in the shade of the beautiful oaks which used to adorn, our front yard.

A year or so ago David Evans and I were talking about the beauty of that place when he said to me: "Years ago when I was a young man, one day when I had been away down nearly to Skunk River, in coming home I walked up through the woods, and as I came to that spot I looked about and thought I had never seen a more beautiful place. I was tired and l threw myself down on the grass to rest. There was a gentle breeze blowing, birds were singing in the trees above me, and as I lay there I thought, this is the spot where I want to be buried." When that place was being laid out and sold in little plots of ground for homes for the dead, Mr. Evans purchased the lot on which he had lain that day, and now he and his wife lie side by side on the very spot where once the little log house stood which was our first home.

There is a portion of Mahaska County lying to the southwest of Oskaloosa, fertile and beautiful, called "Six Mile Prairie," Six Mile Prairie was not all prairie, but bordered around and dotted here and there with some fine groves of timber, and the beautiful Des Moines River touches its southwestern limit. That grand and rich expanse of prairie and the wonderfully productive land on the border of that wide and clear and pebbly-bedded river attracted the attention of some of the shrewdest and solidist men who came to the New Purchase to make for themselves homes in 1843. Dr. Boyer located on a claim ofthat valuable bottom land and from time to time added to his possessions until he owned hundreds and hundreds of acres of the most valuable farming land in all this region. The Dr. and Mrs. Boyer were young people when they came, with two small children. They lived in a cabin like the rest at first, but before many years built and moved into a two-story brick house, which at that time was talked of far and near as a very pretentious residence. Dr. Boyer was not only a fine business man, but an educated man and a highly-esteemed physician and had an extensive practice.

The Dr. became wealthy, but I don't think a great amount of his wealth was acquired by the practice of medicine, for I have often heard it said he would go
miles and miles through storms of rain and drifts of snow would, like Ian McLaren's "Dr. McClure," risk his life in crossing swollen streams, go cold and hungry in trying to relieve the sick and suffering, when he never did and never expected to receive a cent of pay. Dr. and Mrs. Boyer raised a large family of sons and daughters. They stuck to the home they first made in the Des Moines bottom. The Dr. died a few years ago, but Mrs. Boyer lives there still, and though well along in years she is in full possession of all her mental faculties. Mrs. Boyer is honored, respected and loved by a large circle of neighbors and acquaintances; she has too noble a nature to be puffed up with wealth; she is genial, generous, and has been for more than fifty years what is called a valuable neighbor. Her children, grandchildren and great grandchildren may well rise up and call her blessed. Her sons are fine businessmen, F. D. and T. H. Boyer, sons of hers, carry on an extensive trade in clothing; F. D. in Oskaloosa and T. H. in Sioux City. People of Sioux City call T. H. Boyer the finest-looking man in their town. Dr. and Mrs. Boyer's oldest daughter is the wife of one of Oskaloosa's most esteemed citizens and best businessmen, Mr. J. R. Barnes. Mr. Barnes is cashier of the Mahaska County State Bank. F. D., "Frank," as we call him, is not only a successful business man, but has a heart so full of kindness -he can't turn a deaf ear to those who go to him for sympathy or more substantial help. His wife, too, is never too busy nor too tired to fly to the bedside of a sick neighbor. Her deft hands know just what to do and just how to soothe the suffering.

Van B. Delashmutt was another one of the substantial men who came in '43, and was wise enough to secure a large tract of that wonderful production, Des Moines bottom land. He built his house where one could look out of the front door and see that river, could look across and see a border of trees festooned with wild grape vines which when let alone, take on varied and beautiful shapes. In the early times, when there was no fruit but wild fruit, we went with great baskets to the Des Moines River, in the Delashmutt neighborhood, and gathered bushels of wild grapes and plums.

Mr. Delashmutt was a Virginian, from that part of the "Old Dominion" where there were big mountains, big trees and big broad-shouldered men with big souls. He belonged to the latter class, as I have often heard his neighbors assert. One of his daughters married Judge J. A. L. Crookham, a prominent citizen of Oskaloosa. She died when a young woman, leaving two children, William and Elizabeth Euclid. "Euclid," as she is usually called, is a bright, well-informed, scholarly woman, and has for several years been a teacher in Portland, Oregon. William Delashmutt, Van Delashmutt's oldest son, is an honorable, respected citizen of Oskaloosa; he was a man when his father came in '43, and remembers and can relate more incidents of the early settling than any man I know. The Boyers and Delashmutts, have from the first settling of Mahaska County to the present day been prominent families. 

When one hears the Six Mile Prairie spoken of they are sure to associate it with the name of Wilson. Several families of Wilsons, more or less distantly related, came in 1843 and took possession of large bodies of the public domain, situated in that region so famed for its beauty and fertility. The Wilsons, like the Boyers and Delashmutts, it seems, knew when they had a good thing and were wise enough to hold on to it. In driving about through that region of fine farms, ever, and anon one comes to a substantial, thrifty-looking and well-kept place, belonging to one or another of the Wilsons. One of the Wilsons whom I hear called "Tom," has a fine farm and a fine house on the river's brink, where he raises corn which is simply immense, and melons rivaling the tropics. In coming from the Tom Wilson place to- ward Oskaloosa one sees another of the kind of farms which delight the eye and makes one feel that this is indeed a land of plenty. Milo Wilson lives there with his intelligent wife and eight sons, surrounded by fields fairly groaning with their burden of that king of Iowa's productions, and smiling fields of clover. Not far from Milo Wilson's and near the northern boundary of Six Mile Prairie lives another family of Wilsons, Mr. Blake Wilson, his charming wife and two bright children, and with them Mrs. Wilson, mother of Milo and Blake.

This morning, which is the 7th day of August, 1898, my son Quincy and I proposed taking a drive. After Quincy had harnessed our good old horse "Jim" to the phaeton and we were seated therein, Quincy said: "Now, mother, where shall we drive?" I proposed that we drive out to Blake Wilson's. "Jim" is in his twenty-first year, has been a faithful servant in our family for more than fourteen years, and in all that time has never been known to balk nor kick nor run away, nor anything unbecoming in a horse. He never comes to a railroad track that he don't look up and down to see if a train is coming. If a train happens to be coming he will stop at a proper distarrce and wait quietly until it has passed. Jim is of ancient and aristocratic lineage. Some of his ancestors were of pure "Barb" stock, which accounts for his sagacity, and also accounts for his being as nimble as a colt at his advanced age. Jim never did a hard day's work in his life, but willingly takes us wherever we want him to. So this morning we turned his head toward Beaton, which is the nicest mining town about here. Many years ago a good class of Welsh people emigrated to America and settled in and around Beacon, among them being four brothers named Price, Jenkin, Joshua, Watkin and John R. These, with many others, were quick to see the possibilities of acquiring wealth in this land of beauty and vast resources. The coal which we used to think of, so little account was not overlooked by them, nor the rich farming lands above it. The Price brothers were educated men, and had the faculty of turning both their mental and physical powers to account in many branches of business. Many massive stone abutments where flne bridges span Iowa's rivers are the work of the Prices. They have built hundreds of miles of railroad, have held county offices, run stores and made, successful farmers. Quincy and I passed the Joshua Price farm to-day, where a substantial brick residence and barns and other outbuildings are so numerous one would almost take it for a village.

Not far from Beacon, and Just after reaching the top of Muchakinock, hill we Come to the edge of Six Mile Prairie. It was there. a scene of beauty met our gaze. To the right, to the left, in front of us, lay an expanse of green richness which no tongue nor pen nor artist's brush can truly describe. On one side a vast field of great tall corn, the blades so green they were fairly black, and as far as we could see down the road were great long ears, protruding from the stalks, dressed in their red and white silk. Wheat stacks, oat stacks, green meadows and fields of red clover send out a perfume which nothing but clover can give. Herds of Jersey cows were contentedly cropping nutritious grass, reminding one of rich cream and yellow butter. My heart swelled with gratitude to the giver of all this beauty and luxury and plenty. I was reading last night about the poor starving, famishing wretches in Spain. The thought came to me: "If those; poor hungry creatures could be transported from that land of desolation and set down in the Six Mile Prairie, how like heaven it would seem to them."

Away over to the southwest was that smoky line: which we all know means "over a river." Farm houses neat and commodious, surrounded by orchards, gardens and flowers, loom up in various directions. Just in front of us in plain view is a farm; the lay of the land is perfect, the pleasant-looking residence, the substantial barn, and every other building seems to be in exactly the right place. That is Blake Wilson's. We were on the main road to one of the Des Moines river bridges, but we turned into a lane which led to Mr. Wilson's house. As we neared the gate we were struck with the neatness of the barn-yard, the lawn around the house, and even in the lane outside the grass was shorn and not a weed was allowed to raise its head along the fence. The grass on the lawn had been cut with a lawn-mower and was like velvet, with no scraggly ends about the fence, nor flower beds nor porch. Every tree and post stood out clean; no straggling spears of grass were left about their roots.

Young Mrs. Wilson saw us as we drove up to the gate, and came flying out, her face beaming with hospitality. We informed her that we, had only come to make a short call. I just wanted to talk a little with her mother about the early days on "Six Mile." Quincy hitched Jim to a post, then went to the barn to find Mr. Blake. Mrs. Blake and I went in the house, and I never sat down until I had seen all the rooms down stairs. There was no attempt at display, but everything looked orderly, cozy, comfortable and restful. Presently Mrs. Wilson, Sr., came in and we let our tongues run for about an hour, me asking questions and she answering, all about her experiences in the beginning of things on the "Six Mile." Mrs. Wilson is over eighty years old, but don't look like she was near that old. She moves about with ease, her eyes are bright, her hair is a beautiful iron gray, abundant for one of her age, and lies in waves. Her mental faculties don't seem at all impaired, and she is an interesting talker. She, with her husband and young family came from Virginia in '42, stopped in Washington County the first year, came to Mahaska County and the Six Mile Prairie in '43; and moved into a cabin without a floor. The first night a pouring rain wet everything and flooded the house; they dug a ditch across the room to let the water out. They were glad to get corn bread, and sometimes lived on hominy, but with it all she never become discouraged nor low-spirited. Her experiences in those times of hardship and privation were like many others.

Mr. Wilson died in 1872, leaving his family well provided for. Mrs. Wilson is well situated in her declining years. While we were talking her grandson came in a  bright little boy of some seven or eight years." She called him to her and introduced him to me, then said: "Here is a boy who has never given his grandmother a saucy word nor an unkind look." Both Mrs. Wilson and I went out on the lawn where were beds and borders, of flowers- not many of the old-fashioned kind we used to love so much, not begonias, geraniums, pansies, and many others with great long scientific names never heard of by Six Mile people in the forties. Pretty rocks and shells from the Des Moines River, were arranged around their
edges with delicate ferns growing between. While we were admiring the various colors and shades of the bright-faced pansies. Quincy brought Mr. Wilson up from  the barn, who, with face beaming all over with good will and good humor, grasped my hand, save it a hearty shake, then immediately set about gathering and arranging for me a bouquet of those beautiful flowers. I was surprised to see the skill and taste which he displayed in arranging those flowers. One would have thought he had been brought up a florist, but it was just his innate perception of beauty and harmony. When he had finished the bouquet and presented it to me with the gallantry of a Chesterfield, he invited me to walk to the garden to see his California beans, which certainly were a curiosity, whether useful or not remains to be determined. But it does look curious to see a bean start out away up toward the top of a pole, and grow and grow so long that its point drags the ground. That is the way Mr. Blake Wilson's California beans are threatening to do. I told Mr. Wilson he ought to sketch that scene as it appeared from the point where we were standing. He seemed to have so much of the artist in himself I was sure he could do it.

The country northwest of Oskaloosa and bordering on the Skunk River timber was seized by some of the same sort of men I have been trying to tell about, who
came in '43 and '44. There were the Troys, the Liters, the Padgetts, the Coffins, Samuel and John, all of whom made claims, and with their families endured the same kind of crude living I have so often described. Their little cabins were built along the edge of the timber, with plenty of prairie for farming lying to the south. There were numerous groves a little way out from the main timber, which made that region attractive in its primeval state. The land, like all other land in this region; was rich and lay well for farming. John Coffin and Samuel were brothers. Their land joined. Both had families, each having several children. John Coffin was killed by a horse in the summer of 1852, and was buried in the Friends' burying ground at Spring Creek. His wife Eleanor remained on the farm where they first settled and brought up her children, who are respected and useful members of society.

I knew more about Samuel Coffin and his family than any I have mentioned of the early inhabitants of that neighborhood. Though Samuel Coffin was a distant relative of mine, I never met him until the fall of '44. He then was about thirty-six years old, tall and straight and full of vigor, pluck and energy. He had all the qualifies necessary in battling with the hardships which attend the settling of a new country. He was honest, honorable and brave. His ancestors were Nantucket whale fishers, who were not afraid of small things, and Samuel Coffin inherited many of the traits of character which those hardy seaman were said to have possessed. They were said to be fearless, honorable, with an innate principle of justice pervading their whole nature. They were a "law unto themselves." I think Samuel Coffin possessed every trait which I have mentioned and all his old neighbors will agree with me in saying: If Samuel Coffin ever did a mean or dishonorable act, he did violence to his own nature. He provided, well for his own household, and was always ready to help a friend or neighbor if he found them in trouble. Samuel Coffin, was a fine looking man when in his prime. His hair and eyes were dark. There was a look of strength and genuineness in his face which inspired one with confidence. Even when in trouble himself, he could always find a comforting word for those who sought his sympathy and help. A man like Samuel Coffin is a blessing to any neighborhood. His wife Sophia, who came with him to this fair wildness, and shared with him the inconvenience of a little cabin in a new country, was a handsome woman, with dark hair and dark blue eyes, and a complexion like cream and roses, which the prairie winds even could not spoil. She was not only handsome, but a lovely, gentle, sweet-spirited woman.

My husband and I, in the early times would mount our horses and go dashing over the hills and hollows, many a time to Samuel and Sophia Coffin's, where we were sure to be received with a smiling welcome from both. Samuel would take Gorrell off to look at his big corn and his pigs, and after a while they would come back with their arms full of great luscious melons. While our husbands were looking at the crops, I would help Sophia get dinner, and such quantities of fried chicken and cream gravy and peas and potatoes, and hot biscuit and honey and butter and coffee with good rich cream, we would have on the table in that little cabin when our husbands returned. We hardly ever saw an apple and never a peach in those days, but when the time of year came, around we had melons and blackberries and plums. It was not unusual in those days to find a hollow tree wherein was a colony of bees and great quantities of honey. I have heard of hundreds of pounds of honey being found in a single tree in the Skunk river timber. It was a fortunate thing for the early settlers that the Lord sent the bees on ahead to prepare that excellent substitute for sugar. Money and sugar both were scarce then. Wild grapes, wild plums and wild blackberries abounded in the timber along Skunk river, but none of them make very good pies or sauce without being sweetened, and that honey just fixed things. Many a blackberry cobbler have I seen and tasted which had been sweetened with the product of those bee-trees. Samuel Coffin was not only a successful farmer and cattle raiser and pig raiser, but could find a bee-tree if there happened to be one any where in his region. When a man found a bee-tree he would cut his name or initials on it, it was about as dangerous to "jump" a bee-tree as it was to "jump" a claim.

Samuel and Sophia Coffin had an interesting family, four sons and three daughters, bright, handsome children. They added to their acres and other possessions, and were beginning to be comfortably fixed; when death broke into that happy family and took the beautiful and gentle wife and mother. After seeing the last spade full of earth placed and made into a mound over all that was mortal of the wife of his youth, that strong man, with a heavy heart, went back .to his desolate home and sat down among his motherless children and wept. His heart was sad; the world looked dark, all joy seemed to have departed, never to return, but before long he began to realize that he could not afford to sit and nurse his grief, as there was a family of children, some of them mere babies, who had to be provided for. His cares were doubled. He had to fill the place of father, and mother too, but he possessed great strength of character, could surmount difficulties that many a man would sink under. He cast his own griefs and heart-aches in the back-ground and went on toiling and planning and doing the best he could for his own family and any others who came in his way and needed assistance. After a year or two he married Susan Lister, a daughter of Henry Lister, an old settler in Oskaloosa. Susan was a good girl, good looking and a conscientious Christian. To that union were born nine children, five daughters and four sons. Although Samuel Coffin had an unusually numerous family to support, they were all well provided for. Everyone of his eight
daughters grew to respectable womanhood, and I have been told, married good men. Hampton Cruzen, one of Mahaska's prosperous farmers who died a year or two ago, married Sarah, the oldest. Eliza, the next, is the wife of Mr, Stephen Pomeroy, another of Mahaska's successful farmers and respected citizens. Mary, the beauty of them all, married Mr. Carl Barr, and is living in Ft. Madison. When I say that Mary is the beauty, I don't mean that the others are not good looking, for everyone of them are more than ordinarily good looking, but Mary was decidedly handsome. Several of that numerous household have joined the great majority, their graves are as widely separated as are the living members.

Samuel and John Coffin, like all the other Coffins in the United States, are descendants of Tristram and Diones Coffin, who came from England in 1642 and settled at Salisbury in Massachusetts. In 1660 Tristram Coffin and nine others purchased the island of Nantucket. There they settled in that year and not long after engaged in the whale-fishing business. Those Nantucket people followed that business successfully through several generations. They traversed every known sea, (I mean all the oceans) and sold their cargoes in every seaport in Europe and many other parts of the world. One visiting Nantucket to-day can see in those quaint old houses, relicts in the way of elegant furniture, paintings, china and silver ware brought by those whale-fishers to their wives, mothers, daughters and sisters. In course of time the little island of Nantucket became so thickly inhabited with Coffins and Maceys, and Gardners and Starbucks and Michells and Folgers and Russells and so forth, that they began to find homes and business in other parts of the western hemisphere. There is said to be twenty-five thousand persons in the United States who can trace their lineage directly to Tristram and Diones Coffin, those first settlers on that island. It is said also that all the Coffins in this country are of that family. On William Coffin, a great grandson, of Tristram, and whose wife was Priscilla Paddock, emigrated to North Carolina not very long before the Revolutionary war. These were the ancestors of Samuel and John, whom I have been telling about. The Coffins are great people to keep track of their lineage and most of them reverence their ancestors, and many of the family names are kept going from generation to generation. Priscilla is a name common among the Coffins. I have heard that Priscilla Paddock was a very superior woman and of an excellent family; therefore in every generation of Coffins since her time there has been many Priscillas, Mrs. Priscilla Prine, of Oskaloosa, a very excellent and intelligent lady, is a daughter of John Coffin. Samuel Coffin was a Christian and died in peace at the age of seventy-one years, honored and respected by all who knew him. The largest funeral procession ever seen in Mahaska county was said to be the one that followed the remains of Samuel Coffin to their last resting place in Forest cemetery.

Erastus and Thomas, sons of Samuel Coffin, own and occupy farms and have commodious residences not far from the old homestead where they were brought up. Frank, another son, lives in Nebraska. I hear that Frank is not only a prosperous farmer, but is a man amongst men. Samuel, the youngest of that numerous family, was a little boy when his father died, but now a tall, fine looking man, and people say is a veritable "chip off the old block." He lives in Colorado and is engaged in railroading. I was not at all surprised to hear a good report of "little Sammy" as we used to call him, for I had reason to know that he was an honest and honorable little boy.