CHAPTER XX.

As I have remarked before, along in the early fifties there was much buying and selling and building and moving., My husband and I bought and sold and moved nearly as often as Mr. and Mrs. White did. In the Spring of 1852 we bought the Oskaloosa House and moved from our farm, where we had first gone to house-
keeping, into that hostlery, kept it one year, then sold it to Samuel McMurray and John Prest. In the Spring of 1853 we bought and moved to the place where the Bashaw Livery barn now is. In April, 1854, we traded that place to John N. Kinsman for what we thought the nicest home in the suburbs of Oskaloosa. It contained about three acres of land, a frame house of five rooms, a cellar, good stable, lots of fruit trees and shade trees. It was about half way between the public square and our farm. The house stood on the spot where Mr. Esgen's elegant residence is now; was moved after we sold it to a place a little farther west, and is now the home of Mrs. O'Hara. That house was built and owned and all those trees planted by Charles Blackburn. Mr. Blackburn was an Englishman, and was a carpenter by trade. He was a brother to Henry Blackburn, who was once treasurer of Mahaska County. Charles Blackburn and family went to California in 1852. When we moved there in the Spring of 1854 our nearest neighbors were the Hobsons, who lived on an acre lot which I heard him say he paid one hundred dollars for. That lot has since been subdivided and part of it is occupied by the handsome residences of Colonel McNeill and Thomas Seevers. When we moved to that place Wm. T. Smith was building the brick house where Mrs. Judge Johnson now lives. In a few months Mr. Smith and family moved in, then they were our nearest neighbors. They were charming neighbors and very superior people, and to drop in and spend an evening with them was a joy. Their conversation was not a string of platitudes. When they talked they said something. They had two little children, Orner was a baby, and Laura, who is now Mrs. Byron V. Seevers, and one of Oskaloosa's most intellectual and cultured women, was then a little girl three or four years old. She never romped and played, liked children usually do, but was the quietest little lady I ever saw.

When we lived at that place the forty acres where the boulevard and so many nice residences now are was a common, where our cows and pigs grazed and rooted at their own pleasure. The first house built on that forty was in 1856 by the Macons; the house is there yet, at the southeast corner of Eighth Street and C Avenue. There were three brothers of the Macons, very brilliant and fine-looking men. One was a doctor, the others lawyers. They only lived in Oskaloosa a few years. The house they built was thought to be very elegant at the time. That house for many years was the home of the saintly Mary Jane Cook. Many houses were built in 1854 and 1855, between our house and the town proper. The "Gospel Ridge" schoolhouse was built in 1854, and the first school strictly under school laws was opened in that school-house in the Spring of 1855. There were several candidates for the position of principal. My brother, Calvin W. Pritchard, who had come to visit me among the rest. He was just from Earlham College, Richmond, Indiana. My brother failed to get the place. The successful man was a Mr. Goshorn, who only lived a couple of months. He died in a house which stood where Esquire Weaver lives, corner of Seventh Street and First Avenue. In the course of a year or two many families had built houses and settled about us. Among others was a Mr. and Mrs. John Lacey, who came from Virginia, and for a time occupied a house in our neighborhood. Mr. and Mrs. Lacey were unostentatious, common sense kind of people. Mr. Lacey was a brick layer, by occupation. Oskaloosa was growing so rapidly that Mr. Lacey found plenty to do in his line.

They had three sons-James, John F., and William R. James, the eldest, had not quite reached the age when a boy begins to be called a young man. John and Will were lads in their early teens. Those Lacey boys were bright without being pert. They assisted their, father in his business, and went to the public school when they had a chance. I never heard of their sowing a crop of wild oats, therefore they have not had the necessity of reaping what is generally thought to be an unprofitable crop. Mr. and Mrs. John Lacey were possessed of good principles, good judgment; and were patriotic. When the war of the rebellion came, they saw their sons, James and John F., like many others of Mahaska's splendid young men, march away; filled with the fire of patriotism, to that terrible conflict. James Lacey's young life was sacrificed on the altar of his country. He sleeps in Forest Cemetery, where rest his father and mother, John and Eleanor Lacey. John F. Lacey looks just like his father looked at his age. John F. was only twenty years old when he went to the war. He suffered hunger and thirst and cold and heat and loathsome prisons. He was in many terrible battles, where rebel bullets flew thick around him, but some way he escaped those bullets, and when the war was over he came home all safe and sound, covered with honor. He studied law, was admitted to the bar, and from the first was prosperous in his profession. He didn't wait until he got rich, but went right off and married Miss Mattie Newell, one of Oskaloosa's popular and bright girls. John F. Lacey has gone on from one degree of prosperity and popularity to another through all these years. He was a member of the Iowa Legislature before he was thirty. From the first day his shingle was hung out as attorney-at-law he has been considered one of the most prominent attorneys in the town. He was able to build and furnish an elegant home when elegant homes in Oskaloosa were few and far between. That home to-day is one of the fine places of which Oskaloosa can boast of so many. Not only the people of Mr. Lacey's own town and county love to honor him, but the Sixth District has repeatedly chosen him to represent them in Congress. They have never had reason to, be ashamed of his acts in that responsible position. Mr. and Mrs. Lacey are hospitable almost to a fault and charming entertainers. They are not only that, but are what 'we all understand' to
mean good neighbors. I know what I am talking about when I say they are good neighbors.

Mr. and Mrs. John F. Lacey would get out of bed at any hour in the night, no matter how cold or stormy or sleety, and go, if necessary, to the relief of a sick neighbor or neighbor's child, without seeming to think they had done anything worth speaking of. Wealth, nor honor, nor attention in high places have any power to take that manly and womanly tenderness out of their hearts. They know from experience what it is to be bereft. Four bright and beautiful, and happy children, once filled their home with love and joy and hopes which, come to the hearts of tender and affectionate parents. There were Nellie and Ray and Katie, and Bernice. But death broke into that worthy and happy family. Ray and Katie, within a few days of each other, were taken from their lovely home on earth to Him who said: "Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not, for of such is the Kingdom of God." There is a beautiful spot in Forest Cemetery where two little graves lie side, by side shaded by native forest trees. The birds of many summers have come and sang a requiem over the spot where lie all that is mortal of Ray and "Dumpsie."

Nellie married Mr. James B. Brewster, son of Dr. Brewster, a prominent citizen of Oskaloosa. James B. Brewster is a bright young business man, who from his  boyhood has been a favorite among Oskaloosa's people. Mr. and Mrs. Brewster now live in San Francisco, and from what our soldier boys say, dispense hospitality much on the Lacey style. Bernice is a charming young lady, and is having what girls of her age call a good time in Washington. Mr. and Mrs. John F. Lacey have seen much of our own country, and have twice made extensive tours through Europe, Mrs. John F. Lacey is a talented woman, knows what is going on in the world, and when it comes to state affairs is abont as bright as her hnsband, which is saying a good deal.

A gentleman who was well acquainted with Iowa, her towns and prominent citizens, was once talking to me about the peculiarities of different towns. He said:

"Towns, like people, have each an individuality." Then he went on to say: "Knoxville has more good singers than any town of its size I know. Fairfield has more reading people and reading circles in proportion to the number of its inhabitants, and Grinnell's hobby is temperance." He mentioned a number of other Iowa towns and the habits and tastes of their people. I asked him, "What about Oskaloosa?" "Well," he said, "Oskaloosa has more brilliant and well-informed women and beautiful lawns than any town of its size in the State of Iowa."

There are scores of brilliant and well-informed women in Oskaloosa. Some I have already mentioned in this story, but some I have not mentioned. There is Mrs. Albert W. Swalm. For all-around scholarship, breadth of knowledge", gentle manners, and general level-headedness, she has no superior among all the superior women of my acquaintance, and I know a good many. "The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her, so that he shall have no need of spoil." Her husband, Albert W. Swalm, is a man of whom Oskaloosa's people feel proud. We old settlers remember when his father, after a lingering sickness, died and left a wife and family of small children almost penniless. Albert was a brave boy, not afraid nor ashamed to do anything in his power that was honest and honorable to maintain himself and help his widowed mother. People were not long in discovering that Albert W. Swalm was a boy of more than ordinary ability. He was employed in a printing office, which is a good place for a boy to learn. He went to the war and came home with an honorable record. He engaged in newspaper business, and directly papers from all over Iowa were copying smart things from "Al" Swalm's paper. He was a success in the newspaper business and was a success financially, but his greatest achievement was in winning Miss Pauline Given for his wife. Albert W. Swalm has the confidence and respect of his fellow citizens, and has been chosen to fill many positions of honor and trust. By sheer force of character he has risen step by step until he has been given the position of United States Consul at Montevideo. His letters from that far-away place are full of his old-time, original sayings which strike one where and when they are not expecting to be struck. He always had the faculty of saying things in a way that nobody else ever thought of. Mr. and Mrs. Swalm own one of Oskaloosa's nice and commodious homes, with one of those lawns my friend was talking about. Their daughter and only child, Nina, is a very talented girl, inheriting the level-headed sense of her parents,

Mr. Swalm's house is in a neighborhood of fine houses and fine lawns. There is John Kalbach's and the Seeverses, Will Kalbach's, Will Hawkins', and Mrs. Ninde's charming place all along there. No wonder they call that place "Paradise Block." If I should name all the grand and elegant homes in that part of Oskaloosa, the catalogue would fill a page. To drive by those places when roses are in bloom, and the grass is so evenly shorn that not a straggling spire is to be seen about the roots of any of those fine trees, is a joy. To me it is a joy mingled with sadness. I remember a time when that beautiful place was a field, enclosed with a high staked and ridered rail fence, and my young husband plowed the ground and.marked it off in rows and I followed him and dropped corn. Yes, I have dropped the corn and my husband plowed it and raised a magnificent crop on "Paradise Block" and "Elvyn Place," and where dozens of fine mansions are standing now. That was more than half a century ago. Such beantiful grounds, and homes of snch architectural beauty had never entered my imagination. Two of the finest residences which were in Oskaloosa when I dropped that corn are here to-day and are standing on the same places they stood on then. If any of Oskaloosa's young folks wonld like to see them, I can tell them exactly where they are to be found. One is the first house east of the Salvation Army Barracks, and the other is the first house north of Pickett's drug store, on First Street. I hope those old houses will not be torn down nor moved away while I live, there are so many pleasant recollections connected with them. The house on First Street was owned in the very early days by a Mrs. Wright; her daughter Anna was married to Henry Temple in that house on the 18th of January, 1846, the same day that I was married. Weddings in this region in those days were not attended with much ceremony. But Mrs. Wright went a little beyond the usual custom by inviting quite a number of guests to her daughter's wedding.

But I must go back to the place where I planted corn. I want to tell something more about the Judge Seevers place and its twin, the Ninde mansion. I remember when the Judge Seevers home was the fine place of Oskaloosa, though it was thought to be almost out of town. It was the first house erected in this region with Mansard, or French roof, or approaching modern architecture. When I drove by it not long ago and saw those handsome verandas torn down, and piles of brick on that lovely lawn, I wondered what they wanted to change it for. It had always looked so grand, so solid and so perfect. But the thought came to me, "One generation passeth away and another followeth," with more advanced ideas and tastes. The new generation want new things. Four generations have inhabited that stately home at the same time. James Seevers, the Judge's father, and Mrs. Lee, Mrs. Seevers' mother, occupied honored places in that home far many years, before they were called to a "home not made with hands, eternal in the heavens." I thonght as I drove by of the complimentary things I had heard said, of tenderness and reverence shown that aged father and mother by Judge and Mrs. Seevers and their children. With only a driveway between, the beautiful grounds of the Seevers and Ninde places reach from street to street, in one expanse of well-kept lawn, shaded by fine trees. Mrs. Ninde's residence, like its mate, is well back from the street, and while not quite so elaborate in its architecture, is handsome, commodious, solid, and is the picture of comfort and restfulness.

Henry P. Ninde came to Oskaloosa with his wife and family of small children something over thirty years ago with rather small means, but was just in the prime of life, and was full of energy and the very picture of healthy, vigorous manhood. Mr. Ninde was a fine looking man, rather tall, and had a pleasant word and smile for everybody. He was a worker who not only sought to provide well for his own family but was an earnest promoter of every public enterprise-moral, educational, or financial, for the advancement of Oskaloosa. He worked to locate railroads in Oskaloosa, worked for the perfecting of our public schools, and was a prominent factor in locating and establishing Penn College. I think his daughter was the first graduate from that institution. Although Mr. Ninde labored much for the public good, his heart and affections were in his own home. He loved his family and was proud of them.

Mr. Ninde and my husband were at one time in business together. They were always warm friends and had many confidential talks. One day my husband, on coming home from their office, remarked to me, "Well, I had a long talk with Henry to-day about our families and personal affairs. Henry thinks his wife and children are about right, and I guess they are. He said in our talk to-day, 'If ever a man was blessed with wife and children, I am that man. Every individual member of my family are all that I could desire.'"

Mr. Ninde was quite successful in business. In a few years he was able to purchase the ground and built the fine house I have been trying to describe, and besides he owned many other pieces of property in and around Oskaloosa. To the surprise of everybody that strong man was cut down by death in the midst of his days. On a massive granite block in Forest Cemetery are some words and figures which tell the passer-by when Henry P. Ninde was born and when he died. His son Linden is sleeping near by, and Summer's blossoms shed their fragrance o'er their graves. Linden Ninde gave up his young life in the very bloom of youth, but not before he had shown himself to be a fine business man and a devoted son and brother.

Mrs. Ninde is a lovely lady, interesting and intelligent, honored and respected by her neighbors and all who are favored with her acquaintance. Though bereft of a devoted husband and a devoted son, Mrs. Ninde is blessed with five lovely daughters, everyone of whom a mother might well be proud, and a son whose generous acts and lavish kindness toward his mother and sisters deserve stronger words of praise than I am capable of expressing. I have read in fiction; perhaps, of sons and brothers as generous, capable, and filial. But in real life I have never known but one Elvyn Ninde. He is a great traveller, and has visited and done a successful business in every civilized and almost every uncivilized country on the face of the earth. He has accumulated wealth, and has gathered trophies, valuable, beantifnl, and curious, from every part of every continent and from the isles of the sea. He has spent his wealth lavishly, not only in beautifying and making comfortable and elegant his mother's home, but his given his sisters every advantage of education. After lavishing wealth and luxuries on his mother and sisters until they had all that heart could wish, he turned his attention and energies to improving the town. A park laid out and graded and planted in trees at great expense, a long row of stylish and commodious dwellings with terraced grounds of great beauty, is the result. That part of Oskaloosa which we all admire and feel proud of is veryappropriately named "Elvyn Place."

Dr. M. L. Jackson came and located in Oskaloosa in 1853 when he was a very young man, a dentist by profession. Though he was young he had already, by good business sense, sober habits and industry, acccumulated means sufficient to make a fair start in the little town of Oskaloosa. In 1852 A. G. Phillips, my father-in-law; went to California, leaving four of his younger children, who became members of our family. They were: Joan; James, Sinclair and Louellin. Joan, whom we called "Jo," was a lovely girl, handsome, sweet and womanly. Not long after Dr. Jackson hung out his shingle in Oskaloosa he began to come to our house a courting, and when Jo was only a little more than eighteen years old, on November 1st, 1855, she and Dr. Jackson were married. We were living then in what we called the Charley Blackburn house, which I have already mentioned, and the wedding occurred in the house in which Mrs. O'Hare lives. The marriage ceremony was performed by Rev. Erwin Carson, a Presbyterian minister. Dr. Jackson was a tall, fine-looking man; everybody called him a handsome man. Jo was handsome, too. Though more than forty years have come and gone, I can see her as she looked then, with fair hair, fair complexion, pink cheeks and a pleasant smile. The Dr. and Jo straight away went to housekeeping in a small house a little way up the street, west of our house. That street, which is now A Avenue was then called Liberty Street. The Dr. has always been careful and prosperous in business; has always loved his home and provided bountifully for his family. In a few years he built a beautiful and commodious home on East High Avenue, which at that time was the handsomest place in that part of town, where are so many nice places now. The Dr. took much pains in beautifying his grounds, and Jo was a model housekeeper. Their three sons and two daughters have grown to be men and women in that home; some have married and left the home where they were born, to make homes for themselves. Harry, the eldest, was tall and handsome, with the most pleasing manners.

Some ten or twelve years ago Harry and his brother, Dwight, being seized with the spirit of adventure, went with Elvyn Ninde to Australia: Dwight came home in three or four years full of knowledge and experience, but all that is mortal of handsome, smiling Harry lies buried in an Episcopal cemetery in that far away country.

Gertrude, the oldest daughter, who was idolized by her parents, and had a happy and light-hearted girlhood, married Oscar Green, one of the solid business men of Fort Dodge, Iowa. Oscar and Gertrude have two of the smartest little boys that ever was. They can tell more about the wars our country has engaged in than any boys of their age I ever knew. They are nice boys, and have nice names, Robert and Richard. Gertrude is a model mother, and Oscar is a son that Dr. Jackson is justly proud of.

Dwight and Will are fine looking men, are tall and straight, and are bright and capable business men. The Dr. and Jo traveled life's journey and shared each others joys and griefs for more than forty years. But a time came when that devoted wife and mother went out of that home she had so gracefully adorned, never to return. The husband, whose life from young manhood up had been a life of devoted tenderness to wife and children, was faithful to the end. He and their sons and daughters left nothing undone which love could devise. Lizzie, the youngest daughter and petted child, was untiring in devotion and kindness to her sick mother, and now she alone is left to comfort her father in that home once so full of life.

Dwight and Will have launched out in business for themselves. Will, the youngest, who looks like his father did when a young man, is not married, but Dwight, after waiting until he was bordering on old bachelorhood, married Miss Myrtle Dixon, a young lady possessing many amiable traits of character.

When I think of the time when Dr. Jackson was a young man, there comes to my mind many other young men who were his friends and associates in the days when life looked bright, fame and fortune were just a little way ahead, and death seemed far away. There were Samuel A. Rice and his brother; Elliott Rice, William Loughridge, Joseph F. Smith, William Wells, Dr. Rhinehart, Philip Myers, Dr. Hopkins, John R. Needham, Foster L. Downing, Jesse Loring and John Jones-not one of them of the commonplace or mediocre sort of young men. Whether in a business or professional line, every one made his mark. They were among the men who were the pride of Oskaloosa in her young days. But where are they now? Those young men who started put in life with Dr. Jackson and were his associates in young manhood have, everyone that I have mentioned, joined the great majority. Most of their names can be found carved on marble shaft or granite block in Forest Cemetery, our sacred city of the dead. Their graves have been covered with the grass of many summers and the snows of many winters.

There is a spot in Forest Cemetery where sleeps one who in childhood, on that very spot, with her little brothers ran and played and laughed and gathered nuts and wild flowers. A bending willow grows there now, under whose sweeping branches is a slab of granite whereon is carved:

JOAN PHILLIPS JACKSON, WIFE OF DR. M. L. JACKSON, BORN, AUGUST 9TH, 1837, DIED, MARCH 19TH, 1896.

I have mentioned a good many of Oskaloosa's nice houses, nice lawns, and nice people, but have. only noticed a few in comparison to the number. If I should tell of half the nice places I know with their pretty surroundings, my story would reach a great length.

Mr. L. L. Hull has done much toward making things pretty in and around Oskaloosa. He owns and occupies one of the finest homes on East High avenue, which he keeps in such a high state of neatness and order that it is a pleasure to drive-by and look at it. Mr. Hull owns many houses in town, and all are so well kept that one who knows him and his tastes could drive about the city and pick out the places belonging to him. Mr. Hull brought the first lawn mower to Oskaloosa, and is entitled to the credit of setting the example of beautifying lawns by using that implement. He has been a successful business man. Having come from Virginia to Oskaloosa when a young man away back in the sixties, with only a few hundred dollars, he is now one of the wealthy men of the town. He married Miss Eliza Cobb, grand: daughter of Willard Cobb and niece of Mrs. Dart and Mrs. Street, whom I have mentioned before in this story. Mr. and Mrs. Hull are both fine looking, what one would call distinguished looking persons. Mr. Hull is one of the directors of Forest Cemetery, and has done much toward making that place so sacred to many of us, and the beautiful place that it is. Lena, only daughter and only child of Mr. and Mrs. Hull, was taken from her home on earth to that "house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens;" when a beautiful little girl of ten years. No spot in Forest Cemetery is more lovingly cared for nor more beautifully adorned than the spot where in her marble bed sleeps little Lena Hull. I give Mr. Hull credit, which he justly deserves, for a large share in making things attractive in and around Oskaloosa.

But there is another man who, away back in the early fifties, had the means and the taste and the energy, and had much to do with making "Paradise Block" and Its neighbors the charming places their owners enjoy, and we all admire to-day. That man is Wm. T. Smith. Mr. Smith owned several acres of land in what was then the suburbs of Oskaloosa. He built a house which we thought very stately and elegant, and it was for that day. Mrs. Judge Johnson owns and lives in it now. It is a nice home even in this day of nice homes. We were Mr. Smith's neighbors for about two years, and we thought the land lay about right all around there, just as nature made it. We thought it had about the proper slope and didn't need any digging down or filling up. There was a gentle slope to the west and off to the east it was level. Mr. Smith's house was only a little below the highest point on his land, but he seemed to think it would add to the beauty of his grounds to be leveled up on the west and north. There were no trees there then, only bare prairies. Directly after Mr. Smith moved in his new house, he set a man to hauling dirt and placing it on the west side of his house, and as long as we lived there he kept one team, and sometimes several teams, hauling dirt from the east end of his land and piling it on the west. Month in and month out that dirt hauling went on. I don't think Mr. Smith expected it would be quite such a job when he begun; but after beginning, it was hard to find a stopping-place. I had never seen a private enterprise on quite so extensive a scale. I used to think of the time when I was a child, and watched men digging down hills and filling up valleys in building the national road in Indiana. After Mr. Smith had gotten the grounds about his house sufficiently filled and leveled, he had the place which is now called "Paradise Block" raised several feet higher than it was in its natural state. Then he planted trees all over and around that block. They were beautiful trees, some of rare varieties. He also planted many rare trees about his own home. Mr. Hull, too, may thank Mr. Smith for some- of the rare trees of which he is so proud.

I don't believe that John Kalbach, nor Albert Swalm, nor Henry Wetherell, nor Dr. Crowder, nor James Atchison, nor L. L. Hull, nor lots of others around there are as grateful as they ought to be to Mr. Smith for making Paradise Block and surroundings the high and dry and attractive place they are so proud at One man spends his time, his energies, and his money in planting trees and beautifying grounds-another enjoys the fruits thereof. The dwellers on Paradise Block swing in their hammocks, read their newspapers, and smoke their cigars in the shade of the trees on those fine grounds, just as like as not without giving a thought to the man who planned and made them so charming.

When we lived in the Charley Blackburn house and in the neighborhood of what is now Paradise Block, the street which is now called A Avenue did not reach our place, but merged into the Iowa City road a block or two west of our house, and in order to straighten that street and make it run parallel with High Street the city bought thirty feet off' of our front yard, which made Wm. T. Smith's grounds extend that much farther north. I don't know how Mr. Smith fixed it with the city. A part at least, of Mr. Achison's and Mr. Hull's fine places, was once the Iowa City road. Somewhere near the northwest corner of John Kalbach's fine grounds was a high post on which was a sign informing the traveling public that it was sixty-eight miles to Iowa City. In order that the wayfaring man might know which way to go to reach the capital of Iowa, a hand was painted on the signboard' with the index finger-pointing east.

Our grounds extended west to that little creek or slough with the willow fringed banks. Just across the slough west, was a grassy place of a few acres, all open common, and while we lived there, in 1855 or 1856, Jim Lane, with four hundred men, camped there a day and a night. They were on. their way to Kansas to fight "Border Ruffains." What exciting times those were! Missouri and Arkansas sending men to Kansas to vote and fight for slavery. New England and many of the Northwestern states sending men to Kansas to vote and fight against slavery, or against making Kansas a slave state. But I am not going to talk of politics. I couldn't say anything worth mentioning if I should try. I only wanted to tell that Jim Lane and his men had camped close to our house. I don't suppose that Mr. L. L. Hull knows that an "army with banners" once had their white tents spread over the ground where those nice tenant houses of his are, with their pretty lawns, for that happened long before he came to Oskaloosa.