Reminiscences

Geo. A. Jewett

Pella celebrates its seventy-fifth anniversary just as I am also
celebrating my seventy-fifth anniversary. I was born on the 9th day of
September, 1847, in Red Rock, but twelve miles away from Pella. My
father, George Enoch Jewett, and my mother, Patty Matthews Jewett, were
both born in Lake county, Ohio, and came to Henry county, Iowa, in 1838,
coming with their parents and their brothers and sisters. My father and
mother were married in Henry county in 1839. My grandfather, David Lewis
Jewett, and my father, George Enoch Jewett, and my grandfather, Osee
Matthews, and two of his sons, Reuben Matthews and Simpson Bell
Matthews, were all present at the treaty with the Sac and Fox Indians,
which was made at Agency in the fall of 1842 with Keokuk, the celebrated
Indian chief. This treaty stipulated that the Indians should give up
their land as far west as the red rocks on the Des Moines river and
beyond that was to be Indian territory until October 10, 1845. These red
rocks are just above the town of Red Rock, where I was born and where I
have often played when a boy.

My father and mother and my grandparents, May 1, 1843, moved up into
Marion county, and settled on Lake Prairie, and in 1846 they sold out to
the Holland colony and moved on up to Red Rock, where I was born the
following year, 1847. I have often heard my mother tell of the early
days in Marion county, when the Indians were their neighbors.

The first election in Marion county was held at Lake Prairie the first
Monday in October, 1843, in which my grandfather, Osee Matthews, and his
two sons, Reuben and Simpson, and my father, Geo. E. Jewett,
participated. There was an Indian village near their claim which was
called Keokuk's town. In the spring of 1845 a meeting was held to
organize the county; it was held at the home of Nathan Bass; my family
was represented at this meeting by my grandfather, Osee Matthews, and
his three sons, Reuben, Simpson and Homer, and by my father, George
Enoch Jewett. Red Rock wanted to be the county seat, as it was on the
river, but the flood of 1851 destroyed all hopes of that, as many people
were forced to leave the town. My uncle, Reuben Matthews, wanted to call
it Center county, but the name Marion prevailed, and June 10, 1845, the
legislature at Iowa City so named it. The first postoffice in Marion
county was on Lake Prairie, 1845; the first white child born in Marion
county was my cousin, Amanda Lenora Alfrey. My uncle, Osee Matthews,
Jr., built the first saw mill in Marion county, in 1846, on Mixel's
creek, back of Red Rock. My uncle, Simpson Bell Matthews, built the
first flour mill in this section of the state in 1854 at Red Rock.

I can remember as a boy hearing of the project of building a college at
Pella and in 1857 my mother decided to remove to Pella that she might
place myself and my older brother, Homer, in this school. I remember
well this removal. I was walking along behind the wagon which contained
our household effects and I remember just as well as if it was but
yesterday, a man on horseback met us and he asked me, "Where are you
moving to, bub?" and I recall with what pride I answered to Pella to go
to school. It was an event in my young life.

So we removed to Pella. Our first home was just north of the college
campus, the northwest corner, in a little frame house. This was the
first time I had ever gone that far and I remember Pella now as it
looked to me, then a boy of ten, a good many brick houses, some log
houses, I thought it was a wonderful place and as I looked at the
college building it seemed an immense affair, I could easily have been
convinced that it was the largest building in the whole world. It