of Menard and Mason Counties
By T.G. Onstott
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CHAPTER XXXVII Page 345 The original survey of this township was made in 1823, and was known as Town 2, Range 6, West of the third Principal Meridian. It contained thirty-six sections, except a tier of six sections on the north side which were fractional. Section thirty-six in the southeast corner was divided by Salt Creek cutting off about one-third of the section. The northern part of the township is high rolling prairie, once full of ponds and basins, but now drained and in a high state of cultivation. The west and south parts are more broken and the south part, including the Salt Creek bluffs is very much so. Big Grove extends along these bluffs. Here was where the pioneer settlers first made their primitive homes. Lease's Grove in the northwest part of the township contains about two hundred acres, which is still being cleared of the timber for cultivation, and Big Grove is also being contracted. The soil is very productive of all cereals and fruits suitable to the climate, but the crop that is king is corn. In its earliest days wheat yielded a bountiful crop and was the first crop raised on the land. Corn required but little cultivation after being planted and the pioneer spent most of this time in breaking prairie, dropping corn in the third furrow. Corn planted in this way produced a large amount of fodder. The early planted produced good corn, but the late planting was generally caught by the frost and was not good feed and was used for distilling purposes, hence the term of "Sod Corn Whisky," which was applied to the inferior grades as an expression of contempt. The first entry of land was made in the township in 1829 by Leonard Alkers and was a tract of one hundred and twenty acres in section thirty-four, contained in what is now Knox farm, but was not improved until more than twenty years later. In August, 1829, William Hagans entered one hundred and twenty acres, which was afterwards sold to Charles Montgomery. Here near the brick residence built by Charles Montgomery, Hagans built a log cabin, and with his family became a settler in what is now Eastern Mason county. In 1834 James Hagans entered a forty-acre tract and built a cabin where George Short's residence was built. In 1837 John Hagans entered a forty-acres tract where James Montgomery afterwards built a residence. A few years later they all sold out to Ephraim Wilcox and moved West. In 1830 a family by the name of Slinker squatted on a piece of land in the grove northwest, but nothing is known as to where they went. In 1833 a man by the name of Lease settled in the northwest part of the township in a grove which took his name, and it still retains the name. Samuel Blunt, George Wilson and the Moslanders settled at Lease's Grove. Wilson's son Orey committed suicide by hanging himself to a limb of a tree, which was the first case of self-destruction in the township. In 1835 Isaac Engle entered a forty-acre tract afterwards owned by William Anxier. Engle built a cabin. This place was purchased by Edward Sikes in 1837. Sikes had come from Ohio with several families and settled in the grove. A few years later Sikes built a substantial frame house and planted an orchard of the first grafted fruit in the country. In the old log house on this place the first school was taught by one of the daughters of Sikes, now Mrs. S.D. Swing of Mason City, who with her husband settled at Swing's Grove. In 1835 Michael Engle entered eighty acres, afterwards known as the Hume Place, but nothing now remains except where the well stood. A child of John Carter was drowned in the well in the summer of 1849. In 1837 Kinsey Virgin moved out from Ohio and bought the place and built a hewn log house and soon settled down in his new romantic home. He was a stock raiser and was soon in good circumstances, but only one of his family lived to reach the age of majority. Kinsey died in 1852 and his wife two years later. The same year, 1837, George Virgin settled a quarter of a mile west. George was of a domestic nature and employed his time in making home pleasant, not caring for stock nor acquiring all the land around him. He was a large corpulent man and enjoyed life s he went along, letting the future care for itself, though not by any means shiftless or improvident. His wife, whom everybody called Aunt Alley, was a woman of wonderful energy. No sacrifice of personal comfort was too great for her, and she was always doing good to accommodate the people of the community, who had to go to Havana for their groceries. Mr. Virgin, in a house eighty by ten feet, kept a small stock of sugar and coffee and a few of the necessaries of life for sale. We recollect seeing him come to Havana and buy his stock of goods of Walker and Hancock and convey them twenty-four miles by wagon to his home. When the demand increased, he moved fifty yards east of his house and added a general assortment of goods. When this became too small, he built a store house in the little town of Hiawatha. Mr. Virgin's unfortunate death occurred in 1855. The family had been using poison and kept it on the mantle with other bottles. In the night, Mr. Virgin had the colic to which he was subject, and got up and went to the mantle to take some camphor, which he always kept in a certain place. He did not take a light, and took a swallow of the poison. Although the mistake was discovered at once and medical aid summoned, he died from the effects. The widow died of cholera at the old homestead in 1873. They had no children. About this time Rezin Virgin, a brother, entered and improved a farm. In the course of a few years Rezin entered a large amount of land on the north side of the grove, and married the widow of Ephraim Brooner, one of the early settlers of the township. He improved his land and settled down in a log house on the south side of a large pond. From here he moved to a house on his land, a mile farther, where he died in 1872, and his widow died a few years later. Rezin was a man of great energy, though weak physically all his life. He was one of the most peculiar and eccentric men in the whole county. Abraham Virgin, one of the four brothers, settled in 1837 in the eastern part of the grove in a log cabin, the style of the buildings in those days. He engaged in stock raising and farming, and went through the privations of the early times. In 1853 he was afflicted with a malady that made it necessary to send him to the insane asylum at Jacksonville. He was soon restored to his right mind, and lived and directed his affairs until he died with the cholera which swept through this section in 1873. His wife was also taken with the dread disease, but lived until 1877. Aunt Betsey was a great friend to the poor, the sick and afflicted. A year or two later, Abner Baxter, John Young, Ira Halstead and Ira Patterson settled in the southwest part of the township. Young died in 1848, and his widow in 1862. Ira Halstead was a blacksmith and a Methodist preacher, who removed to Wisconsin. Ira Patterson was a justice of the peace and moved to Oregon, and was appointed territorial governor. He lived in a hewn log house at the foot of the bluff below the mouth of Salt Creek. On the place adjoining on the east lived Uncle Jackey and Aunt Hannah Armstrong, who furnished a home for the immortal Lincoln when he was a young man, and it was by the light of their fire that Lincoln stored his mind with a fund of information, in the reading of such books as he could obtain. The gratitude of Mr. Lincoln to this family continued as long as he lived, and was manifested in various ways, even after he became president. In 1857 Duff Armstrong was indicted by the grand jury for a murder at a campmeeting held at Big Grove, and at the trial, Lincoln without a fee, cleared Duff by the almanac, in gratitude for what the Armstrong family had done for him in earlier days. The almanac story has been published from one end of this country to the other. The true story will be found in another part of this book. In 1841 John Swans settled on a forty-acre tract in Salt Creek Bottom, from which Swan's Ford on the Creek south of that place took its name. John Auxier and his brother Eli came out and settled on the north side of the grove. Eli died in 1848. John Auxier was a large feeder of cattle and hogs, and he bought a large tract of land on the east end of the grove, and built a house where the M.E. church was built. He died in 1857. John Y. Lane was one of the first settlers on the prairie west of Mason City, and built a house composed of canvas grass and poles. He lived there a year or so. He was then an old man. He was a Tennessean, and had fought under General Jackson in the war of 1812. When the Petersburg and Tonica railroad was built, Mr. Lane built a large frame house designed for a hotel. John L. Chase lived in the southwest part of the township and was appointed postmaster. The office was then removed from Walker's Grove and the mail was carried once a week from Petersburg on horseback. Sometimes several weeks would elapse before any mail was received, on account of the high waters of Salt Creek. Mr. Chase died in 1856, when William Wamock, who with William Young kept a country store, was appointed postmaster. He moved to Hiawatha and then moved to Mason City. A small cluster of buildings sprung up around Hiawatha, among which was a flour mill and a saw mill and blacksmith shop. Dr. Hall was a prominent physician. They expected the Petersburg and Tonica railroad to strike the town, but alas, their hopes were blasted. Mason City sang the requiem of Hiawatha. The Virgin school house was the voting place for the precinct, and many were the drunken brawls at that place. At this school house religious meetings were also held in which great excitement was manifested and whiskey was dispensed. Peter Cartright used to attend these meetings, and here it was that Duff Armstrong was charged with the murder of Medsear. Here it was that Dr. J.P. Walker, Dr. A.R. Cooper and Dr. Deskins settled. A violent hail storm devastated this country in 1850, and chickens, pigs and sheep were swept from the face of the earth, as with the besom of destruction. Dr. Knox was a prominent resident of the township; also H.C. Burnham George Baxter, Charles Montgomery and many others. Salt Creek township will occupy a prominent place in the annals of Mason county, in its past, present and future history.
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