Never on Sunday

Chapter XXIX

     The town of Newbern began a century ago when, in 1871, Ransom Davis requested a survey be made for a town.  The late Jesse Moon’s grandfather had founded town in Indiana and had named it Newbern and since Jesse’s father was one of the founders of this new town, it was decided that it too, should be named Newbern.  These forward-looking planners laid it out in the best of Iowa orthodoxy – a town square in the middle, to be centered by a courthouse, surrounded by town lots.  It was hoped that a railroad would come through, but it never did, so a school house was finally built where the courthouse would have been.

     Newbern has the unique distinction of being shared, ostensibly at least, by three counties.  Marion, in which it was platted, Lucas, because some of its citizens lived on the Lucas side and its trading center was Chariton, since it was several miles nearer than Knoxville; and finally, Warren County, where is located the hallowed spot which enfolds its departed loved ones.

Life Stories Dictated

     Col. Warren S. Dungan, Lucas county’s assiduous historian of early days, secured hand-written life stories of many of the early settlers and preserved them.  One volume is in our Chariton Library and the other is owned by Mrs. Arthur Karn.  This writer has been given access to both and from them has drawn absorbing word pictures of the rugged experiences of our “Early American” forebears.   Col Dungan was the father of the late Miss Myra Dungan and Mrs. Edna Culbertson of Minneapolis.

Isaac Cain

     Isaac Cain, father of C.J. Cain and grandfather of Mrs. Ethel Stevenson of Chariton Manor, was one of the very early settlers whose descendants have continued to the present day.  He arrived in 1850, the decade that provided some of the toughest weather on record.  Julien E. McFarland, brother of the late Mrs. Laura Hardin, wrote a book, titled, “The Pioneer Era on the Iowa Prairies”.  This book was loaned to this writer by John Jarvis, Chariton attorney and is soon to be placed in the Chariton Library.  Mr. McFarland states that the rain began early in May and continued through July.  Most rivers were out of banks, 20 to 25 feet above normal.  There were no bridges and the rainfall amounted to 75.6 inches.

     Mr. Cain writes: “The year of 1851 was the year of the flood, disabling all mills.  I and my family had to boil corn on the ear until it was soft then grate it to make our bread for some three weeks.  We had moved into our cabin before it was finished – it was only half floored with hewn puncheons, no chimney, no door and it snowed within two days.  We had no stove nor chimney.”

Joseph Howard

     Joseph Howard was a youth of 17 whose family lived in St. Louis.  He enlisted in the War of 1812, with the Illinois Rangers guarding the settlers against the Indians.  During his first tour of duty, he got his first glimpse of Iowa and liked it.  He said, “If ever the government buys that land, I’m going there.”  He got his chance in 1859.  By this time, he had married and had accumulated enough money to buy some land and had become a minister in the Cumberland Presbyterian Church.  He was the first Postmaster in Newbern.  He was the grandfather of the late Guy Howard who grew up in the Newbern area but went later to southern Missouri where he became the nationally famous “Walkin’ Preacher of the Ozarks”.  In 1945 Guy paid a visit to Chariton and spoke in one of our churches, packed to standing room only.

Isaac Graves

     The life sketch of Isaac Graves casts a spell over the reader.  He writes: “Improving a farm without money or material was slow indeed.  Our cabin was 16 x 16 feet.  In winter we spread carpet overhead to keep out the cold.  We stuck stovepipe out the window on the opposite side from which the wind was blowing.  If this wind changed, we moved the stove to the other side.

     “I hauled out salt from Keokuk, a distance of 160 miles.  This was in 1854 and there were only four log cabins between Newbern and Chariton”.

     “In the fall of 1856, Sam Carpenter and Alex Graves went with me to Eddyville, 40 miles, to mill.  We found it so busy that it was doubtful when our turn would come.  We were advised to go on to Oklahoma but we decided to wait.  This was Friday.  Saturday was colder.  Ice was floating in the river and we were anxious to start back before it closed.  We asked the miller if he would “grind us out on Sunday morning” so we could go back to our families sooner.  He said “I have never done the like and I don’t want to commence now”.  But later he came to us and said he would.

Feed Box a Pillow

     “Next morning the mill was started early and toward evening, we loaded and started home, fording the ice-filled river.  About six miles out we stopped for the night, built a log fire and prepared our supper.  Then we moved the fire, scraped the warm ground, made our bed there.  We took a feed box, placing it for our heads, sleeping with our heads in it, our bodies covered with blankets and slept till morning.  We arrived home that night after an absence of four days.  I have often thought of the kind miller whom we persuaded to violate the fourth commandment but my conscience has never condemned me for persuading him to do it”.

A Straw Tick

     The Graves genealogy, loaned by Mary White, gives this bit of history about the earliest ancestress of all the Lucas County Graves: “Jane Baker (later Mrs. Humphrey Isaac Graves) was a very small child during the intensely severe winter when Washington’s Army was suffering for lack of clothing.  Some of the soldiers came to her father’s home, gently lifted her from her bed, emptied the straw from the tick on which she was sleeping, piled it in a corner of the room, took the tick to make clothing to protect themselves from the cold and placed little Jane Baker on the straw.

Breckinridge

     Dunham Breckinridge was six years old when he came with his family from Scotland to Ohio.  There he grew up and married, then came to English Township in 1854.  One day there came to their door a man with a wife and child, asking to be taken to Chariton as their rig had broken down.  Mr. Breckinridge hitched his oxen to the wagon, tied their buggy on behind and set out on the 12-mile journey.  Suddenly came a sharp change in the weather-a blizzard from the northwest and the air was wild with snow.  When they arrived at Chariton, Mr. Breckinridge was urged to stay all night but he thought he must go home.

     He writes: “It was late and my feet were so badly frozen that I could not remove my boots until I took my knife and ripped them off. My feet turned black.  I sent for Mr. Davis.  He and my wife got turnips from under the floor where we had them buried and made poultices, which relieved the severe pain.  We also used chicken grease on them.  It was a long time before they were well. The nails came off.  The experience of that night has never been forgotten – the dim prairie road, the slow plodding of the oxen”.

James Stout

     In 1849, James William Stout came to the pioneer village of Burlington with 50¢ in his pocket.  He stayed four years, working on farms, rating, steamboating, railroading, chopping cordwood – “anything that was honorable”, always anticipating the time when he could own a farm.  He then moved by ox team to Marion County and entered (40A) near Newbern”.

     “I have gone to the timber many a day and split rails at 50¢ a hundred, made my two hundred rails for the dollar to buy one bushel of corn to take to the mill, but I was glad of the chance to make the dollar and enjoyed my dinner of cornbread and water obtained through a hole in the ice of the creek”.

Calico dresses

     “Money was the one thing that could hardly be obtained, yet with hardships and sacrifices there was a common tie binding us together, regardless of position or ancestry.  All were poor in this world’s goods but were sociable and neighborly.  We went to church in our ox wagons, the men wearing their jeans and the women calico dresses.  They were lucky to have a spare calico dress and the men to have a spare suit.  My wife has taken my jeans when they became threadbare, cut off the legs, turned them around and sewed them back on to make them wear longer.  I have hauled salt from Keokuk and sold it to get money to buy my own salt”.

War

     Then came the war between the states.  Mr. Stout enlisted in 1862 and served three years in Company E 34^th Infantry under Capt. N.B. Gardner and Lt. Col. Warren S. Dungan.  Two of Mr. Stout’s great-grandsons were in World War II – Rex Stout of Chariton and the late Raymond Stout who was in the Battle of the Bulge.  Other great-grandchildren in Chariton are Hewitt, Everett, Beulah and the late Cleo Stout.  Near Gosport Cemetery there is a very large rock bearing a plaque with the names of Robert Millen, David Newman and J.W. Stout.  The plaque states that these men walked from that stone to Knoxville to enlist in the Civil War.

Dunshee

     Soon after the Revolutionary War, two boys, William and Thomas Dunshee, age 18 and 20, came from Ireland to New York, hoping to find employment.  Failing this, the brothers struck out toward what was then the far west, William toward the western regions of New York and Thomas into Pennsylvania.  They never met again.  The family of Thomas eventually moved to Iowa by covered wagon, a distance of some 600 miles.  A son, Thomas Marshall Dunshee married and came to Lucas County in 1868.  These were the parents of Louie Williamson, Charley, whose widow lives in English Township and whose children are the late Etha Green and Estherbelle Karn, William and the twins, Fred and Frank who were long time hardware merchants of Chariton.

     Both reared their families here and George Dunshee and his sister Mrs. Vada Smith live here.  The youngest of that early family was Mable (Clark) whose daughter Dorotha was Lucas County Recorder for two terms, then deputy.  There were two sons, Dwane and Byrle Clark, both of whom made the supreme sacrifice in World War II.  To Thomas Marshall Dunshee, founder of this large family, we are indebted for his careful, hand-written history.

Karn

     Mr. and Mrs. Henry Karn came to Iowa in 1861.  “The team we moved to Iowa with”, writes Mr. Karn, “was a horse 24 years old and a two-year old colt.  The old wagon was worth about eight dollars.  We camped out as did everyone else.  We lived here three years before we were able to buy a cow.  We have never regretted coming to Iowa to live”.  Great-grandsons of Henry Karn are Arthur of English Township and Ulin near Humeston.

Brennaman

     Abram was a young carpenter in Pennsylvania.  While working on a scaffold, he fell 65 feet to a rock pile.  After recovering he came to Iowa and bought 80 acres near Fairfield, which he later traded for a saw mill.  In this transaction he lost half of his holdings but later retrieved it when he traded for 160 acres in Lucas County near Newbern.  This was 1856 and he and his family lived there permanently.  He was the grandfather of Mrs. Lula Dunshee.  Dr. R.B. Brennaman, now of Knoxville and of Abel Brennaman of Chariton.

Now only three

     Today, only three descendants of those early settlers reside in their ancestral town.  Mrs. Anna Graves, Mrs. Rena Hunnerdosse and Amy Norris.  Mrs. Graves’ father owned and operated a general store.  Anna worked with her father from very early childhood.  She said “People brought a pound or two of butter and a few dozen eggs to trade for a pound or two of sugar, coffee or tea.  In the trading, if there was an overage of a few cents they would take it in nutmegs at 1¢ each.  I remember the first canned goods we got – peaches, salmon and sardines”.  “The famous old K.C. baking powder was 25¢ for 25 ounces and an advertisement said, “Food baked with K.C. tastes good, smells good and loos good”.  Overalls were $1 and a pair of socks cost 25¢”.

The Town Grew

     Newbern had a hotel, two general stores, two drug stores, a post office a blacksmith shop, a carpenter shop and a steam-powered grist mill.  It had a telephone switchboard that was operated for almost half a century by Mary Baker Hunnerdosse.  The two-story brick building is still standing (but vacant), which was built by W.H. Worley, father of the late Mrs. Neil Dunshee.

     Worley operated a store in a frame building but hauled brick for the new building rom the Raut brick yard with a pair of ponies and a grocery wagon several miles and which necessitated fording Whitebreast Creek.

     Some years later Mr. and Mrs. John Stierwalt operated this general store.  They were the last merchants of Newbern.  Mrs. Stierwalt,, sister of George Shounkweiler, was born, grew up and was married in the same house near Newbern.

     Vernard Oxenreider loaned to this writer a collection of mementoes, among which is receipt dated 1873 in the amount of $5.50 paid on 40 acres of land.  Other memoranda reveal that standard wages were one dollar a day for stacking hay, chopping wood, hauling rails and working on the bridge.

     Rena Hunnerdose is a great-granddaughter of Joseph Howard.  She said: “The first church in Newbern was Cumberland Presbyterian, founded in 1869, but worship services had been held in homes long before that.  “Later two other churches were established – the Methodist and the United Brethren.  Later the three were merged into a Federated Church, which has rendered continuous service to the community to the present time.

     The late Dr. A.L. Yocum, Chariton’s long time physician surgeon, was born in Newbern in 1886.  His father had started practice there after graduation from Keokuk Medical College.

     In that day, a young doctor had to start his practice in a small town.  Years later the family moved to Chariton where father and son practiced medicine together.  In 1922-23, Dr. Albert Yocum built his own hospital, which he operated until 1968.

Pages 120-126