CHAPTER IX

ALONG THE RAILROAD LINES, 1866-1869

FROM the beginning the Pilgrims of Iowa, with some poetic license, could take up the song of Whittier's "Kansas Emigrants":

Our Pilgrims came to Iowa with the high purpose of the Pilgrim fathers in their hearts, but until about the sixties "common schools" and "Sabbath bells" on "distant prairie swells" were out of the question, for the open prairies were not considered, as indeed they were not then, fit places of abode. In early times an exploring party from Burlington gave it as their opinion that the prairie about Danville would never be settled! Passing on further out they found streams running toward the West and concluded that they had struck the waters of the Missouri! Much later Father Turner said, 'Probably western Iowa will never amount to much. They say the timber gives out a little beyond Oskaloosa."

From the beginning, in 1833, up to 1856, the settlements were along the streams which afforded wood and water and shelter from the fierce Northwesters of the winter. Wood, water and windbrakes located the population of early Iowa;

but in 1856 the railroads, beginning to push across the state, began to determine the location of the new settlements, and a good many other things, and to shift settlements already started; and from 1856 until now, the railroads have largely determined the locations of our churches.

It hardly need be said that the war pretty effectually put a stop to railroad building. The Chicago, Burlington and Quincy halted for a time at Ottumwa, but reached Albia in 1865. In 1865 the Rock Island got as far west as Kellogg. The Northwestern during the war time wormed itself along from Marshalltown to Boone. The Illinois Central for a time rested from its extensions at Cedar Falls, but in the fall of 1865 was at Ackley.

Now, in 1866, the Burlington, the Rock Island and the Northwestern were making all possible speed to reach the Missouri. Churches were springing up along all the lines and the regions contiguous, the churches, for the most part, keeping a little in advance. It need not be said that the roads were friendly to the church planting and church building enterprises. The following is in a letter from a Superintendent of Home Missions:

One at least of our railroads seems to be a sort of auxiliary Home Missionary Society. Not only do its directors accord to our missionaries the privilege of riding at half-fare, but its depot buildings along the whole line are used, or have been, as places for holding religious services on the Sabbath. The road referred to is the Mississippi and Missouri Railroad (the early name for the Rock Island). I preached a few weeks ago to a crowded audience in the passenger room in the depot at West Liberty with a flour barrel surmounted by a cheese-box for a pulpit.

This was nothing exceptional. Literally hundreds of depots in Iowa have been used for religious services.

Reuben Gaylord, who had Western Iowa as a part of his home missionary bishopric, returning to Council Bluffs after a tour of exploration up the Boyer Valley in anticipation of the Northwestern Road, wrote:

The Union Pacific Railway is now built two hundred and sixty miles and will get half way to the mountains before winter. The Northwestern is completed to Dennison, and will reach this place by spring. The track is begun on the Council Bluffs and St. Joseph Road, and will be finished in twelve months. Mr. Phelps, who is the head man of this road, offers to head a subscription paper with one hundred dollars for the support of Rev. F. M. Platt, for six months, to labor in a field along the line of the road in the Missouri Bottom. He also offers a lot in Bartlett, and five hundred dollars toward the building of a church, providing that one thousand dollars more can be raised.

As here predicted the Northwestern did reach the Bluffs in the spring of 1867; the "Q" was only a few months behind, and the Rock Island arrived in 1869. The speed of these three roads "on the home stretch" is accounted for by the fact that the Union Pacific and the Central Pacific had effected a junction, thus forming a through line to the coast, and each road was anxious to secure its share of the western traffic. Writing about this time from Council Bluffs, Julius A. Reed says: "One railroad has reached the Missouri; a second will reach it in a few weeks; a third and a fourth within a few months, and possibly within five years a sixth and a seventh, all, in connection with the Union Pacific competing for the trade of China and Japan. We have already one thousand, five hundred miles of railroad in operation, and it is certain that in ten years, all parts of Iowa will have easy access to markets and our largest prairies will be sought for cultivation." Mr. Reed had at last come to the conclusion that the prairies of Iowa will be inhabited.

Father Hurlbut of Ft. Atkinson writes: "As I sit in my study, morning, noon, and evening, I listen to the whistle of the cars as they bear their heavy burdens from the Father of Waters to Calmar, five miles from us, and to Conover, eight miles away, and the present terminus of the road. The sound of that whistle is a most welcome and cheering sound, not because it quickens the zeal of some active financier and promotes the interest of commerce merely, but because,

with all its faults, it bears along to us a sanctified civilization. Am I weak because my ear, so often saluted with profane oaths and blasphemies, is delighted with that whistle? The old rubbish is passing away, and new and better materials are coming in."

The new churches of 1866 were as follows: Boonesboro, Big Rock, Rome, Clinton, New York, Belle Plaine, Nashua, Webster and New Jefferson. This was the Jefferson of Greene County then called New Jefferson by our people because they had a Jefferson church in Jefferson County. Clinton is in a special way a creation of the Northwestern road. Leaving Lyons in the lurch by crossing the river three miles below, a division station was established there, around which has gathered a city of ten thousand inhabitants. Belle Plaine has been a "Railroad town" from the beginning, and the church has been largely composed of the families of "railroad men."

Boonesboro church began to be because the Northwestern was passing by. Previous to the organization, Superintendent Guernsey had prospected the field. He inquired of every man he met whether there were any Congregationalists in the place. He might as well have spoken in an unknown tongue. They did not know what a Congregationalist might be; never heard of such a thing. One man thought there was such a congregation in town but it turned out to be a band of "seceders." At last a Congregationalist was found. He had come from Massachusetts by way of San Francisco. Sunday morning he went through the streets crying out at the top of his voice: "Congregational preaching at the Methodist church today at eleven o'clock." The people turned out in large numbers and soon a church was founded. Rev. O. C. Dickerson was for many years the pastor.

The Nashua church was started by the Bradford pastor, though this was the death knell of the Bradford church, five of the eight charter members coming from Bradford, because the Illinois Central was headed up the Cedar, and

Nashua, at the crossing of the river, was sure to be a station on the road.

The Iowa News Letter reported a church organized at Iowa City this year, July 31, with eighty members, fifty-five of these coming, with their pastor, Rev. J. A. D. Hebard, from the New School Presbyterian church, and twenty from the defunct Congregational church of the place; but Doctor Bullock, pastor of the church for eleven years, contends that the Congregational church was not defunct, and that the reorganization in 1866 did not disturb the "historic continuity" of the church, and that the proper date of the organization is that recorded in our Minutes, November 26, 1856. The reorganization was recognized by a council, Doctor Cochran of Grinnell, moderator, and Doctor Magoun of the college preaching the sermon.

The dedications this year, 1866, were numerous, and they were mostly along the railroad lines. Rockford dedicated June 21, a building costing about two thousand dollars, Superintendent Guernsey preaching the sermon. Iowa Falls dedicated a fine stone building August 16, Mr. Guernsey assisting at this service also. This old building forms a part of the present structure. October 7, Ames dedicated; and J. B. Grinnell was present and made a donation of twenty-five dollars to help pay last bills; and the last bills were paid. Tipton dedicated December 9, a four thousand dollar building, Doctor Roy of Chicago preaching the sermon. December 19, Monona dedicated, Rev. S. P. Sloan of McGregor preaching the sermon. The building is 34 x 50, and the cost $3,200. December 23, Earlville dedicated, Superintendent Guernsey officiating, the cost of the building, two thousand dollars.

There were dedications this year, also, at Ft. Atkinson, Father Joseph Hurlbut pastor, and at the Dubuque German church. The building at Grinnell was enlarged for the third time, its measurements now being 50 x 90; and the church membership had gone beyond the three hundred mark.