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About 1870 a man by the name of James Courtney came to our community from eastern Ontario, with his wife and family of five boys and one girl, Sary. He was of Scotch-Irish descent, leaning strongly to the Irish, born probably on the old sod. He was about middle age, slovenly in dress and habits, but ambitious and strictly honest. His wife, Diantha, was a sister of the Nichols men before mentioned. Courtney had been a hired man, a trapper and all purpose man in a new timbered country, but had no fixed abode. His boys were all young men from ten to twenty years old and like him had grown up rough, profane, and mischievous, but honest.

This man purchased an eighty acre tract of land cornering on father’s. It was rolling, with a few scattered trees on it that had escaped the ravages of the fire. He built a small house, different from any we were used to. It was boarded up and down, with a layer of clay lining about four inches thick. Above was a floored garret for the four boys at home. Then he bought from John McCain the last pair of oxen in the neighborhood, Buck and Bright, and with the aid of his boys broke the ground, taking three years to complete this work. This farm was the only place the writer ever saw wheat cut with a cradle.

The wife and mother lived only a few years and died of cancer after which the father “kept batch” with some of the boys a year or two until they got into a dispute about something and he fired them. They made arrangements to go to Chadron, Nebraska, at that time as far from settlement as possible, but before they left, to make things look well and leave the father in grateful remembrance, they sawed off three of the best apple trees that were just nicely bearing.

Courtney, while not a drunkard, would once or twice a year get ‘roarin’” drunk for a few days. He was not of the fighting Irish, but funny, and he pulled off many queer stunts. At all times he was profane and foul-mouthed and would keep men and boys in an uproar and the women and girls guessing whether to frown or laugh.

He had a neighbor by the name of Richard Slocum, (a brother of W. S. Slocum mentioned earlier) , a Connecticut Yankee. Slocum was very nervous and to make things worse, the first year he was there his team ran away, hit a tree, wrecked the wagon, and all but killed the man, so that he was a physical wreck for the rest of his life and often called on Courtney to help him with work.

On one occasion they were butchering. Slocum brought with him a block and tackle and three pulleys, but the rope had rotted from neglect and wear. The hog was heavy and after it was scalded and swung up and Courtney was engaged in dressing it the rope broke and the hog fell into the mud and dirt. It was hard to tell who swore the most, but Slocum’s squeaky voice carried the farthest.

Several years afterward, through exposure and old age, Courtney died. His children being out of the country, the neighbors took charge of the burial. During life he had no connection with any church nor any regard for religion of any kind, yet he had been honorable in his business dealing and had accumulated some property. The old neighbors felt they owed him a civil burial so they got the North Madison schoolhouse and one Asahel Bronson from Wyoming to act as minister. The congregation sang the hymns. For his sermon text the preacher took the words, “If ye will not repent ye shall die in your sins.” Our Aunt Esther Pangburn said he just preached the dead man into Hell.

The Reverend Bronson had been in his younger days a regularly ordained Methodist preacher in Wyoming County, New York. Failing in health, he came to Wyoming, Iowa, in 1859, following his cousins, James A. Bronson, and a brother B. K. Bronson, who founded the town of Wyoming in 1856. He was small in stature and had a great deal of energy. In Iowa he soon gained his health and was for years a regular preacher in the Upper Methodist Conference and filled many appointments. Finally he settled in Wyoming and lived a retired life, filling many small offices and preaching in the neighboring schoolhouses where there was no church within walking distance. He lived to be ninety-six years old and no man ever lived in the county so universally loved and honored as he. He married more couples and preached more funeral sermons than any other preacher of any creed in the county. The writer remembers hearing him remark in the middle nineties before he made the opening prayer at a Fourth of July celebration in Wyoming: “I can say what no other man in this large gathering can say, I am 88 years old today, My father fought in the Revolutionary War.” His voice was then strong and had no tremble. The worst roughneck never swore in his presence, just from the universal respect he carried with him in all gatherings.

Another character in the neighborhood was John Brutsman, a grandfather of the wife of the writer. He was a Pennsylvania Dutchman from Wyoming County, who had come to Dixon, Illinois, in the forties and was there during the later days of Peter Cartwright and the Methodist crusade. His wife had joined the Methodists but he had been raised a Quaker, though he had not worked at it much, and he hated the Methodists among other things. After he came to Madison Township in 1866, he bought a tract of timber on North Mineral Creek, about ten miles from his home, for firewood and fencing. The dealer showed him a very good piece of timber, but deeded him another with scarcely any good timber on it. At this time timber land was worth four time as much as prairie land and there were no plats scattered about as there are now. Only the surveyor’s notes at the courthouse were available. Brutsman paid for the land and soon commenced to cut and haul logs from the land he had been shown.

It happened, however, that a man by the name of J. Stunkard lived in the neighborhood of the timber and owned the patch being cut. He became aware of the cutting and traced it to Brutsman, who readily admitted he had cut the trees and explained how he had purchased the land. As a result Brutsman and Stunkard got together to fix matters up. Stunkard invited Brutsman and his boy, Jim, to dinner before they went to survey the cutting that had been done. He was a Methodist and as the custom was, he asked the blessing before the meal. In those days the plates were put on the table up-side-down over the knives and forks. After the meal Brutsman took his son, Jim, out by the wagon and remarked: “Did you see that old cuss reading that little verse of his plate?” But the affair was adjusted and Brutsman found his own timber.

Among our neighbors were Phil and Margaret Allberry. They were fine people but very illiterate and Phil was a strong Democrat. He told my father during the Civil War that Lincoln had no right to abolish the writ of hocus pocus (habeas corpus). In clearing his farm of trees he would fasten a chain around the tree as high as he could reach, hitch the oxen to the other end of the chain and while he was digging and chopping the roots he would urge the oxen to pull. The Allberys were great eaters and Margaret always had a cupboard filled with good things. Occasionally when my folks were going to Wyoming they would leave some of us at the Allberys. Margaret would always give us so much to eat that we were usually sick for several days afterward.

Our neighbors generally did not take to education as we did but though they were ignorant, they developed the community, paid their way, and could be relied on to do their full duty when the nation was in danger and Lincoln called for soldiers to defend it.

Then as now, there were some very small-souled men. We had two of them in our community, whose names I will not mention. A death was near in each of their families. Both of them scoured the county before the death to see where he could get the cheapest coffin.

The earliest settlers of our community were mostly Yankees, the few foreigners who were there being mostly Germans, among whom were my mother’s folks, the Krouses.

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Last updated on Friday, 16-Apr-2021 16:54:39 MST