From a photograph of Rev. William Salter taken in the parlors of the Con gregational Church of Burlington, Ia., April 13, 1906, on the sixtieth anniversary of his pastorate. I JOURNAL OF A MISSIONARY IN JACKSON COUNTY, IOWA TERRITORY, 1843-6 UN NDER a commission from the American Home Missionary Society "to preach the gospel in Iowa Territory," I left my father's house in New York City, October 4, 1843, and arrived at Maquoketa (then Springfield, P. O.) on the 10th of November. In my journey I visited Niagara Falls; spent a Sunday in Buffalo at the home of Rev. Asa T. Hopkins, pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of that city; the next Sunday I was at Milwaukee in the hospitable home of Rev. Stephen Peet, agent of the A. H. M. S. for Wisconsin Territory, who discouraged my going to Iowa, saying that Iowa would not amount to much, as it had only a narrow strip of good land on the Mississippi River, and the Great American Desert was west of it, whereas Wisconsin had Lake Michigan on one side and the Mississippi on the other, and would make a prosperous state. The next Sunday I was at Galesburg, Illinois, having ridden over the prairies from Chicago to that place in an open wagon. The following Monday at sundown I reached the Mississippi and felt the thrill and exhilaration the sight of the great river and of Iowa awakened in my mind. On landing in Burlington the next morning, James G. Edwards, editor of the Burlington Hawkeye, met me and took me to his home. The next Sunday I spent at Keosauqua, on the Des Moines River, and preached in a blacksmith shop, Rev. L. G. Bell, a pioneer preacher of the "Old School," preaching the same day in the same place; thence I visited the Agency and was kindly entertained by the widow of the Indian Agent of the Sacs and Foxes, General Joseph M. Street, and stood over his grave and that of the Indian chief Wapello, which were side by side. The next Sunday, November 5, I received ordination at Denmark at the hands of Asa Turner (Yale, 1827), Julius A. Reed (Yale, 1829), Reuben Gaylord (Yale, 1834), and Charles Burnham (Dartmouth, 1836). I came up the Mississippi with Alden B. Robbins who then began his life-long ministry at Bloomington (afterwards Muscatine), and with Edwin B. Turner, who was assigned to Jones County and to Cascade, in Dubuque County, then the farthest missionary post in the Northwest. Proceeding from Davenport, Turner and myself spent a night with Oliver Emerson in his cabin near De Witt. We found him shaking with the ague. He asked a neighbor who was going the next day with a grist to McCloy's mill to take us along. The journey was slow and we were chilled and weary with the raw winds of the prairie. Reaching the mill an hour after dark we left the grist, and went on to the log house of John Shaw, who made us welcome and we soon lost our chill and weariness in the warm supper Mrs. Shaw gave us. In a part of the house partitioned off by sheets, we found refreshing sleep. The morning showed us that we were upon a gently rolling prairie, about a mile from the junction of the south and north forks of the Maquoketa River and from the long stretch of timber between them. Across the road from Mr. Shaw's was a small log house, banked with sod, the roof partly covered with sod. Built for a blacksmith shop it was used for a school and public meetings. North of it was the cabin of John E. Goodenow, postmaster, eminent for his public spirit and generous nature, a descendant on his mother's side (Betsey White) from Peregrine White who was born on the Mayflower in Cape Cod harbor in 1620. Next north was the claim of Zalmon Livermore. Leaving Mr. Turner to preach in the schoolhouse I went |