The Palimpsest

Volk, Stephen

The Ice Harvest

The Palimpsest, vol.62 no.2, March-April 1981

Harrington, Jerry

English

Senator Guy Gillette Foils the Execution Committee

Fredericksen, Mary K

The Grasshopper Wars

Mansheim, Gerald

Louis Sullivan in Iowa

Fuller, Steven J

Index for 1980

The Palimpsest, vol.61 no.4, July-August 1980

Eckey, Lorelei F

Pilgrims of the Impossible

Horton, Loren N

*
THE CHARACTER 
OF THE COUNTRY
Edited By 
Loren N. Horton
In the fall of 1876, British land agent Janies 
Lonsdale Broderick travelled to Dubuque to 
visit friends and relatives who had emigrated 
from England to northeastern Iowa in 
previous years. The 35-year-old Broderick 
made his home in S waled ale, in northern 
England, where his family had been 
prominent for many generations. The 
transplanted Englishmen who entertained 
him in Dubuque felt a strong sense of ethnic 
cohesiveness in their new country, 
particularly in their distinctive dialect and 
maintenance of extended family ties. 
Broderick's travel journal, published by the 
Society in 1976 under the title The 
Character of the Country, describes in detail 
the progress of these English emigrants and 
much more besides. The journal includes 
observations of American manners, frontier 
enterprise, and local personalities which 
provide a refreshingly candid view of 
nineteenth-century life in Iowa. The excerpts 
from The Character of the Country 
reprinted here cover some of Broderick’s 
activities in Iowa during the winter and 
early spring of 1876-1877. Original spelling 
and punctuation have been retained 
th roughout.
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SATURDAY, DECEMBER 9. The thermometer at 
11 o’clock this morning was 10° below Zero and 
in the morning the paper states as low as 21 
below Zero. We took a walk in the afternoon 
across the ice on the Mississippi to Dunleith, a 
small town opposite to Dubuque, where there 
were about 350 hogs standing shivering, wait­
ing till a road of ashes was made across the ice, 
across which they were to be driven to be 
slaughtered. I am told that a pig on slippery ice 
once down lies perfectly helpess, and there is 
an ironical saying here, viz “as independent as a 
hog on ice. Wagons and horses were crossing, 
and the Ferry boat was frozen in for the 
Winter. The river is about % of a mile wide, the 
ice in some places very smooth, in others very 
rough, especially on the margins of each night’s 
freezing where heaps of floating ice have been 
frozen together. We went to the top of the 
Dunleith bluffs in order to get a good view of 
Dubuque, &c. Dubuque looks very fine from 
this point. It occupies a sort of semicircle by the 
side of the river worn out by the water at some 
former period, and the cliffs behind are more 
than half covered with buildings, &c. At the 
south end of the town lies the Irish quarter, and 
there are some poor little shanties in it and 
nothing fine in its best parts. The business part 
of the town lies in the middle. The stores are 
mostly 3 stories high with a cellar underneath; 
the usual frontage of each store 2 2 ^ 2  feet and 
113 through to the alley behind. A block of 
buildings is about 270 ft. front by 113. The 
western portion of the town is nearly all Ger­
man. Their houses are better by far than those 
ol the Irish, but not so good as those of the 
Americans and English which are principally 
situated on the cliffs and slopes behind.
The Mississippi bends like an S seen from 
behind, thus includingto the left looking North 
and also to the left looking south. Mr. W.
[ James Woodward, Broderick s travelling com­
panion] forgot his overshoes, and consequently 
his feet became cold, mine remaining quite 
warm. My breath falling on my beard made it
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132 T he Palimpsest
quite white and icy, through freezing on, and 
there was no means of getting it off except by 
the heat from a stove; some young ladies smiled 
as 1 passed them, and I remarked afterward 
that I was in danger of being frozen in.
FRIDAY, DECEMBER 22. At nine in the morning 
I met Mr. Herod at the nearest School, oppo­
site Mrs. Marsh s house, and he introduced me 
to the teachers. He had brought his sleigh, so 
we drove from School to School till we had 
finished them all, ten in number, and 1 was 
introduced to all the teachers mostly young 
ladies, about 60 altogether. Mr. Herod did not 
forget to tell them that I was a bachelor from 
Yorkshire, on a visit to this country. Several of 
the young ladies were very handsome, and on 
an average taller than those in England. They
were all very polite, asking me to take a seat, 
how I liked the country, glad to make my ac­
quaintance, hoping to see me again, &c. The 
schools are large, having a master as principal, 
the remainder being Ladies. The poor little 
negroes have a school for themselves. There 
was only nine of them taught by a lady; they 
sang for us, keeping good time and well in tune.
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 15. We went down town 
as usual and got tickets for the Evening lecture 
by the escaped nun, whom we went to hear 
relate her experience in Convent life. Her
name is Miss Edith () Gorman, who was 6 years✓
in a Convent in fersev City, and was verv un- 
kindly treated there and most miserably de­
ceived in her expectations. Having given up all 
her wealth and becoming a Sister of Charity,
I he sitting room of Mrs. Anna Marshs house in Dubuque, 
(courtesy Dubuque County Historical Society)
where Broderick stayed during his visit
T he Palimpsest 133
Dubuque's Main Street in the Civil War era (SIISI)
found that she was merely a slave to the caprice 
of her Superioress and the priests. She had 
known as may as six nuns in love with the priest 
at one time, and he the ugliest man imaginable. 
It was to save her honour that she fled the 
convent. At night it appears that the vow of 
obedience must be obeyed no matter how ab­
surd or humiliating the consequences may be. 
The sin, they are told, if there is any, rests with 
those in authority. She told us what the com­
mands of the Church are, and principle of 
which seems to be obedience, to break which is 
eternal damnation. She spoke remarkably well. 
During the Lecture a cry of “fire’ was raised by 
some one in the Gallery, and many of the audi- 
ence were very much alarmed. However most 
of them kept their seats. Miss O’Gorman bade 
them sit down, saying that it was not the first 
time that this cry had been raised to prevent
her speaking. One man called out “it’s only a 
Catholic fire’’ which had the best effect possible 
in allaying the alarm. She says she runs the risk 
of losing her life every time she stands before 
the public and that she has been fired at, a 
bullet h aving passed through her hair. She is a 
good looking young woman of about 30 and is 
now a Protestant. She will give another lecture 
tomorrow, to Ladies only, in which she will still 
further reveal the immorality of the priests and 
nuns.
SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 18. We went to the Wes­
leyan Church in the morning and heard Mr. 
Rhea preach. He attributes the mortality of 
man to the fall of Adam who he supposes was 
the first man and thinks that mankind might 
have all gone to Heaven like Elijah. He does 
not appear to know that it can be distinctly
134 T he Palimpsest
proved by Geologists that man has existed on 
the Earth for hundreds of thousands of years.j
After dinner we went to Centre Grove and had 
tea with George Reynoldson and his 3rd wife. 
There was one of his married daughters there 
and Thos. Metcalfe. Geo. Reynoldson says that 
both his grandfathers used to say for “shut the 
door “spear that dewr this is a word I never 
heard used. The roads were dry in some places 
and in others very muddy. Thos. Metcalfe was 
talking about the grass hoppers-“ Locusts’- 
which he saw when he was working for John 
Clarkson at Marcus. They eat up every thing, 
even clothing and come in clouds; they depos­
ited their eggs about an inch deep in the 
ground. They were so numerous on the rails 
that the wheels of the engine turned round 
upon the rails, and the train was stopped by 
them. They will bite sometimes and are very 
strong and muscular and about the size of a 
“tengalether [dragon fly].
\\ EDXESDAY, APRIL4. Mr. Spensley hitched up 
a light wagon with two horses, early in the 
morning, and drove us out to see Matthew 
Willis and h is farm. The roads were excessively 
muddy all the way. In some of the “meanest’ 
places we were almost up to the hub in it and 
apparently in danger of throwing over. Mr. 
Willis has a very fine farm of470 acres, besides 
some 40 or 80 acres of timber at a distance. His 
land looks well-tilled and clean, but his house 
and outbuildings are nothing more than an old 
rookery. In fact when Mr. Spensley stopped 
the team at the house, it is a fact, 1 had not the 
slightest idea that it was a dwelling. I thought it 
was an out-building of some kind. It was raining 
fast, so we got inside as soon as possible. The 
old gentleman and his sons and daughters 
made us very welcome. They t(X)k us into the 
parlour and cooked us a good dinner. The 
Young W illis that was in Wensleydale two or 
three years ago did not remember having seen 
me before, though I met him three times be­
fore. We passed several other good farms of
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first rate quality. I'he land was rolling Prairie, 
like that we saw near Winthrop, Iowa. We 
called at a very good lead and zinc mine and 
went down the shaft on ladders of 12 feet each, 
each terminating and resting upon a little plat­
form. The work is drawn up by two horses up 
the other part of the shaft. The mineral lies in 
two beds, like coal, one at the top of about 7 feet 
of limestone the other at the bottom. The 
upper seam is all lead ore, the other lead and 
zinc. They blast all this 7 feet of rock clean out 
and cast it away behind, the width taken out 
being about 40 or 50 yards. It is astonishing 
how the roof keeps up. They bore for blasting
T he Palimpsest 135
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ay Island and the Iron Bridge over the Cedar River in Cedar Rapids (A.T. Andreas, Historical Atlas of Iowa)
( blowing ) with a machine driven by com­
pressed air, forced from a distance outside in 
iron pipes by a steam engine. They fire all the 
holes at once by electricity. We saw them bor­
ing and should have heard the blast, but there 
was something wrong with the battery or some­
thing and it did not fire the holes. In returning 
we met two ladies driving a team through the 
mud like ourselves; although the ladies in the 
country are poor walkers, yet they deserve 
great credit for the dashing manner in which 
they can handle a team.
IHURSDAY APRIL 12. The whole of this wild
land is so even and has such a gentle slope that 
we could safely drive at a trot over any part of it 
except where there is an occasional boulder or 
swampy hollow. I noticed one large granite 
block, covering as much ground as the bottom 
of a hay stack, which was split in the middle, 
the upper half being slid considerably off to­
wards the south but still resting partly on the 
under half, though the fracture had not nearly 
sufficient slope to warrant the supposition that 
it could have slid off without great force being 
used, probably the pressure of a glacier. Taken 
all together this is a very fine tract of land and 
well situated; from the highest parts there is a
. /
* - 1
136 T he Palimpsest
very wide view in every direction as far as the
* j
eye can reach, and the landscape is far from 
being unpleasant. At from $8 to $10 per acre 
this land would he a very good bargain I think.
We returned in time to catch the freight cars 
and went forward to Waterloo, a thriving town 
further west. We had prairie all the way nearly. 
The frogs which have just come out were mak­
ing an awful noise near Independence in the 
sloughs. Beside the river the soil is mostly of a 
sooty-looking black. We saw numbers of prairie 
fires all of limited extent on account of most of 
the land being under cultivation. We rode in 
the upper seats of the conductor’s car and could 
see over the top of the train. Some “Bummers” 
were busily engaged playing cards and chewing 
tobacco. They seemed to enjoy themselves
immensely. A Bummer is what is called in
¥
England a “Traveller.’ We had a fine sunset. It 
was darkening fast when we got to Waterloo, 
where we had supper and stayed all night. We 
saw the town by gas-light. It seems to be a 
thriving place with good waterpower in the 
Cedar River. Two Corn Mills and a factory 
were at work.
FRIDAY, APRIL 13. We got up in the m o rn in g  at 
about 1 o’clock and took the cars for Cedar 
Rapids. As we approached this place, the sce­
nery was pretty along the banks of the river 
which are rather low. Cedar Rapids is a very 
fine country town, on the Cedar River, with 
good water power. I noticed no less than 5 
bridges across the river, one or two of them 
being Railway bridges. One bridge crosses 
over an island in the river; there were two 
houses and quite a number of trees on the 
island. The river is between 3 & 400 yards 
wide. The houses are many of them very good, 
and streets being very wide. One of the main 
streets was 1 (K) feet across. None of them were 
macadamised, the soil being composed of sand. 
Several railroads terminate or cross here. I he 
flood plain of the river is very fine land, level 
and broad; behind are low hills and woodland 
and further back lies the prairie lands, all set­
tled and worth from 28 to 35 dollars per acre, 
we were told. Quite a large number of f*Iie 
trees were left growing in the streets; there was
T he Palimpsest 137
A Jones County stone quarry (A.T. Andreas, Historical Atlas of Iowa)
a large public square and several fine churche 
and several new buildings were being erecte* 
Some of the side walks were of stone. We sa 
some boys fishing and went to see what the 
had caught. I hey had some suckers whic 
weighed from 1 to 3 pounds each. We inquire 
how many kinds of fish there were in the rive 
One of them said we have salmon, bass, pik< 
suckers, catfish, eels, &c. Mr. Woodwai 
asked if there were any codfish; they said No 
but one of them rather less than the other, sai< 
“There are plenty of whales.” I asked, “Don 
they sometimes knock the boat over?” “Soim 
times they do, he said. I he weather is vei 
fine, quite hot in the middle of the day but col 
in the morning, with no feeling of damp but di 
and sharp. Awhile after dinner we again toe 
tickets for Dubuque. We passed the quarries < 
Anamosa where they have a jail and work tli 
convicts, who are all dressed, conspicuous] 
and alike. Quite a number were at work; thre
sentinels stood off at a distance with rifles ready 
to shoot, in case of mutiny or attempt to escape, 
fhe stone they get is a light buff-colored lime­
stone, with fine cleavage and is taken up in 
large sizes and of varying thicknesses. There 
are other quarries which are not wrought by 
convicts. Two of Nanny Watters’ sons live at 
Anamosa, which is a growing town. After pass­
ing here we left the valleys and got on the 
prairie. We had supper at the junction at Far­
ley, travelling from Farley to Dubuque on the 
line we came out upon.
Later in April 1877, Broderick travelled to Ohio 
to visit relatives living there. The following 
month he returned to England and resumed his 
responsibilities as an estate manager in Swale- 
dale. hi December 1886-at the age of 45-he 
died at his home in Hawes and teas buried on 
Birk Hill, overlooking the family seat at Spring 
End. □


The Character of the Country

The Palimpsest, vol.61 no.3, May-June 1980

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