Page:History of Iowa From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century Volume 1.djvu/388



mud and water seemed to take possession of the farms, flat lands and valleys. The Mississippi River encroached upon the towns and cities along its banks, flooding business houses and dwellings and driving people with their movable property to the high lands. At Des Moines the river at one time reached a height of twenty-two feet above its ordinary stage. At Eddyville, Ottumwa, Iowaville and other towns, the people were driven from their homes, while driftwood and sand lodged in their lots, filling wells and cellars with mud and water. The farms along valleys and broad river bottoms suffered most. Stock was drowned, houses, barns and premises flooded, great ditches were cut through the fields, bridges and fences carried away and general desolation prevailed. When the rains ceased in July, hot dry weather came, baking the saturated soil, parching the vegetation which had survived the floods, so that crops were almost a failure throughout the State. Cholera broke out along the Des Moines and Mississippi rivers and the ravages of that plague added to the misery of the people. The frightful disease struck down hundreds in apparent robust health, often terminating in death within a few hours. In some localities famine threatened to add to the horrors of floods and pestilence, as the crops were so nearly destroyed that there was little food left for the people. This was the darkest period in Iowa’s history. The loss of crops had impoverished thousands. The scourge of cholera had alarmed them; famine threatened and many sold their farms for half their value and left the State. Those who remained soon found the best market they had ever known for horses, oxen, cows and corn from the crowds of emigrants who were crossing Iowa for the California gold-fields.

Early in 1849 Colonel Mason, of the 6th United States Infantry, was ordered to select a site for a military post on the upper Des Moines River. The Sioux Indians in that part of the State had been committing depredations