CHAPTER VIII

FORT MADISON

LOCATION AND SURROUNDINGS-THE OLD MILITARY POST-DIFFERENT STATEMENTS REGARDING ITS ESTABLISHMENT-ITS CORRECT HISTORY ITS DESTRUCTION AND ABANDONMENT-MONUMENT ON THE SITE-PETER WILLIAMS--THE KNAPPS-EARLY SETTLERSFIRST TOWN PLAT-THE GOVERNMENT PLAT-TOWN INCORPORATED -BECOMES A CITY IN 1842-LIST OF MAYORS FIRE DEPARTMENT -WATER WORKS-PUBLIC LIGHTING STREET RAILWAY-POST

OFFICE COMMERCIAL CLUB-MISCELLANEOUS FACTS.

The City of Fort Madison, one of the seats of justice of Lee County, is pleasantly situated on the west bank of the Mississippi River, about twenty-five miles above the mouth of the Des Moines, on the site of the old fort erected early in the nineteenth century by the United States, from which the city takes its name.

For many years the early history of the old military post was veiled in uncertainty and various statements have been made as to the time when and by whom it was established. No less an authority than Gardner's Dictionary of the United States Army states that "Fort Madison was erected by Lieutenant Pike in 1805, a few miles above St. Louis." The same authority also states that the fort was "evacuated and rebuilt in 1813." Rufus Blanchard, in his Discovery and Conquest of the Northwest, published in 1880, says: "The United States built Fort Madison in 1804, on the west bank of the Mississippi, opposite the Des Moines Rapids." Appleton's American Cyclopedia, under the title Fort Madison, says the town "derives its name from a fort erected in 1808, and named in honor of James Madison." The article on Fort Madison in Johnson's Cyclopedia. is signed by the editor of the Fort Madison Plain Dealer and says the town occupies "the site of a fort built in 1808 and captured by the Indians in 1818." Old gazetteers describe Fort Madison as "A United States Military Post, on the west bank of the Mississippi River, about twelve miles above the Des Moines Rapids; the site of the present Town of Fort Madison, in Lee County, Iowa. Latitude, 40° 36'; longitude, 14° 15', W. Washington."

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From these statements the reader can see that early writers on the subject were widely at variance, both as to the exact location of the fort and the time when it was erected, as well as the name of the officer under whose direction it was built. It appears that one or another of these errors has been perpetuated in later historical publications, owing to the authority consulted, and some have maintained that the old fort was built by Zachary Taylor, while he was a lieutenant in the regular army. In July, 1897, an article prepared at the War Department in Washington was published in the Annals of Iowa, and purports to give the official history of the old fort.

In order to understand how some of the errors above mentioned crept into the history of Fort Madison, it will be necessary to notice briefly some of the events that preceded and led up to its establishment. On March 9, 1804, the territory of Upper Louisiana was surrendered to the United States by France, under the treaty of April 30, 1803. The territory thus surrendered embraced the present states of Missouri and Iowa, and all the unexplored region north and west of those states included in the Louisiana Purchase. By an act of Congress, approved March 26, 1804, its name was changed to the "District of Louisiana," which was attached to the Territory of Indiana for all political purposes. In November of that year Gen. William H. Harrison concluded a treaty with the five leading chiefs of the Sac and Fox Indians, in which the United States agreed to protect these Indians in the possession of their lands west of the Mississippi. The date of this treaty no doubt led Blanchard to make the statement that the fort was erected in that

year.

The next year (1805) Lieut. Zebulon M. Pike was sent up the Mississippi on an exploring expedition, with instructions to select a site for a military post "somewhere between St. Louis and Prairie des Chiens, and to obtain the consent of the Indians for its erection." In his journal, Pike says: "I have chosen three places for military establishments; the first on a hill about forty miles above the river, de Moyen Rapids on the west side of the river in about 41° 2' north latitude. The channel of the river runs on that shore; the hill is about sixty feet perpendicular, nearly level on the top."

The war department article above referred to says: "There is ample evidence to show conclusively that this was the site on which Fort Madison was erected." The "ample evidence" is not given in the article, and some who have investigated the matter are inclined to the opinion that the site referred to in Pike's journal is where the City of Burlington now stands. There are good grounds for this belief, as the distance from the mouth of the Des Moines River men

tioned by Pike corresponds more nearly to the location of Burlington than that of Fort Madison. The hill and the current as described by Pike also apply to Burlington, and the longitude, which was merely estimated by the explorer, likewise fits Burlington better, the fortyfirst parallel running about ten miles north of that city. However that may be, the selection of the site by Pike is doubtless responsible for Gardner's error in stating that the fort was built by him in 1805.

The following report of Lieut. Alpha Kingsley to Gen. Henry Dearborn, then secretary of war, gives the correct history of the location and establishment of Fort Madison:

"Garrison at Belle Vue, Near River Le Moyne,

"22 November, 1808.

"Sir: Having received orders at Belle Fontaine, to move up the Mississippi River as far as the River Le Moine, with Captain Pinckney's Company under my command, and fix on a suitable situation for a fort, as nigh that place as possible—not finding any place nearer to that designation than this-I have accordingly fixed on it, which is about twenty-five miles above Le Moine. The season being so far advanced when I arrived here (26th September) that it was impossible to put up such buildings as were necessary to answer the object in view, I therefore thought it expedient to erect temporary houses for the winter. Having set a good picket around my camp, with bastions at right angles, I then commenced upon the factory, and other store houses, barracks, etc., all of which are small and done in a rough way, but will answer the purpose, they being nearly completed. I shall, by the first of next month, commence on building a small fort with three block houses, of hewed timber, so disposed as to have full command of each angle of the fort-—a plan which I humbly submit. Having plenty of timber convenient, and that of the best quality, I am fully of the opinion that by June next I will have the fort ready for the reception of the troops. The expense of this work to the United States will be but a trifle, when put in completion (comparison) with the good effect that will result to the Government.

"This situation is high, commands an extensive view of the river and adjacent country-also an excellent spring of water-and I believe there is no place on the river which will prove more healthy, and none more advantageous to the Indian trade. I shall prosecute the work of the fort with all possible expedition, and hope by spring to have it so far advanced that it will bid defiance to the evil-minded savage, and at the same time insure the respect and friendship of the