Andy's town

When we called to see what parking was like at the Toolesboro Mounds, we were told that the bridge was out just beyond the mounds and we would not be able to continue on the Great River Road, but would have to drive back 9 miles to highway #61. Off on another adventure!

Not an encouraging sign when you are almost 50 feet long and might have to turn around.

Fortunately there was a sort of loop road in front of the Toolesboro Mounds National Historic Landmark and we didn't have to go into their small parking lot. 

We knew the Educational Center building was closed for the season but that the grounds were open.

The Toolesboro site consists of seven existing burial mounds constructed by the Hopewell people between 100 B.C. and A.D. 200 on a bluff overlooking the Iowa River near where it joins the Mississippi River. Only two of the seven mounds are visible from the Toolesboro Educational Center. The others are located in the woods, separated from the Center by a wire fence. Mound 2 is the largest of the remaining mounds and possibly the largest mound in Iowa dating from the Hopewell tradition.  It measures about 100 feet wide and eight feet high.

Incidentally, the "Hopewell Tradition" refers to a set of burial practices shared among certain Native American groups, from 200 B.C. to A.D. 450. Archaeologists began calling this the "Hopewell Tradition" after an excavation of an earthwork on the Ohio farm of Mordecai Hopewell. "Hopewell" is not the name these people called themselves, none of their written language survives to tell us what term they did use to refer to themselves. The Hopewell Tradition, it has been suggested, can be compared to Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, Christianity, or any other world religion: it's a widespread system of beliefs and worship.

The Hopewell lived in villages located along river flood plains. They usually built their mounds on nearby high bluffs. The large clusters of mounds, such as those at Toolesboro, probably served as regional ceremonial centers.

The Hopewell had various ways of interring their dead within the large, cone-shaped, earthen mounds. Some individuals were placed lying down; others were propped up in a sitting position against the side of the tomb. Typically, mound construction began with the laying of a sand or clay floor, or a platform in the center, upon which the body and personal objects were placed. Over this, layers of earth, clay, sand, and gravel were piled up to make a mound. Other Hopewell mounds were built up around tombs made of logs or large stone slabs. Many mounds contain several burials in different layers.

Widespread trade was an outstanding feature of the Middle Woodland period. People throughout the eastern U.S. participated in what archaeologists call the Hopewell Interaction Sphere. They traded beautifully crafted items and raw materials across vast areas. Their settlements along the Mississippi River and other important waterways gave them access to routes of trade and communication. 

Mounds and village sites contain raw materials and finished artifacts originating from the Atlantic coast to the Rocky Mountains and from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico. Archaeologists have found Great Lakes copper, Appalachian mica, Rocky Mountain obsidian, Gulf of Mexico pearls and marine shells, and Chesapeake Bay shark teeth. 

The Hopewell Tradition was marked by a high degree of social hierarchy. Only leaders of the highest social rank, probably chiefs and priests, were buried within the mounds. 

The Toolesboro Indian Mounds are basically in the middle of an Iowan corn field.

Following this visit, we continued south to our next stop on the Great River Road: Fort Madison. 

Sharing the road with farm equipment.

You wouldn't see this on the Interstate.

Traveling to get the corn.

Working to bring the corn in.

Looks like a John Deere.

That's how we knew they were harvesting the corn - just look for the cloud of dust.

We arrived in Fort Madison around 1:30 pm, just in time for lunch.

Adjacent to the parking lot at Old Fort Madison was old engine #2913, put into operation in 1944. 

She is a real beauty.

Its various nooks and cranes are good places for birds to build their nests.

It was a beautiful day with temperatures in the lower 70s, mild enough to eat our lunch in the park on the shore of the Mississippi.

The Louisiana territory, purchased by the U.S. from France in 1803, included all land drained by the Mississippi River on the west. Much of this country was also claimed by various Indian tribes. The Sauk (Sac) and Fox (Mesquakie) Indians, ceded to the U.S. government, in 1804, part of the lands they occupied along the upper Mississippi River. Under the treaty, a trading post would be established for the Indians to exchange goods. Through this agreement, the government hoped to secure the friendship of many tribes, some of whom tended to favor the British in Canada.

In 1808, the trading post and an adjoining Army post called Fort Madison, the first established on the Upper Mississippi, were built on this site. The fort, intended to protect both the trading post and the American regional interests, was never popular with some Indians.

Encouraged by British agents during the War of 1812, a band of Indians, led by the Fox warrior Black Hawk, attacked Fort Madison in the summer of that year, killed one soldier and attempted to burn the fort with flaming arrows. During a second and prolonged Indian siege in the summer of 1813, and with supplies and ammunition running low, the post commander ordered the fort abandoned. The soldiers escaped downriver in flatboats under the cover of darkness, having set fire to the fort buildings and stockade as they departed.

Built right along the shore of the Mississippi River.

Since the original Fort was burned, this is a reconstruction. It too is closed for the season.

It took this picture of the interior by putting my hands through the stockade fence. There was this man who was doing some upkeep on the cannon  but he was not inclined to talk with us.

Corner of the stockade - Frederick is there for scale.

Just as we were heading back to the car Frederick noticed a walkway that climbed up and over three sets of railroad tracks and ended up by the old train station. Frederick suggested that it would be good exercise for us to do the climbing and we could also get a picture of the old train station.

Our first clue that something was up is when we saw this baggage cart and the open doors. 

Going through the doors we came face-to-face with...

Andy. It turns out that he is a one-man historic society (he is actually the President of the local Historical Association) and he stood ready to give us a tour of the artifacts and collections of items that tell the story of Fort Madison.

The following is "technical" talk for Bill.

The top left is a St. Charles (8000 - 6000 B.C.) point. The St. Charles cluster covered most of the eastern U.S. and eastern Iowa. The point on the right is labeled as belonging to the Harden Cluster (8000 - 5500 B.C.) who were found mostly in Arkansas, Missouri, Illinois and eastern Iowa. The lower right point is a Kirk (7500 - 6900 B.C.) who are found mostly in the eastern U.S. and along the Mississippi River flood plains. All of these points were found in Lee County, Iowa. 

The famous Clovis Point.

Beaver Lake cluster (8500 - 7900 B.C.) who are found in the southeastern U.S and along the Mississippi from Tennessee to Iowa.

I love this description of the Native Americans playing a game similar to Bocce. "This drawing shows two Indians of the Oneota/Mississippian period running with lance poles in hand which they will attempt to throw as close as possible to the stone 'disk' that has been rolled on the ground ahead of them during a game of Chunkey played in the village gaming yard." It really humanizes the Native Americans for me.

And here's the Chunkey disk.

Bill, here are more arrowheads. A previous Mayor of the town was a re-enactor and had this huge collection which he gave to this Museum.

After the first room that had a lot of Native American artifacts and early history, including a diorama of the original Fort Madison, Andy took us along to the remaining three rooms. 

Fort Madison.

Unfortunately I didn't have my blue notebook with me, we had just stopped to eat lunch, so I am not able to supply all the details and dates for the items that Andy showed us and talked about. I just remember that the town kept this fire engine in operation into the early 1900s because it was more effective than any that they could replace it with. This one pressurized the water and newer versions depended on fire hydrants that the town didn't have.

This is a model of the ice house that was built about a mile above the bridge in 1902 and operated until about 1930. When the Mississippi froze to a depth of a least one foot, about twenty to thirty feet from the shore, they scored the ice and cut out blocks with blades attached to a 16 foot plank drawn by a team of horses. In a good year they could ship 900 to 1000 box cars, each holding 40 - 80 tons of ice, to other locations in the midwest and to the railroad for refrigerator cars hauling fruit, vegetables and meat from as far away as California.

This is the hand-carved bed of Judge William J.R. Beck.

According to Andy, at the turn of the century more homes had organs than pianos because organs were cheaper - $70 as opposed to $120 - $150 for a piano.

This was the judge's desk.

Here is Andy explaining the operation of an Edison talking machine.

And the operation of a Philco radio.

Andy also knew about the penal system in the early 1900s when the inmates went out to work every day at the local businesses.

A seed planter that could be ridden and that automatically set the rows.

Andy showing us how he used to cut wheat when he was a child.

Walter Shaeffer was a successful Fort Madison jeweler in 1908 when he became dissatisfied with fountain pen filling methods of the day. They had to be filled with an eye dropper, an inconvenient and messy task. Sheaffer invented the first self-filling fountain pen utilizing a deflatable rubber sac filled by a lever and pressure bar. His invention was patented in 1908 and the Sheaffer Pen Company was founded in 1913 right here in Fort Madison.

Betsy Ross's granddaughters lived in Fort Madison and made flags in the original design by their grandmother.

This is Rebecca Pollard (1831-1917) who developed a teaching method that was widely accepted and she wrote a series of children's textbooks and a teacher's manual that was adopted by many schools in the nation - the "Pollard Method".

Here's Andy showing us how pioneers shaved logs for the building of cabins on the frontier.

About this time I grew somewhat overwhelmed by all the information Andy was passing out and I stopped taking pictures and let Frederick continue the engagement with Andy.

After leaving Andy, it was beginning to get dark, we left the train station/museum, took a picture of the caboose out in front of the station, and climbed the overpass to get back to the Airstream and travel to our campground for the night. 

Halfway across the overpass this long train came through. There were five engines pulling a train that curved around over the bridge you may just be able to make out at the far right hand corner of the picture. The train was probably about two miles long. That's the train station on the left.

One thing you can say about traveling at this time of year, places are not too crowded.

Tonight was are in the Hickory Haven Campground in Keokuk, Iowa, a little part of Iowa that extends down into Missouri, looking something like an appendix.