Early Pioneer of Harrison County, Iowa ¹

Samuel Wood, Sr., one of the earliest pioneers of Harrison County, settled on section 23, of Union Township, November 12, 1850, and has made that location his home ever since. When he came to the county he had a wife and five children, for whom he sought out a home in this goodly portion of Western Iowa. He came to the country without means, having but five head of cattle, a two-year old colt and $5 in money, but now is in possession of a farm comprising two hundred and ninety-seven acres all of which is paid for, and in his own language, “Thank God I owe no man.” Upon his arrival he built a log cabin 14×17 feet, near the site of his beautiful farm residence. The cabin home was floored with puncheon, which he cut from native timber. It will be remembered that this was three years prior to the organization of the county, and there was not a town or village within Harrison County and Kanesville, (now Council Bluffs) was their nearest market place, and that was a mere hamlet of log houses.

In those days it required twenty-five cents to get a letter out of the post-office, and (unless within Iowa, where the postage was fifteen cents) it bore the invariable mark, “Due twenty-five cents,” as this was before the present fine postal system.

In relating his early hardships, Mr. Wood states that he gathered sod corn, growing over in the Missouri, for one-tenth of the crop, in order to procure seed corn to plant his first crop with. This seed was planted upon eight acres and in the harvest time he was rejoiced at the gathering in of fifty bushels per acre.

“A lifetime’s study will not make accessible to us more than a fragment of our own ancestral past … But that fragment we must thoroughly possess and hand on”

~ A.S. Byatt

Concerning our subject’s birthplace and ancestry, it may be stated that he traces his lineage back to Jonathan Wood, who was born in England December 14, 1724. His son, Samuel, was born June 30, 1767. His wife was Betsy Wood and they reared a family of nine children, of whom Henry was the second child. He was born August 9, 1790, in Connecticut and was a carpenter by trade. He died in Portage County, Ohio, October 14, 1882. He married Esther Cranmer, at the close of the War of 1812 in which strife he was a soldier. Their family consisted of four sons and five daughters, of whom our subject and one sister now living, were a part. Samuel Wood, of whom we now write was born May 23, 1816, and at the age of twenty-one years set forth for himself. His first work after leaving home was that of clerking in a general store at Kingstown, Mo., which was then looked upon as the “far west”, and to which place his parents had removed in 1836.

After a year’s engagement in that position, he commenced teaching school in Caldwell County. He taught one term, when the Mormon trouble began, and the family returned to Adams County, Ill., but in 1840 our subject left that State and came to Lee County, Iowa, Arriving May l. He here engaged in farming and teaching school. He remained in that county until 1846, when he went to Kanesville, with two yoke of cattle – one yoke of oxen and one of cows. He was in company with his wife’s parents, Mr. and Mrs. Merrill, who located near what is now Hazel Dell Church, where he farmed six acres, upon which he raised corn, for which he received $2.50 per bushel. The same year he found a stalk of corn so high he could not reach the top most ear, so he climbed the stalk and while astride the big ear, he gave a loud crow, saying “hurrah!” He taught two terms of school at that point, but his chief work was in a wagon shop, which trade he had picked up himself.

In the spring of 1848 his house and nearly all the furniture therein was burned, which necessitated him to raise a new log house. He remained in that vicinity until November, 1850, when he came to this county as above related. Mr. Wood was united in marriage in Caldwell County, Mo., in the spring of 1838, to Mary Merrill, daughter of Thomas and Susan Merrill. By this union eleven children were born, eight of whom still survive. The hand of affliction was laid upon Mr. Wood April 11, 1865, upon which day his wife died. And for his second wife he married Nancy A. E. Copeland, who also died, and June 30, 1873, he married Mrs. Jane (Follette) Gunnett, who was first married March 28, 1858, and had ten children, of whom three are still living. Her father was a farmer and a native of New York, but came to Ohio in 1835, and to Indiana in 1843. By her marriage to Mr. Wood one son, Charley, was born, in 1872, and died in 1882. In 1852 Mr. Wood came to Council Bluffs, where he died January 12, 1889. The mother died at the same place December 13, 1882. They reared a family of thirteen children, Mrs. Wood being the second child. She was born January 25, 1836, in Ohio, and her father was formerly a Mormon, but died a Spiritualist. The mother, formerly a member of the Latter-Day Saints Church, also died a Spiritualist. Mr. Wood’s father-in-law, Thomas Merrill, was buried near Council Bluffs, and in the absence of a better casket, his coffin was a walnut log, shaped like a coffin, and dug out in the center, with a board hewed for the top and fastened with wooden pins. Mr. Wood’s present wife and her former husband, John Gunnett, went to Salt Lake in 1864, and returned in October, 1866.
The first school in Union Township was taught in Mr. Wood’s first log cabin in 1858, by Mrs. H. S. Smith, who taught about twelve children. It may be stated however, that Mr. Wood’s children were chiefly taught at home, he being a teacher himself, having gained his knowledge by his own exertion, except what he gathered from some of the primitive schools, he having attended for the first time in Northfield, Portage County, Ohio.

The first store at Unionburg was built by William Brown, in a building upon Mr. Wood’s land, but subsequently this property became Mr. Wood’s who operated the store and post-office about two years and then closed.

A dance hall was built one year after the store building and is still used for public gatherings.
Politically, Mr. Wood votes for the man he thinks best qualified. He and his former wife were members of the Latter-Day Saints Church. Mr. Wood being among the pioneers of the county, and one who is eminently qualified, takes much interest in, and is usually a speaker at Old Settler’s reunion meetings. Great indeed has been the change in customs, society and general civilization, since this man first pushed his way into this portion of the West. Coming as he did six years prior to the building of a single mile of railroad west of the Mississippi River, and more than a decade before the Civil War. The early hardships and privations co-incident with those earlier years, are things of the past, and cannot be reinstated by the present or future generations, even as the Red Man is fast becoming extinct, and the prairie grass, which at that time waved in an emerald sea, is becoming scarce, and will only be known in the future by the pages in history; so it will be with the pioneer hardships, which our subject passed through, will be recounted by his children and his children’s children. The same as we look back to-day upon all that the Puritan Fathers passed through on the rock bound coast of New England.

In 1846-47, Mr. Wood in company with three other men herded cattle in the rushes in Harrison County, and when on his way across the prairie one time, he composed a song, which was sung in Europe and this country, relative to the Mormon people. In 1863 his brother Martin, made him a visit and prevailed upon him to accompany him to Ohio. Our subject was at that time teaching school, which he turned over to his son and started for Marshalltown, the nearest railroad point. Up to this time he had never seen the cars nor heard a whistle. So he told his brother if he liked the looks of things when he got to the railroad he would go; being satisfied with the appearance of things he concluded to try it. The first station they came to when the whistle blew, he jumped up excitedly and wanted to know what the matter was, and why the noise. Being informed that a station was at hand, he wanted to know what a station was, which created much laughter on the train. He bought the first cook stove and the first kerosene lamp he ever saw.

In 1838 he was at the massacre at Hahn’s Mills, where the Mormons were massacred and seventeen were thrown into a well and covered up, he narrowly escaping with his life. The occasion of his coming West in 1846, was the disturbance at Nauvoo, Ill.

Thus it will be seen, his has been a life of wonderful historic events and the name of “Uncle Sammy Wood” will be remembered and referred to long after he has departed from the scenes of this life.