IlIBRARY OF CONGRESS.! 
 
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 UNITED STATES OP AMERICA. J 
 
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DESCRIPTIO:!^ 
 
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 OF THE 
 
 TOWN OF LAWRENCE, 
 
 VAN BUREN COUNTY, 
 
 IN THB 
 
 DES MOINES VALLEY, 
 
 XOTTCT'.^L: 
 
 ITS 
 
 Hydraulic Power and Manufacturing Facilities. 
 
 
 KEOKUK: 
 
 J. B. HOWELL & COMPANY, PRINTERS. 
 
 1856. 
 
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LAWRENCE AND THE DES MOINES VALLEY. 
 
 THE NEED OF MANUFACTORIES. 
 
 The Age is teeming with schemes and projects for the profitable 
 investment and rapid accumulation of capital. The uncertainty of 
 selecting the best from among such a multitude of very good, simply 
 indifferent and decidedly worthless projects naturally excites a pre- 
 judice against any new scheme. But as opportunities for such in- 
 vestments are still eagerly sought after, it is hoped that the follow- 
 ing candid statement of a few leading and prominent facts connect- 
 ed with a new western enterprize, will amply suffice to show that it 
 is worthy the attentive consideration of any one seeking a new 
 and remunerating field of operations. 
 
 The wonderful progress and magic-like growth of the State of 
 Iowa are attracting very general observation. An unprecedented 
 and annually increasing immigration is rapidly filling her rich and 
 fertile borders with an active, thrifty, and energetic population. It 
 is obvious that such an immigration must far out-strip the progress 
 of local manufactures, and at the same time that such a popula- 
 tion, on a soil so recently occupied, furnishes a necessary and im- 
 mense demand for manufactured articles of every kind. It is also 
 obvious that the transportation of manufactures to so great a dis- 
 tance must greatly enhance their price, and that, if the requisite 
 facilities for producing them — such as abundant water-power, 
 cheap and easy supply of raw material,&c. — can be furnished on the 
 soil, manufacturing as a business, in its various branches, must eu^ 
 gure a profitable return to capital and labor. 
 
4 
 
 LAWRENCE. 
 
 Views like these, carried out in tteir details, have led to the 
 foundation of the town of Lawrence, in Van Buren County, Iowa, 
 on the Des Moines River, some thirty miles above Keokuk which 
 lies at the confluence of the Des Moines with the Mississippi some 
 two hundred miles above St. Louis, and is itself the Commercial 
 Metropolis of Iowa. It is designed that this new Lawrence shall 
 measurably be to Keokuk, what Lowell and Lawrence of Massa- 
 chusetts are to Boston, and it is believed that the natural advanta- 
 ges are such as to relieve this design of even the appearanee of 
 extravagance. 
 
 THE SITE. 
 
 The location of Lawrence, considered with reference to the 
 adjoining country, the supply of water-power, coal and other mi- 
 nerals and raw materials of various kinds, and the facility of ac" 
 cess to unlimited markets, can scarcely be surpassed. The site of 
 the town is a beautiful level plain, sufficiently elevated above the 
 River to secure the highest sanitary advantages, and extending 
 back from the River a convenient distance to a gently ascending 
 bluff (the termination of the high prairie land), undulating and 
 irregular in its outline, and furnishing many eligible and beautiful 
 sites for dwellings. 
 
 WATER POWER. 
 
 The &st great requisite for building up a manufacturing towii 
 is, of course, the abundand supply of water power. This will be 
 furnished at Lawrence by the completion, during the coming 
 season, of an extensive Dam and Lock, built in the most solid and 
 substantial manner, under the direction of the State as a part of 
 that great work known as the Des Moines River Improvement, and 
 referred to in the note below. * This Dam will be fifteen feet 
 
 * The munificent donation to the State, by Congress, of over 1,300,000 acres of 
 the best land in the world, lying on both sides of the Des Moines River, for the pur- 
 
6 
 
 hisb, and will furnish full ten feet liead of water. That this will 
 give a power sufficient for all desirable purposes, and that the supply 
 of water from the River will be at all times abundant and unfail- 
 ing, is asserted upon the authority of a number of the best practi- 
 cal Engineers in the United States. All the Dams on the Improve- 
 ment are to be kept in good repair by the Des Moines Company, 
 and the rents for water-power will be reasonable, — probably not to 
 exceed on the average $100 per year for each power, i. e. a suf- 
 ficiency to propel a run of 4^ feet Burr mill stones. The lease oE 
 the water-power at the Lawrence Dam has been applied for and 
 will doubtless be secured by the Lawrence Company. 
 
 FACILITIES OF ACCESS. 
 
 At the present time (spring of 1856) the only mode of access 
 to Lawrence is by excellent wagon roads, (for the uncertain na- 
 vigation of the Des Moines, in its natural state, is not worth speak- 
 ing of.) But nature has given it the peculiar advantage of being 
 the converging point of the great natural Divides (so called) 
 which are the main thoroughfares of travel from northern Missouri, 
 through the southern tier of counties in Iowa and down the east 
 bank of the Des Moines — all which, after meeting here, pursue a 
 single track down the River to Keokuk on the Mississippi. Thus 
 by nature it is the central point of a great scope of country, and 
 can easily be made the distributing point for unlimited markets 
 diverging in these various directions. 
 
 Besides this, the slack water Improvement of the Des Moines is 
 to be completed in 1858 at farthest, and as the Locks are to be 200 
 feet in length, Lawrence will be, during the whole season of na- 
 vigation on the Mississippi, accessible to a class of boats next to the 
 
 pose of improving its navigation by slack water, has enabled the State to contract with 
 a responsible New York Company for the completion of the Improvement, which re- 
 quires, in all, the construction of thirty Locks and Dams, and several pieces of Canal; in 
 ■consideration of which great work, the Company is to receive about one million acres 
 of the land, as well as to have the use of the works, and the revenue collected for the 
 tolls and water-rents thereon, for the period of seventy five years. Considerable pro- 
 gress has already been made in the work, and the whole is to be completed to fort Des 
 Moines, some two hundred miles above the mouth of the River, by July 1, 1858. 
 
6 
 
 largest usually running in the Keokuk and St. Louis trade, tlius 
 allowing the importation of Cotton, &c., and the exportation of 
 the manufactures and produce of the country, without breaking 
 bulk. Boats can then load with Cotton, &c., in Memphis, in 
 four days' time discharge the cargo at Lawrence, reload with the 
 products of the country, and in three days more return to Mem- 
 phis. The marked advantages of sujh rapid exchanges, low 
 freights, &c., will be obvious on the slightest reflection. 
 
 In addition to this, the " Keokuk, Ft. Des Moines, and Minne- 
 sota Railroad Company" is now constructing a railroad from Keo- 
 kuk to Ft. Des Moines, which there is no doubt will be opened and 
 ill operation to Lawrence during the coming fall, and which, by 
 its connection with other railroads, will fm^nish access to all southr 
 era and eastern markets. It is the intention of the Company to 
 push the road on to Ft. Des Moines with all possible energy and 
 dispatch. A depot at Lawrence, and the necessary side-tracks 
 running down to the River, will furnish every facility required for 
 freight or passengers. 
 
 RESOLUCES. 
 
 In addition to the abundant water-power found here. Bituminous 
 coal in inexhaustible quantities. Potter's Clay and Fire Clay of the 
 finest quality. Quarries of Limestone yielding a very superior article 
 of Lime, Timber in great abundance, including different varieties 
 of Oak, Black Walnut, Sycamore, Hickory, &c., and a soil of 
 exuberant fertility, constitute the principal natural resom'ces of this 
 locality. The eastern extremity of the great coal bed of the Des 
 Moines Valley is precisely at this point. Prof. Owen having dis-r 
 covered five distinct veins cropping out in the neighboring bluffs. 
 It is the nearest feasible mining point to Keokuk and the Missis- 
 sippi. The coal is of good quality, the veins can be easily worked, 
 are but a short distance from the railroad ti'ack and the River, and 
 a constantly increasing demand is furnished by the Mississippi boats, 
 the city of Keokuk, and, in short, by every accessible point in the 
 Valley, — a demand which is even now greatly increased at Keokuk 
 by the scarcity and exorbitant price of fire-wood. The ^'Lawrence 
 
Coal Company" — comprising in its organization a number of the 
 wealthy and substantial citizens of Keokuk, — has been formed for 
 the purpose of working these mines. It is obvious that each and 
 all of these resources are of the highest importance as affecting the 
 interest of a manufacturing town. 
 
 COUNTRY AND POPULATION TO BE SUPPLIED. 
 
 It is estimated that the business of nearly one third of the State 
 of Iowa is already tributary to the Des Moines River, and mort 
 than one third of the State, besides a large region in Minnesota, 
 will become tributary to the River, directly upon the completion 
 of the Improvement. Several rapidly improving counties of north -= 
 ern Missouri are also large contributors to this business. The 
 country itself, furnishing this trade, and adjacent to the River, as 
 High up as fort Des Moines, was settled soon after the lands lying 
 along the eastern border of the State, near the Mississippi, and 
 are now in an advanced condition of cultivation. Indeed it is a 
 remarkable fact, as stated by the Mayor of Keokuk, in his Inaur 
 gural address, April 1855, " that there are to-day a greater num- 
 ber of acres of land in cultivation between Keokuk and Ft. Des 
 Moines than can be found on any road of the same length leading 
 out of any city in the entire Valley of the Mississippi." 
 
 The Des Moines Valley has long been known as the " Garden 
 of the West," and its soil is more fertile than the best portions of 
 Indiana and Illinois. The land is beautifully situated, "with no 
 low or waste pastures, but rolling and undulating throughout, and 
 well supplied with fine streams of pure, clear, and quick running 
 water. The prairies are long but narrow, and farms will be adja^ 
 cent to, or in no case exceeding four or five miles from timber ; 
 while coal, lime and stone, each of the best quality, arc abundantly 
 and conveniently distributed over the lands of the whole district, 
 which will, when the Improvement is completed, be in direct water 
 communication through the Mississippi to the New- Orleans market, 
 and through the Ohio and Illinois rivers and the chain of Western 
 Lakes with the New-York. Philadelphia, and other Atlantic mai', 
 \e^:'—\Rej)ori De Moine JV. 8,- R. R. Co. p. 13.] 
 
8 
 
 Professor Owen, in his Geological Report to Congress in 1851, 
 speaking of this Valley says : 
 
 '' The carboniferous rocks of Iowa occupy a region of country, 
 which, taken as a whole, is one of the most fertile in the United 
 States. 
 
 " No country can present to the farmer greater facilities for 
 subduing, in a short time, wild land. Its native prairies are fields 
 almost ready made to his hands. Its rich, black soil returns him 
 reward for his labor a hundred fold. 
 
 " The rural beauty of this portion of Iowa can hardly be sur^ 
 passed. Undulating prairies, interspersed with open groves of 
 timber, and Watered with pebbly or rocky bedded streams, pure and 
 transparent ; hills of moderate height and gentle slope ; here and 
 there, especially towards the heads of the streams, small lakes, as 
 dear as the rivers, some skirted with timber, some with banks 
 formed by the green-sward of the open prairie ; these are the or- 
 dinary features of the pastoral landscape. 
 
 "For centuries, the successive natural crops of grass, untouched 
 by the scythe, and but very partially kept down by the pastm-age 
 of buffalo, and other herbivorous animals, have accumulated organic 
 matter on the surface soil, to such an extent, that a long succession, 
 even of exhausting crops, will not materially impoverish the land. 
 The prairie sod, matted and deep rooted, usually requires from six 
 to eight yoke of oxen, effectually to break it up. 
 
 " The future farms of Iowa, large, level and unbroken, by stump 
 or other obstruction, will afford an excellent field for the introduc- 
 tion of mowing and reaping machines, and other improved imple- 
 ments calculated to save the labor of the husbandman ; and which, 
 in new countries reclaimed from the forest, can scarcely be em- 
 ployed until the first generation shall have passed away." 
 
 So much for the Country. In regard to the population, it is 
 safe to estimate the present number of inhabitants in the entire 
 State at about six hundred thousand, or more than treble that of 
 the last census, — the simple increase during the last eighteen 
 months alone being greater than the whole population in 1850. 
 In the Des Moines Valley itself the population is more dense than 
 along the Mississippi. Between the mouth and Fort Des Moines, 
 
9 
 
 in a belt fifteen miles wide on each side of the river, there are forty 
 villages, which contain an aggregate population of eighty thousand, 
 ■while the present population of the country, the business of which 
 may be considered tributary to the Des Moines river, is over two 
 hundred thousand, and by the next census it is estimated that it 
 will exceed three hundred and fifty thousand. 
 
 RECAPITULATION. 
 
 Allowing the foregoing statement to be true, — and it is in fact 
 even luithin the truth — there can be no-^estion that in such a 
 country, with such a population, there must be an immense demand 
 for manuf actui'es of every kind. And this demand must be siq)- 
 plied from some quarter. At the present time, and from the very 
 necessity of the case, there is a great scarcity of the heavier class 
 of manufactories. Such establishments are not transported with 
 a hurrying migration ; nor are they built up in a day. Necessarily 
 -of slower growth than other elements of commercial and social 
 progress, they generally await a settled and comparatively dense 
 population, the slow accumulation of surplus capital, &c., while the 
 demand for their products must in the meantime be supplied at :a 
 great expense and from a great distance. 
 
 Yet all the requisites for the successful operation of such estab- 
 lishments (except the surplus capital) now exist in this Valley di- 
 rectly to hand, and it would seem that the establishments which 
 -are first to occupy the field, if well stocked and equipped and ju- 
 diciously managed, are certain to reap ample returns. Even now 
 "it is the subject of common remark, and is withal a notable fact, 
 that all branches of manufacturing which have thus far been at- 
 tempted in Keokuk, and other towns in this Valley, are proving 
 highly successful and remunerative. In this regard a mistake can 
 ,gcarcely bo made in the investment of either capital, skill, or labor, 
 for all is new, and every thing is needed. And the great truth, 
 that the nearer the Plow, the Loom, and the Anvil are brought 
 together the greater the advantage to all departments of produc- 
 tive industty, could scarcely find a more promising field for its 
 practical and triumphant illustration than m this favored locality. 
 
10 
 
 It is designed to erect at Lawrence establishments for the man- 
 ufacture of Cotton, Wool, Flour, Machinery, Cabinet-ware, Car- 
 riages, Agricultural Implements,&c. From the foregoing statement 
 it will be seen that nearly all the requisites for their entire success 
 are close at hand, or easily accessible. Ample and unfailing wa- 
 ter-power, coal and timber in abundance, an annually increasing 
 crop of wool, and all the products of an exuberant soil are in the> 
 immediate neighborhood, while the iron of Missouri and the cotton- 
 of Tennessee and other Southern States are much more accessible 
 at a much less expense, than in many of the Northern States, 
 where they are yet manufactured with profit. While the raw ma- 
 terials are thus convenient, an ample and ready market is furnish- 
 ed by the entire Des Moines Valley with its rapidly increasing 
 multitudes, by the whole of Southern Iowa, and a large portion of 
 Northern Missouri. Add to this that lands are cheap, provisions 
 are cheap, and the climate is remarkably bracing and healthful.. 
 The only other requisite is the supply of skill and a sufficiency of 
 capital — or rather of the latter alone, for that will command tho^ 
 foimer. 
 
 It would seem that greater induc3ments could scarcely be offered 
 for the safe investment of capital in enterprizes that ensm'e reason- 
 able, legitimate and speedy retm'ns. And these inducements are 
 by no means visionary, although it may be almost impossible for the 
 eastern man, who has never been West, to realize that the fore- 
 going representations of the present and future prospects of the 
 Des Moines Valley, in respect of population and the progress of 
 all branches of industry, are even far within the truth. Yet such 
 is the fact, and such being the fact, why should the Eastern capi- 
 talist hesitate to follow with his capital in the broad wake of that 
 immense and wondrous tide of emigration with its unlimited de- 
 mands for the numerous productions of civilized art ? 
 
11 
 
 LAWREN'CE COAL-COMPANY. 
 
 This Company was organized on the 1st daj of January, A. D. 
 1856, according to the provisions of the Code of Iowa, and is to 
 continue twenty years, subject to renewal. Principal Office in Keo- 
 kuk. Capital Stock Three Hundred Thousand Dollars, to be paid 
 in as called for. The business of the Corporation is the mining 
 and selling of coal, the purchase and sale of coal-lands, and such 
 other business as may be properly connected therewith. The in- 
 debtedness of the Company is limited to One Hundred Thousand 
 Dollars ; private property exempt from corporate debts. The affairs 
 of the Corporation to be managed by a Board of five Directors, 
 elected annually. 
 
 The names of the present Directors, other Corporators, and Offi- 
 cers are as follows : 
 
 Directors' Names. 
 
 E. R. FORD, E. H. HARRISON, 
 
 Wm. LEIGHTON, ARTHUR WOLCOTT, 
 
 SAIIUEL F. MILLER. 
 
 Other Corporators. 
 
 John R. Allen, C. H. Perry, 
 
 D. W. Ford, Guy Wells, 
 
 Jno. W. Rankin, Jno. W. Clbghorn. 
 
 Officers. 
 
 D. W. FORD, Treasurer. E. R. FORD, President. 
 JAS. C. PARROTT, Secretary. 
 
 Letters of inquiry in reference to the matters alluded to in this 
 pamphlet may be addressed to E. R. FORD, Pres't. L. C. Co.^ 
 Keokuk, Iowa. 
 
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