SLAUGHTER
I learned to ride horses while my arm healed and worked for two old men that were Confederate Veterans. One was married, the other single. Their names were Joe and Bill Slaughter. He had a son named Bill. They raised horses and had a large ranch with a windmill to pump water. We had 8 acres by theirs. A pond about 2 acres inside their land and had every kind of snake, frogs, tadpoles, lizards, water lilies, and thick mats of moss. I guess I was careful. I never got bit but that never stopped me, Grace, or Bob from playing there. Grace and Bob were gone one day and mom couldn't find them. I was with the men haying. She had me come and wade all over the pond to see if they were anywhere; and they were not. We thought of a peach tree about 1/2 mile away, and there they were. All covered with peach juice and happy as could be.
(J. J. Slaughter 51 yr., his wife A. M. 51 yr and son William are #234 in the 1885 Kansas state Census Collection.) (J. B. Laws & family were #197 in the 1885 Kansas State Census Collection.)
Myma Sue Dever Slawson, born February 22, 1938, passed away on Thursday, June 18, 2009, after a brief illness. A longtime resident of Johnson City, she spent the majority of her career as an English teacher at Science Hill High School. She once earned the prestigious honor of being Tennessee’s Teacher of the Year. She took great joy in her work and was affectionately known as “Mama Slaw” by countless former students. She lived life to the fullest, valuing relationships more than material wealth. She enjoyed art, literature and music. She was tirelessly devoted to her family and leaves to cherish her memory, a brother, William Dever of PA; a daughter, Tracy Williamson of Peachtree City, GA; a son, Mark Slawson of Johnson City; grandsons, Derren Slawson, Alex Williamson, Matthew Slawson and Aaron Williamson; a granddaughter, Alyssa Slawson and a great-granddaughter, Sophie Slawson. A memorial service will be held on Sunday, June 21, 2009, at 4:00 PM at Covenant Presbyterian Church. The family will receive friends at the church from 2:00 – 4:00 PM. In lieu of flowers, the family respectfully requests that donations be made to Covenant Presbyterian Church, 603 Sunset Dr., Johnson City, TN 37604. Memories and condolences may be shared with the family and viewed online at www.tetrickfuneralhome.com or faxed to (423) 610-7177. Arrangements for the family are in the care of Tetrick Funeral Services, 3001 Peoples St., Johnson City, TN 37604. (423) 610-7171.
History Of David Alexander Dyas Sr. Family
David Alexander Dyas Sr. was born at Kells, County Meath, Ireland that is Northwest of Dublin, in the year 1787. He married Frances Piggot in Dublin, Ireland in 1809. Frances was born in England in 1786. She served several years at Lady in Waiting to this Queen of England. (This would be Princess Charlotte Sophia of Mechlenburg-Strelitz the wife of King George III who reigned from 1760 to 1820. Francis named her first daughter Sophia.) The following are the children of David Alexander Dyas Sr. and Frances Piggot Dyas.
1 Catherine Sophia Dyas born October 31, 1810 in Ireland
2 William Frederick Dyas born 1812 in Ireland
3 Amelia Gertrude Dyas born March 14, 1814 in Ireland
4 John Piggot Dyas born 1816 in Ireland
David and Frances and the above four children came to America in 1817. They were forty- four days aboard a ship and landed in Williamsport, Virginia. They lived in Virginia until 1822.
5 Robert Samuel Dyas born September 30, 1818 in Virginia
6 David Alexander Dyas Jr. born April 15, 1821 in Virginia
In 1822 David moved his family by covered wagon from Virginia to St. Louis, Missouri. They followed the route through the Cumberland Gap in Northern Tennessee, traversed the northeast part of Kentucky, then across the Ohio River to Vincennes, Indiana then west through Illinois to Kaskaskia in Randolph County in Illinois and here they crossed the Mississippi River and went up the river to St. Louis, Missouri and settled there.
7 George Francis Dyas born July 10, 1824 in St. Louis Missouri
David and Frances were both well educated. David was a graduate of Dublin University and was proficient in French and Spanish as well as English.
Frances taught school in Virginia and David worked in a mercantile establishment. In St. Louis David again worked in a mercantile establishment and upon demand of the people there became also a Justice of the Peace and administered the local law. About October 1, 1825 David and his family set forth from St. Louis on the steamboat “Belle” for Galena, Illinois. At the time of 1825 Galena was one of the three larger cities in Illinois. Kaskaskie and Springfield being the other two. Galena has a population of about 175 at that time. Many of the early settlers were lured there by the prospect of quick and easy riches in lead mining.
History of David Alexander Dyas Sr. Family – Continued
It appears none of the Dyas people were interested in mining lead. David Sr. took up a small acreage within a half-mile or so to the northwest of the boat landing on the Fever or Galena River at Galena. He gradually got into the wood business for steamboats did not burn coal until near the Civil War times. Steamboats were quite rare in 1825 on the Mississippi River north of St. Louis, Missouri. The first steamboat to make the trip up the river was the Virginia in 1823 and the Virginia did steam up as far as Fort Prairie Du Chien, Wisconsin just north of the confluence of the Wisconsin River with the Father of Waters. But with lead to be shipped south from Galena and the Julien Dubuque diggings, the riverboat business grew before most of the early settlers moved into the territory west of the Mississippi River – when it opened for settlement after the Black Hawk war in 1832. The settlers came in overland from the east in covered wagons, some of them such as the Dyas folks came by steamboat. Galena grew quite rapidly. So David Alexander Dyas Sr. and his family did start farming a bit, added to the stock of horses, oxen and very simple hand operated machinery. They had a couple cows, some chickens and farmed, but only second to the main wood business.
The Black Hawk War of 1832 which lasted from the spring of 1832 to August, 1832 was the result of Black Hawk and his men returning to the rich lands in Illinois after they moved when the territory was ceded to the United States. A white settler in panic shot an Indian member of a parleying party sent by Black Hawk the chief of the battles near the Wisconsin River on July 21, 1832 and near the Bed Axe river, August 1-2, 1832. Later the same month Black Hawk surrendered. David Alexander Dyas Sr. then 45 years old enlisted in the Illinois Volunteers under Colonel Strade. The Captain of David’s company was a Captain Ben Aldernath. That was in April, 1832. William Frederick Dyas age 20 and John Piggot Dyas age 16 also enlisted with their father.
The enlistment of David, William and John was substanciated with the Bureau of Historical Archives in Washington D.C. Markers commemorating this were obtained from the Government and erected in the cemetery on the hill just above the old home in the Valley for David Alexander Dyas Sr. and John Piggot Dyas.
Hostilities over the three men were discharged from the service early in August 1832. By this time David Alexander Dyas Sr. and his boys were thinking of making a new home in the territory across the Mississippi River and down from Galena, Illinois. No permanent white settlers were allowed to move until that time because of Indian hostilities and the Indian Chiefs had not signed a treaty. The military kept quite a close watch and forbid any white settlers from moving into that territory.
History of David Alexander Dyas Sr. Family - Continued
William Frederick Dyas was very anxious to get into farming more extensively and one morning he and one of the men who worked at the Dyas Wood Yard, a James Armstrong, took a skiff and set forth down the Mississippi River to where there were large valleys running back from the river. When they reached the head of the island opposite what is now Bellevue, Iowa they saw an Indian camp on the head of the island. The approached the island warily until William recognized some of the Indians in the
group. William was the eldest of the Dyas boys. He was a great hunter and a splendid marksman and had become quite well acquainted with many of the local area Indians and had visited with them in their camps when on hunting expeditions in the Illinois and Wisconsin area around Galena.
Seeing the Indians were friendly William and Armstrong landed their skiff. Moat of the Indians (if they knew a language other than their own) could talk a bit of French and William had learned French from his father and mother. These Indians advised William not to cross the river and land as the Indians on the other side were afflicted with a pestilence. William knew that this was likely true for just that spring Galena had been hit with the Bubonic Plague and many of the settlers there had died. In fact more died with the plague than were killed in the skirmish with Black Hawk. So William gave up his search that day and returned to Galena.
About a month later William Frederick Dyas and his brother John Piggot Dyas set forth by skiff down the river and this time landed on the west bank of the Mississippi River, hid their skiff and set forth on foot. There was an Indian Council House on the bank just about where the Robert Hamilton Dyas house is now, in north Bellevue, Iowa and another Indian Council House at the point where the old Weck Hotel is now located in Bellevue, Iowa.
They had seen no signs of Indians as they passed on their way down the River and they traveled well out in the center of the stream where the upper area of the river bank could be scrutinized. This was a scouting expedition William and John were engaged in and William carried a cast lead pencil. There were no wood-covered lead pencils in this country at that time. The lead pencils were made about the same as the old slate pencils used around the 1890’s. So William carried a pencil and a piece of parchment and made a rough map as they went along.
They decided to skirt the river and move south. They first came upon a creek with a good flow of water and they thought it would be a likely place for a mill and named it that day Mill Creek. It is still Mill Creek in 1961.
History of David Alexander Dyas Sr. Family - Continued
There was a very plainly marked Indian trail south along the bluff below the creek which they had forged. They followed this trail on south keeping a sharp lookout for Indians. They came upon an extensive Indian camping ground just as they reached the valley south of the bluff. This valley in those days was a forest of huge oaks (red oaks), hickory, cottonwood, etc. They said predominately red oak. There was no Council House at this camp – no permanent structures.
The Indians would make periodic pilgramages from inland points to come by the river for a spell. They no doubt would fish and bath in the water. David Alexander Dyas Jr. later built his house only a stones throw from this camp. On down the Indian trail they passed the place on the riverbank where John Piggot Dyas built his log cabin when he married Margaret Beatly 11 years later in 1843.
A little further William and John came upon another creek, not quite as large as Mill Creek. As they came out of the timber onto the creek bank a flock of ducks that had been feeding in the creek took flight and winged away. They called this creek Duck Creek and it is so called today.
There on the south side of Duck Creek they came upon the bluff area again, not as high as the bluff south of Mill Creek but hugging the river quite closely and with the Indian trail between the bluff and the river, and on southeast it was hilly and bluffy for yet more than a mile and a half and then they emerged in what proved to be quite a wide and extensive valley. They climbed up the hillside to get a view over the tree tops of the valley, and then decided to cross the valley. As they started through the timber they came upon a clear water rill fed by several large springs farther back in the hills to the west. They decided they would stop there and eat a snack they had with them with the good drinking water from the rill. Just as they were reclining a large buck deer broke cover and William shot him. They then decided to add venison to the repast and while John started a fire with some powder and flint, William skinned out a hunk of the haunch and this they cut strips from and roasted on splints over the fire. They wrote down a name for the rill and called it Buck Branch and so it is still called by all the people in the area. They hung the remains of the buck on a sapling figuring the Indians might be along to use it. Even if it became smelly the Indians would not turn their noses if they were hungry and the Indian were not so well equipped to bag game as was the case with their white conquerors.
About a quarter mile south of Buck Branch, William and John came upon another Council House and although they were not aware of it at the time it was one of Chief Keokuk’s main Council Houses, but no Indians were seen that day.
History of David Alexander Dyas Sr. Family - Continued
William and John moved on south and came upon the banks of another creek this one at a point about a mile up from its confluence with the slough that was later to be known as Harrington’s Slough. There was back water from the Mississippi at this point as there was low bottom land covered mostly with huge cottonwoods from there to the Slough, the last of what is now called Green Island bottoms extending to the south and east from where they now were. They decided they would not cross this creek that day but with the sun shinning on the still waters through the rifts in the treetops it was quite beautiful and they called it Pleasant Creek.
Then they decided to follow an island course back to their skiff and crossing the valley on a westward course they hit the hills on the west side again after about a mile and a half and back over the range of hills south of Duck Creek and about a mile or so west of the river and the trail they had taken that morning. They crossed Duck Creek Valley about a mile from the Mississippi and up and over the range of hills south of Mill Creek.
In those days the hills were bare of trees with the exception of an occasional large oak that had managed to escape the ravages of periodic fires. The valleys were wooded because they did not dry out to a sufficient extent so as to create a fire hazard.
They followed Mill Creek when they reached it about a half- mile or so farther up than the point where they had crossed it that morning. It was getting dusk by the time they reached their skiff. They were in taboo territory on the west side of the river so decided to pull across the river and spent the night on the island then went back to Galena the next day.
That same fall two or three weeks later, William Frederick Dyas and John Piggot Dyas and James Armstrong with two other of the Dyas hired men went back down to the Valley across the river and built a log cabin in the heavy timber back about a half mile from the river and the Indian camping grounds. They built it at a point where the springs from the indentures into the range marked what was later the William Frederick Dyas home and the Robert Samuel Dyas home. In those days there was a strong flowing spring in each one of the indentures or small valves along the north side of the valley. The walls of this log cabin were still standing in the early 1890’s.
Even though the territory was not yet open for the settlement David Alexander Dyas Sr. kept it occupied through the winter of 1832- 1833. James Armstrong likes to trap and he and Williams Frederick Dyas were together there some of the time in this log cabin and some times it would just be one of them alone while the others would trudge up the river over the ice with a hand sled to get flour and a few items of supplies at Galena.
History of David Alexander Dyas Sr. Family – Continued
Meanwhile David Alexander Dyas Sr. and the rest of the folks at Galena were making preparations to move to the valley south of Bellevue, Iowa in the spring of 1833 or when ever the Indian chiefs had all been rounded up and the treaty signed.
The Dyas crew built two barges that winter at Galena to move their stock and equipment on down the Mississippi to the Valley. They would use these barges later in the wood business. A five man crew went into the valley early in the spring of 1833 and the double log cabin on the hillside was built. (This log cabin stood a long time and great-grandchildren of David Alexander Dyas Sr. played as children among the few remaining logs – not realizing the history of those logs.)
The last of the Indian Chiefs were rounded up by a detail of soldiers out along the Iowa River near where Iowa City is now located and their signatures were obtained on the Treaty in June of 1833.
David Alexander Dyas Sr. and all of the family except Catherine Sophia Dyas now the wife of Thomas Nicholson and expecting in the near future, left Galena and moved to the Valley across the Mississippi near Bellevue, Iowa or where Bellevue is now located. Thomas Nicholson and husband of Catherine Sophia Dyas and Alexander Whitehall Reed also remained in Galena to take care of the wood business. Amelia Gertrude Dyas also stayed in Galena to be with her sister Catherine Sophia when the first born would arrive. Alexander Whitehall latter married Amelia Gertrude Dyas. They were married in 1835. David Alexander Dyas Sr. set Alexander Whitehall Reed and wife Amelia Gertrude up on the Pleasant Creek area of land about 2000 acres of mostly bottom land and Alexander Whitehall Reed in turn set this half- up in 1000 acres or about half of the original 2000 acres. John W. Golding who married the Reed brothers only sister was also set up on most of the remaining bottom land.
John W. Golding learned the wood business from the Dyas folks and he had one of the largest early day wood yards known of called Goldings Wood Yard.
The entire Dyas clan were moved to Christian Valley on the Iowa side of the Mississippi River in Jackson County just south of where Bellevue, Iowa is now located in time to have a get together of the Dyas families on the 4th of July, 1833 in the new double log cabin.
Roy Williams Dyas (the writer of this letter) remembers David Alexander Dyas Jr. very well and says he was stocky built, a bit heavier than Charlie, his son, very much a Dyas. There was a homecoming in 1907 for the Dyas families in Bellevue, Iowa and there is a picture taken of the families in front of the new rock house on the old homestead. George Francis Dyas the youngest brother of David Alexander Jr. was taller than David Jr. and more slimly built.
History of David Alexander Dyas Sr. Family - Continued
David Alexander Dyas Jr. and family moved from the valley to Kansas in a covered wagon in 1871.
In April 20, 1850 Williams Frederick Dyas, John Piggot Dyas, George Francis Dyas and Thomas Nicholson and John W. Golding set forth from the Valley in a covered wagon drawn by four yoke of oxen and a lighter wagon horse drawn for California. They camped at Bridgeport on the Maqueketa River the first night, just northeast of where the town of Maquoketa, Iowa is now located. Daniel Whitmore had a store and a black smith shop at Bridgeport and also ran the ferry there. Robert Samuel Dyas was working for Daniel Whitmore then and had married Martha Van Horn.
David Alexander Dyas Jr. had married Mary Van Horn a sister of Martha Van Horn and they had remained in the Valley with David Alexander Sr. while the rest of the Dyas boys made their trip to California. The boys go to the gold fields in the spring of 1851 and William Frederick, George Francis and John W. Golding came home. They shipped out of San Francisco down to the Isthmus of Panama then across the Isthmus by railroad and from there to New York by ship. Then by railroad to Chicago, Illinois and then by stage to Galena, Illinois. The railroad across the Isthmus of Panama deserves a story in itself.
***
Above story was typed verbatim from a hand written story by
Roy W. Dyas.
In Christian Valley about one mile south of Bellevue, Iowa Southwest on the Springbrook Road are several of the original Dyas homes.
The first house is that of David Alexander Dyas Jr. (1821-1896). The second is that of Robert Samuel Dyas. The third house is the old William Francis Dyas Home.
The fourth house is the old Dyas homestead which was originally a log house later replaced with a stone house in 1868 by George Francis Dyas. The fifth house is the Thomas Nicholson rock house. Thomas Nicholson married Catherine Sophia Dyas in Galena, Illinois in 1832 and moved to the Valley with his father - in - law David Alexander Dyas Sr.
The sixth house up the Valley is the old Asa Simmons place. Asa Simmons married the only daughter of Thomas and Catherine Dyas Nicholson. Tom set Asa up with acreage from the South and West side of his holdings in the Valley. The old Thomas Lambertson place is at the very head end of the South fork of the Valley and on the Northwest side of the road as is the case with all the Dyas homes.
Down the Southeast area of the valley along the Mississippi River just North of Duck Creek was the home of John Piggot Dyas, another son of David Alexander Dyas Sr.
Above from an old letter by Roy Dyas