Advertisement

Rebecca <I>Buntin</I> Adams

Advertisement

Rebecca Buntin Adams

Birth
Carlisle, Sullivan County, Indiana, USA
Death
20 Dec 1900 (aged 86)
Woodbury County, Iowa, USA
Burial
Smithland, Woodbury County, Iowa, USA Add to Map
Memorial ID
View Source
Rebecca married Elijah Adams on 9 FEB 1837 in Boone Co, Indiana. They were the parents of Elizabeth Jane, James Wallace #35487565 (1841-1937), William Harrison #35487490 (1843-1915, Vet; Co K 7th IA Cav, mayor of Smithland and rural mail carrier died when he fell from a wagon and was trampled by his horses), Mariah (1845), and Greenbury Elijah (1853).

CENSUSD 1860 Little Sioux Township, Woodbury, Iowa
Elijah Adams Male 46 Kentucky
Rebecca Adams Female 46 Kentucky
J W Adams Male 18 Indiana
W H Adams Male 16 Indiana
Eliza Adams Female 7 Illinois
John Job Adams Male 24 Illinois

CENSUS 1870 Woodbury Township, Woodbury, Iowa
Elijah Adams Male 56 Kentucky
Rebecca Adams Female 56 Kentucky
Elijah Adams Male 17 Illinois
Thos Jefferson Male 48 Connecticut

CENSUS 1895 Woodbury, Iowa
Palmer Hall Male 63
Elizabeth Hall Female 55
Harry E Hall Male 20
Nellie V Hall Female 16
Fred P Hall Male 13
Rebecca Adams Female 81
Orvil S Adams Male 61

The Mapleton Press - Thursday, October 31st, 1929 - The Story of a Pioneer - Boonesboro, Kentucky - "the dark and bloody ground " where Daniel Boone made his home, was the first home of Elijah Adams and Rebecca Buntin, who were born there in 1814.

In 1830 their families moved to Boone county, Indiana, where Elijah and Rebecca were married and where their three children, Elizabeth, James W. and W.H., were born. A few years later they moved to Rock Island county, Illinois, and it was while the Adams family was there that Dave T. Hawthorne came from Maryland on his way to Iowa. In the spring of 1856 the two families came to Iowa and settled near what is now Smithland. Five years before, Curtis Lamb, the first white man to live for any length of time in this part of the state, had settled there with his family.

With one hundred head of cattle and nine yoke of oxen, the Adams family had crossed the state of Iowa, the boys, Harry age 12 and James age 15, riding all of the way on the two horses which they possessed. They crossed the Mississippi at Davenport. Their route lead through Iowa City, Des Moines, and Ida Grove to Smithland. During the previous year Mr. Adams had bought 320 acres of the best land he could obtain near that town, paying $3.60 per acre for it. As soon as the oxen had rested after the trip, the boys, Harry and James, hitched up two yoke of four head each, and began to break the prairie sod. They used two 24-inch breaking plows.

With the two boys driving the oxen, and two hired men handling the plows, they had 100 acres broken up by the end of July. That is, in about forty-five days they had plowed about 100 acres. With this work completed, the boys started to get logs for their house and to haul them to the building site. They selected particularly good logs for their house, most of them being 16 and 32 feet long and hewed on two sides. The dimensions of the house were sixteen by thirty-two feet, twelve feet high, with a partition across the middle, and good room upstairs. The chimney was made of mud and sticks in one end. A cabin such as this was better than most of the pioneers could take time to build.

Besides breaking the prairie and building the cabin, the Adams boys put up a great deal of hay that summer. Their father had a mowing machine. He cut, and the boys and hired men stacked 150 tons of wild hay that August. Just as the hay work was completed, some one set a fire a mile south, and it burned all of the hay except about thirty tons. This was the winter's supply of feed for one hundred cattle the Adams' had brought with them. The herd had to be fed. There were beds of rushes on the Missouri river bottoms, and it was to these rush beds that the cattle were taken. They were herded there, getting along well until the "hard winter" of 1856.

Starting on the first of December, the snow began to fall. It came from the northwest and continued for three days. By this time it was four feet deep on the level. After the wind had
blown over it for a time it formed a crust sufficiently hard to support a man. To be continued

The Mapleton Press - Thursday , November 7th, 1929 - Everyone was snowbound. Some had to live for weeks upon hominy and potatoes. Rev. London Taylor, the first presiding elder of the Methodist Episcopal church in Northwestern Iowa, in describing the winter, says: ... . "but the time soon came when our larder was exhausted and something had to be done. The snow was four feet deep and the storm was raging. The roads were almost impassable, and if we were to start for Council Bluffs for provisions we might perish. Yet there was no alternative, so brother Clark and I, each with a team, started on the perilous journey of one hundred miles. Having reached our destination and obtained our supply, we turned to face the storm home. At times
the snow blew so furiously that we could not see our teams. On the eighth day we arrived home, having encountered the greatest dangers and the most severe experience of my life. "

This storm, as described by Mr. Taylor, occurred while the Adams boys were herding their cattle in the rush-beds on the Missouri river bottoms. "With its arrival, they had to drive the herd to the timber, which furnished a little shelter. But, despite the boys' best efforts to procure feed for the animals, they began to starve and freeze to death, so that by the first of May more than fifty of them had died.

That fall the Adams boys had been unable to dig a well on their farm, so during the winter they had to take their horses to the river for water. They had a good trail, and over it they hauled wood. While the boys were at the water-hole on December 15, Inikpaduta and his band of warriors came along. They made camp and set up nine tepees. In this camp the Indians remained until the first of March when the white people of Smithland went to the camp and drove them out.

According to Mr. Adams, the whites then took the guns from the Indians, and sent the band away to the north. It was then that Inkpaduta and his followers began their depredations on the few settlers along the river. However, they committed no murders until they arrived at Spirit Lake where they massacred forty men, women, and children, and took four women prisoners. Two of these prisoners were killed and two were rescued. The Adams folks knew all these Indians personally as some of them were in their house nearly every day. While they were warming themselves and smoking they told of the things they were going to do. All of them were rather jolly acting fellows, with the exception of old Inkpaduta, who was a big coarse, surly chap, about sixty years old. He never came into the house.

The squaws of these Indians often visited the white settlers to trade pork for venison, (tomadoke). They had been living quietly, and according to Mr. Adams the Indians were living on the cattle that were dying daily near their camp. But Indians will be Indians, and they would steal. Then the white people made their big mistake. They drove away the redmen, and this, according to Mr. Adams, was the direct cause of the Spirit Lake massacre.

Despite the suffering, hardships, and dangers of pioneer life, children were born, young folks were married, and old folks died just the same as they did in any part of the world. Romance could not be beaten out, even by the war. In 1869 Mr. Adams married Geraldine Smith, daughter of O.B. Smith, the founder of Smithland. By this time then were roads, bridges, schoolhouses, and churches, and the old days of pioneering seemed to be almost over.

But Mr. Adam and his wife were not the kind to sit still and let the rest of the world go by. They insisted in taking part in everything, and as a result they lived long happy lives. Now Geraldine is gone, but Mr. Adams and the community in which she spent her lift will not forget. One who has endeavored for seventy years to make this a better world to live in, is not soon forgotten.
Rebecca married Elijah Adams on 9 FEB 1837 in Boone Co, Indiana. They were the parents of Elizabeth Jane, James Wallace #35487565 (1841-1937), William Harrison #35487490 (1843-1915, Vet; Co K 7th IA Cav, mayor of Smithland and rural mail carrier died when he fell from a wagon and was trampled by his horses), Mariah (1845), and Greenbury Elijah (1853).

CENSUSD 1860 Little Sioux Township, Woodbury, Iowa
Elijah Adams Male 46 Kentucky
Rebecca Adams Female 46 Kentucky
J W Adams Male 18 Indiana
W H Adams Male 16 Indiana
Eliza Adams Female 7 Illinois
John Job Adams Male 24 Illinois

CENSUS 1870 Woodbury Township, Woodbury, Iowa
Elijah Adams Male 56 Kentucky
Rebecca Adams Female 56 Kentucky
Elijah Adams Male 17 Illinois
Thos Jefferson Male 48 Connecticut

CENSUS 1895 Woodbury, Iowa
Palmer Hall Male 63
Elizabeth Hall Female 55
Harry E Hall Male 20
Nellie V Hall Female 16
Fred P Hall Male 13
Rebecca Adams Female 81
Orvil S Adams Male 61

The Mapleton Press - Thursday, October 31st, 1929 - The Story of a Pioneer - Boonesboro, Kentucky - "the dark and bloody ground " where Daniel Boone made his home, was the first home of Elijah Adams and Rebecca Buntin, who were born there in 1814.

In 1830 their families moved to Boone county, Indiana, where Elijah and Rebecca were married and where their three children, Elizabeth, James W. and W.H., were born. A few years later they moved to Rock Island county, Illinois, and it was while the Adams family was there that Dave T. Hawthorne came from Maryland on his way to Iowa. In the spring of 1856 the two families came to Iowa and settled near what is now Smithland. Five years before, Curtis Lamb, the first white man to live for any length of time in this part of the state, had settled there with his family.

With one hundred head of cattle and nine yoke of oxen, the Adams family had crossed the state of Iowa, the boys, Harry age 12 and James age 15, riding all of the way on the two horses which they possessed. They crossed the Mississippi at Davenport. Their route lead through Iowa City, Des Moines, and Ida Grove to Smithland. During the previous year Mr. Adams had bought 320 acres of the best land he could obtain near that town, paying $3.60 per acre for it. As soon as the oxen had rested after the trip, the boys, Harry and James, hitched up two yoke of four head each, and began to break the prairie sod. They used two 24-inch breaking plows.

With the two boys driving the oxen, and two hired men handling the plows, they had 100 acres broken up by the end of July. That is, in about forty-five days they had plowed about 100 acres. With this work completed, the boys started to get logs for their house and to haul them to the building site. They selected particularly good logs for their house, most of them being 16 and 32 feet long and hewed on two sides. The dimensions of the house were sixteen by thirty-two feet, twelve feet high, with a partition across the middle, and good room upstairs. The chimney was made of mud and sticks in one end. A cabin such as this was better than most of the pioneers could take time to build.

Besides breaking the prairie and building the cabin, the Adams boys put up a great deal of hay that summer. Their father had a mowing machine. He cut, and the boys and hired men stacked 150 tons of wild hay that August. Just as the hay work was completed, some one set a fire a mile south, and it burned all of the hay except about thirty tons. This was the winter's supply of feed for one hundred cattle the Adams' had brought with them. The herd had to be fed. There were beds of rushes on the Missouri river bottoms, and it was to these rush beds that the cattle were taken. They were herded there, getting along well until the "hard winter" of 1856.

Starting on the first of December, the snow began to fall. It came from the northwest and continued for three days. By this time it was four feet deep on the level. After the wind had
blown over it for a time it formed a crust sufficiently hard to support a man. To be continued

The Mapleton Press - Thursday , November 7th, 1929 - Everyone was snowbound. Some had to live for weeks upon hominy and potatoes. Rev. London Taylor, the first presiding elder of the Methodist Episcopal church in Northwestern Iowa, in describing the winter, says: ... . "but the time soon came when our larder was exhausted and something had to be done. The snow was four feet deep and the storm was raging. The roads were almost impassable, and if we were to start for Council Bluffs for provisions we might perish. Yet there was no alternative, so brother Clark and I, each with a team, started on the perilous journey of one hundred miles. Having reached our destination and obtained our supply, we turned to face the storm home. At times
the snow blew so furiously that we could not see our teams. On the eighth day we arrived home, having encountered the greatest dangers and the most severe experience of my life. "

This storm, as described by Mr. Taylor, occurred while the Adams boys were herding their cattle in the rush-beds on the Missouri river bottoms. "With its arrival, they had to drive the herd to the timber, which furnished a little shelter. But, despite the boys' best efforts to procure feed for the animals, they began to starve and freeze to death, so that by the first of May more than fifty of them had died.

That fall the Adams boys had been unable to dig a well on their farm, so during the winter they had to take their horses to the river for water. They had a good trail, and over it they hauled wood. While the boys were at the water-hole on December 15, Inikpaduta and his band of warriors came along. They made camp and set up nine tepees. In this camp the Indians remained until the first of March when the white people of Smithland went to the camp and drove them out.

According to Mr. Adams, the whites then took the guns from the Indians, and sent the band away to the north. It was then that Inkpaduta and his followers began their depredations on the few settlers along the river. However, they committed no murders until they arrived at Spirit Lake where they massacred forty men, women, and children, and took four women prisoners. Two of these prisoners were killed and two were rescued. The Adams folks knew all these Indians personally as some of them were in their house nearly every day. While they were warming themselves and smoking they told of the things they were going to do. All of them were rather jolly acting fellows, with the exception of old Inkpaduta, who was a big coarse, surly chap, about sixty years old. He never came into the house.

The squaws of these Indians often visited the white settlers to trade pork for venison, (tomadoke). They had been living quietly, and according to Mr. Adams the Indians were living on the cattle that were dying daily near their camp. But Indians will be Indians, and they would steal. Then the white people made their big mistake. They drove away the redmen, and this, according to Mr. Adams, was the direct cause of the Spirit Lake massacre.

Despite the suffering, hardships, and dangers of pioneer life, children were born, young folks were married, and old folks died just the same as they did in any part of the world. Romance could not be beaten out, even by the war. In 1869 Mr. Adams married Geraldine Smith, daughter of O.B. Smith, the founder of Smithland. By this time then were roads, bridges, schoolhouses, and churches, and the old days of pioneering seemed to be almost over.

But Mr. Adam and his wife were not the kind to sit still and let the rest of the world go by. They insisted in taking part in everything, and as a result they lived long happy lives. Now Geraldine is gone, but Mr. Adams and the community in which she spent her lift will not forget. One who has endeavored for seventy years to make this a better world to live in, is not soon forgotten.


Sponsored by Ancestry

Advertisement

  • Created by: Geo Clinton
  • Added: Nov 16, 2008
  • Find a Grave Memorial ID:
  • Find a Grave, database and images (https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/31444788/rebecca-adams: accessed ), memorial page for Rebecca Buntin Adams (6 May 1814–20 Dec 1900), Find a Grave Memorial ID 31444788, citing Wellington Cemetery, Smithland, Woodbury County, Iowa, USA; Maintained by Geo Clinton (contributor 46936067).