Excellent letters written by Clapp a native of Binghamton, New York back home to his parents which describe his experiences in Western Iowa, his trip across the prairie, real estate and land speculation, and his business partnership with Marshall F. Moore, (also of Binghamton), establishing a Land Agency and Banking business in Sioux City. The letters provide an excellent and unusually detailed account of his life, and social and business conditions in far western Iowa at the beginnings of its settlement and development.

Cyrus S. Clapp was born April 17, 1830 in Norwich, New York, his parents were John and Lydia (Strong) Clapp. He was educated at the Academy at Binghamton, New York, attended Hamilton College, and Union College.  After his adventures in Iowa he returned to Binghamton where he became one of the leading businessmen of the town, dealer in real estate and with interests in several manufacturing concerns, and Director of the First National Bank. He married Harriet Evans October 15, 1862, the couple had two children that survived. Cyrus S. Clapp died May, 20, 1900.

The collection begins with a twelve page letter, from Clapp to his mother, describing his trip across the Iowa prairie:

       Council Bluffs, Pottawattamie Co. Iowa, August 11^th, 1855

       "My Dear Mother,

               We arrived at this point yesterday afternoon. When we left Fort Des Moines we gave directions for our letters to be forwarded to us here, ... We remained at Ft. Dodge for several days, finding very comfortable quarters & making some pleasant acquaintances. We left there on Monday the 30^th in company with a Mr. Hubbard from Rushville, Indiana State Senator & a very clever gentlemanly man. He wished to go to Sioux City as well as ourselves but could get no conveyance there being but very few who undertake to cross the almost boundless prairie which lay between these two points, & we having our own conveyance agreed to take him along... and bright & early Monday morning started on our journey of near 175 miles through an almost entirely unsettled country, there being but two or three stations on our whole route. No roads, no people, but little water fit to drink, plenty of Indians & any quantity of game Elk Buffalo &c. ... Our directions we had thoroughly learned from an old man Maj. Williams who has been in this country a long time & perfectly understands all the routes... Our progress was slow moving no faster than one horse could walk, there being but a very slight track and that in many places so indistinct that we would have to call a council & make investigations as to our whereabouts. Slowly we wound along through a most beautiful rolling prairie, almost completely hid in the tall grass which in many places was much higher than our horses back... Thus we jogged on until about 4 - ½ PM when we arrived at our first camping ground at the head of Twin Lakes, having made about 25 miles. Here we found an old hunter asleep before his fire... He was 82 years old and for the last 60 years had lived in the west among the Indians, hunting, trapping & making a living as best he could... He had been over the Rocky Mountains several times had endured all kinds of hardships ... he don't like to live in a settlement, says it does not agree with him, so he makes the broad prairie his home and the game his companions...

      Our track from here became still more indistinct and it was with great difficulty we could find it at all being so little accustomed to such business where an Indian or western hunter would have followed it without difficulty. ... and in the afternoon came to the cabin of a Mr. Austin where we got a good supper, and slept in a bed, one peculiar to the west, dirty & full of bugs, neither of which troubled us. Austin had a fine situation on the Coon river some 35 miles from our last camp. He has a town laid out and is working hard to have it made the county seat... There is another town on the other side of the river but no one living there. ...

       At last we came round a point of the bluffs and stretched before us lay the broad Missouri bottoms extending for miles on every side & level as a house floor, no track and our only guide some willow stakes about a mile apart. ... we at length discovered a house away in the distance. It looked as though it was about a mile or two off but to our sorrow it proved to be about 7 so deceptive is the distance over these prairies. But we arrived there after a time pretty well used up, hungry and tired. It was what is called Seargent Bluff city owned and occupied by a man named Crocknell. ... We got fed and rested and the next morning started for Sioux City proper some 8 miles above. On our way we passed Floyds Grave who died here some years ago and was one of the Lewis & Clarks exploring party. About in this vicinity is quite a settlement of French and halfbreeds - We arrived at Sioux city and found it consisted like nearly all the cities out here of one log house, the balance vacant lots. It is situated on the banks of the Missouri and will they say be an important point. ... Just below is a little were some Indian burials and we walked down to take a look at their way of disposing of the departed. They place 4 forked poles in the ground about 10 feet high and on these they place a kind of roof of poles and on the top of this they place their dead....

       Came along down and stopped at a Frenchman named La Charitae where we staid all night, among the Indians and during the night some of them broke open my bag and stole that pistol case and all ... and some other little things. I made a great outcry in the morning but no one knew anything about it. The old fellow spluttered French and I could understand nothing he said. He spoke English well enough the night before but in the morning it was all gone. ...

      The next morning got up and started for another Frenchmans where the Election of County officers was to be held about 4 miles from our stopping place. We got up there just after the polls were opened and such another collection I never saw. Frenchman, Irishman, Halfbreeds, Indians, Squaws &c about 12 oc M they had got the steam up, the whiskey had done its work. Fighting, Swearing, drinking voting, talking all at the same time long knives & pistols flourishing and at length things became so uproarious I concluded we had better leave which we did. In the evening they had a grand fight two or three were pretty badly stabbed one shot and numbers with banged eyes blood noses &c. It was western all over rather too much for me .. all incident with western life. The next day nothing worthy of note transpired, we went up the Bluffs back of Crocknells saw a large encampment of Sioux some 4 or 500 warriors...

       Tomorrow we are going over into Nebraska to take a look at Omaha city the capital of said territory. This is considerable of a town some 3000 inhabitants and growing rapidly. ...

Clapp is next heard from again in a pair of letters, dated March 29, 1856, written to his mother and father. He is in Council Bluffs and employed in the office of a Col. Williams, but seems to be poorly paid and has drawn upon his father for $ 100.00. He discusses plans to go up the Yellowstone River in the employ of the American Fur Company and describes the mountain men who have come down river:

       "My Dear Mother,

           You will observe from the heading of this sheet that I have at length succeeded in getting into an office and once more have something to do. I am figuring away at the books of this concern and am hoping I shall have permanent employment here although there has no definite arrangements yet been made or anything said as to remuneration, still it is business...

            If I do not succeed in obtaining a permanent situation with this firm, and Mr. Smith does not come out there and carry out our original plan, I think I shall go into the employ of Mr. Decatur an agent of the American Fur Company and take a summer excursion up the Missouri as far as the mouth of the Yellowstone to Fort Union. He is going up with the first boat and says he will be gone a good while, returning in about a year from this spring, that is if I don't get scalped on the route.  ... There was a party arrived here yesterday from Fort Pierre and they all give glowing descriptions of that wild life. They started six of them last fall from Fort Union but could get no further than Fort Pierre owing to the intensely cold weather and very deep snow. They are en route for St. Louis where they will remain a few weeks, spend what money they have earned and then return to the wilds of the Rocky Mountains...."

   "Dear Father,

            I have to day taken the liberty of drawing on you for $ 100. - one hundred dollars. I know you said none of my dfts. would be paid but as this is a case of extreme necessity I hope you will be kind enough to honor the same... There is a fine opening here for business and money to be made, and I think he makes a great mistake if he does not come on. Property is rapidly increasing in value, and every stage brings Crowds of people in search of fortune.

           Had we invested a few thousand dollars in Sioux City in Ashton, in Omaha or in this place last summer we could have realized quite a fortune today. ... You may say that I have no experience in business matters and am deceived by the large stories of the land sharks, but I assure you it is not so. It is as clear and plain as any mathematical demonstration...."

Cyrus next writes his father, a month later, on April 29^th, 1856, acknowledging receipt of a thousand dollar draft and detailing plans to leave for Elk Horn River and to make improvements on land he owned there:

   "Dear Father,

              .... This afternoon I leave the Bluffs for the Elk Horn river with several other young men who own land in that vicinity. I am the proprietor of about 400 acres out there which cost me $ 300. It has a cabin on it, and I am going out there to live, make some improvements on my place and as soon as I can make enough on it I shall sell, and try something else. It is a most lovely place. About 60 acres of good black walnut timber, some 200 acres of beautiful bottomland as level as a floor and as rich as soil can possibly be, a small lake of about 25 or 30 acres in extent of clear spring water and filled with pike of enormous size, from 2 to 4 feet in length, the balance of my land is rolling prairie, not rough but sweeping up & down in long graceful curving lines, not a stump not a blemish to be seen. If such a place could be found in New York, its value would be immense and with very little trouble could be made a perfect little paradise. My price at present is $ 2500. About one mile and ½ from the eastern boundary lies the town of Elk Horn, not very much of a place at present ... and lies exactly on the great western route for Salt Lake and California..."

Clapp's letters home in July of 1856 convey a sense of the heightened excitement occasioned by the increase in land prices and speculative activity. Clapp is in the thick of things and describes a new town, Iron Bluffs City, he was laying out and getting ready to offer shares in:

   Council Bluffs, Iowa, July 7, 1856

   "Dear Father,

    .... In some of your last letters you mention the subject of funds, and propose advancing another thousand dollars for me to invest to the best of my judgment and share the profits with you. This I shall be most happy to do, and acting accordingly have drawn on you through H. Williams & Co for the said amount. ...Property has advanced here within the past three weeks more than 100% and is still on the increase. The act of Congress granting lands to the various proposed lines of R Roads in this state has set everything in motion & all are eager and excited on the subject of depot grounds &c &c. A company in this place purchased on the 5^th inst. Sixteen & ½ acres a little more than a mile from town for which they gave $ 11,000. $ 5,000 in cash and the balance in one, two and three years at 6%. It is as Mr. Chapman says one can hardly make a mistake... I met Mr. Hubbard from Indiana who traveled with Smith & I last summer, a few days ago and he gave me some items which astonished me much. He bought a claim while we were at Sioux City for which he paid $ 2000 and we thought he was wild crazy in the extreme. He told me here, that he had cleared over $ 8000 off it, and had enough left to make $ 8000 more, this was what we thought so wild. Had we remained in Fort Desmoine, Sioux City, this place or Omaha we could have made $ 10000 each without the slightest trouble.

           My Elk Horn venture turns out to be better than I anticipated and I can clear a thousand dollars without trouble. I send you a map of the city. A number of us are now about starting a new town some 12 or 14 miles below to be called Iron Bluffs city. We have got the location about 2000 acres of beautiful land, heavy timber, a splendid stone quarry, & every evidence of iron, which gives the place its name. ... They are laying out the town today. 30 shares. Five to be given away to some of the influential ones the bal to be divided leaving 5 shares each. It cost us about $ 100, a piece.  ... Our lithograph will be up in about two weeks and then the sale commences. We are writing an article for the Bugle and shall blow a loud blast I assure you...

   If we can get capital enough we shall start an office in Omaha, a kind of a brokers shop land agency, &c. The land in Nebraska will be in market by the first of January and there will be a rush in that quarter that has never been equaled. We are here on the spot now, are pretty well posted on localities &c are acquainted with most of the people now here and can we get a office started early in the fall it would give us considerable advantage and when the L office did open we would stand ready to pitch in ..."

   Council Bluffs, Iowa, July 11, 1856

   "Dear Mother,

            Nearly all my letters of late have been addressed to Father and as I've not heard from you in some time, I thought perhaps you were wanting to hear again from your Squatter Son. I have been in town for several days past, Came in to see the 4^th which was duly celebrated with bon-fires, music, snap-crackers, fight &c &c the whole closing with a grand dance, which was one of the richest affairs it has ever been my lot to behold... the collection that was gathered together on that memorable night passes all description. Mormons half breeds Christians & heathen all mingled together, and going it to the dulcet sounds of an old cracked violin a mind broken wheezy clarionett...

            Yesterday S and myself sold our farm on the Horn for $ 2400, it cost us $ 300 each... Tomorrow we are going out to Horn to arrange our matters there and shall then move to our new town of Iron Bluffs where we are making arrangements for a city. Have a Surveyor there now laying out the town, shall have a map in a few weeks, divide the shares and then be prepared to sell lots, shares &c to all who wish to make themselves rich.

            Everyone here is deep in speculation, buying & selling all the time. Not a day passes but large amounts of money change hands. Two young men this spring purchased 30 lots at what was then considered a pretty high figure but within  the last ten days they have sold 9 lots and have $ 100 more than the original cost the balance clear profit. There is more speculation in this place just now than there is in Omaha, but the latter is bound to be the place...."

   Council Bluffs, Iowa, July 24, 1856

   "Dear Father,

            ... This place continues to improve and property to advance in value. There have not been quite as many strangers here during this excessively hot weather as before but still there are a good many and large amounts of money daily change hands. Every one is busy buying and selling starting new towns and speculating in every imaginable manner. Omaha is improving with great rapidity, lots still continue to go up and no one knows when they will stop. The Nebraska lands will probably be advertised next month and be in market by the first of January. The Omahaians are about erecting a $ 50,000 hotel. They started a paper for that purpose day before yesterday morning and by 4 o'clock P.M. had over $ 26,000 subscribed. Quick work I think for a new town not quite two years old...."

Clapp writes a letter home to his father in which he further describes the run up in prices caused by speculation, but also defends his accounts of the boom to his apparently incredulous and increasingly over drawn upon parent and responds to his father's unusual request for character references for his own son:

    Council Bluffs, Iowa, August 6, 1856

    "Dear Father,

            ... I have written you from time to time giving you a fair idea of my movements in this country, but still see I am unable to convince you that the high prices and exorbitant interest paid in this part of the world are honest bona fide transactions. Were you here I think you would judge differently. Your ideas concerning very many of the towns which daily spring into existence along the Missouri and in the interior of Nebraska are correct they are indeed but a bubble; many of them only started for the purpose of speculation and as soon as the original proprietors have sold out their shares and made all they could off them, down they go, and in a short time are almost entirely forgotten... All this may look bad to an eastern eye and one unaccustomed to western speculations, but to one living here and knowing something about such matters, it assumes a different aspect, and is looked upon simply as a money making operation and the one that comes out ahead is the best and honest fellow. All these things I am well aware of and look accordingly; but when you come to a place like this or Omaha you find points that are really important ones and which are destined to become among the largest towns on the river. They have the start, the influence, the location, the surrounding country, Rail Roads, not only projected but being built and that too as rapidly as energy and capital can do the thing; emigration continues to pour in, houses and stores are being built; the demand for material far exceeds the supply, and many who would have built this season are compelled to wait ‘till next; every stage comes in loaded, every boat brings up numbers, and the majority of all come to stay to make a home; not a mere transient visit to see the country...

    ... Now when you take all these things into consideration it does seem to me that there can be but little danger in investing your money in any place that has the same advantages and is growing with the same rapidity...

    ... You ask me if I have any objections to your enquiring of some respectable man as to my character habits conduct; and my answer is that I have not the slightest objection in the world. Although I must say I think the request a singular one. To any of the men here with a home I am acquainted you can write and make all the enquiries concerning me you may desire and if it does not prove satisfactory I shall be much mistaken. You can write to Judge A.V. Larimer, P. B. D. Gray, J. Smith Hooton or any one else who know me..."

In September, Clapp writes his father again, informing him that he had again drawn upon him for $ 500.00 being short that amount on the purchase of some land near Sioux City. He gives a glowing account of his prospects and of the property in Sioux City. He then goes on to discuss the impending land rush in Omaha, Nebraska, and mentions sending home some relics of Sergeant Floyd's grave and a "genuine Mormon bible":

  Council Bluffs, September 6, 1856

 "Dear Father,

          ... I hardly know what to think of the Land Warrant business at Omaha. I am afraid twill be overdone as there are already scores of sharks there waiting for the land office to be overdone as there are already scores of sharks there waiting for the land office to open and when it does there will be a perfect swarm rush in from this place, Fort Demoines, Fort Dodge, Iowa City & in fact from almost every portion of the State. This was the business Smith proposed going into. However it might do well not withstanding the crowd as there will be a rush there that has never before been seen in the Western country. At any rate there will be some good chances in other portions of the Territory. I had a letter from Smith a short time since... He does not like Mathews at all - ... You have read Lewis & Clark expedition and remember Sergt. Floyd. Enclosed I send you a small piece of the cedar post which was planted at his head on the 20^th Augt. 1804. The river is washing the banks away at this point and the bluff on which he was buried is gradually caving away and ere long the remains of that gallant man will be mingled with the sands of the Missouri... I mail to day for mother a genuine Mormon bible which may prove interesting to you all. It is quite difficult to get hold of them." ¹   

   Later in the month of September Clapp writes from Sioux City of plans for further business ventures with his future partner Marshall F. Moore, with whom he would establish a Land Agent and Banking business in Sioux City (one of the firm's business cards is in the archive). He provides a brief sketch of the changes one year had wrought upon the city:

   Sioux City, Sept. 20^th, 1856

   "Dear Mother,

            ... We intend going directly up the Missouri about one Hundred miles to the Mouth of the Running Water and then proceed up that stream in pursuit of the pine timber reported to be on it. ...

           I find this town considerably improved since I saw it last summer at which time there was but one log cabin on the town site, the balance covered with weeds and tall grass, not a single foot cultivated now in place of a desolate waste is a flourishing town of nearly 800 inhabitants. ..."

   A letter from a month later provides additional information on the beginnings of Clapp's partnership with Moore:

  Sioux City, Oct. 20^th, 1856

  "Dear Father -

           I wrote you a week or more ago mentioning my proposed business connection with Mr. Moore. Since then he has been down to the Bluffs and having made some farther arrangements I returned with him and shall remain here about ten days aiding, assisting and attending to the building of our office. After we get it ready for plastering I shall return put my affairs in ship shape and then remove to this place for good. I think we shall be ready to open one shaving shop by the 10^th or 15^th of November in a small way but shall not be ready to go into the Land business and the various branches connected therewith till the Land office opens which will be about the first January....

           We are getting up some business cards and would like to have the names of some good men in the East as references, say for instance Mr. Morgan & Dickinson, Doubleday or Mr. Phelps..."

   Clapp writes his mother in July of 1857 and notes a slowdown in business, perhaps in part due to the Panic of 1857. He also describes a trip to Fort Randall, the punishment of a deserter and a visit to an Indian encampment:

    Sioux City, July 25, 1857

    "Dear Mother,

      ... In the first place business in our line is very dull. Everybody is engaged in building and getting prepared for next winter. Moore is down the river at Leavenworth and I am here alone. He will probably return the first of next week and soon after start for the east. I have thought some of accompanying him although that is still unsettled...

    ... Some little time ago a number of us had a very pleasant trip up to Fort Randall on the Steamer Omaha. Had some music and some ladies, danced & had a fine time. At the Fort saw the troops out on parade and listened to one of the finest Brass Bands in the world. About 40 performers and if they couldn't make a regiment fight then nothing could. It did sound splendid way up there in the wilderness. After parade they brought out one poor sinner gave him 50 lashes on the bare back shaved his head and put him across the river to take care of himself. He was a deserter and had been caught a few days before...

   ... After that was over they got up a small row between the deck hands and the soldiers and it finally took a serious turn that we were obliged to drop down the river as far as Neobrarah where we were amused by the Indians the real genuine article no adulteration. I went up into their town went into some of the Lodges tried to pick up some curiosities but got nothing but a pipe. Did (not) feel inclined to be too familiar as they are by no means friendly and are now quarrelling with the Neobrarah Co as to their title to the lands on this side of the running water... The country on both sides of the river is splendid and will in a few years be filled with people, even now it is astonishing to see the numbers that venture off into that wild unbroken wilderness..."

   The last letter in the collection is to Cyrus from his business partner, Marhsall F. Moore (1830-1870), Moore writes concerning his plans not to stand for re-election to the post of Judge of the Court of Common Pleas in Sioux City, stating that he needed to devote time to their business interests. Moore would later become a Civil War General and the seventh governor of Washington Territory.

    Sioux City, Iowa, Sept. 8, 1858

    "My Dear Friend,

     ...I place a high esteem upon your opinion. You advised me by all means to be a candidate for reelection. Your advice had much weight with me, and although I decided not to be a candidate your opinion made me hesitate long. ... My reasons for declining reelection were these. In the first place our business requires my personal attention. It would be almost absolutely necessary for me to drop the one or the other. This district now embraces 22 counties more than one forth of the territorial limits of the State; and the duties of the office would require, after this year, nearly all of my time. It would be necessary to travel over two thousand miles a year & where the roads & bridges, if indeed there are any at all, are in a primitive state - to be exposed to all kinds of weather upon our bleak prairies..."

   The collection includes the following ephemeral items:

   Pair of broadsheet circulars:

Edmunds, J. D., Homes for the Homeless! Lands for the Landless ! Spencer, Clay County, Iowa, February 20, 1874.  [N.p.] 1874 broadsheet circular, measuring 5 ½ x 8 ½ inches, text describes the lands for sale and advantages to the settler of residence in Clay County. Signed in type by J. B. Edmunds, Spencer, Iowa. (Two copies).

Map of Iowa R.R. Land Co's. Lands in the Counties of Cherokee & Obrien. Office of the Company Cedar Rapids Iowa & Chicago, Ills. [N.p.] 1877, map, printed in red and black, measuring 8 ½ x 14 inches, old folds and creases, else very good. The Lands sold as of March 1, 1877 are denoted in red, those available for sale in gray hachure.

Township Plat. Township No. [96] Range [43] In the County of [Sioux] and State of [Iowa]

Indianapolis: Bidwell & brothers, printers, n.d. c. 1870's, measuring 13 ½ x 17inches, printed in red and completed in manuscript. For the Sioux River Land District, showing two parcels owned by John Clapp, marked in pencil, with a description of the land by the general land agent at the bottom in ink. Folded, separations at fold joints, edges a bit ruffled, else good. 

 Northwest Iowa Land Journal Published by the Northwest Iowa Real Estate Association Sioux City: Daily Journal Steam Print, April, 1880, Vol. 1, No. 3., folio, 4 pp., some folds and creases, light damp-staining, else a good copy. Contains promotional and descriptive text for northwestern Iowa and land being offered for sale. Pages two and three carry a large map of the counties of Northwestern Iowa, showing both numbered and unnumbered sections of land.

  1. In the spring of 1857 Floyd's grave was partially washed away by the Missouri, and the skull and other bones were taken to Sioux City, where they remained in the office of Moore & Clapp until July of the same year, when the grateful citizens of that place re-interred them on a bluff two hundred yards east of the old grave. The grave of this daring adventurer may still be seen, marked as it is, by a small cedar post, instead of a fitting monument in memory of the first person to die in that world-renowned expedition. - Warner, M. M., History of Dakota County, Nebraska, from the Days of the Pioneers and First Settlers to the Present Time, with Biographical Sketches, and Anecdotes of Ye Olden Times. (Dakota City, NE: Lyons Mirror Job Office, 1893