PAST AND PRESENT OF GREENE COUNTY.                 47

... If all those now living who were privileged to attend that initial Jefferson school could be gathered in the capacity of an "experience meeting," their several stories concerning early day education as associated with pioneer life, would be worth hearing.
    As a natural annex, a singing school was underlined for the long winter evenings taught by Ambrose Holland, then head sawyer in the Jefferson mill. He was a musical genius, and withal a temperance man, if we may take stock in a camp-fire story told in Mississippi by Sergeant James A. Wynkoop, who said that on going home late one night from singing school, himself and Holland discovered a lot of barrels of whiskey near the residence of O. R. Jones and procuring a large gimlet, they quietly perforated the barrels to such an extent that quite an amount had been absorbed by mother earth before the leakage was discovered. Neither the "borers" nor the gimlet were found out.
    But this whiskey shipment has a story of its own, as it marked the beginning of the anti-saloon sentiment which has been maintaned in Jefferson from that day to this, a period of more than fifty years during which this city has never countenanced or allowed an open saloon. During the winter of 1856-7, a load of whisky was imported by O. R. Jones to the city. Jones was a lawyer by profession, but also dabbled in merchandising and sold drugs. He was one of the first men to do business in Jefferson, and in those days it went without saying that he was a real business man. He left the whisky out later than was best for his own interests, as it was subjected to the gimlet act referred to above, but the loss was not serious, the wastage having been checked. The jokers said, however that the grass could not grow for two years on the spot where the whisky ran out, because two old fellas--who shall be nameless--gnawed the ground so much it didn't have a chance. Soon after the arrival of the liquor it was found the stuff was being retailed at the home of Washington Allen, in a house owned by Eli Rivers. The community was a good deal stirred up over this new condition of things, and A. R. Mills was requested to visit Mr. Allen, read the liquor laws to him and suggest that if he wished to save his house he had better keep a whisky saloon out of it. The next day Rivers wanted to hear the law read again. When certain sections were read and the book carelesly laid aside, Rivers was excited, mad, and swore that "Mills didn't care a d--n if he did lose his house." Mills remained provokingly calm, and that made matters all the worse. But Rivers was thoroughly alarmed, and realizing that something must be done promptly, he went in company with George Reece and after each one had secured a drink of whisky, they swore out a search warrant. This warrant was put into the hands of the sheriff, George S. Walton, and Allen tied his horses and sled by the house where the whisky was sold. Walton and party of men started to execute the warrant. When nearing the house, O. R. Jones became excited and shouting "let me catch him," started to run. This proceeding caused some delay, so when the posse reached the house, Allen had the barrels of whisky on his sled and his horses under the lash, headed for the prairies, eastward bound. As a "moving picture" scene a delineation of this event would be, along comic lines, as good as the best. Allen "struck twelve" all right on his escape and the contraband goods never showed up in Jefferson again. The movement was a bold one, but its prompt squelching by proper authority, put an end to all such annoyances for years to come.

Source:

Stillman, Edwin B., Past and Present of Greene County, Iowa ... Together with Biographical Sketches of Many of Its Leading Citizens and Illustrious Dead, Chicago, S. J. Clarke Publishing Company, 1907, p. 47.