October 2003: THE FIGHTERS OF HAMPTON BLUFF
My friend Mary Lou Schaechterer emailed what follows to me. She seems to have no end of interesting things from early Rock Island County. What follows in an interview by John Hauberg of Mark Hauberg. He doesn’t say but I suspect Marx was his grandfather. The date was Sept 21, 1917. The spelling is presented as it was.
Ma and Pa attended the Old Settler’s Picnic at Blackhawk Watch Tower the 19th and Pa staid over and attended the Aledo Fair yesterday. Today we are taking him home. On 5th Avenue in Rock island and 3rd Avenue in Moline – just east of te viaduct, he said: -- “This has changed a good deal along here. Grandfather grubbed out the trees and stumps for this avenue. The road at that time wound among the trees, oak and walnut, and old Gorge Weaver would have three yoke of oxen to draw a single log on a wagon. They cut the trees so they would fall nearest each other and they would burn everything except the best part of it.
Where theWindsor Hotel now stands was a knoll with a creek passing by it east of where the business part of Moline is now.. On the knoll was Moline’s first saloon, kept by Charley Dibbern, father of C H Dibbern of Sears. He had no bar, but just tables and chairs.
Old Billy McEniry had a brick yard and father worked for him. One time there got to be a quarrel between two crouds. The McEnirys and the other Irish were opposed by two brothers named Shaw who were English, and some others. Grandfather sided with the McEnirys and one time they had it out in Dibbern’s saloon. The other fellows had a man on their side name of McEntire or Van Tuyl or some such name, who was the “bully” of Moline. In the fight grandfather used him up. The Dutch and the Irish came out on top in that fight. Old Billy McEniry was lame after that fight – lame for life, he had gotten his leg wrenched. Not many people knew how he got lame, but I did.
One of the Dibbern daughters married a Dahms of Davenport. Another daughter is the present widow Stange of Moline, mother of the Stange boys and girls. I was surprised to see them singing and taking prominent part of church work because the old folks – old Dibberns were not church people.
We used to have dances in Moline and we of the upper end of the county were all good dancers. At one of these I danced with a Vierich girl and afterward when they had “ladies choice” she chose me as her partner. Hans Tietgen came to me and said, “Don’t get too intimate with that lady. She’s my girl. We are to be married next week.” The girl asked me to take her home, but I declined because of what Tietgen had said. His marriage plans were spoiled and she married a Davenport man afterwards.
Next, some darn, dirty, low down fellows, half drunk, started to go ‘round the hall kissing all the girls. I wouldn’t stand for those dirty fellows kissing our Hampton Bluff girls nor did the girls want anything to do with them. Country boys, especially, were alwayls regarded as being dull, stupid, ignorant, and were always supposed to give way to the town fellows. By George, the fellows came along, one fellow in the lead. I spoke to him and he made a face at me. I licked the whole outfit of them and thought I’d killed one of them. After that, all the girls knew me.
What helped me out immensely so far as respect was concerned, was that I had worked for a fine Christian family who treated me fine, better than I was treated at home. Then I worked for “Billy G” (Wm G Marshall, Cordova) two years. “Billy G” didn’t belong to church at that time. He joined afterward. I’d been with the rough crowd enough so I knew what they were.
Dave Sears spoke to Phil Williams the other day. I didn’t know he was Dave’s cousin. I licked him one time so he was laid up for a week. He was an awfully brutal man. He’d as life kill a man.
One time on what is now 16th St and 2nd Ave, Moline, there was a crowd of boys – Wes Hartzell who lived out by Frick’s hill, Charley Deere, Phil Williams, and a stranger, an Ege and a couple of Thompson boys. It was the 4th of July and I had gone to Moline. I and some others were coming toward these fellows. The stranger said “Here come a bunch of swells; just see me knock them down.” He lit a firecracker and it went off nearly in my face. I knew what he wanted and knocked him down. The fellow got a rock, but it didn’t do him any good.
Jake Marshall was down getting groceries and saw it all and jumped in and said to me “Don’t kill anybody.” I was gone two or three days. I was working for Billy G at the time and when I got back he put me to work in the garden and soon came out and asked if I had had a good time. I said nothing about a fight. I never got scratched up in any fights. At 11:00 o’clock he came in from the field. He couldn’t stand it any longer and came to the garden and said, “Well, you got into a fight, didn’t you?” He said, “Now Mark, if you don’t quit fighting you’ll land in the penetentury. You’re only 16 and you don’t know how strong you are.” That went to the bottom with me and I never struck a man after that except one time in the barn where George Ashdown lives now (the old John Hauberg barn) except Henry Sifken. Sometimes you’ve got to hit a man.
They used to pay me $5.00 a night to come and keep order at the DeSoto House in Port Byron – where J W Simonson’s house is now. Those were all American dances, E P Reynolds of Rock Island came in with his lady at one of them. I put out only one man. Roger Bell, an Englishman and a strong fellow, used to say, “Mark, knock ‘em down. Don’t show ‘em any mercy.” He often said he couldn’t have held in so long if could have whipped them, but he said I was right. I’d take them by the collar and lead them out.
A crowd of railroad men and raft men got rigs at Port Byron to come to a dance in grandfather’s barn. Roger Bell asked them, “Where are you going? “Going to the Dutch dance and lick hell out of them.” Bell said, “You’ll come home licked”, and they did. I went to Port Byron soon afterward and Bell took me to his home for dinner and then took me to the DeSoto bar room. I went into the saloon and Bell introduced me to the bartender saying, “This is the fellow that cleaned them out – that knocked the fellow down.” This bartender was a bully and was to give me a licking for whipping the engineer at the dance. Bell had kept me with him so he could see the fun. The bartender held out his hand and said, “Glad to make your acquaintance.” And asked me to have a drink with him. He wanted to know where I got my training, but I never got any training. When I was 15 years old I would rather fight than eat.
I had knocked the fellow down and walked over to him and asked the gang to step up if they thought I”d done the wrong thing. It had all happened quietly. They told grandfather and he came with a lantern. The man hadn’t “come to” yet. Mart Larue said, “I believe, Mark, you hit the fellow too hard. He ain’t come to yet.”
In those days fellows would go together, take a lot of whiskey and go with the intention of fighting.
Of our German crowd, 18 to 20 of us, all drank whiskey, but none ever got too much. The Americans always got drunk. We wouldn’t let a fellow stay in our bunch if he ever drank too much. Jim Martin, brother of Dave, if he got a little whiskey, the devil was in him. Tom Walker was another. The quietest were from Pennsylvania and New Jersey, but the Kentucky and Virginia – the Isiah Marshalls - those tribes, they all had their following and were all drinking men.
Among those who hauled those railroad and raft men out to grandfather’s at the time of the fight was Temple who ran a steam ferry at Port Byron (the ferry was afterward run by Bill Groh’s father). Temple came along to see the fun. Bill Golden, a cousin of Amos Golden, who was in the livery business in Port Byron hauled some of them out. It was another case just like this war we’re in now (World War I) – “anything to lick the Dutch.”