{"id":1914,"date":"2010-08-16T08:30:48","date_gmt":"2010-08-16T13:30:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs2.davenportlibrary.com\/sc\/?p=1914"},"modified":"2010-08-13T17:22:29","modified_gmt":"2010-08-13T22:22:29","slug":"when-opportunity-knocks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/sc\/2010\/08\/16\/when-opportunity-knocks\/","title":{"rendered":"When Opportunity Knocks . . ."},"content":{"rendered":"

It is August in the Midwest and we all know without a doubt that the weather around here can be brutal\u00a0(Heat Wave: 1936<\/a>).\u00a0 There’s no need to dwell on the heat or the humidity.<\/p>\n

So today\u2019s\u00a0post will avoid the topic of heat and focus instead on a little anecdote from Davenport\u2019s past.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In the fall of 1840, the town of Davenport was growing.\u00a0 Important ordinances and resolutions were\u00a0being created\u00a0by a Mayor and several Trustees; it would be three more years before the term Alderman was used in council proceedings.\u00a0 Men with names like Eldridge and LeClaire <\/a>who are still remembered today fill the handwritten council books.\u00a0 These men of longevity and health would greatly influence the development of Davenport and Scott County.\u00a0 Other names are less known like Nichols, Whiting and Burnell.\u00a0 These men (and their families)\u00a0also \u00a0helped develop this area, but their time in Davenport was shortened by western movement or, sadly, death.<\/p>\n

But empty Trustee seat could not be allowed to stall progress.\u00a0 When the city lost a trustee, or even a\u00a0 mayor,\u00a0outside of election time, it appears the matter was resolved quickly and without much fuss.\u00a0 One example is the passing of Trustee Captain William Nichols in September 1840.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The September 26, 1840 entry from Council Proceedings April 14, 1839 \u2013 February 7, 1850<\/em> opens with the acknowledgement of Trustee Nichols’s death.\u00a0 The council resolved to wear for 30 days a badge of mourning and to attend the funeral and burial that afternoon as a group.\u00a0 Sympathy was to be extended to the widow and an announcement placed in a newspaper called the Iowa Sun<\/em> stating the council sympathized with the family\u2019s loss.\u00a0<\/p>\n

By the next council meeting held on October 31, 1840 it was time to focus on town business once again.\u00a0\u00a0Finding a replacement to fill Captain Nichols spot was at the top of the agenda.\u00a0 An election was held immediately by those council members present \u2013 all four of them.\u00a0 Trustee John Forrest nominated a gentleman named Strong Burnell.\u00a0 Burnell was unanimously elected by Mayor Thorington, Recorder Frazer Wilson, and Trustees Seth Whiting and John Forrest \u2013 a landslide victory.<\/p>\n

The next step was to send someone to fetch Mr. Burnell.\u00a0 As recorded in the council proceeding recorded in now faded ink, \u201cMr. Burnell being sent for, appraised, and took the oath prescribed by law as Trustee of the town of Davenport and took his seat as such<\/em>.\u201d\u00a0 (Pg. 28) Then the men passed an ordinance to prohibit shooting or discharging fire arms in the town of Davenport.\u00a0 Near the end of the meeting a resolution was issued permitting Antoine LeClaire to rename the streets running East and West in town from the Native American names originally bestowed upon them (by Mr. LeClaire) to the numbered street system that still exists today.\u00a0 Town business had resumed without missing a step. \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

There is the old saying, \u201cOpportunity Knocks.\u201d\u00a0 In Mr. Burnell\u2019s case this might have been literal.\u00a0<\/p>\n

One can imagine the different scenarios that could have played out that day.\u00a0 We will leave it up to the reader to decide what\u00a0Strong Burnell knew or didn\u2019t know about the\u00a0 “private election.”\u00a0 What would the council have done if Mr. Burnell was out of town?\u00a0 What was he doing\u00a0when he was notified?<\/p>\n

Feel free to sit awhile (in, we hope, \u00a0a cool setting) and ponder these questions.*\u00a0 \u00a0History can be a pleasant distraction.<\/p>\n

(posted by Amy D.)<\/em><\/p>\n

______<\/em><\/p>\n

*<\/em>You might also ponder how large\u00a0the firearms\u00a0problem\u00a0\u00a0might have been\u00a0in Davenport\u00a0at that time.\u00a0\u00a0And why Antoine LeClaire wanted to rename the streets he had named only a few years before.\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 We hope to tackle\u00a0the answers\u00a0in later posts—we have very good air conditioning!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It is August in the Midwest and we all know without a doubt that the weather around here can be brutal\u00a0(Heat Wave: 1936).\u00a0 There’s no need to dwell on the heat or the humidity. So today\u2019s\u00a0post will avoid the topic … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[5],"tags":[227,123,165,10,259,314,495,489,230,493,492,490,491],"class_list":["post-1914","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-history","tag-aldermen","tag-antoine-leclaire","tag-city-council","tag-davenport","tag-davenport-city-ordinances","tag-elections","tag-firearms","tag-james-thorington","tag-mayor","tag-street-renaming","tag-strong-burnell","tag-trustee","tag-william-nichols"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pd0CXc-uS","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/sc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1914","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/sc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/sc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/sc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/sc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1914"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/sc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1914\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1919,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/sc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1914\/revisions\/1919"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/sc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1914"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/sc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1914"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/sc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1914"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}