Most of the area in the Iowa territory was originally part of the Louisiana Purchase and part of the Missouri Territory.  When Missouri became a state in 1821, this area (along with The Dakotas) became an unorganized territory.  The area was closed to white settlers until the end of the Black Hawk War. 

In 1834, Iowa was attached to the Michigan Territory.  At an extra session of the Sixth Legislative Assembly of Michigan, the Iowa District was divided into two counties by running a line due west from the lower end of Rock Island in the Mississippi River.  The territory north of this line (just south of present-day Davenport, Iowa) was named Dubuque County.  Everything to the south of that was Des Moines County.

When Michigan became a state in 1836, the area became the Iowa District of the western Wisconsin Territory, the region west of the Mississippi River.  The territory’s original boundaries, established in 1838, included 194,000 square miles of land.

Iowa became a state on 28 December 1846, but no provision was made for an official reorganization of the balance of the territory.  Morgan L. Martin, the Wisconsin territorial delegate to Congress, pushed through a bill to organize a territory of Minnesota encompassing this additional land, but the measure ultimately failed.  Nevertheless, the 1840 US Census reflected 18 Iowan counties with around 43,000 people.

In 1835, John D. Bell surveyed and laid out a town he called Bellevue.  He constructed a cabin there and became the town’s first postmaster.  In 1836, Peter Dutell built the first hotel, which he called Bellevue House.  Jackson County was created in 1837. When the first census was taken in 1840, the county was home to 881 people.

Admittedly, the Bellevue War gave the town an unsavory reputation, discouraging settlement.  Still, within two years, the town’s population doubled.

In 1838, the town of Andrew became the county seat, which set off a strained competition between the two towns.  Over the next thirty years, the county seat was moved from Andrew to Bellevue several times.  Bellevue constructed a county courthouse in 1845, which continues to serve as a schoolhouse today and is the oldest functioning school in Iowa.

As Jackson County was settled and the railroad passed through central Iowa, Maquoketa became the dominant, centrally located town.  Around 1873, Maquoketa built a large city hall and offered to lease the building to Jackson County as a courthouse.  The citizens voted, and Maquoketa has been the county seat ever since.

Bellevue’s first settlers were miners from Galena, Illinois, and some southerners who distrusted eastern Yankees. In the spring of 1837, a large group of Yankees from Coldwater, Michigan, settled in Bellevue, which caused a cold chill to cover the entire area.

The folks from Michigan all brought fine wagons loaded with nice furniture.  Everyone acquired fine lots inside the village.  Money talks.  One of these new arrivals was Mr. William W. Brown.  He was described as a man of refined personal appearance and engaging manners.  Not long after he arrived, he purchased Bellevue House from Peter Dutell.

Bellevue House brought Mr. Brown in close contact with the town folk and new arrivals.  His genial disposition made him a popular man.  As an employer, he paid top wages and never hesitated to extend a helping hand.  Moreover, Mrs. Brown was good-looking, educated, accomplished, and well-mannered.  The settlers formed a close relationship with Mr. & Mrs. Brown.

It wasn’t long before William Brown entered politics.  With the formation of Jackson County, Governor Henry Dodge was required to appoint a sheriff whose first duty would be to organize the county.  William W. Brown was keen to have that appointment, but so was William A. Warren of Bellevue.  Popularly, Warren was the preference of most of the original people, so Dodge was already looking in his direction.  However, it was then learned that Brown had seized a petition, cut off its header, and replaced it with another that demonstrated widespread support for a Brown candidacy.  Gov. Dodge appointed Warren, a position he held until 1845.

During his first winter in Bellevue, Brown cut wood on the island opposite the town to supply steamboats with fuel.  He employed around twenty men in this work.  These men were suspected of passing counterfeit money.  Additionally, there were always borders in Bellevue House—but they were generally men without means of support.

Meanwhile, depredations on settlers’ property — livestock theft — increased substantially over a short period.  Similar complaints came from scattered settlements, such as Jones, Cedar, and Linn counties.  Local people began to talk about forming a protective association.  Colonel Cox, Sheriff Warren, and Judge James K. Moss traveled to Linn Grove to assist in organizing such an association.  The meeting was well attended by local citizens.

Brown’s engaging personality continued to make him friends and solidify political support.  In 1839, he received an appointment as Justice of the Peace.  In this capacity, he attended court to speak for or defend his boarders, who (it seemed) were frequently arrested and held over for trial.  Accused persons always seemed to have witnesses to show they could not have broken the law; they were always the same witnesses.

In one example, in 1839, Thomas Davis of Maquoketa lost a yoke of oxen.  They were found hidden in Bellevue on the property of one Mr. Groff.  Later, a horse claimed by Groff to have been purchased from Brown was discovered stolen from Illinois.  Davis accused Groff of both thefts.  In April, both men met in Bellevue, where Groff shot and killed Davis with a gun he had borrowed from Brown.  Groff was acquitted on a plea of insanity.  Thereafter, Bellevue House became suspect as a rendezvous for criminals, and Brown became a suspected abettor of criminals.

Shortly afterward, Colonel Cox’s friend, Mr. Ebenezer Brigham (of the Wisconsin Territorial Assembly), appeared in Bellevue with a friend searching for a span of stolen horses.  His description of the horses convinced Sheriff Warren that they were the same horses he had confiscated from two boarders at Bellevue House, suspecting them of being stolen.  The animals were released to Brown after he produced a witness saying that the horses belonged to him.

When Colonel Cox learned the truth about Brown, he declared open war on Brown and all his cronies.  One of those cronies was a notorious gunman named James Thompson.  Thompson was not the brightest bulb in the draw, as he was particularly keen on passing bogus money.  He was arrested twice for the same criminal behavior.  He was also released from court because he had an alibi.

Thompson and William Fox were arrested again, this time on charges of robbery of a general store.  Mr. Brown was arrested for receiving stolen goods.  They were all released on technicalities.

If Colonel Cox hated Brown, James C. Mitchell hated the outlaws even more. Mitchell was an energetic businessman who had some influence in the territory because of his high character.  Thus, he incurred the bitter hatred of James Thompson, who, from time to time, would issue threats against Mitchell.

At the beginning of January 1840, the town folk of Bellevue prepared to celebrate Jackson Day on 8 January. It was an annual event, usually celebrated by a grand ball at the Bellevue House.  As one of the celebration’s managers, Mitchell insisted that Brown and his associates be denied participation.  Thompson, incensed, organized a few men and proceeded to rob Mitchell’s house during his absence at the ball.  Inside Mitchell’s home, the bandits discovered a young female, a relative of Mitchell’s, who had remained at home.  After being subjected to certain indignities, the girl escaped in scanty attire and reached the ballroom exhausted with winter cold and fright.

Mitchell soon armed himself and started alone to find Thompson.  James Thompson was looking for him, as well.  With Absalom Montgomery, James Thompson began walking toward the ballroom with a pistol in one hand and a Bowie knife in the other.  Meeting on the street, the men closed to within a few paces.  Both men attempted to fire, but Thompson’s pistol misfired while Mitchell’s shot went through Thompson’s heart.  Mitchell promptly turned himself into Deputy Sheriff James F. Hanby.

Within a short time, Thompson’s friends (numbering between fifteen and twenty) (including Brown) gathered, seeking retribution.  When they discovered Mitchell, he was under guard by the sheriff’s men.  The mob broke up when Warren promised that Mitchell would appear in court.  There being no jail, Mitchell was held under guard in his home.

While under house arrest, two men named William Fox and Aaron Long (and three others) devised a plan to blow up his house, thus destroying Mitchell and his entire family.  The plan might have worked were it not for one of the desperados spilling his guts.

At the same time, two gentlemen arrived from Freeport, Illinois, in search of stolen horses.  They recognized their property as animals recently sold to a local man by Brown.  Brown resisted attempts to reclaim their value, arguing that he purchased them from two men in his employ, who brought them from Missouri.  Their names were William Fox and John Baxter — both of whom participated in the robbery and murder of Colonel George Davenport five years before.  The man who had purchased Brown’s horses convinced that Brown was lying, returned the animals to the Illinois men.

The good people living in the four-county area of Jackson, Jones, Cedar, and Linn had finally decided they’d had enough.  On 25 March 1840, District Judge Thomas S. Wilson swore out a warrant for the arrest of William W. Brown, William Fox, Aaron Long, and twenty others as confederated thieves, counterfeiters, robbers, horse thieves, cattle rustlers, and an annoyance to the community.

William W. Brown was soon informed of the warrant’s existence, but he openly defied the Sheriff and argued that the law could not justify such a wholesale arrest.  Brown agreed to surrender himself (there still being no jailhouse) but swore that the others named would never surrender and felt that he was duty bound to stand with his friends.  Sheriff Warren reported Brown’s defiance to Judge Moss, Colonel Cox, William Morden, and others.  Moss decided that Colonel Cox and Sheriff Warren should visit with other communities and invite leading citizens to form a posse.  A show of force, they reasoned, might convince Brown’s gang to surrender peacefully.

As the gang learned of the queasiness of Cox and Warren, they began to openly defy the community, even to the extent of carrying a red flag marked “Victory or Death.”  Warren became convinced that if there were a posse, it would have to be heavily armed.  Colonel Cox energetically rode through the four-county area with a call to arms.  Without bridges or ferries, most people living across the river didn’t care about Jackson County’s problems.

Ultimately, a posse was formed, but there was no army.  There may have been more desperados than deputies.  Warren decided it would be prudent for him to extend once more an invitation for Brown and his cohorts to surrender to the warrant peacefully.  The result of that was that Sheriff Warren was taken hostage inside Bellevue House.  Warren was only released when Colonel Cox mustered his men on the street, and he was unceremoniously disgorged from the Bellevue House with instructions to talk some sense into Colonel Cox.

At 14:00, Cox formed his men. To his great surprise, 40 men stood in the ranks.  He formed them into two ranks and marched them in line toward the hotel, admonishing them not to fire their weapons until first fired upon.  He hoped that the sight of his men would induce the gangsters to surrender, but Bellevue House remained ominously quiet.  When the men were within thirty or so paces, Colonel Cox gave the command to charge.  Shots rang out from upper-story windows, and Henderson Palmer fell, mortally wounded.

When Brown appeared in the doorway with his rifle at the ready, Cox and Warren confronted him and demanded his surrender.  As Brown lowered his rifle, it discharged, sending a rifle ball through Cox’s coat.  At that instant, Tom Sublett and Vincent Smith, veterans of the battle of Bad Axe, threw their rifles into their shoulders and fired.  Both rounds went through Brown’s head.  General firing broke out as Brown’s men retreated to the upper story.  Several of the desperados were also back-woodsmen with a steady aim.  Cox’s men, John Maxwell and John Brink, both fell dead.  Colonel Collins was shot through the hand.  William Vance was shot in the thigh.  William Vaughn was mortally wounded.  At this point, the posse was suffering more than the criminals.

After Sheriff Warren fired Bellevue House, the criminals attempted to exit the structure through the back door.  Thirteen men were captured, some of them wounded, but seven more made good their escape.  As several citizens put out the hotel fire, others gathered in the streets.  Many of these people, having witnessed their neighbors lying dead or wounded, demanded that the criminals be hung.  The Sheriff and Colonel Cox appealed to the citizens’ finer senses and asked those assembled to delay making that decision until later when cooler heads should prevail.

As families went about collecting their dead, riders were sent to other communities, asking for the help of doctors and surgeons to attend to the Bellevue wounded.  As there was no community jail, armed deputies had bound the captured criminals and stood guard over them.  The town remained unsettled until around 04:00 the following day, when people tried to get a few hours of sleep.  It was agreed to hold a town meeting at 10:00 in the morning. 

The following day, at 08:00, a steamer arrived from Dubuque with District Attorney James Crawford and Sheriff Cummins of Dubuque County onboard.  They attended the town meeting at 10:00, presided over by Colonel Cox.  Cox ordered the accused brought to the meeting, and he then explained to them why they were under apprehension.  Cox explained that the assembled citizens would decide what should happen to these men.  One of the criminals, a man named Chichester, pled for mercy.

A citizen named Anson Harrington was having none of it.  He wanted the criminals hanged as assurance these same men wouldn’t again prey upon the innocents.  No one was safe, he argued, until every one of those men was stretched out under a rope.  Harrington concluded his speech by recommending that the matter be decided by secret ballot.  In his view, there were only two choices: whipping or hanging.

Colonel Cox, after that, passed out two cups full of beans, one white and one red.  Each townsman took two beans.  In voting, a white bean signified hanging, and a red bean signified “whipping.”  Another cup, an empty one, was circulated for voting.  Thirteen captives watched silently as stern-faced men decided their fate.  When all votes were taken, minders carefully counted out the beans, made a tally, and handed the sheet of paper to the chairman.

Colonel Cox directed the men to rise and face their destiny.  The count was 42 red beans and 38 white beans.  Each man was then assigned between four and thirty lashes with the whip.  Afterward, they would be placed with three days rations in a boat without oars and floated down the Mississippi River. There is no evidence that any whipped men ever returned to Jackson County, Iowa.

Whether those men later preyed on other communities was not Bellevue, Iowa’s problem.