Annals of Polk County, Iowa - 1898

Annals of Polk County, Iowa, and City of Des Moines
by Will Porter. Des Moines: Geo. A. Miller Pr. Co., 1898.

Unless otherwise noted, biographies submitted by Dick Barton.

MRS. CHLOE BLACK EASTRIDGE was born in the town of Salisbury, North Carolina, August 21, 1810. She had one sister and one brother, the latter subsequently serving several terms in the Indiana Legislature. Her parents and family started for Indiana in 1814, but stopped in Pulaski County, Kentucky, for three years. There Miss Chloe first went to school. The school house was a log cabin and the first reader a testament. The family removed to Ohio, where they remained one year, and then in 1818 settled in Centreville, Wayne County, Indiana. There the young girl finished her education. In 1824 Miss Chloe Black was married to William Eastridge, and enjoyed many years of married life. They had eight children, six of whom reached maturity.

The family came to Polk County in 1850, settling in the village of Dudley on the west side of the Des Moines River. The next year came the great flood of 1851. In telling of that time Mrs. Eastridge gives interesting reminiscences. The town was entirely overflowed and as the hotel was the only two-story building, to that flocked most of the people. But she was afraid it might go, or that her children might be drowned in it, and they decided to take refuge on one of the few knolls which were out of water and from there they were taken in a skiff to an island where they were forced to remain five days. Then they were taken out in a ferry-boat manned by fifteen men and placed on the high ground on the east side of the river. Among the other families rescued in this way were those of Robert Wallace, Frederick Strumbo and Valerius Young, Mrs. Eastridge's son-in-law, and father of Mrs. Jos. D. McGarraugh. The ferry-boat was owned by Edward Martin. Among those then in Dudley was Dr. W. H. Ward, so long a noted physician of Des Moines.

The Eastridge family then remained in Camp Township, settling in the town of Adelphi. In 1863 Mr. Eastridge became postmaster at Adelphi, and held the post until his death in 1881, the office being kept in his house. After her husband's death Mrs. Eastridge continued to reside in Adelphi for four years, when she went to the home of her son, William, near by, where she has since resided, and is now well and hearty as could be expected of one in her 89th year, more than half of which has been lived in Polk County.