My name is Tim Adams. As you can surmise from my user name, I am an avid bicyclist. This activity holds the reason why I named my town Nevinville.
Back in the summer of 1976, when I was much younger and full of vigor, I bicycled with nearly all of my available time, whenever the weather permitted. I got so I could do 100 miles in one day rather frequently. Sometimes I rode well past the century mark. When I set a personal best with a 163-mile day, I decided to attempt a big one-day tour.
Poring over a map of Iowa, I searched for a town where I believed I could ride to from my home in the Des Moines suburbs and make it safely back the same day. Noticing a tiny town called Nevinville in the northeast corner of Adams County, which is the closest to my home, I decided to try for that town. I thought it would be neat to say I had bicycled in the county in my state that shares my name.
Setting out on a cool, damp Saturday morning, when I got to Winterset, about 37 miles away, my hands were swollen from the dampness. At least I knew that would change as the day warmed up. But as I was leaving Winterset, it looked like I might not make it to Nevinville. The highway that I wanted to use had a detour. On a bicycle, detours are usually dead ends, with the alternate route taking too long to make it feasible.
At least the portion of highway that was under repair was not long, perhaps about 100 yards. I simply carried my bike across the repair and continued westward. At Greenfield, 24 miles further, I turned and headed further south. Before going to Nevinville, I took a slight detour to another small town, albeit larger than Nevinville, called Orient to ask for directions. A service station attendant provided what I wanted to know, concluding with the often used comment about small towns, “don’t blink or you’ll miss it”.
Following the directions, I soon came across a gathering of buildings and trees that looked like it could be a tiny town. As I bicycled in, a man getting out of a car turned and looked at me with a strange look. He doubtless was not used to strangers riding their bicycles there. I asked him if this was Nevinville. He acknowledged that it was.
Riding on for the equivalent of about a city block, I pulled up in front of a general store. Several men were chatting on a bench in front. I started talking with them, telling me where I had started from that morning. They asked where I was going from there. When I told them I had reached my turnaround point, they were surprised, and perhaps even flattered. For the first time in my life, I was the local town celebrity.
Soon, a woman drove up. One of the men said, “Look who rode a bicycle all the way from Des Moines just to see our Nevin!” The woman looked at me as if to ask “really?” I replied that I had.
Noticing the speedometer on my bike, she asked me how far I had ridden. Checking the mileage, I replied “77 miles”. She said that sounded about right.
The men then told me a little about their town. They told me about the various buildings around their “block”. Then they told me a bit about the town’s history. At one time, there were two places in town where they could see movies. They also told me about a dishonest attempt to attract settlers back when the town was getting started. The river that skirts past the town to the east is, at that point, more like a trickle of a creek. But during the spring flooding, when it swells up to look much more like a substantive river, a man there took pictures of it. Then he sent the pictures back east claiming that Nevinville would someday be a major river port.
One of the men invited me to his house for dinner. As much as I liked the offer, I had to decline. I still had to bicycle back home. I needed to get going.
Not repeating the side step into Orient, I headed directly home. Greenfield. Winterset. DeSoto. Adel. Waukee. I was nearly back home.
I was about five miles from home when the trip when it almost ended badly. Suddenly, I heard the loud screech of car brakes behind me. Then a car swerved from behind me to the left in front of me. When the car stopped, it was facing more to the west, not the east toward where both driver and I were headed. Tire tracks marked the path the car took after hitting its brakes. At least the car did not make contact with me or with any other cars.
The driver of the car pulled off the road and stopped in front of me. Upon noticing that I was unhurt, he continued on, as did I. I finished the memorable day with 152 miles.
Since then, I have only revisited Nevinville once. It was 23 years later. The general store was gone, nothing there but a vacant lot. A church that must have been operable at the time of my first visit was boarded up. Several buildings looked like they would not be standing much longer. The little town had certainly declined. Its prospects were grim. This was a bittersweet reunion.
Therefore, when it came to choosing a name for my Forge of Empires town, I decided to give Nevinville another chance. It all started in pre-Columbian England, when a group of about 100 serfs decided to try to escape the oppression of their lords. After months of careful preparation, they had their boats made and well provisioned. On an early spring day, they set out for their destiny.
These serfs were not planning to go west, but wind and currents forced them that way. At least they kept their boats together. Eventually, they arrived at some land they had never seen before. Concerned that their lords might know about this land and might find them, they started up an estuary that gradually thinned into a river. The natives seemed friendly, even willing to give food, but seemed to want them to continue farther up the river. Finally, they came across a native who wanted to help them cross over the mountains to the west.
Following that native’s guidance, they safely crossed over the mountains at a low point, parting ways with the native there. Starting downward, they soon encountered a small river, following that they came across a larger river, then one even larger. This river led them to a river much larger than they had ever seen before.
This river provided good fishing and plentiful berries on its banks. Deciding they might be too easy to find if they settled on this river, they started upstream. Before long, they came across another large river flowing down from the west. They decided to follow this river upstream. The farther they got from England, the better. After a tedious journey up this river, they selected a tributary that looked easier to continue on. It also looked like it had trees that would provide good foraging.
The serfs continued up this river until it got too small for their boats. Then they continued further, until they felt safe that nobody would find them. The weather was turning cold. Their provisions were running low. So they dismantled their boats. Taking the wood and whatever provisions they had left, they started building crude huts on a hill west of the river.
Before long, they made contact with some natives. The natives seemed a little uneasy with the new arrivals, but at least wanted to be friendly. After some effort, they learned some ways to communicate with each other. That led to providing mutual help. The natives helped the new comers forage for enough food to last through the winter, while the new comers provided tools that helped make jobs easier.
Through astute planning, strong effort, and luck, none of the new comers died during the arduous journey. But shortly after their arrival, one of the older members, a man who was called Nevin, died. His efforts and advice had proven invaluable both in preparing for the journey and for helping during the journey. The survivors agreed to name the town Nevinville in his honor.
One of the new comers had successfully pilfered a Bible from the old country. Books were very hard to come by back there. They were non-existent in their new home. None of the new comers could read, but they knew enough about the language that they gradually figured out what sounds the letters made and what words the various groupings of letters corresponded to. The people wanted to learn to read, but wondered how useful it would be if they had nothing to write with. This problem was resolved when coal was found several miles southwest of the town. People could write on wood scraps with the coal. Soon everybody was expected to learn to read and write.
Because the new comers realized that they needed a leader, and because they were used to having a king, they decided that someone among their group should become their king. After talking it over, they selected a young man whom they considered both intelligent and astute. The man was not really seeking to become king, but accepted the decision of his fellow settlers. Deciding that the name Timothy was the name in the Bible most similar to his own, he took the name King Timothy I.
King Timothy I was a very benevolent man. He encouraged benevolence among his people. He also firmly believed in maintaining cordial relations with the natives. King Timothy even punished people from Nevinville if he found out that person had mistreated any natives.
Once the natives realized how much the newcomers wanted to be friends, they readily reciprocated. The natives and the newcomers enjoyed trading with each other. They gradually learned better ways to communicate with each other.
Nonetheless, being from different cultures, there were some things that seemed not to make much sense. The natives did not comprehend the new comers’ concept of division of labor, where each member of the village focused on a particular occupation in order to provide goods and services to the other villagers. But the natives enjoyed trading to obtain some of the goods the new comers made. They were particularly fond of the gadgets that had wheels. The natives had never seen anything with wheels before.
Perhaps more questionable to the natives was the new comers’ concept of land ownership. They treated the land on which they built their dwellings as if it was theirs to keep. They even felt they could possess land near their dwellings to raise food. When the new comers put fences around their gardens, the natives found it particularly questionable. The natives firmly believed that to try to own land was as sacrilegious as trying to own the sunshine and the air.
At least the tensions eased when King Timothy assured the natives that this was just their way of providing the food they needed. Considering their numbers, they would never possess much of this vast land. This fact became more evident when the next winter arrived. The new comers’ helped protect both themselves and the natives who traded to obtain portions of the crops. Running out of food in the winter became much less of a risk.
From that point on, as Nevinville grew, their king would exchange something of value to whichever natives were nearby in order to pacify the need for more land. True, each parcel of land that Nevinville took over meant less area for the natives to use, but that land was insignificant compared to the vastness that still remained.
Finally there was the issue of education. The natives could not understand what benefit people could gain from writing strange symbols on pieces of would using that messy black stuff they called coal. Real education was learned from showing the young how to hunt, fish, forage, to take care of their belongings, and how to transport those belongings. These were the things they would have to do when they grew up. At least the natives liked those things called wheels. Maybe those strange symbols somehow taught people how to make wheels. The natives all agreed that this education was not hurting them any. So they decided not to make an issue of it.
As the decades passed, the Nevinville civilization advanced more rapidly than the natives. There was little metal in the area, but when iron started being brought down from the north, the new comers put it to good use, making things that made their original tools obsolete. But as Nevinville grew more powerful, it never forgot the lessons passed down by King Timothy I and the other original settlers. Good relations with the natives continued.
Eventually, the relationship between Nevinville and the natives became like a team with Nevinville at its head. Issues about Nevinville occupying more land subsided, as the natives shared in the growing prosperity. Both groups learned various things from one another. Everybody seemed to be better off because of the Nevinville settlement.
Then came bad news. Strangers had invaded far down in the southwest. They had a strange magic that made their enemies sick. Most of the people who caught this sickness died from it. As more news about this strange malady trickled up to Nevinville, its doctors began to realize that it was some kind of virus. They told the natives that people caught it be coming into contact with other people who already had it. The best way to avoid catching it was to not come into contact with people who were sick with it.
Meanwhile, more bad news reached Nevinville. The medicine men in the infected areas were powerless to stop the disease. On top of that, the invaders kept coming in larger and larger numbers. They were taking land for their own use, similar to how the Nevinville people had. But they were taking much larger portions of it.
The people of Nevinville mourned when a native from their area caught the disease and died. But the Nevinville doctors knew they must do something. Before long, people in their own town would be afflicted.
When the disease finally struck Nevinville, the whole town, together with the nearby natives, became stricken with fear. Could this be the end of the wonderful lifestyle that they had enjoyed?
Somehow, it turned out that the people of Nevinville were much more likely to survive the disease than the natives. There had been very little intermixing between the two races since they arrived, but before long the Nevinville doctors realized that the mixed breeds were also more likely to survive. Was there some reason for this?
Finally, the Nevinville doctors came up with a formula that did not cure the disease, but at least made it less fatal. Word of the wisdom of the Nevinville doctors spread far and wide. Natives from all parts of the continent began sending tribute to the wise and highly regarded people of Nevinville. Soon Nevinville’s prosperity ascended like it never had before.
But Nevinville’s success did not stop the flow of new people coming to the continent. Word reached them of another group that was forming settlements to the south. Then another group was forming settlements to the east. As the people of Nevinville made contact with these groups, they discovered similarities with their own language. It soon became evident that these people had migrated from the same home land they had. The people who located themselves in the south and the southwest spoke a similar language, but clearly not the same. But when the settlers from the east made contact with Nevinville, the people of Nevinville were pleasantly surprised to learn that these people spoke a language very similar to their own. These people coming from the east must, like themselves, have come over from England.
The people of Nevinville became good friends with the English settlers. When the English settlers decided to form a new nation based on a principle called democracy, the people of Nevinville followed it with great interest. Nevinville knew of no other form of government besides having kings. Under this new democracy, people would select their own leaders.
As the new nation spread closer to Nevinville, the people in Nevinville became more enamored with it. Rather than conquer Nevinville and the natives most closely affiliated with it, the new nation just left them be. Nevinville adopted a democracy itself, patterned after the new nation.
Then the new nation became embroiled in a war between its north and its south over slavery. Keenly aware of its beginnings in an escape from oppression, Nevinville readily supported the northern effort to stop slavery. For the first time in its history, Nevinville fought in a war. After the war ended, with slavery declared illegal, Nevinville decided it would join its fellow English neighbor. Nevinville became a part of the new country, with most of its domain becoming a part of Iowa. Some areas in the Nevinville domain were became parts of Missouri, Nebraska, and Minnesota. Nevinville grew to become one of Iowa’s leading communities. But Nevinville never forgot how it was founded on the same principles as the country it had joined, many years before the people who would eventually form the new nation even settled here.
