The legislature of Michigan watched the migration of 1833 and 1834, and in the latter year created the two counties of Dubuque and Demoine, beyond the Mississippi, embracing these settlements. At the old claim a town of miners appeared by magic, able shortly to boast "that the first white man hung in Iowa in a Christian-like manner was Patrick O'Conner, at Dubuque, in June, 1834." Dubuque was a mining camp, differing from the other villages in possessing a larger proportion of the lawless element. Generally, however, this Iowa frontier was peaceful in comparison with other frontiers. Life and property were safe, and except for its dealings with the Indians and the United States government, in which frontiers have rarely recognized a law, the community was law-abiding. It stands in some contrast with another frontier building at the same time up the valley of the Arkansas. "Fent Noland of Batesville," wrote a contemporary of one of the heroes of this frontier, "is in every way one of the most remarkable men of the West; for such is the versatility of his genius that he seems equally adapted to every species of effort, intellectual or physical. With a like unerring aim he shoots a bullet or a _bon mot_; and wields the pen or the Bowie knife with the same thought, swift rapidity of motion, and energetic fury of manner. Sunday he will write an eloquent dissertation on religion; Monday he rawhides a rogue; Tuesday he composes a sonnet, set in silver stars and breathing the perfume of roses to some fair maid's eyebrows; Wednesday he fights a duel; Thursday he does up brown the personal character of Senators Sevier and Ashley; Friday he goes to the ball dressed in the most finical superfluity of fashion and shines the soul of wit and the sun of merry badinage among all the gay gentlemen; and to close the triumphs of the week, on Saturday night he is off thirty miles to a country dance in the Ozark Mountains, where they trip it on the light fantastic toe in the famous jig of the double-shuffle around a roaring log heap fire in the woods all night long, while between the dances Fent Noland sings some beautiful wild song, as 'Lucy Neal' or 'Juliana Johnson.' Thus Fent is a myriad-minded Proteus of contradictory characters, many-hued as the chameleon fed on the dews and suckled at the breast of the rainbow." Much of this luxuriant imagery was lacking farther north.