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"Past 2 Present"

Davis County, Iowa

I have no books which are specifically for this County, but most counties are included in the Iowa statewide books

• Click here for a brief history of Davis County

Periodicals

• 1847 State Census (January 1976)
• July 1978
  • History of Davis County
  • Abandoned Towns, Villages and Post Offices
  • Births, 1880
  • Deaths, 1880-1884
• Deaths 1897-1900 (Fall 1978)
• Iowa Probate Inventory Records (Autumn 1990)
• Teachers' Record Book, 1914-1920 (Spring 1993)

Palimpsest:

• An Amish Mennonite Farmer Chooses Iowa (Winter 1988)
• Cora Bussey Hillis: Woman of Vision (November/December 1979)
• Possessed of a Restless Spirit: a Young Girl's Memories of the Southern Iowa Frontier (September/October 1985)

Annals of Iowa History:

• History of Davis County (July 1864) TEXT Only
• History of Davis County (October 1864) TEXT Only
• History of Davis County (January 1865) TEXT Only
• History of Davis County (April 1865) TEXT Only
• History of Davis County (January 1866) TEXT Only
• History of Davis County (April 1866) TEXT Only
• County of Davis printing press (July 1866) TEXT Only
• History of Davis County (October 1866) TEXT Only
• Hostile Raid Into Davis County, Iowa (July 1922) TEXT Only

DAVIS COUNTY is in the third tier west of the Mississippi River on the south line of the State and embraces an area of five hundred three square miles, as the southern tier of townships is divided by the State line. It was formerly included in the original county of Demoine and afterwards in Van Buren but was created with its present boundaries in 1844 and named for Garret Davis a Kentucky statesman.

As early as 1837 hunters and trappers built cabins in the southern part of the county long before the Sac and Fox Indians had been removed. In 1837 James H. Jordon established a trading post among these Indians on the banks of the Des Moines River in the northeast corner of the county, Van Caldwell and others located near him in 1839-40. In 1842 a post-office was established in the county on the extreme western limits of the Black Hawk Purchase, at a point called Fox, with S. A. Evans as postmaster.

The county was organized in 1844 by the election of the following officers: S. W. McAtee, W. D. Evans and Abraham Weaver, commissioners; Calvin Taylor, treasurer; Israel Kister, recorder; F. C. Humble, sheriff, and Franklin Street, clerk. The county-seat was located at Bloomfield and the first term of court was held in September, 1844, with Judge Charles Mason presiding. James H. Cowles had, in 1846, entered the land upon which Bloom field was located and conveyed it to the commissioners who had there established the county-seat. The town was platted the same summer and a post-office secured. The first merchant in the new town was John Lucas who had taken a claim adjoining it in 1844, upon which he had built a log cabin occupied by his family and used also for his store. Hosea B. Horn built the first frame house in Bloomfield in 1849. In 1854 the first newspaper was started by George Johnson named the Western Gazette.

Source: History of Iowa: From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century by Benjamin F. Gue. New York: The Century History Co. 1903 #