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"Past 2 Present"

Hamilton County, Iowa

Books

1. A Biographical Record of Hamilton County, Iowa / New York: S.J. Clarke Pub. Co., 1902, 645 pgs. (Surname list)

2. Biographical Record and Portrait Album of Webster and Hamilton Counties, Iowa. / Chicago: Lewis Publishing, 1888 - AC (Surname list)

• Most counties are included in the Iowa statewide books

• Click here for a brief history of Hamilton County

Periodicals

• Pioneers (Winter 1984)
• Cass Cemetery (Spring 1987)

Palimpsest:

• Webster City Lyceum (August 1934) (Text Only)
• Come to Hamilton County (August 1934) (Text Only)
• Fourth at Webster City (July 1935) (Text Only)
• Story of a Country School (September/October 1978)

Annals of Iowa History:

• Recollections of a Pioneer Teacher of Hamilton County (October 1946) TEXT Only
• Journalism Comes to Hamilton County (October 1954) TEXT Only
• Prehistoric Village sites of Harrison Co. Iowa (July 1912) TEXT Only

HAMILTON COUNTY lies in the fourth tiersouth of Minnesota and in the sixth east of the Missouri River. When first created in 1851 the county was named Risley. The Fourth General Assembly changed the name to Webster. At the same session Webster County was enlarged by consolidating it with Yell county which joined it on the west. In 1857 Hamilton County was created by taking from Webster the territory on the east formerly embraced in Risley. It was named for W. W. Hamilton, then president of the State Senate. The new county of Hamilton contained sixteen congressional townships making an area of five hundred seventy-six square miles. Webster City was made the county-seat.
     Wilson Brewer and Nathan and William Stanley were the first settlers within the limits of the county; they made claims on the Boone River in November, 1850, where Brewer and William Frake laid out a town which they named Newcastle. In 1851 Peter Lyon, Isaac Hook, S. Bell and Jacob Crooks settled along the Boone River. The first school was taught by John Hancock in a log cabin three miles north of Newcastle in the winter of 1854.
     The first store in the county was opened by Isaac Hook in 1852 near the Des Moines River, at a place called Hook's Point. The first physician was Dr. H. Corbin who located at Homer which was the county-seat of Webster when it embraced the present counties of Hamilton, Webster and a part of Humboldt and was at that time one of the best and most promising towns in northern Iowa. The division of the county, however, ruined its prospects. The county-seat was lost and for many years it was a deserted village fast going to decay. In 1856 Brewer and Frake sold their interest in Newcastle to Walter C. and Sumler Wilson who changed the name to Webster City.
     In 1857 the county was organized by the election of the following officers: John D. Maxwell, judge; Cyrus Smith, treasurer; Charles Leonard, sheriff. The first newspaper was established in June, 1857, by Charles Aldrich and named the Hamilton Freeman. The Dubuque and Sioux City Railroad was built through the county from east to west on the line of Webster City.

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 #