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"Past 2 Present"
"Past
2 Present"
Jasper County, Iowa
Books
-
Portrait and Biographical Record of Jasper,
Marshall and Grundy Counties, Iowa. / Chicago: Biographical
Publ. Co., 1894. AC
Periodicals
Hawkeye Heritage:
Palimpsest:
- James Norman Hall's My Island Home: An Overdue Review
(September/October 1983)
Annals of Iowa History:
- Judicial History Pertaining to Jasper County (January 1933)
TEXT Only
JASPER COUNTY lies in the sixth tier west of
the Mississippi River and in the fourth north of the Missouri line. It
contains twenty townships, embracing an area of seven hundred thirty
square miles and was created in January, 1840, from territory formerly
included in the original county of Keokuk. It was named for Sergeant
William Jasper of the Revolutionary War. Poweshiek, a noted Fox chief,
had his principal village in this county on Indian Creek and a smaller
one a mile west of Newton.
A portion of the county was opened to
settlement in May, 1843, and the remainder in October, 1845. William
Highland and family were the first white settlers who, in May, 1843,
took a claim in a grove near Monroe. A few months later Adam M. Tolle,
John Frost and John Vance located in the same vicinity which became
known as Tool's point. In 1845 settlements were made on Clear Creek by
Mr. Knitz at Hixon's Grove by Jacob Bennett and on the site of Newton by
Ballinger Adeloytte.
In April, 1846, a county government was
organized by the election of the following officers: J. R. Sparks, Manly
Gifford and Jacob Bennett, commissioners; J. H. Franklin, clerk; J. W.
Swann, treasurer; David Edmundson, sheriff; Seth Hammer, recorder; and
W. Fleener, probate judge. The county-seat was located by commissioners
in July,1846, at a central place where a town was laid out and named
Newton City. A rude log building was erected for a court-house in which
Judge Joseph Williams of Muscatine held the first term of court. The
first store in the county was opened at Tool's Point by Daniel Hiskey in
1851. The first school was taught by William E. Smith at Elk Creek
settlement in the winter of 1848.
In 1850 commissioners chosen by the General
Assembly to select a site for the permanent Capital of the State decided
on the tract of prairie four miles northwest of Toole's Point. A sale of
lots was held but the state refused to make it the Capital and the plat
was eventually vacated and used for farms. Monroe was laid out at
Toole's Point by David Hiskey in 1856 and has grown into a flourishing
town. Prairie City was platted in 1856 by James Elliott and was first
named Elliott. Kellogg, which was first called Jasper City, was laid out
in September, 1865, by Enos Blair and A. W. Adair. Colfax, on the Skunk
River, was named for Schuyler Colfax, Vice-President of the United
States, and has long been famous for its mineral springs. The Newton
Free Press was a weekly newspaper established in the 1859 by the
Campbell brothers. The main line of the Rock Island Railroad runs from
east to west, while the Keokuk division runs through the western part of
the county.
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 #
The items on this page are not for sale, but are
available to me to research your family tree
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"Past 2 Present" |