USA > Iowa > Marion County > History of Marion County, Iowa, and its people, Volume I > Part 17
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BAUER
Bauer is a little hamlet in the western part of Dallas Township, about twenty miles southwest of Knoxville, and was named for one of
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the early settlers in that locality. No official plat of the place was ever filed in the recorder's office. It is located in the northwest corner of section 20, township 74, range 21, where St. Joseph's Catholic Church was established in 1874, and the village grew up about the church. Lacona, Warren County, is the nearest railroad station and the postoffice from which the people of Bauer receive mail by rural free delivery.
BENNINGTON
On August 14, 1848, Walter Clement, deputy county surveyor, reported that he had just completed the survey of the Town of Ben- nington for William D. Gregory and Ezra H. Baker, in the east half of the northeast quarter of section 9, township 77, range 21. Two days later the plat of the new town was filed with the recorder. It shows 205 lots, with seven streets running east and west and four streets north and south. The former were Vine, Pearl, Arch, Broad, Chestnut, Commercial and Front, and the latter were Washington, Clay, Taylor and Fillmore. Bennington was located on the north side of the Des Moines River, about a mile and a half west of the pres- ent station of Percy on the Wabash Railroad. Soon after the survey of the town was made Ezra H. Baker erected a store building and put in a stock of goods. He also secured the establishment of a postoffice and the appointment of postmaster. Thirty years later all that re- mained of Bennington was the ferry, operated by Thompson Price, and two or three small dwellings.
BETHEL
Bethel, or Bethel City, was once a little trading center in the southern part of Clay Township, about two miles west of Bussey. At one time it had a general store that supplied the people of the sur- rounding country, but after the building of the railroads the greater portion of the trade was diverted to the new towns that sprang up along the railroad. All that is left of Bethel City is the old church and cemetery. No plat of the town was ever filed with the county recorder.
BUSSEY
This is one of the thriving towns of Marion County. It is situated in the eastern part of Liberty Township, on the Wabash and the Chi- cago, Burlington & Quincy railroads, and in 1910 reported a popula-
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PUBLIC SCHOOL. BUSSEY
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HISTORY OF MARION COUNTY
tion of 669. The town was laid out in the latter part of July, 1875, for Jesse and Isabelle Bussey, the plat being filed on the last day of that month. In the original plat the streets running north and south are Marion, Merrill, Edwards and West, and those running east and west are numbered from First to Seventh, inclusive. Several addi- tions have been made to the first survey, the most important of which are Bussey's First, Richards & Sanders' and James A. Bussey's additions.
On February 28, 1895, a petition signed by forty residents was presented to the District Court of Marion County asking that the town be incorporated. On the 11th of March J. H. Henderson, then district judge, appointed Bowen Ross, Jesse Bussey, A. R. Miner, O. R. Brown and I. H. Council commissioners to conduct an election on April 9, 1895, at which the legal voters living within the district it was proposed to include in the corporate limits of the town should be given an opportunity to express themselves as for or against incorporation. A majority of the votes cast on that occasion were in favor of the proposition, and on May 29, 1895, the court ordered that Bussey be thereafter an incorporated town.
It appears, however, that there was some defect in the proceed- ings at that time, as on May 31, 1899, another election on the ques- tion of incorporation was held. Again a majority of the voters ex- pressed themselves in favor of the movement to incorporate, and again the court ordered that the town be incorporated. The first election for town officers was held on the last day of June, 1899, when James A. Bussey was elected mayor; William Burton, clerk ; E. A. Johnson, treasurer; John Olson, E. L. Bussey, E. E. Lyman, 1. H. Council, U. G. Earp and J. F Hughes, councilmen
Bussey has two banks, a number of well stocked mercantile estab- lishments, a weekly newspaper, a grain elevator, a public school, in which seven teachers are employed, churches of various denomina- tions, a number of neat residences, well kept streets, good sidewalks, and being on two lines of railway, ships large quantities of live stock and an immense amount of coal from the mines in the vicinity. In 1913 the property of the corporation was assessed for taxation at $243,500.
CALOMA
Located in the northwest quarter of section 29, township 75, range 21, is the little village of Caloma. It is about fifteen miles southwest of Knoxville and only one mile from the Warren County line. A postoffice was established here in 1857, with Daniel F. Vol. 1 -11
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Smith as the first postmaster. No official plat of Caloma can be found in the public records. Since the introduction of the free rural delivery system the postoffice at Caloma has been discontinued and mail is now carried from Lacona, Warren County. It has a general store and is a trading point for the neighborhood. White Breast, on the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific, and Lacona, on the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy, are the most convenient railroad stations.
CLOUD
This is a small place in the southern part of Dallas Township, only one mile from the Lucas County line. It was never formally laid out, and like Topsy, in "Uncle Tom's Cabin," it "just growed." Cloud is near the new line of the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Railroad recently built through the southwestern part of the county, and the nearest station is Purdy, just across the line in Lucas County.
COALPORT
On May 11, 1857, William Kent, then county surveyor, laid out for William and Elizabeth Welch the town of Coalport, on the south side of the Des Moines River in section 14, township 76, range 19. The plat, which was filed in the recorder's office on the last day of November, 1857, shows seven blocks of eight lots each and a "mill lot" of two acres. Coalport was so named from the large deposits of excellent coal in the immediate vicinity. Alfred B. McCown, in his little book of reminiscences published in 1909, and entitled "Down , on the Ridge," says: "Coalport was a famous village. It had one little store, a saw and grist mill, a potter shop and a blacksmith shop. It had no postoffice, because of the strange stories that had reached the department at Washington that wild Indians were still in the neighborhood and that an occasional white man was burned at the stake. So the rural delivery man, like the priest and the Levite, passed by on the other side."
The village was a "coaling station" for the little steamboats that plied on the Des Moines River (when there was enough water), but in after years the river cut a new bed farther eastward and the site of Coalport is now some distance from the stream upon which it depended for its commercial importance.
COLUMBIA
The town of Columbia, located in the extreme southwest corner of section 27, township 74, range 20, in the southern part of Wash-
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ington Township, was surveyed by William Kent on March 23, 1857, for Hugh S. Smith and his wife Rebecca. According to the original plat, which was filed on May 2, 1857, the town consisted of fifty-eight lots, to which was added on October 22, 1892, Murr's addi- tion of twenty-two lots. The first house in the town was built by James D. Steele and the first merchant was John McEldoring. About two miles west of the village was a postoffice called Columbia, which had been established on November 15, 1854, with Brumfield Long as postmaster. Shortly after the town was laid out the post- office was removed there, and Andrew Reed was appointed post- master. Two men named Clark and Williams opened a hotel and later became the proprietors of a large flour mill.
When Columbia began to assume an air of importance the people of Gosport, two miles north, believing that there was not a sufficient field for the two towns, and perhaps a little jealous of their lusty young rival, hit upon a scheme to check Columbia's growth. A movement was organized to visit the new town on the day when lots were to be sold, bid in the choice locations and then permit them to lie vacant. But the Columbians got wind of the plan and ran the price of lots up to such high figures that the "committee" from Gosport abandoned the project.
Columbia is situated upon a large and beautiful prairie, in the midst of a rich farming district. According to Polk's Iowa Gazet- teer for 1914, it has a bank, three general stores, a hardware and implement house, a garage, a public school that employs two teachers, a Methodist Episcopal Church and a population of 150.
CORDOVA
This is a small station on the Wabash Railroad in the south- Western part of Summit Township, about a mile east of the Town of Red Rock. It was surveyed by N. J. Watkins on December 16, 1887, for Ellison R. and Nancy T. Wright, and the plat was filed with the county recorder on the 25th of the following May. Four streets-Hickory, Black Oak, Walnut and West-run north and south, and Maple and Locust streets run east and west. The original plat shows twenty-eight lots. Cordova has never grown to any con- siderahle proportions. It has a general store, a postoffice, a grain . elevator and a few residences and does some shipping.
DALLAS
Donnel, in his "Pioneers of Marion County," says: "Dallas Town is located on the southwest quarter of the southeast quarter
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of section 2. It was surveyed by F. M. Frush, in September, 1857, at the instigation of Richard Willis, on land purchased by him of a Mrs. Eckles. Mrs. Eckles was a grass widow, whose husband was at that time alive and not divorced from her, and upon this ground the opinion was held by some that the title of the land given by her was not secure. This report materially injured the prospects of the village for a short time, but the fact that Mrs. Eckles had purchased the property with her own money restored confidence, and a goodly number of lots were sold."
The official plat books of Marion County show that a new survey of Dallas was made on March 13, 1873, by O. H. S. Kennedy, at that time the county surveyor. This was done at the request of Joseph Hout and included not only the original plat in the southeast quarter of section 2, township 74, range 21, but also a part of the northwest quarter of the northeast quarter of section II, in the same township and range. The plat made by Mr. Kennedy was placed on file on April 17, 1874. It shows five lots on the north side of the Knoxville and Newbern road and eleven on the south side. South of this survey J. S. Campbell added nineteen lots on May 11, 1896; William Goff's addition of sixteen lots was platted in Novem- ber, 1896, and Highberger's addition was laid out in July, 1900. It contains fifteen lots.
Quite a number of the early settlers in the vicinity of Dallas came from the Buckeye State, and when the town was first laid out it was called "Ohio." Two years before that, however, a postoffice had been established in the neighborhood under the name of Dallas, with John Parrett as the first postmaster. After a short time the name of the town was changed to conform to that of the postoffice. Hiram L. George built the first house after the town was first laid out, and was also the first merchant. He was succeeded after a time by Parker Buckalew, who for a number of years enjoyed a monopoly of the trade of the rich farming country surrounding the town.
At the May term of the Marion County District Court in 1911 a petition signed by thirty-seven residents was presented asking for the incorporation of Dallas. Judge Lorin N. Hays appointed C. C. Bickford, Sampson Miller, Roy Hixenbaugh, W. B. Cox and Noah Hawkins commissioners to hold an election on June 10, 1911, to ascertain the sentiment of the voters on the question of incorporation. At the election thirty-two votes were cast, thirty of which were in the affirmative, and the court then declared the town incorporated. An order was also issued by the court for an election to be held on July 10, 1911, for the first municipal officers. R. A. Millen was
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HISTORY OF MARION COUNTY
elected mayor; R. E. Hixenbaugh, clerk; W. S. Wilson, treasurer ; J. R. Abbott, Floyd Stotts, A. L. Burrell, John Scott and F. M. Tharp, councilmen.
About the time the town was incorporated the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Railroad Company began the building of a line through the southwestern part of the county, and Dallas, being on the line of this road, experienced a boom. John Scott's addition of ninety-four lots was laid out on the south side of the town in Feb- ruary, 1912; Fortune's addition of forty lots followed the next month, and on August 5, 1914, the plat of the "B. & M. Addition to Dallas" was filed with the county recorder. It contains twenty-four lots.
Since the completion of the railroad the town of Melcher has been laid out immediately south of Dallas and there has been some rivalry between the two towns, but Dallas has held its own. It has a bank, a telephone exchange, a public school that employs three teachers, several good stores, churches of different denominations, and in 1913 the property of the town was assessed for taxation at $119,352.
DELPHI
Isaac B. Powers, who was elected the first county surveyor of Marion County, reported that on July 15, 1846, he surveyed the Town of Delphi "On the south side of the Des Moines River in the prairie adjacent to Joshua Lindsey, and opposite the farm of William Markly." At that time the government survey in the western part of the county had not been completed and the suveyor could not give the location by section and township lines. Joshua Lindsey and William Markly were among the early settlers of Perry and Swan townships, and from the location of their claims it is ascertained that Delphi was situated in the northern part of what is now Swan Township, almost directly south of the little village of Percy. The plat shows three streets-Water, Main and Third-running parallel to the river, and three cross streets, not named. It does not appear that Delphi ever got beyond the paper stage of its existence, as old set- tlers do not remember anything of such a town.
DIXONVILLE
In 1856 D. B. Dixon opened a store about two miles north of the present town of Hamilton and there caused to be laid out a town. to which he gave the name of Dixonville. Not long after this some
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of Dixon's creditors obtained a judgment against him and the sheriff was sent to levy upon the goods. The officer arrived late in the even- ing and concluded to postpone the removal of the goods until the next morning. But, on going to the store the next morning, he dis- covered that his action had been anticipated, the goods having been removed during the night. Mr. Dixon then abandoned his town, which never prospered.
DONLEY
Four miles west of Knoxville, on the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad, is the little station of Donley-or, as it appears on the railroad timetables, Donnelley. No official plat of the village is on file in the recorder's office. It grew after the building of the railroad and is a shipping point for the western part of Knoxville Township. The place was named for Oliver Donley (deceased ), whose large landed estates were near by.
DUNREATH
The Town of Dunreath, located in the northwest corner of section 27, township 77, range 20, in the southern part of Red Rock Town- ship, was laid out on November 17, 1881, by the Union Land Com- pany, of which J. S. Polk was president and John S. Runnells, secre- tary. Beginning at the north side, the three streets running east and west are Lincoln, Blaine and Garfield. The north and south streets, beginning on the east, are Beersheba, Harris, McCrary, Dillon, Mason, Reed and Dan. The original plat shows 228 lots and two large outlots on the north side of the Wabash Railroad, and four out- lots on the south side. Polk's Gazetteer for 1914 gives the popula- tion as 200. Dunreath has a general store, telegraph and express offices, a public school, telephone connections, etc., but has no post- office, mail being delivered by rural carrier from the office at Cordova.
DURHAM
On October 22, 1875, the Town of Durham was surveyed for William and Barbara Harvey, and the plat was filed the next day under the name of "Merrill." It is located in the southeast quarter of section 5, township 75, range 18, in the northern part of Clay Township, and is a station on the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy
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Railroad, eight miles east of Knoxville. The original survey in- cluded forty-five large lots for residences and twenty-eight smaller lots intended for business houses. On January 24, 1876, the same site was resurveyed, making a different arrangement of the lots, and a new plat was filed under the name of "English." The eastern part of the plat was vacated on February 14, 1877, and the name was changed to Durham. Polk gives the population in 1914 as 100. Durham has a general store, a public school, a Methodist Episcopal Church, an express office, telephone connections, and ships consider- able quantities of live stock and other farm products.
EVERIST
Everist is located a little west of the center of Liberty Township, in section 17, on a spur of the Wabash, Railroad and not far from Cedar Creek. It is the center of a coal mining district and a number of the inhabitants are employed in that occupation. No official plat of the village has ever been filed in the recorder's office, but Polk's Gazetteer for 1914 gives the population as 300. The Everist Mer- cantile Company operates a large general store, which is the prin- cipal business enterprise. The Shiloh public school, located at Everist, employs five teachers ; the town has telephone connections, a postoffice, and the visitor is impressed with the general air of pros- perity.
FIFIELD
This is a station on the Wabash Railroad in the northern part of Polk Township, eight miles north of Knoxville. Its history is not materially different from that of other small railroad stations, having grown up since the building of the road. Two general stores constitute the principal business enterprises. It has no postoffice, the people in the village and the vicinity receiving mail by rural carrier from the postoffice at Cordova.
FLAGLER
In May, 1877, the Union Coal and Mining Company laid out. on lands owned by the company, the town of Flagler, in the south- west quarter of section 2, township 75, range 19. Since then Booth's, Conwell's and Stevens' additions have been made to the original plat. Flagler is a station on the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad,
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HISTORY OF MARION COUNTY
five miles east of Knoxville, and according to Polk's Iowa Gazetteer had a population of 200 in 1914. It has a well-stocked general store, a postoffice, and express office, telephone connections, a public school employing three teachers, a Methodist Episcopal Church, and ships considerable quantities of coal and farm products.
GOSPORT
The Town of Gosport was surveyed by F. M. Frush, then county surveyor, on July 8, 1853, for John Stipp and John Hessenflow, own- ers of the southwest quarter of section 15 and the northwest quarter of section 22, township 74, range 20, upon which the town is situated. The plat was filed on August 2, 1853, under the name of New Town. The name was changed to Gosport by an act of the Legislature, ap- proved by Governor Grimes on January 15, 1855, the name of the postoffice having been changed prior to that date in order to avoid a conflict with the postoffice at Newton, the names being so much alike. The original plat shows twenty-nine lots, but it has been in- creased by Pershall's addition.
Daniel Sampson was the first man to erect a house in Gosport, and soon after the building was completed he put in a stock of goods. A large building was also erected for a hotel, but the name of the man who built it seems to have been forgotten. With the introduction of the rural delivery system the postoffice at Gosport was discontinued and mail is now supplied daily from Columbia, two miles south. In 1914 nothing remained of the town except three houses at a cross-roads and two churches-the Methodist Episcopal and Methodist Protestant.
HAMILTON
In the spring of 1849 Henry Mitchell, John G. Hooker, John Stillwell, Isaac Wilsey, Andrew McGruder, Jacob Hendricks, Samuel Smith and Martin Neel conceived the idea of founding a town in Liberty Township, near the southeast corner of the county. Accordingly they employed Stanford Doud, county surveyor, to lay out a town in the west side of section 35, township 74, range 18. The survey was made on June 2, 1849, but the plat was not filed in the recorder's office until the 28th of the following November. It shows seven blocks of eight lots each, but since then several additions have been made to the town. The most important of these are Lyman's, Odd Fellows', Flanders', Blee's, Newcomb's and Pasco's. A ma-
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HISTORY OF MARION COUNTY
jority of the proprietors were from Hamilton County, Ohio, and it was from this fact that the town derived its name.
The first house in the new town was built in the winter of 1849-50, by Nathaniel Linn. It was a double log cabin and Donnel says it was built on the compact snow, three feet above the ground, and remained there until there came a thaw that allowed it to settle to the ground. Isaac Wilsey was the first postmaster; the firm of Linn & Smith was the first to sell goods, and Henry Edwards was the proprietor of the first hotel-a hewed log house afterward de- stroyed by fire.
On February 24, 1900, the District Court of Marion County re- ceived a petition signed by thirty-eight residents asking for the in- corporation of Hamilton. James D. Gamble, then judge, appointed J. E. Reddish, P. M. Francis, M. J. Faivre, W. R. Sullivan and George C. Davis commissioners to hold an election on March 26, 1900, when eighty-five voters expressed themselves in favor of the proposition and twenty-seven votes were cast in the negative. Upon receiving the returns of this election, Judge Gamble ordered an election for municipal officers to be held on the last day of April, when G. W. York was chosen mayor ; G. N. Kitzmiller, clerk; J. E. Reddish, treasurer; Thomas Preston, G. S. Gibson, T. J. Williams, H. V. Long, Edward Thompson and M. J. Faivre, councilmen. Since that time Hamilton has been an incorporated town.
Hamilton is located on the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy and Wabash railroads, twenty-one miles southeast of Knoxville. In the immediate vicinity are large deposits of coal and a number of mines are operated near the town. Four teachers are employed in the public schools, there are two general stores, a postoffice, a hotel, a Methodist Episcopal Church, telegraph and express offices and a number of smaller business concerns. According to the United States census for 1910 the population was then 391, and in 1913 the property of the town was assessed for taxa- tion at $77,516. Besides the transportation facilities afforded by the two railroads, Hamilton has a daily stage line running to Buxton, Monroe County.
Shortly after the town was laid out it came to be widely known by the unromantic name of "Jake's Ruin," and Donnel gives the following explanation of how the name originated :
"During the surveying of the town the surveyors got drunk, and Jake Hendricks became so unsteady that, in the performance of his duty as chain carrier, he had to go partly on all fours, holding to the long grass to maintain his equilibrium. Being one of the proprietors
.
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of the town, and also the original owner of the land on which it was located, he became reckless in the expenditure of time and money in the indulgence of his propensity for dissipation. Mrs. Hendricks was greatly distressed at this downward career of her husband, and one day, having visitors, she took occasion to acquaint them of her great trouble, bitterly declaring that the town would be Jake's ruin. The words seemed so suggestive that it was thereafter so called and so known at a distance. Even strangers coming from a distance were wont to inquire the way or the distance to Jake's Ruin."
HARRISONVILLE
The Town of Harrisonville was surveyed by F. M. Frush, county surveyor, on May 30, 1854, for George W. Harrison. It was located in the southeast quarter of section 32, township 76, range 18, about one mile almost directly due north of the present village of Durham. The plat was filed with the county recorder on July 7, 1854, but the records do not show that any lots were sold or that any business enterprises of consequence were ever established. Harrisonville has long since disappeared from the map.
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