OpenLLM-France/wikimedia huggingface dataset:
# History of Iowa From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century/3/Counties/Clinton

​CLINTON COUNTY was created in December, 1837, from territory embraced in the original county of Dubuque. It was named for De Witt Clinton the illustrious Governor of New York, contains an area of seven hundred twenty square miles and lies on the Mississippi River in the fifth tier south of the Minnesota line extending farther eastward than any other county in the State. The city of Clinton lies farther east by more than sixty miles than Keokuk, both on the Mississippi River. Clinton and Jackson are the most easterly counties in the great bend of the Mississippi River forming the east boundary of Iowa. The Wapsipinicon River enters the county from the northwest and forms a large portion of the boundary line separating Clinton from Scott County.
In July, 1835, Elisha Buel crossed the Mississippi and made a claim where Lyons was laid out. In 1836 James D. Bourne who was an agent of the American Fur Company established a post and made a claim on the Wapsipinicon, becoming a permanent citizen. He was the first postmaster in the county and kept the office named Monroe which was on the mail route from Davenport to Dubuque. He also kept a ferry across the Wapsipinicon at that place. During the year 1836 Dr. George Peck made a claim on the banks of the Mississippi and laid out the town of Camanche, named for an Indian tribe. Joseph M. Bartlett made a claim two miles below Buel’s the same year and built a log cabin. He opened a store and laid out a town where Clinton stands, which he named New York. In 1837 Mr. Buel, G. W. Harlan and Suel Foster laid out the town of Lyons. Eli Goddard, D. C. Bourne, W. D. Follett and others settled in various parts of the county during the following year.
In February, 1838, the county-seat was established by a vote of the people at Camanche. The county was fully organized in 1840 and the first election was held April 6th in the house of Lyman Evans at Camanche. In 1841 three commissioners were chosen by the Legislature to ​relocate the county-seat. They selected a place twenty miles west of the Mississippi and gave it the name of Vandenburg. A log court-house and hotel were built and the court-house was used for school and church purposes. J. Wood was the first school teacher in the county. The name of the town was soon changed to De Witt and the county-seat remained there about thirty-five years, when it was removed to Clinton.
Clinton was laid out on the old site of New York in 1855 by the Iowa Land Company. The Chicago, Iowa and Nebraska Railroad Company was organized in 1856 to build a railroad from Clinton to the Missouri River. The road was pushed with energy and was the first to cross the State, reaching Council Bluffs in the fall of 1867.
The first newspaper in the county was established at Camanche in 1854 by Bates and Knapp and named the Camanche Chief. In June, 1860, Camanche was destroyed by the great tornado which swept through central Iowa that year. A railroad bridge was built across the Mississippi at Clinton and in the course of years Lyons and Clinton grew together and became one city.
# History of Iowa From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century/3/Counties/Crocker

​ CROCKER COUNTY was created by act of the Legislature of 1870, embracing the northern part of Kossuth County which had at one time made the county of Bancroft. ​It was named for General M. M. Crocker of Iowa, a distinguished officer of the Civil War. The county-seat was located at Greenwood and the organization was completed in October, 1870, by the election of the following officers: George V. Davis, auditor; Cyrus Hawks, clerk; William Gibbon, treasurer; A. J. Garfield, recorder; J. H. Coffin, sheriff; Sarah A. Littlefield, superintendent of schools.
In December, 1871, the Supreme Court of Iowa declared the act creating this county a violation of the Constitution, which in article eleven declares that no new county shall be created which contains less than four hundred thirty-two square miles. Crocker County thus ceased to exist from and after the rendition of that decision and its territory reverted to Kossuth.
# History of Iowa From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century/3/Counties/Chickasaw

​ CHICKASAW COUNTY at one time a part of Fayette, was created by act of the Legislature in 1851, and named for a southern tribe of Indians. When first established Chickasaw extended three miles further north than its present boundary which was fixed in 1855. It lies in the third tier west of the Mississippi River and in the second south of Minnesota with an area of five hundred four square miles.
The first settlement within its limits was made in 1848 by Truman Merritt near Greenwood. In 1852 J. A. Bird and John Bird made claims near the junction of the Little Cedar and the Red Cedar River. They there built a cabin and during the season several other families took claims near them. In 1854 James Jared took a claim on the land where New Hampton now stands and before the close of the year settlements were made in other parts of the county in the vicinity of woodland. Chickasaw was attached to Fayette until 1853 when John Bird was authorized by the judge of Fayette County to organize the county. The first legal election was held in August at which the following officers were chosen: James Lyon, judge; S. C. Goddard, clerk; John Campbell, treasurer ​and recorder; Andrew Sample, sheriff; and N. D. Babcock, prosecuting attorney. In 1854 the county-seat was located at Bradford, a new town near the southwest corner of the county. The first term of court was held there in June, 1854, by Judge T. S. Wilson of Dubuque. New Hampton was laid out near the geographical center of the county and soon became a competitor for the county-seat. The first attempt at removal was defeated but in 1858 New Hampton was successful.
The first newspaper in the county was established at Jacksonville in 1857 by Isaac Watson and was called the Chickasaw County Republican but after three years it was suspended. In 1860 W. E. Beach started the Courier at New Hampton. Nashua is the second town of importance and is located on the Cedar River in the southwestern corner of the county. The first railroad to enter the county was the Milwaukee and St. Paul which runs through New Hampton.
# History of Iowa From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century/3/Counties/Crawford

​ CRAWFORD COUNTY lies in the second tier east of the Missouri River and in the fifth south of the Minnesota line. It has twenty-four townships containing an area of seven hundred twenty square miles and was named for William H. Crawford who was Secretary of the Treasury from 1817 to 1825 and a candidate for President in 1824. ​The county was created in 1851 from territory originally embraced in Benton but at that time did not include the four western townships. In 1853 it was attached to Shelby County and in 1855 was organized at the April election by choice of the following officers: E. W. Fowler, judge; Thomas Dobson, clerk; A. R. Hunt, treasurer; D. J. Fowler, sheriff; and Cyrus Whitmore, prosecuting attorney. The present boundaries were established in 1865.
The first settlers were Franklin Prentiss, Cornelius Dunham and their families, who with Reuben Blake took claims on the East Boyer River in a grove about six miles east of where Denison stands, in the year 1849. The place was long known as Dunham Grove. Jesse Mason, George J. and Noah V. Johnson settled the next year at Mason’s Grove on the West Boyer. J. W. Denison came to the county in 1855 and entered a large tract of land for the Providence Western Land Company. In 1856 he laid out the town of Denison, and with others began the erection of houses.
The first school-house was built at Mason’s Grove in 1856 in which Morris McHenry taught the first school in the county. The Methodists organized the first church at Mason’s Grove in October, 1856, through the efforts of Rev. William Black who was a pioneer preacher in that part of the State. S. J. Comfort was the first lawyer in the county in 1867, following down the Boyer valley to Council Bluffs.
The county-seat was located at Denison in 1856, soon after the town was laid out. In October, 1860, J. W. Denison began the publication of a newspaper named the Boyer Valley Record. The Northwestern Railroad was built through the county in 1867, following down the Boyer valley to Council Bluffs.
# History of Iowa From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century/3/Counties/Clay

​ CLAY COUNTY is in the second tier south of the Minnesota line, in the third east of the western boundary of the State and contains sixteen congressional townships embracing an area of five hundred seventy-six square miles. It was created in 1851 and named for Lieutenant-Colonel Henry Clay, Jr., who was killed at the Battle of Buena Vista in the Mexican War. In January, 1853, Clay County was attached to Wahkaw for judicial and election purposes.
​In July, 1856, the first white settlers came and took claims in the woods on the south side of the Little Sioux River in the southwest corner of the county. They were Christian Kirchner and Andrew S. Mead with their families and John J. Bicknell. They built cabins and broke up prairie for farms. In the fall Ezra Wilcox, James Bicknell and two brothers named Gillett brought their families and settled in the same vicinity. A town was laid out on the river bluff and named Peterson which became the first county-seat. In the spring of 1857 Inkpaduta’s band of Sioux Indians stopped in this settlement, robbed the people, killed or drove off about fifty head of cattle and fourteen horses belonging to Kirchner, Mead and Gillett, shot their hogs and destroyed much other property. The settlers were so few in number that they were unable to defend their homes and possessions. A deep show covered the ground, the cold was intense and the few isolated settlers had all they could do to defend their families from the savages.
The county was organized in October, 1858, by the election of the following officers: C. C. Smeltzer, judge; S. M. Foreman, treasurer, and E. M. Wilcox, clerk. John A. Kirchner built a dam across the river and erected the first saw and grist mill in that part of the State. The public business was recklessly managed for many years, fastening a heavy indebtedness upon the county which brought it into bad repute and retarded settlement. The officials who were responsible for these disreputable transactions were, as the county settled up, dislodged from the control of the county business and the large bonded indebtedness was declared illegal by the courts. In 1859 George E. Spencer of Jasper County made a claim on the west side of the Little Sioux River near the geographical center of the county, laid out a town giving it his own name. In 1869 the town of Spencer was ​established on the east side of the river where a flourishing town grew up which became the county-seat. In 1878 the Milwaukee and St. Paul Railroad was built through the county from east to west through the town of Spencer. The first newspaper was the Clay County News which was established at Spencer in January, 1871.
# History of Iowa From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century/3/Counties/Cook

​ COOK COUNTY was established from territory originally embraced in Demoine County, on the 7th of December, 1836. It included a portion of Scott County and other territory not clearly defined. The county was never organized and the following year the territory was divided among other counties created by act of the Legislature of December 21, 1837. The origin of the name given it is not known.
# History of Iowa From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century/3/Counties/Cerro Gordo

​ CERRO GORDO COUNTY lies in the second tier south of the Minnesota line, in the fifth west of the Mississippi River and is twenty-four miles square embracing twenty-four congressional townships, making an area of five hundred seventy-six square miles. It was established from the original county of Fayette in 1851 and named for a battle-field of the Mexican War.
In July, 1851, Joseph Hewitt and James Dickinson, who were hunting near Clear Lake, were so delighted with the beautiful country bordering it that they built cabins on the south and west shores and, sending for their families, became the first white settlers in the new county. They were fifty miles from the nearest neighbor and were frequently visited by parties of Winnebago Indians who came to the lake to hunt and trap. In 1853 David and Edwin Wright made claims about three miles north of where Mason City stands. In September of the same year Anson C. Owens settled at a grove which bears his name in the eastern part of the county. James and Robert Serrine took claims at the east end of Clear Lake the same year. John B. Long and John L. McMillan soon after ​settled on the ground where Mason City stands. Clear Lake is a beautiful body of water about six miles long by two miles wide and its greatest depth is about twenty-five feet. The Shellrock River flows through the northeastern portion of the county.
In 1854 the town of Mason City was laid out and the first store was opened by J. L. McMillan one of the proprietors of the new town site. The town of Clear Lake was laid out in the fall of 1856 by James Dickinson on the east end of the lake which bears the same name.
Judge Samuel Murdock of the District Court in 1855 appointed commissioners to locate the county-seat. They selected Mason City. Most of the early settlers in that town were members of the Masonic order and the settlement was first called “Masonic Grove” but when the town was platted in 1854 was named Mason City, by and for that fraternity. The first school in the county was taught by Eliza Gardner, a daughter of Rowland Gardner who, with most of his family, perished in the Spirit Lake massacre in the spring of 1857. Eliza was fortunately absent from home at the time and thus escaped the fate of her father’s family.
The first newspaper in the county was established at Mason City by Datus E. Coon in 1858, and named the Cerro Gordo Press. Its proprietor became a prominent officer in the Union army during the Civil War. The first railroad was completed from McGregor to Clear Lake, through Mason City, in 1870 by the Milwaukee and St. Paul Company.
# History of Iowa From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century/3/Counties/Cherokee

​ CHEROKEE COUNTY is in the second tier east of the west boundary of the State and in the third south of the Minnesota line, is twenty-four miles square and contains five hundred seventy-six square miles. Its territory was at one time divided between Fayette and Dubuque counties but in 1851 it was established with the present boundaries as Cherokee County, being named for a southern ​tribe of Indians. It was first attached to Wahkaw County in 1853.
In 1856 a colony from Milford, Massachusetts, selected lands near the center of Cherokee County for a settlement. There were about fifty members of the association most of whom were mechanics. The following named members with their families moved onto their lands the same year: Dr. Dwight Russell, Dr. Slocum, G. W. Lebourvean, B. W. Sawtell, Lysander Sawtell, Albert Simon, Daniel Wheeler, Lemuel Parkhurst, Albert Phipps, Carlton Corbett, J. A. Brown, A. J. Slayton, Robert Hammond and Benjamin Holbrook. Each member took about a hundred acres of the lands which had been entered. A large body of timber was taken along the Little Sioux River which was divided among the members of the colony. Dr. Dwight Russell built the first house, a log cabin in which nine families were sheltered until additional houses could be erected.
During the year 1856 twelve families formed another settlement in the southern part of the county near the Little Sioux River, in the vicinity of Pilot Rock. This immense rock was in early days a well-known landmark which could be seen at a great distance over the unsettled prairies. It was a red granite boulder about sixty feet long by forty wide rising above the surface about twenty feet, near the river on the east side of a high point of land. Many mounds are found in this county north of the town of Cherokee which are believed to be the work of the ancient “mound builders.”
The first colony laid out the town of Cherokee on the west side of the Little Sioux River in 1856 and it became the county-seat. In the spring of 1857 Inkpaduta’s band of Sioux Indians on their way to perpetrate the massacre at Okoboji, robbed many of the settlers in Cherokee County and killed many of their cattle. Later in the season a stockade was erected at Cherokee for protection ​and a company of soldiers stationed to protect the settlements in that part of the State.
The county was organized in August, 1857, and at the election the following persons were chosen for the first county officials: A. P. Thayer, judge; B. W. Sawtell, clerk; G. W. Labourvean, treasurer and recorder; S. W. Hayward, sheriff; and Carlton Corbett, prosecuting attorney. The Iowa Falls and Sioux City Railroad was built through the county in 1870 and in January of that year J. P. Ford issued the first number of the Cherokee Chief. The railroad was located some distance from the old town and gradually a new town grew up near the station. One of the Hospitals for the Insane has been recently located at Cherokee.
# History of Iowa From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century/4/Stewart Goodrell

​ STEWART GOODRELL was a native of Pennsylvania, born in 1813. He was a mechanic and in 1842 came to the new Territory of Iowa, making his home in Washington County. He became an active Whig politician and in the spring of 1846 was chosen a member of the Second Constitutional Convention which assembled at Iowa City on the 4th of May and framed the Constitution under which Iowa was on the 28th of December following admitted as a State. He was, in August of the same year, elected to the House of Representatives of the First General Assembly where he helped to frame the first code of laws for the new State. He served also in an extra session which was held in January, 1S48, was reëlected and served through the Second General Assembly. On the 3d of March, 1856, he was appointed one of the commissioners to locate the capital of the State at Des Moines. Here he purchased property and soon removed to ​that city. When the Republican party was organized in Iowa he became a member and in the fall of 1859, was again elected to the House of the Eighth General Assembly. In 1869 he was appointed United States Pension Agent for the Des Moines District and died in November, 1872.
# History of Iowa From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century/4/Stillman T. Meservey

[Yours Truly, S. T. Meservey]
​ STILLMAN T. MESERVEY was born at De Witt, Illinois, December 17, 1848, and was educated in the public schools and at Clinton Liberal Institute, New York. His father removed to Homer, then in Webster County, in 1854, and after the removal of the county-seat from that place made his home in Fort Dodge, where Stillman grew up to manhood. He was an active Republican and in 1885 was elected Representative in the House of the Twenty-first General Assembly and in 1902 he was again a member of the Twenty-ninth Assembly. He was one of the three Fort Dodge men who were the pioneers in developing the great gypsum deposits in that vicinity and became one of the directors of the Iowa Plaster Association. He has long been president of the First National Bank of Fort Dodge and of the Fort Dodge Power & Light Company, having also other large financial interests.
# History of Iowa From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century/4/Stephen Hempstead

​ STEPHEN HEMPSTEAD, second Governor of the State of Iowa, was born at New London, Connecticut, on the 1st of October, 1812. In 1828 his father removed with his family to Missouri where he made his home on a farm near St. Louis. In 1830 Stephen procured a position as clerk in a store at Galena, Illinois, and when the Black Hawk War came he enlisted in an artillery company and served until peace was restored. He then entered college at Jacksonville where he remained until 1833 when he began the study of law. In 1835 he was admitted to the bar and the following year opened the first law office in the new town of Dubuque. When Iowa Territory was established in 1838 Mr. Hempstead was elected to the Council of the First Legislative Assembly. He was made chairman of the judiciary committee when but twenty-six years of age. At the second session Mr. Hempstead was chosen President of the Council. In 1844 he was elected one of the delegates to the First Constitutional Convention and was appointed chairman of the committee on incorporations. In 1845 he was again chosen to the Council of the Seventh Legislative Assembly and in the Eighth he was again elected President of the Council. In February, 1848, he was appointed one of the commissioners to revise the laws of the State. His colleagues were Charles Mason and William G. Woodward. They prepared and reported the Code of 1851 which was approved by the General Assembly and enacted into law. In 1850 Mr. Hempstead was nominated by the Democratic State Convention for Governor, was elected over the Whig candidate, James L. Thompson, and served four years. After the expiration of his term, Governor Hempstead returned to Dubuque where he served as county judge and auditor until 1873. He died on the 16th of February, 1883. Governor Sherman issued a proclamation enumerating the valuable public services of Governor ​Hempstead and had the flag displayed on the State House at half-mast in memory of the departed statesman. Although not a brilliant man, Governor Hempstead was a sound lawyer, an intelligent and influential legislator who gave the State valuable services in framing the early laws of the Territory and State. His administration as Governor was alike creditable to himself and to the State.
# History of Iowa From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century/4/Stephen J. W. Tabor

​ STEPHEN J. W. TABOR was a native of Corinth, Vermont, where he was born August 5, 1815. Early left an orphan, it was only by hard labor and much personal sacrifice that he secured an academic education at Bradford. He early became known as an accomplished writer and every spare moment was employed in accessible libraries. He began school teaching and at the same time translated a work from the French for a Boston publisher. He resolved to become a journalist and going to New York obtained a position on the Beacon. When the New York Sun was established, Mr. Tabor secured a position on the staff of that paper, but because of failing health was obliged to resign, going to Ashfield, Massachusetts, studied medicine. Mr. Tabor was a Democrat until the organization of the Republican party when he became a member. In 1855 he came west and located at Independence, Iowa, where he soon became editor of the Civilian. The same year he was elected county judge, serving many successive terms and was also recorder and treasurer for a time. In 1863 Judge Tabor was appointed Fourth Auditor of the United States Treasury, which position he held for fifteen years. Because of failing health he then resigned and returned to Independence. Judge Tabor was a lover of books and doubtless possessed the largest and best selected private library in the State. In religious works it was especially complete. Few theologians in modern times have so many and carefully chosen books on religious themes. Thirty years of thought were spent in the selection and every book had been read before being placed upon the shelves. This library numbered 6,000 volumes and it was among these that he spent the last remaining years of his life. He died May 10, 1883, at his home in Independence.