Source: Vol. 10, No. 5, Iowa County Byways, the quarterly newsletter of the Iowa County
    Genealogical Society and the Marengo Republican, 1870.
Published: about Sept. of 2001

Setting the Record Straight

The story goes that the county seat of Iowa County was selected by three men who wandered around the countryside looking for a suitable place to establish the seat of justice for the county. Some accounts of the county's early history relate that they carried with them a whiskey jug from which they imbibed freely.

In an article written for the Marengo Republican in 1870, Robert McKee, one of the first settlers in what is now Marengo, told it like it was. He was there, you see.

"In 1844 while Iowa was still a territory, Iowa County was organized. There were a few whites in the county then, but most of the inhabitants were portions of the Sac and Fox tribes of Indians known as Poweshieks.

"After the creation of the county it became necessary that some point should be designated as the seat of justice. And three commissioners - one each from three other counties - Linn, Johnson and Keokuk - were appointed by the legislature to come and pick the spot for the county seat.

"These gentlemen were Gardner from Johnson County, Strong from Linn and Thomas Henderson of Keokuk. I enjoyed the pleasure of traveling in the same conveyance as the first two gentlemen. Neither they nor Mr. Henderson had a jug of whiskey or any other liquor with them.

. "They commenced their examination at the old trading house, five miles east of where the town now lies and a little to the south, and traveled to a distance of about sewn miles up Bear Creek. That evening they returned to the old trading post and there met Henderson who had spent the day before examining areas in the south part of the county.

"The next morning the three men came up to further examine the area between Hilton and Bear Creeks and about 11:00 A.M. they agreed unanimously to locate the county seat of Iowa county on the NE 1/4 of Sec. 25, township 81N R11 west.

"After this decision we observed smoke rising from the grove west of us and repairing to the grove to find material for a site marker, we found encamped there two young men from Iowa City who were prospecting for a site for a mill. They had a jug with them and by the way they were passing it back and forth, and it bottoms up, I presume there was, or had been, something in it. I could not say, since my last drink some five years earlier.

"We prepared a stake about eight feet high from a young sapling, tacked a piece of muslin to the top, wrote the name' Marengo' on it with red chalk and placed it at about where the public square now is. The commissioners then house, made out a report of their doings to the proper authorities and the next day returned to their homes."