Iowa
Old Press
The Weekly Citizen
Centerville, Appanoose county Iowa
February 25, 1871
Emigrant wagons pass through town daily. A man has a good deal of
back bone, who, with his family, will face the wind, snow, and
cold of winter, hunting a home in the west. They are the kind of
men Iowa wants. There is room for thousands of such. Let them
come.
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The first marriage license issued in this county was to John
Manly Packard and Mary Bond, on September 5th, 1846. J.F.
Stratton was clerk of the court, and Iowa was a territory.
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The first warranty deed recorded in this county was on June 13th,
1850, by Davis Glass, Recorder. In this transaction James J.
Jackson and wife sold to Moses Chapel twenty-three lots in the
south-east part of Centerville, for the sum of $500. These lots
are now worth over ten times that amount.
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Owing to the bad roads the mail from Albia due here Wednesday
evening did not arrive until Thursday noon. We are thankful that
Centerville's day of slow coaches has passed away forever. A
railroad has just been finished to our door and before 1872 takes
its place upon the dial-face of time another of the great
arteries of trade will make this place pulsate with business.
[transcribed by P.E., November 2005]