Who's Who in Iowa

The scare was soon over and most of them came back. The Indians counted the affair a great joke.

The county seat, and the other towns in the county grew quite rapidly during the first ten or fifteen years. Settlements were made at an early date at and near to Monroe and Prairie City and they grew quite rapidly on account of the county's first railroad coming through that section-the Des Moines Valley line-now the Rock Island.

Lynnville was built up in the southeast part of the county on account of the influx of the Quakers and the establishment of the Lynnville Academy, by the people of that faith. The first saw mill in the county, and later a grist mill, also established at that town, on Skunk river, was a great advantage to that section, and in fact, to the whole county.

Other towns waited for the railroads-as Sully and Killduff, on the M. & St. L; Kellogg and Colfax on the Rock Island and Baxter and Minto [sic] on the Great Western. Many other villages were started without the help of the railroads, as Newberg and Greencastle. Both the farmers and the people of the towns and villages prospered and improved their lands and built more and better houses and stores until 1857, when the first great panic came, and everything was at a standstill for several years. Wildcat money was always said to have been the cause of this disastrous panic. Later that was wiped out by law, and immigration to the gold fields of Colorado passed through Iowa and helped greatly to pull the people out of their difficulties. During those years stock and produce could scarcely be disposed of at any price.

Then came the Civil War, when the people of Iowa scarcely thought of anything except to carry on the war for the union and for the abolishment of slavery. There is not space here to detail all of the many historic events which intervened between the early days of the county and the time of the faster growth and the vast improvements of later days not even the history which was made here, as well as in every part of the United States during the eventful days of the Civil War, the Spanish-American War and the World War, except to say that the people of our county contributed liberally of men, and money, and of everything which they could furnish to help carry on the terrible work of winning these three great wars.

Private Schools

One of the first things which the people of Jasper County did after they had become somewhat settled in their prairie homes, or at the towns and villages, was to provide adequate schools for training their boys and girls. The first school house built in Jasper County was erected on the present location of the county home-a few miles southeast of the county seat. It was built by David Edmundson, of logs-as most such buildings then were-and was 16 x16 feet in size. Another very early school house was erected at Tool's Point-the site of the first settlement in the county. But, perhaps, the most remarkable schools in this county in an early day were the three private schools, and perhaps the best known of these is the Hazel Dell Academy.

This school was strictly a private enterprise, built entirely on the motion of the founder, and maintained altogether by his own efforts. Darius Thomas, a graduate of a (page 606) ~ Next page