Jefferson County Online Round Prairie Township

Transcribed by Thelma Drey
Compiled by Mary Prill

Some Recollections By a Resident Of This City.

Round Prairie Township is the southeastern township of Jefferson County, Big Cedar Creek runs through the southwestern part of the township. Rock Creek heads in the western part and runs southeast and empties into Big Cedar. Wolf Creek runs through the northern part of the township, and there is a good deal of rough land adjacent to it. But the township includes all of Lower Round Prairie, and a good part of Upper Round Prairie, which is as nice a farming country as any in the county, and with plenty of timber handy. It was one of the earliest settled parts of the county, and the oldest settler living in the county, or is said to be, is the Widow Lampkins, Thos. Lampkins’ widow. Glasgow, the village of the township, is on the road from Fairfield to Salem, and a short distance south of the center of the township.

But my intention is to speak of its citizens and business in 1845, and, as it is all from recollection, of course there will be inaccuracies, but I flatter myself that in general it will be reliable. The citizens at that time were as follows: ; Jas. Tilford and sons, Thos. Lampkins, John Howell and son Foster, Thomas Howell and son, Burton Litton and sons Micajah and Washington, Benj. Workman, Wm. Cline, John and ‘Squire Ridgeway, Alfred Wright, Jas. Hammond, Widow Strong and her sons John, Henry, Webb, and Johnson, Thomas and Newton Gillam, Wm. and Thomas Andrews, Hardin Butler, Wm. and John R. Reagor, Elisha Billingsley, Jas. and R. T. Gilmore, Jas. O. Kirkpatrick, Jas. Westfall, Lewis Lee and father and brothers, a Mr. Swearinger (Schneringer?), Luther Simmons, Arthur Condor, John Cochran, Alex Dunlavy, Otho Davis, Thomas Miller, Frederick Loren (Lyon?), Wm. Sturgis, Daniel Fiddler, Thomas Rogers, Henry B. Knotson (Notson?), Dr. David, a Mr. Elliott, Widow Smith, Nuby Smith, Albert Smith, Daniel Sears and his sons David and James, Widow Stout and her sons William and John, Richard Stewart and his son William, Robert Moore, Joseph M. Parker, John Whitaker and sons, James Lintsfield Grady, Richard W. Jones, Sr., John Arrowsmith, Smith Ball, Jonathan Hoskins and sons Dillon and John, Charles Stout, Mr. Price and sons, a Mr. Snow, Geo. Moffit, Sr. (Mrs. Smith Ball’s father), James McCulloch, Alex. Jameson and sons, a Mr. Abraham, Mr. Wilson and sons, Mr. Chism, Wm. Taylor, Ely Jones, Jesse and Wm. Thomas, Alex. Kirk and sons Eli, Wm. R., James and others, Samuel Langdon, Peter Fisher, Lacefield and Albert Howard, Mr. Woodard and sons John, David and others, John Huff, a Mrs. Mulvany, Widow McCullom and her sons John and Abraham, Widow Moore and her sons John and Alex., a Mr. Carver and son, Jas. Sanman (Lanman?).

Late in the fall John Henry Sinco, a plasterer, William and Nathaniel Templeton, John McCulloch and his father, and Jesse Shamp stopped in the township, but, excepting Nathaniel Templeton, settled in Cedar Township some time after. I think I have missed some, and some of their Christian names I have forgotten.

Glasgow was a very small village and but little business was done there at that time. H. B. Knotson had a few goods there in the spring, and Thomas Rogers run a blacksmith shop. Daniel Fiddler was the business man of the village and township - house carpenter and cabinet maker. Robert Moore was a carpenter and lived on his farm. Dr. David was the physician of town and township. Henry Webb was the school teacher, and Thomas Miller furnished the country with rattle snake medicines - not by retail. There were but few school houses, schools or church buildings at that time, if any. B. T. Williams, now of Van Buren County, was a young man and had come out from White County, Ill., with his brothers, Thomas and Nathaniel, and he taught a school that summer west of Glasgow on what is now John Swope’s farm. I think there was an organized class of Methodists at Glasgow, and the regular Baptists had a church organization and also the Dunkards, but no others to my recollection. There were Friends, Presbyterians, Christians and other Protestant churches represented in the township. Thomas Howell was a minister of the regular Baptist church, and R. W. Jones, Sr., was a local minister of the old Christian order. Rev. Harrington (Arrington?) was the Methodist minister. He did not live there, but was on a circuit.

The citizens were mostly farmers and of a very respectable character. They were moral, if not enthusiastically religious, and were industrious, hospitable and well-to-do. There was no fine-haired class, but all stood equally if they conducted themselves properly.

The first settlers of Round Prairie were a No. 1 set of men and women who had come to Iowa to make it a home and better themselves and children financially, and most of them succeeded well.

Of the number names who had reached their majority, and are now living in this township, I can only recall James Hammans, Washington Litton, Alex. Dunlavy, Elisha Billingsley, Wm. Stewart, Robert Moore, Daniel Fiddler, Thomas Miller, Mr. Chism, Wm. Taylor, Albert Howard, and a Mr. Hoskins. Of the ladies there now, I can only name Mrs. Jas. Hammans (Mrs. B. D. Workman), Mrs. Alex Dunlavy, Mrs. William Stewart, Mrs. Robt. Moore, Mrs. Chism, Mrs. Wm. Cline (I think is living), Mrs. Carver, Mrs. McCulloch (Step-mother to the late Capt. John T. McCulloch) (McCullough?), Smith Ball and wife, John Huff, R. T. Gilmore and Sister Mrs. Ross, and Eli Kirk are living in Fairfield. But where are the others? A good many have moved away and are living in other parts of the state and in other states. But many of them have passed away, and forty-one years is a large part of the time any of us are allowed to stay here. When this was sketched off the writer had no idea of its ever seeing the interior of a newspaper office, much less filling a space in its columns.

The politics of the township at that time was Democratic, and remained so until the Kansas trouble came; since then it has been Repulican by quite a large majority. Lintsfield Grady and Benjamin Workman were the first justices of the peace for the township. The citizens were from many of the different states, Kentucky, Virginia, Tennessee, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, North Carolina and Maryland. Two were from Ireland, one from England, and one from some of the German states. Of the citizens of 1845 who have worn the insignia of office, John Howell was elected to the state senate; Smith Ball, County Commissioner, and Scott Walker, sheriff. The latter was not a citizen in ’45, but was one of the first settlers and a resident of the township when elected. Elisha Billingsley has been county and township supervisor, as also was the late John Cochran. Hardin Butler was a member of the First Constitutional Convention. The others not recollected.