IAGenWeb - Marion County |
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When the county commissioners, on March 2, 1846, divided the county into election precincts it was ordered: "That township 77 and all of townships 75 and 76 of range 18, north of the Des Moines River, shall constitute Lake Precinct." On January 6, 1847, the northern part of this precinct, embracing township 77, range18, was erected into a township called Jefferson, and the southern portion was named Lake Township. These two townships were consolidated by a special act of the Legislature of 1847-48, under the name of "Lake Prairie." Donnel says: "This name was taken from the long lake extending two miles below Amsterdam, between which and the river lies an extensive and beautiful prairie."
The same authority says further: "On this prairie were once a couple of beautiful springs that were resorted to by the Indians of the village near by and attracted the attention of the settlers by their peculiar appearance and character. They were from ten to fifteen feet wide and one of them of unknown depth, filled with a very light sediment, through which no solid bottom could be reached by sounding with the longest poles. The water would rise and fall, and from the subterranean depths would occasionally come a sound resembling thunder. The Indians called it Thunder Spring."
It is believed that the lake from which the township took its name was at some remote period the bed of the Des Moines River, and that a drift or ice gorge at the upper end forced the river to cut a new channel. Gradually the old bed filled up and on modern maps the lake is no longer shown.
Lake Prairie Township occupies the northeast corner of the county and next to Knoxville is the largest township in the county. It is six miles wide from east to west and on the eastern boundary line of the county is fourteen miles long. Its area is a little over seventy square miles. On the north it is bounded by Jasper County; on the east by Mahaska County; on the south by the Des Moines River, which separates it from Clay Township, and on the west by the townships of Polk and Summit. Skunk River crosses the northeastern | p. 111| part and Thunder Creek flows in an eastward direction through the center of the township. Along the streams there was originally a heavy growth of timber, but the greater part of the surface consisted of rolling prairie.
The first attempt to form a white settlement in what is now Lake Prairie Township was in the fall of 1842 when George Henry, James Carnilius and another man selected claims and built three small pole cabins after which they returned to Missouri to spend the winter. Upon returning the next spring they found that their cabins had been destroyed by the United States dragoons who were guarding the Indian lands against intruders. When the land was opened to settlement on May 1, 1843, a number of persons selected claims in this part of the county. Among them were Levi and Wellington Nossaman, George Gillaspy, John B. and Robert Hamilton, William Welch, Thomas Tuttle, Wilson Stanley, Jasper Koons, Green T. Clark, John Gillaspy, John and William George, Jacob C. Brown, Ose Matthews, Sr., Ose Matthews, Jr., Reuben, Homer, Simpson B. and Warren Matthews, George Reynolds, William Cayton, Asa Koons, Ray Alfrey and William Bainbridge.
The Matthews family was of New England stock, Ose Matthews, Sr., having been born in Massachusetts in March 1784. His two sons, Reuben and Homer, were physicians. George Reynolds and Ray Alfrey were sons-in-law of Mr. Matthews and the latter's daughter, Amanda L., who was born on January 18, 1844, was the first white child born in Marion County north of the Des Moines River. In 1846 or 1847 all the members of this family sold their lands to the Hollanders and the elder Matthews took a new claim in what is now Union Township. He died at the home of his son-in-law, George Reynolds, in Summit Township, December 20, 1865.
At the first election for county officers, on the first Monday in September, 1845, Green T. Clark was elected assessor and Wellington Nossaman, coroner. Mr. Nossaman was born in Monroe County, Virginia, in 1817. When two years of age his parents removed to Kentucky and in 1832 to Indiana. Ten years later Wellington came to Jefferson County, Iowa, and later to Mahaska County, where he assisted in building the first courthouse. In April, 1843, he made a claim in the southern part of what is now Lake Prairie Township, built a pole shanty with a bark roof, planted a patch of corn, and then erected a permanent cabin. His wife and Mrs. Levi Nossaman were the only women in the settlement until late in the summer of 1843. Mr. Nossaman was also the first constable of Lake Prairie Township, and William Bainbridge was the first justice of the peace.|p. 112|
William Welch was born at Huntsville, North Carolina, January 1, 1800. In 1827 he went to Wayne County, Indiana, and from there to Illinois. In 1836 he located at Bonaparte, Van Buren County, Iowa, where he established a pottery--the first in the Territory of Iowa. In 1844 he settled about four miles south of the present City of Pella, in a tract of timber. Here he erected a pottery and in connection with Wellington Nossman built what they called a "stump mill" for grinding corn. It was operated by horse power and had a capacity of about one bushel of corn per hour. Later in the year they added a saw mill--also run by horse power--and made the first lumber north of the Des Moines River. Some years later Mr. Nossman, in connected with Joseph Porter, built a steam saw mill in Pella, which was the first concern of any kind in the county to be operated by steam.
The early dwellings were temporary structures. The first permanent cabin, built of round logs, was erected by John B. Hamilton late in the summer of 1843. Mr. Hamilton was also one of the first settlers to plant an orchard, he and Green T. Clark setting out some apple trees in the spring of 1847. He went to Kansas in 1862.
Thomas Tuttle located near where Pella now stands in May, 1843. His wife helped him to build a small cabin in the timber north of the town, and soon afterward he took up a claim that included part of the site of the city, erecting his claim pen on what afterward became "Garden Square." This pen, or cabin, remained standing and was occupied part of the time for several years after the city had grown up around it.
In August, 1843, Abram, James, Samuel and William Buffington settled about three miles north of Tuttle, not far from the Skunk River, and the neighborhood was known for years as the "Buffington Settlement." They were Mr. Tuttle's nearest neighbors for more than a year.
John W. Alley, who settled near the old Indian village, not far from Durham's Ford, was the first lawyer to become a resident of Marion County, and Dr. James L. Warren, who was also a Methodist minister, was probably the first physician to practice his profession in the county.
Many of the early settlers sold their lands to the Hollanders and removed elsewhere. A history of the Holland colony will be found in the chapter devoted to the City of Pella.
A branch of the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Railroad passes through the township from southeast to northwest a little south of the center, and the Wabash Railroad follows the course of the Des |p. 113| Moines River in the southwestern part. Pella on the former line and Howell on the latter are the only railroad stations within the township limits.
In population and wealth Lake Prairie occupies the second place in the county. According to the United States census of 1910 the population then was 4,648, including the City of Pella, and in 1913 the assessed value of property was $2,251,960, not including the property of Pella. The township is divided into sixteen school districts, which employed twenty-two teachers during the school year of 1913-14.