IAGenWeb - Marion County |
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Pleasant Grove is one of the western tier of townships, being situated northwest of the center of the county upon the highest land within the county limits--a beautiful prairie, interspersed with small groves, from which the township takes its name. It embraces congressional township 76, range 21, and has an area of thirty-six square miles. On the north it is bounded by Swan Township; on the east by the townships of Union and Knoxville; on the south by Franklin, and on the west by Warren County.
This is one of the ten townships erected by the order of January 6, 1847. As at first established it included townships 75 and 76, range 21--the present civil townships of Franklin and Pleasant Grove. It was reduced to its present dimensions by the organization of Franklin Township in 1855.
Shortly after the land was opened to settlement in the fall of 1845, William D. Halsey settled in section 21, about a mile southwest of the present Town of Pleasantville, and is credited with having been the first white man to establish a home within the limits of the township. Mr. Halsey was a bachelor and came to Marion County from Ohio. His death occurred on April 27, 1855, at the home of Lewis Reynolds.
During the next two years quite a number of pioneers located claims in this part of the county. Among them were Lewis and |p. 119|and Trainor Reynolds, David Shonkwiler, Harrison and G. P. Logan, John Lewis, Daniel Vancil, Larkin and William M. Young, Samuel Tibbett, G. B. Greenwood, John P., William S., and Samuel Glenn, Pleasant Prater, Richmond Miller, James and Marion Clifton, Wesley Jordan, Daniel Davidson, Thomas Haley, Benjamin Lyon, William Henry, Isaac Pitman, Yost Spalti and a few others.
First Things--Lewis Reynolds broke the first ground, on his claim a short distance south of where Pleasantville now stands, in the spring of 1846. The first orchards were set out in 1849 by Lewis Reynolds, Gilmore Logan and William F. Jordan. Most of the trees planted by Mr. Reynolds lived to bear fruit, but the other two orchards were seriously damaged by gophers. The first white child born in the township was Jonathan A. Glenn, a son of Samuel and Elizabeth Glenn, June 4, 1846. The first death was an infant child of William S. and Maria Glenn, in 1847. The first marriage was that of Jesse V. Glenn and Sarah Johnson, which was solemnized on October 4, 1848, Miles Jordan, a justice of the peace, officiating.
The first township election was held at the house of William Glenn in August, 1847, but no records of the result have been preserved, hence it is impossible to give a list of the officers then elected. John P. Glenn was the first justice of the peace, having been appointed to that position by the governor.
Daniel Shea taught the first school, in the spring of 1847, in a cabin on the farm of Gilmore Logan in the southwest quarter of section 16, a little southwest of the Town of Pleasantville. The term was for three months, the tuition fee being $2 per scholar. Mr. Shea has ben described as "warm-hearted, visionary Irishman, once a flourishing merchant in Montreal, Canada; a fine scholar, a good mathematician and an honest man."
The first house erected exclusively for school purposes was built in the fall of 1847, in the southeast quarter of section 16, and Miles Jordan taught the first term in it the ensuing winter. It was a subscription school, Mr. Jordan having about twenty-five scholars in attendance during the term of three months, at $2 each, making about fifty dollars for his three months' work. In 1914 there were eight school districts in the township, in which ten teachers were employed, and this exclusive of the schools in the incorporated Town of Pleasantville.
Pleasant Grove has two lines of railroad. The Chicago, Burlington & Quincy enters the township from the east, about a mile north of the southeast corner, then follows a northwesterly course through the Town of Pleasantville, and crosses the northern boundary a little |p. 120|east of the Village of Wheeling. The Minneapolis, Des Moines & Kansas City division of the Rock Island system crosses the southwest corner. Pleasantville on the former and Kimball on the latter are the railroad stations.
Shortly after the first settlements were made in the township a contest arose over the possession of the land where the Town of Pleasantville is now located, a man named Gillman and his two sons on the one hand and William S. Glenn on the other both claiming ownership. In the law suit which followed, the Gillmans employed the notorious Matthew Spurlock as their attorney. This Spurlock was a somewhat noted individual during the early days of Iowa's statehood, and was frequently referred to as "Old Spurlock, the counterfeiter." This sobriquet came from the fact that he was in the habit of displaying some bright, new silver coins, which he declared were of his own manufacture. There is no evidence that he ever actually made any counterfeit money, but by exhibiting his samples he often found some one desirous of making some "easy money" and offered to sell him some counterfeit coins at a very low price. When the deal was about to be consummated, but always after Spurlock had received the pay for the supposed bogus coins, some friend of his would appear as an officer of the law and the victim would make a hurried exit from the scene without waiting to recover his money. He was a Virginian by birth, but settled on the Skunk River, in Des Moines County, early in the '30s. At the time of the law-suit mentioned he was serving as justice of the peace in Wapello County, but happened to be in Marion and offered his services to the Gillmans for a certain portion of the contested claim. He won the suit, but the land offered to him by the Gillmans was not satisfactory and he returned to Wapello County. A little later the old man Gillman and his two sons all went to Spurlock's home and sold him the entire claim for a horse and $30 in money, but during their absence, the property being thus forfeited, Glenn "jumped" the claim, secured a title, and afterward sold the land to William F. Jordan.
Of the fifteen townships in the county, Pleasant Grove stands fourth in population and third in the value of taxable property. In 1910 the population was given in the United States census as 1,460, and in 1913 the property was valued for taxation at $1,570,784, including the Town of Pleasantville.