of
Muscatine County Iowa
1911
| History of Muscatine County Iowa 1911 | |
Source: History of Muscatine County Iowa, Volume I, 1911, pages 88-89
MUSCATINE COUNTY IS ORGANIZED. As has been seen, the bill organizing the county of Muscatine was approved December 7, 1836, and the first election in the county was held in the spring of 1837. Arthur Washburn and Edward Fay were the commissioners chosen, and possibly there was a third one, but his name is not obtainable. S. Clinton Hastings was elected clerk of the commissioners' court and James Davis sheriff; John G. Coleman and Silas Lathrop, justices of the peace; Samuel Shortridge, S. C. Hastings and James R. Struthers assessors of the county. The first court was held in a room furnished by Samuel Parker, presumably at his home.
The second session of the commissioners' court was presided over by John Vanatta, Err Thorton and Aaron Usher, and was held on the 17th day of February, 1838. This session was devoid of results and lasted but one day. At the second session, in March, the bond of Jonathan Pettibone, as treasurer of the county, was accepted.
The minutes of the April (1838) meeting gives the first evidence of election precincts having been established. At that time Bloomington, Moscow, Fairhaven and Montpelier were recorded and also the discontinuance of Clark precinct. The judges appointed were E. E. Fay, Samuel Holiday and Thomas Burdett, Bloomington; George Storms, William Kidder and William Bagley, Fairhaven; Benjamin Ludlow, William Addir and Goodwin Taylor, Moscow; Peter Hesser, William Chambers and Stephen Nye, Montpelier. In May, Fairhaven precinct was changed to Wapsinonoc.
July 2, 1838, James W. Neally was granted a license to keep a ferry, running to the Illinois shore, on the Mississippi, for one year and prescribing rates as follows: Each footman, 25 cents; man and horse, 50 cents; wagon and two horses, $1.50; cattle, 25 cents; sheep and hogs, 6 1/4 cents. At the same time rates of ferriage across the Cedar river were fixed by the court: Each footman, 12 1/2 cents; man and horse, 25 cents; wagon and two horses, 75 cents; additional oxen, 25 cents; loose cattle, sheep, hogs, etc., 6 1/4 cents. Fee for obtaining license on the Cedar, $7.50.
In 1839, block 24 of the town plat was reserved for the use of the county, and in March of the same year George Baumgardner was appointed county surveyor and ordered to survey section 35. In August, 1839, the board was composed of John Vanatta, Madison Stewart and Moses Perrin, J. G. Morrow, clerk.
November 4, Edward E. Fay was appointed clerk and on the same day school district No. 1 was established in township 78 north, range 2 west, in the limits of Bloomington.
At the January (1839) session of the board a jail was provided for and in the November session proposals for the building of a court house were ordered printed in the Bloomington Territorial Gazette.
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