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Shelby County |
CHAPTER XI -- CITIES, TOWNS AND VILLAGES, PAST AND PRESENT (CONT'D)THE COUNTY SEAT AND PRESENT TOWNS AND VILLAGES.HARLAN."In Round township there was cast Ninety-eight, of which Thirty-nine votes were cast 'For the County Seat at Shelbyville,' and Fifty-nine were cast 'For the County Seat at Harlan.' In Galland's Grove Township there were cast Seventy-seven votes, of which Forty-four were cast 'For the County Seat at Shelbyville' and Thirty-three votes were cast 'For the County Seat at Harlan,' making a total of One Hundred and Seventy-five votes cast in said County at said Election, of which Number Ninety-two votes were cast 'For the County Seat at Harlan' and Eighty-three votes 'For the County Seat at Shelbyville,' making a majority of Nine votes 'For the County Seat at Harlan.'" It will be noticed that the name "Harlan" first appears in a public record in the plat made and filed by Dr. A. T. Ault. Doctor Ault had lived in eastern Iowa, not a very great distance from the home of Hon. James Harlan, and it is likely he knew Mr. Harlan, either personally or by correspondence. On January 6, 1855, Mr. Harlan was elected by the General Assembly of Iowa, in session at Iowa City, a United States senator for the term of six years, beginning March 4, 1855. It appears from Johnson Brigham's biography of Mr. Harlan, page 91, that in October of that year he, together with a number of others, went on a "land hunting trip in an open wagon across the country to Council Bluffs and eastern Nebraska and found much to interest him in the unsettled western country." During this year he "opened correspondence with active, capable, discreet, patriotic Republicans in every county seat." It is therefore, likely that he was in correspondence with the prominent pioneers of Shelby county, of whom Dr. Adam T. Ault was one, and who had previously resided in eastern Iowa. It will be noticed, therefore, that Senator Harlan was a very careful and very shrewd politician, and it is not at all improbable, although there is no actual existing proof known to the author, that he was in touch with Doctor Ault and other leading pioneers of Shelby county at about the time Harlan was established. Another interesting record appears in an early issue of the Council Bluffs Nonpareil, which seems to have taken it for granted that the town was named for United States Senator Harlan. On April 16, 1859, the Nonpareil publishes this paragraph of news: "We understand that the election in Shelby county on the 4th inst. resulted in a change of the county seat from Shelbyville to Harlan, by a majority of nine votes. Harlan is a new town, eligibly situated near the center of the county and is destined at no distant day to become an inland town of considerable importance. It is peopled by emigrants from the Eastern states, and at the election this fall will poll an almost unanimous vote for the Republican ticket. It is named in honor of Iowa's able and fearless United States senator, Hon. James Harlan,-- no mean compliment from an intelligent constituency." (It will be noted that in those days the element of partisan politics crept in everywhere.) The first plat of Harlan was acknowledged by Adam T. Ault and Mary A. Ault, his wife, on August 6, 1858, and acknowledged on August 9, 1858, before H. C. Holcomb, deputy clerk. The survey of the territory for this plat was made by N. M. Kinney. The plat laid out into blocks, lots, public square, streets and alleys the east one-half of the southwest quarter of section 7, township 79 north, range 38, which now constitutes the north part of the present city. The streets running north and south were named First, Second, Third, Fourth and Fifth, and the cross streets, beginning at the north running east and west, were named North, Plum, Dye, Dodge, Broadway, Main, Tarkington, Spring and South. North street was platted twenty-nine feet wide, Plum, Dye, Dodge, Tarkington, Spring and Main, eighty feet wide, South street, thirty-three feet wide, First street thirty-nine feet wide, Second, Third and Fourth streets each sixty-six feet wide, and Fifth street thirty-three feet wide. Most of the alleys were sixteen feet wide and the lots were forty-four feet wide by one hundred and twenty feet long, with one or two exceptions. This plat laid the territory out as the town of "Harlan," and it would appear that this is the first public record in which the name "Harlan" appears. Transcribed by Cheryl Siebrass, October, 2017 from the Past and Present of Shelby County, Iowa, by Edward S. White, P.A., LL. B.,Volume 1, Indianapolis: B. F. Bowen & Co., 1915, pp. 226-228. |
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