Meetings were held in Adamson's Hall during the first year, then in a small room over J. H. TALBOTT's store for about a year, then in a small room in the building known as "Alderman's Block," for about a year, and then went back to the Adamson's Hall. Up to the commencement of the war of the rebellion, the order was in a prosperous condition. When the call was made for men to suppress the rebellion, a great majority of the members responded to the call, and during the war Central Iowa Lodge went down.
During the spring of 1867, it was resuscitated and its real life again commenced. The lodge continued to meet in Adamson's Hall until the spring of 1868 when it united with the Masonic fraternity, and the two orders built and paid for a hall over the store rooms of Statler, Ferner & Stephens, on Linn street, since which time the order has met in its own hall every Tuesday evening. The Hall is comfortably furnished and compares favorably with lodge rooms elsewhere.
March 1, 1876, the lodge was incorporated and during the same month purchased lot 6, in block 2, Nevada, with sixty feet front, on Linn street, where, at no distant day, the order hopes to erect a building that will be both a credit to themselves and an ornament to the town.
The lodge (the only one in Story County), now numbers about sixty active members and is in a thriving condition. Financially for so young a lodge it makes an excellent showing, there being now about seven hundred dollars belonging to the widows and orphans fund alone.
The present officers are: James Hawthorn, N. G.; Daniel McKim, V. G.; C. P. Robinson, Secretary; S. S. Statler; Per Secretary; A. Dayton, Treasurer.
EARLY ROADS.
One of the first necessities of civilization in any country consists of practicable roads. We, of the present day, are apt to lose sight of many of the accidents and circumstances that go to make up the life of the pioneer. I well remember in traveling to Story City and to Defiance, in the early days, of following a furrow made by a breaking team. There were some miles on each road, in dull days, when the traveller was very liable to lose the way, and the furrow was a safe guide. In the season of tallest grass one might, even with fairly beaten track, lose the way by getting a few rods from it, as the tall grass would effectually conceal all trace of it until one should get within a few feet of it again.
To those who have seen the prairies only since they have been grazed, it may seem almost incredible that in many places a man on horseback would show but little above the grass, and yet it is true. Mrs. Geo. Childs, on a visit to a neighbor, tells of hurrying back very near the place where she now lives, when she got into grass so high that she could not see where she was going. This, too, in the streets of a country town.
For about ten years past there has been quite a sum, annually,