all the school-houses in the county, and in the villages of Nevada, Iowa Center, Cambridge, Old Fairview, New Philadelphia, Bloomington and Palestine, and these places were scarcely more than " corners," many of them. The churches took up the question, and it was confined mostly to the slavery phase of it, and they became known as pro-slavery or antislavery churches, meaning thereby that the anti-slavery churches would not tolerate a pro-slavery member, while the others considered it out of the realm of church discipline. An early paper says many pro-slavery members left the Methodist Church and went to the Evangelical, and that the United Brethren, Congregationalists, Free-Will Baptists and Lutherans boasted their intolerance of the pro-slavery member. Rev. X. A. Welton, of the Episcopal Church, at an early day undertook to prove in a public discussion, that negro slavery is a divine institution based upon the authority of the Bible. His opponent, as is recalled by Col. John Scott, was Rev. Joseph Cadwalader, who afterward became captain of a company and chaplain of a regiment. The subject was a common one in the pulpit, and had many vigorous champions in every denomination. Among others who attracted attention were Revs. Richard Swearingen, Thompson Bird and Rev. J. W. Hankins. The enthusiasm of Rev. Hankins, later on in the war, would lead him to ring the bells for hours in honor of any good army news.
It should be borne in mind here that the people of the county had a more personal acquaintance with all parts of the county than now. There were fewer people - scarcely more than are now in Nevada, Ames and Story City together-while at the same time life was less complex, and the outside world attracted less attention. It took the news of the fall of Fort Sumter, however, to thoroughly awaken Story County, as it did the rest of the country. It is not known who first brought the news into the county, but it was several days after the eventful April 19, 1861, before news was received; but it spread over the county like a prairie fire when it did come. War-meetings were held at once in every precinct. Nevada led off with the first in the old Cumberland Presbyterian Church on, it is thought, about April 26 or 27. Mr. E. B. Potter was made chairman of the meeting, and at a very early point in the procedure J. L. Dana offered for adoption an oath of loyalty to be taken by the entire assembly. Mr. Potter was a notary and vested with the right to administer such an oath. His leadership in the opposition afterward made his position here unique and not at all accidental. All who would take the oath were asked to rise, and every man arose and stood while with raised hand the oath was administered. This meeting gave a powerful impetus to public feeling, and the first call for three-months' men was responded to with such alacrity all over the country that Story alone could have filled the Iowa quota. Squads were enrolled all over the county. Men who had quibbled over the technicalties of the slavery question and taken up the defense of the Southern cause, dropped all quibbles and sprang to the breach when union was threatened. Little agitation was needed for this ; patriotic speeches were unnecessary ; it was a spontaneous uprising.
The first company was organized at Nevada under the three months' call, and Capt. John Scott, with Paul A. Queal and George Childs were made a committee to tender its services to Gov. Kirkwood, at Des Moines. This must have been soon after May 1, but on their arrival the three months' regiment was already full. It will be remembered that these were the days when the North and the South had