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When Jeremiah Bradshaw purchased from the Mormons his three claims, on coming to this county, he got something in the transaction which his contract did not call for. On his newly acquired possessions he found two Indian burying grounds, or what was left of them, and the remains of a Pottawattamie village, with some of the wigwams still standing. The burying grounds afforded to him and his friends the largest field for venting their curiosity. They found that the Indians had taken basswood logs, cut to the requisite length, followed them out, and placing their deceased babes in the rude coffins thus formed, had suspended them in the air by hickory bark from the limbs of trees; about twenty of these coffins were yet to be seen, among the branches of the trees, slowly rotting away. Another way the Indians had of placing their babes in position for their long sleep was to drive stakes in the ground, construct a platform on top of them, and on these the little infants were placed, out of reach of ghoulish animals, if not safe from the attacks of birds of prey. These remains, relies of the former aborigine, owners of the soil, were even then swiftly yielding to the corroding influences of time and weather, and were also disappearing under the influence of the odd taste, developed by many of the emigrants passing through the country, for taking along with them Indian skulls and bones ,as mementoes of their journey through the former hunting grounds of the Pottawattamies.

Mr. Bradshaw's land was prolific of this kind of relics, and in addition to the two regular burying grounds which his tracts contained, numerous Indian graves occurred here and there throughout his possessions. By turning up the ground at least spots, not only was the mortal clay of the dead aborigine disclosed to view, but usually also his war and hunting implements, carefully and religiously deposited at his side, and he might not have to make his journey across the dark river shorn of the emblems of warrior and hunter.

A chief was buried on his land, and at the head of his tomb was to be seen the bottom twelve feet of a large iron-root tree, placed with the branching roots in air, standing sentinel at the grave of the sachem.

The grave of another chief, near one of Mr. Bradshaw's claims, was marked by a post, which had the face of a chief carved on each of two sides. The features of these faces were nicely carved, and war paint was profusely used in their decoration. The post was taken up by John Ferran, and re removed it to his place at the point where the Indian creek joins the Nishnabotna, and he there used it for a gate post. There is stood for some years till it rotted away, and it was seen by most of the settlers of the first few years of the county. The faces represented one of the few pieces of carving which the Indians left as mementoes.

Among the other relics of former Indian proprietorship which remained at the first settlement, was the Indian council house, which stood on land now owned and occupied by Henry Morgan, about the northeast corner of section 8, Cass township. The description here is given of it corresponds with its appearance as seen by V. M. Conrad, on his first arrival in the county, in 1850. It was about one hundred feet length by thirty in width, and the sides were constructed of poles and strips of bark, lapped over. The structure was about seven feet high on the sides, and about ten feet at the center. Here the Pottawattamies in times gone by had put on their thinking caps, and amid the curling smoke of pipes, made their laws and laid their plans of war.

In the summer of 1851 the Mormons had a baptismal ceremony at the river, at which about fifteen people were received into full membership in the church. Among them was Elibu Hyatt, a Gentile. He was a rough character, and was said to have joined the Mormons to curry favor with a girl among them whom he wished to marry. He afterwards removed to Utah.

The oldest house now standing in the county is the one in which court was held, at Indiantown. Mr. V.M. Conrad built it on the bottom land in the summer of 1850; it was 15x32 feet in dimensions. In 1832 Mr. Conrad removed it on to the hill; in 1853 he put another story on it, and fitted it up for a place of entertainment. Postoffice was kept in it till the county seat was removed to Lewis. It was also used for dancing by the young folks, and dancing school was held there. The house is now owned and occupied by Jacob Stevens.

In 1855 and 1856, hunting parties of Pottawattanie Indians passed through the county, and seeing their old burying grounds desecrated, as they deemed it, by the settlers' farming operations among them, they did some muttering, but never committed any act of violence. In the winter of 1857 word got out among the settlers that the Indians were hostile, and there was quite a little scare at Iranistan. Philander Cranny and two or three others got on their house-tops, to watch for the Indians, and give timely warning of their approach. The scare was finally passed off as a joke.

In May 1860, there was a short time when nearly all the men were gone, being taken with the Pike's Peak craze, and leaving their families at home. It is said there was not a storekeeper left in Lewis. During that time, Mr. J.B. Hardenbergh was going to Council Bluffs one day with a team, and a number of the women of the neighborhood took advantage of the opportunity thus afforded to have some trading done there. He had fifty dollars' worth of goods to but that trip, and among the rest there were nine orders for a dollars's worth of sugar, from nine different persons.

In the winter of 1862 Mr. Hardenbergh crossed the Nishnabotna on the ice, going to James Byrd's house. On going back to the river to re-cross in the same manner, the ice was gone. It had broken up a few minutes after he crossed, and his escape was a narrow one.

Transcribed by Deb Lightcap-Wagner, January, 2014 from: "History of Cass County, Together with Sketches of Its Towns, Villages and Townships, Educational, Civil, Military and Political History: Portraits of Prominent Persons, and Biographies of Old Settlers and Representative Citizens", published in 1884, Springfield, Ill: Continental Historical Co., pp. 258-260.