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During the latter part of May, 1853, G. W. W. Wakefield and Albert Wakefield settled on the south part of section 24, broke prairie, and built a house.

Albert Wakefield was born in Somerset county, Maine, on the 1st of January, 1828, his parents being John and Emma (Downing) Wakefield. He received his education in Maine, and when eighteen years of age he commenced the occupation of school teaching in his native State. He remained there until 1850, when he went to New Jersey, and there taught one term, three months, when he went to Cincinnati, and in the spring of 1851, he came back to Davis county, Iowa, and was there engaged in teaching two years; or until 1853, when he came to Cass county, and has since made it his home. On his arrival at his new home he found Judge Bradshaw, the first Judge of Cass county, keeping postoffice at Indiantown, and Lewis had just been located, while the county seat was placed there. Mr. Wakefield located on sections 13 and 24, in Atlantic township, where he owned six hundred acres of fine land, portions of which he sold to each of twenty-five different persons. In the summer of 1855 he built a saw mill on Turkey Creek, and began its operation the spring following, while his older brother became millwright. Before many months the brother sold his interest to A. G. McQueen, afterward a Brigadier General in the civil war. Albert Wakefield sold his interest in the spring of 1865, and the summer of that year went to farming. He had gone to California in 1862, and taught school until the summer of 1865. He went to Missouri in the spring of 1866, and taught school near St. Joe, for one term, and then he took a trip through Kansas, with a view of locating, but not liking the country, he came to Cass county, and purchased the lots of Grove City, where he once lived. He was married on the 1st of January, 1858, to Ella Northgraves, a native of Covington, Kentucky, who, when quite young moved into Ohio, where she was reared. In the spring of 1856, she taught the first school in Audubon county, at Hamlin's Grove, and in the fall of that year, taught the first school in Franklin township, Cass county, a half mile northwest of the present site of Wiota. She afterwards taught the first school of Turkey Grove, Atlantic township, two terms in 1866-7. Mr. and Mrs. Wakefield have three children---Emma, Carrie and Clara (twins). Emma was married January 1, 1884, to Fred Schain, and now lives four miles south of Atlantic. Mr. Wakefield owns eighty acres of land In Grove City. At the second election in the county, in 1855, Mr. W. was elected County Clerk, and served one term. He was notary public about eight years, and has held the office of township treasurer for fourteen consecutive terms. He also held the office of county surveyor four years, beginning in 1866 or 1868 (one term by election and one by appointment). His farm is one of the finest in the county, and his orchard is the largest in this part of the country, containing about one thousand apple trees, one hundred cherry trees, and a large number of plum trees, also has a fine vineyard of over two hundred bearing vines.

Among the more prominent and substantial class of citizens, we do not fail to mention A. M. Wakefield, who is a native of Newport, Kentucky, and was born on the 24th of July, 1881. The family came to Cass county in 1853, and located in Atlantic township. He was reared and educated on a farm in Franklin township, and remained at home until he had reached the age of twenty-three years, when he purchased a farm in Union township, and broke the land and commenced the stock business. His business has increased, until it attained proportions, which placed him among the foremost stockmen in western Iowa. He ships stock to all parts of the country, and has shipped for the part year most of his stock to Chicago and Nebraska. Mr. Wakefield has three hundred and eighty acres of good cultivated land, most of which is in pasture. His farm has an orchard attached, and he has commenced the improvements of his place, and in the course of a few years his farm will be one of the best in the county. Mr. Wakefield was married in January, 1884, to Harriet Cook, a native of Ohio. Mr. W. is a member of the I. O. O. F., being Inside Guard of that lodge.

Transcribed by Deb Lightcap-Wagner, April, 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. 835-836.