CHAPTER III.
SETTLERS PRIOR TO COUNTY ORGANIZATION (CONT'D).

ONLY HIS SEVENTY-FIFTH LOG CABIN.

Jesse Marshall took up a claim on section 22, in Grove (Atlantic) township, in July, 1852, and settled upon it. He had a wife and ten children, and the family lived in the wagon until winter, when they moved into their shell of a log house. Marshall was a typical backwoodsman, having dwelt in the wildernesses of Indiana, Illinois, Missouri and various portions of Iowa, and when he had finally finished his cabin remarked to a neighbor that it was only the seventy-fifth that he had built. Although two of his children were young men, he was the only one of the family who could read or write. It is said that if he could get a jug of sod-corn whiskey, a plug of dog-tail tobacco, a little corn meal and a saddle of venison, he was supremely happy; which was characteristic of the whole family. During the fall of 1853 he took his ox team and went to Rockport, Mo., for provisions, and during his month's absence the family subsisted on pumpkins and slippery elm bark. During this year he sold his original claim to Clayborn Marion, took up another on section 29, where he built his seventy-sixth cabin and died in January, 1854.

Jesse Marshall's was the first death in the township, and was attended by circumstances which well illustrate the peculiarities of his family and the times. Upon his return from Indiantown, where he had been on a drunken debauch, the father went to bed sick in his log cabin and in a few days died. Several days afterward Thomas J. Byrd, son of one of the pioneers of Pymosa and Washington townships, was riding by and hailing one of the Marshall boys asked him how the family were getting along.

"Oh, all right except dad--he's dead," replied the young hopeful.

Going into the house Mr. Byrd found Mrs. Marshall sitting by the smoldering fire, her face buried in her hands. He also asked her how they were prospering, to which she replied, "All right but the old man--he's dead."

Mr. Byrd stepped to the corner of the room and found the old man covered up with some blankets, truly dead, and on asking why he had not been buried was informed that George Reeves had been sent to Iranistan for a coffin, but that although he had been gone five days he had not yet returned. Reeves soon afterward returned with the coffin and the explanation that he had taken too much rum and forgotten all about his errand.

THE BYRD FAMILY.

James L. Byrd, a Kentuckian and a pioneer of Indiana before he came to Iowa, arrived in Cass county in the spring of 1852, having made quite an extensive prospecting tour throughout the State in company with his son Abraham and his son-in-law, Mason Gill. They bought a claim near the mouth of Buck creek, consisting of about 1,000 acres, for which $125 was paid. Six months afterward one Dr. Ballard came and set up a title to the land. Mr. Byrd paid him $150 for a quit claim deed, built a log cabin on section 30, Pymosa township, and began pioneer life in Cass county. He and Mr. Gill and his sons, Aaron, Thomas, Abraham and Jonathan, all made claims, and when the land was put upon the market they entered a large tract, principally in Grove township.

In the fall of 1852 Mr. Byrd returned to Wapello county, where he had originally intended to locate, and brought back with him the remaining members of his family. He installed them in the cabin he had built on Buck creek, their nearest neighbor being R. D. McGeehon, five miles away. His sons, Aaron and Thomas, settled in Brighton township, being preceded in that section only by Victor M. Bradshaw. Abraham pre-empted 160 acres at Five Mile Grove, where he built a shanty, and deeded the property to his father, with the exception of forty acres of timber. He also entered an 80-acre tract on the southwest quarter of the southeast quarter of section 31, Pymosa township. For years afterward that, and an adjoining plat of ground overlooking the present site of Atlantic, was his residence. Eventually he became a prosperous farmer--the owner of some 350 acres of valuable land.

It is, in fact, quite evident that the Byrd family is more prominently identified than any other with the first settlement of the northwestern portion of Cass county. To illustrate the difficulties under which Mr. Byrd and his family labored, in common with the small band of pioneers then living in the county, it may be stated that he hauled his first seed wheat and potatoes from Des Moines; that he often sent his gain to Rockport, Mo., to be ground, and sometimes went to Hackberry Ridge, Mo., 150 miles, for provisions.

PIONEER OF BENTON TOWNSHIP.

On the 6th of May, 1851, William Hamlin located on section 6 of what is now Benton township, being its pioneer settler. He set about improving his claim and the log cabin which he built--sixteen by sixteen feet--was the first structure of any kind erected in the township. After a residence of about five years there he removed to Pymosa township, and still later became a resident of Arkansas.

HOW EDNA TOWNSHIP WAS NAMED.

After living about two years near Indiantown, William S. Townsend, an uneducated but gentlemanly Kentuckian, came with his wife into what is now Edna township, and in 1852 erected a small log cabin on the northeast quarter of section 20. After living there for a short time he removed to the northwest quarter of section 21 and built a double log house on the south bank of the Nodaway river. The house was open to travelers, and as Mr. Townsend was energetic, as well as polite, and his wife a popular hostess, it carried on quite a business for several years, or until the genial proprietors removed to a point about two miles distant, in Pottawattamie county. These pioneers of the township departed in 1855, and as it was organized about that time it received the name of Edna, which was the Christian name of Mr. Townsend's good wife. That gentleman, after engaging in the mercantile business for several years in the vicinity of the present town of Avoca, Pottawattamie county, migrated to Missouri or Nebraska, and dropped out of local history forever, as did so many of the pioneers of the 'fifties.

Thus, in a general way, the history of Cass county has been brought up to the time of the passage of the legislative act of December, 1852, which provided for its civil organization, or its creation as a political body.

"Compendium and History of Cass County, Iowa." Chicago: Henry and Taylor & Co., 1906, pg. 53-56.
Transcribed by Cheryl Siebrass, August, 2018.