CHAPTER IV.
COUNTY GOVERMENT AND LEGISLATORS.

Among the large number of new counties in western Iowa for whose organization provision was made by the Fourth General Assembly which met at Iowa City December 6, 1852, was the county of Cass. The act of organization named as commissioners to locate the county seat, Robert McGaven, of Pottawattamie, Thomas G. Palmer, of Mills, and Milton Richards, of Fremont county. They were to meet for that purpose on the first Monday of March, 1853, which date also marked the legislative creation of the county, after which its inhabitants were "entitled to all the rights and privileges to which by law the other counties in this State are entitled." The special election for county and township officers was to be held on the first Monday in April. The territory embraced in Cass county, formerly a township of Pottawattamie county, was now erected into an independent civil township.

COUNTY SEAT FIXED AT LEWIS.

Thomas G. Palmer and Milton Richards were the commissioners who met at Indiantown on March 11, 1853, and located the seat of justice on the east half of the southeast quarter of section 10, and the west one half of the southwest quarter of section 11, township 75 north, range 37 west. The town was named Lewis, in honor of Lewis Cass.

As the town site belonged to the county, the selling of the lots restd with the county judge. After the commissioners had located the county seat and the officers had been elected in April, the settlement of Lewis commenced at once. Iranistan was soon almost deserted, some of the citizens even moving their buildings to the new county seat.

FIRST COUNTY OFFICERS.

The election for county officers resulted as follows: Jeremiah Bradshaw, county judge; V. M. Conrad, treasurer and collector; C. E. Woodruff, clerk of courts; Francis E. Ball, sheriff; Levi M. Ball, drainage commissioner; David Chapman, surveyor; James M. Benedict, coroner; H. L. Bradshaw, assessor; T. N. Johnson, road supervisor; J. E. Chapman, school fund commissioner.

Cass county also now became a part of the sixth judicial district, which was composed of twenty-seven counties extending from Minnesota to the Missouri line in the western part of the State. At this time Allen A. Bradford was the judge, having been elected to the bench on the 4th of April, 1853. He had served for a short time previously, by appointment, having succeeded Judge Sloan, the first judge of the district. Circuit courts were not established until 1868.

During the year Judge Bradshaw perfected the organization of the county, and as he was the most important of its officials reference is made to a sketch of him already published. His son, the assessor, Henry L. Bradshaw, was killed in the Civil War. Francis E. Ball, the sheriff, was the original owner of the town site of Iranistan, had been a resident of the county but a few months, and retained his office only until the following August. J. E. Chapman, the school fund commissioner, had come to Cass county the year previous, and served until the end of 1854, removing then to Adair county.

FIRST COUNTY RECORDS.

Mr. Bradshaw was succeeded by J. W. Benedict as county judge, but before his term of office had expired he left the county, and was succeeded by W. N. Dickerson in 1855. It is thought that Judge Benedict not only took himself but the official records from the county, as the earliest ones have never been discovered. Under Judge Dickerson things began to assume an official aspect, and the first existing records of the county, so far as known, are those of the court over which he presided. The first entry upon his book is of August 29, 1856, when application was made by James Adkins to be joined in matrimony with Elizabeth A. Lookabill, and two days thereafter the license was granted, with the consent of the girl's father and proof being given that both parties were of competent age and condition.

Under date of October, 1855, but a later entry, a record is made of the appointment of Jeremiah Bradshaw as liquor agent of Cass county, the court allowing him a salary of $25 per year, with expenses. On the 29th of the month Mr. Bradshaw purchased whiskey, wine and brandy of J. Dougherty of Council Bluffs for $50.75 and, as later returns to the court show, the county cleared $12.68 from their sale. At the regular term of the county court, which opened October 1, 1855, Judge Dickerson makes the entry that as neither the clerk nor treasurer were present no settlements with them could be made, and as there was no further business an adjournment was taken. It would seem, also, that after the organization of the county the importance of its judiciary somewhat declined, as well perhaps as of the other offices. At all events, in the January term of the court for 1856 once C. M. Davenport files a bill against the county for services as county judge, prosecuting attorney and clerk of the courts.

OPENING OF COUNTY SEAT CONTEST.

At least three important events in the history of Cass county occurred in 1857. At the February term, the county court appointed Peter Kanawyer a commissioner to locate the first county road, commencing at or near the northeast corner of section 3, township 73, range 35, and running to or near the half-mile post on the north side of section 2, township 77, range 35. In the following month the records show that although A. J. McQueen and 113 others had petitioned to have the removal of the county seat from Lewis to Grove City submitted to the voters at the April election of 1858, S. M. Tucker and 163 others had remonstrated against such submission; hence the petition was rejected, but it was the commencement of a brisk county seat fight which was not quelled for over a decade or until the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Railroad passed Lewis by, as one of its stations, in 1868.

Grove City, which was situated on a beautiful elevation about three miles east of the present site of Atlantic, had been surveyed and platted by A. G. McQueen, V. M. Conrad, E. W. Davenport and others. It happened at the March term of 1857 that Mr. Davenport, a lawyer whose office-holding propensity has already been noted, was acting county judge as well as prosecuting attorney. He it was, therefore, who had the disagreeable duty of throwing out the petition of his friends and fellow platters. The leader of the Lewis forces, S. M. Tucker, built the first house in the town, coming not only as its first lawyer but as the pioneer attorney of Cass county. He was considered a good lawyer and one of the shrewdest men in the county, and disappeared from Lewis with the Colorado rush of 1860.

IMAGE OF FIRST CASS COUNTY COURT HOUSE COMING SOON!!

"Compendium and History of Cass County, Iowa." Chicago: Henry and Taylor & Co., 1906, pg. 66-68.
Transcribed by Cheryl Siebrass, August, 2018.