CHAPTER IX.
BRIGHTON TOWNSHIP.
Brighton was one of the seven original townships organized in Cass county from 1851 to 1858. At the March term of the County Court, in the latter year, its territory was defined as all of township 77 north, range 37 west, and sections 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 16, 17 and 18, in township 76 north, range 37 west.
When the petition for the setting off of this township was presented to Judge Samuel L. Lorah he asked the petitioners what name it should receive. Thomas Meredith suggested the name Britain, in honor of his native country; but as the judge objected to the name Mr. Meredith compromised on Brighton. The warrant for holding an election for organization was issued to Mr. Meredith, and the first election was ordered held at the house of Samuel K. Shields, April 5, 1858.
In 1870 Brighton was reorganized with its present boundaries, being township 77 north, range 37 west. Its surface is gently undulating, varied by occasional stretches of level prairie. Berry's, Eight-Mile, and other natural groves occur here and there to break the monotony of view, and what is lacking in this regard has been supplemented by the home makers of the township, who, in the beautifying of their places, have not neglected the cultivation of trees and shrubbery. The streams are generally well timbered for a portion of their length.
The Indian creek comes into the township at the middle of the northwest quarter of section 5, and, flowing in a southerly direction, passes into Washington at the line between sections 31 and 32. Camp creek has its source in numerous little tributaries which rise in the northern part of Brighton township and the southern part of Audubon county. These come together at little intervals until the creek begins to assume proportions, and when it reaches the center of section 16, it joins Little Camp creek. It then runs south with a slight trend toward the southwest, passing into Washington at the center of the south line of section 28
Thus blessed by nature, Brighton township has been settled by a thrifty class of citizens, and its growth has been substantial, although not rapid. The census of 1860 showed a population of seventy-three in the entire township; but the emigration to Colorado, and the drainage of Civil War enlistments so reduced the population that in 1863 it had fallen to forty. In 1865 the township had 113 inhabitants; in 1867, 129; in 1869, 308; in 1870, 337; in 1873, 403; in 1875, 617, and in 1880, with the impetus from the new town of Marne, 1,153.
Victor M. Bradshaw and Aaron Byrd were the first settlers of Brighton township; but the first settler who really identified himself with the progress of that section was Thomas Meredith, whose connection with the political organizations of the township has been noted.
Thomas Meredith was born in England in 1824, and having married a widow with a little boy, brought his family to Madison, Wis., in the summer of 1853--having spent the previous year alone in Wisconsin and in making a fruitless trip to Panama and return. In the spring of 1855 he started with two wagons, three yoke of oxen to each, and forty head of heifers and cows for Oregon, as he was told that there he would find a climate much like that of England. But he missed the large emigrant train starting from Council Bluffs, which fact was the final means of determining his location in Cass county.
When Mr. Meredith reached the Mormon settlement of Kanesville, now Council Bluffs, he found the last of the Latter Day Saints anxious to dispose of their claims not only there, but throughout Cass county, where a few still remained. He narrowly escaped getting a clutch on the future sites of both Council Bluffs and Omaha, but finally entered a few tracts of land in Brighton township.
"Compendium and History of Cass County, Iowa." Chicago: Henry and Taylor & Co., 1906, pp. 125-126.
Transcribed by Cheryl Siebrass, October, 2017.
