In the year 1869, when my father, Mr. Banker, reached the part of Iowa now known as Clarke County, he found a vast prairie covered with blue stem grass that grew in the highlands. Mr. Banker looked at this scene and took an invoice of his possessions which were a wagon, one tar bucket about empty, one good team of oxen, rifle, bed clothes, ax, ham, bacon, sack of meal and a 180 lb. wife.

After camping a few days they began to build themselves a log cabin without any floor, but equipped with a fire place and good beds. The windows were covered with greased paper and not a single nail was used for the whole construction. Their first fire was made in the fireplace, after Mrs. Banker ran to the neighbors and returned with a pot of coals to start it with. It was very important it be kept burning all year, as they had not matches.

The first Thanksgiving arrived clear and bright. For a week the Bankers and their neighbors had been cooking and baking. About noon the neighbors began to arrive at the Banker home with wash tubs full of good things to eat. Each member brought his own chair, to save sitting on the floor, and the women brought their sewing.

The first Thanksgiving dinner of the Bankers consisted of roast goose, venison, roast turkey, dressing, gravy, potatoes, all kinds of vegetables, butter, bread, corpone, pumpkin pie, gingerbread, molasses and many other things. It was a merry company that had gathered and the fun lasted until late at night.

In the fall of the year the prairie fires swept down upon the little settlement. Many a night the men and boys were called out of bed to run and get the plow and plow a furrow round the houses to save them from destruction. Although this occurrence struck terror into the hearts of the people only oue life was lost during all those fires.
One fall, after the Bankers had moved to Clarke County, a man was found dead close to the Indian village near Hopeville. The people of the white settlement knew the Indians had been restless that fall so they, of course, laid the blame on the Indians.

One evening, as things had arisen to a crisis, the settlers hurried the women and children to the Sanders home, then started on alone to meet the Indians. The Indians, unwilling to fight, begged the white people to turn back. Finally they persuaded the settlers that they had nothing to do with the death of the white man and the settlers returned home, This was the last trouble with the Indians in this territory.

The winters of this region were worse than they are at the present time, and the settlers remember of one winter when it didn't thaw out for six weeks.

From Murray News 1872

MY MUSE

There's a town just west of the county seat
of Clarke, where it pays to go,
To buy what you want to wear and eat, Or to sell your truck, you know.

Them fellers in Occoly's mean,
As ever they can be. Don you know They'll make you believe, if they only kin That they sells cheaper than we do?

But his ain's so, (this heer's a fact), We steals our goods, now this is so;
And that is where we've the inside track Of them county seat fellers you know.

There's Kimmick, thy neighbor he's giving away
More lumber nor'l fence in a farm.
Come see him some time, when you're passin' this way,
It surely can do no harm.

Yes, and Old Bully Bell, now this is no sham,
He keeps all kinds of truck for to swap. He has some poor sheep, but he keeps a fine Lamb
To superintend the shop.
Pap Dufer, the Grocer, say don't you know?
A chocl full line of the very best goods to be found in all the land.

While you're here call on Wick, the Hardware man,
He's a cuss on wheels they say,
But he does sell cheap, I know he can,
For I buy of him every day.

At Cochran's—he keeps the new Drug Store,
If you've got a perscripshn, can
Git suthin to heal, and cool, and warm
The innards of the outer man.
(you know how that is yourself)
Unt, Beeter, der Putcher vat makes der peefschtakes;
Der Borkse htakes, der daller mit hides, Youst co fun dat shop unt kits vat you wants
Fund at shop, vere Beeter Bresides
Schneiderkrauts.

Campaigning before election. Issue — whether to abolish the erection of frame buildings.