One of the most interesting, as well as useful, studies to those of all ages is that of general and local history. Especially is this true when the historian treats of a county or state as it existed in its primitive state; tells how it was peopled, and enters into detail in relation to the life and general manners of its pioneer settlers. There is ever a peculiar fascination about the rude life of the early settlers of a country. The freedom of action, the unconstrained manner with which they receive one and all, and their generous hospitality, is indeed fascinating.

It may be stated that sixty-eight years ago the part of Iowa comprising Jasper County was an unbroken wilderness, inhabited only by wild beasts of the forest, wild birds of the air, and the no less wild red men, who roamed at will over the broad prairies, fishing in the streams or hunting game that abounded on every hand. They seemingly cared nothing for the morrow-simply lived for the present. The thought of the "pale face" penetrating this beautiful section had not yet seriously disturbed them, and so they continued on in their daily life of hunting and fishing, with occasionally a short war between tribes to relieve the monotony of their existence. But the time was soon to come when these Indians were to surrender up their lands and be pushed on toward the setting sun. All nature was soon to be transformed by civilized man's hand and brain. The fair prairies and sweet scented wild flowers, painted in all their beauty by the hand of God, must be broken up by the husbandman, and where wild flower and grass grew must wave the golden grain of another and more advanced type of mankind.

A little more than three score years ago all here was a wilderness; the soil had been unvexed by the plow, and the woodman's axe had never been heard in this "green glad solitude." The cabin of the settler, its smoke curling heavenward, with an air inviting the weary traveler to come and rest, was not to be seen, nor even the faintest trace of real civilization, but instead the boundless sea of prairie grass, while here and there might have been seen the Indian wigwam down by the river side.

Behold, how changed the scene from that of the year 1843, when Adam M. Tool and his little band of comrades first saw this fair and fertile domain. There were the following eras of development: The true pioneer settlement; the Civil War period; the railroad era and present highly advanced condition of the first decade of the twentieth century. Where once the wigwam of the Indian stood in the forties, a palatial-like residence is seen today; where then stood the sons of the forest gathered together for the worship of Manitou, the "Great Spirit," the handsome church edifice is now pointing heavenward and therein worship is now had by the white race, using the worship of their fathers and praying to the Most High, as they understand divinity. Change, wonderful change, is written on every hand. Just how this great transformation has been wrought out, the various steps by which the wilderness has been made to blossom like the rose, is the pleasant task and duty of the historian to show; and in the following pages the attempt is made, with the hope that the facts contained therein may be of interest, and the lessons of the past may be instructive to each and every reader of this work.