A few weeks since we referred to the fact that a petition was about to be forwarded to Washington asking for the establishment of a post-office in Sherman Township. The prayer has been granted and on Monday last Wm. Smay forwarded his bond to Washington as postmaster of Smaysville, Story County, Iowa, and expects his commission soon. It is thought the office will be run. ning in thirty days. This however proved a failure.—(April 23,1886.)
Smaysville is on the northeast quarter of the northeast quarter of section 31. At this place is a good creamery and cheese factory, doing a good business. I know Mr. Smay well, and believe him to be a worthy citizen. More of the same sort would not hurt us.
Sherman is a township of prairie, not a native tree in it. It is however being pretty well dotted over with artificial groves such as are raised by cultivation. It has a quantity of flat land-some of it quite wet, but the soil is surely rich, and when well drained will be productive.
It has no streams worth naming unless it be the Harvey Dye branch of East Indian Creek. It crosses out of the township near the southeast corner of section 32; then touches the south line of 32 at or near the corner, eighty or one hundred rods west of the southeast corner of said section 32. The school houses are not all in place yet in Sherman. There are some large tracts of land owned by a few men. J. W. Ambrose owns, or did own lately, about 1,240 acres, Seymour Hix 640 acres, and some other large land owners. Mr. Ambrose takes the premium for Sherman, beating Seymour.
There are no cemeteries, it is believed, in Sherman.
There are no villages nor cities in the township.
Mr.Wm. Smay has made rather a profitable point at Smaysville, which is in the northeast quarter of the northeast quarter of section 31-near two and a quarter or two and a half miles northwest from Colo. Mr. Smay means business and is doing a fair business, or I am mistaken in the man. But my acquaintance with him will not admit of any other interpretation from me. Among the first settlers of the township I will name Wm. McCain on the southeast quarter of section 8, or southwest quarter of section 9; and Owen 0 Neil on the west half of the southwest quarter of section 19. There were probably a few others that might be named as first settlers.
But must say something more of Wm. McCain. Mr. McCain in 1855-'6 was far from any house other than his own. It was a salvation or God-send to the traveler in those cold stormy winters of 1855-'56-'57-'58 and '59. It was a dangerous undertaking for those trying to get from Nevada to Clemmen's grove; or from the grove to Nevada. I think it probable that Mr. McCain's house was the means of saving some from freezing to death in these