CHAPTER XIX.
BEAR GROVE TOWNSHIP.

EARLY SETTLERS AND OFFICIALS.

In the list of first officers of Bear Grove township Lorenzo D. Marsh, one of the three trustees elected, was the earliest settler. He came from Grant county, Ind., and located on section 19 in 1860, erecting the first frame house in the township. When he commenced his service as trustee he had served through the Civil War. His death occurred on his farm, about 1875.

Henry Stone, another of the original trustees, had only resided in the township a little over a year previous to his election. He was a Connecticut farmer, and a few years after his marriage migrated to Henderson county, Ill., where for a long time he farmed rented lands. When he came to Bear Grove township he settled on an "eighty" which he had purchased in section 1, and afterward became the proprietor of a fine 160-acre farm. Despite his short residence Mr. Stone was already popular with the ten voters of the township, who, as will be seen, chose him to be both trustee and assessor.

William Farmer, the first township clerk, was an Englishman of middle age, who had emigrated to America when twenty-eight years of age, and settled in Jefferson county, Ind. In 1865 he located in Polk county, Iowa, and in the fall of 1867 settled on section 9, Bear Grove township.

Hall G. Van Vlack, the supervisor, was a prosperous Pennsylvania builder and contractor, who had come to Des Moines in 1868, and, after remaining there a year, had settled on section 11, built a residence and began improving his farm and homestead. In 1870, however, he sold his property, and removed to Union township, where he was elected a supervisor-at-large and became one of the most prominent men of that section of the county.

"Compendium and History of Cass County, Iowa." Chicago: Henry and Taylor & Co., 1906, pg. 206.
Transcribed by Cheryl Siebrass, October, 2017.