CHAPTER XXI.
GROVE TOWNSHIP.

LITTLE INCIDENTS OF '55 AND '56.

The following is told by Robert D. McGeehon and is a good illustration of the difficulties under which the pioneers of half a century ago labored, in their determined efforts to develop the county and their own special localities; "During the fall of 1856 David A. Barnett and I bought a steam saw mill in St. Louis, and had it shipped by steamboat to Council Bluffs. When the boat reached St. Joseph, Mo., it unloaded the mill there. About the 22d of November seven teams started to bring it here. Of these, six were horse teams and one was an ox team--the latter to haul the boiler. They were gone from three to five weeks, and all of them did not bring home what would have been one good two-horse load on fair roads.

"Peter Kanawyer drove the ox team, and hauled the boiler as far as Lewis. In crossing the prairie southwest of that town, he lost his course--there being no road--and had to abandon his team and strike out to hunt a place of shelter. Luckily he found a house about 9 o'clock p. m., by seeing the light of a candle in the window. He lost no time in entering the house and was supplied with supper, the first bite he had eaten since four o'clock in the morning. He was nearly perished with cold, hunger and exhaustion, but a good meal and a night's rest restored him, and in the morning he went back to hunt up his property. He found the oxen in a hollow, walking round in a circle, one yoke following the other, and, hitching them to the wagon, reached Lewis that day."

THE FOUR-HORSE COACH LINE.

The settlers of '55 and '56 would not have called the establishment of the four-horse coach line between Des Moines and Council Bluffs a "little incident"; in those days it was one of the greatest things which happened for the benefit of the pioneers of southwest Iowa and Cass county. In May, 1855, the Western Stage Company commenced the running of those grand coaches which, as they swept through the country, aroused more pride in the breasts of men, women and children, than the present advent of two or three new railroads. Dr. G. S. Morrison kept the first stage station, in Cass county, it being located about a mile and a half west of the present town of Anita. The next station in the county was J. R. Kirk's, on sectino 14, south of where Grove City was laid out in the year following the opening of the stage line; the third and last station was at Iranistan.

Besides sharing the general interest in such a public improvement, the people of Grove township felt that they were especially close to the Western Stage Company--first, because of the Kirk station, and secondly from the fact that one of its citizens became a driver on one of those grand four-horse coaches. The latter was Thomas B. Morrow, one of the first settlers in Grove City. At first he and his brother owned 160 acres of land covering the eastern part of the present city of Atlantic and the county fair grounds. Mr. Morrow subsequently bought a farm on section 18, and raised some of the finest stock in the township.

"Compendium and History of Cass County, Iowa." Chicago: Henry and Taylor & Co., 1906, pg. 223-224.
Transcribed by Cheryl Siebrass, July, 2018.