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them forty-seven years I can say I never knew a people more religious, church- going and sabbath-observing."
The commissioners from St. Louis had purchased most of these claims. The new settlers at once put the plow to the prairies and the axe to the forests. I will let Professor Newhall, a traveling writer of that time, tell of the magic transformation which they wrought here. "Methinks I hear you exclaim," he wrote in a letter to the Burlington Hawkeye, "'where is Pella?' Not the ancient city of Macedonia, but a foreshadowing of the famous Holland settlement which has recently been located upon our beautiful prairies of the New Purchase. To tell you this' would be like telling you fiction. . . . Just about two months ago I halted about sunset at a lone cabin on the ridge road midway between Oskaloosa and the Raccoon Forks. . . . Again to-day, (the 17th of September) about noon, I find myself dashing along this beautiful road. I did not dream, neither was I in a trance, for my eyes beheld the same beautiful earth clothed in its rich garniture of green--yet I discovered a new race of beings. The men in blanket coats and jeans were gone. And a broad-shouldered race in velvet jackets and wooden shoes were there. . . . Most of the inhabitants live in camps, the tops covered with tent cloth, some with grass and bushes. The sides, barricaded with countless numbers of trunks, boxes and chests of the oddest and most grotesque description. . . . They are all Protestants who have left their native land (much like the Puritans of old) on account of political an(l religious intolerance and persecution. . . . They appear to be intelligent and respectable, quite above the average class of European immigrants that have ever landed upon our shores." Professor Newhall speaks of his good fortune in arriving in time to see the male adults going through the ceremony of declaring their intention to become citizens of the United States, which was one of the first duties they performed after reaching Pella. He says: "lt was an altogether impressive scene, to behold some two hundred men with brawny arms upraised to heaven eschewing all allegiance to foreign powers, potentates, etc. And as they all responded in their native tongue to the last word of the oath, 'so help me God,' no one could resist the heartfelt response. . . . All appeared to feel the weight of the responsibility they were about to assume. . . . A fact worth recording during the ceremony before the clerk of the court was that of the whole number who took the intended oath of citizenship but two made their marks."
The first house built in Pella by the Hollanders was a long wooden structure of boards upright. So little were they acquainted with the nature of their new country that they built this in a low place, and the late autumn rains flooded it, setting all the beds in all the "sections" afloat. The first winter was by most of the people spent in dugouts with roofs of straw. This was called "Strooijstadt," or "Strawtown." But in these sheds, in which their descendants would hardly stable their cattle, these determined men and women were not unhappy. "Many times," writes one--H. de Booy--"I have looked back to that winter as one of the happiest of my life. There was love, unity and helpfulness. The evenings were spent in psalm-singing and in edifying conversation." Pathetic it all was, but there were also amusing phases. For instance, a cow, finding better grazing on the straw-covered roof of one of the dugouts than on the prairie, gradually climbed upon the roof, and finally fell through it on the floor of the cabin beside the bed in which a startled man and his wife were sleeping.
On the first Monday in April, 1848, the first election was held, Lake Prairie township, comprising two geographical townships, having been organized under a special act of the legislature of 1848. Green T. Clark and Mr. Scholte were elected justices of the peace, Isaac Overkamp, clerk, and A. J. Betten, G. Awtry