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Samuel Teters
Samuel Teters, who still resides on the farm he originally claimed and entered, in the southeast quarter of the township, first came from Ross county, Ohio, in the autumn of 1844, to Van Buren county, Iowa, where he remained till the spring following, when he came to this county. As it was in March when he arrived with his family, and the weather was cold and rough, they took up their quarters with a family name Hahn, living on the north side of the river, till a place could be provided on their own claim. They then took up their residence in a small claim pen that had a bark door shutter, and prepared to battle against the inconveniences of frontier life; and it was, indeed, a hard battle to fight.
Mr. Teters was a blacksmith and gunsmith, and with a view of earning something at that business he put up a temporary shop on the bank of the river, set his anvil on a stump, and employed himself at stacking plows, sharpening plow-shares and repairing guns. In the autumn of '46 he and his family fell sick, and became so helpless that at one time they had neither fire nor water in the house for three days. Game was plenty, and once Mr. T. was able to shoot a turkey from the door, but was too weak to get it. And all this time they had no kind of breadstuff except boiled corn. But so soon as he was able to get abroad with his gun, he killed two large deers one day, one of which yielded fourteen pounds of tallow. Next day he got help to bring them home, and on the day following that he took them to Red Rock and sold them for seven dollars in cash and a sack of flour.
In the autumn of '48 Mr. Teters had occasion to go to Iowa City, a distance of about one hundred miles, to enter his land. On this occasion the utmost haste was required, and Mr. T. performed the journey in forty-eight hours, going by way of Oskaloosa, and traveling night and day.