T, J. Adamson was president of the day. Isaac Romane was marshal, fully decked in old militia uniform and feathers, and carrying a sword that is remembered mainly for its length; the reader of the Declaration was Randolph Goodin, then quite a young man; the orator was a man named Carpenter, from Newton, who made a failure in speaking, and was supplemented in that life by a Baptist minister from another county, who happened to be present.
There was a picnic dinner near where the court house was afterwards built, with plenty of corn bread and a great many other good things—and with a cask of home-brewed beer, brought on an ox wagon by Jerry Marks from his place near Skunk River.
The celebration was attended by nearly all the residents of the county, and by some from counties adjacent, many of whom came with ox-teams and started the day before, so as to be on hand in time. It was a notable and highly satisfactory occasion.
This account would be incomplete without mention of the music, which was furnished by a Mr, Cory, from Cory's Grove, who beat upon a drum, and was accompanied by a fife, making a good deal more noise than tuna according to the recollection of my informant.
It seems somewhat strange to us now to consider that when Thos. Fitzgerald settled where he now lives his nearest neighbors would be Elisha Alderman and J. P. Robinson, Sr., and that he had no neighbors to the north and west on this side of Skunk River and below E. C. Evans'. He tells of doing to mill to Red Rock, in Marion County, in company with W. K. Wood, and only being able to get fifty cents worth of flour, that being the total stock on hand. To make bad matters worse one of his horses died on the way home. He tells of seeing Cale Walters attacked by a timber wolf at the upper ford, west of Nevada, and only being saved from serious damage by the presence of his dog. Also of going to James Smith's mill on Long Dick, which he describes as grinding " about as fast as a coffee mill, but not as fine." His recollection is that his wife had no great trouble in choosing between LeGrand flour, Peter Baker's best, and the Minnesota brands in those ever-memorable days.
J. H. Talbott was one of the early merchants. He arrived in June, 1856, picked up such building material as he could find and put up the building now occupied by O. Hambleton, but which was then on the Welton corner, facing the south square. After placing the goods he had bought in the building, and nailing up the openings for doors and windows with rough boards, he started for more goods, with ox-teams to Muscatine. After starting the loaded teams back he went to Illinois for a time, and when he returned he found that a Mr. Hackley, with whom he had stopped when here, had made a dancing hall of his second floor (of loose boards), had opened his goods and made general distribution of them, some for cash, others on credit, but had kept no books, and could not tell who had the goods, or how much or who had paid, and had no knowledge of the value of the goods sold. He said, however, that they were all