RATEKIN-GOSSAN Wed

RATEKIN, SINGLETON, GOSSAN, LEAPER

Posted By: Volunteer
Date: 3/14/2018 at 15:42:06

PAGE COUNTY, IOWA, MARRIAGE RECORDS: Joseph Robert Ratekin married Martha Louisa (sic) Singleton:

Their daughter Myrtle Elizabeth, 23, born at Shenandoah; married Albert A. Gossan, 23, born at Fletcher, Nebraska, son of Jefferson Gosson and Martha Leaper; married on Nov. 2, 1904 in Shenandoah.

N.B.: Martha Lovica Singleton was the daughter of Andrew Jackson Singleton and wife, Elizabeth Hannah. In about 1852, A. J. Singleton moved from Pleasant Grove (between Hamburg and Sidney) northeastward to along Walnut Creek, in the northeast corner of Prairie township. Singleton Grove takes its name after this man. About this time, the very early 1850's, the State of Iowa engaged A. J. Singleton to survey and officially lay out the Iowa portion of the old Council Bluffs, St. Joseph emigration road.

This he did, from the border at Hamburg to the border at Sioux City. Interstate 29 now follows this same course. The Singleton Grove road along the east side of Prairie township served as a means for travelers on the Sidney-Quincy State Road along Walnut Creek, to cross over the dividing ridge to the East Nishnabotna valley.

I am not sure as to when the road straight north out of Farragut gained the ascendancy over the Singleton Grove road, but for a long time in the Fremont county's early history, the South Tier State Road crossed the East Nishnabotna northwest of Farragut, and the Singleton Grove road intersected the South Tier at the bridge. The bridge northwest of Farragut was yet in existence during the 1940's.--W.F.

~Transcribed by Walter Farwell