The History of Mahaska County, Iowa

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Excerpt from The History of Mahaska County, Iowa: Containing a History of the County, Its Cities, Towns, &C, If we have accomplished nothing more, we have at least rescued much important matter from oblivion. Ten years more would have made the record of many facts and incidents which we present herewith an impossibility. The first settlers of Mahaska have passed the mountain t0ps of life. Memory is one of the first faculties of mind which shows signs of decay, and, even among those of the old guard still living, another decade would have found many a link rusted out from their chain of recollection.In this history we have endeavored to present to the reader a picture of the past and pres ent of Mahaska. We have labored to introduce him to the wigwams of its aborigines, to seat him by the hearth-stone of its pioneers, to trace the history of the county's organization, to compile a sketch of its leading institutions, and to represent the condition of the county while entering the last quarter of the nineteenth century. It is not so much the work of ourselves as of Mahaska's own citizens. We have compiled what these men have long known, and placed it in permanent form for the present generation, and for those to come. We have not the confidence to presume that the work will contain no mistakes. The falli bility of memory produces a hundred con¿icting statements. Dates are slippery things to handle. Names will get twisted. Some of these errors will belong to our informants, some to ourselves. A charitable public will not forget that to err is human.Only one-third of a century ago a strong argument for locating the county-seat in the southern part of the county was that there was no likelihood that the present century would see the northern prairies of the county populated. Ten years later, and the same argument was sincerely used in respect to the State of Iowa, by shrewd men, on the occasion of the removal of the State capital. Some of these same men have lived to learn. This work will show the changes of thirty-six years in Central Iowa.It is a source of regret to us that diligent search failed to discover any files of Mahaska county newspapers between the years 1859 and 1864. This very important period, including most of Mahaska's war history, is not so fully presented on these pages as we desired.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully, any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.