abouts. The boulders around the banks look like actual building, hence the name, Wall lake. Sportsmen will make this little lakelet a place of resort, as it is well stocked with fish, and at the proper seasons, great bodies of water fowl come to this region. There is another lake one-third of this size, the rest are smaller. The first white man known to have settled in Sac county came here in 1854, and located in Big Grove on North Raccoon river. The prairie land had no charms for the hardy woodman, nothing short of a farm in the midst of the timber would satisfy the herculean powers of his muscle. Organization was effected in 1856, when only thirty-seven votes were cast in the county. There were many hardships to be endured in a settlement where the nearest post office was fifty miles distant, and the nearest stores twice as far off as that, and the Indians were still in the county. One man was found, when the surveying parties were out, shot through the back; but no person in the settlement appeared to know him, and the murderer, if as is probable the man was murdered, was never found out. After the settlement was progressing, a great fight took place between a war party of the Sioux and a combined body of Pottawattamies and Maquoketa Indians, the former party, which had commenced hostilities, being defeated with great slaughter. Probably the onlookers may have thought with Tago that whether "Roderigo kill Cassio or Cassio, Roderigo, or each the other," the game of settlement would yet go on, and be the gainer. SAC CITY was the point chosen by the commissioners when the county seat was located, and the pleasant vilage thus named is the oldest town in Sac county. Good water power and fine groves make the place charming for residence and for business in the near future, if only the railway magnates will look kindly in this direction. The materials for the first house built here were hauled from Dubuque, a distance of two hundred and seventy miles partly over roads that would have worn out Job. There is a very substantial and decidedly handsome court house now in Sac City. GRANT CITY is a village in the southeast of Sac county, on the east bank of North Raccoon river, in a fine grove of timber, with good mill power close at hand. There are several mills, a school house and three churches here. The town was laid out in 1863. Scott County fronts the river Mississippi, with a long boundary line of thirty-five miles constituting the line south and east, and the county is the fifth from the southern boundary of Iowa. The Wapsipinicon forms a boundary between Scott and Clinton counties, for some distance, consequently the water privileges of this region are many. The superficial area of the county is about five hundred square miles. The surface is rolling prairie to a very large extent, with a fair soil but in some places sand predominates. Along the principal rivers there are large bodies of timber, and on the smaller streams some valuable groves but the quantity of woodland may, and probably will be increased with much advantage. Along the streams there are extensive bottom lands, the most productive in Scott county, near the Mississippi and the Wapsipinicon, there are Nile like inundations which would be inconvenient for the agriculturist but are not very objectionable to the grazier, seeing that a wide range of country gives him extensive opportunities in all seasons. The soil generally is good and yields well. Coal was at an early day supposed to be one of the great productions which would enrich Scott county, but that expectation has been somewhat dampened by experience. There is coal and in some abundance, but not enough to become a standard resource. Good building stone has been quar. ried at Le Clair and in some other localities. This county was organized in 1837, by an act of the Wisconsin territorial legislature. This was part of the celebrated "Black Hawk Purchase,” and Gen. Scott, whose name the county bears, was one of the contracting parties in that negotiation on behalf of the United States. The treaty was discussed and settled in the city of Davenport, or rather on the site of that city, on the ground now covered by the depot of the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad Company. SKETCHES OF COUNTIES. This was the site of the first claim | in the same year, coramunicating with located in the ceded territory, before the state road, up the south side of the Indian title had expired and the Rock river. name of the man is perpetuated in that of the city. The claimant maintained a ferry at this point for some years and was a kind of factotum in Indian trade. The first actual settlement was on the site of Buffalo in 1853, when the territory was duly opened and the position rose into considerable importance as a midway station between Burlington and Dubuque. The settler here mentioned, maintained a ferry across the Mississippi to Illinois, which was much used by new comers, and the ferryman was very serviceable in locating emigrants to the territory. He was boatman, miller, builder, projector, and in 1836 he laid out the town of Buffalo, which became a very flourishing place and was once likely to become the county seat. Rival ferries, rival towns, conspiring speculators and venturesome lobby men destroyed the fair prospects of Buffalo, and her glory was very considerably dimmed, but it is now of very little importance, how these sults were brought about. The log rolling politicians combined to defeat Buffalo, and the locatlon was secured by Davenport after a hard contest. CREDIT ISLAND is a kind of delta, west of the main stream of the Missis sippi. The name was given because the French traders established a post here and used to give the Indians credit. It is not recorded whether the experiment proved a success, but cash on delivery is usually thought the best basis of trade with the noble red man. The first contest for county seat was between Davenport and Rockingham, and the voting was very spirited, but the result was favorable to Daveuport, and there were so many suggestions of unfair play that a new contest was ordered by the duly constituted authority. Davenport was accused of having im ported a supply of voters for the occasion, and it was supposed that such as could arrange the matter satisfactorily "voted early and voted often," on that day. The next poll was declared in favor of Rockingham, but after a delay, which was as mysterious as the first re-voting had been declared to be on this occasion, the majority for the town of Rockingham was pronounced to be a verdict of the public in favor of Davenport, and that place was declared to be the county seat. Writs of mandamus, course and a third election was order. and legislative action followed in due "Richmonds in the field," so the old ed, but by this time there were other rivals made terms of reconciliation Rockin the presence of the parvenu aspirants, Davenport winning honors, by tricks which were not vain. ingham "paled her ineffectual fires" after the battle was over, and the town soon passed out of recognition. ROCKINGHAM was first settled in 1835, and this was one of the candidates for the honor and profit of holding the county seat. The trade of Rock river was to be commanded by this settlement and doubtless would have been, but for the circumstance that the river could not be navigated. The town was laid off in 1836, and it attracted many settlers until it was found that every freshet of the Mississippi converted the site into an island with an unwholesome slough to be crossed to enable its residents to communicate with the mainland. Many of the settlers cleared out at once. Some persons still remained, and Rockingham, had a small but growing trade. There were religious services for several denominattons in one small school house which was erected by subscription, and the sects took each their turn in using the common church of all parties. The first flouring mill erected in Scott county was built here, in the year 1837, and a ferry across the Mississippi was established here In July, 1838, Iowa was separated from Wisconsin by an act of congress, and immediately thereafter this county was called to make new elections of officers, and the number of voters on that occasion proved that the population of the county was rapidly increasing. The improvement went on with rapidly accelerating speed, until in some parts of Scott county there seemed to be almost a velocity in the rush of immigration. In the year 1853, the first railroad company in this county, was organized as the Mississippi and Missouri railroad company. The work was of immense importance to the county and the appreciation of that importance may be seen in the fact that $100,000 of the required stock, one-sixth of the whole amount named, was raised by individual contributions, $50,000 by the county and $75,000 more by the city of Davenport. boon which the men of that time bestowed upon their children. THE CITY OF DAVENPORT, county seat for the county of Scott, stands opposite Rock Island, Illinois, on the right side of the Mississippi river, below the upper rapids. There is some beautiful scenery around Davenport, and it is various. Back of the town The days of the ferry boat and the is the broad undulating prairie, with stage coach were being numbered, the its border of broken land, against Chicago and Rock Island Railroad which the great river might have was opened in 1854, the Mississippi hurled its waves long ago, when the was to be bridged, the Mississippi and bluffs were the natural boundaries of Missouri Railroad was to join the other the stream, and when the channel had road by that structure, and the work not been worn to its present depth in was well accomplished by 1856. the strata. Below these broken lands There was some cause for Scott coun- the bluffs look down upon the plain ty to feel elated; that one event was where the city now shapes the destiworth more than a coal mine that nies of thousands, but where, until might underlie the whole area. Every very recently, there was a forest of town and every acre of the fertile land timber crowded almost to the rivers that might grow supplies for the hu- brink. Where the city does not extend man family had now from this locality its stalwart arms and bear down the means of carrying its supplies to the vegetation of half a century, there are best market. Every man that bad in still trees, and in some directions contemplation some. work of accom- there are groves springing up, which plishment, some enterprise that would owe their presence to the fostering care pay had established by his share in of the city, or the county, or are due to this work as a citizen of Scott county, the cultivated love of the beautiful, some claims to consideration in the which that community has fostered. republic of money, and to such help Far away upon the high lands, are as the captalist might consider wise homes of young, lovely and brave and safe. All the machinery of civil- men and maidens, who are enization became part and parcel of the abled by those clanking engines, and governing power of that region from the perpetual roar of industry, to build that hour. The public opinion of the up in their brain and heart those faclargest communities came into opera- ulties of thought and love, which, in a tion as a factor of thought in these se- nation's extremity, may be worth more clusions, which until now had known than battalions of armed men. The no press worthy of the name. With cultivated intellect resembles the disthe railroad and the bridged river mond cut into all the beauty which came an improved possibility in police the lapidary can compass. There is control and order, came too, the elec- not a ray of light, but some one of its tric telegraph and that immunity from facets will reflect it back again with crime, which arises just in proportion added brilliancy. Thus it is with the as the probabilities of escape for the mind. The clod looks out upon the criminal are diminished, came the bet-flowing river, and the flower bursting ter organization of the honest and enterprising class of merchants and traders against the land sharks who move from place to place, using specious appearances and devilish audacity to destroy the confidence of men in each other. The old settlers who saw the opening of that bridge, might well feel elated by the triumph which had been accomplished by courage and skill, and self sacrifice, but they could not have imagined by any power short of the gift of prophecy how vast was the into bloom, but it has for him no les son; the whole book of nature is to him at best, a mass of hieroglyphs confused and worthless; but the soul, awakened to its highest power, finds in the same phenomena a voice, a token, a distinct command, which compels him to sink down in adoration, "Prone on the great world's alter-stairs, Which slant through darkness up to God." The Egyptian laborer saw, ten thousand times, the blades of grass which SKETCHES OF Counties. had formed their seeds, but from that significant suggestion he procured no hint of the vast granary of human sustenance which might be built up out of the tiny messenger of God's mercy. Other eyes, more capable of seeing, contemplated the phenomena, some one of the seers, perchance, who suggested the building of the truly oriental pyramids, for the better calculation of the precession of the equinoxes, and the seeds told him their story. They could be improved by selection, as the other vegetable foods of man had been, and the idea deserved The largest seeds an experiment. were planted, and, from their seeds, still the largest, for a long succession of seasons, until the lowly grass had become wheat, barley, oats and rye, and the granaries of Egypt attracted the famine stricken tribes from every land. The apple might have fallen a million times before the eyes of some dullard, but the theory of gravitating force which holds this earth in its place in the sun's system, the sun with all its planets in some larger system, and all these in some grander combination, in endless extension, could never have gleamed in upon his mind. For him, as for Peter Bell in Wordsworth's poem, there could be no revelation but the physical verity that touched the material sense in its rudest way The primrose by the river's brim, Newton saw it, and his Principia had Davenport is favored in situation, tion of more than twenty thousand, The appearance of the city is deci- The railroads continue to favor their The site on which Davenport stands was first occupied by white men for purposes of settlement in 1833 and the town laid out in 1836. The city takes its name from an enterprising Englishman, who came to this country in the year 1804, and was connected with the army until after the war with his native land on the impressment question in the year 1812. When the Aaron Burr difficulty arose, he served under Gen. Wilkinson at the Sabine. He was with the expedition which ascended the Mississippi in 1805, to quell the disturbances among hostile Indians, and when he retired from active service, Col. Davenport came into this region, making his home here from the year 1818 until his death. He was a member of the American Fur Company for many years, and, when that company retired from the field of operations, he carried on the business on his own responsibility, leaving with every person who came in contact with him in his career, a very excellent impression. He was murdered in 1845, at his home on Rock Island, by a gang of ruffians, some of whom suffered the penalty of the law. The first improvements made on the site of Davenport bear date 1833, but there were only seven houses there after a lapse of three years, and the postmaster, who was also the ferryman, carried the mail in his pocket, earning as his first three months' salary, in his official capacity, less than $1. The town was incorporated in 1838, and the first brick house was erected there during the same year. The growth of the city could not be more satisfactorily attested than by the number and importance of the newspapers at this time. The mere publication of a newspaper says very little for the status of a place; it may be a sheet of village gossip, printed under some widespreading tree, and distributed by the winds, as the other dry leaves of the forest are driven hither and thither; but when newspapers increase in numbers continuously, and are read by thousands of subscribers who are accustomed to a world-wide breadth of thought, without a sense of vacuity in their well printed columns, there is positive testimony that the city which can sustain a press so well conducted, must have attained considerable growth. In that way, the newspaper press of Davenport may be called in evidence to show the type of town which it represents. The public schools are graded in four departments, and they are very well conducted, the greatest care having been exercised, irrespective of cost, to procure for Davenport the best talent available in both sexes for the edu cation of youth. The board of education and an able city superintend ent preserve the most complete oversight of the several institutions. There are many private schools in the place and they are well managed; but the public schools still have the favor of raany of the wealthiest citizens who are anxious for the welfare of their children. The Catholic population in Davenport amounts to somewhere about ten thousand, and the edifices of "the elder church" are very handsome and commodious. In connection with their organization there is a temperance society which was much called for and has effected a great deal of good. The various protestant denominations are also strong and very whole souled in their operations, but it would occupy too much of our space to give detailed mention to their several build| ings and organizations. Shelby County is on the Missouri slope, second county east from that river, and fourth from the southern boundary of Iowa, containing about five hundred and seventy-six square miles. The surface is generally rolling but along the larger streams there are valleys which have been deeply scored into the strata and there is also a large proportion of broken land. The hills are precipitous, in some places necessarily, where the valleys have been so completely hollowed. We have spoken elsewhere of counties, parts of whose surfaces seemed to have been formed by a process similar to that which throws the waves of the sea into their wondrous shapes and configurations. Here that type of country is seen in some of its most fantastic developments, as if the earth had rivalled the mobile sea, and excelled what it only sought to imitate. The soil of this hilly country is well suited for the cultivation of fruit trees of various kinds, but it is not precisely the form of surface which an agricul turist would select for his farm. The lands slope toward the river banks, generally in the valleys of the several streams and along the west Nishnabotany; some of these river margins average nearly a mile across. There are fine belts and groves of timber along the streams. The bluff deposit prevails here with the customary ad |