Friday, July 22, 2011

Iowa Items

Some citizens of Des Moines, it will be remembered, in order to secure the location of the State capitol at their village, agreed to furnish capitol grounds and building free of charge to the State.  They borrowed the money from the school-fund for the purpose, and now, being unable or unwilling to pay, come forward, and ask that they be released from the payment of some $44,000, on the ground that they have furnished the State with a capitol!  If they succeed in this effort, we suggest that these “responsible” citizens of Des Moines had better try to get the different State asylums to their city, on the same terms, and wind up with the State Prison, so that said “responsibles” can finish their career as near home as possible.

At the municipal election in Muscatine last Monday, about 800 votes were polled.  George Mason was elected Mayor for the third time, John Wiley re-elected Treasurer, and Marx Block chosen wharfmaster.  No party lines were drawn.

Dr. Thompson, of Muscatine, on Monday last, extracted from the hip of Mr. Newton Brown, a ball, or rather the piece of one, which he received at the battle of Wilson’s Creek.  The ball entered the leg a little above the knee.

A soldier died very suddenly in Dubuque last Friday, from, it is supposed, congestion of the lungs.  A person thought he recognized him as one John Garon, formerly a resident near Dubuque; he is supposed to have been one of the regiment of Mechanic Fusiliers, recently disbanded at Chicago.

The Dubuque Herald says that Messrs. J. Throp, Wm. Canfield, and another miner, after laboring in the lead region for five weeks, have at last truck a lead at the depth of twelve feet from the ground.  They took out in three days, 3,000 bounds of mineral, which they sold at $34.50 per thousand – being $11.50 a day for each man.

It has been proposed in our Legislature to change the names of Floyd and Jones counties respectively to Baker and Lyon.  It was ascertained, in the course of debate, that Floyd county was named in honor of a sergeant in Lewis and Clark’s expedition, and consequently is not intended to perpetuate the name of the traitor secretary.  The Anamosa Eureka says that George W. Jones, then surveyor-general, gave his own name to Jones county, which then contained about two hundred inhabitants.  The Eureka is anxious that the county should be purged of the traitor’s name, and something more honorable be given it.

MORMONS IN LEE COUNTY. – The Keokuk Constitution says there is now a Mormon church in Des Moines township, in that county, which numbers thirty members, who have a preacher and hold regular meetings every Sunday, and have preaching and prayer meetings one a week.  They are followers of young Joseph Smith.

WOLVES. – During the first two weeks of February, twelve wolves and one wild cat were killed in this vicinity.  It was not much of a time for wolves either. – Montezuma Rep.

– Published in The Davenport Daily Gazette, Davenport, Iowa, Monday Morning, March 10, 1862, p. 2

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