FIRST REGULAR AND GENERAL ELECTION

The first regular and general election held in Jefferson County, was under provisions of an act entitled "An act providing for and regulating General Elections in this Territory," approved January 25, 1839. Section 1 provided that an election for members of the House of Representatives and for county officers, should take place on the first Monday in that and each succeeding year, and that an election for Delegate to Congress, for members of the Council and County Recorder should take place on the first Monday in August, 1840, and on the same day in every second year thereafter.

Two of the old Board of County Commissioners—John J. Smith and Daniel Sears—held over. William Hueston was elected to succeed B. F. Chastain. Section 2 of an act entitled "An act organizing a Board of County Commissioners in each County in the Territory of Iowa," approved December 14, 1838, provided that the person having the highest number of votes should serve three years; that the person having the next highest number of votes should serve two years, and the person having the next highest number of votes should serve one year. From the fact that Mr. Hueston come to succeed Mr. Chastain, it would seem evident that he had received the lowest number of votes at the first election, and that he was only entitled to serve until the next general election.

The new Board met and organized on the 19th of August. After the organization, the Board adjourned until the first Monday in September. The old journal shows that the business of this session was conducted by the old Board—John J. Smith, Daniel Sears and B. F. Chastain. Whether the Clerk made a mistake in attaching the signatures of the Commissioners or whether it was found that the term of Mr. Chastain had not expired, is a proposition that we will not attempt to determine. We simply present the facts.

The examination and allowance of accounts, the granting of road views, the appointment of Viewers, management and disposition of town lots, etc., etc., occupied most of the subsequent sessions of that year, and are of no special historic interest, hence no attempt has been made to give the "orders" of the Board in detail. Suffice to say that he first and second Boards were governed by a commendable spirit of economy in all their official transactions. The following order would indicate that an "unpleasantness" of some nature came up between the Board and its Clerk:

Ordered, That Samuel Shuffleton be appointed Clerk of the Board of County Commissioners, in place of John A. Pitzer, removed.

But the order does not reveal the cause of the removal. Shuffleton was sworn and entered upon the duties of the office.

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November 29, at a special meeting of the Board, it was "Ordered, that the town of Fairfield be and the same is hereby constituted a precinct for election purposes." John T. Moberly, L. W. Saunders and William Olney were appointed to be Judges of Election.

At the same meeting, Samuel Shuffleton was appointed agent to manage the sale of town lots, receive money therefor, etc.

At a special meeting, on the 21st day of December, 1839, present, John J. Smith and Daniel Sears, the Board "proceeded to examine the Court House, and find that the county is indebted for the building, painting and extra work on said house, $195.50." Of this amount, the sum of $113.13 1/2 was garnished at the instance of Augustus Jackson, a creditor of Olney's. Judgment was rendered against the Commissioners for that amount, which left a balance due Mr. Olney of $82.36 1/2, which was allowed and ordered to be paid.

COURT HOUSE FURNITURE, ETC.

At the January meeting, 1840, the Commissioners directed the Clerk to "issue notices of the letting of the following work, to be done by the 20th of March: The making of one bench for the Judge of Court, eight and one-half feet in length and four feet wide, paneled front; two jury-seats, each eight feet long, well backed; one seat, eight feet long, to be placed opposite the Judge's bench. Also, a rough plank partition, eight by twenty feet; also the erection of one flight of stairs, ten feet high, with good and sufficient railing; said stairs to be erected and an entrance made for the same in the northwest corner of the Court House, and the entrance now opened in the southwest corner to be closed." Such were the "finishings" and furniture of the pioneer Court House. The contract for the above work was awarded to Gilbert M. Fox; price, $175. The lathing and plastering of the Court House was awarded to Thomas D. Jones, at 45 cents per square yard. This contract was awarded at the regular July meeting, 1840.

FIRST TAX-RECEIPT AND FIRST FINANCIAL EXHIBIT.

For reasons already stated—the absence of the early records from the proper offices, there is no means of presenting the amount of the first tax-assessment. Unless some one of the few surviving tax-payers and settlers of 1839, have the total amount of the tax-levy for that year in their heads, as also the total appraised value of the taxable property, the facts are completely and effectually lost.

John Huff has carefully preserved the following tax-receipt, which is believed (although not stated as a positive fact), to be the first tax-receipt issued from the Treasurer's office of Jefferson County. If such is the fact, he has the honor of paying the first taxes in Jefferson County. The receipt, as the reader will observe, does not give the day or the month when the taxes were paid:

Received of John Huff, one dollar and forty-eight and one-half cents. being his tax in full for the year A. D. 1839, Jefferson County, I. T.

JAMES L. SCOTT, Sheriff.

The first financial exhibit was entered of record under date of January 6, 1840, and is in the words and figures following, to wit.:

     Dr. To amount of receipts of taxes, fines, etc........... $540.89
     "      "   borrowed of proceeds of town lots......112 69 - $653 58
     Cr. by amount paid expenses of courts, officers, elections, etc.
     (estimated)............................... 653 58

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Receipts and Expenditures appertaining to Town Lots, etc.

Dr. To amount of cash received for town lots........... $1,309 08
"     "   notes for lots, due 10th March, 1840...  453 40
"     "       "            "  15th May, 1840.... 1,910 51
"     "       "          " 10th September, 1840..  919 00
"     "       "          " 15th November, 1840... 393 76-$4,985 75
Cr. By amount of expenses of locating county seat, build-
              ing Court House etc...............$1,102 90
"    "   "   balance now due for lots.......1,882 85-$4,985 75

A third sale of town lots was ordered to be held on the 20th day of April, and was ordered to be continued from day to day "so long as the Commissioners might deem necessary." No detailed statement of the sale appears of record, hence the writer, as well as the people of Jefferson County, is "left in the dark" as to the number of lots sold or the amount realized.

TAX LEVY FOR 1840 — TOWNSHIP ORGANIZATION — VOTE ORDERED

July 7, 1840, it was "Ordered, that a tax of four-tenths of one per cent be levied on all the taxable property in the county, and a poll-tax of 50 cents on each person liable by law to pay said poll tax."

The Clerk was also directed to give notice that a vote would be taken at the next general election to be held in the county to test the matter whether or not the county should be organized into townships.

At the same meeting of the Board, it was

Ordered, That Blue Point Precinct shall embrace Township 73 north, Range 10 west, and Township 73 north, Range 11 west (Black Hawk and Polk).

From a subsequent entry, under date of January 5, 1841, it seems that a majority of the voters cast their ballots in favor of township organization, for on that day it was ordered that the following should be the boundaries of the different townships.

That Township Seventy-one, Range Eight west, shall constitute a township for purposes, to be known as Round Prairie Township. The election to be held at the town of Glasgow.

That Township Seventy-two, Range Eight west, and the east half of Township Seventy-nine west, shall constitute a township, to be known as Lockridge Township. The election to be held at the house of David Keltner.

That Township Seventy-three, Range Eight west, shall constitute a township, to be known as Walnut Township. The election to be held at the house of John Pheasant.

That Township Seventy-one, Range Nine west, shall constitute a township, to be known as Cedar Township. The election to be held at the house of Joseph Parker.

That Township Seventy-three Range Nine west, shall constitute a township, to be known as Penn Township. The election to be held at the house of Joseph Dillon.

That Township Seventy-one, Range Ten west, shall constitute a township, to be known as Liberty Township. The election to be held at the house of Seaton L. Harness.

That the west half of Township SEventy-two, Range Nine west, and two-third of Township Seventy-two, Range Ten west, shall constitute a township, to be known as Locust Grove Township. The election to be held at the house of William Vincent.

That Township Seventy-three, Range Ten, and Township Seventy-three, Range Eleven west, shall be known as Black Hawk Township. The election to be held at the house of Jesse Reigles.

That Township Seventy-one, Range Eleven west, shall constitute a township, to be known as Des Moines Township. The election to be held at the house of Messrs. Cutting and Gordon.

At a special session of the Board of County Commissioners, held on the 28th day of January, 1845, it was

Ordered, That Township Seventy-three, Range Eleven west, shall constitute a township, to be known as the township of Polk. The election to be held at the house of George Emerick.

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Town 72, Range 9 west, was set off from Fairfield and Lockridge in 1856, and organized as an independent township, and called Buchanan.

MORALS OF THE PIONEERS—THE FIRST JAIL

The first settlers of many of the counties in Illinois and Iowa, and, in fact of nearly every other State in the great Northwest, were annoyed by a class of disreputable and outlawed characters, who preyed upon the property of the honest, industrious pioneer with reckless and daring impunity. In Ogle County, Ill., this class of human vultures was so numerous as to control the affairs of that county for many years. They laughed at jails and mocked the courts. The gang—for there was a well-organized gang—was under the direction of keen, shrewd, far-seeing fellows, who so managed their affairs as to secure the election of some of their number to the offices of Justices of the Peace and Constables in nearly all the different townships; and by some sort of manipulation that no hones man could find out, they always secured the presence of more or less of their number on the grand juries. If any of them happened to fall into the clutches of the law and were brought to trial, a jury was demanded; and such juries were almost invariably corrupted with the presence of some of the defendant's friends. If this did not happen to be the case, and sufficient evidence was found to hold the prisoner to the higher courts, bail was always ready to secure his freedom from imprisonment. Some of the members of the ugly fraternity, many of them, in truth, were wealthy, and as they were sworn to stand by and defend each other, their oaths were always kept.

In Ogle County, Ill., they carried things so far as to burn the first Court House erected there, just as it was completed and ready for a session of court. At last, they became so bold that the honest settlers banded themselves together as vigilantes and commenced a war of extermination.

The gang that reigned in terror over the people of the Rock River Valley for so many years, followed the settlers to Cedar and Linn Counties, in Iowa Territory. They became almost as bold and daring in those counties as in Illinois; and, for a number of years, the settlers lived in a constant state of dread and fear. And it was not until the people rose in their might and scourged the villains from the country that there was safety for valuable property of any kind.

Jefferson County appears to have been always remarkably free from the blighting influence of such lawless characters; and, if the court records are to be taken into evidence, it may be stated as a fact that the moral character of the people, from the date of the first settlement, in 1836, to the present time, is unsurpassed by any other county in the State. There have been crimes, but, as a rule, they have been of the minor grades. So generally law-abiding were the people, that two years passed after the county was organized before any steps were taken to secure the erection of a jail. Nor do the records show any expenditures for keeping prisoners in other county prisons, nor for guarding prisoners at home. One of two facts is apparent: either there were no lawless characters within the county, or else they were so shrewd and cunning as to be past finding out.

January 7, 1841, "plans and specifications were received from sundry persons for the building of a jail, agreeable to advertisements by the Clerk, whereupon it was ordered that a jail be built, of the following description, and the same be let at public outcry to the lowest bidder, and that the Clerk give notice thereof.

"Description.—To be built of logs, twenty-four by eighteen feet, double wall; first story with a space between said double walls of seven inches;

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eighteen feet high; two lower floors to be of square timbers one foot thick; flooring-plank on top of lower floor to be spiked in such a manner as to prevent boring through the ceiling for upper story.

On the 13th of February, the contract was let at "public outcry." Different parts of the work were let to different individuals, who were required to give bonds for a faithful performance of the work.

On the 25th of March, it was "Ordered, that the Jail be built on Lot No. 4 in Block No. 23." The lot is now occupied by the residence of D. B. Wilson. That old log Jail continued to serve the purposes of a county prison until the erection of the present brick structure, in 1858. When the new Jail was completed, the log log structure was sold to Daniel Mendenhall, who tore it down, hauled the logs away, and such of them as could be sawed, were made into different kinds of stuff, and some of them were cut into fire-wood.

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Financial Condition of the County January 3, 1842