Page:History of Iowa From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century Volume 3.djvu/445

 Tabor now stands. Rev. John Todd was one of the founders of the college which was there established in 1857.

The county was organized in 1850 by the election of the following officers: Thomas Greenwood, judge; A. H. Argyle, treasurer and recorder; J. S. Jones, prosecuting attorney; Milton Richards, clerk of court; and Tilden M. Buckham, sheriff. Among the earliest settlers in the southern part of the county were John Gordon, James Applegate and Dr. David Lincoln. The first term of the District Court was held in 1850 by Judge William McKay in a log cabin at McKissick’s Grove where a town had been platted, named Austin. The town of Sidney was laid out in 1851 on land belonging to Judge Thomas Greenwood. J. J. Singleton opened a store the same year and S. T. Crowell built and kept the first public house. Hamburg was laid out in 1857 by Augustus Borcher, a young German, who had settled there to trade with the Indians. He named it for his native city in the old country. In May, 1851, the county-seat was located at Sidney and in 1863 the Sidney Union, a weekly newspaper, was started there by L. J. Easton. The Kansas City and Council Bluffs Railroad was built through the county from north to south in 1867-8. GREENE COUNTY was created in 1851 from territory at one time belonging to Benton. It lies in the fifth tier south of Minnesota and in the fourth east of the Missouri River and contains sixteen townships making an area of five hundred seventy-six square miles. The county was named for General Nathaniel Greene of the American Revolution and was first attached to Polk. The North Raccoon River flows through it in a southeasterly direction with heavy timber along its banks.

Truman Davis was the first settler in the county; taking a claim in 1849 near where Rippey stands. Enos Buttrick located near the mouth of Buttrick’s Creek and Richard Hardin, at Hardin's Creek, the same year. In 1850-