Page:History of Iowa From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century Volume 3.djvu/449

 Wilson Brewer and Nathan and William Stanley were the first settlers within the limits of the county; they made claims on the Boone River in November, 1850, where Brewer and William Frake laid out a town which they named Newcastle. In 1851 Peter Lyon, Isaac Hook, S. Bell and Jacob Crooks settled along the Boone River. The first school was taught by John Hancock in a log cabin three miles north of Newcastle in the winter of 1854.

The first store in the county was opened by Isaac Hook in 1852 near the Des Moines River, at a place called Hook’s Point. The first physician was Dr. H. Corbin who located at Homer which was the county-seat of Webster when it embraced the present counties of Hamilton, Webster and a part of Humboldt and was at that time one of the best and most promising towns in northern Iowa. The division of the county, however, ruined its prospects. The county-seat was lost and for many years it was a deserted village fast going to decay. In 1856 Brewer and Frake sold their interest in Newcastle to Walter C. and Sumler Wilson who changed the name to Webster City.

In 1857 the county was organized by the election of the following officers: John D. Maxwell, judge; Cyrus Smith, treasurer; Charles Leonard, sheriff. The first newspaper was established in June, 1857, by Charles Aldrich and named the Hamilton Freeman. The Dubuque and Sioux City Railroad was built through the county from east to west on the line of Webster City. HANCOCK COUNTY was created in 1851 from territory formerly embraced in Fayette and was attached to Boone in 1853. It lies in the second tier south of Minnesota in the sixth west of the Mississippi River and was named for John Hancock, President of the Continental Congress. Several tributaries of the Iowa River take their rise in the county and the east fork flows through the east side. A number of small lakes are found in various sections,