Page:History of Iowa From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century Volume 3.djvu/450

 among which are Twin Lakes, Crystal Lake and Eagle Lake.

On the 9th of September, 1854, Anson Avery made a claim at Upper Grove and in October, George Nelson located near him. The following year Reuben and Orick Church, Thomas and Malcom Magill and Benoni Haskins joined the settlement. In September, 1855, John Mabin and Jacob Ward settled in a grove on Lime Creek near Ellington. The first settlers at Crystal Lake were Edwin Trumbull and Myron Booth who arrived in 1865.

The county contains sixteen townships, making an area of five hundred seventy-six square miles, and was organized in June, 1858, by the election of the following officers: R. P. Rosecrans, judge; George Loupee, clerk; Reuben Church, treasurer, and Benoni Haskins, sheriff. On the 4th of November, 1865, John I. Popejoy and James Goodwin were appointed commissioners to select a site for the county-seat. They located it where Concord now stands. A tract of land was donated to the county by Thomas Seymour and in May, 1867, was platted and named Concord. Previous to the selection of Concord the county business had been transacted at Ellington, where in 1860 W. E. Tucker and Mr. Tobin had established a newspaper named the Hancock Sentinel. A brick courthouse was built at Concord in 1868. The Milwaukee Railroad was built through the county in 1869-70, running a mile north of Concord, where in July, 1870, John Mabin laid out a town named Garner. Britt is a flourishing town on this road near the middle of the county. In the southeast part of the county the town of Goodell is located on the line of the Cedar Rapids Railroad. HARDIN COUNTY lies in the fourth tier south of Minnesota and midway between the Mississippi and Missouri rivers. It is twenty-four miles square and contains an area of five hundred seventy-six square miles. The county was created in 1851 and named for Colonel John J.