Page:History of Iowa From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century Volume 3.djvu/465

  the criminals and the sheriff’s posse under the direction of Captain W. Warren, known as the “Bellevue war,” the gang was broken up and twelve of the number captured.

The county was organized April 2d, 1838, by the election of the following officers: county commissioners, William Jones, J. Leonard and William Morden; John Howe, recorder; J. K. Morse, probate judge;  John Sublett, treasurer; and J. H. Rose, clerk.

Sabula is a thriving town on the Mississippi River in the southeast corner of the county. The Milwaukee Railroad follows the valley of the Mississippi through the eastern part of the county. JASPER COUNTY lies in the sixth tier west of the Mississippi River and in the fourth north of the Missouri line. It contains twenty townships, embracing an area of seven hundred thirty square miles and was created in January, 1840, from territory formerly included in the original county of Keokuk. It was named for Sergeant William Jasper of the Revolutionary War. Poweshiek, a noted Fox chief, had his principal village in this county on Indian Creek and a smaller one a mile west of Newton.

A portion of the county was opened to settlement in May, 1843, and the remainder in October, 1845. William Highland and family were the first white settlers who, in May, 1843, took a claim in a grove near Monroe. A few months later Adam M. Toole, John Frost and John Vance located in the same vicinity which became known as Tool’s point. In 1845 settlements were made on Clear Creek by Mr. Knitz at Hixon’s Grove by Jacob Bennett and on the site of Newton by Ballinger Adeloytte.

In April, 1846, a county government was organized by the election of the following officers: J. R. Sparks, Manley Gifford and Jacob Bennett, commissioners; J. H. Franklin, clerk; J. W. Swann, treasurer; David