Page:History of Iowa From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century Volume 3.djvu/476

 corner of the State, the Mississippi River forming the eastern boundary, while the Des Moines River forms the western and part of the southern boundary.

The origin of the name of the county is involved in doubt. It was named in an act of the Legislature of Wisconsin Territory on the 7th of December, 1836. It has been claimed that it was named for Robert E. Lee but when it is remembered that he was an obscure lieutenant in the regular army when the county was named, not having been in or near that region until 1837, from which time he was an engineer in charge of improvements of the Mississippi until 1841, there is not even a remote probability that he had ever been heard of at Belmont where Lee County was created and named. There was a land speculator from New York operating in the “Half Breed Tract,” by the name of Charles Lee, about the time the county was created and it has been supposed that the county might have been named for him. There is no evidence to substantiate this supposition. Lieutenant Albert M. Lea had, in 1835, descended the Des Moines River in charge, as engineer, of an exploring party making a survey of its course and rapids. He surveyed and mapped the shore of the Mississippi River in Lee County and above the same year. He was an officer in General Kearny’s command at old Fort Des Moines, in Lee County, for some time. In 1836 he became widely known as the author of a book and map of the “Iowa District.” This publication made his name familiar to the people of the “Black Hawk Purchase”  the year that Lee County was named. Many of the prominent citizens of pioneer times understood and believed that the county was named for Albert M. Lea, who gave the name of “Iowa” to the region which afterwards became the State of Iowa. Lee County has an area of five hundred twelve square miles and an abundant supply of native woodland.

In 1843 the county-seat was removed to West Point where the first term of court was held the same year. In