Page:History of Iowa From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century Volume 3.djvu/515

, revenue and judicial purposes. In the same month, by an act of the Legislature, the county of Webster was created embracing the territory of both Risley and Yell counties by which act these two ceased to exist. An act of the same session which took effect before the union of these two counties, changed the name of Risley to Webster, so that for a period of five months and nine days the former county of Risley (now Hamilton) was Webster County. This came from the fact that the act changing the name of Risley to Webster took effect upon publication January 22, 1853, while the act consolidating Yell and Risley did not become a law until the first of July following. SAC COUNTY was created in 1851 and named for the Sac Indians. It lies in the fourth tier south of Minnesota and in the third tier east of the Missouri River, is twenty-four miles square and embraces five hundred seventy-six square miles. The county is watered by branches of the Boyer and Raccoon rivers flowing in a southerly direction through the county which is on the divide between the Mississippi and Missouri rivers; the waters of the Raccoon flow into the former and the Boyer into the Missouri.

The first settler in the county was Otho Williams who, in 1854, located at Big Grove in the southeast corner on the North Raccoon River, where he cleared a farm in the woods while thousands of acres of fertile prairie ready for the breaking plow surrounded the grove on all sides. Soon after F. M. Corey, Leonard Austin, Joseph Austin, W. F. Lagourge and Seymour Wagoner settled in various parts of the county. Mr. Wagoner became major of a cavalry regiment during the War of the Rebellion and was killed while gallantly leading his command in battle. On the 4th of July, 1855, a town was laid out on the banks of the Raccoon River for the county-seat and named Sac City.