Page:History of Iowa From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century Volume 3.djvu/528

 Creek, in February, 1855, and gave it the name of Afton at the suggestion of Mrs. James Baker. The town of Highland, laid out near the center of the county was a competitor for the county-seat and losing it also lost its buildings which were moved to Afton.

In 1869 the town of Creston was laid out on the line of the Burlington Railroad. The principal division of this road in Iowa and the machine shops were established at Creston and it eventually became the county-seat. The first newspaper in the county was established in the summer of 1859 by Morris and Ryan, named the Afton Eagle. It was Democratic in politics but after the election of Lincoln in 1860 it was purchased by L. Raguet and became neutral. VAN BUREN COUNTY was created in December, 1836, and named for Martin Van Buren who had been elected President of the United States. It then included a portion of the present county of Davis. In 1838 enough territory was taken from Henry and the original county of Demoine to make the boundaries of Van Buren as they now are, after detaching a part of its territory which was added to Davis. The present county contains four hundred eighty-four square miles and lies in the second tier west of the Mississippi River with the southern boundary the Missouri State line. The Des Moines River flows through it in a southeasterly direction for a distance of forty-five miles, having numerous tributaries and borders of excellent timber, dividing the county about equally between woodland and prairie. Coal and building stone are abundant as well as water power. The first settler in the county was Abel Galland who took a claim near where Farmington stands, in 1832.

The first white man who built a cabin where Keosauqua now stands was John Silvers who took a claim in 1835. During the same year Isaac W. McCarthy, John Tolman, E. Pardom and others settled in the same