Page:History of Iowa From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century Volume 3.djvu/554

 In this they were not successful and in 1863 the county-seat was removed to Northwood by a vote of one hundred fifteen to forty. No court-house had been built at Bristol and the first term of court was held in a log cabin by Judge John Porter in September, 1859. On the 24th of October, 1869, the first newspaper, called the Northwood Pioneer, was issued by P. D. Swick. The Burlington, Cedar Rapids and Northern Railroad runs through the county from south to north and the Milwaukee runs through the southeast corner. WRIGHT COUNTY was established by act of the General Assembly in 1851 and named for Silas Wright, a New York statesman and Governor Joseph A. Wright of Indiana. The county lies in the third tier south of the Minnesota line and in the sixth west of the Mississippi River. It is twenty-four miles square and contains five hundred seventy-six square miles. The Iowa River runs through the eastern portion of the county from north to south and the Boone River flows through the western tier of townships in the same direction. Excellent borders of timber are found along the banks of these rivers while the land between was, in early days, a vast rolling prairie of great fertility.

The first pioneer who made a home in the county was Major Anson Brassfield who, in 1854, made a claim on the banks of the Boone River in what is now Liberty township. The following year he constructed a dam across the river and built the first mill in the county. S. B. Hewett, his son, S. B. Hewett, Jr., and N. B. Paine of Massachusetts, in 1854 settled at Eagle Grove near the Boone River where they opened farms. H. B. Martin settled the same year near the mouth of Otter Creek where he laid out the town of Liberty. The same year three families located near the Iowa River, not far from where Belmont stands and William Stryker made a claim at Bach Grove. In 1855 Dr. L. H. Cutler, A. Dumont and T. Oliver took