1I{fe {Cu the meeti ouse and the shoo' nd the purch, to v ***, w're among te rliest of the ཞ geo's work. preaching as car!, as 1954, ly MAY 2 1893 LIBRARY IOWA HISTORICAL RECORD VOL. IX. APRIL, 1893. REV. LAUNCELOT GRAHAM BELL. No. 2. BY T. S. PARVIN. OWA was first opened to settlement in the spring of 1833, the year following the close of the Black Hawk War and the ceding of that portion of the Indian land, bordering on the Mississippi river, thirty miles in width, extending from the Des Moines river south to the Turkey river north of Dubuque. At that period there were but two settlements in the "Black Hawk Purchase," one in the present limits of Dubuque county, the other in Lee county, neither of which had an organized existence. In the spring of 1834, the Iowa district (with Wisconsin) was attached to the Territory of Michigan for "judicial purposes," and at the first session of the Legislature of Michigan Territory two counties were organized in the Iowa district west of the Mississippi river, Dubuque and Des Moines counties. A very few settlers came during that year, but the numbers increased during the succeeding years, 1835-36, when the population reached some ten thousand. The school house and the meeting house and the school and the church, however, were among the earliest of the pioneer's work. There was preaching as early as 1834, by travelling and visiting ministers coming from Illinois, and as early as 1836 "missionary work" on the part of the Catholic, the Methodist, Presbyterian, and Congregational and other churches was inaugurated. It is an interesting theme to consider the character and review the labors of those, who so early engaged in the work of the "making of Iowa." And in this the school teacher and the minister of the gospel preceded the politician and civil officers of the territory. As early indeed as 1830 there were two schools taught in Lee county, one at Nashville (October-December), the other at Keokuk (December, 1830-February, 1831), which, however, was then only an Indian village, and as early as 1834 a school was taught in the first "Meeting House" erected in Iowa at Dubuque. Some of the little boys attending those schools, afterwards rose to eminence in the Territory and State, serving in its Legislative Assemblies and Constitutional Conventions; others became among our most prominent and active merchants and business men, while others yet won renown in the service of our country, when called to arms during the rebellion. The ministers, who founded the churches at that early period as representatives of the Catholic, Methodist, Presbyterian and Congregational faiths, had much to do, and are entitled to much credit, in the making, or the preparation of the work for the "making of Iowa" what it is to-day. Ours is a State where "the school house may be found upon every hilltop" and through every valley, while the church spire rises heavenward in every city, town and village over our prairies and upon our streams, from the Mississippi to the Missouri. And the thorough training therein of the youth of Iowa for citizenship has given emphasis to the character of the people, who have adopted as their motto, "Iowa, the affections of her people, like the rivers of her borders, flow to an inseparable union." "That same young State, round whose virgin zone Marked by the smoke of evening fires alone," |