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Black Hawk TownshipBy BYRON SERGEANTI was bom December 25, 1829. .. Left Crawford county! Pennsyl- ; vania, April 11, 1853, for the' west.. 'Came by way of Chicago, then a city of 32,000, Came by rail as far as Marengo,. Illinois,.'from there by stage a short distance, the rest of the wav' on foot, Y/ent through Beloit, Monroe, Shellsburg and''Galena;'and-from, there by. boat to McGregor, Iowa, From there I went'through the county;is'far west as the Cedar river, about where now stands the town ik Orchard. With my partner, Obed Wells, I came down the Cedar in a log.skiff: as far as where now stands Waverly, Bremer county. From, there we -walked to Cedar Falls, a village of fifteen or twenty,houses, a sawmill. grist mill, and a’store.of about 14x16, kept by.Andrew Mullarkey.. Mullarkey being away it was kept by Totingham, _In May-, 1853, I arrived in Black Hawk comity. Found living in the township, 88 north in range 14 west, one family by the name of ■John D. Ferris, wife and child. They had lived there the past, winter with a brother-in-law by the name - of Hiram Ludington in a log house situated in section No. 27.There had been a daughter born in. the winter to the' Ludingtons, and a son to Ferris, named A. N. Ferris; these were the first children bom in the township.The Ludington family vacated the cabin in the spring and went to Waterloo and built the first cabin in the first .plat in Waterloo. '.When X came here there were three log and , one small frame houses in Waterloo, with five families all told. They were Hiram Ludington, John Brooks, G. W. Hanna, Adam Shigley,' and Edward Butterfield. .The Ferris family had. built a log house oa section’ 14, and had' moved in; their house was 14x16 outside, with a shake roof, one bed . . and bedstead, a stove and some'puncheon oa part, of the' floor, and dirt the balance.I called on them, after I entered land in-section 23, to get board. Mr. Ferris talked to his wife'and then said that-he would board me .' oa one condition, that was for me to pay §1.50 in advance per week to buy provisions with. As he had no money to buy a bed with, he made one by taking a two-inch anger and boring a hole in a log at one end of the cabin and one on the‘ side, and sticking sticks in the' holes, ‘ and the other end of the sticks into a post with holes in; by stretching cords to it, it made a very comfortable bed. for me.About the middle of June another family came, by the name of ■' Goonda Osman, his wife .and her father, arrived in the township, built-a sod and board house and made a claim' on section 2S-SS-14.There were no other claims or entries made in the township until ' late in the fall, when Adam Shigley bought the Ludington cabin and entered SO in 26 and SO acres in 2T, and moved from Waterloo to the Ludington cabin,Tn fho cnrimr nf 1KH4. there -was rrvnsirierahlp laud P.nfered F TT
Newspaper Details
Illustrated Atlas of Black Hawk County Iowa
Waterloo, Iowa, US
Sat, Jan 01, 1910
Page 126
Full Page
Clipped by
Waterloo P.
IA, USA 19 Nov 2024
Other Publications Near Waterloo, Iowa
Iowa State Reporter
Waterloo Daily Reporter
Waterloo Evening Courier
Waterloo Courier
Illustrated Atlas of Black Hawk County Iowa
