Transcriptions of the Special Edition of the Pleasantville News, Bennona Freel & Son, Proprietors, Pleasantville, Marion County, Iowa, United States.
"The Best Local Paper Published In The County; Published Every Thursday"
Originally $1 per year subscription fee
Pleasantville, The Queen of a Blue Grass Realm All Astir With Life & Promise
1897 Nov 01
Pleasantville, Iowa, is the center of one of the fairest sections of county country to be found upon the American continent.
All over this fertile country, far and near, are clustered farms and pastures, the most fertile in the Mississippi Valley.
The people who are so fortunate as to live in this region are, as a rule, intelligent, prosperous and progressive, and find that farming pays rich returns to all those who are willing to delve in nature's laboratory for the wealth that lies in varied profusion there.
The broad expanse of slightly rolling prairie, traversed at intervals by forest fringed streams, forms one of nature's most enchanting panoramas which easily captivate the home seeker. From the time of the first settlement here until the present time, there has been a steady and permanent growth in material wealth and all that leads to the highest type of refined civilization.
The early pioneers were hardy and daring and were actuated by an unselfish desire to make permanent homes for themselves and families.
Many of the names of the early settlers are familiar to our local readers for few, if any, were ever lured away by the glowing descriptions sent out by other new states.
Surrounded by such a country, Pleasantville could not be other than prosperous, and looking forward to a future bright with the promise of growth and usefulness.
Pleasantville is the principal town between Knoxville and Des Moines, on the Albia and Des Moines branch of the Chicago, Burlington, and Quincy railroad.
As a shipping point, Pleasantville ranks well up with the best in the county, averaging about 400 car loads per year.
As might well be supposed the greatest out put consists of corn, oats, hogs and cattle, but nevertheless, large quantities of hay, wood, coal, wheat, horses, poultry and eggs, are sent out each year into the great commercial world.
Among the counties of the blue grass belt, Marion county occupies a conspicuous position--perhaps no county comes nearer the ideal of the tiller of the soil... It is wonderfully deep, rich soil, and its variety and quality of products stands preeminently above any other section of equal area.
It is bounded on the east by Mahaska county, and on the north by Jasper county, on the west by Warren county, and on the south by Lucas and Monroe counties, respectively. Settlers began to be attracted here along in the (eighteen) forties.
Pleasant Grove Township was surveyed in '46 and '47, by John Hall and Jesse Williams, and was declared a township by order of the country commissioners, in January, 1847, including township 75, range 21, now Franklin, and called Pleasant Grove by suggestion of the people living in and about Pleasantville.
The place of holding elections was appointed to be at the house of William Glenn.
The first township election came off at the house of William Glenn's in August, '47. The names of those who settled in this township at the earliest dates are as follows: Denem Halsey, in '47; Lewis Reynolds, Traner Reynolds, John P. Glenn, Wm. S. Glenn, two Samuel Glenns, Daniel Vansed, Larken Young, Marion and James Clinton, Richmond Miller, David Shonkwilder, Samuel Tibbett, Gilmore Robert, Harrison Logan and Yose Spalti in 1846, William F Miles, Wesley Jordan, Daniel Davidson, Bennona Freel, in 1847.
Lewis Reynolds broke the first prairie in the township, on his claim a little south of Pleasantville in May 1846. W.F. Jordan and G. Logan planted the first orchards in the township in 1849.
The first building erected for religious services, was in Pleasantville, in 1852, under the pastorial charge of James Woods, of the Congregational Church.
The first birth in the township was that of Jonathan, son of Samuel and Elizabeth Glenn, in June, 1846.