Volume
1 of the 1914 Delaware Co. History (271-273)
CHAPTER XXII
January 6, 1851, the County Commissioners' Court ordered the division of South Fork
Township as then constituted, separating there from that part of it lying
on the
southwest side of the Maquoketa River.
Township 87, range 4, was thereupon created and named Buck Creek, the
first election to be held at the
schoolhouse near Aaron Blanchard's.
Later the name was changed to Union.
This township lies in the southern tier and borders
on Jones County. On the north is Delhi Township, on the west Hazel Green and on the east South
Fork. The waters of the Maquoketa and its tributaries drain the land and afford
ample quantities for stock the year round. Plenty of good soil is found here, which early attracted settlers. Today the
township has many fine farms and the prevailing high prices of
their generous yields of food stuffs give the surroundings
an aspect of prosperity that is really substantial. Union has less area than
any township in the county and it is the smallest in population. The absence of
any town or village within its confines may, in a measure, account for this.
The first person to choose land in that part of
Delaware County set off as Union Township
was Samuel P. Whitaker, who located here in 1839.
Richard Waller, Joseph Ogilby, Ira A. Blanchard
and Orlean Blanchard located in the township
in 1840. Nelson Main, Silas Main, Charles Roff, ————— Green, William Robinson and Aaron Blanchard were not far behind
those just mentioned. L. D. Cross arrived in 1842, and for many years lived on section 33.
Robert Hogg entered land in this township
in 1846. He built a cabin, in which he had
a small stock of merchandise for barter and sale. Mr. Hogg was a gunsmith and was frequently called upon by the
Indians to mend their rifles. A daughter, Mrs. I. C. Bacon, was born in this
house in 1847. Her husband, I. C.
Bacon, came to the township in the fall of 1853. A son, I. C. Bacon, now owns the homestead.
Nicholas Wilson was a
settler of Union Township of 1849. He became one of the prominent
farmers and owned several hundred acres of land.
Henry W. Winch was a
settler of 1850 and lived on section 32 in this township,
where he held various local offices.
James H. Hogg was born in Delaware County and
came to this township in 1850. He was
engaged in business at Grove Creek a number of years and also was postmaster five years.
William Danford settled in
Amos Richardson built a frame house in the '50s,
opposite the present Buck Creek Church. During the Civil war this house was the
distributing point for mail of families living in that part of the county. Mr.
Richardson also built before the Civil war the schoolhouse still standing near the Buck Crock Church.
Christopher Dolley, a native of Prussia,
immigrated to the United States
in 1843 and spent the winter in Chicago. After a residence of ten years in Cook County he came to Delaware
County in the spring of 1853 and located on
a farm in Union Township, where he died in 1888. With him at the
time was his son Godfrey, who enlisted in 1861 in the Twelfth
Iowa Infantry. After the war he returned to the Delaware County farm and married
Malinda Robinson, a daughter of
William and Olive Robinson, who came to Delaware County in 1846.
Marion E. Davis was
brought here in 1854 by his parents,
who settled mi a farm in this
township.
Benjamin Keith,
Jr., settled here in 1854 and lived
on section
6. His
son. George, now lives on the land
entered by him. Peter Keith came in 1851
and lived on section 7.
Christopher Stanger left the State of Illinois in 1854 for Iowa and settled
in Union Township. In the following
year a calamity overtook his
family when two children ate wild parsnips. The untimely death of the
little ones cast a gloom over the
whole community.
George H. Dutton came from
Washington County, Ohio, to Delaware County,
Iowa, in the spring of 1856,
bringing a young wife with him.
He possessed but limited means but
what he had he invested in a tract of forty acres of land on Buck Creek, in Union Township, settled on it and went to
work. He afterward removed to Milo
Township, where he owned a farm lying on sections 34 and 35.
James Milroy settled in this community in 1856, buying land
at the high price of $12 an acre. A
son, James Milroy, still owns thirty
acres of the original place, and a
grandson, John W. Milroy, eighty acres.
Alexander Johnson became a pioneer farmer
of Union Township in 1856. He bought 160 acres of land, upon which six of his
children are now living.
It is said that during the recruiting
days of the Civil war. Union Township furnished to the Union armies seven men
over her quota.
The Freewill Baptists built the first house of
worship in Union Township in the early days of the settlement, and here both
Baptists and Methodists worshipped
in harmony of spirit and delectability of soul.
The Methodists organized a society of that creed
in the log schoolhouse, built in the '50s near the
The first schoolhouse in
Becky
Teubner, Contributor
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