At about age eighteen, Andrew and Sally’s fourth child, Alexander, left home and moved into the newly settled territory of Iowa. When Alexander arrived in Iowa, settlement had only just begun. Keokuk County was created by the Territorial Legislature in February 1843, separating it from Washington County. Although a few had moved in earlier, most of the county was only opened to settlement on May 1, 1843, following signing of a treaty with Chief Keokuk of the Sac and Fox tribe. However the eastern part of the county, where Alexander settled, had attracted settlers a few years earlier, many of them from Indiana. Aaron Miller arrived in the spring of 1838 and was followed by William Searcy, Cyrus Jordan, Jacob Weiner and others. Several settled near what became Sigourney, the county seat, in 1843, and a sawmill was built near the junction of the South and North Skunk rivers in 1843 by L.B. Hughes.

In the spring of 1839, “quite a colony” of settlers arrived to the Richland area of Keokuk county from Indiana. They arrived too late in the year to raise crops, and in the following winter much of their stock died, and diets were often limited to corn bread and meat. The river lands were settled first, but within a few years the fertile prairie lands of the uplands was preferred, which avoided the problem of clearing the land of trees before crops could be planted.

Following survey, public lands were sold to private individuals. However, under provisions of the Preemption Act of 1841, squatters who had lived on the land for 14 months could purchase up to 160 acres at $1.25 per acre. This act was largely superseded by the Homestead Act of 1862, which provided freehold title for 160 acres.

According to my father, Marcus McIntire, one day in 1844, when Alexander was twenty-one, he was sitting on a rail fence with some other young men, observing a covered wagon that was moving into the neighborhood. There was a seventeen year old girl driving the loose cattle behind the wagon. My grandfather turned to the other young men and stated that “I am going to marry that girl someday”. She was Mariah Lovina Hiatt. They married two years later in 1846. Originally from near Kings Mountain, North Carolina, the family moved to Iowa from Indiana, where Mariah had been born. Apparently her father died soon after their marriage, and her mother Hannah, born in North Carolina was living with Alexander and Mariah at the time of the 1850 census. In 1880,, both Hannah and Mariah were living with Mariah’s daughter Olive and her husband Dayton Greeson in Belmont, Warren County, Iowa. Hannah died April 3, 1883, at age 96.

Alexander either purchased public land from the government or obtained title under the Preemption Act, but in any case, on the first of March, 1850 he received title to forty acres, described as the southeast quarter of the southwest quarter of Section 36, Township 74 North, Range 10 West, located about two miles south-southwest of the town of Richland, Iowa, in southeastern Keokuk County. Eventually he also owned land in Section 13 and Section 27 of the township. This part of the county where Alexander settled is in the drainage of the Skunk River.

“The north and south forks of Skunk River which unite in the eastern part of the county, and their numerous small tributaries, drain the remainder. The descent from the watershed to the valleys of these streams is abrupt, rendering the face of the country quite rolling, except along the margin of the rivers, which are skirted by broad, level valleys. Timber borders the principal streams in considerable quantities, but is limited to occasional groves on the uplands. The county has, therefore, considerable variety in its surface features. It has an excellent soil, derived from the very deep deposit of drift and well adapted to the production of corn and nearly all the small grains, grass, fruits and vegetables. Stock raising has proved very remunerative, as the county possesses all the requisite advantages for success in this branch of business. Frequent and good water power is afforded by both branches of Skunk River and in its banks are exposures of good limestone for ordinary uses. The county lies about equally in the sub-carboniferous section of Iowa and the region of the coal fields. Several good coal mines have been opened, but as the sub-carboniferous limestone frequently comes to the surface along Skunk River, and so coal exists only between this and the drift, its presence is chiefly limited to the south part of the county. The drift contains an abundance of excellent clay for the manufacture of brick”.

From “A Short History of Keokuk County, Iowa” by A.T. Andreas’ Illustrated Historical Atlas of the State of Iowa, 1875.  (This book is in my personal library and is listed in the Bibliography of this website).