OF THE CLAIM ASSOCIATION OF JOHNSON COUNTY IOWA WITH INTRODUCTION AND NOTES BY BENJAMIN F. SHAMBAUGH, A. M. WHARTON SCHOOL FELLOW, UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA. PUBLISHED BY THE STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF IOWA IOWA CITY, Iowa 1894 HS. THE NEW YORK 2045-40 ASTOR, LENOX IND TILDEN FOUNDATIONE. 電 1900. L REPUBLICAN PRINTING COMPANY, PREFACE. WHILE preparing a monograph on "Iowa City" (published by the Iowa State Historical Society, in 1893), my interest was aroused in an old manuscript, which at that time I had occasion to refer to under the title of "The Constitution and Records of the Claim Association of Johnson County." "1 This manuscript, which may be found and consulted in the Library of the Iowa State Historical Society, is still in a fairly good state of preservation, although some of its pages are badly torn and many more soiled and faded. Uncovered and loosely held together by a coarse thread, the whole consists of about one hundred and seventy-seven pages of closely written matter. The size of a page is about seven by thirteen inches. The paper is plain, moderately heavy and, with the exception of faint pencil lines here and there, unruled. The handwriting throughout is uniform and distinct, and undoubtedly the work of Mr. Samuel H. McCrory, the clerk of the Association. The contents of the manuscript fall naturally under the following heads: I. Constitution and Laws; II. Minutes of the Meetings of the Association; III. Recorded Claims; IV. Recorded Quit Claim Deeds or Transfers of Claims. The constitution occupies a little more than six full pages in the original; while the signatures of members, a list of two hundred and eighty-two, are spread over four pages. In this 1 Iowa Historical Record, Vol. IX. No. 1, p. 44. |