Ht the very front of the best class of periodical literature in America, stands the Magazine of American History, one of the chief leaders of public sentiment in all affairs concerning American history.

The June Number closes the Twenty-first Volume of this excellent Magazine.

"The Magazine of American History is the most vigorous and valuable journal of its class in this country."-PITTSBURG CHRISTIAN ADVOCATE.

Its contents always embrace papers of real worth and of deep interest.”—New York TIMES, December 31, 1888.

HE MAGAZINE OF AMERICAN HISTORY is carefully read by the great majority of our public men-in the various departments at Washington, and by State and municipal officials everywhere—and, as in no other monthly periodical, the former politics, policy, and measures of the government are intelligently discussed for the benefit of present affairs. With the June number is completed its twenty-first Volume, and these volumes, handsomely bound, are a treasure in any library, public or private. They form a unique and valuable library in themselves of the history of the country. The vast field for historic research in even so young a country as ours is well illustrated by the fresh and varying contents of each number of this ably edited and popular Magazine. This magnificent periodical is sustained by the best and most cultivated people of the country; it is a magazine that has a remarkably flattering outlook for the future. PRESS COMMENTS. "The Magazine of American History is an honor to its accomplished editor, and to the country at large." - NEW YORK EVANGELIST. "This periodical is one of the most valuable undertakings in American journalism."-THE CHURCHMAN, July 7, 1888. "We delight in this review, there are such choice chapters of American history told so vividly.”—ZION'S HERALD, July 20, 1888. "This excellent publication is a public benefactor as well as educator, exerting, as it does, an important influence in cultivating a taste for historic reading, and a desire for historic knowledge.” -FREEMASON'S REPOSITORY. "It is a superb work. There is no kind of reading

more refined and pleasing. If you wish to keep posted on all the important facts of history, nothing can be of more value than this magazine."-THE STUDENT, Cumberland University. "Romance and fiction pale before the glowing interest that is stirred up by raking the embers of our own historic lore."-CHRISTIAN OBSERVER. "What promises to be an unusually valuable series of papers on 'Historic Homes and Landmarks,' has been begun by Mrs. Lamb in the Magazine of American History.”—NEW YORK TRIBUNE, Jan. 10, 1889.

Three times elected commander of the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company, in 1652, 1663, and 1670; six years a member of the governor's council, and subsequently deputy-governor, and governor of the colony of Massachusetts. In 1686 he was knighted by Charles II.

NE May morning, fifty years ago, a thin column of smoke rose on

ner might have been seen waving in the air, and a fresh-hewn slab bore the inscription:

Seat of Government, Iowa City, May 4, 1839.

This was the birth of Iowa city, and all of Iowa then open to settlement was a strip fifty miles wide bordering the Mississippi river. That little strip of territory, which had been a part of Louisiana, Missouri, Michigan, and Wisconsin, had actually set up housekeeping for itself in the great national family, and needed a governmental home. To establish this, three commissioners, appointed by the first territorial legislature, had pressed beyond the line of the old Black Hawk Purchase to one of nature's fairest scenes and choicest collections of water, stone, and wood, and for the first time the stars and stripes fluttered among the oaks that for generations had guarded the hunting-grounds of the Sacs and Foxes. By fiat of congress, these red-skinned warriors retired to the Indian territory twenty miles to the west, and over the graves of their fathers was reenacted the daily miracle of our century. Never was capital located in a wilder spot. Iowa, "The Beautiful Land," lay in its primeval splendor of forest, stream, and emerald prairie-that land that had reminded the adventurous Frenchman of his own loved champagnes, wanting only the vineyard and the curling smoke of the cottage to deceive his longing heart; that land that had been a football for the sport of kings, tossed from France to Spain, from Spain to France again, and was sold to us at last because Napoleon needed gold; that land where the Indian trail was trodden still, where the trader coursed the rivers with his scanty wares, and the trapper lived in solitude.

Pressing through thickets and tangles of slough-grass, winding over prairies brilliant with rich-hued flowers, fording bridgeless streams, came

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the wagon of the emigrant. The news of the founding of the capital spread to the east, and in those days before the California rush Iowa became the westward point of the homeseeker and the fortune hunter. Some came to speculate, others to stay. In that first bright summer, half a century ago, some slept under the trees of the forest with slumbers broken by the wolf's long howl, others dwelt in tents, and as cabins were erected their floors were covered at night with the tired pioneers who sought refuge from the chilling dew. Old "Leanback Hall" was built of logs cut from the city plot, and, tradition says, was furnished with a single bed, large enough to accommodate thirty-six men. Many of the first settlers were from Ohio, and by instinct, as it were, took to the woods, leaving the broad open prairie for later comers.

Ten years before Chicago saw her first locomotive, when thousands of acres lay unclaimed in Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, the sum of $45,000 was realized in this corner of Iowa through the original sales of lots. With temporary homes and scanty provisions, some apprehension was felt at the approach of the first winter, but the weather was mild, and wood was abundant. As there were no mills nearer than the Mississippi river the people ground their corn by hand, and many a prairie-fowl and noble deer that sped over College hill fell before the hunter's rifle. The wild turkey gobbled in the hazel thicket, quails and chipmunks skurried through the village streets, and along the river the beaver, musk-rat, mink, and otter unwarily walked into the snares of the trapper.

Immigration had heretofore been guided only by old Indian trails or the haphazard ox-wagon track, and in groping its way to Iowa city its wagons were often like ships at sea beating about to find an uncertain harbor. This ended when Iowa's first delegate to congress, driving by slow stages from his corn-field near Burlington to the national capital, secured an appropriation for the opening of a military road from Dubuque to Iowa city, which became the highway of travel to the interior.

The first court was held in the old log hut of a fur trader, and there being no room for the jury they, like the old Saxon Witenagemot, went out into the open air to deliberate, and the sheriff meted out their bounds by nature's barriers of creek and river, including in this august jury-room more than half a section of breezy, billowy prairie, as well as some scores of ill-clad Indians. The petit- and grand-jury rooms were divided by the trail leading up to Wapashasheik's Indian town near by. The grand jurors wanted to go a-fishing, but unfortunately the river was on the petit-jury side. In the saffron files of a Philadelphia paper of half a century ago may be found an account of this court, written by an attorney, in which he