History of Iowa From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century/3/Counties/Fayette
FAYETTE COUNTY, as originally established in December, 1837, was the largest county in the United States. It extended to the British Dominions on the north and from the Mississippi River west to the White Earth, thus embracing nearly all of the present State of Minnesota and all of the Dakotas east of the Missouri and White Earth rivers, making a total area of nearly 140,000 square miles. In 1847 the county was reduced to its present boundaries, lying directly west of Clayton and north of Buchanan. It contains twenty townships embracing an area of seven hundred twenty squares miles and was named for the Marquis de Lafayette.
An Indian trader named George Culver was the first white man to build a cabin in the county in the spring of 1841, in Illyria township. In 1842 Andrew Hensley came to Fairfield township where he settled with his family. Other families soon after located in various parts of the county. In 1850 it was organized by the election of the following officers: Thomas Woodle, judge; J. W. Neff, sheriff; J. A. Cook, treasurer, and William Wells, Charles Sawyer and Jared Taylor, commissioners. Judge Thomas S. Wilson held the first term of court in July, 1852, at West Union. This town was laid out in the fall of 1849 by William Wells, J. W. Rogers and Jacob L. Brand. The first house was built by J. W. Rogers the same year. In 1850 a post-office was secured and Mr. Rogers was appointed postmaster. A store was opened by Daniel Cook and a log school-house was built in which a school was opened by J. S. Pence. In 1851 West Union was made the county-seat by a vote of the people. In 1853 an effort was made to move the county-seat but at an election a majority decided it should remain at West Union. On the 21st of October John Gharky issued the first number of a weekly newspaper named the Fayette County Pioneer.
The first settler on the site of the town of Fayette was a man by the name of Mullican who took a claim in 1846 and sold it in 1849 to Robert Alexander. In 1850-51 a settlement was made a mile west of the Alexander farm where a town was laid out and named Westfield by Robert Alexander who had sold the Mullican place. In 1856 Samuel H. Robertson who owned the Mullican farm laid out a town upon it which he named Fayette. For several years there was a sharp rivalry between the two towns but eventually Fayette became the larger and the Upper Iowa University was located there.
The first settlement at Clermont was made in the spring of 1849 by Andrew Moats. John Thompson purchased large tracts of land on each side of Turkey River as soon as they came into market and laid out a town which he named Norway, afterwards changed to Clermont. In 1872 the Burlington and Cedar Rapids Railroad was built into the county.