county judge; treasurer and recorder, Hugh Lytle; clerk, Andrew Hall; and J. F. Lane, sheriff. The county business was transacted at the Mormon town, Preparation. The commissioners chosen to locate the county-seat selected Ashton in the fall of 1854. The same year Mr. Thompson started two papers; one, a weekly called The Messenger, and the other a monthly named Zion’s Harbinger. The were published at Preparation.
In 1857 the Mormon Land Company laid out the town of Onawa and the first house was built by S. S. Pearse in July, while J. E. Morrison the same season built a hotel called the Onawa House. C. E. Whiting was one of the early settlers in the county who planted large orchards and extensive groves of trees.
In 1858, by a vote of the people the county-seat was moved to Onawa. The Sioux City and Pacific Railroad was the first built through the county.
MONROE COUNTY lies in the second tier north of the Missouri line and in the fifth west of the Mississippi River. It has twelve congressional townships containing an area of four hundred thirty-two square miles. The county was first named Kishkekosh and organized under that name but changed to Monroe August 1, 1846, in honor of the fifth President of the United States. A history of its organization and early settlements will be found in the sketch of Kishkekosh County. The name of the county-seat, Princeton, was changed to Albia. In 1854 A. C. Barnes established a newspaper at Albia in the interest of the “free soil” movement which was called the Albia Independent Press. The main line of the Burlington Railroad runs through the county from east to west with a branch to Des Moines.
MONTGOMERY COUNTY lies in the second tier east of the Missouri River and also in the second tier north of the Missouri State line. It was created in 1851 and
