History of Iowa From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century/3/Counties/Davis
DAVIS COUNTY is in the third tier west of the Mississippi River on the south line of the State and embraces an area of five hundred three square miles, as the southern tier of townships is divided by the State line. It was formerly included in the original county of Demoine and afterwards in Van Buren but was created with its present boundaries in 1844 and named for Garret Davis a Kentucky statesman.
As early as 1837 hunters and trappers built cabins in the southern part of the county long before the Sac and Fox Indians had been removed. In 1837 James H. Jordon established a trading post among these Indians on the banks of the Des Moines River in the northeast corner of the county, Van Caldwell and others located near him in 1839-40. In 1842 a post-office was established in the county on the extreme western limits of the Black Hawk Purchase, at a point called Fox, with S. A. Evans as postmaster.
The county was organized in 1844 by the election of the following officers: S. W. McAtee, W. D. Evans and Abraham Weaver, commissioners; Calvin Taylor, treasurer; Israel Kister, recorder; F. C. Humble, sheriff, and Franklin Street, clerk. The county-seat was located at Bloomfield and the first term of court was held in September, 1844, with Judge Charles Mason presiding. James H. Cowles had, in 1846, entered the land upon which Bloomfield was located and conveyed it to the commissioners who had there established the county-seat. The town was platted the same summer and a post-office secured. The first merchant in the new town was John Lucas who had taken a claim adjoining it in 1844, upon which he had built a log cabin occupied by his family and used also for his store. Hosea B. Horn built the first frame house in Bloomfield in 1849. In 1854 the first newspaper was started by George Johnson named the Western Gazette.