M. Preston and D. P. Palmer. A school was opened near Marysville and a saw mill built on Mud Creek soon after the first settlers erected their log cabins. In October, 1846, a post-office was established at Vinton with Stephen Holcomb as postmaster. In early days a fine grove of red cedars stood on the banks of the Cedar River but a vandal squatter named Thompson cut them down and sold the logs down the river. A few years later several similar groves were destroyed in like manner. It was from these and other groves that the Cedar River derived its name.
The first newspaper in the county was established in January, 1855, by Frederick Lyman and S. C. Foster and named the Vinton Eagle. The Presbyterians organized the first church at Vinton in 1852, with Rev. John Summerson as pastor. In 1858 Thomas Drummond the young editor of the Vinton Eagle was a member of the Legislature and secured the passage of an act locating the Asylum for the Blind at Vinton. In 1861 the town of Belle Plaine was laid out on the line of the Chicago, Iowa and Nebraska Railroad which had just been extended through the southern part of the county. Another town was also laid out on this line the same year, named Blairstown, for John I. Blair, who was the president of the construction company.
In 1854 Jacob Cantonwine laid out a town on Bear Creek which was named Shellsburg for a city in Pennsylvania. Norway was laid out in 1863 on the line of the Northwestern Railroad and this named at the request of Osborn Tuttle who gave five acres of land to the railroad company. Benton County is well watered by the Cedar and Iowa rivers and their tributaries which furnish water power in many places. Native timber is found along the streams and the prairie soil is of the best quality. Building stone is quite abundant along the Cedar River and granite boulders are found in many sections of the county.
