seven square miles and the eastern portion is well supplied with timber along the Nodaway River which flows south through the county.
As early as the spring of 1840 three brothers, George W., Henry and David Farrens, all young unmarried men, came from Jackson County, Missouri, took claims near the southeast corner of the county where they built a cabin and opened farms. In the spring of 1841 George and David Brock settled near them and in 1842 Burket and Thomas Johnson, William Campbell and Robert Wilson with their families joined the settlement. In 1843 three brothers, Joseph, Moses and Larkin Thompson settled a few miles southeast of where Clarinda stands. Nodaway is an Indian name signifying “vindictive” and was given by the Indians to the river because in early days its banks were infested with rattlesnakes.
In 1851 the county was organized by the election of Dr. Alexander Farrens, clerk; Benjamin W. Stafford, sheriff; S. F. Snyder, John Duncan and William Shearer, commissioners. The election was held at Boulwar’s mill where for several years the county business was transacted. The first court was held there in September, 1851, Judge Sloan, presiding. The commissioners chosen to locate the county-seat met at Boulwar’s mill in March, 1853, and selected a site two and one-half miles north on the Nodaway River, where a town was laid out and named Clarinda. In April, 1853, the first house was built on the plat by Rev. S. Farlow and soon after Judge Snyder erected the second cabin at the new county-seat. George Rible kept the first hotel and Isabella Farlow opened the first school in the summer of 1853. The first mill was built by George Stonebraker in 1846 on the Nodaway River and afterward became known as Boulwar’s Mill, where quite a village grew up. The first orchard in the county was planted in the spring of 1842 by George W. Farrens. Shenandoah is a thriving town in the western part of the county on the line of a branch of the Burlington Railroad.
