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1914 History of Boone County
Chapter XXX
Union Township

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Union Township is bounded on the north by Beaver Township, on the west by Greene County, on the south by Dallas County and on the east by Peoples Township. At the time of the organization of the county the present Township of Union was a part of Pleasant Township and so continued until March 8, 1852. At this date Berry Township was organized and Union Township was contained within its borders. This division continued until the 21st of February, 1856, when Union Township was organized by Judge John B. Montgomery and named by him. It contained all the territory within its present limits and twelve sections off of the west side of the present Township of Peoples. This division continued until 1871, when the township was reduced to its present size. Thus the township came into being step by step, until it came into its present permanent boundaries.

The first settler in Union Township was John Moore and his family, in October, 1849. He located on Section 35 and lived there the remainder of his life. Two of his sons, John D. Moore and Charles R. Moore, also located with him. They came from Champaign County, Illinois.

On Beaver Creek in Union Township there was a prominent little body of timber which was known from the earliest settlement as Buffalo Grove. This name was applied to it before the Moores settled there. There is a tradition which comes down to us that a party of hunters found a small herd of buffaloes in this grove and succeeded in killing one of them there, and from this event the name originated. There is not much doubt but that this grove of timber presented an inviting appearance at the time the Moores settled there. John D Moore, one of the sons of John Moore, who settled in the edge of Buffalo Grove in 1849, is now an aged man, hvmg in the Fifth Ward of Boone.

Some of the citizens wanted the township named Buffalo Grove Township at the time of its organization in 1856, but this name was rejected by Judge Montgomery.

In 1848 a man named Carson Wood took up his abode at Buffalo Grove and broke eight acres of prairie, intending to return the next year and make a home there, but he did not do so. To him belongs the honor of turning the first prairie sod in Union Township.

Within five years from the time the Moores settled at Buffalo Grove in Union Township numerous other settlers came and made permanent locations. Among these may be mentioned James Carnes, Larsford Mills, John Carnes, George Burgctt, John H. Moore, Isaac Moore and Abel Lum.

On April 7, 1856, the first election, to elect township officers, was held at the house of James Carnes, and the following officers were elected: Justices of the peace, James Laughridge and Calvin F. Brown; township clerk and assessor, Edward Vail; trustees, Isaac Moore, Abel Lum and James Carnes; constables, Isaac Crable and Moses Rolorson. At that election there were twenty-eight votes cast, which was a very small beginning.

At this first election one member of the Moore family was chosen township trustee. It was a very appropriate thing that a member of the first family that settled in the township was one of the first officers chosen. Some of the descendants of the Moore family still live in Union Township and they own considerable real estate in Sections 25 and 36.

About the year 1858 a town was laid out by Edward Vail and Calvin Brown, which they named Unionville, but they failed to make it materialize, and for this reason it was never honored with a place on the map of the county.

At the time of its organization Union Township had a population of seventy-five people, divided into seventeen families.

The first marriage was in 1858, in which the contracting parties were Samuel Weeks and Miss Matilda Johnson.

The first birth was that of Hannah Moore, a daughter of Charles Moore, in 1858.

The first death in the township was Sarah Moore, wife of John Moore, in 1852.

John Moore, the first settler, was himself a practicing physician and he was the first to ply the profession in the township.

The first lawsuit in the township occurred in 1856, in which Francis Johnson was plaintiff and Jesse Petts defendant. It seems strange that a lawsuit should originate in a community of early settlers consisting of only seventeen families.

The first religious services in the township were held by Claiborne Wright, a Campbellite preacher, in the spring of 1854, and the first person baptized was Mary McKeon, also in 1854. This shows that the early settlers were religiously inclined.

As soon as there were children and youths enough in the township to make up a small school, the necessary steps were taken to form a district and erect a schoolhouse. The first meeting for this purpose was held at the home of James Carnes on October 14, 1855. The result was that Isaac Crable, James Laughridge and James Carnes were chosen as a board of school directors. Early in the spring of 1856 a log schoolhouse was erected on the land of James Carnes (in Section 27), 16 feet square. This was a log schoolhouse, which was not built by taxation, in the common and usual way schoolhouses are built, but each man interested furnished from one to three logs and helped to lay up the walls and finish up the house ready for the children and youths to assemble in. This old log house still lingers in the minds of some of the children who attended there in those primitive days. The first school commenced in this historic log house on the 5th of May, 1856. It was taught by Miss Caroline Palmer at a compensation of $1.75 per week, board included. The number of pupils in attendance was fifteen. The picture of this old log schoolhouse, with the teacher and scholars in front of it, would be a relic worth having.

On the 22d of August, 1856, Union Township was organized into a school district to be known as No. 1 by A. L. Speer, school fund commissioner of Boone County. The little log schoolhouse continued to supply the wants of the people until June 17, 1859, at which date the board of directors divided the township into two districts, and on the 17th of June, 1861, it decided to build two new schoolhouses, one in each of these districts. On the 1st of July, 1861, the contract was let at $700. The house in District No. 1 was named Lincoln, and the house in District No. 2 was named Douglas. The number of pupils in 1861 was fifty - an increase of thirty-five since the first schoolhouse was built in 1856. In 1865 the number of scholars enrolled in the township was eighty-five. In 1871, the date at which the township was reduced to its present size, it contained five schoolhouses and the number of children and youths between the ages of five and twentv-one years, according to the census of 1871, was 159. In 1875 the district township was divided into nine independent school districts. In each of these nine districts there is now a good
schoolhouse, kept in good repair, with from seven to nine months of school every year. They have as good, up-to-date teachers as any township in the county. It will be seen from the foregoing that the people of this township have from the beginning taken an active interest in building up and sustaining the common schools.

Although Union Township was but sparsely settled at the outbreak of the Civil war, it furnished eighteen soldiers, as follows: Francis M. Burgett, Ariel S. Collins, Manford Paige, John E. Carnes, William Peoples, Orin Mills, Calvin Johnson, Charles R. Moore, Joseph Elliot. None of the above named men returned to their homes and fields again. The following nine men were permitted to return: Lewis Athey, Thomas Athey, William R. Moore, John D. Moore, George Lum, James Mills, Abraham Tulk, Nathan Mower and John Ricketts.

The only stream that has a name and a place on the map of this township is Beaver Creek. A history of this stream is given in another part of this work, under the heading of The Small Streams of Boone County.

The native timber along the Beaver furnished the fuel and building material for the first settlers of the township. There was also much wild game found along the Beaver in the beginning of the settlement. O. D. Smalley, the Christopher Columbus of Dallas County, often spoke of the number of deer he brought down with his rifle near Buffalo Grove from 1846 to 1850. At one time Mr. Smalley ran out of patching for his rifle bullets and had to use a portion of his shirt for that purpose.

The early settlers of Union Township encountered the hardships of frontier life the same as the pioneers of other parts of the county. For years they had to haul all of their supplies from the Mississippi River towns, a distance of 200 miles. They also had to take their wheat and corn a long distance to find mills to manufacture their grain into bread stuff. It must be remembered that in that day there were no graded roads nor bridged streams to make traveling easy and rapid, like it is over the good roads and bridged streams of the present day. It took patience and courage to surmount th.e difficulties of the pioneer times.

Like the other townships of the county, the soil of Union Township is rich and productive and the farmers raise large crops. Horses, cattle and hogs are extensively raised and placed upon the markets by the farmers of Union Township. Their homes are nice, substantial and inviting. For a number of years the early settlers of Union Township were separated from the county seat and from the settlements along the Des Moines River by miles of unsettled prairie, over which there were no laid out roads to travel upon. From 1849 to 1852 the voters at and in the vicinity of Buffalo Grove had to go to Belle Point, a distance of sixteen miles, to cast their votes.

The first citizen of Union Township to be honored with a county office was Peter Mower. In 1860 he was elected by the voters of that township a member of the board of county supervisors. This was at the time and under the law giving each organized township the right to elect a member of the board of supervisors. Mr. Mower was at the time a man advanced in years, but he filled the office in such a careful, honest and dignified manner that he was elected for a second term. Dr. A. M. Mower, a son of Peter Mower, was for many years a practicing physician in Union Township. Some of the Mower family still reside in the township.

There are two railroads in Union Township - the Des Moines & Fort Dodge and the Minneapolis & St. Louis, and two railroad stations - Angus and Berkley. These roads and stations have helped very materially in the development of the township.

Another citizen of Union Township who was honored with a county office was Lovell W. Fisk, who was elected superintendent of schools in 1869, and ran for reelection, but was defeated. L. W. Fisk and his son, J. A. Fisk, were among the early teachers in Union Township. Mr. Fisk owned at one time a large body of land and for a number of years he was supposed to be quite wealthy. But suddenly he became financially swamped and took his departure from the country and never returned. The young Fisk died a few years before this financial disaster of his father's occurred.

The coal development in Union Township presents the most interesting, remarkable and romantic history of any township in the county - perhaps in the state. A full history of the coal development in Union Township and of the Town of Angus, its growth and its decline and of its newspapers is here given in a write-up clipped from the Register and Leader a few years ago, which is entitled "The Rise and Fall of Angus." The article follows:

RISE AND FALL OF ANGUS

"The old Des Moines Valley Railroad, which in the early '70s built a northward extension to its line running from Keokuk to Des Moines, was the pioneer railroad, north and south, in Iowa. Of the numerous towns which sprang up along its line was one called Coaltown. Coaltown is not on the map today, because the name was later changed by Hamilton Browne, now of Geneva, Illinois, to Angus, in honor of one of the railroad officials. In turn, Angus is in danger of losing its place on the map, not because some one is dissatisfied with the nomenclature, but because of lack of inhabitants.

"Angus was in 1885 by far the largest coal mining town in all Iowa. It rose in a boom that extended over a period of five or six years. At the zenith of its prosperity it contained something over five thousand inhabitants. After 1885 the decadence set in and now there is almost nothing left. The municipal incorporation was abandoned four years ago and would have been abandoned sooner had not fiscal difficulties prevented. The jerry built houses and stores have all been moved away. When Angus began to decline they were sold in bunches, sometimes for a mere song, were torn down or put on rollers and shifted to neighboring towns. The mining industry has completely run out, save two or three country pits, which combined do not hoist enough coal to keep a large-sized furnace hot.

A PATHETIC STORY

"The rise and fall of Angus is rather a pathetic story. The town has struggled bravely these twenty years against adverse fate, but its struggles in the last half of this period have been very weak and indeed very hopeless. The downward movement has been practically continuous, save for two or three spurts that turned out to be mere flashes in the pan.

"There are today hundreds of residences in Perry that have been reconstructed out of buildings moved from Angus. Rippey, Dawson and Berkley all have many houses that originally stood in Angus. There are others at Fraser and not a few were cut up in sections, loaded on flat cars and taken to the mining settlements in and around Des Moines. Houses in that period of industrial darkness sold at bargain prices startling to conceive. For a mere bagatelle a purchaser could get warranty deeds to a dozen houses and lots. The lots were of no use to him. It was the lumber in the houses that he wanted. The lots were denuded of every stick and left to accumulate taxes until finally sold at county tax sales and reverted back into fertile farm land.

"The first mine operated in Angus was sunk by the late John F. Dunscombe, capitalist, of Fort Dodge. After a time he sold his interests to the Climax Coal Company, in which James J. Hill, railway magnate, was interested. This company was the first to develop the coal resources of the locality to any great extent. Altogether they operated three of the largest mines in the state, hoisting hundreds of tons of coal daily. Other companies were on the ground at once, secretly drilling and securing options on tracts of land. The coal supply every one said was inexhaustible. But time proved that the term inexhaustible applied to the Angus coal fields was like the term impregnable applied to Port Arthur. Nine companies were soon in operation in Angus and its nearby suburbs and with coal rattling down their chutes day and night, in time found the diggings 'worked out.' Then these companies closed their pits, laid ofif their workmen and moved to greener pastures, as it were.

BACK FROM RAILWAY

"Fate set the Town of Angus back from the railroad and its charms were invisible from the passing trains. But the town, shortly after the advent of the Climax Coal Company, grew with wonderful rapidity. Its rough and ready population flocked in from all the coal mining districts of the Union and many from the coal regions across the seas. Great strings of coal cars loaded to the brim with some of the best bituminous ever mined in the middle West daily wended their way from the various banks and were distributed to all parts of this and adjoining states. The coal was from three to five feet thick, with a good roof and of quality unsurpassed. When Angus coal became known it was saleable by the carload and trainload. The record of production of one of the Climax shafts for one day was eighty cars of coal, fifty-three of which were lump coal.

"The nine companies which operated there were as follows: Keystone, Climax, Standard, Moingona, Panic, Milwaukee, Dalbey, Ohio and Armstrong Coal companies.

"Probably next to the Climax in amount of coal produced in one day's run was the Standard Mine, of which John McKay, Sr., of Des Moines, was superintendent. Mr. McKay states that as nearly as he can remember the largest amount of coal hoisted in one day from the Standard Mine was 650 tons. It is said that this company made as much as $34,000 in one year out of its single mine.

"Tlie outlook was golden in promise and it was freely predicted that Angus would soon be the metropolis of the state, with Des Moines a mere village in comparison. The Minneapolis & St. Louis Railroad Company had just built a line from Albert Lea to Angus and had surveyed two or three hundred miles south, headed toward its projected southern terminus - St. Louis. The line was even graded many miles south of Angus and today the old piling for the crossing of the Raccoon River may still be seen. When trouble overtook the M. & St. L. Railroad and extension work was dropped, Angus' enthusiastic population did not lose hope and faith in tlic future. It was a year of railroad construction and all, seemingly, were headed toward Angus. The populace was inexpugnably certain that the town would be a great railroad center, because of its mineral resources, fine surrounding territory and admirable geographical location. O. M. Brockett, now a prominent attorney of Des Moines, was editor of the Angus Tenderfoot in those days and in his issue of July 24, 1884, he painted quite a beguiling picture of hopes and ambitions of this booming town where coal was king. Said the Tenderfoot:

" 'The Moingona Coal Company has been quietly prospecting ever since the spring in Wirth's Addition, the company owning the coal rights to that tract. The prospecting has been extensive and thorough and it is claimed that the field is one of the most valuable yet found in Angus. The company will begin operations this week sinking their first shaft and expect to be ready to operate on an extensive scale in time for the fall and winter trade. The fact that from the thousands of acres of coal fields in and adjoining our thriving city - as fine in quality as any in Iowa, and probably from railroad facilities and geographical location the best paying in the state - only about eighty acres has been taken out and the further fact that another as strong, wealthy and driving a company as the Moingona is coming here to live with us ought to convince the most skeptical that our coal supply is simply inexhaustible and the permanent prosperity of Angus is assured.

AN ACQUISITION

" 'This is one of the most valuable acquisitions to the place it has yet secured and will be the means of adding many thousands of dollars worth of improvements, besides furnishing employment for manv more men. The few men already here who were able, but were hesitating about investing in property, building and improving will now make a tardy move in the matter while many more will come and build new homes. Business speed will feel an accelerating influence and step with a firmer tread. It has never seen such a boom as the one that will be on before the snow flies. If there are any skeptical kickers and hangers-on let them hasten to clear the track for the wheels of the juggernaut are rolling and the chariot of Angus' prosperity will move right along until its coal and fine surrounding grain and stock raising country make of it a solid city as far out as its now most remote and scattered suburbs, and the smoke from many a factory, shop and mill shall wreath the spires, belfries and towers of the churches and institutions of learning that shall tower to the pathway of the floating clouds.'

"But in less than two years thereafter the bright hopes of Angus had passed under a cloud of Cimerian blackness. The Tenderfoot had already passed out of existence and its owners, Messrs. O. M. Brockett and G. A. Clark, gone elsewhere. But between the time the Tenderfoot had printed its glowing prophecy and the time the decline began, the paper had assumed the dignified title of The Iowa Times, presumably preparatory of the day when it would be the leading city of the state. When it suspended there was but one paper left, the Black Diamond, owned and edited by Robert Lowrey, who later removed to Oklahoma and gained considerable political prominence there.

"At the beginning of 1887 the town had begun to show remarkable evidences of decay. Several of the larger companies had closed down, several stores had gone out of business and the population had decimated surprisingly. It was discouraging, discouraging even to the Black Diamond, and Mr. Lowrey found it necessary to publish this ominous warning in his paper: 'So far, the newspaper business in Angus has been dull. Appearances indicate that it will be much more so before the summer season is over. We have no reflections to cast upon our business men for not extending a more liberal support toward the paper. But to attempt to run a paper of any size, such as the Diamond is, and make a living out of it in Angus, is beyond the powers of anyone. We have managed to make expenses, but we are not here for just that purpose, and when we begin to find the necessary expense incurred in running it not forthcoming, we'll lock up and put it on ice for the summer.'

THE PAPER QUITS

"That was printed in the issue of May 27, 1887. A few weeks later the paper was 'put on ice' and, although many summers have come and gone since then, the paper is still in cold storage.

"The most exciting chapter in the history of Angus was that relating to the big strike which began in September. 1884, and ended with a riot in January, 1885. It was a troublesome period for every one concerned. Backed by the Knights of Labor, every man walked out, demanded the usual fall raise of 12-1/2 cents in the price of mining, wliich the operators had refused to grant. It was a complete shutdown. Offers of compromise and arbitration were rejected again and again. After several weeks of complete idleness the operators made an attempt to bring a number of strike breakers into the town. What had been a quiet game of freeze-out at once developed into a serious, belligerent affair. Mischief was afoot in a moment and the miners truculently announced that they would not let the 'blacklegs' mine an ounce of coal. They marched from place to place, held open air mass meetings and formulated plans for the reception of the strike breakers. It was a puzzle to the operators how to get the men into town and out to the mines without bloodshed, but after one or two futile attempts they finally succeeded in landing a trainload of men at Snake Creek, three miles west of the depot. But this cunning trick did not baffle the miners, who, when they learned the whereabouts of the so-called 'blacklegs,' marched en masse to Snake Creek, armed and determined. There they found the new men in a lodging house, barricaded against attack. It was the middle of a cold winter night and the attack was somewhat unexpected. The striking workmen, determined 'to drive the rascals out,' partly tore down and finally set fire to the building. This had all been done so swiftly and unexpectedly that many of the cowering 'blacklegs' had to flee from the burning house sans coats and shirts and in many cases sans trousers. Without being given time to complete their toilets, the unwelcome men were literally kicked out of town. Two companies of militia arrived early next morning from Des Moines. The companies were H, Third Regiment, in charge of Capt. Franklin DeFord, and A, same regiment, in charge of B. W. Bartlett. But all was quiet when the soldiers arrived and the strike settled by arbitration soon thereafter. Company H remained until a settlement was made.

THE FIRST MOVE

"In less than five years after the end of this strike half the population had moved away and most of the big mines shut down. Some even returned to 'the old country,' but more sought work in other camps wherever coal was mined in the Union. Hundreds of former Angus citizens are now residents of Des Moines and many of that city's most prominent coal operators were formerly connected with mines at Angus.

"The belief that there is a larger and better vein of coal in the Angus quadrangle is still one of the promissory assets of the town. But years of waiting have about strangled the belief that anyone will ever spend the money to go down for it. In America they do not drill down until they either strike mineral or ashes.

" 'There is plenty of coal here,' you can still hear an occasional old timer say; 'all that is needed is some one with capital and confidence enough to go down after it.'

"In 1892, after years of declining, the coal business in Angus did take a temporary spurt. The eternal hope in the human breast led many to believe that at last the tide had turned. So flush did times get to be that on January 10th of that year, an ambitious printer, J. Y. Steir, started a weekly paper, the Angus News. In the sixth issue of the paper it was announced in clarion tones that big things were in store for the town.

" 'The town limits of Angus are not quite as large as Des Moines,' said the News, 'but they are not too large for what Angus is likely to be in the next few years. It is believed by many of our citizens that there is a vein of coal a few feet below the vein that is now being worked that is thick enough to give work to several hundred miners for several years to come. It will not be very long until this coal field will be more thoroughly prospected and if there is a good vein of coal below the one now being operated it will be mined for all there is in it.'

"The spurt lasted one winter, then retrogression began again; the old despondency returned. The News never saw its first birthday. It was under four managements the last month of its brief existence, its last proprietor being John Hall, later of Des Moines.

THE BANK BURSTS

"The bank that flourished in the palmy days 'went to the wall,' August 7, 1893. It was the period of the Cleveland panic. It was a private bank owned by A. T. Pearson. Its deposits consisted mainly of hard-earned savings accumulated after years of toil. After months of anxiety and waiting they finally got back about thirty-five cents on the dollar.

"There are two churches in the town - Methodist Episcopal and Primitive Methodist, the latter of which is presided over by Rev. William A. Morris. He came to Angus in 1883. The town was then at the height of its hurry and tumult and glow. It had about everything excepting religious services. These the people did not seem to hanker for and Mr. Morris labored against difficulties in starting the first Sunday school and church services. But he was an indefatigable worker in the cause of Christ and soon rallied around him a little coterie of men and women who set themselves to fight the forces of evil which had gained such a stronghold upon the town. In a dwelling house about three miles west of the depot the Methodists had established a meeting place, but the attendance was slim and interest lax. Mr. Morris realized that a more central location was needed. He started street prayer meetings and preached the word of God in the open air. Meetings were also held in schoolhouses, residences and wherever an audience would congregate. Success finally began to crown the efforts of this missionary miner and the saloon element found they had a real potent force with which to deal. The first church to be built in the town was built by the Swedish population, and in it Mr. Morris and T. A. Ray started  a Union Sunday school. But for church services it was used solely by the Reformed Lutherans, the denomination which had built it. About this time, 1884, the Welsh Congregationalists built a church near the center of the town. This made two houses of worship with services in foreign tongues, but none in English. However, m that year the Methodist Episcopal denomination erected a large, substantial building in the southwestern portion of town (Miller's addition). It was then no longer necessary to use the South Angus and Maple Grove schoolhouses for services. Meetings, however, continued to be held in the open air in the heart of the town. Rev. John Elliott, one of the best known Methodist ministers in Iowa at the time, was appointed pastor of the new church, September 22, 1885, and reappointed in September, 1886. (Bishop) B. F. W. Cozier was presiding elder of the district at the time. Mr. Elliott began revival services that spread a wave of religious enthusiasm over the whole city. This earnest, energetic soldier of the cross and his able lieutenants were the means of making many converts. This wholesale change of heart was not appreciated by the saloon element, and out of revenge one night in May, 1886, they set the church on fire and it burned to the ground.

THE REVIVALS

"Meetings were then held in a store building and later in the Welsh Church. The revival broke out again with fresh warmth. At that time a Mrs. C. Watson, revivalist, was holding meetings in Grant County, Wisconsin, for the western conference of the Primitive Methodist Church and she was induced to come to Angus and deliver her wonderful exhortations. People flocked to the church like sheep, and on the strength of this the erection of a Primitive Methodist Church was begun in 1887. The star of prosperity was then sinking and it was difiicult to get funds, but the church was finally completed. Three or four years later the Methodist Episcopal Church was rebuilt, though on a much smaller scale. All the religious leaders have gone, all save Mr. Morris, and he has not changed, nor cared to change his place.

"The last blow that avenging fate took at Angus was at the first of the present year, when the Minneapolis & St. Louis Railroad assumed control of the Des Moines & Fort Dodge line, formerly operated by the Rock Island. Previous to that time Angus had been the terminus of the M. & St. L. and the engine and train crews of both lines made their headquarters there. This only meant a half dozen or so families, but it seemed to be the climax of bad luck and quenched forever the hope of the M. & St. L. ever extending southward and making the town a division point.

"The traveler would never suspect that he were in a town, for the original incorporation lines were large and widely apart and when the denuding process began it left a house or two here and there, miles apart from extreme points. The company houses on Red Hill are all gone; the yellow houses of the Standard Company are all gone; the Milwaukee Company houses are all gone. All, all are gone, the old familiar houses. What few buildings remain are cut off from one another by stretches of land under the plow that sold for fabulous prices when the bull movement was on. Where roads and streets once were there are now barbed wire fences. Here and there are heaps of useless mine machinery, rusty old boilers, enfenced pitholes and slack dumps.

"Such is Angus today. A desolate, anomalous picture to look upon. A town with considerable past but not much present or future to speak of."

A visit to the old Town of Angus on the 18th of May, 1914, fully confirms all that is said in the foregoing article in relation to the decline and fall of this historic town. The scattered condition of the buildings, showing the outlines of the streets, prove that it was once a town of considerable size. Although Angus is surrounded by a good farming country and has two railroads, its decline still continues. Its population in 1886 was 3,500. In 1900 it was 333 and in 1910, 248. Angus, however, still has a postoffice, two stores, one grain elevator, two churches and one schoolhouse. One of the churches is of the Methodist Episcopal denomination, which has a church building, a fair sized membership and a Sunday school. But it has no local minister and is supplied from Rippey. The other is a Primitive Methodist Church, which has a church building, a fair sized congregation and a Sunday school. They have a local minister in the person of Rev. William A. Morris, who came here in 1883 and commenced preaching and is still there and still preaching for the same denomination.

Angus has had for a number of years some old buildings which are empty much of the time. These buildings often become the abode of bad citizens, which is another bad thing for the town. For a few years past what has been known as the Burns gang has made Angus its headquarters. The towns for miles in all directions have been visited by burglars and thieves, who have committed many depredations, but no trace of them has been found until very recently. About the 1st of April of the present year a burglary was committed in Madrid and Sheriff John Reed of Boone County got on their trail and found them located in a building at Angus. He arrested three of them and they are now in jail at Boone. One of these is thought to be the ring leader of the gang. They had in their possession a large number of articles of stolen goods.

To look over Angus in its present condition it is hard to believe that it ever had a population of 3,500 and supported two newspapers, but there is plenty of evidence to prove that such was the case. One of these newspapers was issued under the name of The Tenderfoot and edited by O. M. Brockett, now one of the leading lawyers of the City of Des Moines. During the editorship of Mr. Brockett the paper was changed to the Angus Times, which was a good change.

BERKLEY

The third town to be laid out in Union Township was the Town of Berkley. It was laid out in 1883 and is situated on section 4, township 82, range 28, and on the Minneapolis & St. Louis Railroad. It is now claimed that Berkley has a population of 150. It has a postoffice, two stores, one implement store, a bank, a grain elevator, a blacksmith shop, one restaurant and a number of nice residences. There is one church of the Methodist Episcopal denomination, with regular services and a live Sunday school. There is one school building, with an enrollment of forty pupils.

The country around Berkley is nice and inviting, the soil is rich and good crops are produced every year. Much grain is also shipped from here. Besides Peter Mower and L. W. Fisk, who have held county offices, as already mentioned, A. L. Mace also held the office of county supervisor for two terms.

But few crimes have ever been committed in Union Township outside of the Town of Angus. The records of the county show but very little criminal procedure against the permanent settlers of Union Township.

The present officers of the township are: Trustees, R. G. White, R. P. Mower and Joseph Hager; clerk, Ira Johnson; justice of the peace, Robert Fuller; constable, J. J. Moore.

The population of Union Township, according to the census of 1910, including the Town of Angus, was 904. Not including Angus, it was 656.

Source: History of Boone County, Iowa
N. E. Goldthwait, Supervising Editor
Illustrated, Volume I
Chicago, Pioneer Publishing Company
1914

Transcribed by Lynn Diemer-Mathews and uploaded September 9, 2024.