The Early Years of Brighton Township

Brighton Township is the northwesternmost township in Cass County, and is one of the oldest. The County Court authorized the formation of the Township in March, 1858, and the citizens here approved this act in a special election on April 5, 1858. Before the townships were reorganized in 1870, Brighton Township included all of its present area and also the northwest quarter of what is now Washington Township. The naming of the new township was accomplished in the following manner; the petition of settlers and farmers of northwest Cass County was presented to County Judge Samuel L. Lorah at the March, 1858, term of court. This petition requested that the court establish a township in northwest Cass County, and included the proposed boundaries. When Judge Lorah inquired as to the name of the township, one of the petitioners, Thomas Meredith, offered the name "Britain" in honor of his native England. Judge Lorah opposed this, however, on the grounds of the "tea trouble" and Revolution eighty years previous. Mr. Meredith then suggested the name "Brighton" as a compromise, and it proved acceptable to all concerned. Two years after its formation, the 1860 census counted seventy-three persons living in Brighton Township. The gold rush in Colorado and enlistments in the Union Army during the Civil War caused the 1863 census to include only forty inhabitants, but the population steadily increased afterward until the census of 1875 (the year Marne was founded) showed the population to include 617 persons. The establishment and subsequent growth of Marne caused the number of inhabitants in Brighton Township to increase to 1,153 by the year 1880. The first person to settle in the township was Victor M. Bradshaw. Mr. Bradshaw arrived in Cass County in the spring of 1851 with his parents, Jeremiah and Azuba Bradshaw. They settled near Cold Spring, but the newly-married Victor left home and established himself on a claim at what was later known as Ludley's Grove, on or very near to Section 33 in the south-central portion of the township, not far from where Mrs. Mildred McCarty and Jack and Bertha Manz now live. V. M. Bradshaw did not remain on his homestead for long, since he returned to the vicinity of Lewis and became prominent in political affairs of Cass Township and the county itself in later years. Aaron Byrd established the second claim within Brighton Township in 1852. This claim was in the southeasternmost corner of the township and adjoined land in other townships also owned by Aaron Byrd and his father and brothers. Thomas Meredith arrived in the township in 1855, and literally pitched his tent in the Eight-Mile-Grove in the northeast quarter of Section 32, just west of the present farm of Jack and Bertha Manz. Mr. Meredith was the first permanent resident of the township. He later added to and improved his land holdings until he became one of the largest landowners in the county. Mr. Meredith's full biography and the account of his role in the establishment of Marne are included in a later chapter. Thomas Ludley, an immigrant from England, also arrived in Brighton Township in 1855 and erected a cabin near the spot where Mildred McCarty's house is located. Ludley's claim included parts of Section 33. The next year he purchased a forty-acre tract west of his claim, and two years later, in 1858, secured an eighty-acre tract in Section 28 lying north of his original claim. Ludley did not improve his lands as he should have and consequently his properties were adequate but his profits marginal. Ludley left for Oregon about the time of the Civil War to improve his fortunes. In 1857, William E. Porter acquired a forty-acre tract in Section 33 to the north of Ludley's original claim. A land speculator by the name of John W. Russell secured a forty-acre tract in the southeast quarter of Section 33 east of W. E. Porter's claim in August, 1857, and in the following year acquired the remaining 120 acres of the quarter-section. Although Russell built a house on his land, he only lived in the house when he visited his Iowa properties, since he remained a resident of his native state of Ohio. John Russell added to his lands until he was a large property owner in the township toward the end of the 19th century. The American Civil War of 1861-1865 caused a drain on the number of settlers in the township and the Colorado Gold Rush lured immigrants westward with the promise of sudden riches. Yet the trickle of new arrivals in the township during the Civil War years included families who were bulwarks of the community and whose descendants continue to sustain Marne and Brighton Township down to the present day. John A. Collins arrived in the township in the fall of 1863 and spent the winter in a shack on the southwest quarter of Section 24, three miles east of the present town of Marne, on the township line. That winter he purchased 160 acres in Section 36 in the southeastern corner of the township and finished a partially constructed house on this property. He paid $100 down on this farm, which left him a total of $25 to work with as operating capital, but within twenty years he owned 240 acres of improved land and was a prosperous farmer. George W. Crouch in 1864 bought the 40 acre tract occupied by John A. Collins the previous winter. Mr. Crouch and his family lived in the Collins' one-room log cabin until the Crouch family enjoyed the profits from their efforts and gradually acquired a 160-acre farm and substantial home and buildings, reflecting their general prosperity. Perhaps the most influential pioneer family in the history of Marne and Brighton Township was that of William M. Trailor who arrived in 1864. On his arrival in Cass County from Menard County, Illinois, Mr. Trailor met Thomas Meredith and bought from his 180 acres along the east bank of Indian Creek in the west half of Section 29, one mile southwest of the present site of the town of Marne. Mr. Trailor brought several wagons of goods and $5,000 cash with him from Illinois. He built a cabin on the bank of Indian Creek, where the family lived for eighteen months, until a new house was constructed to replace the temporary shelter. All of the materials for the new house had to be hauled to the site from Boonesboro, Missouri, except for the frame of the house, which was cut at a mill one mile south ofthe homesite. When this house burned to the ground two years later, all the household furnishings were consumed by the flames. A larger home was built to replace it. By the time of his death on September 27, 1903, Mr. William Trailor had acquired property to the extent of over 2,700 acres in Cass and Pottawattamie Counties and was the largest landowner in Cass County. William F. Altig arrived in Brighton Township in the spring of 1864 and purchased a 240-acre farm in Section 33. He later added other parcels of land to his original purchase and in 1872 erected the house where Mrs. Mildred McCarty now lives. Mr. Altig owned about four hundred acres of farm property and several lots in Marne at the time of his death in the 1880's. Pierce Maher arrived at New York in 1851 from Ireland at the age of twenty-one with $1.50 in his pocket. He worked as a hired hand in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, for seven years, then removed to Brighton Township where he again worked as a laborer by the month. After a short time, he bought a forty-acre parcel of land in Section 32 and acquired other tracts of land until he owned over 320 acres of prime farm land. After his death in 1893, his will provided funds for the erection of the present edifice of SS. Peter and Paul Catholic Church in Atlantic.

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Transcribed from "The First Century, A History of Marne, Iowa 1875 - 1975", published in 1975, Marne, Iowa: The Marne Centennial Historical Committee, pp. 7-9. Transcribed (2015) by Cheryl Siebrass and contributed September, 2019.