Purchase," as it was then called, into two separate territories. All that portion south of the 33rd parrallel of north latitude, was called the Territory of Orleans," and that north of the said parallel was known as the "District of Louisiana," and was placed under the jurisdiction of what was then known as "Indian Territory.

On the 4th day of July, 1805, another change occurred, the district of Louisiana becoming on that day the "Territory of Louisiana.” The legislative power was vested in the governor and three judges, to be appointed by the President and Senate, the former for three years, the latter for four. This government continued until the 7th day of December, 1812, when the Territory of Louisiana became the Territory of Missouri.

In 1819 a portion of this Territory was organized as Arkansas Territory," and in 1821 the State of Missouri was admitted, being a part of the former Territory of Missouri.

The admission of Missouri carried with it the abolition of the Territory of Missouri. All that part of the latter not included within the limits of the State of Missouri, was therefore left without civil government, and remained in that condition until June 28th, 1834, when the portion east of the Missouri and White Earth Rivers, which limits included all of the present Wisconsin, Iowa and Minnesota, and most of the Territory of Dakota, became a part of the Territory of Michigan.

In July, 1836, the territory embracing the present States of Iowa, Minnesota and Wisconsin was detached from Michigan, and organized with a separate territorial government under the name of "Wisconsin Territory."

By virtue of an act of Congress, approved June 12th, 1838, on the 3rd of July, of the same year, the Territory of Iowa was constituted. It embraced the present State of Iowa, and the greater portion of what is now the State of Minnesota. Robert Lucas, who had been one of the early Governors of Ohio, was appointed the first Territorial Governor, and William B. Conway, secretary. The latter died during his term of office, in November, 1839, and James Clarke was appointed to the vacancy. The first Legislative Assembly convened at Burlington, November 12th, 1838. That place continued as the seat of the Territorial Government until the Fourth Legislative Assembly, which convened at Iowa City, December 6th, 1841. The latter place continued as the capital of the territory and state until the permanent location at Des Moines, in 1857.

On the 17th of January, 1846, the Legislative Assembly passed an act providing directly for an election, in April following, of delegates to a constitutional convention. The convention thus provided for met at Iowa City on the 4th day of May following, and formed a constitution with the present boundaries of the state, which had meantime been proposed in Congress. This constitution was adopted by the

people August 3rd, 1846, by 9,492 affirmative votes against 9,036 negative votes. Governor Clarke, by proclamation, called an election of state officers for October 26th, 1846. On that day Ansel Briggs, of the county of Jackson, was elected Governor, Elisha Cutler, jr., Secretary of State, Joseph T. Fales, Auditor of Public Accounts, and Morgan Reno Treasurer. These officers entered upon their respective duties December following.

On the 28th of December, A. D. 1846, Iowa was admitted into the Union as the twenty-ninth state.

It is a matter of some interest to glance at the various changes of ownership and jurisdiction through which it has passed.

It belonged to France, with other territory now belonging to our national domain.

In 1763, with other territory, it was ceded to Spain.

October 1st, 1800, it was ceded, with other territory, from Spain back to France.

April 30th, 1803, it was ceded, with other territory, by France to the United States.

October 31st, 1803, a temporary government was authorized by Congress for the newly acquired territory.

October 1st, 1804, it was included in the District of Louisiana, and placed under the jurisdiction of the Territorial Government of Indiana. July 4th, 1805, it was included as a part of the Territory of Louisiana, then organized with a separate Territorial Government.

June 4th, 1812, it was embraced in what was then made the Territory of Missouri.

June 28th, 1834, it became part of the Territory of Michigan. July 3rd, 1836, it was included as a part of the newly organized Territory of Wisconsin.

June 12th, 1838, it was included in and constituted a part of the newly organized Territory of Iowa.

December 28th, 1846, it was admitted into the Union as a State. Among the first important matters demanding attention at the first session of the Iowa Territorial Legislature, was the location of the seat of government, and provision for the erection of public buildings, for which Congress had appropriated $20,000. Governor Lucas, in his message, had recommended the appointment of commissioners, with a view to making a central location. The extent of the future State of Iowa was not known or thought of. Only on a strip of land fifty miles wide, bordering on the Mississippi River, was the Indian title extinguished, and a central location meant some central point in the Black Hawk Purchase, and on the 21st day of January, 1839, an act was passed appointing Chauncey Swan, of Dubuque county; John Ronalds, of Louisa county, and Robert Ralston, of Des Moines county, Commissioners, to select a site for a permanent seat of government within the limits of Johnson county.

Johnson county had been created by act of the Territorial Legislature of Wisconsin, approved December 21st, 1837, and organized by act passed at the special session at Burlington in June, 1838, the organization to date from July 4th following, and was, from north to to south, in the geographical center of this purchase, and as near the east and west geographical center of the future State of Iowa as then could be made, as the boundary line between the lands of the United States and the Indians, established by the treaty of October 21st, 1837, was immediately west of the county limits.

The

The commissioners, after selecting the site were directed to lay out 640 acres into a town, to be called Iowa City, and to proceed to sell lots and erect public buildings thereon, Congress having granted a section of land to be selected by the territory for this purpose. commissioners met at Napoleon, Johnson county, May 1st, 1839, selected a site, section 10, in township 79 north of range 6 west of the Fifth Principal Meridian, and immediately surveyed it and laid off the town. The first sale of lots took place August 16th, 1839. The site selected for the public buildings was a little west of the geographical center of the section, where a square of ten acres on the elevated grounds overlooking the river was reserved for this purpose. The capitol was located in the center of the square.

On Monday, December 6th, 1841, the Fourth Legislative Assembly met at the new capitol, Iowa City, but the capitol building could not be used, and the legislature occupied a temporary frame house that had been erected for that purpose during the session of 1841-2.

By an act of the Territorial Legislature of Iowa, approved February 12th, 1844, the question of the formation of a State Constitution and providing for the election of delegates to a convention to be convened for that purpose, was submitted to the people, to be voted upon at their township elections in April following. The vote was largely in favor of the measure, and the delegates elected assembled in convention at Iowa City on the 7th of October, 1844. On the 1st day of November following, the convention completed its work and adopted the first state constitution.

The constitution adopted by this convention was rejected by the people at an election held in April, 1845, and also at one held on the 4th day of August, 1845, there being at the latter7, 235 votes cast "for the constitution," and 7,656 votes cast "against the constitution."

A second constitutional convention assembled at Iowa City on the 4th day of May, 1846, and on the 18th day of the same month another constitution for the new state with the present boundaries was adopted, and submitted to the people for ratification on the 3rd day of August following, when it was accepted.

The constitution was approved by Congress, and by act of Congress approved December 28th, 1846, Iowa was admitted as a sovereign state in the American Union.

The first General Assembly of the State of Iowa was composed of nineteen senators and forty representatives. It assembled at Iowa City November 30th, 1846, about a month before the state was admitted into the Union.

At the first session also arose the question of the re-location of the capital. The western boundary of the state, as now determined, left Iowa City too far toward the eastern and southern boundary of the state; this was conceded. Congress had appropriated five sections of land for the erection of public buildings, and toward the close of the session a bill was introduced providing for the re-location of the seat of government, involving to some extent the location of the state university, which had already been discussed. It provided for the appointment of three commissioners, who were authorized to make a location as near the geographical center of the state as a healthy and eligible site could be obtained; to select the five sections of land donated by Congress; to survey and plat into town lots not exceeding one section of land so selected; to sell lots at public sale, not to exceed two in each block. Having done this, they were then required to suspend further operations, and makea report of their proceedings to the Governor. The bill passed both houses by decisive votes, received the signature of the Governor, and became a law, and in 1851 bills were introduced for the removal of the capital to Pella and to Fort Des Moines. The latter appeared to have the support of the majority, but was finally lost in the House on the question of ordering it to its third reading.

On the 15th day of January, 1855, a bill re-locating the capital within two miles of the Raccoon Fork of the Des Moines, and for the appointment of commissioners, was approved by Gov. Grimes. The site was selected in 1856, in accordance with the provisions of this act, the land being donated to the state by citizens and property holders of

Des Moines.

Gov. B. R. Sherman says of the state: "The Iowa of to-day is a very empire, the joy of every citizen, and containing within itself all the essential elements of political and personal greatness, which needs only the watchful and liberal care of the state to make it the realization of the hopes of the most sanguine of its people. Our growth in population and development, in resources and possibilities, has been without parallel, and it is not too much to say that our people have been exceptional in prosperity, as unrivalled in business energies. Our prairies, so lately a wilderness, are teeming with a population unusually intelligent and industrious, being constantly added to from the over crowded East; and in the near future the many thousands of untilled acres, fertile beyond description, and only awaiting the touch of the husbandman, shall be made to laugh in abundant harvests, alike the joy and profit of the hardy pioneer. The products of our soil, yielding in such wonderful abundance, are sent to the uttermost parts

of the globe to make glad the inhabitants of earth, and our very name has finally become the synonym for superiority and plenteousness, and the enterprise of the people has accomplished results none the less astonishing to ourselves than a marvel to the nation."

Iowa is by actual United States statistics the richest agricultural state in the Union, and has twice the agricultural resources of all the New England States combined, and in surplus products equal to the New England and Middle States combined.

Iowa, in 1886, produced 198,847,000 bushels of corn on 7,927,019 acres, valued at $59,654,100; wheat, 2,657,105 acres producing 32,455,000 bushels, valued at $19,473,000; oats, 2,298,752 acres, producing 78,454,000 bushels, valued at $18,044,420; hay, 3,673,875 acres, producing 4,137,844 tons, valued at $20,689,220; other field : crops, 514,125 acres, product valued at $6,690,520; a total of field products amounting to $124,551,260.

January 1st, 1888, Iowa had 1,003,022 head of horses, valued at $74,032,082; mules, 45,649 head, valued at $3,936,540; milch cows, 1,255,432 head, valued at $29,251,566; oxen and other cattle, 2,095,253 head, valued at $42,633,795; sheep, 408,478 head, valued at $985,249; hogs, 4,148,811 head, valued at $27,969,624; a total valuation of live stock amounting to $178,808,856, or twice the value of all the New England States combined, and unsurpassed by any state in the Union. Total farms cultivated in Iowa in 1888 amounted to 185,351; almost as many as all the New England States, where farms are cut up into such small acreage that a western farmer would call a garden patch. The surplus agricultural product of Iowa is simply enormous, and amounts to more than all of that of the New England and Middle States combined. In 1887 the agricultural product of Iowa was increased by about $25,000,000 over that of 1886, while the product of the New England and Middle States was not materially advanced. Iowa's surplus product has been forced east by the force of circumstances which governs this great Western empire, viz: the dominating influence of the monopolistic transportation companies over the American Congress, which withholds a just proportion of public appropriations for the improvement of the water ways contiguous to the "Great West," such as harbor facilities on the Texas Gulf Coast. The day is dawning that will revolutionize the channels of exportation of the surplus grain products of America, and in consequence stimulate the industry and enhance values of farm products and farm properties of this Western empire. Iowa is deeply interested in the movement for Deep Harbors on the Texas Gulf Coast, and consequently have placed on the permanent committee to secure Deep Harbors, such able citizens as Hon. J. M. Pierce, Hon. A. P. Chamberlin, and Hon. D. W. Smith, of Des Moines; Hon. W. O. Kulp, of Davenport: and Hon, B. Zevely, of Council Bluffs.