tion. He was accompanied by an officer and a posse of men from Webster County, but upon arriving here his men were missing, having skipped to Minnesota to avoid arrest. It seems that one of Captain Martin's men was in Fort Dodge at the time, and on learning what was up rode all night to get ahead of Prescott's party and warn the men. They remained in camp just over the state line for a few days, when that becoming irksome they boldly came back to town, submitted to an arrest and then went before Judge Congleton, who was in sympathy with them, and procured a writ of habeas corpus and were discharged. The first term of the district court for this county, which is mentioned in another place, coming on soon after this, the injunction was dissolved. This was but one of the many episodes of this unfortunate quarrel, which was kept up with more or less bitterness until both sides were practically exhausted, but it will be neither interesting nor profitable to follow the details of it further. Taking a retrospective view of the matter it must be admitted that the blame should be about evenly divided. It is now necessary to go back to where we left the inhabitants in a state of wild excitement over the appearance of a party of Indians in the grove at the head of Spirit Lake. As soon as possible after the alarm was given, Captain Martin dispatched a small force to the head of the lake to investigate the Indian scare. Upon their arrival there they found old Chief Umpashota with his family and a few followers in camp, who upon seeing the troops were worse scared then they were. The soldiers took the Indians to headquarters as prisoners, where Captain Martin found himself in about the same predicament as the man who drew the white elephant in the lottery. He couldn't keep him, he couldn't sell him, he couldn't give him away, he hated to kill him and what to do with him he didn't know. In this case Captain Martin finally decided to send his prisoners to Fort Dodge and turn them over to the authorities there. In pursuance of this plan he dispatched Lieutenant Church with a small detachment of men to carry it out. Church really understood the situation better than Martin himself, and knew that upon arriving at Fort Dodge he would be no better off than he was then; consequently, upon reaching Gillett's Grove he released the Indians upon their promise to stay away from the lakes in the future. This was without doubt the old chief's last visit to Spirit Lake. No public schools had been established in the county up to this time, and were not until sometime later. A private school was established by Doctor Prescott soon after the arrival of his family in the fall of 1858. Prescott had erected a comparatively convenient and comfortable house during the summer, one room of which was set aside for a schoolroom. The teacher employed was Miss Amanda L. Smith, Prescott's family, with a few outsiders, furnishing the pupils. The expense of this arrangement was borne by Doctor Prescott. It was kept up about a year and a half, or until the spring of 1860. A private school had also been started at Spirit Lake about the same time with Miss Mary Howe as teacher. The first public school in the county was taught at Okoboji during the winter of 1862 and 1863, Miss Myra Smith, teacher, and will be noticed further. The first term of the district court in the county was held at Spirit Lake in June, 1859. Judge Hubbard presided, with O. C. Howe, district attorney; Jareb Palmer, clerk of the district court, and Alfred Arthur, sheriff. Attorneys in attendance were B. F. Parmenter, Dickinson County; C. C. Smeltzer, Clay County, and Patt Robb, Woodbury County. FIRST TERM OF THE DISTRICT COURT 207 Nearly, if not quite all, of the business of this term grew out of the quarrel heretofore mentioned between Prescott on one side, and Howe, Wheelock and Parmenter on the other. If this quarrel was not the means of breaking up the enterprise of establishing the institution at Tusculum by Doctor Prescott, it certainly hurried up the event, for it demonstrated the fact that it would be utterly impossible for him to hold or maintain his claim to the land he had selected for that purpose, as there was no law under which he could do it. His enemies questioned his honesty and sincerity of motive and claimed that he was holding, or rather endeavoring to hold, all of these choice places simply as a matter of speculation; that he had no expectation of establishing an institution of learning here, such as he had been describing, and that all of his talk in that direction was cheap bluff just for the purpose of keeping other people from claiming the land. Add to this the fact that his friends were getting heartily sick and tired of being dragged into quarrels, in which they had no individual concern. Some of the more prominent of these became so thoroughly disgusted with the way things were being managed that they unceremoniously pulled up and left. Among this number were C. F. Hill and G. H. Bush, both of whom had ably and earnestly seconded Doctor Prescott's efforts to gain a foothold, but they could see nothing but contention. ahead with no chance for advantage to themselves. Many others felt the same way. Prescott, seeing that he had lost the support, sympathy and confidence of a majority of the inhabitants, decided to abandon the whole project, so far as trying to found the institution was concerned, and sold off his Tusculum claims for what he could get, which was but a nominal sum and a mere fraction of what they cost him. Looking at the project in the light of subsequent events, it is hardly possible that it could have succeeded even without those early troubles. The claims to the land were bought by Alfred Arthur and disposed of by him to parties who settled upon them at once. These parties were H. D. Arthur, John Francis, John P. Gilbert, Crosby Warner, Peter Ladu and Charles Carpenter, who came from Wisconsin, part of them in 1859 and the balance in 1860. Prescott still retained his claim to Okoboji Grove. CHAPTER XVII. IN 1859-GOVERNMENT SURVEYS EMIGRATION PHYSICIAN-THE FIRST MARRIAGE CEREMONY— TRACTORS. N THE SPRING of 1859, a company, consisting of A. D. Arthur, John P. Gilbert and Spencer Humphrey, erected a shingle mill at Spirit Lake. It was kept there about a year and a half, when it was removed to some other locality. The government surveys were completed in 1859, and the settlers were enabled to establish the boundaries to their claims, and take the necessary steps toward eventually securing the title. The first government survey was made in 1857 by a surveyor from Van Buren County by the name of Wilkins, but was rejected by the government inspector as defective, when a second survey was made by C. L. Estes, which was commenced in 1858 and finished in 1859. In the light of subsequent developments it is more than probable that the first sur |