Other Portions of the Township
The western, central and southwestern portions of
the township were settled much more rapidly than the eastern
portion, and the northeast. It was not until 1848 that the first
school-house was put up in that part of the township. Then a log
school-house was built on section eleven, township Sixty, range
twenty-seven. The increase all over the township, excepting the
eastern portion, had been quite steady from the year 1840, but the
location of the county seat south of the river, which had been as
good as settled that year by the refusal of the county judges to
entertain the petition, seemed to give the south and west the
greatest incentive to settlement. With no bridges and high water
spring and fall, the trouble of crossing Grand River was too great,
especially as good land was plenty all over the county and only
waiting for takers. Grand River township, of those north of the
river, held its own, and at that time it was also all of Jamesport
in. which quite large settlements had sprung up.
Freshet Of 1844
The great freshet of 1844 is something to be remembered by the
oldest inhabitant. That year is memorable from the fact that no
mails were received here for nearly two months. The mails were
carried on horseback, but the country was flooded for miles, fording
places few and far between, and this state of affairs put everything
back. Of what was going on in the outside world the pioneers had no
account. No papers were received, all was a dense blank as to
passing events. This freshet seemed to give the idea that Grand
River was navigable, and that spring went so far as to place upon
its waters the first and only flat-boat that ever floated upon its
muddy and turbulent waters. The continued high water gave time for
some of the citizens-of Benton and Grand River townships to build
one of these flat-boats. They did so, and loaded it with wheat, corn
and bacon - and started for St. Louis. The venture was a success,
the cargo having arrived safe at St. Louis. It was there disposed of
along with the boat, and the parties made their way back by the
usual traveled route. The spring crops were ruined on the bottom
lands, and the vegetable crops were a failure. After the falling of
the waters, the settlers had little time to rest. Crops of some kind
had to-be raised to sustain life, and men and animals had to do the
work. The settlers were now so numerous that to enumerate them would
be futile, but while new settlers dropped in, the township was being
shorn of her great area, and with its present bounds is one of the
fifteen municipal townships which go to make up the corporate limits
of Daviess county. Originally Grand River township was one of the
three first organized when Daviess became a county.
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