IOWA.

1. The name of this State in the Indian tongue is said to mean “This is the Land.” Few States have a surface, soil, and position so uniformly excellent for all their different sections. A high rolling prairie, well drained by streams, of great fertility, and almost no sterile or waste land; beautiful to look upon in its alternations of rise and fall, of prairie, stream, and timber; bounded on its extremes by the two mighty branches of the “Father of Waters,” with numerous smaller rivers hundreds of miles in length within its limits; its southern region underlaid by a vast bed of coal, its northern rich in deposits of lead; a climate free from the severity of Minnesota and Wisconsin winters, and from the intemperate heats of Missouri and Kentucky summers, it is a land to be satisfied with; and justifies the picturesque name given it by its ancient appreciative owners.

2. It was first visited by Europeans in 1673. Marquette and Joliet, two French Jesuit missionaries, whom the vast magnitudes of the North American continent seemed to stimulate like new wine, roamed alone over these immense distances, preserved by their characteristic French cordiality from the suspicion and hostility of the numerous warlike Indian tribes—who everywhere received them with hospitality, treated them with respect, and dismissed them with assistance—passed, in that year, down the Mississippi, and, landing a little above the mouth of the Moingona—which, from the similarity of sound, they corrupted into Des Moines, (Monk’s River)—they fearlessly followed an Indian trail fourteen miles into the interior to an Indian village. Some tradition or prophecy had forewarned the Indians of venerable white visitors, and they were received at once as expected and honored guests. The new religion they announced, and the authority of the king of France which they proclaimed, raised no remonstrance or hostile feeling, and they were sent on their way down the river with the “Pipe of Peace.” The grand visions of the future entertained by these and other French explorers were never realized by that nation. It was more than a hundred years later that the first settlement was made by Julian Du Buque on the site of the present city of that name. He obtained a grant of 180,000 acres from the Indians, established a trading post, and worked the lead mines, with great profit; but the time had not come for dispossessing the Indians, and almost fifty years more passed before any other settlement was attempted.

3. In 1832 the Winnebagoes, Sacs, and Foxes united under the Winnebago chief, Black Hawk, to invade and repossess the lands in Illinois which they had ceded to the government. Gen. Atkinson met and defeated them on the Upper Iowa, taking Black Hawk and his son prisoners. They were taken east, kindly treated, and set at liberty; and in the following year a treaty was made which ultimately extinguished the Indian title to the whole of Iowa, the Indians removing west of the Missouri. In the same year a settlement was made at Burlington. The time for Iowa had come. In 1834 it was joined to the Territory of Michigan, in 1837 was reorganized as part of the Wisconsin territory, and, in 1838, became a separate territory with the capital at Burlington. March 3d, 1845, it was conditionally, and Dec. 28th, 1846, fully admitted into the Union as a Sovereign State. In 1840 it had a population of over 40,000, in 1850 of nearly 200,000. A steady growth followed, and she has now, probably, a million and a half of inhabitants. Four parallel lines of railroad pass entirely across the State from east to west, three from north to south, and various others are in process of building or form intersecting lines. She is scarcely yet fully launched into her career of greatness. When her virgin soil shall all be broken up and its hidden wealth evoked by her intelligent and skillful agriculturists, when the full tide of commerce on her two great rivers shall have set in to supplement her railroads, and mature organization shall have made all her resources available, she will take her proper place in the first rank of States in the Union, and her citizens will repeat with satisfaction and pride the Indian declaration, “This is the Land.”

Iowa was the twenty-eighth State, on its admission, in 1845. It has an area of 55,045 square miles, equal to 35,228,800 acres. The population in 1870 was 1,191,802, which entitles her to nine Representatives in Congress. This State lies in the eighth judicial circuit, and makes one judicial district. She has no port of entry, but has three ports of delivery, to-wit: Burlington, Keokuk, and Dubuque; all of which are attached to the collection district of New Orleans, in the State of Louisiana.

Des Moines is the capital. The State election is held on the second Tuesday of October. The Legislature meets biennially on the second Monday in January.

The enacting clause of her laws is in these words: “Be it enacted by the General Assembly of the State of Iowa.”

UNITED STATES SENATORS.
George W. Jones,from1848to1859.
Augustus C. Dodge,”1848”1855.
James Harlan,”{1856”1865.
1867”1873.
James W. Grimes,”1859”1869.
Samuel J. Kirkwood,”1866”1867.
James B. Howell,”1870”1871.
George G. Wright,”1871”1877.
William B. Allison,”1873”1879.