Excerpts from Yearbook: Old Settlers Association, Johnson County, IA

Yearbooks of the Old Settlers Association of Johnson County 47
Volume: 1866-1897 p. 4
Anyone who settled before May 1, 1848 was entitled to membership in Old Settlers Association. Representatives of townships included, Henry Felkner (Newport), Charles McCune (Big Grove), Edwin Brown (Cedar).

p. 8
Henry Felkner elected 3rd Vice President of Association. First reunion festival held June 21, 1866.

p. 13
Formation of Old Settlers Association in 1866: Committee of Arrangements, Big Grove Township: C.W. McCune, James Buchanan, Charles Devault, James Payne.

p. 65
First public meeting of Old Settlers held July 4, 1840. Commentary by editor: "Regarding it from a financial standpoint, the settlement was begun at a most unpropitious period. In the year 1837, our country was swept by one of the most disastrous panics that ever occurred. Every bank in the country except those in New Orleans suspended specie payment, business of all kinds became paralyzed, confidence destroyed, and nearly every man that was in debt became bankrupt. For ten years thereafter, the country was strewn with the wrecks of this cyclone, in the shape of unpaid and unpayable debts, nor were these wrecks cleared away until the national bankrupt law, passed by Congress in 1842, opened a grave in which they could be buried."

p. 110
1837: 28 men settled; 8 as heads of family
1838: 38 men settled; 22 as heads of family
1839: 119 men settled; 35 as heads of family (included E. M. Adams, Moses Adams, Bryan Dennis, Sylvanus Johnson, Presley Connelly...and others. Some of these migrated as a group from an eastern state "hundreds of miles from the great river").