FORTY-FIVE YEARS AGO. A SCRAP OF HISTORY OF JOHNSON COUNTY. HE first court was organized in Johnson county May 12th, 1839, at the embryo town of Napoleon, two miles south of the site of Iowa City, on the east side of Iowa river. The first remarkable trial ever held in this county was at the May term, A. D., 1840. The grand jury had indicted one Canloque for larceny and burglary, committed on the premises of Samuel Brown, living at that time in what is now Newport township, Johnson county. The court convened on the morning of May 15th, 1840. Judge Joseph E. Williams, on the bench, and Samuel C. Trowbridge, sheriff. The case of the United States against Samuel Canloque now came on for trial with Hall & Woodward, attorneys for the plaintiff, Hastings & Wright, attorneys for the defendant. The defendant appeared in person and plead not guilty. The trial jury was called and empaneled, composed of the following: Joel Dourt, John N. Headly, Harvey Lyman, Warner Styles, John Mathews, Wm. Sturgis, James McGruder, David Sweet, Wm. Kelso, James Herron, Henry Felkner, John A. Street. They were men in every way up to the standard of an intelligent and unprejudiced jury, good and true, but now most of them have gone to explore that mystic world, to them new and untrodden. The evidence was all in. The opening of the case for the government was made by Woodward, in a masterly manner, and he was followed by Hastings for the defense. Young Wright was to close the case for the defendant. He was a graduate of an eastern college, fair complexion and of medium size. He was the very ideal of young manhood, following the Star of Empire, which at that time was flowing into the land of Black Hawk and Poweshiek. He came to the new Capital of the Territory of Iowa, and here he determined to make his home. Young, ardent, and impulsive, he engaged to defend Samuel Canloque in his imperiled rights. He had thrown his whole soul into the defense, fully believing that his client was innocent. He commenced his address to the jury in a clear, calm, dispassionate manner, reviewing the evidence of the prosecution and that of the defense, fully answering the arguments of Woodward, also, anticipating the closing remarks of Judge Hall, fairly tearing the theory of their case to shreds, he paused for a moment and then addressed the court, then went on with a plea of mercy to the jury for his client, picturing the wrongs and sufferings of his client in case of an unjust judgment. His outbursts of oratory towered to the very sublimity of a Demosthenes or a Patrick Henry, but it was the last flickering rays of reason—he was a maniac-he fled from court and abandoned the case. The trial went on, misfortune sent his client to prison and himself to the insane asylum. A CURIOUS STORY.' About a Welsh Settlement in this Country in the year 1170. FROM AUTHUR'S MAGAZINE. N a lecture delivered by Mr. Jas. Wood, of Albany, N. Y., he related the following curious tradition which exists among the Welsh: In 1170, two brothers, David and Medoc, quarreled for the throne. The younger, Medoc, becoming disgusted, gave up the struggle, and, fitting out a ship, sailed west. The next year he returned, said he had discovered a fruitful country, and called upon his friends to follow him. He had no difficulty in filling 10 ships with men, women and children. They sailed away, and, according to Welsh story, were never heard of again. This would not be worth much as history were it not that it seems confirmed by evidence found upon this side of the ocean. In 1670,500 years after Medoc left Wales, a Welsh minister named Morgan was sent from New York to North Carolina to preach to some Welsh people who settled there. One day he wandered too far beyond the outskirts of the settlement and was captured by Indians. They took him many miles inland and prepared to burn him at the stake. The fagots were piled up around him, and his doom was sealed. Suddenly he exclaimed, in Welsh, "Have I come so far to die like a dog at last!" To his surprise, the Indian chief sprang forward, loosed his bonds and embraced him, crying in Welsh, "No; not if you speak that language!" Henceforth he was the honored guest of the tribe. Morgan's surprise deepened when the principal members of this Indian tribe gathered around him and began to converse with him in Welsh. He preached to them, and they understood him. But what amazed him most was to discover that they had a manuscript copy of the Bible in the Welsh language. Morgan relates this story in a letter sent to friends in Wales. This letter is well authenticated, but it is the only evidence that we have in the matter. So far as we are aware, nothing more was ever heard of this Indian tribe who spoke Welsh and had a Welsh Bible. But, about fifteen or twenty years later, an exploring party, returning from beyond the Mississippi river, relate, among other wonders, that they found a tribe of Indians who speak the Welsh language. They, too, have a manuscript copy of the Welsh Bible. None of their members can read it, and they keep it as a mysterious treasure, carefully rolled up in the skin of animals. And, fifteen or twenty years later still, another exploring party brings us back strange news from the Red River of the North. They have found there a singular people, with whitened hair and blue eyes. These people speak the Welsh language. Lastly, Catlin speaks of a tribe of white Indians dwelling along the upper sources of the Missouri. They are different from the tribes around them. Some have fair hair and blue eyes, and their language is strangely mixed with a great number of Welsh words. "Now," says Mr. Wood, "here we have five independent accounts, which seem to tell one story. They are so strange that historians don't know what to do with them. But if Indians on the American continent can speak the Welsh language, they must have been taught it at some time; if there are manuscript copies of the Welsh Bible here, they must have come here somehow. And you can put the facts together as you please." Another curious fact was stated by the lecturer. In speaking of the discoveries of John Cabot, he said in substance: "Here is a strange thing. John Cabot reached the shores of Newfoundland in 1497, only five years after Columbus set sail. He found that the Indians were in possession of a great number of French words, and could understand him when he spoke to them in that language. They knew the French term for codfish and fishing. He soon learned that the Breton fishermen from the rock-bound coast of Northern France were in the habit of coming to these bleak American shores in their fishing smacks and catching the cod with which the shores abounded. Remember, this was only five years after the time of Columbus. If these fearless fishermen, in their frail vessels had been traveling backward and forward across the ocean long enough to teach the Indians a good part of their language, who knows whether or not they saw the continent of America even before Columbus did?" VAN BUREN COUNTY. SOME NOTES OF ITS EARLY HISTORY. S EPTEMBER 6, 1834, the Sixth Legislative Council of the "Territory of Michigan," passed, at its extra session, "An Act, to lay off and organize counties west of the Mississippi river." This legislation created the counties of Dubuque and Des Moines. What is now the State of Wisconsin was then "Iowa County," and its laws, as far as applicable, were extended over the new counties west of the Mississippi. June 15, 1836, Michigan became a State, and under an act of Congress of April 20, of the same year, Wisconsin, with the country west of the Mississippi river, became, on the 4th of July, a territorial organization. The first legislature of the new territory was held at Belmont, near the ancient town of Mineral Point, in November, 1836. The third act passed by this legislature was one dividing the county of Des Moines into Lee, Van Buren, Des Moines, Henry, Louisa and Muscatine. The limits of Van Buren county at that time extended westward indefinitely, or at least as far as the Indian title had been extinguished. On the 10th of April, 1837, the first court in Van Buren county was organized at Farmington, on the Des Moines river Hon. David Irvin, Judge of the Second Judicial District of Wisconsin, presided. A grand jury was impaneled, and several indictments were returned, one of which was against N. Doose, for exercising the office of Constable in the county, by authority of the State of Missouri. That State claimed, and assumed jurisdiction over a strip of territory which was subsequently decided to belong to Iowa. The next court was also held at Farmington, in April, 1838, the same judge presiding. At |