Dr. J. P. Walker, now a prominent physician of Mason City, was among the first to practice the healing art in the township. The first death among the settlers of this section was doubtless that of Mrs. James Wandel, whose decease occurred at the residence of her son, Jimison H. Wandel, in the spring of 1854. The wife of Joseph Cease died a few months later. We have not placed these facts, the appearance of the physician in, and the coming of death to the settle- ment, in juxtaposition in our history, in order that the inference may be readily drawn that the debut of the medicine-man in a community necessarily augurs the speedy demise of some of its members, and lest some noble and devoted disciple of Esculapius might feel aggrieved at the order of facts given, we here enter our disclaimer to any such intention. And” yet the sight of a doctor always suggests to our mind the idea of disease, sickness and death.

The first to enter the connubial relation was Jimison H. Wandel, whose marriage to Sarah E. Depue was celebrated in the fall of 1852. Many others have since been married and given in marriage, as is common throughout the length and breadth of this goodly land. Whose was the first birth in the township cannot now be definitely ascertained. That there have been first-born males and first-born females in many families of this section, is fully evidenced by the fact that bright-eyed lads and lasses render joyous and gladsome the hearts of parents in many a household. Among the early Justices of the Peace in this quarter, the invincible Jimison H. Wandel leads the list. He was called upon to discharge the functions of this important, though often belittled office, as early as 1858. He was also commissioned the first Justice for the township after its organization. As originally set off, it contained a large portion of what is now included in Sherman Township, two sections of Forest City and four of Manito. Altogether, it embraced fifty-eight full sections. In 1867, it was reduced to its present limits.

The political complexion of the township has always been Democratic. Whenever a strict party vote has been cast, she has never given forth any uncertain sound, but has always raised her voice lustily for the Democratic party. During the “late on pleasantness ” she furnished her full quota of war-boys to the rank and file of the army, and was . at no time subjected to a draft. Taken throughout its whole extent, it compares favorably with the adjacent townships as an agricultural district. The low or marshy lands, when a little more effectually drained, will constitute the most productive portions within its limits.

VILLAGE OF TEHERAN. This village is situated in the southwest corner of the township, and is a station on the C., H. & W. R. R,, about seven miles west of Mason City. It was laid out in 1873, on land belonging to Alexander Blunt. Soon after the village was located, A. J. Gates put up a building and opened a grocery store. D. L. Whitney at one time had a good general store, but has not been numbered among her merchants for some years past. David Everett at present operates the only general store in the place. The post office was established in 1874, with W. T. Rich as first Postmaster. The present incumbent is David Everett. A warehouse, built some years previous, was, in 1876, converted into an elevator by Low, McFadden & Simmons. The amount of grain handled here, annually, ranges from 75,000 to 125,000 bushels. A neat frame church was erected by the United Brethren society in 1878. The society is small, but in a growing and prosperous condition. A blacksmith and general repair shop completes the list of its business enterprises. Its population does not exceed thirty souls, and yet, unimportant as it is when compared with villages of a larger growth, it is, nevertheless, a convenience to the neighborhood as a point for the shipment of their produce, and at which daily mails are received. It is hardly to be expected that it will ever exceed its present limits, as its proximity to Mason City on the one hand and Easton on the other, will continually act as checks to its further development.