Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 38, Number 39, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 January 1906 — Thirty-Seven Years Ago. RENSSELAER UNION, OCT. 1ST, 1868. [ARTICLE]

Thirty-Seven Years Ago. RENSSELAER UNION, OCT. 1ST, 1868.

This was the first number of the Rensselaer Union, which was formed by the union of the Prairie Telegraph and the Iroquois Press. R. B. James of y the former and J. Keiser of the latter retired ancLH. E. James and Joshua Healey succeeded them in the Union. The dissolution notice of W. J. and J. VY. Laßue appeared in this issue, and their names were the only ones of the business men of the Banner days which still appeared in the paper, except W. J, Wright, undertaker. No lawyer of the old days lasted either, and of physicians, only G. A. Moss and J. H. Loughridge, Some of the business men then on deck were C. C. Starr, grocer, Norman Warner, blacksmith and wagon shop, John Gratner, lumber, J. W. Coats of the Rensselaer tobacco store. L. and N. W. Hopkins, dry goods, John M. Austin, hotel, Stackhouse & Co. furniture and undertaking, A. Sparling, meat market, Wesley Thompson and C. W. Henkle, drugs, and Patrick Barton, a forerunner of our present “Hide Bennie. V

S. P. Thompson was school examiner, and he conducted an “Educational Column,” in the paper. A grand Republican rally was to be held on Oct. 3rd with Gen. R. P. DeHart and Col. Billy Wilson, as the speakers. U. 8. Grant was running for president and Schuyler Colfax for vice-president. R. 8. Dwiggins, of Rensselaer, was a Republican candidate for presidential elector and was appointed to speak in the leading places in the congressional district