I found a fascinating historical quarterly on eBay. The Annals of Iowa (Third Series Vol IV No 5) dated April 1900. My copy came via a private collector through the New Jersey Historical Society. The book itself is quite interesting. The binding is not sewn, yet the book is composed of quarto pages which is unusual. It has not been read completely because most of the pages had not been cut. Cutting the pages in order to read the book was a delicate process, and probably value destructive.
The article in the quarterly that caught my eye was the History of Steamboating on the Des Moines River, From 1837 to 1862 by Tacitus Hussey. It is a collection of arrival and departure logs from two ports and personal diaries. Combined the logs and diaries confirm that several of my Georgetown guys were working on the Des Moines River as early as 1851.
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