History of Tama County Iowa Author:Samuel D. Chapman Subtitle: Its Cities, Towns and Villages, With Early Reminiscences, Personal Incidents and Anecdotes and a Complete Business Directory of the County General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1879 Original Publisher: Printed at the Toledo Times Office Subjects: Tama County (Iowa) Notes: This is a black and white OCR rep... more »rint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: CHAPTER II. 1857-61. From 1857 to 1861 there was no event in the history of Tama County calculated to arouse any particular excitement among her citizens, save the incident of the murder of William Stopp. The settlers of that day pursued the even tenor of their way, endeavoring to make for themselves and families a home in this unbroken wilderness. Their little troubles were settled by a fair fight and a friendly drink afterwards, and no hard feelings were entertained. A short time previous to the time of which we write, a German by the name of Olleslaugher and a man named Butler, who had more than an ordinary education and attainments and a professional lawyer, came to this County and settled on the farm now owned by J". W. Fleming, in Grant township. If reports are correct, they were of an overbearing and quarrelsome nature. William Stopp, a young man of but fourteen summers, from Cincinnati, Ohio, accompanied them to this County. The three occupied a small cabin on section 23. Both of these men drank, and caroused and at times cruelly abused the boy. One severe cold night, nearly in the dead of winter, they stripped the boy and gave him a shameful beating then thrust him under the floor of their cabin into a small cellar, where he died before morning from the effects of the cruelty received from the infuriated men. and exposure to the severe cold. It was but a slior...« less