Excerpt from History of Tama County, Iowa: Its Cities, Towns and Villages, With Early Reminiscences, Personal Incidents and Anecdotes and a Complete Business Directory of the County It is now nearly two years since I conceived the idea of publishing a History of Tama County. After I submitted my plan to a number of old settlers who approved of the same and encouraged the enterprise, work on the proposed publication was at once begun. In order to test the enterprise a practical canvass of Tama City, and Toledo, was made and in three or four days time over two hundred subscribers were secured, and I was thus encouraged to continue the work and solicit subscriptions from those living in other towns and in the country. Of the magnitude of the work I then had no conception. I was of the opinion there were yet living, many of the old pioneers from whom information could be obtained without difficulty; but in this I was greatly mistaken. Few indeed, are the number, as many are dead, while others have left the County. Since the projection of this work, quite a number more have been called to their final resting place, from some of whom we expected to obtain much valuable information. "Man proposes and God disposes." The interviews were never had, and now their lips are hushed in death, and no more will their stories of pioneer life be listened to with interest and pleasure by those gathering around their hospitable firesides. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.