Source: The Odebolt Chronicle "50 Years of Progress" Edition, August, 1938

Following are some facts recalled by Mrs. Lucinda Younie as she remembered them as a girl of thirteen.

James Taylor, her father, was among the first pioneers to settle near Odebolt. Mr. Taylor had pioneered before, forty-five miles from Delhi in Delaware county. His previous experience proved to be a very valuable asset.
Mr. Taylor settled in the town of Vail first and built a house there. Later he hauled lumber from Vail and located on a farm five miles southeast of Odebolt, on what was later the Jerry Gosch farm. He settled on this farm in 1873.

Mr. Taylor was the father of seven children, all of whom were born in Iowa; consequently his first thought after erecting a home was for the education of his children. It was somewhat difficult to get a school started in those days since so many of the early settlers were young people who had no children. Following the arrival of some new neighbors who had children Mr. Taylor circulated a petition for the necessary sixteen signers in order that a schoolhouse might be erected. He was entitled by law to have a teacher for his five children, so he procured A.D. Peck as a teacher, and put some benches and desks in a corner of Mr. Peck's home. Here the first school was held in 1874. Later the building known as the Taylor school was built. Horace and Mary Goreham, children of J.P. Goreham, attended the school.

The only towns nearby were Vail and Sac City, each being twenty-four miles distant. There were no bridges over the rivers and creeks. When a river was crossed, the utmost care was required to keep on the right approach when ascending or descending the banks of the river. More than one pioneer and early mailman lost his life while endeavoring to cross one of the streams. On the trip to Sac City, the Boyer River and Indian Creek had to be crossed by fording in many places. Indian Creek had the only bridge in this territory. It was necessary to ford the Boyer River near Sherwoods, where the Philo post office was located.

Mr. Taylor was instrumental in getting the first mail route through this county. He, with the aid of John Bruce, succeeded in having a mail route go from Denison to Sac City. There were three stops on this route; one stop was at Wheeler, on [the] John Nelson farm; another called Oliver, at the Taylor farm; and the other called Philo, at the Sherwood farm.

The only homes in 1874 near the Taylors were the Sparks farm, later H.M. Buchanan's, on east edge of town: to the southeast were the Munens, Dr. B.F. Stevens and Charles Levey; to the southwest were the homes of A.D. Peck and A.L. Chandler, then foreman of the Wheeler Ranch.

Mr. Taylor brought the only mower, binder, a buggy and a three-year-old driving team to this territory. He also brought only purebred livestock, namely Poland China hogs and light Brahma chickens. The Taylors also brought the first rhubarb and horseradish. All the neighbors were anxious to get a small root so they might be able to raise their own, The new neighbors who soon moved near were the Mummeys, Ziegmanns, Pecks and Heidenreichs, all of whom came the following year. Gradually the people began to move into this early territory.

The men who organized the first Methodist church were Mr. Taylor, Enfield Smith, M.D. Fox, Asa B. Smith, the Mummeys, Mr. Lickle and the Younies. The first church was held in the Fox schoolhouse with the Rev. Mr. Faux, in charge. Mr. Faux had a charge at Cherokee, so it was necessary for him to make the trip to Odebolt on horseback. He would come down one day and return the next. When the streams were swollen he would remove his shoes and stockings, tie them around his neck and stand up in the stirrups while his horse swam the stream. Later the services were held in the building used as church, school, dance hall and lodge hall, where the cooperative building later stood. The first cemetery was across from the Story farm or south of the old Gilbert farm. When the railroad was put through, this cemetery was of necessity moved and the bodies were placed in the present cemetery, which was donated by H.C. Wheeler. The first corpse interred in this new location was that of Mrs. James Taylor in 1878

Mr. Taylor got the signers for the right-of-way for the railroad from Carroll to Mapleton in 1877. Mr. Taylor was granted a life pass as a result of his early interests. The railroad company was inclined to believe that the corner of the Taylor farm would be a good location for the new town, but Mrs. Taylor refused, thinking it would place the town so near that it would be a bad influence on the boys. If the town had been located at such a place it might have been called Taylorville.

The railroad crew pitched their tents near the large bridge east of town and used this as their headquarters. There was not enough pure water for these men to drink and as a result typhoid fever broke out. Dr. Stevens decided it would be necessary to have some lemons to keep the men from drinking so much water but none seemed available at this time. To his surprise, Mr. Taylor produced a number of jars of lemons that had been sliced and canned for the family summer use. The whole supply was offered as a remedy to the situation in the workers' camp. As a result the ravages of this terrible disease were halted.

Such trees as willows and cottonwoods are not the type to be planted by those who are planning on useful trees for the future. Mr. Taylor, a man of great foresight, started a nursery, in which he began to grow fruit trees, pine, and other valuable kinds of trees, It was this nursery that supplied the nice trees from here to the Bethel church and to the east for many miles. In 1876, the large red winged grasshoppers from the west swooped down on everything and completely ruined the nursery.

Following the grasshopper plague came two tornadoes in seven months' time. The first came on Easter Sunday in April. It hung to the southwest for two hours before striking. Then half of the cloud raised and the other half took a swath three miles wide from Deloit to Carroll and destroyed Dr. Steven's new home, the Marks, Deans, and Weeds places. It twisted the huge beams of the new railroad bridge east of town and tied them up as though they were shoestrings. Hailstones of mammoth size fell. They broke windowpanes and did considerable serious damage. The next tornado came through in October of the same year.

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