May 1, 1876; E. B. Fenn, September 18, 1877; James S. Will, January 20, 1879; E. W. Gifford, March 30, 1880; C. F. Leonard, July 4, 1881; H. B. Stoddard, May 9, 1882; T. Carleton, August 17, 1883; Minnie L. Sheldon, November 2, 1885, and Agnes T. Higley, December 1, 1886.
Their fraternities are confined to the Iowa Center Lodge No. 7, I. O. G. T., which was organized on October 2, 1883, by Drs. Brown and Beck, of Cambridge, with forty-one members. The officers chosen were Aaron Acker, C. T.; E. J. Acker, V. T.; T. Carleton, chaplain; J. W. Will, secretary; Mrs. F. M. Baldwin, treasurer, and other usual officers. They rented rooms until 1887, when they purchased the old Methodist Episcopal Church, and refitted it, making probably the best Good Templar lodge in the county. Two saloons only have attempted to open in Iowa Center since 1860, but "an apron full of small stores" backed by general sentiment routed them, for as old "Jimmy" Doyle said in his farewell address: "Whin, ye-z git the Timperince ladys of Iowa Cinter uroused, ye-z moight as well be a travelin'." Out of the officers elected at the recent meeting of the Central District Lodge convened at Iowa Center in May, 1890, four were from Iowa Center. The local society has a membership of thirty-seven.
Ontario, which has absorbed old New Philadelphia, was laid out in January, 1869, over thirteen years after the latter, which was laid out in April, 1856.
New Philadelphia's site was entered by Thomas G. Vest on January 5, 1855, and August 14, 1851. He laid it out just southeast of Ontario's site in April, 1856, and January 17, 1858, the post-office was established, with the following successive postmasters: A. Ballman ; W. H. Foster, March 14, 1859; D. Schaeffer, September 8, 1860; W. H. Foster, November 13, 1861, and Hiram Scott, November 6, 1867. After the name was changed, December 16, 1868, F. M. Coffelt, May 7, 1884; A. C. McCracken, November 15, 1886; J. L. Stoll, March 29, 1887, and T. M. Aylesworth, April 5, 1889, were postmasters. Mr. Vest, J. Detrick and one other, probably, were the first merchants, and a few changes were made in following years until the railway arrived, and the desire to be nearer the depot led the railway to plat Ontario in January, 1869, on the south side of the track. Hiram Scott put the first building on this plat, and Thurman Bros. and Cox & Crowl soon followed. The place does some grain shipping, in which R. Jones leads; stock shipment, managed by T. L. Jones, and merchandise sale, in the hands of W. H. Foster and T. M. Aylesworth, come next. The population has never reached above probably sixty or seventy-five. They have no societies except churches.
Cambridge might have been called Chicauqua Bridge (certainly not Skunk Bridge) if it had been named as its great original in England was on the river--Cam, for its high plat lies along the high Skunk River banks, overlooking the broad bottoms, which in overflow seasons are like a lake, making bridges and embankment crossings necessary to reach the opposite shore. Its old ruined mill and old trees and many other features give it an appearance of age which the younger towns of the last decade can not counterfeit. It has an older population, generally, of long fixed settlers, and none of the youthful rush and boom of Maxwell, Slater, Zearing and such places. Its fine school park, in the midst of which rises their prized school building, is more of a leading feature in her appearance than even her depot and coaling-station with their tanks and coal-houses, that loom up in the broad and fine-viewed Skunk Valley. Like Nevada, she