organizing counties, the people within the limits of Story County were ready for action. At the same time the county was attached to Boone for election, revenue and judicial purposes, but before anything had been done other than causing enumeration of inhabitants, and assessment of property, measures were taken by the citizens for county organization under the recently enacted law. The essential preliminary was the selection of the necessary officers, and after due notice was given, the electors assembled at their respective voting places for this purpose, on the fourth day of April, 1853. The people had ranged themselves in the two natural divisions, separated by the prairie east of Skunk River. The settlement east of the center of the county took the name of its prinpal stream, East Indian. That on the west was generally called the Skunk River settlement, or precinct, or neighborhood, but in some way, also, it came to be called after the county name, Story. This name probably was applied by the people of Boone, to which the whole county had been attached for certain purposes. This uncertainty in title has resulted in giving through the census records, priority of name to the township of Indian Creek. The fact is well established that the election, and township or voting organization, was of the same date in both neighborhoods.
The voters in the Story, or Skunk River, precinct, on the day named, met at the house of Evan C. Evans, near the northeast corner of. Section 24, in what is now Franklin Township. Those in the Indian Creek precinct met on the same day at Hog Skin Point, afterward known as the Barnet Broughard place. This was about eight miles south and eleven miles east of the Evans place. The votes seem to to have been cast on purely local considerations. E. C. Evans had at his own home thirty-seven votes for the office of county judge. This was the full vote of the precinct. At the other precinct twenty-six votes were cast by his neighbors for Adolphus Prouty for the same office. From this date, or at least from the subsequent canvass and declaration of the result, plain Mr. Evans may be properly designated by his judicial title.
By substantially the same vote Franklin Thompson was elected clerk of the courts over E. H. Billings; Eli Deal defeated I. N. Alderman for sheriff, though the records indicate that the latter had one vote more than was cast for any one else at his precinct. John Zenor had no opposition for the office of recorder and treasurer, and had the total vote of both precincts. Otho French was elected surveyor ; Shadrack Worrell, coroner, and John Keigley, school fund commissioner. When these votes had been canvassed by Samuel B. McCall, county judge of Boone County, assisted by the justices of the peace from their respective townships, Adolphus Prouty and James Corbin, and the result recorded and officially declared, the organization of the county of Story was complete.
At this period the State statutes required that certain county officers should be chosen at the general election in August. It was therefore necessary to hold another election in the same year, and in August John J. Zenor was elected sheriff; Otho French, surveyor ; R. H. Robinson, coroner; Adolphus Prouty, drainage commissioner, and Stephen P. O'Brien, school fund commissioner. There must have been less interest in this election than in that four months earlier, as the vote was less, while the population must have been greater.
From the necessities of the case there were two voting precincts at the election in April, 1853, as already stated. The county officers then elected were honest men and good citizens, though they had not been men of public af-