WAYLAND

A short history of Wayland

Wayland was originally known as Crooked Creek. Crooked Creek became a voting precinct on October 5, 1840. The first burial is given to John Bullock, in 1838. He came as a surveyor to this region in 1837. The need to establish a post office followed. Rufus M. Pickell, one of the local leaders, was appointed on February 3, 1843, postmaster for the land east of the Skunk River and south of Crooked Creek. Pickell was also a blacksmith by trade. Establishing a church followed, so the little log cabin Methodist Church was built in 1844. From 1851 to 1880, the town was known as Marshall. Christian Roth Sr. erected a brewery on his homestead in 1856, which was completed at a cost of over $4,000. Until its closing by laws passed in 1884, it had done a prosperous business and had a capacity of 10 barrels a day. Confusion over the name Marshall, Henry County and Marshalltown, Iowa, especially with mail getting mixed, required a change in 1879, with the smaller town relinquishing its name and taking up a new one in 1880. In the 1879 Henry County History book the following names can be found in Jefferson Township: Burrows, Clifton, Cook, Davies, Everts, Farmer, Hull, Jessup, Johnson, Manning, Mathews, Moore, Noble, Ressel, Sayles, Shively, Turney, Walker, Wallbank, Wiggins, and Williams.

Adapted (trimmed) from the Wikipedia article Wayland, Iowa, revision 1378268407 by its contributors, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.