Excerpt from History of Winneshiek County: With Biographical Sketches of Its Eminent Men<br><br>The friendly reception which these several articles met with on their publication, and the deep interest felt in the subject by the early settlers, led me to believe that a history of the county, published in book form, would meet with that hearty appreciation and support such an enterprise would justly merit. I therefore carefully collected and preserved every thing pertaining to the history of the county, within my reach, with the intention of publishing such a work when I thought that the proper time had arrived. During the present almost universal depression of business would seem anything but the proper time for its publication, yet, from force of necessity, I was compelled to issue now, if ever. This I do at the risk of a severe loss to myself, and with a knowledge that imperfections may thereby mar its pages that might otherwise have been prevented, by taking longer time in its preparation.<br><br>The present work has been pursued and carried through under many disadvantages, and in the face of many difficulties. I did not undertake the compilation of the book until the middle of January, 1877, and my pecuniary circumstances were such that I could not throw up my situa tion, and therefore evenings were the only time left for labor. But these were faithfully employed, and as a result, in less than three months time, evening work, the history or winneshiek county was completed.<br><br>About the Publisher<br><br>Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com<br><br>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.