Heinsheimer, president; A. J. Russell, treasurer; W. L. Long, secretary; and Chas A. Croney, superintendent. The above named parties with the addition of Dr. O. W. Archibald, constituted the board of directors. The company first put in the electric system of signals, but found it to work unsatisfactorily and changed from that to the magneto system, since which change, the service over its lines has been entirely satisfactory. It commenced with thirteen sets of instruments but has now in operation over thirty, with a steady demand for them. The central office is at the office of the Glenwood Opinion, whose editor, Mr. Chas. A. Croney, was the projector of the scheme, and to whose labors its establishment is largely due. His original plan was to connect his office with the telegraph office at the depot for the convenience and accommodation of citizens in sending and receiving telegrams, and for information as to movements of trains. Other parties seeing that it was likely to prove a success desired like facilities, when it was concluded to organize a company, which was done. The company use the Blake transmitter and Bell telephone. They have about ten miles of wire stretched, reaching to nearly every portion of the city. As regards the designs of the company, the following brief abstract of its articles of incorporation will suffice to show them:

"The general nature of its business is to organize and maintain a system of telephones and telephone lines within said city, and to establish and maintain a system of messenger service for carrying orders and delivering messages, parcels and packages, and such other things as the system of telephonic communication may be utilized for from time to time. "The amount of its capital stock is seven hundred dollars, divided into shares of fifty dollars each to be paid in assesments not exceeding twentyfive per cent at any one time, the assessments to be made by a majority of the stock represented at any regular or special meeting that may be had.

"The corporation commences February 5, 1880, and shall continue twenty years.

"The affairs of the corporation shall be managed by a board of five directors, who shall elect their own officers, and shall fill such vacancies as may occur among their number, and shall be the judge as to what officers may be necessary. They shall be elected at annual meetings on the first Monday in January in each year.

"The highest amount of indebtedness to which the corporation shall be subject at any one time shall not exceed one hundred and fifty dollars. "The private property of the stockholders of this corporation shall be exempt from all liability for corporate debts."

BUSINESS INTERESTS.

The business interests of Glenwood are both extensive and valuable. Nearly every branch of trade and industry is represented by firms, some of them of long standing, and all of them of great enterprise, and ranging from the banker to the curbstone merchant. A vast amount of money is invested in goods, and annually the means so placed are becoming greater and of more importance. Some of the more prominent merchants are the Heinsheimer Brothers, dealers in dry goods and clothing; L. W. Russell & Co., dry goods and clothing; A. J. Russell, dry goods, clothing, and groceries; C. H. Dyer, groceries; Russell & King, hardware; Moore & Blake, hardware; Mart. Swinnerton, marble works; Record Bros., books and stationery; I. N. Wilson, furniture; M. G. Edwards, drugs; W. G. Fletcher, drugs; W. F. Laraway, jeweler; W. H. Parsons, physician; Kelly Bros., attorneys; Rude & Woodruff, attorneys; Starbuck & Ivory, attorneys; Watkins & Williams, attorneys; Hale, Stone & Proudfit, attorneys; J. M. Shafner, harness and saddlery; B. F. Buffington, grain dealer; L. W. Russell, agricultural implements; and many other firms representing the other classes of business. It would be impossible to attempt any statement of the annual sum yearly changing hands in mercantile enterprise in this thriving city, but the amount is very great. Business is seemingly conducted on safe principles, and failures are very few. The business houses are many of them attractive and some quite elegant, testifying all to the thrift of their owners.

MALVERN.

This city dates its existence from the completion of the C., B. & Q. R. R., of which it is a station. It is at the crossing of Silver Creek, some mile and a half south of the center of the county, and in the midst of one of the finest agricultural sections to be found in the United States. The first house in the city was built by J. D. Paddock, in the fall of 1869, before the town had been platted. Mr. Paddock came from Chicago, Illinois, and was associated with his brother, Charles H. Paddock, who came here from Clinton county, Iowa, though originally from McHenry county, Illinois. The Paddock brothers opened the first stock of goods in Malvern on November 15, 1869. Next came J. N. Sheldon, H. E. Boehner, William M. McCrary, and D. McFarlane, all of whom engaged in the general merchandise business, and succeeded soon in building up trades that in older countries would have required years to establish. F. P. Spencer and Curtis & Sweetser "started with the town" in the grocery and provision business exclusively. In the year following the establishment of these first business houses occurred the birth of the first male child in the town, John, son of Thomas Hawkins, and soon after was born Nettie, daughter of J. W. and Nancy Lawson.

The growth of the town is one of the most remarkable features in its history. Hardly had it been laid out before much of the land passed into the hands of men who became residents and at once began to work for the interests of their chosen city-home. In 1872 the town was duly incorporated, and worked under its articles of incorporation until 1878, when it was ascertained that there was an illegality in the process in that the act of incorporation had not been recorded. Steps were at once taken to remedy the matter. The reincorporation petition was duly filed on the 2d day of December, 1878, and on the 28th day of the same month a unanimous vote for reincorporation was cast. The court issued its order to incorporate on the 30th of the month, and on January 27, 1879, at an election held for city officers, the following were elected, thus completing the legal process: Mayor, H. E. Boehner; Recorder, R. J. Finch; Councilmen, William Black, J. W. Bartlett, Pierce Metz, J. D. Paddock, W. B. Smith and J. C. Herbert. This second incorporation has insured the well being and success of the city, and its prosperity has been both great and marked.

CIVIC SOCIETIES.

From time immemorial men have banded themselves together in secret organizations for various purposes. In ancient times the growth of art and science, and of poetic art especially, was intimately bound up in or connected with societies of a secret nature. Much of the philosophy of the Greeks and Romans found its birth in the secret groves of Italy or Greece. Jurisprudence and grammer had an origin in the same manner, and some of the most distinguished in mathematical and mechanical sciences were members of secret orders. Though now, and without the slightest grounds, often accounted hostile to religion, secret orders really owe their origin to religion or to religious institutions. As De Quincy has so eloquently shown in his famous essay on the Essenes, Christianity at its inception was a secret institution. Opposition comes with a very poor grace from those who owe their existence to similar institutions, and whose practices now border on secresy. In the secret walls of European cloisters were elaborated many of the dogmas of modern faith, and all with a veil of mystery that is not yet entirely obliterated. The greatest

of all the Jews, the law giver himself, Moses, went apart, in secret, to obtain the laws of God. The eternal fire was kept veiled from the eyes and reason of men within the holiest of holies. Without entering upon a polemic, or wishing to arouse hostile criticism, the suggestion is offered that the world will never be freed from secret orders, for the highest interests of men have always been subserved by them, and they have become so powerful a factor in the amelioration of the condition of men that they are indispensable.

Homes have been visited and cheered, families cared for by lodges, the

sick visited, and with a faithfulness and self-denial that only brothers, true to the mystic tie, can present or illustrate. It is not compulsory attention, it is not charity, but the simple outgrowth of a pure and exalted humanity. Nor can institutions of this nature justify or shield either crime or evil, based as they are upon the purest morality and that code of all moral codes, the Bible, they must war against vice in all its forms, nor brook the appearance of evil. The men in them are usually the best in the community. True, it often happens that mistakes are made, but what organization is freed from them? They should be measured by the quality of the work they do, rather than by the public estimate of what they ought to accomplish.

Of societies of this nature there are two in Malvern, the history of each of which, though brief, here follows:

MASONIC LODGE, or SILVER URN LODGE No. 234, was organized under dispensation June 2, 1869, and was started on Silver Creek, in 1870, at a point nearly five miles north of Malvern. The charter members, among others, included Z. W. Burnham, J. H. Wing, and S. Christy. The first named was master, the second S. W., and the last, junior warden. The number of members is now fifty, and the lodge is now officered by A. Wingate, W. M.; I. J. Swain, S. W.; R. D. S. Padget, J. W.; H. Barnes, Treasurer; W. E. Ross, Secretary; Pierce Metz, S. D.; H. A. Norton, J. D.; M. J. Cutis, S. S.; R. T. Dounor, J. S. and T. Fallwell, Tyler.

MALVERN LODGE No. 276, I. O. O. F., was instituted March 16, 1874, with the following charter members and officers: W. M. McCary, N. G.; G. D. Reynolds, V. G.; Henry Bolenbecker; A. Eddy, Rec. Sec.; Saul Hibbs, E. J. Coleman; J. J. Dunlap; Michael Brobst, and George T. Tibbetts. The present membership is eighty, governed by the following persons as officers-in-chief: J. L. Talbott, N. G.; R. McLean, V. G.; and W. E. Ross, Secretary.

There is in connection with this lodge, a Rebecca Lodge, No. 84, instituted in October, 1876. The charter members were William Gray, J. H. Safely, Minnie Safely, and twenty-four others.

THE WOMAN'S CHRISTIAN TEMPERANCE UNION was organized November 29, 1877, by Mrs. Aldrich, of Cedar Rapids. The officers chosen at that time were Mrs. J. D. Paddock, President; Mrs. McIntosh, VicePresident, Mrs. H. Barnes, Secretary, and Mrs. W. D. Evans, Treasurer. The society edits a column devoted to temperance in the local papers, and is busily engaged in the good cause, devoted to its philanthropic labors, and richly successful.

A cornet band was organized in April, 1880, with a membership of ten, and this completes the civic societies and organizations in this thriving

CORPORATIONS AND INDUSTRIES.

There are two banking houses in Malvern, both of good business standing and influence. The oldest of these is the Farmers and Traders' bank, which was organized in July, 1871, as a private banking house, by W. D. Evans. Its date of organization makes it the oldest bank in the county, thus giving it a short precedence of the Mills county National bank of Glenwood. The great financial panic of 1873 was passed safely and its capital in no wise impaired. From that year until 1875 the business was conducted under the firm name of Evans & Swan, but since that year it has been solely managed by the present proprietor.

The remaining banking house is the First National Bank of Malvern, organized January 1, 1875, with a capital stock of fifty thousand dollars. The surplus fund is now over fifteen thousand dollars. J. M. Strahan is the president, and L. Bentley, cashier, and these gentlemen have managed its affairs ever since its organization. The bank, as the surplus fund evidences, is in a prosperous condition, and is deservedly successful. The first elevator was built in 1869, at the beginning of the town, by J. D. Ladd & Co. In 1870 it passed in the hands of J. F. Evans, who conducted it until 1874, when it was sold to Curtis & Donner. In 1875 the firm changed to Donner Brothers, but a fire destroyed it in that year. Mr. Curtis, the retiring member of the old firm, formed a co-partnership with J. F. Evans, under the firm name of J. F. Evans & Co., and these gentlemen erected the present structure. It has a capacity of twenty thousand bushels, and through it yearly passes a total of more than four hundred thousand bushels, all handled by the firm.

The Malvern Mills are located about one and a half miles south of the city, and were put in operation by Brothers & McIntosh in 1875-6. In 1879 the property passed into the hands of F. M. Buffington, the present proprietor. The mill contains all the appliances usual to institutions of its character, has four run of stone, and a capacity of one hundred bushels of grain daily.

These corporations, together with a total of sixty-nine business firms, combine to give an air of thrift and enterprise to the city that few places of its size can equal. Added to this, its central favorable location, in the midst of one of the best farming counties in the state of Iowa, insures its permanency and business success. Then there is a strong and decided movement being made to secure the county seat, and if, as its citizens seem to feel assured, it is successful in this it will become the metropolis of the county. Its position, on two railroads, makes it easy of access from all parts of the county, and it may be only a question of a comparatively short time before it becomes the capital.