CHAPTER XIV
BY order of the War Department, May 19, 1834, Lieutenant-Colonel S. W. Kearny was directed to proceed with three companies of the First United States Dragoons to establish a post near the mouth of the Des Moines River. He took Company B, Captain E. V. Sumner; Company H, Captain Nathan Boone and Company I, Captain J. B. Browne; with 107 men. On the 26th of September they reached their destination, making their camp where Montrose now stands. They immediately began the erection of log buildings and the post was named Fort Des Moines by order of the Secretary of War.
Colonel Kearny was ordered in March, 1835, to proceed up the Des Moines River to the Raccoon Fork and select a site for a military post in that vicinity. He started on the 6th of June with 150 men of Company B, commanded by Lieutenant H. S. Turner; Company H, Captain Nathan Boone, and Company I, Lieutenant Albert M. Lea. They were well mounted and followed a dividing ridge between the Skunk and Des Moines rivers. Their line of march led through that section of Iowa now embraced in the counties of Lee, Henry, Jefferson, Keokuk, Mahaska, Jasper and Polk. They camped at the mouth of the Raccoon River and spent some time exploring the country. A party was sent out, under Captain Boone, which for two weeks rode over the beautiful prairies in a northwesterly direction, finally coming into the Des Moines Valley in the vicinity of Boone County. Ascending the valley, on the 22d of June, they came to a river emptying into the Des Moines from a northeasterly direction. It was named Boone, for the commander of the party. From here they kept a northeasterly course along the divide between the Boone and Iowa rivers. The party spent nearly two months exploring the country, passing
[Vol. 1]
