In the spring they found other families of Mormons who had made homes but a few miles from them and all remained and became prosperous farmers. In 1850 Robert Jamison, A. Colier, Bernard and James G. Arnold, J. Ellis, John Shearer and William Overton settled in the southern part of the county. Soon after a colony from Van Buren County came and laid out the town of Hopeville near the west line of the county, settling in that vicinity.
In 1851 the county was organized by the election of the following officers: John A. Lindsley, judge; Alonzo R. Williams, clerk; G. W. Glenn, treasurer, and Ivison Ellis, sheriff. The commissioners chosen to locate the county-seat selected a farm entered by George W. Howe, which was purchased for one hundred dollars and the town of Osceola laid out upon it. George W. Howe built the first house in Osceola in 1851 in which he opened the first store in the county. At a sale of lots in October eighty-five were sold at an average price of twenty-two dollars each. The first term of court was held in 1853 by Judge J. S. Townsend. At the general election in August, 1852, but eighty-one votes were polled. The first newspaper was established in 1858 by G. S. Pike and T. R. Oldham and named the Osceola Courier. The Burlington and Missouri Railroad was built through the county and through the town of Osceola, and completed to the Missouri River in 1868.
CLAY COUNTY is in the second tier south of the Minnesota line, in the third east of the western boundary of the State and contains sixteen congressional townships embracing an area of five hundred seventy-six square miles. It was created in 1851 and named for Lieutenant-Colonel Henry Clay, Jr., who was killed at the Battle of Buena Vista in the Mexican War. In January, 1853, Clay County was attached to Wahkaw for judicial and election purposes.
