"MONDAY, JAN. 22 (1877) We went down the town and called at the Railway Station for the California Wine which had arrived; it had been more than three weeks in coming. In the afternoon we went to Horseford & Watters' store to meet John Clarkson who we heard was likely to be there. He is looking thinner, but quite healthy. He says his wife is not well. He buys wheat and hogs, a quantity of which he had brought into Dubuque for sale. He speaks highly of the land about Marcus, near LaMars, & Cherokee near the Missouri, which he says can be bought for from $6 to $25 per acre. We had heard that his mother and family were coming but John says he does not know whether she is or not. He returned last night. In the Evening we went to sit with Mr. and Mrs. Coates. They told us that her brother, John R. Waller, is going to be married to a Catholic young lady on Wednseday; they would rather have had him marry a Protestant." NOTES "John Clarkson was born in England and emigrated to Dubuque in 1850. He owned a 162-acre farm three miles southwest of Centre Grove. Childs, Dubuque County History, 925; Dubuque County Directory, 47. "Marcus is in Cherokee County, midway between LeMars and the town of Cherokee. In 1876 and 1877, William B. and Fred Close, 2 brothers from England, organized a land development company and purchased thousands of acres in Plymouth County near Denison, in the late 1870s and early 1880s. It is possible that John Clarkson had some connection with their speculative enterprise. Andreas, Atlas, 100; Jacob Van Der Zee, The British in Iowa, (Iowa City: The State Historical Society of Iowa, 1922), 57-119."