Friday 14th August 2009 – It’s All Down on Paper

Today is Courthouse day. I like visiting courthouses: they're full of old books and papers, and helpful grown-up ladies. Although it's a very hot day, it's only a short walk, a couple of blocks on the other side of the Cedar River.

Unfortunately, Waterloo is a big town, and this is still the 'court' courthouse. So there are men, mercifully without guns, keen to look up my bottom with machines. I know the ropes: I ask if they can look after my swiss army knife. They can't, but they suggest hiding it outside: seriously, that's what they suggested; "lot's of people do it", they said.

I find a nice spot in the flowerbeds with heavy wood bark mulch, and push it underneath. I'm under a row of darkened windows: for all I know, the Sheriff and all his Deputies are watching me burying a knife outside the Courthouse. I could be arrested any second.

But I'm not, and I now pass the door tests. I'm in and on my way to the Recorder's office.

The Plat Book is no problem, and, believe it or not, the Glasgow plat is page 1. It was filed in 1902, the survey done by an assistant engineer of the "WCF RT RR", which I take to be the Waterloo and Cedar Falls Rapid Transit Railroad. But it is owned by a group of people all called "Cass", I guess two brothers and their wives. They describe themselves as "proprietors", and declare the platted land to be "hereafter known and called Glasgow". So it looks like the railroad was picking landowners along the route and setting up some sort of commuter town plans, to generate business.

The land deeds were harder to find, despite knowing, from the library, the exact date of the first purchase. The grown-up ladies are unable to find the required book. They make all sorts of attempts to sort it out. Someone is sent to the basement to look at the actual objects, instead of the neat rows of microfilm.

Eventually, after many phone calls, the right book is found. I try to hide my embarrassment: it is book "H", and I realise immediately that the book "26" I sent them off in search of is just me misreading the court clerk's copperplate. I confess, and am forgiven.

The book is a disappointment: since it is the original government sale, I was hoping there would be a copy certificate, as a quick way of making the copy, but it is the usual laborious copy, in poor copperplate, of the whole document. Because the seller is the United States of America, it is a patent, rather than a deed. William Glasgow bought 400 acres for $1.25 per acre. He bought it on November 1^st 1854, got his patent June 15 1855, but didn't file it with the court till April 31 1860.

So Wm Glasgow is undoubtedly the reason the Casses decided to call their planned town "Glasgow". The patent identifies him as being from Erie County, Ohio.

I felt I had had a very productive and enjoyable day. Later that night, it being Friday, young people decided to ruin the day by playing loud, sometimes very loud, music everywhere. Except for the place where they were karaoke-ing. They asked me to join in: "No", I said, "I can't do Karaoke, I'm too good a singer".