This is the present status of the project.

No further steps

had been taken up to the time of writing this article (April 7, 1898) since the adjournment of the legislature. A cut of the proposed edifice is herewith presented, for which we are indebted to the courtesy of Mr. J. E. Clarey, editor of Illustrated Iowa. It is the expectation of the Executive Council to procure another site and proceed with the erection of the building at an early day.

HON. THEODORE S. PARVIN of Cedar Rapids has spent the past winter in Mexico, where one of his sons has resided for several years. This distinguished gentleman-the Nestor of Iowa librarians and collectors-was born in Cedarville, New Jersey, January 15, 1817, and has, therefore, entered upon his 82d year. He came to Iowa in 1838 and began his active public life as private secretary to Gen. Robert Lucas, our first Territorial Governor. His labors as Territorial Librarian, as a leader in founding the State University, and as the originator of the great Masonic Library at Cedar Rapids, are too well known to require mention here. His life has been one of the highest usefulness. "He has done the State some service and they know it." In his advanced age he is a worker still. That he may soon return to his active duties at Cedar Rapids in improved health, is the earnest hope of his troops of friends throughout the Union.

A RARE IOWA BOOK.

We find in The Quarterly Bulletin of the Iowa Masonic Library at Cedar Rapids, a most interesting account of what is fittingly characterized as "one of the rarest little volumes in existence." We copy the title in full:

Notes on the Wisconsin Territory particularly with reference to the Iowa District, or Black Hawk Purchase. By Lieutenant Albert M. Lea, United States Dragoons. With the act for establishing the Territorial Government of Wisconsin, and an accurate map of the District. Philadelphia: H. S. Tanner-Shakespeare Building, 1836.

The author of this book graduated from West Point

Military Academy, fifth in the class of 1831. Among his classmates were Samuel R. Curtis and Thomas J. McKean, who settled in this State when they retired from the regular army, and afterwards rose to distinction in the war of the rebellion. Several of the class became soldiers of national reputation, as Henry Clay, Jr., (killed at Buena Vista), A. A. Humphreys, W. H. Emory, Bradford R. Alden, and others. Albert M. Lea entered the army as brevet second lieutenant in 1831, and was appointed second lieutenant in the 1st dragoons in 1833. This regiment was then on frontier duty at Fort Des Moines (No. 1), near the present village of Montrose. Resigning in 1836, he served as a civil engineer on various public works, and as a commissioner in settling the boundary between Iowa and Missouri in 1838. He was

Brig. General in the Iowa Militia in 1840. The book in question was "a very complete report of his surveys in Wisconsin Territory." Of this three advance copies were mailed to him, and the rest of the edition shipped to him at his western home. The steamboat which conveyed these books was wrecked and sunk in the Ohio river, not another copy being saved. It was never reprinted and the three copies

mentioned are all that are in existence. One is in the Parvin Masonic Library at Cedar Rapids, one in the State Library, at St. Paul, and the third is owned in Faribault, Minnesota. The author was a Tennesseean and joined the confederate army. He died at Corsicana, Texas, three or four years ago. He was well known in Iowa during our Territorial days, and a lake in Minnesota bears his name.

On the 11th of April, 1898, too late for Chief Justice Deemer to incorporate a mention of the fact in his appreciative tribute (pp. 462, 464) to Darwin Robert Merritt, lost on the U. S. S. Maine, memorial exercises were held in Red Oak, Iowa, the place of Merritt's birth, where his parents still reside. Ex-Congressman Thomas Bowman, who appointed young Merritt to the Naval Academy, was present, and addresses were made by the Chief Justice, by Rev. E. C. Moulton and Hon. Smith McPherson. The G. A. R. Post attended in a body as did the local militia company.

NOTABLE DEATHS.

DENNIS B. DAILEY was born in Galway county, Ireland, in 1840; he died at Council Bluffs March 25, 1898. He came to this country with his parents at the age of six years, and was educated at Antioch College, Ohio. At the outbreak of the civil war in 1861, he enlisted as a private in the 2d Wisconsin Infantry. His promotion was immediate and rapid, based upon his high soldierly qualities. He participated in all the noted battles fought by the army of the Potomac. At Gettysburg he was in the charge of the Iron Brigade against the confederate line and received the surrender of the Confederate General Archer whose sword he retained until the time of his death. Before the battle closed he was severely wounded and fell into the hands of the enemy, but succeeded in escaping and rejoined his command a few days later. At the battle of Weldon Road, August 21, 1864, while serving with the rank of Captain on Gen. Cutler's staff, he was dangerously wounded by the Confederate General Hagood, who commanded a brigade in Mahone's division. Capt. Dailey had made a dash to secure the colors of one of the enemy's regiments, and at the time of being shot was holding the confederate colors and flag. This incident has been characterized as "the bravest act of the war," and as such it is mentioned in Beauregard's "Military Operations of the War," and is also described in Swinton's "Army of the Potomac." It has also been made the subject of a stirring poem called "The Charge of Hagood's Brigade." Some time after the war it was his fortune accidentally to meet the Confederate General Hagood, by whom he was so severely wounded upon the occasion referred to. They were naturally pleased to meet each other in friendship so long after the "cruel war was over." Each had found "a foeman worthy of his steel" in the heat of a closely contested battle where every moment was full of imminent peril. Returning from the war. Col. Dailey made his home in Council Bluffs in 1867, and resided there until his death. He was appointed by the Governor to the office of District Attorney, the duties of which he performed with marked ability. He became distinguished as a criminal lawyer. Upon the occasion of his death many tributes of respect were paid to his memory by the newspapers and courts at Council Bluffs, the Grand Army of the Republic and the Episcopal church. Many of his old companions in arms were present at his funeral.

"The bravest act of the war" is thus described in the "Military Operations of General Beauregard," Vol. II, pp. 272-3:

"It was during this attempt to regain the use of the Weldon Road that on the 21st of August, General Hagood, of South Carolina, distinguished himself in a personal encounter with a Federal officer.

"Owing to inaccurate reports of his scouts General A. P. Hill, who commanded the Confederate forces against Warren's expedition, mistook the exact position of the enemy's line on the left, and, through General Mahone, who labored under the same error, Hagood's brigade was ordered to press the rear and flank of the Federals. He was to be supported by five brigades of Mahone's division, supposed to be already in front. The brigade drove the skirmishers from their rifle-pits, but found itself in presence of a strongly intrenched line, crowded with men and artillery, extending right and left as far as could be seen.' The five brigades of General Mahone were not there. General Hagood saw at once how perilous a strait he was in, and used his utmost endeavors to halt his command; but the men, 'intent on carrying the position before them, neither heard nor heeded his voice,' and had actually reached the parapets of the works before they understood what overwhelming disaster threatened them. The situation was nearly desperate, all the more that flanking column had now been sent behind the brigade, with the evident purpose of cutting off its retreat. At this moment a Federal officer, Captain Dailey, of General Cutler's staff, boldly rode forward and seized a regimental flag of the brigade. Seeing this, General Hagood, then on foot, came up as fast as he could, and, calling upon his men to fall back, demanded the immediate return of the colors. Upon the officer's refusal to complythere being no time for parley-General Hagood shot him through the body, and 'as he reeled from the saddle upon one side sprang into it from the other, Orderly Stoney seizing the flag from his falling hands.' Instantly facing about, the South Carolina brigade, under the lead of its intrepid commander, charged and easily dispersed the