A number of plats have been filed in the recorder's office at Marion, and these have again been transcripted for public use, but before towns could be platted a number of towns were staked out before the land was laid out and surveyed by the government; of these plats we have no record. The first plat was, no doubt, that of Westport, located on the banks of the Cedar river and near Bertram. This was staked out by Israel Mitchell July 4, 1838. Ivanhoe was laid out some distance below at the present Ivanhoe bridge in the same year. Another town was staked out by J. Wilbert Stone along the Cedar river at the lower rapids within the corporate limits of the present Cedar Rapids. There is no record of any plat of this town. In 1844 Westport was again platted as Newark by James M. Doty. This is the first recorded plat and seems to have been filed November 21, 1844, by John Zinbar, recorder. (See Vol. A, p. 301, Lands.) This is now a corn field and has long since been vacated. New Linden was another town platted in the early days; this plat was filed by P. S. Embree, surveyor, April 15, 1853, being property owned by A. E. Simpson and A. P. Risley and located on sections 27 and 28, township 84, range 5, Brown township. This, also, now is nothing but a corn field. Another was the plat of New Buffalo in the town of New Buffalo which is filed in Vol. 4, p. 217, of the Land Records of Linn county; this has also been vacated. The plat of the town of Mayfield was made by J. M. May and filed for record in Vol. 143, p. 624. It bordered on the Cedar river and embraced lot 4 and part of section 34, township 83, range 7. It also has been abandoned, although May's twenty-five additions, re-plats, etc., made by Major May, are still parts of additions to Cedar Rapids. Major May was a man of enthusiasm, and speculated, believing, with Colonel Sellers, that in every enterprise he undertook there would be millions, but he died a poor, unknown and disappointed man. Many of the old town sites have been vacated, and many of the old postoffices and country stores which one found throughout the county in the early fifties can no longer be found on the map. From _Iowa as It Is_, published in 1855, at page 153 we find the following notices concerning Linn county towns and postoffices: Spring Grove, Boulder, Central Point, Cedar Oak, Newark, St. Julien, Ivanhoe, and Hoosier Grove, besides such towns as Cedar Rapids, Palo, Marion, and Mount Vernon. The book also mentions Iowa Conference Seminary, with a three story building, and with Rev. S. N. Fellows as superintendent. N. H. Parker in his _Handbook of Iowa_, issued in 1856, mentions a few more new towns not mentioned in the previous list, as follows: Fairfax, Lisbon, Lafayette, Mon Diu, Necot, Oak Grove, Prospect Hill, St. Mary, Springville, and Valley Farm. This author also speaks of the newspapers published in the county, the _Register_ at Marion, and the _Times_, the _Farmer_, and the _Democrat_ at Cedar Rapids.