The Weare family arrived here in 1848 and for more than fifty years were prominent factors in the upbuilding of Cedar Rapids. John Weare became a noted banker and railroad promoter. Charles Weare became engaged in constructing railroads and took charge of large contracts, was mayor of Cedar Rapids, postmaster, and consul in foreign countries. He was also connected with the First National Bank of Cedar Rapids, as well as with the Cedar Rapids Water Company. George Weare became a noted banker in Sioux City, and P. B. Weare and Ely E. Weare promoters and members of the board of trade in the city of Chicago. Later they promoted steamboat traffic in the Yukon country at the time of the gold fever rush. All these were sons of John Weare, Sr., who removed here from Michigan in the spring of 1845 in order to be with his children who had previously emigrated. Mr. Weare, Sr., held the office of justice of the peace up to the time of his death in 1856. William Stewart, a native of Pennsylvania, located in Cedar Rapids in 1847 and entered the blacksmith shop of Pollock, later putting up his own shop, and besides operating a large farm. Mr. Stewart removed to California and died there in 1891, having acquired a fortune in Cedar Rapids real estate. Samuel S. Johnson was another Pennsylvanian who came to Cedar Rapids in 1847. He was a carpenter and joiner by trade but gave that up for farming on arriving in Linn county. Mr. Johnson lived to the grand old age of eighty-five, and passed away at the home of his daughter, Mrs. Robert Taylor. One of the most enterprising, active business men who located in Cedar Rapids in 1849 was Dr. Seymour D. Carpenter, who was then twenty-three years of age, and had ostensibly come out here to practice medicine, but he later turned his attention to land speculations, politics, and other enterprises. Dr. Carpenter is still residing in Chicago, enjoying a hale and hearty old age. In order to give the reader an impression of Cedar Rapids as it was at that time we shall quote Carpenter's splendid article contained in the _History of Crescent Lodge_, by J. E. Morcombe, as follows: