swamps. Most of that land resides in adjacent Jasper county, where a Swamplands scandal in the early 1860s resulted in a county official, who was accused of embezzlement, burning down the local courthouse to cover his tracks before skipping town. Before the areas were drained, the temperate swamps supported a nearly unimaginable variety of flora and fauna. Pioneer accounts relate an abundance of game of every type, and many local residents made their living by hunting and trapping in the early settlement days. The "proprietors" of the new town were Josiah Walden and William Clark, who owned the land on the east and west sides of the railroad, respectively. They were assisted by Carter Hathaway, who was a surveyor, lawyer, politician, and entrepreneur. Hathaway's ornate map of the little town "Medary Ville" was recorded in March, 1852, at the Pulaski County courthouse in Winamac, the county seat. The town was laid out using old English units of measure: all the lots were four rods by eight rods, with the streets three rods wide and the alleys one. There is an exception for the lots that abut the railroad, because the right-of-way was 100 feet, which isn't an even multiple of a rod. Neither Walden nor Clark stayed in Medaryville. Reprising the migrations that brought them to the area, each moved west again. In 1857 Clark went to Iowa, selling what was left of his holdings to William Tolbert Elston, the town's first doctor. Walden left for Kansas in 1864, selling his interest in the town to James C. Faris, a lawyer. Faris's son George Washington Faris served several terms in the U.S. House of Representatives, representing an area surrounding his home in Terre Haute. The town was most likely named after Samuel Medary, an Ohio newspaper editor and politician who moved west with the settlers and was the last governor of the Minnesota Territory before it gained statehood. He was later the governor of the Kansas Territory. Other towns named after him are Medary, Wisconsin, near the Minnesota border, and Medary, South Dakota, which was the first town platted in the Dakota Territory. Medary was also a common given name in Carter Hathaway's family. He named his son Richard Medary, and his brother Richard named his son Medary Montez. In 1850 Carter Hathaway platted Knox, the county seat of adjoining Starke county. He was a judge and county official in