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Interesting article on the Glendale School in Jackson Township. The location of this tract is at the northwest corner of the intersection of Iowa Ave and 335th St.

The Salem Weekly News Oct. 1, 1925
DEED SIXTY-FIVE YEARS OLD FILED WITH CO. RECORDER
The Mt. Pleasant News contains the following which will be of interest to residents and former residents of the Salem vicinity:
A deed to a tract of land, given 65 years ago, and not recorded until Thursday. That is a most unusual circumstance yet it is what has happened. The deed now yellow with age, given a year before the firing on Fort Sumpter was given official recognition Thursday for the first time when Mrs. Ina Bennett, county recorder, placed her signature on its back. This places ownership of school buildings and grounds, No. 5 in Jackson township, in the hands of the heirs of twelve Jackson township pioneers. All these pioneers have been dead for more than two decades.
The deed is more than the mere transfer of property. Those things are not uncommon and more than once, Mrs. Bennett says she has been called upon to record a deed which has laid in some family archive for a half century or more, but this deed throws light upon the educational methods of Pre-Civil war days.
It seems as though thirteen men of the community wanted a permanent school house and grounds for the education of their children. It is true their children had been having the benefits of the school but never a permanent location. They had been shipped around, at one time an old Quaker church, the relic of Iowa territory days, served as a school house. Another time it was in another part of the district. These men and women tiring of this decided to obtain a plot of land, place a building thereon and give to their children a permanent school home. This was the motive back of the purchase of this half acre of real estate.
Accordingly a half acre, in what was then the geographical center of their neighborhood, was selected for a school ground, a house was moved on the tract, the land was purchased on which the building was located, a deed given and good pioneer money paid for the land. The deed throws light upon the initiative and enterprise of these settlers who would take the matter in their own hands, build their own school house, buy their own school ground and pay for the same, not by taxation, but from their own earnings. Not through the medium of an official unit of government, but by private enterprise and private payments.
The deed calls for transfer of one half acre of land to be used for school purposes. The exact words are as follows:
‘ Know all men by these presents, that we Abraham Small and Margaret Small his wife, of the county of Henry and State of Iowa, for the consideration of one hundred and seventy-two dollars, the receipt whereof we hereby acknowledge, do convey to Ephraim Ratliff, William E. Butler, Joseph R. Hoag, Jesse Massey, George W. Tyner, Asher Woolman, Jonathan Votaw, Martin Cammack, James Cowgill, Samuel Emerson, Laurence Hicks, Joshua Cowgill, Joel C. Garretson, of the county of Henry and State of Iowa, the certain tract of real estate and the house thereon, together with all the appurtenances there belonging described as follows, one half of an acre in the southeast corner of the east half of the northwest quarter of section thirty three township seventy, range six west situated in Henry county in the State of Iowa, to have and to hold the same as a school house and land, provided however, should the house and lands be discontinued for school purposes in sub-district No. 5 of Jackson township, the land reverts back to us, Abraham Small and Margaret Small, by paying to the above named persons ten dollars, but the house or houses thereon shall belong to the above named persons , their heirs or assignees, to be removed at any time, by them to any place they may choose, and we warrant the title against all persons whomsoever. In witness whereof we have herewith subscribed our names, this nineteenth day of April A.D. One thousand eight hundred and sixty.’ Signed ‘Abraham Small and Margaret Small.’
The deed was signed before Samuel Hall, Justice of the Peace.
This location is in Jackson township, along the Webster trail ten miles south of town. It is still used for school purposes, also a new school building has since been placed on the land.
Every one of the thirteen men to whom the deed was given, and to whom the tract of land now belongs has been dead for more than two decades and their descendants numbering hundreds are scattered thruout the United States. It would probably be an impossible task to locate these heirs, who are in reality owners of the school building if it should be abandoned for school purposes and of the tract of land unless the owner of the Small farm chooses to buy the tract by paying ten dollars to the estates of each of thirteen men to be divided among the heirs.
Only two sons of the original thirteen live in the district, some have no heirs of the second generation, only grandchildren surviving.
At the meeting sixty -five years ago Joel Garretson, noted abolitionist, charter member of the Republican party and father of county supervisor O.A.Garretson, was secretary. The deed was written in his handwriting, was kept by him until his death thirty years ago and is now the property of Mr. O.A. Garretson, his only surviving child. The paper is prized very highly by the Garretson family and has remained in their possession these sixty years.
Mr. H.B. Massey at present, owner of the Abraham Small farm, and director of the Glendale school is the only other surviving member of the second generation, living in the district. The tract of land sold by Mr. and Mrs. Small sixty-five years ago takes a corner of his own farm. He will, if the school is ever abandoned find himself in the peculiar circumstance of heir to one thirteenth interest in the school building now standing which is to be removed to any place desired by the heirs, if the school is ever abandoned or removed to another location.