July 22, 1839 – Pioneer Abner Kneeland’s family arrives in Iowa – his dream community of Salubria is founded.

In 1839, a 65-year-old preacher named Abner Kneeland escaped the religious persecution he suffered in Massachusetts, settling in Van Buren County, where he founded a religion-free community called Salubria. A pantheist, Kneeland was jailed in Boston for heresy, but here in Iowa, he and his followers were able to live in religious freedoms never offered them back east.

A Day-by-Day Calendar of Historical Events In Iowa, William J. Petersen, State Historical Society of Iowa, 1946, p 72

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