Richland Township, Mahaska County, Iowa

[2] The first European settler Richland Township is believed to be George Buckley,[3] who in 1843, built a house near a creek that now bears his name.

These included: two (perhaps three) general stores, a hotel, a wagon shop, a steam powered sawmill, an attorney, a doctor, and a bee keeper, in addition to several livestock dealers.

A new high road was constructed diagonally across the marshy bottom-land on the left (northwest) side of the river, connecting the bridge to the south-most end of Peoria Cross Street.

In Peoria, there were a growing number of students from families on Dutch descent in the public school, and in 1904, the Holland Christian Reformed Church of Peoria, Iowa began a two-month summer school for the purposes of religious instruction and maintaining literacy in the Holland language in the community.

The success of this effort emboldened the church members to begin, in 1907, a Christian Day School with instruction in the Holland language.

This caused a rift in the community, and combined with concerns that the Dutch were not patriotic Americans, led to the church and school being burned in 1918.

Granville was located at what is now the intersection of Fisher Ave and 110th St, about five miles northeast of Peoria.

The death knell for the village came in 1881 in the form of a railroad built through Taintor, Iowa, a town one and a half miles to the northeast in neighboring Prairie Township.