Frederick Cretzmeyer is credited with being the first settler in Waverly, having purchased 160

acres (0.6 km2) in 1852, he built a log hut on the east side of the Cedar River (or what was once
called the Red Cedar River). Soon more homes were constructed as other settlers arrived, with
some of their later homes built just over the hill behind the old recycling center.
William Patterson Harmon came to Waverly in the spring of 1853 with the idea of establishing a
town and a saw mill. He purchased most of what is now Waverly from the United States
Government for $1.25 an acre. The area was incorporated as a town on April 25, 1859, according
to the Library of the State of Iowa. (A centennial celebration was held in August 1956.) Two
stories exist on how the town was named. The speaker at the ceremony was said to have been a
fan of Sir Walter Scotts Waverley Novels and when it came time to name the town (which
settlers had wanted to call Harmonville or Harmon) he inadvertently called it Waverly. The myth
goes that Jennie Harmon Case later wrote that it was her father who was the speaker and that he
made the decision to name the town after the favorite book, instead of the proposed
"Harmonville." Coincidentally, Bremer Countys name also honors a person eminent in
literature. Bremer was named in 1850 by Governor Hempstead, who was an admirer of the
Swedish feminist author Fredrika Bremer.[5]
The first school was started by Charles Ensign in a log cabin in 1854. A stone school house was
erected by 1855, and additional schools were built in 1861 and 1868. The first graduating class
of the Waverly High School was the class of 1875 with two students. Wartburg College moved to
Waverly from Clinton, Iowa in 1856. The public library was established in 1866.