The Ringgold Record
Mount Ayr, Ringgold County, Iowa
January 13, 1881

Jacob CASE, a very early settler, was born in Trenton, New Jersey, in 1817. In 1824 his people moved to Franklin county Ohio, where he grew up, & at the time of his leaving that State he owned quite a considerable body of land. In 1840, he settled in Jackson County, Indiana. He went to Arkansas in 1848, living three years in Lawrence and Benton counties. He moved to Lawrence county, Missouri, in 1851, and to Decatur county in 1853. Late in the fall of that year he and his wife's brother, Martin COX, now of Decatur county, came into Ringgold county with the idea of locating here.

They traveled over the whole of the eastern part of the county, where the MERRITTS, MOULTONS, and others live, and found not a single house. They kept on south until they came to "History Point," in Missouri, where was the first house they had seen after leaving Decatur. A Mr. POTTER lived there. During the night it turned so cold that they could not make up their minds to face the prairie wind where there seemed to be no prospect of finding a house, and they turned and retraced their steps home. But the lay of the land seems to have made a favorable impression on Mr. CASE, for we find him in the county again, as soon as his crop allowed him to leave. In July, 1854, he and S. J. COX traveled over almost every part of the county. This time he met Mr. SCHOOLER, and until that time he supposed that there was not a white settler in the county. They camped out two nights, one on Lotts Creek near where Mr. SHAHA lives, and again on Walnut Creek just north of Mount Ayr. He selected the land he afterwards entered, and upon which he now lives, on that trip, and the next month, August, 1854, came over to complete arrangements for moving. He bought a log house, 11 x 15 feet in size, of Washington SMITH, who lived near SCHOOLER, paying him a cow valued at $20 for it. His house had a floor made of fence rails. It is now used as a stable by Richard PITTMAN, and in April, 1855, was used by Sanford HARROW for a store building at Ringgold City. Should this date be correct, and we have Mr. CASE's authority for it, this was the first store opened in this county by, six weeks or two months, Mr. DUNNING's old store in Mount Ayr not being heard of until June of that year. In September, Messrs CASE and COX came over again and made hay on Mr. CASE's land. They stayed a week, cooking for themselves in the house he had bought, and putting up about twenty tons of hay. On passing the spot on Lotts Creek where they had camped on the previous trip they found a large body of Indians. He moved his family to their new home on the 22nd of September, 1854, bringing furniture of his own make from Decatur. There were living in the county at that time, to his knowledge, Charles SCHOOLER, Joel CHAMBERS, Henry MILLER and Barnet WILLSON. He had left his crop of corn, potatoes, etc., in Decatur county, and hauled it by piece-meal during the winter with oxen. Until this was exhausted, some time in 1855, the family fared well, but afterward they experienced hard times.

"When Jacob CASE came to Ringgold in 1854 the county was without roads or even a cow path. He had lived in Decatur county a year, coming from Missouri in 1853. He had only lived in Decantur for a short time before he heard of the settlement at Ringgold County, Iowa. He decided to make a trip to Ringgold county, but before starting he cut a load of small poles, and sharpened them and he and the family tied rags on the end of the poles. Then he started with the poles for Ringgold county. When he ran out of road he stuck a pole in the ground and drove on until he could just see the rag on the pole behind, then he stuck another pole in the ground, then drove on with his ox wagon, setting a pole far enough apart to see from one to the other. He succeeded in blazing the trail to Ringgold county. After deciding to locate in Ringgold he went back and forth moving his goods from Decantur county by the aid of these rags and poles until he had established a very fair road.

The CASES were so hard up at that early day that one day they beat out a bushel of wheat with a flail, went 35 miles to Missouri to mill to get in ground. When he got home, a half-dozen men were there to borrow a little flour to feed their sick children. The corn bread diet was very hard on little children and aged people these days."

He broke six acres of sod in the spring of '55, and then becoming fearful that someone else would enter his land, he parted with all his stock except a five-year old horse in order to raise the money with which to enter it. His horse died and he traded for a two-year old colt which was all he had to farm with. His sod corn did not amount to anything and the family passed some days on short allowances. He hauled from Lynn county, Missouri, over 100 miles, and paid $1 for corn; could get but 10 bushels which, after shelling, he took to Winterset - 75 miles - to mill. In June, 1855, he started to Chariton where he got his mail and did a part of his trading, and when near where Caledonia now is, he met some persons who told him of the murder of the man GRIGGS, on Sand Creek, which crime, it was alleged, was perpetrated by the Indians, and in consequence were afterward removed from the county. Mr. CASE turned about and spread the alarm. All the men in the settlement were across the line to a house raising at one Barnet WILSON's. Mr. CASE went there, collected all the men and conducted them to Stanbury WRIGHT's where they met Mr. DOZE's party. In the fall of 1855, Mr. CASE and a hand threshed out his wheat crop with flails, and Mrs. CASE had not bread or meat for them to eat, but she gave them all the boiled potatoes and baked squash they could get away with. An idea of the scarcity of provender during the winter of 1855-6 may be gathered from the fact that Joseph STRATTON, who lived where John HACKER now lives, lost seven yoke of oxen that winter from starvation. He attended the first county election at Mrs. HIMES', May 14, 1855. Mr. CASE's oldest son, Retura CASE, died a soldier at Keokuk in 1864. He owns 189 acres of prairie and timberland in south Lotts Creek, and is quite well fixed. His house, 24 x 24, two stories, was built in 1875, the lumber being hauled from Leon. He has a good bearing orchard and has been a Republican for twenty years.

NOTE: Jacob CASE died at Ringgold City, Ringgold County, Iowa, on Decmeber 30, 1900, at the age of 83 years. He was interred at Ringgold Cemetery, Ringgold County, Iowa.

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