During 1854 settlers came into Ringgold County from several parts of Iowa and from other States, but the population was still sparse, and all the people could easily have been acquainted with one another. The Judson GRIFFITH family settled in the southern part of the county, and the SOMERS and SWIGART families opened farms near the site of Caledonia. William J. MERRITT'S house, built that year, became a stopping place for all the people that passed and was known as the "Halfway House" -- halfway between Nebraska City and Ottumwa. In 1855 the Cross post office was established at his cabin. It later became a stagecoach stop.

In January 1855 the State Legislature appointed commissioners to locate a county seat. George W. JONES, Robert W. STAFFORD, and George A. HAWLEY were authorized to choose a site as near to the geographical center as seemed reasonable. They reported to the Decatur County judge on April 18 that they had selected the southwest quarter of a section 6, township 68, range 29, for a county seat, and had named it Mount Ayr. "Mount" was used because the town was located on the highest land between the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers in the southern tier of counties, and "Ayr" was selected to honor the poet, Robert BURNS, who was born at Ayr, Scotland.

The site had been suggested by the owner of the land, John S. SHELLER of Lucas County, who promised to convey to Ringgold County one-half of the quarter section selected and to have it surveyed into town lots. The deed to this land was the first recorded in the county.

Just after the commissioners had seleted the site of Mount Ayr, on the high rolling prairie near the head of the Middle Grand River, Barton B. DUNNING arrived. He decided to live in the newly chose county seat, and became the town's first settler. He built a cabin of one story and a half and then returned for his family. He established the first store and later became the town's first postmaster. His son Charles was the first white child born in Mount Ayr.

Soon after the county seat had been selected, William N. McEFFE was appointed sheriff to organize Ringgold County. He set an election of temporary officers for May 14, 1856. The 34 voters chose James C. HAGANS as county judge. Matthew K. BROWN was elected county clerk, James W. COFER treasurer and recorder, Hiron (sic, should be Hiram) IMUS sheriff, and Charles W. SCHOOLER school fund commissioner. One of Judge HAGANS' first jobs was to settle Ringgold County's accounts with Judge John LOWE of Taylor County. Charles SCHOOLER, the school fund commissioner, had a collection of $19.96 Ringgold County. After outstanding warrants were paid county set up in business for itself. Its total were $1.45.

The first meeting of the temporary officers was held at Ephraim COFER'S cabin, six miles south of Mount Ayr. They divided the county into four townships -- Sand Creek, Platte, West Fork, and Lotts Creek -- for the purpose of holding the firest regular election to choose permanent county officers. In August 91 voters reelected HAGANS, BROWN, and COFER, and chose Peter DOZE as sheriff and Wendell POOR as school fund commissioner.

The county officers continued to meet at COFER'S until September 4, 1855, when then adjourned to meet at Mount Ayr the first Monday in October. There were still no public buildings at Mount Ayr so the officers met in the kitchen of Barton B. DUNNING'S home.

At the first meeting of the Ringgold County court, the first business taken up was the disposition of $2,471.79, the estate of Horatio M. IMUS, who had drowned en route to the county. George W. LESAN was appointed guardian of the minor children.

Nearly 100 familes came to Ringgold County in 1855, and several villages were laid out. Stanford HARROW, who for a number of years had kept a store in his cabin for travelers, staked out Ringgold City near the Missouri border, and Peter WALTER[S] started Caledonia three or four miles to the north. This town, named for the Caledon of Sir Walter SCOTT'S Lady of the Lake, was soon made a post office.

Transcriber's Note: Peter WALTER was born April 15, 1825, and died of consumption May 29, 1859, Caledonia. Peter was the second child of John WALTERS (1796-1855) and Sarah (GNAGY) WALTERS (1800-1844), the first postmaster of Caledonia, and one of the first persons to be interred in the Caledonia Cemetery.

James DRAKE settled in the county this year [1855] and built a cabin at the future site of Blackmore Corner. A post office was established at Blackmore, and there was a store and a blacksmith shop, but a village had not yet been platted.

  Early in 1856 a hewn-log courthouse, 14 feet square, was erected on lot 305 at Mount Ayr. The building was furnished with two tables, two desks, and a safety box, all made of rough materials. It was occupied by the judge, the clerk, the recorder-treasurer, the surveyor, and a doctor, problably Dr. E. KEITH. There were few doctors in the county then. Dr. McCARTNEY was still farming and practicing medicine near Mount Ayr. Dr. John T. MERRILL came to the county with his bride in that year and settled at Ringgold City. About 1866 Dr. MERRILL moved to Mount Ayr and in the preceeding years branched into other business. In 1880 he owned a bank and a drug store.

E. L. SOLES (sic, should be F. B. SOLES) and his son-in-law John TAYLOR, who had come to the village, rigged up a whipsaw and sawed the first lumber in the town. SOLES was also a carpenter and was kept busy as the settlers began to stop there. He made the first ballot boxes used in the county elections in the four voting precincts and found time, too, to teach the singing school, one of the town's chief entertainments.

Barton DUNNING, who kept the first store, brought his supplies with him in a trunk. He was made postmaster in 1856. He started a Sunday School and presented the organanization with a Sunday School library which he had purchased in St. Louis on one of his trips there for supplies for his store. A Methodist preacher, Mr. SCHORBER, was superintendent of this Sunday School and preached the first sermon in Mount Ayr. it was also in this year that Judge HAGANS and Barton DUNNING had a log school erected and gave it to the Mount Ayr school board to use rent free until the town should be able to buy the building.

Other parts of the county at first were more rapid in their settlement than Mount Ayr. In July 1856 the southern part of the county and its outer fringes were more heavily settled than the county seat township, which had a total of 115 residents and 28 voters, while the county as a whole had a population of 1, 472 and 322 voters.

A post office was established at Redding in 1856, years before the town was platted, and the Goshen post office was started soon after Michael STAHL, the first postmaster, came to the county in 1856 from Goshen, Indiana.

The people took part in State politics for the first time on November 8, 1856, when they helped choose a delegate to represent the 11th District, of which they were a part, in the State Constitutional Convention at Iowa City, January 19, 1857. In this year also they chose Judge HAGANS to serve in the Eighth General Assemby as Ringgold County's first State Senataor. According to William H. BRADLEY, who had come to the county in 1856, Mount Ayr had at this time only eight houses, all of logs.

In November 1856 the pioneers dealt with a murderer without the benefit of a court trial. Silas RUDE, who lived in the northwestern corner of Decatur County, shot and killed his neighbor, Ed. McMANIGAL, who was driving stock which had wandered onto RUDE'S land. Men from Decatur, Ringgold, Union, and Clark (sic, should be Clarke) Counties formed a posse to hunt RUDE. Two men and a 13-year-old boy, James FULLERTON, were left on guard at RUDE'S house to trap him should he return for his saddle horse, which was a fine animal. RUDE, meanwhile, had hidden in the hayloft of a Mr. LAMB'S barn in Union County. When he asked for food, LAMB notified the posse. RUDE was bound and taken to the cornerstone that marked the four counties. The posse appointed one man to load seven guns and stack them behind a clump of bushes. Seven men then volunteered, each to draw a gun from the stack. They then arranged themselves in a circle a around RUDE, who stood beside the cornerstone. At a given signal all seven men fired. When RUDE fell no one knew or wanted to know in which county he had been shot or by whom.

On May 25, 1857, the first United States disctrict court in the county convented at Mount Ayr, with Judge John S. TOWNSEND presiding. After the court had been organized, the first business transacted was the granting of naturalization papers to Luke SHAY, the Irish settler. In the fall of the year the first supplies for the upkeep of the county courthouse were purchased. They consisted of six loads of wood at50 cents a load, 40 pounds of candles costing $11.40, and two boxes of envelopes at $3.50. Previously the county officers had furnished their own supplies. All except the wood was hauled from St. Joseph [Missouri].

The county papers and belongings were scattered all over Mount Ayr when a cyclone struck the village June 8, 1858. Court was in session at the time and the log courthouse was destroyed. The records, tossed all over town and far beyond, were returned off and on during the next few weeks from various places. The far-flung logs of the building were collected and purchased by Anna MILLER, who used them to build a house. The storm demolished fences and trees, and carried the A. G. BEALL house across the street, setting it down with its front door facing the opposite direction.

In 1857 the first Bohemian settlers, Joseph TOMAN, his wife Vorsila, their two sons, Joseph and Eustachius, and Vaclav JEZEK, moved to the wooded area along the Grand River, near the future site of Diagonal. JEZEK married Dorothy BEALL and settled on the farmland on which their descendants still lived in 1942. Several other Bohemian families joined the group from time to time until about 1900. They were all hard workers and good farmers. Jerry ZARUBA, one of them, chose to go into business and had a store at Goshen for a number of years.

Charles K. GRIMES, who had been among the first dozen settlers in Tingley Township, established Eugene in 1857. He carried the mail between Eugene and Mount Ayr on foot, often wading through mud and water. GRIMES was a farmer rather than a promoter, and his platted town was little more than a post office.

In 1858 Middle Fork, Washington, East Fork, and Jefferson Townships were marked off. Edgar SHELDON started a cheese factory, the first in southwestern Iowa. John A. MILLER and his brother Ezra came to Mount Ayr to practice law.

The county was prosperous in 1859 and had enough money from the sale of town lots at Mount Ayr to finance a new $3,500 frame courthouse, two stories high. The court and the jury room were on the second floor. Prisoners were frequently kept the jury room for there was no county jail. The janitor, William FRANCIS, slept in the treasurer's office to protect the county's property.

The comfortable houses and large barns of the settlers attracted the attention of vagrant outlaws who watched their changes to slip in and steal valuable property, especially horses. They could always be taken to distant localities and sold, as the white "stars" on foreheads and similar distinguishing marks could be dyed so that the animals might even be bought by some unsuspecting neighbor of the owner.

When the uneasy period preceding the Civil War gave way to hosilities, horse stealing increased and the nearness of the Missouri border made the criminals harder to catch.

In order to protect themselves, a group of Missouri men organized the "Anti-Horse-Thief Association." They formed the Grnd Order in September 1863 at LueRay, Clark County, Missouri, and framed the consitution and by-laws of of the assocation. Several eastern Iowa counties sent delegates to the next meeting, held at Millport, Knox County, Missouri, the following October. Members of the organization were expected to help the officers of the law capture criminals of all kinds, especially the destested horse thieves. They were directed to help the civil officers but not to take the law into their own hands.

Membership in the Anti-Horse-Thief Association spread into many States and included some 2,000 lodges. Although the Grand River valley was a tempting territory to horse and cattle thieves for many years, the Ringgold County chapter of the Anti-Horse-Thief Assocation was not formeed until the early seventies.

The routing of the Western Stage Coach Company through Ringgold County i n1859 boosted immigration and improved Mount Ayr's mail facilities. Mail then arrived six days a week in coaches en route between Ottumwa and Nebraska City, Nebraska. As these lively jerkies, hustled over the dirt roads by six or eight-horse teams, swung in at their stations the anxious days of once-a-month mail from Mount Pisgah in Union County were forgotten.

In those days it was just as exciting to see the stages come in, unload, take on, and start off again, as it is now to watch the arrival and departure of streamline trains and airplanes. Horses of the Western stage were changed at Mount Ayr at the John DALE farm. The fresh horses at Mount Ayr could sense the excitment long before they actually heard the lurching coach come in. Dancing impatiently in their stalls, they waited until the sweating teams were released, then ran out to stand of their own accord in the traces. If the stage were held for any length of time, these fresh, rested animals chafed at the driver's restraining hand while they waited for the sound of the stableman quickly fastening the clamps of their tugs.

The coaches on this line carried 12 passengers, their baggage, and the mail sacks. They usually averaged only about three and a half miles an hour, because there were terrible roads and few bridges. John DOWLING of Mount Ayr did the blacksmithing for the stage horses from 1866 to 1869. The following year the line was discontinued, due to the competition of the railroad that then paralleled part of the route. Railroads, however, did not reach Ringgold County for another decade.

The first Ringgold County Fair Assocation was organized in June 1859. The association assessed one dollar annual membership dues, but this entitled the holder to a family ticket to the fair. In the fall the association sponsored the firest county fair at the courthouse square and awarded $42.50 in premiums and many diplomas for the for the best entries. The second county fair was also held at the courthouse square October 15 and 16, 1860. There were 335 entries, and the officials were hopeful of having a fairground before long.

This hope was satisfied in 1868 when a 40-acre tract was deeded to the Ringgold Agricultural Society by Charles W. DRAKE. The land was a beautiful tract about a mile northwest of Mount Ayr. In 1887 the property was valued at $1,500. During the Civil War years there was no attempt to hold a fair, but it was again held October 4, 1865, the year the war ended. Not until 1885, however, when varied amusements were introduced to add interest to domestic exhibits of fine stock, fruits, vegetables, and horse racing, did the fair bcome widely popular. Unfortunately, later years brought unjust pro-rating of premiums and monopoly of horse racing management, which killed the general interest. Finally in 1898, the fair was abandoned and the grounds were sold. From that time Mount Ayr held only street fairs.

Since there was no other building in the village large enough for a public gathering, the county supervisors voted in 1861 to keep the courthouse open for religious or literary groups who wished to use the rooms. Each group, however, had to provide its own wood and candles and leave the room in good order.

Mount Ayr in the Civil War days was still a village with only 250 inhabitants, but it had a newspaper, the Mount Ayr Republican, established in August 1860 with George BURTON its editor and P. O. JAMES the publisher. The paper had only a short life, for both BURTON and JAMES enlisted in the army and neither returned to Mount Ayr.

Time almost stood still for the county seat and county until the war was over. James M. WILLIS, one of five young men who went through Mount Ayr in April of 1860, described it in his diary: "It stands on the summit of a high hill and is no doubt arish, surrounded with rough land, a is certainly remarkable for its insignificance; though here we saw two spry ladies with long gowns, capering on horseback." The county seat had thus barely started when volunteers from the villages and farms rode away to join the companies forming in the larger nearby towns. By June 1861 the county's enlistment quota had been set and there was a fair number of volunteers. July 4, 1861, the men were called into quarters at Mount Ayr.

The Fourth of July, 1861, was the first Independence Day to be celebrated in the county. Patriotic fervor, stirred by the war, lifted the people above thoughts of sod corn, spring wheat, and the litters of pigs so necessary to their survial during the snow-bound winters. Mrs. G. M. LESAN, assisted by her sister Sybil and her Aunt Maggie, made a flag of 13 stars from blue delanio, white muslin, and red calico. *

The men used a wagonbox as a base for a platform and set up a pole for the flag. When the wagonbox platform had beenhauled to the city park, Mrs. LESAN attached her flag to the pole and the crowd gathered to hear Jowett BASTON sing the new song, "The Star Spangled Banner", a song that by no means everyone there had heard. The group then enjoyed a basket picnic. Sixty-five years later this old flag, flown at the first Fourth of July celebration was presented to the city of Mount Ayr.

The Civil War volunteers were musterd in on August 15 and assigned to the Twenty-ninth Iowa Infantry. In the fall Henry Van WINKLE, 15 years old, believed to be Iowa's youngest accepted volunteer, enlisted in Company K of the Twenty-fifth Iowa Infantry. Most of the Ringgold County soldiers fought with the Twenty-ninth which took part in the capture of Little Rock and in the Mobile campaign.

It was not easy to keep the pioneer home fires burning while the soldiers were away fighting. Many of the volunteers left families behind who had to struggle alone through the years of the war.

Scarcely had the volunteers marched away than the "loyalists" in Missouri were threatened by the "secessionists" and many Missourians crowded across the line into Iowa. The companies of Home Guards [Southern Iowa Border Brigade] already organized hurried to their aid. Three times during the war the Home Guards went into Missouri to meet Southern troops. At one time the Northern men fell back to a point near Alldendale, Missouri, and threw up breastworks. Then, reinforced by 2,000 men of the Iowa border counties, they forced the Confederat soldiers to retire as far as St. Joseph.

In 1862 the State of Iowa commissioned the Home Guards as the Southern Border Brigade. In Middle Fork Township, on the border, the Home Guards formed Company C, Third Battalion. After the Southerners had retired south of St. Joseph, ten men were detailed to guard the Ringgold County of the State line each night. They were relieved every ten days. After three months, when danger seemed past the patrol was discontinued.

Life flowed along as normally as it could. In 1862 there were 1,101 children attending the crude, uncomfortable log schools that were in session for only a few months each year. Near Rose Hill schoolhouse a cemetery was established, and here a few Negroes, who had crossed the border and lived in the county a short time before their death, were buried side by side with citizens of Ringgold County.

The greatest scare of the war came in 1862 when word reached Mount Ayr that 50 guerilla raiders were riding in by way of the MERRITT settlement to burn the town. The boys and old men armed themselves with the old blunderbusses and rifles left behind and set out to face the invaders. About 11 p.m., while the defenders were waiting in ambush, the noise of galloping horses' hooves startled them. It sounded like such a wild cavalry charge that all but one little boy, Charlie DUNNING, broke ranks and started to run back toward Mount Ayr. In a minute or two the boy saw his father's 50 unherded mules stampeding toward him in a race for home. The fleeing defenders saw them, too, and returned to their posts. They pledged one another to deep secrecy about their sudden show of freight in the face of a supposed cavalry charge. Many years later, however, they told the tale on themselves with gusto.

Just before the Civil War ended, a family of Negro slaves and one single Negro man from near Albany, Missouri, were freed by a Mrs. MURPHY on the condition that they move out of the State. They piled into an old wagon drawn by a team of ancient horses that she had given them and drove into Ringgold County. Sam, the head of the family, established his wife and their two children, Tom and Martha, in a log cabin near the Lesan school. George, the other freed Negro, lived with them. The adults worked for families in the neighborhood while the children attended school. Later, when the two men died, Sarah and her children moved into a cabin about three-quarters of a mile from any neighbor. The three, afraid to be alone in the cabin at night, slipped into David LESAN'S barn and slept in the haymow. Discovering them there one night, he gave them permission to live in a cabin near his home. Not long afterward they moved to Mount Ayr.

After the Ringgold County veterans had been mustered out of service in August 1865, the population increased so quickly that for many years after the Civil War there were from two to four new schoolhouses built each season. Other new schools were held in dewlling houses and log cabins until the communities could finance schoolhouses.

In April, just at the close of the war, Ith S. BEALL established a newspaper, the Ringgold Record, with W. R. TURK as publisher. They did not run this paper long, but sold it to George ROBY, who assumed the double duties of editor and publisher in June of 1866.

By 1867 a local census counted 3,888 people in the county, an increase of nearly 800 in two years, and when the decade ended the population had climbed to 5,029. With this influx it was necessary to divide the townships again, and in 1868 the county was rearranged into 16 civil townships.

During the first week in August 1869 many people in the county had a surprise that gave them the fright of their lives. They were not aware that the sun would be totally eclipsed on August 7, and that the county lay within the line of totality. When the light of the sun diminished and the temperature went down, some of the families piled hastily into their wagons and set out for the nearest neighbor's, thinking the world had come to an end. Horses huddled together uneasily, dogs ran into the house to hid under the beds, chickens went to roost, and the cows came in to be milked. Other people in other places had known of the eclispe, of course, and watched it through smoked glasses. Princeton University astronomers observed it from High Point Chapel in the eastern part of Ottumwa, said to have been the best point in the United States for viewing that particular eclipse.

Back to Ringgold County History, 1942 Index

Ringgold County Iowa History The Iowa Writers' Program Of the Work Projects Administration. Pp. 8-16. 1942.

Transcription by Sharon R. Becker, January of 2011

* Mount Ayr Record-News
Mount Ayr, Ringgold County, Iowa
Thursday, October 10, 2013

A significant piece of Ringgold county history can be found hanging in the home of a life-long county resident.

Ringgold county's first American flag is on display at the home of Sandy TAYLOR in Mount Ayr. TAYLOR'S great-great-grandmother, Mary Melissa LESAN, is credited with the flag's creation in 1861.

The story of the flag's creation is documented in the book, Early History of Ringgold County, 1844 - 1937, published in 1937 by Mrs. B. M. LESAN.

According to LESAN'S account, when early settlers were planning the county's first Fourth of July celebration, they found there were no American flags in the county. Mrs. G. W. (Mary Melissa) LESAN, her sister Syble LESAN and aunt Maggie LESAN agreed to make a flag for the celebration.

The book details the difficulties with finding suitable material for the flag, designing the stars without a pattern and hand-sewing all the individual pieces into a presentable finished product.

The men of Lesanville community then cut a slab of wood for a base, placed the slab into a wagon and erected the hand-hewn flag plole to fly the flag. The wagon was then pulled to Mount Ayr to be displayed in the city park during the July 4 celebration.

According to the book, at the celebration a local resident sang a new song, "The Red, White and Blue," and the crowd raised three cheers for the newly-constructed flag. Shortly thereafter, two boys sang "The Star-Spangled Banner," to which the crowd raised three more cheers for the flag.

(Incidently, in her book LESAN provides a delightful insight into the culture of Ringgold county at that time: "The celebration was over early in the evening. Only the drunks stayed for the night session which most of them spent in the jail in the court house jury room. Everyone enjoyed himself, even these degenerates of the funnel gang.")

This original flag was donated to the city of Mount Ayr on July 4, 1926.

For many years it was part of the historical display on the second floor of the county courthouse. One day, however, Florence DALBEY, TAYLOR'S grandmother, saw the flag lying in a pile of items to be discareded when the historical display was being updated. she rescued the flag and eventually gave it to her daughter, Margaret DALBEY, TAYLOR'S mother.

Upon her mother's death, TAYLOR found the flag among boxes of her mother's possessions. She has since take the flag to a historical preservationist to be mounted for display at her home.

And there it hangs as proudly today as it did at that July 4 celebration 152 years ago.

Photograph courtesy of Mount Ayr Record-News

Transcription by Sharon R. Becker, November of 2013