Stanbury WRIGHT entered 80 acres of prairie and 40 acres of timber land in Section 36, Tingley township, in December 1854. Mr. WRIGHT returned to Noble County, Indiana, and moved in April 1855, with his family and two sons-in-law and their families.

Edgar SHELDON settled in Tingley township, Section 2, in the spring of 1855 [by Union County line]. He came from Ohio and his wife from Pennsylvania. He established the first cheese factory in this part of Iowa in 1858 and ran it for several years. He was county superintendent of schools in Ringgold County in 1862 and 1863, and county auditor from 1890 to 1895.

NOTE: Edgar SHELDON was born in 1832, and died November 30, 1924. He served in Company C of the Southern Border Brigade during the Civil War. He was interred at Rose Hill Cemetery, Mount Ayr.

C. K. [Charles Keeling] GRIMES settled in Section 7, Tingley township, in may 1856. He came from Indiana. His first house was 14 x 16 and at different times eleven families made their homes with him while they located land or built their cabins. He often hid slaves from the south who were fleeing to Canada for freedom. At one time he had six slaves hidden in hay shocks through the day until a favorable time for them to travel on. He was the first settler in the township to raise sheep, as the wolves were so troublesome. Mr. GRIMES was the founder of Eugene and laid out and platted the lots in 1857.

  Above map from Andreas' Illustrated Historical Atlas of The United States, 1875. Tingley and Union were a single township, Sand Creek, until their division in 1869. Jefferson and Washington townships, far left, originally were one township under the name of Washington. the Tingley Post Office, shown on the map at its second location, was at the farm home of Edgar SHELDON in Scetion 1. The future site of the town of Tingley is marked in sections 16 and 21. Note the location of Eugene, across the Jefferson Township line, upper left, also Johnston Cemetery in Liberty Township. Mrs. E. CORNWELL (sic) was Emeline, the widow of Elihue CORNWALL. Tingley CORNWALL'S home and CORNWALL Cemetery were just across the line in Union County.

Just before Eugene was cannibalized by the new town of Tingley, the 1880 U.S. Census gave Eugene a population of 16 adults and 14 children. Those adults (head of households, relatives and boarders) and their occupations were as follows:

Thomas ASBURY, druggist
Benjamin ASBURY, blacksmith
George SWAIN, grocer
Phillip H. DEINNAN, minister
James MILLIKIN, grocer
James NICHOL, physician
James PORTER, blacksmith
John W. PORTER, wagon maker
John DORLAND, store clerk
Elroy C. PETTIT, blacksmith worker
Louis E. St. JOHN, physician
Warren FOSTER, carpenter

from archival files of Clair B. Heyer

SOURCE: Tingley, Iowa Centennial: 1883 - 1983. Pp. 1, 5. PSI, Inc. Belmond IA. 1983.
Courtesy of Mount Ayr Public Library, September of 2011

Notes and transcription by Sharon R. Becker, September of 2011