History of Iowa From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century/3/Counties/Appanoose
APPANOOSE COUNTY, originally a part of Demoine, was established in 1843 and temporarily attached to Van Buren. In 1854 it was attached to Davis and fully organized in August, 1846, at an election held on the third of that month. It was named for a noted chief of the Sac and Fox Indians. This county is the fourth west of the Mississippi River in the tier on the Missouri State line. In size it is twenty-four miles east and west and about twenty-one and a half north and south, containing five hundred sixteen square miles. The principal streams are the Chariton River and its two branches running in a southeasterly direction. The supply of timber is abundant, consisting of white, black and burr oak, hickory, black walnut, hard and soft maple, ash, elm and other varieties. A large portion of the county is underlaid with coal and good building stone is found in many localities.
The first known white men within its limits were a company of United States Dragoons sent from Rock Island in the summer of 1832 to make an examination of the region. One night they camped near a large spring in the south part of the county near Cincinnati. In 1833 Joseph Shaddon from Missouri went on an excursion through Appanoose where he found an abundance of deer and wild turkeys. He saw the trail made by the dragoons the year before near the Chariton. Frequent trips were made by people from Missouri into Appanoose in search of game and bees but no settlements were made until the spring of 1838, when Ewing Kirby a young man from Missouri crossed into the then Indian country with his family and built a cabin near where Cincinnati now stands. Colonel James Wells a year later made a claim and built a mill in the southern part of the county. Others came soon after but, as the country still belonged to the Indians, complaints were made and a company of dragoons was sent from the Agency on the Des Moines River to drive the intruders out and burn their buildings. In 1843 William Cooksey took a claim near the Chariton River, and the next year J. F. Stratton from Missouri made a claim where Cincinnati stands. Solomon Hobbs, George Buckner, J. F. Stratton and others came during the following season. They were mostly young men without families doing their own housework and living in the most primitive manner. George W. Perkins was the first settler in Center township and planted the first orchard in the county. Rev. W. S. Manson preached the first sermon in a log cabin on the west side of the river. About this time S. F. Wadding opened a store where Centerville now stands.
The Indian title to Appanoose was not extinguished until 1843 but there was a strip of country about nine miles wide extending along its southern border which was claimed by Missouri and in this disputed territory, which was finally awarded to Iowa, settlers were not molested as they claimed to be in Missouri. The north line of this strip ran close to where Centerville stands.
On the 1st of April, 1844, the first election was held in a log cabin built by J. F. Stratton, at which nine votes were polled. Benjamin Spooner was chosen judge, and J. F. Stratton clerk of the District Court. In 1846 Centerville was laid out and first named Chaldea but the citizens were not satisfied with that name and at a house raising held not long after there was a large gathering and a proposition was made to change it. Dr. W. S. Manson, who was a great admirer of Governor Senter of Tennessee, proposed in an eloquent speech to change the name to Senterville in honor of the Governor. A petition was signed by those present to that effect and forwarded to the Legislature. The committee to which it was referred reported in favor of the change, but thinking to correct an error in orthography in the bill, spelled the name Centerville, and in that shape it became a law, to the great chagrin of the admirers of Governor Senter. The first house in the town was built by S. F. Waddington who opened a store in it. The Methodists organized the first church in the county with Rev. Hugh Gibson, pastor. Amos Harris was the first lawyer and Dr. W. S. Manson the first physician in the new town.
In October, 1856, the first newspaper in the county was established by Fair Brothers and named the Appanoose Chief, published at Centerville. In 1868 the town of Moulton was laid out on the line of the North Missouri Railroad, twelve miles southeast of Centerville. This was the first railroad in the county, built in 1869.