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.
AUDUBON COUNTY was created by act of the Legislature of 1851 out of the then large county of Keokuk. It was named for John J. Audubon the naturalist and in 1853 was attached to Cass and divided into civil townships. It lies in the third tier east of the Missouri River and in the fourth north of the State of Missouri, contains twelve congressional townships and has a superficial area of four hundred forty-six square miles.
The first settlement within its limits was made in March, 1851, by Nathaniel Hamlin, John S. Jenkins and Arthur Decker, with their families, who took claims in a fine body of timber which became known as Hamlin’s Grove. In the fall of the same year Dr. S. M. Ballord and B. M.
