Time Machine: The Gideon Ford house

JONES COUNTY - Edmond Booth arrived in Jones County in 1839, long before Grant Wood was born among the rolling hills.

In 1840, Booth platted the town of Dartmouth, at the junction of Buffalo Creek and the Wapsipinicon River, but the plat was never recorded. Six years later, the town was re-platted as Lexington, following the common practice of naming towns in the West for old ones in the East.

In the summer of 1840, Booth helped Col. David Wood build the first frame house in the county. Wood died that winter. Gideon H. Ford, who had lived in the area since 1838, married the colonel's widow, Hannah, and took ownership of the house, moving it from the corner of Brown Avenue and High Street to South Main Street.

The first child born in the village was Gideon and Hannah's daughter, Maria, on July 5, 1842.

Ford, who was a blacksmith, turned the house into an inn for travelers. It served in that capacity until 1849. Ford also was involved in the grist and saw mills that were built along Buffalo Creek.

In 1842, when a Wisconsin Indian family stopped at the inn, Booth was present. He recalled the visit in an article published in the 1874 'Annals of Iowa.'

'One day three Indians came in,” he wrote. 'They were a man, woman and daughter ... The man and woman were dressed mostly in the costume of white people, with some Indian mixed; but the girl, bright and pleasant-faced, and apparently about eight or ten years old ... She was really a handsome girl. Her dress was entirely Indian, bright as was the expressions of her face, tasteful, and yet not gaudy. She wore ornamented leggings and moccasins, and her whole appearance was that of a well-dressed Indian belle.

'It was evident that these Indians were, as we said, not of the common order, and this fact excited more interest in us and Mr. and Mrs. Ford, no other persons being present, than was usually the case at that day, when the sight of native sons and daughters of the wild frontier was a common occurrence. The three were entirely free from the dull, wary watchfulness of their kind, and, though somewhat reserved at first, were possessed of an easy dignity. They readily became cheerful, and, but for their light red color, would be taken for well-bred white people.

'We inquired their names. The father's was Nasinus. The name of the mother was a longer one and has escaped our memory. The name of the daughter was Anamosa - pronounced, by the mother, An-a-mo-sah. ... When we asked the mother the name of her daughter, the latter laughed the pleasant, half-bashful laugh of a young girl, showing she understood the question, but did not speak. This interview was decidedly agreeable all around. After more than an hour spent in conversation, having taken dinner, they departed on the military road westward, leaving a pleasant impression behind them.

'It occurred to us that the names of the father and daughter were suitable for new towns - in fact, infinitely preferable to repeating Washington and various others for the hundredth time. Unfortunately, we neglected to ascertain of them the meaning of their names.”

Pratt R. Skinner, an engineer and surveyor, had some knowledge of the native language and interpreted Anamosa as 'White Fawn.”

In spring 1847, the county seat was moved from the settlement of Newport to Lexington, and on June 10, Gideon Ford's home became the temporary county courthouse and host to the first session of the county commissioners.

At the July session, 48 lots were sold for $725. Another $75 was added to that amount and Ford was hired to build a new courthouse.

It was proposed to petition the district court to change the name of Lexington to Anamosa. Residents liked the idea of their town having a unique name. Within six months, the town's post office was named Anamosa and a new, two-story, frame courthouse opened on Jan. 3, 1848. In the spring, District Judge James Grant of Davenport officially changed the town's name to match the post office.

When the new Wapsipinicon Hotel opened in 1849, the Ford house reverted to a simple home.

In 1929, the Francis Shaw Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution recognized the historical site by placing a granite boulder and bronze tablet on the lawn. The tablet's inscription read: 'Site of Gideon Ford home, visited in 1842, by Indian maiden Anamosa, for whom town was named.”

The home belonged to the Nickels family from about the turn of the 20th century. First, Laurance Nickels' widowed mother, Beulah, raised her family there, then Laurance and his family lived there in the 1950s. They raised their two sons in the house and lived there for more than 50 years.

Once deemed one of the most important historical structures in Anamosa, the house sat empty and neglected for a number of years before Robert and Robyn Cummings bought it as a rental property. The cost of repairing and upgrading the house became prohibitive.

The Jones County Historical Preservation Commission and Jennifer Price, an architectural historian at Price Preservation Research, Iowa City, toured the building in 2013, hoping to find evidence to make it eligible for preservation funding.

While property records dated it to 1880, Price found evidence that the building was much older, including the notched and fitted rough-sawn timbers that made up the frame of the house.

It was determined, however, that enough deterioration had set in to keep it from being salvaged. Unable to find anyone to invest in the house, Robyn Cummings sold it to developer Randy Caspers, who told the Anamosa Journal-Eureka, 'When you went inside it, you knew immediately that it was not savable. Renovators had destroyed the integrity, and age had destroyed the support system.”

The house, which had stood for more than a century and a half, was demolished on April 30, 2014. A new house was erected on the property.

The granite boulder with its inscription sits in approximately the same spot where the D.A.R. placed it in 1929.