John LESAN, the son of Mary (PIERCE) LESAN (1773-1852) and Edmund LESAN (1771-1825), was born at Boothbay of Lincoln County, Maine. He worked as a fisherman and lumber foreman. He married on December 29, 1818 to Elisabeth C. BROOKS, who was born on October 1788 and died January 15, 1852. They moved to near Columbus, Ohio in 1831, then to Licking County, Ohio in 1833, residing in the "Refugee Tract" of Liberty Township. John lost his farm because he was unable to raise the money to "prove up" his claim. John moved to Knox County, Illinois in 1839; and Mount Ayr, Ringgold County, Iowa, in 1860.

In Ohio, John LESAN joined the M.E. Church and was appointed leader. He served as leader until 1835 when a Free-Will Baptist Society was organized. He was a Deacon at Free-Will Society Church of Elmira, Illinois. June 27, 1860: Deacon John LESAN was taken by a mob which entered his house at night. They threatened to lynch him because he manned a station on the 'underground railroad.' John had a grandchild named for the abolitionist, Owen Lovejoy, whose brother's press was dumped into the Mississippi by a similar mob. They were arrested and fined. John was an abolitionist who spoke against slavery. Those who abducted him were pro-slavery.

After Edmund LESAN'S death in 1825, John began working in a lumber camp. John was a large, strong man who could top the tallest tree in record time. He was bold and aggressive. He was made foreman of the timber crew. John drove himself hard. He made up his mind to own a farm someday. He saved his money. He learned an extra trade - he and his children began making baskets in their spare time. In 1852, after John and Charles both lost their wives, Charles had gone bankrupt. John traveled back to Maine and bought Charles and nine children tickets to go to Illinois by sea - they went to Boston and New York, then up the Erie Canal and out across the Great Lakes to Illinois.

John LESAN died at the home of his son, George W. LESAN, Mount Ayr, Iowa, on December 4, 1874, aged 78 years. He was interred at Sweet Home Cemetery, Lesanville, Ringgold County, Iowa.

George W. LESAN was born in Sebac, Piscataquis County, Maine, February 11, 1830, and moved with his parents to Ohio in 1831, then to Illinois in 1836. He was the sixth child in a family of twelve children born to John LESAN (1796-1874) and Elizabeth C. (BROOKS) LESAN (1799-1852). He was married to Mary Melissa LESAN on March 13, 1853 in Stark County, Illinois. Mary Melissa LESAN was a cousin, the daughter of Charles I. LESAN (1806-1889) and Mehitable (PRATT) LESAN (1813-1852).

George and Melissa lived on a farm in Illinois until 1855.

In December of 1854, George had went to Iowa and bought 280 acres of land at $1.25 per acre for himself, and 280 acres of land for his brother David, and 40 acres for a sister, her father paying for the same. In the spring of 1855, the three families and a younger brother who was about eighteen-years-old, and the sister's brother-in-law, also about eighteen-years-old, started for Iowa with one span of horses hitched to a wagon in which G. W. and all the women rode, with the men driving the ox teams with two wagons with the furniture of the entire party, which was not much. The two boys drove the cows and unbroken oxen on foot.

They had no mishaps until the brother-in-law let his brother drive his ox team and the wagon tipped over, spilling his wife's keg of soft soap which she had brought along in protest. But the three women all went to work and scooped the most of it up with their bare hands and saved about two-thirds of it and took the skin off their hands.

They arrived May 3, 1855, near their land in what would become Poe Township, and built the first cabin in the township. They camped on the west fork of the Grand River about one mile of the Levi TERWILLIGER bridge. The men and boys all pitched in and cut logs to build a cabin on G. W. LESAN's land and all lived in the cabin for about six weeks.

Probably here is the place for a description of the building of a cabin to the people of this extravagant age.

Trees of uniform size were chosen and cut into logs the required length, usually from twelve to sixteen feet and hauled to the spot selected. Each end of every log was saddled and notched so that they would lie as close down as possible. The next day it was "chinked and daubed" to keep out the wind, rain and cold. The house had to be re-daubed every fall, as the rains washed most of the clay mud out.

The usual height of the cabin was seven or eight feet. The gables formed by shortening the logs gradually at each end of the building, near the top. The roof was made by laying very straight logs or stout poled, a suitable distance apart and on these were laid the clapboards, somewhat like shingles, usually about two feet to the weather. These clapboards were fastened to their place by some spikes or nails if they were fortunate enough to have them, if not, by weight poles, corresponding in place with the joists just described and these were held in place by chunks of wood eighteen or twenty inches long, fitted between them near the ends.

Clapboard shingles were made from the nicest oaks to be hand, by chopping theminto four-foot blocks and eiving these with a frow, which was a single blade fixed at a right angle to its handles. This was driven into the block of wood by a mallet. As the frow is wrenched down through the wood, the log is turned over from side to side, one end being held by a forked piece of timber.

The chimney was made by cutting an open place in one side or end and built on the outside from the ground up to the top of the opening, then if stones are not easy to get, the rest of the flue can be made of sticks and mud. When the fireplace was made, it would burn logs six or eight feet long and the back log often as large as a sawlog.

For windows, a hole was cut in the logs, the hole closed with glass or a greased paper. Even greased deer skin was sometimes used.

A doorway was cut in one side of the wall and the door was made by pinning clapboards to two or three bars and hung on wooden hinges. The latch was made of wood with a catch. When finished anyone inside could raise the latch, but on the outside they had to pull the leather latch string. To lock the door at night, the string was pulled on the inside. The latch string hung out most of the time.

When these men and boys got the cabin up and one side of the roof fastened on, the other side with the clap boards laid on loose, one man was sent after the women up the creek, as a big storm was coming up. When they came there was no hole sawed out for the fireplace, door or window, but the gables were not in, so the women climbed up to the gable and down on the inside where they slept on their beds on the ground and dodged the loose clapboard shingles all night. They were called upon to keep a traveler that night, but people in those days were never crowded. Next morning this man's stove pipe hat had several inches of water in it.

There was no floor in this cabin. The next day they sawed out a hole for a door and hung a blanket in it that night, and during the night the old bell-cow came in and stepped in a new tin pan and mashed the bottom out. Poor cow thought it was a barn.

Here the three families of six married people and two boys lived until they got a little plowing done and got in a crop which did not do well.

G. W. LESAN went to Missouri and got a couple of razor-back hogs. They got their first cat at the TERWILLIGERS.

The two boys were sent thirty-five miles into Decatur County to mill, and G. W. LESAN had to make a trip of thirty-five miles on foot to hunt the two horses that decided they did not like the Iowa accommodations, and had started back to Illinois. But they had three horses instead of two when he found them as one mare had had a colt. He would have had to go much farther had a man near where they stayed one night not have known them and shut them up.

They went thirty-five miles to a blacksmith shop until Dave EDWARDS moved to Mount Ayr in the fall of 1855, and started a blacksmith shop. They had to go to Eddyville and St. Joseph for supplies until Barton B. DUNNING started a store.

After a corral was made for the oxen and they were broken and the crop in, they went to cutting logs to build the other men a cabin. G. W. LESAN bought a Seth Thomas clock, a cook stove, a small home-made rocking chair, and a very few dishes and very few books, and their bedding and clothing, and the other families had less. But one of the families got a Steppe stove somewhere and they all voted it less than nothing.

For several years, if they had a few hogs to sell, they had to drive them to Eddyville. After G. W. LESAN'S first child, Clay BEARD'S mother, was born, he went to the timber and got hickory which he split and made a basket three-feet long, eighteen-inches wide, and sixteen-inches deep, and for the lack of a board, he took the end gate of his wagon and fastened it on the bottom of the basket. Then he took some short pieces of clapboard and made rockers for a cradle. Years later when they had all the beds full of travelers, Aunt Hat CLARK slept all night in this cradle.

For the first year after their arrival there were no flies, but the second summer they arrived in all their glory.

One time G. W. went to Tom ARMSTRONG'S to borrow a big iron kettle to made soft soap, but Mrs. ARMSTRONG said she was going to wash as it was Thursday, and could not spare it. He went out in the yard to talk to her husband, but Mrs. ARMSTRONG soon came to the door and said, "Mr. LESAN, you can have the kettle, the moon is just right today to make soft soap." He took the kettle and made his soap in the moon for once.

G. W. LESAN made a well near the house when he first came to Ringgold County and for the lack of a rope, he made a pole ladder, and went down the ladder into the well where he dipped up the water and climbed back. They took their clothes and went to the creek to wash, and hung them up on the bushes to dry. The cattle ran outside on the prairie and found their own water to drink as the creeks or sloughs.

When the early settlers went to spend the evening, they got to their destination and let down the [wagon] tongue and the oxen stood wherever [they were] left. When relatives came from Illinois, they had nothing to show them so they loaded up the old dinner basket and went down to the iron post near Dave CAIN'S present [1937] home.

Rattlesnakes were numerous. After G. W. got his puncheon floor put in, they were sitting in the twilight when they heard a hissing sound. Andrew IMUS said it was a locust; G. W. said it was a rattler. They stepped to the door to listen when a large rattlesnake crawled from under the rocking chair where Mrs. LESAN was holding the baby. She says, "Here is your snake," when G. W. grabbed the chair with his wife and baby and carried them out of doors. They killed the snake.

A few days later, after she had hung out her washing and brought the basket with the remaining pins in it, and sat it down, and took the crying baby up and sat her down by the clothes basket. The child played by pulling and pushing the basket and making the pins rattle. Then she became tired and her mother took her up, fed her, and she went to sleep. She laid her on the bed and proceeded to straighten up the room. She picked up the basket to put it in its place when "horrors," there laid a big rattler, all curled up under the basket. Its back was skinned up where the child had pulled the basket back and forth over his back. She called to her husband and he came and killed it. He tore up the floor, but found no more snakes, and they were not bothered any more, but several children were bitten later, some died and some did not.

G. W. LESAN and all the men in their neighborhood in Illinois wore "barndoor pants," and when G. W. came to Iowa to enter land in 1854, he wore his first pants that buttoned in front. His wife made the first pants of this kind in the neighborhood, boots were the only foot-gear worn by men in the west until about 1895. Women's rubbers were made in 1872. In about 1880, the first overshoes were brought west. The first mosquito bar used on doors and windows was about 1880, and the first screening on doors and windows in about 1892.

The winter of 1855-56 was very cold and in 1856-57 the snow was very deep and the winter very severe.

In the summer of 1858, G. W. and Dave LESAN took their families back to Illinois on a visit. They had a cyclone here in June and the man they hired to put in their crop did not raise much, and the next spring they had to empty the straw out of there strawticks to help save the cattle. Before the grass grew, G. W. took the butcher knife with him every morning when he went to look after his cattle, lest he find one stuck in the mud and would have to skin it.

The first post office and store at LESAN was owned by G. W. LESAN and run by his son, Owen LESAN. Later G. A. SLENTZ had a store there and Arthur LESAN ran it but the post office and store have been discontinued years ago.

In about 1861, G. W. LESAN and three or four other men sent to Kentucky for bluegrass seed to seed the Mount Ayr park. They came in the second year, cut the grass, divided it and took it home and tramped it out and planted the seed. G. W.'s share was hauled home in a wagon box. This was the first start of bluegrass in the county.

G. W. LESAN was the first basket maker and Dave LESAN a good broom maker, but not the first in the county.

NOTE: G. W. and David's father John LESAN became the second brook maker in Ringgold County when he bought a broom machine from Ed HATCH. He moved the machine out to David's house, and david also learned the trade.

During the [Civil] war only four men were left in Lesanville. They were G. W. LESAN, who was carrying the mail from St. Mary's, Iowa to Albany, Missouri, and Dave LESAN, a cripple, George TERWILLIGER who was disabled, and a Mr. SMITH who was sick.

In the early days when men went off to ride or work in the winter, they had to take old rags or sacks and wrap their feet up and tie it on to keep from freezing them.

G. W. LESAN and all the farmers cut prairie hay with a scythe from the time the corn was laid by until the frost came. They cut grain with a cradle and threshed with a flail, or horses or oxen tramped the grain out. When men worked out they got 50-cents per day and some had to board themselves at that. Men had no machinery.

G. W. LESAN taught school in the winter for a year or two. Some people cut timber off of speculators' land and let their own grow. Sometimes these pieces of land would be literally stripped of timber and people cut and hauled it to town and sold it all winter, but G. W. LESAN never took a stick off any man's land but his own.

G. W. LESAN had a bark floor in their loft and went up on a pole ladder pegged against the wall, and their door had the regulation "cat-hole." During their life in the old log house, some slave-holders came up from Missouri hunting runaway slaves. G. W. told them he had not seen them, and they became quite ugly, and told him they believed he had run them off. He told them he had not, but had he seen them he would. Then they began to curse and threaten him, but finally went off. The next day they came back with the slaves lashed to a horse.

One of the neighbors, having lost a dozen candles out of a tree the night they went through, supposed they had taken them to eat. She figured she did a little work on the underground railroad. G. W. belonged to the underground railroad system while he lived in Illinois but never had the opportunity after coming to Iowa.

They had no chickens when they first came to Iowa. They started out one day to find some. They expected to get back by noon so took nothing to eat. They went on, and on, and on, getting no chickens, when about half-way back and nearly starved, they espied a cornfield, so one of the men said he would go and get an ear of corn apiece. When he got to the field he ran onto a watermelon patch. He picked one and raised up, and there stood a woman with her dress tail full of melons. He told her the predicament they were in and she said, "Take all the melons you want," and he took all he could carry and went back to the wagons where the other five people divided his melons with themselves.

They were without chickens for a long time. One morning a freighter came along with a big load of chickens. Finally G. W. persuaded him to let him have a Shanghi hen and rooster. They had no place to put them so did as the story in "Two Years in Arkansas," they did not let them roost on the flour barrel but they did let them roost on the ladder that led to the loft, and the hen laid eggs on the bed.

One day when G. W. was quite a good-sized boy in Illinois, he went to work for a man. When they went to dinner the only thing they had was butter-milk and greens. He was sent to the neighbor's once on an errand. Three big dogs ran out and bit him. He was taken in the house and they wanted to pour turpentine on the wounds. He said he could not talk until then, but when he heard that, he said, "Then I boo-hooed." His father was sent for and he was taken home, but he did not walk for three months and carried the three scars to his grave. The smallest scar was the size of a dollar and the largest as large as a man's hand.

One morning, while eating breakfast, G. W. bantered with Sy LESAN to break a mean colt, and he offered to break him for a dollar. Sy said, "All right." After breakfast he saddled up the old mare he brought to Iowa with him and his wife rode the old mare and he rode the colt to Mount Ayr. All went well to town, and G. W. bought a new pair of boots. Before starting home he tied the bootstraps together and run the halter strap which was good and long through the straps and tied them fast. As they were going out of town he yelled to the men standing on the street, "Breaking horses for a dollar apiece." When they got out on the prairie a mile or son, the boots on the halter that he carried on his hand rattled and the colt "reared up" and bucked which scared the old mare. She reared up and broke the saddle girth, and off came his wife. Then G. W. got off the colt and went to fix the saddle girth and he wrapped the colt's halter around his thumb, but never took off the boots. So the colt jerked loose and pulled his thumb out of place and started to run off with the boots still to the end of the halter, which rattled together the faster the colt ran, the worse the rattle, until the strap and boots stuck straight out, and the colt went around G. W. and his wofe and the old mare so close they had to keep out of the way or get hit with the boots. Finally he ran himself down, and Mrs. LESAN wanted to go back to town to have the thumb set, but G. W. remembering what he had said as he rode out of town, said, "No!" and he had her pull his thumb back in place. G. W. having all the "vim" knocked out of him, put his wife on behind his brother who came along and he rode the old mare home and led the colt.

He did not husk any more corn that fall. They lived in the log house ten years, then built a good frame house across the road. Moved to Mount Ayr in 1893 and he had the old sheepskin he got from the government when he sold his farm.

He died April 6, 1913. She died May 4, 1927 at the age of 90 years. [George W. and Mary Melissa LESAN were interred at Rose Hill Cemetery, Mount Ayr, Iowa.]

Mr. and Mrs. LESAN were the parents of four children.

1) Laura E. LESAN, b. January 23, 1857, Ringgold Co. IA; d. 07 Jul 1914
    married Albert F. BEARD, b. 17 Jul 1849; d. 27 May 1912
    interment Rose Hill Cemetery, Mount Ayr IA
    Children:
      1) Henry Clay BEARD, attorney in Mount Ayr, b. 1877; d. 1947
          married Anna Caletta DUNCAN, b. 1879; d. 1957
          interment Rose Hill Cemetery, Mount Ayr IA
          Children:
            1) John BEARD, attorney in Mount Ayr, b. 1905; d. 1955
                married Esther SCHOLES, b. 1905
                interment Rose Hill Cemetery, Mount Ayr IA
                Child: Patricia Ellen (BEARD) HATHAWAY
            2) Ruth Mildred BEARD, b. 06 Apr 1907; d. 05 Jan 2008, aged 100
                married 1928 Bernard A. FULLER, d. 31 Dec 1997
                Children:
                  1) Peggy Jean FULLER
                  2) Joan Lee FULLER
            3) daughter BEARD
                married Jack DALBEY; res: Grant City MO
                Child: Sandra Ann DALBEY

2) Owen Lovejoy LESAN, b. 17 Feb 1859, Ringgold Co. IA; d. 19 Apr 1943, Ringgold Co. IA
    married 24 Dec 1884, Ringgold Co. IA Josephine "Josie" FILBY, b. 26 Oct 1869, Shreve OH; d. 23 Jul 1948, Ringgold Co. IA
    interment Rose Hill Cemetery, Mount Ayr IA
    Children:
      1) Walter Fred LESAN, b. 09 Dec 1885, Ringgold Co. IA; d. 16 Dec 1972, Louisville NE
          married 31 Dec 1905 Maud Grace BACHMAN (1886-1980)
      2) Frank LESAN, b. Dec 1886, Ringgold Co. IA
      3) Laura Melissa LESAN, b. 14 Apr 1887, Ringgold Co. IA; d. 26 Apr 1908, Ringgold Co. IA
      4) Sigel Ray LESAN, b. 09 Mar 1899, Mount Ayr IA; d. 21 Jul 1974, Oklahoma City OK
          interment Rose Hill Cemetery, Mount Ayr IA
      5) William Albert LESAN, b. 18 Mar 1891, Mount Ayr IA; d. Jul 1940
      6) George W. Bryan LESAN, b. 03 Mar 1897, Kellerton IA; d. Mar 1983, Miami OK
      7) Christie Bernice LESAN, b. 26 Jan 1901, Mount Ayr IA; d. Mar 1943
      8) Frances Maud LESAN, b. 08 Apr 1903, Mount Ayr IA

3) Burritt Marion LESAN, b. 14 Feb 1861, Ringgold Co. IA; d. 04 Nov 1941, Des Moines IA
    married Mary McCLAREN
    interment Rose Hill Cemetery, Mount Ayr IA
    Children:
      1) Clyde LESAN, d. 1950
          married Jessie FULLERTON, b. 31 Jul 1892; d. Aug 1976
          interment Rose Hill Cemetery, Mount Ayr IA
          Child: Regina LESAN married Eldon JACKSON, teacher at Harlan IA
      2) Glen E. LESAN, b. 27 Oct 1894; d. Jan 1988
          married Mabel BUTLER, b. 27 Jul 1899; d. 10 Jun 1993
          interment Rose Hill Cemetery, Mount Ayr IA
          Children:
            1) Robert LESAN
            2) Rex LESAN
            3) Joan LESAN
      3) Hugh Burritt LESAN, b. 02 Aug 1897, Creston IA; d. 20 Jun 1991
          married 02 Feb 1924, Mount Ayr IA Cleo WHISTLER
          interment Maple Row Cemetery, Kellerton IA
          Children:
            1) Richard LESAN
            2) Marvin "Pete" LESAN
            3) William Roger LESAN, b. 14 Jan 1928; d. 14 Jan 1928; inter: Maple Row Cem.
      4) May LESAN married Frank BLANCHARD
          Child: Ruth BLANCHARD
      5) Madge LESAN, widowed by 1937 with one son
      6) Jennie J. LESAN, b. 1892
          married George W. VANCE, b. 1891; d. 1979
          interment Rose Hill Cemetery, Mount Ayr IA
          Children:
            1) Helen VANCE married Wayne ANDERSON
                Child: Anne ANDERSON
            2) Marguerite VANCE married Bernard DUFTY
      7) Dee LESAN married Keith PRUGH
          Child: Keith PRUGH Jr.

4) Cassius True LESAN
    b. 02 Apr 1874, Lesanville IA; d. 09 Jul 1932, Mount Ayr IA
    married 09 Jul 1902 Sue M. NEELY, b. 1874; d. 1960
    interment Rose Hill Cemetery, Mount Ayr IA

Cassius True LESAN, youngest son of George W. and Mary Melissa LESAN, was born on a farm in Poe Township of Ringgold County, Iowa, on April 2, 1874. He was educated in the rural schools and also taught in the same, and attended Western Normal College in Shenandoah, Iowa, Highland Park College in Des Moines, Iowa, and was graduated from Rush Medical College in Chicago with the class of 1897. After locating in Bedford, Iowa, for a year he came to Mount Ayr, practicing his profession continuously for thirty-three years until failing health compelled him to retire.

He was a member of the United Presbyterian Church and a republican in politics. Among his public services to his county, town and state were as follows: coroner for a number of years, health officer for ten years, member of Ringgold County Medical Society, secretary for Iowa Association of Health Officers for ten years and president one year during the existence of that association. At the beginning of the World War [I] he was a member of the draft board. Seeing the need for the Red Cross organization, upon his suggestion a meeting was held in his office and steps taken for the organization of the chapter, which was consumated June 11, 1917. Volunteering for service in the World War he was sent to Fort Riley, Kansas, and from there was tranferred to Camp Shelby, Hattisburg, Mississippi, service as commanding officer of Engineers' Infirmary. For many years Doctor LESAN was local surgeon for the C.B.&Q. Railroad, a member of the Iowa State Medical Society, the American Medical Assocation, American Public Health Association, American Assocation of Railroad Surgeons, and American Legion.

In 1929 he was appointed by Governor John HAMMILL as a member of the Iowa State Board of Health, serving in that capacity until his death in 1932. In the 1929-30 offical register book published by the State of Iowa, a history and likeness of Doctor LESAN appears, also his name appears in Who's Who in the Biographical Directory of Public Officials in federal, state, county, and city government, published by the Biographical Research Bureau, New York City.

On July 9, 1902, Doctor LESAN was united in marriage with Miss Sue M. NEELY, a life-long resident of Mount Ayr. On the thirtieth anniversary of their marriage, July 9, 1932, Doctor LESAN was called by death.

NOTE: David Martin LESAN was born in Goldsboro, Maine January 1, 1828, He married Sybil P. LESAN, also a native of Maine, in 1854. David and Sybil were the parents of seven children. They spent their pioneer days on the farm, retiring to Mount Ayr where David died on February 20, 1907. Sybil was born in 1835 and died in 1919. They were interred at Sweet Home Cemetery, Lesanville, Iowa.

NOTE: Carlos LEE was married in Illinois to Harriet LESAN. He was a hard worker but the privations of pioneer life proved too much for Carlos' weakly consitition. He died of tuberculosis on October 20, 1858. Harriet J. (LESAN) LEE was born in 1831, and died February 7, 1868 in Illinois.

SOURCE:
LESAN, Mrs. B. M. Early History of Ringgold County: 1844 - 1937 Pp. 22, 156-162. Blair Pub. House. Lamoni IA. 1937.

Transcription and notes by Sharon R. Becker, June of 2010