Azor Ruggles Mills (1827-1901)

From the Jefferson Bee, October 26, 1954.

  A prominent 19th-century resident of Greene County, Iowa, Azor Ruggles Mills was a transplant to that state from Wadsworth, Ohio, and in the early 1850s became the first person to teach in the recently organized school in Greene County. A Civil War veteran, Mills lost the use of his left arm due to wounds sustained at the Battle of Allatoona. In 1865 he was elected as Greene County's representative in the Iowa state legislature and later served as a county school superintendent. The son of Col. Henry Augustus "Harry A." (1795-1873) and Harriett (Ruggles) Mills (died 1844), Azor Ruggles Mills was born in Wadsworth on February 11, 1827. Bestowed the unusual name Azor Ruggles, Mills received this name in honor of his maternal grandfather (1768-1843), a native of Brookfield, Connecticut who later removed to Canfield, Ohio.

  During his youth Mills studied in schools local to his village and later attended the Twinsburg Academy for Boys. After attaining maturity Mills looked westward and moved to Wisconsin in the early 1850s. Following resettlement, he enrolled in the first class ever to register at the University of Wisconsin at Madison and taught school for a time. Around 1854-55 he moved to Iowa and settled in Jefferson in Greene County. Soon after his arrival, the local citizenry organized a subscription school, the first of its kind in the county. Mills was selected as the school's first teacher and also organized a debating society. The school comprised thirty-two students, and at the dawn of the Civil War, he began military drilling with his class, with all 33 (including Mills) enlisting for service in the Union Army.

  In 1862 Mills took rank among Co. E., 39th Iowa Volunteer Infantry, and on October 5, 1864, was grievously injured at the Battle of Allatoona Pass in Georgia. "With four bullets in his coat", Mills was spared a death blow by the ramrod of his rifle, which he was then pulling from his gun. Instead of being struck in the heart, the bullet passed through his left arm, subsequently wounding his fellow infantryman, James Smith. This injury caused Mills to lose the use of his left arm, but he continued to serve in the Army until his honorable discharge in July 1865. After his return to Iowa, Mills was a founding member of the George H. Thomas Post in Jefferson, with which he was affiliated until his death.

  On July 25, 1865, Azor Mills married Miranda Dyle Anderson (1844-1917), whom he had known before the war. The couple were wed until his death in 1901, and had nine daughters: Emma (died in infancy in 1866), Ada (1868-1953), Ella (born 1869), Grace Ruggles (1871-1952), Lilian Bird (1873-1933), Flora (1875-1876), Ethel Ray (1877-1903), Marcy Octavia (born 1879), and Vera Elizabeth (1884-1954).

   In the same year as his marriage, Azor Mills received the Republican nomination for state representative from the counties of Greene, Carroll, Audubon, and Calhoun. Following his election in late 1865, Mills took his seat in January 1866 and during that session was named to the committees on Banks and Engrossed Bills. This term saw Mills back legislation that approved $95,000 for the construction of a main building at the newly organized Iowa State College at Ames, where six of his daughters would attend school.

From the Jefferson Bee, March 14, 1901.

  After leaving state government Mills continued prominence in Greene County, being elected to two consecutive terms as county superintendent of schools where his "labors were practical and whose efforts were effective." Additionally, Mills was a charter member of the Methodist Episcopal Church in Jefferson, where he taught a bible class for forty-five years. He also farmed near the northern Jefferson city limits, and with Joseph Manning established a boot and shoe manufacturing business in town. 

  Due to physical disability, Mills later retired from his business pursuits but continued to reside in Jefferson until his death at home on March 12, 1901, at age 74. He was survived by his wife and daughters and was interred at the Jefferson Cemetery. Mills was subsequently memorialized by his fellow townsman and friend John Gray as having had:

"A rare mixture of aloofness and friendliness, aloofness inherited from eastern origins, friendliness bred in the new west. He willingly shared the burdens of humanity even to the risking of his own life, whether on the battlefield, or in the halls of legislation, his strength and voice were ever on the side of right."