This home was built by a true Henry County pioneer

With the cooperation of the Southeast Iowa Union/Mt. Pleasant News, The Mt. Pleasant Historic Preservation Commission will be publishing, every week or two peeks at some of the featured homes in the 1909 book, Mt. Pleasant Beautiful.

In the series, the 1909 picture will be contrasted with one of recent vintage. The Commission has been collecting information for the eventual issuance of a new book updating the information on the still standing homes from the 1909 publication.

You can test your knowledge of historic Mount Pleasant with this column. The identity of the featured home will be published with the next featured home. The last featured home was that of Howard Snider, 407 North Main Street.

This week’s featured home was built by a true Henry County pioneer who arrived here in 1837 shortly after Presley Saunders founded Mount Pleasant.

Harpin Riggs and his wife Malinda were New Englanders who worked their way west via Ohio. They farmed south of town for 10 years before moving to town and building the featured home.

Harpin was a cooper (maker of wooden barrels and related items) but also very active in the affairs of the young city.

County supervisor, city assessor, school board member and board trustee for the Hospital for the Insane are among his recorded activities. He died in 1865 while still in his mid-50s.

Melinda Riggs remained in their home for about 10 years from her husband’s death and passed away in 1882.

The home was sold in 1875 to Andrew Singer, his wife Mary and Mary’s brother John Budde. Singer was a native of Germany and had trained as a baker in Brooklyn, New York before coming to Iowa.

He left Iowa to continue as a baker in Kansas but left the baking trade for a street construction job. Unfortunately a serious accident in that work left one leg crippled.

Singer returned to Iowa and enlisted in the Union Army as a cook at the outbreak of the Civil War. After service at both Shiloh and Corinth in 1862, he was discharged in 1863 and returned to Iowa. He married Mary Budde in 1865 and by 1870 had established the Union Bakery with his brother-in-law John Budde.

On Jan. 22, 1882 the building housing their Main Street store was engulfed in flames which threatened not only their location but the neighboring Brazelton Block to the south and other buildings to the north.

The extensive news coverage of the fire (which was on a Sunday morning) gives an excellent account of fighting fire in the late 19th century.

Multiple bucket brigades, using all available man and woman power, managed to hold the fire within bounds and volunteers removed goods from several adjacent threatened buildings.

The Union Bakery was pretty well devastated but was rebuilt and the partners opened for business in a temporary location across the street in a very short time.

It was also reported that a telegram sent to Burlington led to their fire fighters showing up in just about an hour to render assistance.

At the time of the 1909 publication of Mount Pleasant Beautiful, our featured home was still in the hands of Andrew Singer, although his wife had died four years earlier. John Budde, her older brother and Andrew’s business partner passed away a couple of years later.

Andrew died in late 1914 having been retired for several years but apparently still living, with his daughters, in our featured home.