Elizabeth Knowles Fountain attracted considerable attention across Iowa during the autumn of 1905, as her 101st birthday approached, when someone, somewhere decided that she was the state's oldest resident. It's not clear how that conclusion was reached, but it was reported in the following brief news item published in many Iowa newspapers, including The Chariton Leader of October 5:
"Since the death of Mrs. O'Brien, Wayne county claims the oldest woman in the state. Grandma Fountain, a resident of Wright township, this county, will be 101 years of age on December 24 and is now hale and hearty. Mrs. Fountain dispels the belief that the use of tobacco is injurious to the body and mind, as she has been a constant pipe smoker since 6 years of age. When she came to Iowa in an early day she lived for months entirely surrounded in Indians."
Elizabeth was born Dec. 24, 1804, in Virginia; married Moses Fountain during 1830 in Indiana; and during 1838 moved with him and others into Iowa --- jumping the line that then marked the eastern boundary of confederated Sauk and Mesqwaki tribal territory to settle, illegally, in what now is Davis County.
Moses Fountain died in Davis County on April 18, 1857, when he was 50, and is buried in an unmarked grave there (his particulars, however, are inscribed on the tombstone in the Confidence Cemetery, Wayne County, that marks Elizabeth's grave as well as the grave of their youngest son, John).
Elizabeth continued to live in Davis County, but moved during the later 1870s to English Township, Lucas County, with her son, Moses Fountain Jr., where she was living when the 1880 census was taken. When Moses and his wife, Malinda, decided to move to Kansas, Elizabeth relocated to Independence Township in far northwest Appanoose County to live with (or near) her daughter, Clarissa, married to Owen Owens.
So that's how she became a resident of Wayne County's Confidence community --- the village of Confidence is just a mile west of Independence Township's western boundary. Another son, Stephen Fountain, lived nearby with his family in Wayne County's South Fork Township.
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Elizabeth first attracted media attention when she celebrated her 100th birthday near Confidence on the 24th of December, 1904 --- an event reported upon (at the least) in Corydon, Centerville and Des Moines newspapers. Here's the report from The Register of Jan. 5, 1905:
SHE IS HAPPY AT A HUNDRED YEARS
Des Moines Register, 5 January 1905
CORYDON, Ia., Jan. 4 (Special) --- Memories of the pioneer days of Iowa are still fresh in the mind of Grandma Fountain, who celebrated her 100th birthday during the Christmas season.
Mrs. Fountain came to Iowa in 1838 with a party which consisted of seventeen people. There was only one other woman in the party besides herself and she saw no other white women for years. The party camped on the Fox river in Davis county and were surrounded by Indians. For six days while the male members of the party were absent, the two women were by themselves and close by was a tribe of seventeen hundred Indians, but Mrs. Fountain says she had no fear of them and spent most of the time in the Indian camp. The nearest white settlement was sixty miles and there they went to mill.
No trouble was ever experienced with the numerous Indians, and calls were quite frequently exchanged. Dining with the Indians, however, was not much pleasure as they allowed their dogs to eat at the same table, and there were often as many dogs as redskins. When asked by Mrs. Fountain why, they allowed this, an old squaw replied that "a dog was just as good as an Indian." Mrs. Fountain can recall many Indian words and used to be acquainted to a certain extent with their language.
Wild turkeys, she says, was a favorite dish of the Indians, and describes how it was prepared. The fowl was given to a squaw who rolled it in mud and clay until it was completely covered and then put it in a hot fire to roast. After being baked the feather and skin came off with the clay, the head was jerked off, the entrals taken out and given to the dogs and the turkey was ready to be eaten. Fancy carving sets were unknown in those days, and the pieces of meat were jerked off.
When Mrs. Fountain first came to Iowa there was a hot dispute between this state and Missouri as to where the state line should run, which was not settled until recent years. Mrs. Fountain is ready at any time for a heated argument with anyone who says tobacco is injurious to the health. She has been smoking a pipe for ninety-four years and enjoys it immensely. Her husband, Moses Fountain, has been dead forty-seven years and she makes her home with relatives in Wright Township.
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Elizabeth was 102 when she died at the Owens home two years later, on May 6, 1907. She reportedly had been in good health with all faculties intact, devoting much of her time to making quilts for her descendants, until near the end.
We're lucky that some of her story has been preserved. Elizabeth lived all of her 102 years without the ability to read or write, so she had no way other than story-telling to pass her wisdom and knowledge on.
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