The little dispute between the Territory of Iowa and the State of Missouri turned into what is called the Honey War. Bill e-mailed me: I can't seem to paste an address pertaining to the border dispute on the IADECATU site. There was a lot of moving back and forth across that poorly defined line from before Iowa Statehood until after the states were admitted. My great grandfather Peter Cartwright Stewart homesteaded in Center Township, Decatur County in 1851. There many reasons for choosing Iowa over Missouri in the early days; among them the Missouri Compromise allowing Maine as a "free state" and Missouri as a slave state. I won't mention it on line and start another spat with Mr. McClure. However my great grandmother would have felt that her Quaker background would have had her ready to start something. So I will attach it here for your reading. William Stewart Ames, Iowa http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honey_War Quite a few early Ringgold & Decatur County residents thought they were settling in Missouri, were slave holders, then after realizing they were in Iowa, a non-slave territory, moved back to Missouri or sold their slaves. I wrote a piece about the Honey War for Ringgold County's site: http://iagenweb.org/ringgold/history/hist-beforestatehood-honeywar.html In all of my research, I've never found a single soul who served for either Iowa or Missouri in that dispute. Except for Luke Shay of Ringgold County. He's the only one I've found. Or the only one who admitted he served in that dispute. Sharon R. Becker Ringgold County IAGenWeb Coordinator srbecer@iowatelecom.net -- I am using the free version of SPAMfighter. We are a community of 7 million users fighting spam. SPAMfighter has removed 1501 of my spam emails to date. Get the free SPAMfighter here: http://www.spamfighter.com/len The Professional version does not have this message