The death date on the headstone of Marshalltown’s founder Henry Anson has been incorrect since his descendants commissioned a headstone a few years after his death. Earlier this week, Nevada Monument came out to Riverside Cemetery to finally correct history, thanks to the generosity of an anonymous donor who paid to have the mistake fixed.

Anson died in 1905 but the date of death was incorrectly listed as 1906. A Times-Republican article, dated Dec. 29, 1908, chronicled the ongoing saga in getting a headstone put in place for the community: “For about two years there has been stored in the freight warehouses a rough granite stone bearing the name of Henry Anson. The freight charges from Chicago were paid, but because the stone has never been claimed, storage charges are accumulating rapidly, at the rate of 10 cents for every day, exclusive of Sundays and holidays. How long the condition is to remain is not known … From all that can be learned from members of the family and those who are intimate with the family, a misunderstanding has arisen as to the ordering of the monument for Henry Anson. Capt. Adrian C. Anson, of Chicago, son of Henry Anson, ordered the monument of Blake & Co., Chicago, and according to friends of the family here, it was to have cost $860, delivered in Marshalltown, and set up on the Anson family lot. It is said that Capt. Anson understood his uncle, Horace A. Anson, of this city, to say that he would pay $400 of the cost price of the tombstone, but this Horace Anson today denies. Capt. Anson, it is said, has expressed a willingness to pay the rest of the cost, but not the entire outlay, which according to his claim, other relatives were to share.”