Rikard name can be found way back in Monroe County history

Crystal and I rode up to Rikard’s Mill on Saturday morning to see all the doings at Cane Syrup Making Day. We made the loop around the park, bought some syrup and visited with all the nice folks we encountered there. We even watched a man and his young son milk a cow, which as far as I know is a new addition to the annual festivities at the mill.

On the way home, my thoughts wandered to the history of Rikard’s Mill, which sits on Flat Creek between Beatrice and Chestnut. The mill is said to have been originally built in 1845 by a blacksmith named Jacob Rikard. At some point, the mill ceased operations, long before it became an historical site.

Later, I took some time to search through old newspapers for more information on Jacob Rikard, and the earliest reference that I could find to a man by that name was in the June 4, 1870 edition of The Monroe Journal. In that paper, it was reported that the County Commissioners Court (now the County Commission) had paid Rikard $25 for some type of work. That same week, commissioners paid L.S. Rikard $5 for “repairs on the jail.”

Another interesting reference to Jacob Rikard appeared in the June 5, 1882 edition of The Journal. In that paper, in news from the Buena Vista community, the editor relayed a story from The Evergreen News about a man and wife being found dead near Rikard’s home. The News reported that Rikard had “heard a child crying and going out, found the mother and father dead.”

The problem with all this, as the editor pointed out, was that there was “no Mr. Jacob Rikard living near Buena Vista or anywhere else in the county” because “as Mr. Rikard has been dead himself over a year, he could hardly have done any such thing.” The editor summarily labeled the story about the dead couple as a hoax.

It is a fact that Jacob Rikard died on May 6, 1880 and was buried at Chestnut. If you go there today, you’ll see a distinctive headstone over his grave that resembles a mill stone from a grist mill.

News of Jacob “Jake” Rikard’s death was published in the May 17, 1880 edition of The Journal, which called him “one of the old landmarks of the county.” He was born in South Carolina in 1805 and with his father moved to Alabama at an early age. They first settled on Limestone Creek near Monroeville, where his boyhood days were spent. He later moved to Flat Creek, where he established his mill.

“A good citizen, a devout Christian, an honest man has gone,” The Journal said. “Let us greatly draw the mantle of charity over his frailties and strive to emulate with all possible zeal, his honor, his integrity and his uprightness.”

I believe the L.S. Rikard mentioned above to be Lawrence S. “Limestone Lawrence” Rikard, who died at the age of 71 in August 1879. He is buried in the Old Methodist Cemetery, off Sumter Avenue in Monroeville, not far from Monroe Manor nursing home. His grave marker indicates that he served as a private in Captain Broughton’s Monroe County Reserves during the War Between the States.