Born February 1829 in Ohio. He died March 12, 1901 in Jefferson, Greene County, Iowa. He had a family of 9 daughters. Azor Ruggles Mills traced descent from the first Mills who came from England in 1630. He arrived in Jefferson, Iowa in 1855 from Wadsworth, Ohio. Jefferson was at that time a settlement of only a few houses. He lived in Jefferson all his life except for the four years he was in the Civil War so he saw the town grow to a charming Iowa town. During the Civil War he lost an arm during the terrible battle of Altoona Pass. For a number of years after the war he held the office of county superintendent. He was a member at one time of the Iowa legislature and at one of the sessions of the legislature cast his vote for the first appropriation ever made for the building of Old Main on the new virgin campus at Ames. He vowed then that his daughters would attend that school and six of his daughters graduated from Iowa State. He held to a purpose that resulted in a college bred family which Jefferson proudly claims as her own, the "Mills Girls". He was an educator and assisted his children at home explaining problems in arithmetic and algebra and was strict in the use of the English language and drilled them in grammar. In 1872 he was elected county superintendent of schools. For more than two decades Mills was a central figure in the educational life of Greene County. Mills was also a pivotal figure in the early religious life of the community. He was a charter member of the Jefferson Methodist Church.
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