In 1826 Ute Perkins and his family became the first permanent white settlers in Fountain Green Township in Hancock County Illinois. Their settlement became known as "Perkins Settlement". In 1839 Joel Hills Johnson and other missionaries came to the area and converted the Perkins family and other families living along Crooked Creek. They became known as the Crooked Creek Branch. In 1840 the town of Ramus, a Latin word which means ‘branch’, was laid out on land owned by Ute Perkins. When the town was incorporated in 1843 the Illinois Legislature gave it the name of Macedonia. In 1845 the population was approximately 500 residents. During the exodus from Illinois in 1846, the majority of the population traveled across Iowa as a group.

They wintered in an area twenty miles east of Council Bluffs and named the settlement after the one they left, Macedonia. After the Saints left Ramus new settlers moved into the area and renamed the town Webster.

Ramus is 5.9 miles east of Carthage on Highway 136 and then 4.7 miles north and east on county road 17.