Maurice Lloyd Ayers, sometimes listed as M. S. Ayres, (December 4, 1819 – June 11, 1884[1]) was an American banker, farmer, hotelier, and politician from Burlington, Wisconsin, who served a single term as a Free Soil Party member of the Wisconsin State Assembly from Racine County.
He attended the local public schools until the age of fourteen, when he went to work on a farm for $4 a month.
He became a stockholder in the Fox River Valley Railroad and moved back to Burlington to help run it for about a year.
[7] Ayers also owned a controlling interest in Burlington's flour mill and considerable real estate investments.
A cornerstone saying "St. John's" was laid in November 1880, but the church was never built, and ownership reverted to the Ayers family.