A History of Missouri from the Earliest Explorations and Settlements Until the Admission of the state into the union, Volume III, Part 29

Author: Louis Houck
Publication date: 1908
Publisher: R. R. Donnelley & sons company
Number of Pages: 405


USA > Missouri > A History of Missouri from the Earliest Explorations and Settlements Until the Admission of the state into the union, Volume III > Part 29


Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).


Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44


Henry Dodge, a delegate from Ste. Gene- vieve county, was born at Vincennes, October 12, 1782; died at Burlington, Iowa, June 19, B. H. REEVES 1867; was a son of Israel Dodge and his wife Nancy Hunter. He came to Ste. Genevieve with his father's family prior to 1800; manufactured salt on the Saline during the Spanish domination. After the purchase, was appointed sheriff of Ste. Gene- vieve county; was a general of the territorial militia; participated actively in the border wars incident to the war of 1812. In 1827 removed to Wisconsin and was in command of a mounted force during the Winnebago Indian war, and in 1832 defeated Black Hawk and the Indians overwhelmingly; in 1834 he was colonel of the First United States Dragoons, and in command of the forces against the Indians on the southern frontier. In 1835 he lead an expedition to the Rocky mountains; in 1836 he resigned his commission and was appointed governor of Wisconsin Territory and superintendent of Indian Affairs; elected a territorial delegate from Wisconsin in 1841, and again appointed governor of Wisconsin Territory by Polk, and on the admission of Wisconsin into the Union twice elected to the United States senate from that state. His son, Augustus C. Dodge, repre- sented Iowa as United States senator during a part of this time, - from 1848 to 1855.


Joseph M'Ferron, a delegate from Cape Girardeau county, was a native of Ireland; came to upper Louisiana before the purchase;


260


HISTORY OF MISSOURI


was a highly educated man and taught school at Mt. Tabor school house in the American settlement west of the Cape Girardeau post. After the purchase he was appointed first clerk of the court of Com- mon Pleas of the Cape Girardeau district. He died on the 5th of Feb- ruary, 1821, aged forty-one years, near Jackson, Missouri; and at the time of his death was clerk of the Circuit court of Cape Gir- ardeau, and of the Supreme court of the 4th judicial district, having been clerk of the several courts of the county from the time of the Louisiana purchase up to the time of his death. By the unsolicited votes of the people, he was elected a member of the constitutional convention and of the first General Assembly .; he was "a man of tried integrity, sound judgment, extensive knowledge, independence of mind, sparing of empty professions, and abounding in kindly deeds, and in public affairs anxious of meriting by his exertions commendation. " 13


Stephen Byrd was a farmer who emigrated to upper Louisiana with his father from the Wautauga settlement in Tennessee in about 1800; one of the pioneer settlers in what was then known as the "Byrd settlement" not far from the present Jackson. He was prominent in all public affairs of the county and district; a judge of the court of Common Pleas for the Cape Girardeau district; one of the dele- gates of the Cape Girardeau district that met at St. Louis in 1804 to remonstrate against the Act attaching upper Louisiana to Indiana Territory, and from time to time member of the territorial assembly. After the organization of the state government he repeatedly repre- sented Cape Girardeau county in the General Assembly of the state. He was a brother of Abraham Byrd, also a leading man of the country at that time.


Robert P. Clark, a delegate to the convention from Cooper county, was born in Clark county, Kentucky; came to Missouri Territory in 1817; he first settled in Howard county, but in the following year moved to Cooper county. Before he moved from Kentucky to Mis- souri Territory he was prominent in the affairs of his native county and state. Shortly after he settled in Cooper county he was appointed first circuit clerk of the county by Judge David Todd, and this posi- tion he held until elected to the convention in 1820, as well as after the organization of the state government consecutively for twenty-three years until his death in 1841. His wife, a daughter of Stephen Trigg, died in 1828.


" Independent Patriot, February, 1821.


-


261


LILLARD


Nicholas S. Burckhart, one of the delegates to the convention from Howard county, born in Maryland, June 16, 1782, was the son of Christopher Burckhart, a German who was brought by his parents to America as an infant, and served in the Revolutionary war, married Elizabeth Hobbs and afterward moved to Kentucky. Nicholas S. Burckhart settled in what is now Howard county in 1811, and began the manufacture of salt at "Burckhart's Lick " in Franklin township, and when Howard county was organized was appointed first sheriff by Governor Clark, and after the admission of the state into the Union was re-elected sheriff and then elected to the legislature several times, as well as to the state senate. On November 22, 1818, he married Miss Sallie Rose; he died June 14, 1834.


John G. Heath, delegate from Franklin county to the constitu- tional convention, was the first white man, together with William . Christy, to establish salt works within the present limits of Cooper county. In 1808, ascended the Missouri river to the salt springs, on what was then called Heath's creek, in what is now Blackwater town- ship in that county, and engaged in the business of making salt. In the same year he was admitted to the bar at St. Charles by Judge Schrader. In 1816 was circuit attorney of Howard county.


Elijah Bettis was a delegate from Wayne county; lived near where the present town of Greenville is now situated, which was known as Bettis's Ford; he was a physician and merchant; and repeatedly represented Wayne county in the General Assembly. With John Logan, was appointed a commission to lay out the town of Greenville.


William Lillard, a member of the convention from Cooper county, was born in Virginia and lived near Abingdon, Washington county, in that state. He was a colonel in the Revolutionary war in com- mand of Virginia troops, and served under Washington and La Fay- ette, and was also an officer of the Tennessee militia in the war of 1812; he was a slave-owner and a man of considerable wealth. He first moved from Virginia to Jefferson county, Tennessee, about 1797 and represented that county in the lower house of the Tennessee legislature, and subsequently represented Cocke county for eighteen years. He settled in the Missouri territory in what was then Cooper (now Saline) county in 1817, and was elected to the constitutional convention. He certainly was a man of magnetic influence, because Lillard (now La Fayette) county was named for him by those who knew him personally. In 1820 he was elected representative of Cooper county to the first legislature, and in that year Lillard (now


262


HISTORY OF MISSOURI


La Fayette) county was organized. He returned to Tennessee to live, probably about 1824 on account of ill-health due to malaria, and died there about 1832.14


Malcolm Henry, representing Lincoln county in the convention, was of Scotch parentage and born in York district, South Carolina, about 1750, and died at his home in Lincoln county, Missouri, in 1840, at the advanced age of ninety years. At an early age he was married to Miss Elizabeth Donnelly, a native of the same state. He had four brothers, many of whose descendants came to Missouri and settled in Pike, Lincoln and Marion counties. He was a soldier of the Revolutionary war, and towards the close of the war had the rank of colonel, and commanded a battalion under General Sumpter in the battles of Guilford Court House, King's Mountain, and other skirmishes and engagements just prior and leading up to the surrender of the British army under Lord Cornwallis at Yorktown, Virginia, in 1777. His brother, William Henry, was also an officer and parti- cipated with him in the same battles. He was elected two or three times to the legislature of South Carolina and held some county offices in the York district. About 1810 he moved to Buncombe county, North Carolina, near the present city of Asheville, where he resided on a farm until the year 1817, when he moved to Missouri settling on Big creek, in St. Charles county, six miles southeast of the town of Troy. On December 14, 1818, the counties of Lincoln and Pike were established and Colonel Henry was thus made a resident and citizen of Lincoln county. He was a man of wealth and owned about thirty slaves. 15


General Jonathan Ramsay, delegate from Montgomery county, was born at the head of the Holston river, Tennessee, November 23, 1775, and the son of Josiah Ramsay, who was a native of Culpepper county, Va .; captured by Indians as a youth, and was engaged in


14 His wife's name was Rachel McCoy, and he appears to have had three sons, Austin, John, and Jeremiah, and one daughter, Nancy, who married Jo- seph Allen, all of whom died in Tennessee, but a daughter of the latter married Joseph H. Goodin, who settled near Springfield, Greene county, Missouri, and most of whose descendants yet live there. - (Information from J. W. Blanken- ship, now residing at No. 52 Concord Ave., Cambridge, Mass., furnished Mis- souri Historical Society.)


15 Colonel Henry was the father of twelve children, four sons and eight daugh- ters, all of whom lived to be married and most of them raised large families of children. They and their descendants have settled in northeast Missouri, in the counties of Marion, Ralls, Pike and Lincoln. He had more than sixty grandchildren. His youngest daughter, Sophia, was born the 6th of August, 1806, was married the Ist of August, 1827, to the Rev. James W. Campbell, late of Pike county. She was the mother of ten children, only three of whom sur-


263


RAMSAY


many of the Indian wars in Tennessee and Georgia; was in the battle of Pt. Pleasant, 1755; at the Long Island battle of Holston in 1776; participated in Christian's campaign and in the fall of 1781 removed to Eaton's station, two miles from Nashville; was major of the Ten- nessee militia and received a pension for his services during the Revo- lutionary war; died about 1834 at the home of his son General Jonathan Ramsay, in Callaway county. When General Ramsay was a boy and lived at Eaton station his mother taught him his letters and simple spelling; he was sent to school to Thomas Moseley for three months, and these were all the educational advantages he ever had; he married early; served as a spy in the Indian wars of that period, was in the Nickajack campaign; in 1795 moved to Kentucky and settled near Henderson, then known as Red Banks, and in 1797 went to Livingston county. When he left Red Banks, knowing that the progress down the river would be slow, he entered a store and inquired if they had some amusing book which would serve to pass away the tediousness of the trip down the river; the merchant answered in the affirmative and showed him the second volume of the three volume edition of "The Fool of Quality," JONATHAN RAMSAY this being the only volume he had, and assured him that it was an exceedingly fine and interesting work; at this time Ramsay knew nothing about odd volumes, and hence took his book, went to his boat and after the boat got under way began to read, or rather as he often said, spell through the volume, but little did he gather from it because he could not comprehend the purport of what he read, so slow and tedious was his process of reading. Sub- sequently Harry Toulmin, at one time secretary of state of Kentucky, and United States district judge, finding this solitary volume in Ramsay's cabin inquired for the other volumes of the work; Ramsay then told him that this was the only volume he knew anything about, when Toulmin for the first time explained to him about the other two volumes; Ramsay then told him that he could not understand what he read as there were so many words whose meaning he did not know vive, former lieutenant-governor R. A. Campbell, of Bowling Green, Mo., John Tyler Campbell, of Santa Rosa, Cal., who was U. S. Consul at Aukland, New Zealand, and also to Foo Chow, China, under appointment by President Grover Cleveland; and Benjamin M. Campbell, of Louisiana, Mo.


264


HISTORY OF MISSOURI


and showed him several words he had marked of this character. Judge Toulmin advised him to secure a copy of Eutick's Diction- ary, the dictionary then generally used. This was the first time that Ramsay learned that there was such a book as a dictionary defining the meaning of words, and he sent to Russellville and procured a copy, and again went through his odd volume of "The Fool of Quality." He now read all the books he could get or borrow, and when Mathew Lyon moved into that part of Kentucky Ramsay sold him a horse for books and pamphlets; he killed deer and with their lard made candles. In the meantime he qualified himself as a surveyor, and surveyed by day and much of every night was spent in reading. He was elected justice of the peace in Livingston county; was a mem- ber of the Kentucky legislature; brigadier-general of the militia, and served as such in Hopkins' campaign of 1812; in the fall of 1817 he moved to Missouri and settled in what is now Callaway county, about twelve miles south of Jefferson City; was elected brigadier- general of the territorial militia. He served in the Missouri legisla- ture a number of years; was a man of imposing and impressive physique, six feet two inches high, large and heavy, florid complexion, kind, generous and of open-hearted disposition and unassuming in his conduct and deportment, - a notable and picturesque character of early Missouri. Draper visited him on the 21st of October, 1851, and to him we are indebted for many incidents of his life.


Benjamin Emmons, delegate to the convention from St. Charles county, was a native of New York and settled in upper Louisiana on Dardenne prairie near the present town of Cottleville, but subse- quently moved to St. Charles where he opened a hotel; he was first elected justice of the peace, and then a member of the convention. He afterward served in both houses of the legislature for several terms.


Nathan Boone, the youngest son of Daniel Boone, from St. Charles county, was born in Kentucky in 1780 and came to Missouri with the family during the Spanish domination; in 1807 he and his brother Daniel Morgan first worked the Salt licks in what became known as the Boonslick country; afterward sold salt made there to the Coopers and described the country which led to their attempt of settling in that district in 1810; he took part in the war of 1812-15, and as cap- tain of a company of rangers scouted in the country between the Mississippi, and attacked by the Indians outnumbering him three to one, extricated himself without loss. He attained the rank of major


265


ASHLEY


in the militia in this war, and after he was mustered out retired to his farm in St. Charles county. He built the first stone house north of the Missouri and his father died there. He was in the Black Hawk war in 1832 and entered the regular army as captain in the Ist United States Dragoons, a regiment commanded by Col. Henry Dodge. He saw much service on the plains and met Gregg and other early traders and explorers. In 1847 was made major in the army; in 1853 at- tained the rank of lieutenant-colonel. In 1853 he resigned and retired to his home in Greene county, Missouri, where he died in 1857.


Hiram N. Baber, another delegate from St. Charles county, was a native of Kentucky; married a daughter of Jesse Boone; served as sheriff of St. Charles county after the forma- tion of the state government; was appointed secretary of state and removed from St. Charles to Jefferson City. A man liberal, popular, and of great political influence.


Dr. James Talbott, a delegate from Montgomery county; for many years was a leading physician in that county; subse- quently he represented the county in the state legislature. He married Jane Talbott, daughter of Colonel Mathew Talbott of Loutre Island, and was a brother-in-law of Judge Mathias McGirk, who married Elizabeth Talbott.


COL. HIRAM N BABER


The election under the constitution adopted by the convention took place on the 28th of August following. In addition to the officers heretofore named the only county officers elected were sheriffs and coroners, all other minor and local county officers also being appoint- ive under the constitution. At this election Alexander McNair received 6,575 votes for governor, and William Clark received only 2,556 votes. William H. Ashley 1ยบ was elected lieutenant-governor, receiving 3,907 votes as against 3,212 votes cast for Nathaniel Cook, and 931 votes cast for Henry Elliott. John Scott was elected first representative to Congress without opposition.


On September 19, 1820, the first General Assembly of Missouri


16 William H. Ashley was born in Powhatan county, Virginia, enjoyed the benefits of an education, came to the Missouri Territory in about 1805 and first lived in the Cape Girardeau district where he married a daughter of Ezekiel Able, at the time a large land owner and influential man; while living in this district he became owner of the grant of land where the city of Jackson is now located; he next removed to Potosi and it is said that there he engaged in the manufacture of gunpowder, no unimportant industry at that time; he next


266


HISTORY OF MISSOURI


met at the "Missouri Hotel," corner of Main and Morgan streets, in St. Louis. James Caldwell, of Ste. Genevieve, was elected speaker of the house, and John McArthur, clerk; Silas Bent was elected president pro tem. of the senate. Although the state was not as yet admitted into the Union, a state government was fully and completely organized and set in motion. When the General Assembly met, Governor McNair appointed as secretary of state, Joshua Barton; as state treasurer, Pierre Didier; as attorney-general, Edward Bates, and as auditor of public accounts, William Christy, but strange to say, all these . JOHN D. COOK officials resigned in the following year. As judges of the Supreme court, to hold office during good behavior until they attained respectively the age of sixty years, he appointed Mathias McGirk of Montgomery county, who resigned in 1841, John D. Cook, of Cape Girardeau county, who resigned in 1823, John Rice Jones, of Washington county, who died in 1824. William Harper was


removed to St. Louis; he was always more or less engaged in real estate specula- tions and while in St. Louis as agent for William Stokes, a wealthy Englishman, invested for him 60,000 dollars in real estate near that city; in 1814 he was one of the promoters of the old Bank of St. Louis; he participated in the war of 1812, was colonel of a regiment in 1819 and in 1822 general of the Missouri militia, whence his title "General" Ashley by which he was ever after known; he was active in politics and elected first lieutenant-governor of Missouri over Major Nathaniel Cook, one of the most popular men of the territory; in 1822 he first became interested in the fur trade, supported in this enterprise by "Wahrendorf & Tracy" then wealthy merchants of St. Louis; with him in this enterprise was interested Andrew Henry of Washington county, a famous Indian trader; he organized several expeditions to the headwaters of the Missouri and Rocky mountains and at first his ventures resulted disastrously, but by persistence he fairly conquered success; he organized the Rocky Mountain Fur company, and had the first cannon hauled to the Rocky mountains by ox-team, a distance of 1,200 miles and mounted in one of his forts; it is supposed that he received an annual subsidy from the American Fur company not to invade its territory on the upper Missouri; with him were associated Jedediah Smith, David E. Jack- son, the Sublettes, Robert Campbell, James Bridges, James P. Beckwourth, Etienne Provost and many others, and who all afterwards became famous in the fur trade and carried the name of Missouri in every direction in the Rocky mountains and hewed out paths to the Pacific. In 1824 Ashley became a candidate for governor, but was defeated by Frederick Bates, but in 1831 was elected to Congress to fill the unexpired term of Spencer Pettis, who fell in a duel with Major Thomas Biddle, and was twice re-elected. In 1837 his health began to fail and he died March 26, 1838, at St. Louis. After the death of his first wife he married Elizabeth Christy, October 26, 1825, and who died five years thereafter. In 1833 he married Mrs. Wilcox, widow of Dr. Wilcox, a daughter of Dr. James W. Moss. After his death she married John J. Crittenden, of Kentucky. When Ashley died he was one of the most popular men of Missouri. His exploits in the mountains surrounded his name with an air of romance.


267


SENATORS ELECTED


appointed chancellor. 17 In a message he felicitated the General Assembly and the people on the happy change of political conditions that had taken place, and expressed the sanguine hope that the state would be fully admitted into the Federal Union without further delay or resistance. He also reminded the General Assembly of the necessity, in view of the Presidential election, to make provision for a representative of the state in the electoral college.


During this session David Barton and Thomas H. Benton were elected as the first United States senators of the state. Barton was elected without opposition, but Benton was elected only after a bitter and exciting contest, J. B. C. Lucas, Henry Elliott, John Rice Jones and Nathaniel Cook all being candidates opposed to him, and finally owed his election principally to the good offices of Barton, and the further fact that Lucas, who was his principal opponent, was supposed to be unalterably opposed to the confirma- tion of many of the Spanish grants and in which many of the early residents of the territory were interested, and which, as a member of the board of commissioners, he had invariably voted to reject. Although Barton's influence was very great and actively exerted in favor of Benton, so great was his unpopularity that only one half of the members of the legislature could be induced to support him by their J. B. C. LUCAS votes. It was then that Auguste Chouteau, Pratte, Cabanne, Labadie and other large claimants of Spanish grants induced Marie Philip Leduc, himself a large land claimant and former secretary of DeLassus, to declare himself for the elec- tion of Benton. But on the day of election one of Benton's


Keel-boats and steamboats were named in his honor, and "Ashley beaver" signified an extra-fine brand of that fur in the vernacular of the trade. He was a man of great public spirit. The first appropriation for improving the channel of the Mississippi at St. Louis was made through his effort. He was buried on an Indian mound overlooking the Missouri, about one mile from the . mouth of the Lamine river and where he had an estate of 20,000 acres. He left no descendants to perpetuate his name.


17 Can find no other reference to him, but suppose that he is the same as Chancellor Harper of South Carolina, intermarried with the Coulter family of St. Charles. Probably after the office of Chancellor was abolished in Mis- souri, he returned to South Carolina; at any rate in November, 1827, Hamilton R. Gamble of St. Louis, married Miss Caroline J. Coulter at Columbia, South Carolina, presumably at the residence of Chancellor Harper or Senator Preston, who also married a Coulter.


268


HISTORY OF MISSOURI


friends, Senator Ralls,18 was so weak that he had to be brought into the house from his bed of sickness to vote, and after having voted was carried back immediately and shortly after died. It was out of such a struggle that Benton emerged victoriously, and reached the senate, where he served for thirty years, and became one of the most distinguished characters of that august body. He was elected as a pro-southern and pro-slavery man, and as an advocate of state rights in the broadest sense, because that principle was attacked in the attempt to restrict slavery in the new state. Once in the senate Benton by espousing the cause of General Jackson, then the idol of the common people, became the most popular man in Missouri for a time. Al- THOMAS H. BENTON AT THE AGE OF 34 though he was dictatorial and arbitrary, and his home was practically in Washing- ton, he could not be defeated.19 Barton after his second term fell into disfavor because opposed to Jackson, and Benton and his friends politically dominated the state.


By this first General Assembly the seat of the state government was established at St. Charles until October, 1826, and thereafter was permanently fixed at Jefferson City. Acts were also passed providing for the organization of the counties of Boone, Callaway, Chariton, Cole, Gasconade, Lillard (now La Fayette), Perry, Ralls, Ray and Saline. The new state was then divided into four judicial circuits, as follows: Cole, Cooper, Saline, Lillard, Ray, Chariton, Howard and Boone Counties, constituting the first circuit; Gasconade, Ralls, Pike, Lincoln, St. Charles, Montgomery and Calloway the second circuit; Franklin, Washington, Jefferson and St. Louis the third cir- cuit, and Perry, Ste. Genevieve, Madison, Wayne, New Madrid and Cape Girardeau the fourth Circuit. Of these circuits, David Todd was appointed Judge of the first circuit, Rufus Pettibone, Judge of the second circuit; Nathaniel Beverly Tucker, Judge of the third




Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.