A History of Northeast Missouri, Volume I, Part 39

Author: Williams, Walter, 1864-1935, editor
Publication date: 1913
Publisher: Chicago, New York, The Lewis Publishing Company
Number of Pages: 731

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The original town of Fulton" comprised fifty acres of land bought

* The figures on the congressional election are taken from the Missouri Intelli- gencer, published at Franklin, Howard county, October 8, 1822. The files of this newspaper are owned by the State Historical Society of Missouri, Columbia.

t The commission was composed of Henry Brite, William Mclaughlin, Samuel Miller, Josiah Ramsey, Jr., and Enoch Fruit. They reported on their work on the 8th of March, 1821, all but Fruit and Ramsey favoring Elizabeth. Fruit dissented on the ground that the site was not in the center of the county, while Ramsey did not sign either report. Evidently Fruit was in harmony with the sentiment of a majority of the citizens of the county, for in 1824 a majority petitioned the general assembly to change the location of the county seat.

# Elizabeth was located in section 9, township 46, range 9, on 100 acres of ground donated by Benjamin Young, one of the members of the first county court, and Thomas Smith. The town was platted, lots were sold, and at least a jail built. The jail was burned shortly after it was erected. The records of the county do not give the exact location of the site of the proposed town. When the county seat was moved to Fulton, the owners of lots in Elizabeth were given the privilege of buying lots in Fulton to take the place of those bought in Elizabeth ("Laws of a Public and General Nature of the State of Missouri, 1804-1836," vol. II, p. 10), while the ground on which Elizabeth was located reverted back to Young and Smith.

A tradition says-and the writer thinks it is probably true-that the Brite tavern was located on the farm now owned by C. F. Shiffler (1912), just east of Elizabeth. The Shiffler house is built of logs and as it stands has two stories, though it is said that the original house was one story high, and as it was built constituted the Brite. tavern.

Brite's tavern also contained a store which was owned by Collier & Company, of St. Charles, and was managed by John Yates, founder of the Yates family in Callaway county. Mr. Yates became a partner in the store soon after it was opened, and in 1825 moved it to Fulton, then buying out the interest of his partners. He built the first house on the site of the original town of Fulton at the southwest corner of the courthouse square. The store at Elizabeth was the second in the county, the first being located at Cote Sans Dessein and owned by Daniel Colgan, Jr. Mr. Yates died in 1853. Dr. Martin Yates, a Fulton physician, is his youngest son.

T The site of Fulton was selected by James Moss and James McClelland, of Boone county, and James Talbot, of Montgomery county, who were appointed com- missioners for that purpose by the general assembly. They located the town July 29, 1825, and named it Volney, after the French infidel. The county court on the first day of August, following, changed the name to Fulton, in honor of Robert

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from George Nichols* for $50. The town was platted by Henry May, Ezra B. Sitton and Hans Patton, who were appointed by the general assembly as a commission to erect a courthouse and jail. The original town lay between Sixth and First streets, north and south, and Bluff and Nichols streets, east and west.

A brick courthouse was built in Fulton in 1827-28 by S. J. Ferguson at a cost of $1,297,t and remained in use until 1856, when it was super- ceded by the present courthouse building. The structure was thirty-six feet square, two stories high, and had brick floors on the ground floor, making what was considered the finest courthouse west of the Mississippi river at that time. When the first courthouse was torn down, Daniel M. Tucker, who was then and for many years afterward a merchant in Fulton, bought the building for $400 and used the brick in erecting his dwelling, which stood at the head of Court street until 1911, the year after his death. The present courthouse was erected by Alfred I. Moore at a cost of $17,850.

MINISTERS AND CHURCHES

The first minister to settle in the county was the Rev. John Ham, who came in 1815. He was a Methodist, though two of his brothers were ministers of the Baptist church. Next to come, probably, was the Rev. William Coats," a Primitive Baptist, for whom Coats' Prairie was

Fulton, inventor of the steamboat. Robert Dunlap, who lived northeast of the town and was the founder of the Dunlap family in Callaway county, is credited with hav- ing proposed the name Fulton. When Mr. Nichols sold the land on which the town was located, he had not perfected his title from the government, and was required by the commissioners to give a bond of $5,000 that he would make a deed when he secured title. The document is still on file in the office of the recorder of deeds of Callaway county. The original town contained 147 lots, many of which sold for `$1 apiece. The highest price paid was $56, and the proceeds from the sale of lots amounted altogether to $1,946.18%. The first lots were sold September 5, 1825.

Edward .G. Berry, who died in 1905 at the age of 97 years, carried a chain for the surveyor who laid off the town of Fulton. Mr. Berry was a son of Richard Berry, of Kentucky, who signed the bond of Thomas Lincoln when he was married to Nancy Hanks, mother of Abraham Lincoln. Richard Berry moved to Callaway county in 1823 and settled on Garden Prairie, southeast of Fulton. His son, Capt. Robert M. Berry, a veteran of the Mexican and Civil wars, now in his ninety-fifth year, lives at Williamsburg, this county.

* Mr. Nichols was a native of Loudon county, Virginia, and the founder of the Nichols family in Callaway county. He entered the land on which the original town of Fulton was built in December, 1824, and, contrary to most statements concerning the transaction, sold the ground on which the town was located. The first house erected within the present confines of Fulton, though not the first in the original town, was the log structure he built in West Fourth street, near the corner of Jeffer- son, which stood until about 1886. The writer remembers seeing it in 1885. It is said that Mr. Nichols had to send ten miles to get men to help him "raise" the house. Mr. Nichols was the grandfather of James Irvine Nichols, who, with Judge Nicholas D. Thurmond, and Dr. John Jay Rice, of the faculty of Westminster Col- lege, established the Fulton Gazette in 1877.

t The story has been told that most of the money used in building the first court- house was obtained from the forfeited bond of Hiram Bryant, who was convicted in 1823 on a charge of horse stealing. The records of the circuit court show that after his conviction Bryant gave bond himself for $500, and his brother, William Bryant, also gave an additional bond for the same amount. The records show that judgment on the bonds was entered against both, but do not show that the judgment was ever satisfied. The records of the county court and of the commissioners who erected the courthouse also are silent on the subject, so, if the story is true, the records are not complete.

After the removal of the seat of government from Elizabeth to Fulton and before the completion of the courthouse, the courts of the county met at the house of Joseph T. Sitton, who is supposed to have been a tavern-keeper.

# R. S. Duncan in his "History of the Baptists in Missouri" (p. 160) says: "As a member of the 'pioneer brigade' of Baptist emigrants to the far west, Will- Vol. 1-19

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named, and who settled here in 1817. Campbell (p. 98a) says that the Rev. James E. Welch and the Rev. John M. Peck, both Baptists, preached in the county during the years 1817-18-19. The Rev. John Scripps," a Methodist circuit-rider, held services in the county in the summer or fall of 1818 and probably was the first minister of his denomination to visit Callaway county in a clerical capacity. "Of the pioneer Chris- tians," says Campbell (p. 98a), "perhaps Rev. David Kirkpatrick preached the first Presbyterian sermon ever delivered in the county [1823]."

A Catholic mission which was established at Cote Sans Dessein in 1816t was the first religious organization in Callaway county. Probably before the mission was established the village was visited by the Rev. Fr. Joseph Dunand, a Cistercian priest who was stationed at St. Charles from 1809 to 1815, for all of the inhabitants of the village were French

iam Coats well deserves a place in this chapter. He had been a member of the Baptist denomination nearly twenty years when he came to Missouri, and a few years after this event in his life he became a Baptist minister. The first Baptist church in Callaway county was formed at his home by Rev. James E. Welch, in June [May], 1818. There was no pastor to pay them the usual 'monthly visits,' and the little flock was greatly encouraged by the influence of Brethren Coats and Smith, who kept up prayer meetings regularly in the community."

Mr. Coats came to Missouri from Tennessee and died here in 1834 or 1835. Many of his descendants live in the county.

* McAnally's "Methodism in Missouri" (pp. 207-8) quotes Scripps as follows: "The eastern extremity of my circuit was on the Moniteur creek [ Moniteau creek, Howard county], from which eastwardly, still farther down, on the north side of the river, were several scattering settlements to the village of Cote Sans du Sein, a distance of seventy miles. To this I resolved to extend my labors, and renew my acquaintance with Major [Jesse] Evans, my fellow traveler to Vincennes, in Sep- tember, 1816. I preached several times on my way down and formed a society of thirteen members on Cedar creek. The village of Cote San du Sein was populated principally by French Catholics, over whom the major, a reputed Deist, was said to exercise great influence, and it was thought he would not suffer preaching there. Every argument was used to deter me, but I pressed on. He cordially received me, obtained for me the largest room in town to preach in, and procured the attendance of all the inhabitants at preaching; nor did he ever seem to grow weary in his efforts, although he remained irreligious. The place became a regular appointment and a small class was formed there, as also at General Ramsey's settlement, about four miles higher up the river, Mrs. Ramsey, her father-in-law, Mrs. [Hannah] Fergu- son [mother of T. J. Ferguson], and Brother Tom (the name he principally went by), and old Methodist negro, four in all, joined this year."

It is possible that the society formed on Cedar creek was located in Callaway county, and it is also possible that it was in Boone county. Jacob Zumwalt settled on the Callaway side of Cedar, about five miles above its mouth, in 1818, and Mr. John Gilmore, of that section, who is one of the old residents of the county, says Mr. Zumwalt was a great Methodist. That being true, the natural thing would be for him to have a circuit-rider visit him and preach at his house.

T. J. Ferguson, son of John S. Ferguson, in a letter published in the Fulton Gazette of November 16, 1883, says Scripps preached in the house of William Nash the first night he was at Cote Sans Dessein, and the next night at the house of his father. He says Scripps continued to preach at the settlement about a year. Mr. Ferguson first saw Cote Sans Dessein in September, 1817.

t This date was gotten from the Most Rev. John J. Glennon, archbishop of St. Louis, who, in a letter to the writer, says: "From all accounts the mission at Cote Sans Dessein was established in the year 1816. It appears that the river swept it away. A small church was built in the early days and I think some of the fixtures belonging to it are now with the Catholic church at Bonnot's Mill, or at Westphalia, Osage county."

From Tousand Foy, of Fulton, it is learned that at least some of the records of the church are at Westphalia, but efforts made to get information from the priest there failed. .

The writer is indebted to the Rev. Fr. Lawrence J. Kenny, S. J., professor of history at St. Louis University, for the information concerning the connection of the Jesuits with the church. St. Louis University has many records of early-day bap- tisms, marriages and deaths at Cote Sans Dessein.

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Catholics from Canada. The Cote Sans Dessein church was turned over to the Jesuits in 1823, on their arrival in Missouri, and the church was placed under the ministry of the Rev. Fr. Peter J. Timmermans, who served it between one and two years. The Jesuits were in charge of the church at least until 1839. The organization passed out of existence many years ago.

The first Protestant church in the county was Salem Primitive Bap- tist," located on Coats' Prairie, northeast of Reform, which was organized May 31, 1818. A substantial log house was built under the supervision of the Rev. William Coats, and the building was used for religious and school purposes many years. Church services were held in it as late as 1880, and a few of the logs in the structure, though greatly decayed, are still on the ground. The cemetery adjoining the site of the old church probably is the oldest public burying ground in Callaway county.

Miller's Creek Methodist church,t organized in 1820 by the Rev. James Scott, of the Cedar Creek circuit of the Missouri conference, was the second Protestant church # in the county. A church house was not built until some time afterward, however, and services during the in- terim were held at the house of Samuel and Polly Miller.

Old Cedar Primitive Baptist church, located west of the village of

. R. S. Duncan in his "History of Baptists in Missouri" (p. 149) says: "At the house of William Coats, in what is now Callaway county, Elder James E. Welch, then a missionary of the triennial convention, on the thirty-first of May, 1818, con- stituted the 'Salem Baptist church,' with nine members, five of whom were pious and prudent men, and one of them a deacon of long standing in Tennessee. "Immedi- ately after the organization was completed, the church celebrated the dying love of Jesus 'in the breaking of bread.' 'The meeting was a solemn and deeply interest- ing one,' says the venerable Father Welch in his 'Recollections of the West.' John M. Peck was the first Baptist preacher who visited this church, which occurred in December after its organization .? '

t The "History of Callaway County" says the first Methodist church in Calla- way county was organized in 1821 at the house of R. M. Cragbead, four miles south- west of Fulton. It was not the first church, however, for Miller's Creek church was first. Mrs. Margaret Nichols, of Fulton, now 77 years old, who is a granddaughter of Mr. Craghead, says preaching services were held at the house of her grandfather until his death in 1857. Mrs. Nichols thinks the Fulton Methodist church grew out of the organization effected in 1821. Mr. Craghead came to Missouri from Frank- lin county, Virginia, in 1818, and was the first Craghead in the county. George Nichols, the husband of Mrs. Nichols, was the only Confederate killed at the Overton Run fight, southwest of Fulton, on July 17, 1861.

$ Campbell (p. 98b) says: "At an early day south of Millersburg, in the western part of the county, lived Abraham Ellis, and near his residence was a famous camp ground that witnessed the early struggles and triumphs of Methodism." The camp meetings doubtless were features of the life of the Miller's Creek church. Abraham Ellis reared a family of devout Methodist children, one of whom-Mrs. T. B. Bedsworth, of near Fulton-is still living.

T Rose (p. 359) says that Mrs. Miller was the first Methodist in Callaway county, and gives the date of her removal to the county as 1819. The first Method- ist, however, was the Rev. John Ham, who, possibly was one of the first two Ameri- can settlers in the county. The Rev. John Scripps also made converts to Methodism at Cote Sans Dessein and at Ramsey's settlement in 1818.

Mr. and Mrs. Miller were the parents of the Rev. Wesley Green Miller, D.D., who attained greater eminence as a Methodist minister than any other person born and reared in Callaway county. He was born January 1, 1831, and after graduating from Jefferson Medical college, Philadelphia, and practicing medicine for a time, entered the ministry in 1853. While pastor of the Methodist church at Columbia, Mo., he studied at and was graduated from the State University. He was professor of natural science at Central College, Fayette, Mo., from 1870 until 1880, and then presi- dent of Central Female college, Lexington, Mo. He died in Louisville, Ky., August 20, 1895. The story is told that on one occasion, while pastor of a great city church, Dr. Miller announced to his congregation he had something to say to them which he was ashamed to say to their faces, and that he then turned his back and while look- ing at the wall, said the things he had to say.

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Stephens, was organized July 14, 1821, and Thomas Peyton Stephens" was its pastor from 1824 until 1865. It is one of the three Primitive Baptist organizations still maintained in the county, and among its members are grandchildren of Elder Stephens.

The Cumberland Presbyterians were the third Protestant body to establish a church in the county. They organized New Providence, lo- cated at Guthrie, on October 4, 1823, and the "History of Callaway County" (p. 527) says the Rev. Robert Sloan was instrumental in effect- ing the organization. The church has remained steadfast to its original faith throughout all of the intervening years, and is one of the few churches of the denomination in Missouri which rejected union with the Presbyterian church, U. S. A., in 1905.

Middle River Primitive Baptist church, in the southern part of the county, was organized in August, 1824, by the Rev. William Coats, and Providence church of the same denomination, located northeast of New Bloomfield, was organized in 1826. Providence went over to the Mis- sionary Baptists when division came, and the congregation now worships in a house in New Bloomfield.

Old Auxvasse church,t two miles north of Calwood, the mother of Presbyterianism in Callaway county, was organized on the 31st of May, 1828. A few Presbyterian families settled in that part of the county in 1820, and after 1823 preaching services were held occasionally by itinerant ministers at the homes of the settlers. A log house twenty by twenty-six feet in size, was raised on February 13, 1826-more than two years before the church organization was perfected. In the middle of one side of the house was a door and opposite it was the pulpit and a window.

Millersburg Presbyterian church,t now known as White Cloud Presbyterian church, which was organized November 26, 1831, was the second of that denomination in the county, and Concord, organized June 25, 1833, was the third.

Antioch Christian church," three miles south of Williamsburg, or-

* Elder Stephens was born in North Carolina in 1787. He moved to Kentucky in 1815, and three years later became a member of the Baptist church. He came to Callaway county in 1820, and the next year with "his brother, Elijah, William Edwards, Isaac Black and Abraham Renfro, with a few sisters, organized Cedar Creek Baptist church," says Duncan (p. 293). He was a leader among the preachers of the denomination and continued in the ministry until his death on April 2, 1865. During all of those years he was pastor of the church which he helped to establish.

t The constituent members of Old Auxvasse church were: William Meteer, David Kennedy, Mary Kennedy, Reuben Scott, Mary T. Scott, James Tate, Clarinda P. Tate, John Hamilton, Peggy C. Hamilton, Ann T. Hart and Betsey Patten. John Hamilton and Reuben Scott were elected elders the day the church was organized. The Rev. Charles S. Robinson was the moderator of the meeting.

The Rev. John F. Cowan, D.D., of Fulton, is now serving his fifty-second year as pastor of Old Auxvasse church, a record probably unequalled west of the Mis- sissippi river. The church is one of the most prosperous rural congregations in the state and has services every Sunday. From it have sprung the churches of Augusta, Auxvasse City, and Nine Mile.

# The constituent members of Millersburg Presbyterian church were: Matthew Culbert, Prudence Culbert, Amerger Lilly, Sarah P. Lilly, William Hamilton, Rebecca Hamilton, Joseph D. Hamilton, Jane E. Hamilton, Margaret W. Hamilton, Andrew W. Hamilton, Frederick Reed, Eliza Reed, John Robison, Barbery S. Robison, and Mary Ewing. The Rev. William P. Cochran was moderator of the meeting at which the church was organized.

T The "History of Callaway County" (p. 528) says the original members of Antioch church were Philip Love, Elizabeth Love, Charles Love, Jesse McMahan, Polly McMahan, Joseph Duncan, Nancy Duncan, William Douglass, Greenup Jack- man, Mrs. Enoch Fruit, Mrs. John Clark, James Love, Matilda Love, Richard, Labam and John McMahan, and their wives.

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ganized in October, 1828, was the parent church of the Disciples in the county. The second organization of the denomination was in Fulton.

The Primitive Baptists were the first to organize a church in Fulton. The date has been lost, but it was some time prior to May 15, 1830, for on that day the church obtained title to the lot at the corner of East Sixth and Bluff streets on which the Fulton Negro Baptist church stands. The church was organized at the house of James McKinney, one of its first trustees, and was named Liberty," for one of his sons. The Rev. Theodrick Boulware t was its first pastor and continued to serve the congregation until his removal to Kentucky in 1866. A $3,000 brick church house was erected in 1833-34, and though it has undergone many alterations, is still used for religious purposes. The organization died out before the beginning of the present century.

The Methodists probably had the second religious organization in Fulton, their church dating from about 1833, though circuit-riders (among them the Rev. Andrew Monroe) of that denomination visited the town as early as 1828 and held services. The Disciples of Christ effected an organization in the county seat between 1833 and 1835, while the Presbyterians delayed their organization until June 14, 1835.

THE LIFE OF THE PIONEER

Life in the county during its first years was not unlike that elsewhere on the frontier of civilization. The men were robust and stalwart, the women strong and resourceful, and under their hands farms were cleared of timber, settlements established, and highways opened. Many of the pioneers were slave owners and brought their bondmen with them when they immigrated to the state, and until slavery was abolished, the insti- tution was recognized and accepted by the most influential men of the county. The county was an independent community, for besides the grain and vegetables required for food, the land grew the cotton and flax which were needed to make the lighter clothing, while the farmers raised the sheep from which wool was gotten for the heavier clothing. Game was plentiful-even buffalo being seen at times-and such time as the settlers were not employed at other pursuits they devoted to the chase. Even the powder the settlers used was made in the county, as were the augers, the guns, the wagons, the hats, and the boots and shoes. Indians had long since ceased to be a menace and the years were filled with a contentment such as only like communities know.

* The "History of Callaway County" (p. 945) says among the constituent members of Liberty church were Theodrick Boulware and wife, George Nichols and wife, William Ficklin and wife, William Martin and wife, Benjamin Bailey and wife, Samuel Martin and wife, and R. Sheley and wife. John Jameson (I), and Wil- liam Armstrong were trustees of the church in 1830, though they may not have been constituent members. John Ficklin, deceased, a nephew of one of the charter mem- bers of the church, was its last member.

t Elder Boulware was born in Essex county, Virginia, November 13, 1780. He was ordained a minister of the Baptist church in Kentucky in July, 1810, and preached in that state until he moved to a farm located two and one-half miles north of Fulton, in 1827. He began to preach as soon as he arrived in Callaway, and though the records have been lost and the fact cannot be established, it is probable he organ- ized the Fulton (Liberty) Baptist church soon after his arrival. Elder Boulware was a man of large mental attainments and uncompromising in his adherence to the doctrines of his church. He continued as pastor of the Fulton church until 1866, when, says Duncan (p. 298), "on account of the 'test oath' and being threatened with imprisonment [for preaching], he left Missouri * * * and went to live with his daughter, Mrs. C. A. Rogers, near Georgetown, Ky." He died September 21. 1867. Elder Boulware was married three times and had a family of nine chil- dren. The last survivor of the family is Isaac Wingate Boulware, of Fulton, now 83 years old, the youngest child, who, in his prime, was the most prominent criminal lawyer in central Missouri.

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A History of Northeast Missouri, Volume I, Part 39

Author: Williams, Walter, 1864-1935, editor Publication date: 1913 Publisher: Chicago, New York, The Lewis Publishing Company Number of Pages: 731

Author: Williams, Walter, 1864-1935, editor
Publication date: 1913
Publisher: Chicago, New York, The Lewis Publishing Company
Number of Pages: 731