Missouri Historical Law Guide

Contents

Legal Ages at a Glance

General Principles

A beginning in French and Spanish civil law

Missouri's law began in French. The Illinois Country was settled from about 1750, Ste. Genevieve first and then St. Louis in 1764. Settlers brought with them the Coutume de Paris, the customary law of northern France. Spain took the country by the cession of 1762 but did not govern it until Count O'Reilly landed at New Orleans in August 1769. Spanish law then ran until 1804¹. Both systems were civil law, descended from Rome.

Under both, marriage made husband and wife partners in property. A contract drawn before a notary could vary the terms. The two systems drew the partnership differently:

• Spanish law. Everything each party held at the marriage went into the partnership, land and goods alike.
• The custom of Paris. Only the goods went in. Land held at the marriage stayed separate.
• Both. Anything either took later by gift, inheritance, or bequest stayed separate. The French called this les propres, meaning one's own².

The husband managed the whole of it while the marriage lasted. He could sell what the couple had acquired without asking his wife³. At a death the partnership was wound up and the widow took half the gain outright. A deed her husband made alone is therefore good.

The United States took possession on 10 March 1804. It left the laws then in force standing until the territorial legislature changed them⁴. By 1807 marriage, wills, the division of an estate left without a will, and the guardianship of minors all rested on territorial statutes. The shared marital property went with them. The descent act of 4 July 1807 replaced it with dower, a widow's right to use one third of her husband's land for the rest of her life. A woman married after that date took a third for life⁵.

The arrival of English common law

English law arrived by statute on 19 January 1816. The territorial legislature adopted the common law of England as the rule of decision, together with the general acts of Parliament passed before 1607, until the legislature should change it⁶. Common law means judge-made law, handed down through court decisions rather than written by a legislature. That statute's successor has run through every Missouri revision since.

Rights that had already taken hold survived the change. In 1836 the Supreme Court held that the Spanish rule letting a wife join her husband in selling her own property was still in force⁷. A deed of the 1810s or 1820s touching a colonial title is therefore read against the law that title came from.

A common law steadily rewritten by statute

Statute replaced common law by degrees. These dates make useful anchors, because each marks a change you will see in the records.

• 1816. English common law adopted. Land could no longer be tied to a line of heirs.
• 1835. The first great revision, which settles most of the ages below.
• 1865. Slavery abolished on 11 January. On 20 February the slave laws were repealed and the marriages of formerly enslaved couples were put on the record.
• 1875 and 1889. Married women given property of their own, and then the right to sue in their own names.
• 1881. Marriage licenses required.
• 1921. Marriage by agreement alone ends on 31 March.
• 1945. Women made eligible for jury service.
• 1956. Dower and curtesy replaced by a fixed share⁸.

For any given year, the rule in force is the statute where one had been passed by then, and the common law otherwise.

Legal Age of Adulthood

Adulthood at twenty-one

Full legal age in Missouri was 21 for men and women alike. There was no difference between the sexes at any point before 1950.

The Revised Statutes of 1835 assume the age throughout rather than declaring it. A person had to be 21 to make a will, to sit on a jury, and to serve as a guardian, and guardianship itself ran to 21⁹. The code of 1939 finally said it outright, for all purposes except where the law governing a particular act provided otherwise¹⁰. Anyone under 21 was an "infant" in law, even a 20-year-old.

Twenty-one was already the age before the common law arrived. The act of 1807 that set up the orphans courts, the district courts that oversaw children's property, says minors reach their full age when they arrive at the age of twenty-one years¹¹.

Under the French and Spanish regimes the age was twenty-five¹². Fourteen was the halfway mark. Above it a minor could sell his own property and the sale passed title, but he kept four years after coming of age to sue it back¹³. For anything before 1804, twenty-five rather than twenty-one is the number to reckon from.

What a minor could and could not do

A minor could own property at any age. What the law limited was the power to part with it.

A contract or conveyance made by a minor was voidable. It was valid until the minor chose to undo it, and could be undone on reaching 21. The one exception was a contract for necessaries, meaning the food, clothing, lodging, and schooling suited to that minor's circumstances¹⁴.

A minor's land was therefore sold by the curator rather than by the child. A curator is the person a court appointed to manage a minor's property. The sale went through on a court order, and the resulting file names the child and the family.

Marriage

Marriage before 1804

Under the French and Spanish regimes the Catholic priest of the parish performed the marriage. It followed banns, which were announcements of the intended marriage from the pulpit on the three Sundays before the ceremony. The property terms were settled separately, in a contract drawn before a notary or the village commandant. The marrying age came from the canon law the priest applied rather than from any statute, and the contract records whether each party was of legal age¹⁵.

Two things make these records valuable. The parish registers cover the whole village, including enslaved people. The notarial contract names both sets of parents, giving the mothers under their maiden names.

In 1806 the legislature declared every marriage already performed in the territory good and valid in law. Each had to be certified within six months to the clerk of the court of quarter sessions, who entered it on the record. The certificate could come from whoever performed the ceremony, or from two or more witnesses¹⁶. A marriage made under the French or Spanish regime can therefore surface a second time in an American county record of 1806, sworn to by witnesses.

Who was old enough to marry

Two separate ages are at work throughout. One is the age at which a person could marry at all. The other is the age below which a parent had to agree.

The territorial legislature set both in 1805. Males of seventeen and females of fourteen could be joined in marriage. No male under twenty-one and no female under eighteen could marry without the consent of the father, or, if he was dead or unable, of the mother or guardian¹⁷.

The revision of 1835 kept the consent ages but set no marrying age of its own. From that point the common-law ages filled the gap, so a boy could marry at 14 and a girl at 12¹⁸. This is an important point for anyone reading a Missouri marriage record between 1835 and the twentieth century: no statute fixed a minimum age at all.

By 1919 a minimum age had appeared. An act approved 30 May 1919 forbade a recorder to issue a license to anyone under fifteen, unless the circuit or probate court of the county ordered it, and then only for good cause and because of unusual conditions making the marriage advisable¹⁹. The same act tightened the paperwork for older minors, and that is where its value lies for research:

• No license could issue to a male under 21 or a female under 18 without the consent of his or her father, mother, or guardian.
• The consent had to be given at the time, in writing, and sworn before an officer authorized to administer oaths.
• The written consent had to state where the person giving it lived.
• The recorder had to state in every license whether each party was of age or a minor, and to name the parent or guardian who consented.

That section carried into the code of 1939 as section 3370, and from there into the modern statute without amendment until 1974²⁰. It governed through 1950.

Proving a parent's consent

The consent ages of 1805 held through 1950. No judge, justice of the peace, or preacher could marry a male under 21 or a female under 18 unless one of two things happened. Either the parent, guardian, or whoever had the minor in care consented in person, or the minor produced a written certificate signed by that person and sworn to by an adult who had watched the signing²¹.

The officiant registered that certificate and sent it to the county recorder within three months, on pain of a $300 forfeit²². The certificate can name a parent, a guardian, or the person a child was living with, and it names the witness to the signature besides.

The licensing act of 1881 carried the same consent ages forward and added a second place to look. Every license had to state whether each applicant was of age or a minor, and had to name whoever consented for a minor²³. A license saying both were of age places the groom at 21 and the bride at 18 or over.

Marriage by agreement to 1921

Into the twentieth century a Missouri couple could marry by agreement alone. All it took was a present agreement to be husband and wife, followed by living together and holding themselves out to the community as married. An act approved 31 March 1921 ended that. From then on a valid marriage required a license obtained beforehand and a ceremony performed by someone authorized by law, and the act declared in terms that common-law marriages afterward contracted were null and void²⁴.

A couple living together before that date could therefore be lawfully married with no document at all, and their children were legitimate. Such a marriage was proved by living together and by reputation. Census entries, church rolls, and deeds naming a woman as wife carry real weight for those years.

What a ceremony required

Every judge, justice of the peace, and licensed or ordained preacher could perform the ceremony. A religious society could marry its own members by its own rites. Each returned a certificate to the county recorder within three months²⁵. From 1881 the recorder issued a license first, and the officiant made his return on it within ninety days²⁶.

Missouri marriage records therefore sit with the recorder of deeds rather than in a separate vital-records office.

Marriages the law forbade

Marriage was a civil contract, and it required the consent of parties capable in law of contracting. Certain marriages were absolutely void²⁷:

• Between parents and children, including grandparents and grandchildren of every degree.
• Between brothers and sisters, of the half blood as well as the whole.
• Between uncles and nieces, or aunts and nephews.

The rule reached relationships traced through a birth outside marriage as well as within it. First cousins were not barred under the 1835 act, and a Missouri first-cousin marriage between 1835 and 1921 was lawful.

A marriage made outside Missouri was valid here if it was valid where it took place²⁸. That is why a couple barred at home could cross a state line, and why the record may sit in Kansas, Arkansas, or Illinois.

An act approved 25 March 1921 rewrote the list and made it considerably longer. It kept every degree above and added three things²⁹:

• First cousins. Barred from 1921, though allowed for the previous eighty-six years. A first-cousin marriage in a Missouri record is therefore almost certainly before 1921, or from another state.
• Marriages across the color line. The bar on white people marrying Black people was carried forward and extended to marriages between white people and people of Chinese, Japanese, or other East Asian descent, whom the statute called Mongolians.
• Mental capacity. A marriage was void where either party was insane, mentally imbecile, feeble-minded, or epileptic, in the language of the statute, and an official who knowingly issued a license to such a person committed a misdemeanor.

From 1943 each applicant also had to file the report of a blood test for syphilis before a license would issue³⁰, so a license file of the 1940s carries a laboratory report with it.

Enslaved people and the register of 1865

Enslaved people had no legal capacity to marry, so no civil marriage record exists for them during slavery.

Missouri abolished slavery by an ordinance of its state convention on 11 January 1865³¹. Six weeks later the legislature put the marriages of formerly enslaved couples on the public record. Couples formerly held as slaves who had lived together as husband and wife were to appear before a justice of the peace of their township, or another officer authorized to perform the ceremony, and be married, with the officer keeping a record³². Those who did not comply within twelve months became liable to prosecution. A man discharged from military service had six months from his discharge³³.

The next part of that act is the one that matters most for African American research. At the ceremony the reputed father and mother could give the officer the names of their children then living, or the descendants of any child who had died. The officer recorded those names with his certificate and returned both to the recorder, who entered them in a book kept for the purpose³⁴.

A single 1865 entry can therefore do three things at once. It records a marriage that began under slavery, it names the children born of it, and it can reach a generation further back through the descendants of a child already dead.

The bar on marriage across the color line

From 1835 any marriage between a white person and a Black or mixed-race person was illegal and void. The couple and the officiant alike were guilty of a misdemeanor³⁵. Who fell on which side of the line was fixed by statute: a person with one Black grandparent, meaning one fourth or more Black ancestry, fell within the ban³⁶.

The revision of 1879 moved the fraction to one eighth and put it in the marriage section itself. No white person could marry a person of one eighth or more Black ancestry. Knowingly doing so brought a penitentiary term or a fine, and the jury could decide the proportion from a party's appearance³⁷. The Supreme Court upheld that section in 1883, in the prosecution of a white woman of Cape Girardeau county for marrying Dennis Jackson³⁸. The bar became unenforceable with Loving v. Virginia in 1967³⁹.

Where the statute forbade the marriage, no Missouri marriage record was created. The household has to be reconstructed from census, church, and family sources instead. Where someone went to law over it, the court file may survive: a prosecution produced a circuit court indictment naming both parties, and an annulment suit produced sworn testimony about a spouse's parentage⁴⁰.

Property Ownership

Land under the French and Spanish regimes

Land came by concession. A settler applied to the commandant of his village, or to the lieutenant governor at St. Louis, for leave to cultivate a tract. The grant, a survey, and actual possession together made the title⁴¹.

Ste. Genevieve and St. Louis also held land collectively. Each village had a large common field divided into long narrow strips, each worked by one household, and a commons that everyone grazed.

A married woman's position was close to the reverse of the English one that followed. Her husband managed the couple's shared goods, but she owned half of them outright, and she could join him in selling property of her own. That power survived the arrival of the common law in 1816⁷.

Which men could own land

Every free man could acquire, hold, and convey land, whatever his race, and could own it at any age. The age that mattered was 21, when he could deal in it himself. The restrictions Missouri placed on free Black residents fell on their presence in the state rather than on their right to hold title⁴².

Foreign-born men held land on generous terms from an early date. Any foreign national living in Missouri, and any foreign national in the United States who had declared an intention to become a citizen, could acquire real estate by inheritance or purchase and convey it, with the same duties and liabilities as a citizen⁴³. A foreign national could therefore buy and inherit Missouri land while still a subject of another country. A declaration of intention often sits in the county court records near a land purchase.

Two English ways of holding land changed the moment the common law arrived in 1816⁴⁴:

• Where land was given to two or more people together, each took a share that passed to that person's own heirs rather than to the survivor.
• An entail, meaning a gift of land tied to a named line of heirs so that no holder could sell it away, became at once a fee simple. Fee simple is full ownership with no strings.

A settlement meant to tie Missouri land to a bloodline therefore did not hold.

Enslaved men could not own property of any kind. The law treated them as property themselves, listed them for tax as the property of an enslaver, and penalized any owner who let an enslaved person hire out his own time or trade on his own account⁴⁵.

Women and land ownership

For a woman, everything turned on whether she was married.

A single woman or a widow was a feme sole, meaning a woman alone. She could buy, own, sell, mortgage, sue, and be sued exactly as a man could.

A married woman was a feme covert, a covered woman, under the common-law rule called coverture. Coverture merged a wife's legal identity into her husband's. He took the rents and profits of her land and owned her personal property, and her contracts had no force on their own.

Missouri broadened her position in two steps. An act of 1875 made her personal property her own separate estate⁴⁶. In 1889 she was given the right to sue and be sued in her own name, with or without her husband, exactly as if she were unmarried⁴⁷. By the code of 1939 her separate estate covered everything she owned at marriage or acquired afterward, whether by gift, bequest, inheritance, purchase with her own funds, or the wages of her own labor, along with the income from it. Her husband's creditors could not reach it⁴⁸.

When a wife had to sign her husband's deed

This turns on dower.

Dower was the widow's life estate in one third of the land, meaning the right to use that third for the rest of her life without owning it. It attached to every parcel her husband owned and held at any time during the marriage, not merely to what he held at his death⁴⁹.

Because dower attached the moment he took the land, his signature alone could not shed it. No deed of the husband barred dower without his wife's agreement, which she gave by acknowledging the deed before an authorized officer in the manner the law required for married women⁵⁰. That rule ran from 1835 into the twentieth century⁵¹.

The signatures at the foot of a Missouri deed therefore carry information about the family.

The requirement was not reciprocal. After 1889 a married woman conveyed her own land alone, while her husband still could not convey his unless she signed too⁵⁵. That is why wives appear so constantly in Missouri deed books.

The separate examination

A wife released dower on an examination apart from her husband, meaning a private interview with the officer taking her acknowledgment. The officer had three duties⁵⁶:

• He had to know her personally, or have her identified by two credible witnesses.
• He had to make her acquainted with the contents of the deed.
• He had to satisfy himself that she acted freely, without compulsion or undue influence from her husband.

The certificate written on the deed recites all of that. Where she was not personally known to the officer, it names the two identifying witnesses, which attaches two more people to the family at a fixed date⁵⁷.

Curtesy

Curtesy was the husband's counterpart to dower. It was a life interest in all his wife's land, and it arose only if a child had been born alive of the marriage.

An act of 1921 replaced it with a share matching the widow's, so that each spouse held the same one-third life interest in the other's land⁵⁸. Dower and curtesy were both abolished for deaths from 1 January 1956 and replaced by an elective share, meaning a fixed portion the survivor may choose to take instead of what the will gives⁸.

Which children could own land

A child could own land at any age, taking it by inheritance, gift, or purchase just as an adult did, and could convey it freely at 21. In between, a sale went through the court and the curator, as described above.

Witnessing a deed

A witness of any age could serve. The statutes governing deeds and witnesses set no minimum age at all; the test was whether the person understood an oath and could relate what he had seen⁵⁹.

A deed was made ready for recording in one of two ways. Either the grantor acknowledged it before an authorized officer, or a subscribing witness proved it, meaning a witness who had signed the deed swore to its execution. It was then recorded with the recorder of deeds in the county where the land lay. In practice deed witnesses were adults, since a witness might have to appear years later to prove the deed.

Free Black Missourians and the licensing system

Free Black Missourians could own and convey land, and did. The restrictions fell on their right to live in the state.

From 1835 no free Black or mixed-race person who was not a citizen of one of the United States could live in Missouri without a license from the county court. A license went only to a person who met one of these conditions, and then only on proof of good character and the ability to support himself⁶⁰:

• He had been living in Missouri on 7 January 1825.
• He had been freed in Missouri, or born free there.
• He had served out an apprenticeship in Missouri.
• He was the spouse of an enslaved person, in the narrow circumstances the act allowed.

Acts of 1843 and 1847 tightened the system, and the act of 1847 confined instruction in reading and writing to white people⁶¹.

The license itself is a rich record. It described the applicant by name, age, size, appearance, and occupation, and it covered the holder's children under 21. The clerk abstracted it in a register, and a licensee who moved county produced it there for a fresh entry⁶². The requirement ended on 20 February 1865, when the General Assembly repealed the licensing act outright⁶³.

Inheritance

How an estate passed where there was no will

Under the colonial law the first step on a death was to wind up the marital partnership described above. Each side took back what it had brought in, and the gain of the marriage was divided equally between the survivor and the representatives of the person who had died⁶⁴. Only the deceased's share then passed to the heirs.

The territorial legislature settled the question in 1807, and its shares are close to the ones that ran for the next century and a half. A widow with lawful children took a life interest in one third of the lands her husband had held during the marriage, and in one third of the slaves he owned at his death, together with one third of the personal estate outright. The remaining two thirds passed at once to the lawful children in equal parts, with the children of a child already dead dividing their parent's share⁶⁵.

From 1835 Missouri ran one scheme for land and personal property together, and it stood almost unchanged through 1950. Where a person died intestate, meaning without a will, the estate passed to co-heirs holding together, subject to debts and to the widow's dower, in this order⁶⁶:

• First to the children, or their descendants, in equal parts.
• If there were none, to the father, mother, brothers, and sisters and their descendants, in equal parts.
• Then to grandparents, uncles, and aunts and their descendants.
• And so upward without end.

Three working rules go with that scheme⁶⁷. A child born after the father's death inherited as though born in his lifetime. Heirs of equal degree divided per capita, meaning by head, while children of a dead heir divided their parent's share, taking per stirpes, meaning by stock. And a child already given land or goods in the parent's lifetime had that gift counted against his share before the division. An estate division that gives one child visibly less is usually explained by such a gift rather than by a quarrel.

Where a person left no children, parents, brothers, sisters, or their descendants, and no relatives at all capable of inheriting, the whole estate went to the surviving husband or wife⁶⁸.

The widow's dower and the mansion house

The widow's interest in the land was dower, a life estate in one third. Until that third was marked out for her she could stay in the mansion house rent free, along with the land belonging to it⁶⁹. The mansion house means the principal dwelling of the estate, whatever its size. This is why a Missouri widow is often found living on land the deed books say belongs to her children.

Dower was measured out by commissioners the court appointed, with the county surveyor in attendance, and their report describes the particular third she received. Heirs, legatees, and the guardians of minor heirs could all apply to have dower assigned⁷⁰, so the proceeding may be started by the children rather than by the widow. A legatee is a person left personal property by a will.

The widow's outright shares and her election

On top of the life estate, the survivor kept certain property outright. What she took turned on whether there were children, and on which choice she made. These shares ran to the widow from 1835, and the act of 1921 gave the surviving husband the same rights⁵⁸.

Where the husband left a will, a gift of land to the widow took the place of her dower unless he said otherwise. She lost her dower altogether unless she filed a written refusal within twelve months of the will being proved⁷⁶. Neither spouse could use a will to defeat the other's dower⁷⁷.

The choice she made is a dated document in the estate file. It took the form of a written declaration, acknowledged before an officer authorized to take acknowledgments of deeds, and filed with the clerk of the court that granted letters within six months of the grant⁷⁸. Letters are the court's written authority to settle an estate. Read that declaration before reconstructing a family from the division, because the same estate divides differently depending on what she chose.

The surviving spouse also kept an allowance out of the estate ahead of the creditors. It covered the family books, clothing, tools of domestic industry, and household furniture up to a set value, money for a year's support, and further personal property up to an appraised $400. The widow and the minor children also held the homestead⁷⁹. The allowance is a separate paper in the probate file, and because it was measured by the size of the household it often names the children living at home.

Dower before 1865

Before emancipation the widow's outright share of the personal estate expressly included enslaved people, who were listed and distributed as other movable goods were. Where the husband left a child but not by his last marriage, the widow could choose to take the enslaved people who had come to him through her at the marriage⁸⁰.

A dower assignment or distribution of that period names enslaved individuals, and marks the moment a family was divided among a widow and her stepchildren.

Minors, guardians, and curators

Missouri used two words for two jobs, and the difference decides which record to look for. The guardian had the care of the minor's person. The curator managed the minor's estate.

The father while living, and after his death the mother, was the natural guardian without any appointment⁸¹. By the code of 1939 parents living together held the office jointly with equal powers, and the survivor took it alone on the death of either⁸².

The office is older than the state. From 1807 each district kept an orphans court with power over everyone accountable for a minor's estate, whether guardian, executor, administrator, or tutor, the French and Spanish name for the same officer. That court did four things⁸³:

• It let a minor above 14 choose a guardian, and appointed one for those under 14.
• It took bond in double the value of the estate.
• It placed a child only with someone of the parents' own religion, and only where a minor old enough to have a view was willing.
• It bound out a child whose estate would not support him.

What brought a court into it was property. Where a minor came into an estate of his own, someone had to give bond and account for it, and the court appointed a curator. Where a child inherited nothing, ordinarily no file was opened at all. The rule reached the parents too. Where the child's estate did not come from the parent acting as guardian, that parent gave security and accounted like anyone else⁸¹. A bond filed by a father for his own living child therefore means the child received property from outside the household, and the file names the source.

A minor over 14 whose parents were dead or had been judged unfit chose his own guardian. The court appointed only for children under 14, and it issued a notice to a minor over 14 who had none, telling him to appear and choose⁸⁴. A minor who already had a guardian could choose another on reaching 14⁸⁵. A choice or a notice in the file is evidence the child had reached 14, which brackets a birth year.

Guardians and curators had to be 21. They gave bond, put the minor's money out at interest, and made annual settlements, ending in a final settlement and discharge⁸⁶. The curator of the estate could be a different person from the guardian of the minor, and a father could name a guardian by his will⁸⁷, so there may be two files rather than one.

That final settlement at 21 is worth finding. It dates the minor's coming of age, lists the property handed over, and frequently gives a young woman's married surname.

Children born outside marriage

A child born outside marriage inherited from the mother, and passed on an inheritance on her side, exactly as if born within it⁸⁸.

Inheritance from the father followed the parents' later marriage. Missouri carried this rule from the territorial period forward: where a man had children by a woman and afterwards married her, the children, if he recognized them, became legitimate and could inherit⁸⁹. A marriage record can therefore make an heir of a child born years before it. The children of a marriage later declared void, or ended by divorce, were legitimate in any event⁹⁰.

The duty to support such a child rested on the mother. The alleged father was liable only where he had taken the child into his care and custody⁹¹. Fatherhood in a Missouri record therefore surfaces through legitimation, or through a contest over who the heirs were, rather than through a bastardy bond.

Wills, executors, and witnesses

The territorial act of 1807 set the two ages that governed through 1950. Any person of 21 or over, of sound mind and not a married woman, could leave land and slaves by a written will attested by three or more competent witnesses, unless the will was entirely in the testator's own handwriting and signed by him. Any person above 18 could leave goods and chattels by will⁹².

The 1835 code kept both ages and cut the witnesses to two. Any person of 21 or over could leave the whole estate, real and personal, saving the widow her dower, and any person above 18 could leave goods and chattels⁹³. A married woman could make a will only where she had the power by marriage settlement, or by her husband's written authority given before the marriage⁹⁴.

By the code of 1939 the rule had been recast by sex. A man could will personal property at 18 and land at 21. A woman, married or single, could will both at 21⁹⁵.

Read those ages against a date before treating an estate file as confused. A will made by a man of 19 disposes of his goods and leaves his land to descend to his heirs under the intestacy rules above, so one estate can be settled two ways at once.

From 1835 a will had to be in writing and signed by the testator, or by another person at his direction and in his presence, and attested by two or more competent witnesses signing in his presence⁹⁶. Any age could witness; competence was the test. A gift left by will to a witness who signed it was void, which left that witness disinterested and so competent to prove the will⁹⁷. A legacy that fails in a Missouri will is often explained by the legatee having witnessed it.

Executors had to be 21 from the beginning. The territorial act of 1807 barred anyone younger and provided for administration during the minority of a named executor⁹⁸. The state code kept the age, added sound mind, and barred a married woman from serving as executrix or administratrix⁹⁹.

Where a named executor was under age, letters issued during his minority and he took over on coming of age¹⁰⁰. A change of administrator with no death behind it therefore often marks a twenty-first birthday. Letters went first to the husband or wife, or to those entitled to a share, and where none applied within sixty days, to any suitable person¹⁰¹.

Taxation

What was taxed and who was listed

The annual county tax book is the record that matters. The assessor made it up, the county court heard appeals from it, and it names every taxable person in the county every year. Because the tax reached men who owned nothing, the tax books work as census substitutes between the federal enumerations.

The territorial law of 1804 charged five things¹⁰²:

• Houses and town lots above a set value.
• Able-bodied single men who had no taxable property up to a set amount.
• Mills and ferries.
• Horses, cattle, mules, and asses above set ages.
• Bond servants and enslaved people between sixteen and forty, except those the court of quarter sessions excused for infirmity.

A single man who failed to pay was committed to jail.

The revenue act of 1835 laid the tax on all free male persons over 21 and under 55, at thirty-seven and a half cents a head. It also taxed lands and lots with their houses and improvements; all slaves over three years old; household furniture above a set value; pleasure carriages; watches and clocks; livestock above set ages; bank shares; and taxable licenses¹⁰³. Soldiers between 21 and 65 were exempt, along with public property, schools, churches, and poorhouses¹⁰⁴.

Who counted as a poll

A poll is a taxable person, and a capitation tax is a flat sum charged on the person rather than on property.

The 1835 statute laid the poll tax on all free male persons of the right age and drew no racial line, so free Black men stand in the poll column alongside white men. This was deliberate drafting rather than accident: the same act used the words "free white male" in the exemption for soldiers, and left "white" out of the charging section. Enslaved people were listed as property to their owner, so an enslaver's entry documents the people he held, by number and sometimes by name.

A Missouri poll list is a revenue record, not a voting record. What qualified a voter was citizenship, the age of 21, and residence¹⁰⁵. A man's name in the poll column says he was of taxable age and nothing about whether he could vote.

From the rebuilding of the revenue system in the 1870s the state levied on property alone, under a constitution requiring taxes to be uniform on the same class of subjects and taxable property to be taxed in proportion to its value¹⁰⁶. From that point a poll tax is a local charge. A city of the second class could lay one of up to $1.50 a year on every male resident over 21 and under 60, applied to the streets and nothing else, and a man who paid it was excused from working the roads outside the city¹⁰⁷.

Taxable ages at a glance

A man appearing in the poll column for the first time has just reached the taxable age, which brackets a birth year within a year or so. A man who drops off while still alive elsewhere in the record has usually passed the upper age or gained an exemption.

The road tax kept its own list. Every able-bodied male inhabitant of a road district between 21 and 50 who had lived there a month had to work on the public roads, and could pay in labor at a daily rate the county court fixed¹⁰⁸. The clerk of each road district board filed an alphabetical list of those men with the county clerk by the first of April each year, and a man who proved his disability received a certificate of exemption¹⁰⁹. That gives you an annual, alphabetical, county-filed list of the men of an age to work, with a separate paper explaining the ones who stopped appearing.

Courts

Jury service

Under the 1835 code Missouri set two different tests, and the difference tells you what kind of man sat on which body.

• A petit juror, meaning a trial juror, had to be a free white male citizen of the state, living in the county, and above 21¹¹⁰.
• A grand juror, who sat on the body that brought charges, had to be a citizen of the state, living in the county, over 21, and a householder or freeholder, meaning the keeper of a household or an owner of land¹¹¹.

Two things follow. The property requirement reached the grand jury alone, so a man could sit on a trial jury owning nothing. And the words "free white male" appear only in the trial-juror section; the grand-juror section does not repeat them. An objection to a juror's citizenship, residence, age, or other disability had to be made before the jury was sworn¹¹².

Do not read too much into that silence. Missouri law of the period barred free Black residents from living in the state at all without a county court license, which is hard to square with being a citizen of the state, and no Missouri case is known holding a Black man qualified to sit on a grand jury. What the wording does mean is that the bar on the grand jury rested on the general law rather than on the jurors act itself, until the legislature wrote it into that act in 1855.

Some men could not be compelled to serve at all: clergymen, physicians, attorneys, court clerks and officers, ferry-keepers, road overseers, constables, judges of a court of record, and anyone over 65¹¹³. A man of the right age missing from the jury lists may simply have followed one of those callings.

The revision of 1845 carried both tests forward word for word¹¹⁴, so this split ran for twenty years.

The revision of 1855 closed it. A single section now required every juror, grand or petit, to be a free white citizen of the state, living in the county, sober and judicious, of good reputation, and over 21¹¹⁵. Two things changed at once. The racial bar reached the grand jury for the first time, and the requirement to own land or keep a house disappeared. The same act told the sheriff to draw grand jurors from the townships in proportion to their free white population, which shows how completely the earlier opening had closed.

The General Statutes of 1865, the first revision made after emancipation, kept that single test and restated it: every juror, grand and petit, was to be a white male citizen of the state, living in the county, sober and intelligent, of good reputation, and over 21¹¹⁶.

In 1879 the section was re-enacted without the word "white," and it stood in that form through every revision to 1939¹¹⁷. Federal law had moved first. From 1875 it was a misdemeanor for an officer selecting or summoning jurors to exclude a citizen on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude, and in 1880 the Supreme Court held that a statute confining jury service to white men denied Black citizens the equal protection of the laws¹¹⁸. Black men were legally eligible from 1879, though in practice they were kept off Missouri panels for decades afterward.

Women as jurors

Women became eligible for jury service under the Constitution of 1945, adopted 27 February 1945. No citizen could be disqualified from jury service because of sex, but the court had to excuse any woman who asked to be excused before being sworn¹¹⁹.

Because a woman could stand down simply by asking, Missouri juries stayed largely male after 1945. A woman's name on a panel list of the late 1940s is worth noting.

The age of criminal responsibility

The common-law ages governed throughout the period, and the Missouri Supreme Court stated them plainly in 1886¹²⁰:

• Under 7. A child could not be guilty of a crime at all.
• 7 to 14. A child was presumed incapable. The State could rebut that presumption, but the proof had to be strong and clear.
• 14 and over. Full criminal responsibility, tried and punished as an adult.

What changed from 1903 was where a child was tried rather than whether he could be. Missouri built that jurisdiction one tier of counties at a time.

The first act reached counties of 150,000 and over, meaning the City of St. Louis and Jackson County. It gave the circuit court exclusive jurisdiction over children under 16, who went before it directly rather than before a justice of the peace, and whom it could not send to jail¹²¹. Acts of 1905 and 1907 brought in the next tiers of counties¹²², and the act of 1911 raised the age to 17 and reached every county of 50,000 and over¹²³.

The small counties came in through a different court, and this detail matters for finding a file. From 1913 the probate court held jurisdiction over neglected and delinquent children under 17 in every county of less than 50,000, except where the child was charged with an offense punishable by death or a term in the penitentiary¹²⁴. In 1917 that jurisdiction passed to the circuit courts¹²⁵. For a child in a small Missouri county between 1913 and 1917, the file is therefore a probate court file. Those are the only years in which a delinquency case sits with the same court that handled wills and guardianships.

Proceedings were entered in a book known as the Juvenile Record. An appeal from an order of commitment could be demanded on the child's behalf by a guardian, either parent, a previous custodian, or any relative within the fourth degree¹²⁶, so the file can name relatives who appear nowhere else.

Witnesses

A witness of any age could testify, provided he or she understood the obligation of an oath and could relate the facts. The judge questioned a child personally first. The 1835 witnesses act listed the people who could not testify, and age is not among them¹²⁷.

Religious belief was no bar from 1835. A person's opinions about a Supreme Being, or about a future state of rewards and punishments, left him competent¹²⁸. Confessions made to a minister or priest in his professional character, and a physician's professional knowledge of a patient, were privileged from the same date¹²⁹.

Women were competent witnesses throughout the period. The rules that reached a married woman's evidence turned on the marriage rather than on her sex¹³⁰. In a criminal case each spouse was a competent witness for the other at the discretion of the accused, and testified against the other only with the accused's consent. In civil cases either was competent in a proceeding to which the other was a party. Confidential communications between them during the marriage were protected throughout.

Black Missourians as witnesses

The 1835 code put the rule in a single sentence. A Black or mixed-race person, enslaved or free, could testify only in a state prosecution against another Black or mixed-race person, or in a civil case in which every party was Black or mixed-race¹³¹. The revision of 1855 restated it word for word, as the ninth item in the statutory list of people who could not testify¹³².

For the thirty years before 1865, then, a free Black Missourian's dispute with a white neighbor produced a court file carrying no testimony from the Black party. A file in which the parties on both sides were Black holds their own words.

The bar fell on 20 February 1865, six weeks after emancipation, when the General Assembly repealed the laws relating to persons of African descent¹³³. The ninth item was struck out and nothing was put in its place. The same act cleared the machinery around a lawsuit as well, covering who could take a deposition, who could serve a summons, and with whom a copy could be left at a defendant's house. It also made Black Missourians answerable to the same fines and punishments as white people and no others¹³⁴. The General Statutes of 1865 print the witness provisions with no racial line, and no later revision put one back.

Sources and Where to Check Them

Constitutions

• Missouri. Constitution of the State of Missouri, 1875, with All Amendments to 1903, Annotated to Date. Compiled by Sam B. Cook, Secretary of State. Jefferson City: Tribune Printing Company, 1903. Art. VIII, § 2 (qualifications of voters); art. X, §§ 1, 3, 4 (the taxing power, uniformity, and taxation in proportion to value); art. X, § 11a (special road tax, adopted 1900). Digital images. Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/cu31924030493419 (accessed 10 August 2026).
• Missouri. Constitution of the State of Missouri, 1945. Adopted 27 February 1945; text printed at 1945 Laws of Missouri, 1–60. Art. I, § 22(b) (jury service not to be denied because of sex); art. VIII, § 2 (qualifications of voters). Missouri Revisor of Statutes. https://revisor.mo.gov/main/OneSection.aspx?constit=y&section=I++22(b) (accessed 10 August 2026).
• Missouri State Archives. Missouri constitutions of 1820, 1865, and 1875, digitized as a collection. The revenue articles govern the poll and capitation taxes after 1835, and the Constitution of 1865 carries the changes that followed emancipation. Digital images. Missouri Digital Heritage. https://cdm16795.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/landingpage/collection/p16795coll1 (accessed 10 August 2026).

Codes and Compilations

• Missouri. The Revised Statutes of the State of Missouri: Revised and Digested by the Eighth General Assembly During the Years One Thousand Eight Hundred and Thirty-four, and One Thousand Eight Hundred and Thirty-five. St. Louis: Printed at the Argus Office, 1835. The foundational state code and the source of most of the citations here. The volume is arranged alphabetically by subject: administration at pp. 40–63, aliens at p. 66, conveyances at p. 118, descents and distributions at p. 222, dower at p. 227, free negroes and mulattoes at p. 413, guardians and curators at p. 293, grand and petit jurors at p. 342, marriages at p. 401, revenue at p. 528, wills at p. 617, and witnesses at p. 621. Digital images with searchable text. Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/revisedstatuteso00miss (accessed 10 August 2026).
• Missouri. The Revised Statutes of the State of Missouri, 1845. St. Louis: J. W. Dougherty, 1845. Chapter 91 (grand and petit jurors) repeats the 1835 wording for both bodies, which shows the split between the two tests running unbroken from 1835 to 1855. Digital images with searchable text. Missouri Digital Heritage. https://mdh.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/p16795coll26/id/2918 (accessed 10 August 2026).
• Missouri. The Revised Statutes of the State of Missouri, Revised and Digested by the Eighteenth General Assembly. 2 vols. Jefferson City: Printed for the State, by James Lusk, Public Printer, 1855–56. Chapter 88 (jurors), art. I, §§ 3 and 5, at 2:909–10, merges the grand and petit juror tests, extends the racial bar to grand jurors, and drops the property requirement. Chapter 168 (witnesses), § 6, holds the ninth subdivision struck in 1865; chapter 53 (depositions) and chapter 128, art. 5 (executing a summons and serving a notice) hold the other racial words that act removed. Digital images. Missouri Digital Heritage. https://mdh.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/p16795coll26/id/4584 (accessed 10 August 2026).
• Missouri. The General Statutes of the State of Missouri. Jefferson City, 1866. The first revision after emancipation. Chapter 146, § 2, at p. 597, merges the grand and petit juror qualifications and drops the property requirement. Digital images. Missouri Digital Heritage. https://mdh.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/p16795coll26/id/6606 (accessed 10 August 2026).
• Missouri. The Revised Statutes of the State of Missouri, 1879. 2 vols. Jefferson City: Carter & Regan, State Printers and Binders, 1879. Chapter 43, § 2777 (juror qualifications, the word "white" struck); § 1540 (the marriage bar); chapter 145, §§ 6658, 6663 (the state levy, on property only); § 4695 (city poll tax); and chapter 151, §§ 6945–6946 (road work). Digital images. Missouri Digital Heritage. https://mdh.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/p16795coll26/id/10856 (accessed 10 August 2026).
• Missouri. The Revised Statutes of the State of Missouri, 1939. 3 vols. Jefferson City, Mo.: Midland Printing Co., 1939. The code in force in the last decades covered here. The Women's Bureau digest listed below prints in full each section cited from this volume. Digital images. Missouri Digital Heritage. https://mdh.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/p16795coll26/id/40937 (accessed 10 August 2026).
• Missouri State Archives. Revised Statutes of Missouri for 1825, 1845, 1865, 1889, 1899, 1909, 1919, and 1929, digitized as a collection. These are the revisions between the ones this guide relies on, and they are the place to trace a rule forward or back between 1835 and 1939. Each page carries searchable transcribed text, so a phrase from a statute can be found across the whole run. Digital images. Missouri Digital Heritage. https://cdm16795.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/landingpage/collection/p16795coll26 (accessed 10 August 2026).
• Missouri. Revised Statutes of Missouri (current). Each section prints a history line tracing it back through the earlier revisions. Missouri Revisor of Statutes. https://revisor.mo.gov/ (accessed 10 August 2026).

Session Laws and Territorial Records

• Laws of a Public and General Nature, of the District of Louisiana, of the Territory of Louisiana, of the Territory of Missouri, and of the State of Missouri, Up to the Year 1824. 2 vols. Jefferson City: W. Lusk & Son, 1842. Published under an act approved 13 February 1839. Holds the organic act of 1804 continuing the laws then in force (ch. 2); the territorial revenue law of 1804 (ch. 4); the marriage acts of 1805 (ch. 16) and 1806 (ch. 25); the 1807 acts on wills, descent and distribution (ch. 39) and orphans courts (ch. 40); and the reception act of 19 January 1816 (ch. 154). Digital images. Missouri Digital Heritage. https://mdh.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/molaws/id/42550 (accessed 10 August 2026).
• Laws of the State of Missouri, Passed at the Session of the Twelfth General Assembly. Jefferson City, 1843. "An act more effectually to prevent free persons of color from entering into this State, and for other purposes," approved 23 February 1843, at pp. 66–68. Digital images. Missouri Digital Heritage. https://mdh.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/molaws/id/41035 (accessed 10 August 2026).
• Laws of the State of Missouri, Passed at the Regular Session of the Twenty-Third General Assembly. Jefferson City: W. A. Curry, Public Printer, 1865. "An Act to repeal certain acts and parts of acts relating to persons of African descent," approved 20 February 1865, at pp. 63–67, with § 21 repealing the licensing act, § 26 repealing the act concerning slaves, and § 29 striking the ninth subdivision out of § 6 of the witnesses chapter. The act on the marriages of formerly enslaved couples follows at pp. 67–68. Digital images. Missouri Digital Heritage. https://mdh.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/molaws/id/9177 (accessed 10 August 2026).
• Laws of Missouri. General and Local Laws Passed at the Regular Session of the Twenty-eighth General Assembly. Jefferson City, 1875. The married women's separate-property act at pp. 61–62. Digital images. Missouri Digital Heritage. https://mdh.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/molaws/id/12316 (accessed 10 August 2026).
• Laws of Missouri, Passed at the Session of the Thirty-First General Assembly. Jefferson City: Tribune Printing Company, 1881. The marriage license act at pp. 161–62. Digital images. Missouri Digital Heritage. https://mdh.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/molaws/id/13316 (accessed 10 August 2026).
• Laws of Missouri, Passed at the Session of the Thirty-fifth General Assembly. Jefferson City, 1889. The provision allowing a married woman to sue and be sued in her own name at pp. 168–69. Digital images. Missouri Digital Heritage. https://mdh.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/molaws/id/14580 (accessed 10 August 2026).
• Laws of Missouri, Passed at the Session of the Forty-First General Assembly. Jefferson City: Tribune Printing Company, 1901. The road poll tax and the annual road-district list at pp. 233, 235. Digital images. Missouri Digital Heritage. https://mdh.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/molaws/id/16584 (accessed 10 August 2026).
• Laws of Missouri, Passed at the Session of the Forty-Second General Assembly. Jefferson City: Tribune Printing Company, 1903. The first juvenile court act at pp. 213–17. Digital images. Missouri Digital Heritage. https://mdh.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/molaws/id/16895 (accessed 10 August 2026).
• Laws of Missouri, Passed at the Session of the Forty-Third General Assembly. Jefferson City: The Hugh Stephens Printing Company, 1905. The juvenile court act for counties of 150,000 to 500,000 at pp. 55–61. Digital images. Missouri Digital Heritage. https://mdh.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/molaws/id/17249 (accessed 10 August 2026).
• Laws of Missouri, Passed at the Regular and Extra Sessions of the Forty-Fourth General Assembly. Jefferson City: The Hugh Stephens Printing Company, 1907. The juvenile court act for counties of 100,000 to 150,000 at pp. 216–22. Digital images. Missouri Digital Heritage. https://mdh.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/molaws/id/17736 (accessed 10 August 2026).
• Laws of Missouri, Passed at the Session of the Forty-Sixth General Assembly. Jefferson City: The Hugh Stephens Printing Company, 1911. The juvenile court act raising the age to seventeen at pp. 177–85. Digital images. Missouri Digital Heritage. https://mdh.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/molaws/id/19211 (accessed 10 August 2026).
• Laws of Missouri, Passed at the Session of the Forty-Seventh General Assembly. Jefferson City: The Hugh Stephens Printing Company, 1913. The act giving the probate courts of counties under 50,000 jurisdiction over neglected and delinquent children, at pp. 147–53. Digital images. Missouri Digital Heritage. https://mdh.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/molaws/id/20126 (accessed 10 August 2026).
• Laws of Missouri, Passed at the Session of the Forty-Ninth General Assembly. Compiled by John L. Sullivan, Secretary of State. Jefferson City, 1917. The act moving juvenile jurisdiction from the probate courts to the circuit courts, at pp. 194–200. Digital images. Missouri Digital Heritage. https://mdh.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/molaws/id/22257 (accessed 10 August 2026).
• Laws of Missouri, Passed at the Session of the Fiftieth General Assembly. Jefferson City, 1919. The act setting the minimum age to marry at fifteen and tightening the proof of a parent's consent, at p. 494. Digital images with searchable text. Missouri Digital Heritage. https://mdh.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/molaws/id/23068 (accessed 10 August 2026).
• Laws of Missouri, Passed at the Session of the Fifty-First General Assembly. Jefferson City, 1921. The act abolishing tenancy by the curtesy at p. 119; the act prohibiting certain marriages, including first cousins, at pp. 469–70; and the act requiring a license and declaring common-law marriages void, at pp. 468–69. Digital images. Missouri Digital Heritage. https://mdh.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/molaws/id/21139 (accessed 10 August 2026).
• Laws of Missouri, Passed at the Session of the Sixty-second General Assembly. Jefferson City, 1943. The blood test act for marriage licenses at pp. 641–42. Digital images. Missouri Digital Heritage. https://mdh.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/molaws/id/30017 (accessed 10 August 2026).
• Missouri State Archives. Missouri session laws, 1824 to the present, digitized as a collection and searchable by transcript. This is where to read the volumes cited only in a chain above, including 1877, 1883, 1895, and the Probate Code of 1955. Digital images. Missouri Digital Heritage. https://cdm16795.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/landingpage/collection/molaws (accessed 10 August 2026).
• Ordinance abolishing slavery in Missouri, adopted by the state convention 11 January 1865, with the records of the 1865 convention. Missouri Digital Heritage. https://www.sos.mo.gov/archives/resources/africanamerican/guide/image005c (accessed 10 August 2026).
• Missouri State Archives. "An Act Respecting Slaves, Free Negroes and Mulattoes," 1847. Missouri Digital Heritage. https://www.sos.mo.gov/CMSImages/MDH/AnActRespectingSlaves,1847.pdf (accessed 10 August 2026).

Court Cases

Full text of each case below is at the Caselaw Access Project, Harvard Law School Library Innovation Lab. In the earliest Missouri volumes the reporter's page numbers and the printed volume's own pagination differ, so a link may open at a page number other than the one in the citation.

• Ashbaugh v. Ashbaugh, 273 Mo. 353 (1918). https://static.case.law/mo/273/html/0353-01.html
• Boussin v. Parks, 8 Mo. 528 (1844). https://static.case.law/mo/8/html/0528-01.html
• Brook v. Barker, 287 Mo. 13 (1921). https://static.case.law/mo/287/html/0013-01.html
• Collier v. Porter, 322 Mo. 697 (1929). https://static.case.law/mo/322/html/0697-01.html
• Dougal v. Fryer, 3 Mo. 40 (1831). https://static.case.law/mo/3/html/0029-01.html
• Duren v. Missouri, 439 U.S. 357 (1979). https://static.case.law/us/439/html/0357-01.html
• Ex parte Virginia, 100 U.S. 339 (1880). https://static.case.law/us/100/html/0339-01.html
• Falvey v. Hicks, 315 Mo. 442 (1926). https://static.case.law/mo/315/html/0442-01.html
• Farmers Exchange Bank v. Hageluken, 165 Mo. 443 (1901). https://static.case.law/mo/165/html/0443-01.html
• Fenn v. Hart Dairy Co., 231 Mo. App. 1005, 83 S.W.2d 120 (1935). https://static.case.law/mo-app/231/html/1005-01.html
• Gonsolis and Wife v. Douchouquette, 1 Mo. 666 (1826). https://static.case.law/mo/1/html/0476-01.html
• Henderson v. Ressor, 265 Mo. 718 (1915). Reported also as Henderson v. Henderson, the second defendant being named in the caption under both surnames. https://static.case.law/mo/265/html/0718-01.html
• Hughes v. Renshaw, 314 Mo. 95 (1926). https://static.case.law/mo/314/html/0095-01.html
• Lindell v. McNair, 4 Mo. 380 (1836). https://static.case.law/mo/4/html/0380-01.html
• Little's Administrator v. Chauvin, 1 Mo. 626 (1826). https://static.case.law/mo/1/html/0447-01.html
• Loving v. Virginia, 388 U.S. 1 (1967). https://static.case.law/us/388/html/0001-01.html
• Marre v. Marre, 184 Mo. App. 198 (1914). https://static.case.law/mo-app/184/html/0198-01.html
• McAdoo v. Metropolitan Life Insurance Co., 233 Mo. App. 900, 110 S.W.2d 845 (1937). https://static.case.law/mo-app/233/html/0900-01.html
• O'Brien v. Sedalia Trust Co., 319 Mo. 1001 (1928). https://static.case.law/mo/319/html/1001-01.html
• Otto F. Stifel's Union Brewing Co. v. Saxy, 273 Mo. 159 (1918). https://static.case.law/mo/273/html/0159-01.html
• Phillips ex rel. Phillips v. Savings Trust Co. of St. Louis, 231 Mo. App. 1178, 85 S.W.2d 923 (1935). https://static.case.law/mo-app/231/html/1178-01.html
• Picotte v. Cooley, 10 Mo. 312 (1847). https://static.case.law/mo/10/html/0312-01.html
• Riddick v. Walsh, 15 Mo. 519 (1852). The fullest statement of the Spanish law of shared marital property and of its replacement by dower. https://static.case.law/mo/15/html/0519-01.html
• Simpson v. Blackburn, 414 S.W.2d 795 (Mo. App. 1967). https://static.case.law/sw2d/414/html/0795-01.html
• State ex rel. Canfield v. Porterfield, 222 Mo. App. 553 (1927). Reported in the Women's Bureau digest as State v. Porterfield. https://static.case.law/mo-app/222/html/0553-01.html
• State v. Burlingame, 146 Mo. 207 (1898). https://static.case.law/mo/146/html/0207-01.html
• State v. Jackson, 80 Mo. 175 (1883). https://static.case.law/mo/80/html/0175-01.html
• State v. Tice, 90 Mo. 112 (1886). The Missouri statement of the common-law ages of criminal responsibility. https://static.case.law/mo/90/html/0112-01.html
• Strauder v. West Virginia, 100 U.S. 303 (1880). https://static.case.law/us/100/html/0303-01.html
• Trautz v. Lemp, 329 Mo. 580 (1932). https://static.case.law/mo/329/html/0580-01.html
• Waters v. Herboth, 178 Mo. 166 (1903). https://static.case.law/mo/178/html/0166-01.html
• Youse v. Norcoms, 12 Mo. 549 (1849). https://static.case.law/mo/12/html/0549-01.html

Secondary and Reference Works

• Banner, Stuart. Legal Systems in Conflict: Property and Sovereignty in Missouri, 1750–1860. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2000. The standard account of the French, Spanish, and American legal systems in Missouri, and the volume to read for the colonial rules this guide leaves open.
• Benson, Joseph Fred. "Reception of the Common Law in Missouri: Section 1.010 as Interpreted by the Supreme Court of Missouri." Missouri Law Review 67 (2002). University of Missouri School of Law Scholarship Repository. https://scholarship.law.missouri.edu/mlr/vol67/iss3/3 (accessed 10 August 2026).
• Campbell, David Y. "Marital Rights Under the Missouri Probate Code of 1955." Washington University Law Quarterly 1961 (1961): 43. WashU Scholarly Repository. https://openscholarship.wustl.edu/law_lawreview/vol1961/iss1/8 (accessed 10 August 2026).
• Caselaw Access Project. Full text of the Missouri Reports, the Missouri Appeal Reports, the South Western Reporter, and the United States Reports, by volume and first page. Harvard Law School Library Innovation Lab. https://static.case.law/ (accessed 10 August 2026).
• Eddleman, Bill. "Using Probate Records for Genealogy." The Missouri probate sequence step by step: letters, inventory, appraisement, sale bill, annual settlements, final settlement, distribution and receipts, with guardianships and dower petitions filed alongside. State Historical Society of Missouri. http://files.shsmo.org/handouts/BasicGenealogy08-UsingProbateRecords.pdf (accessed 10 August 2026).
• Ekberg, Carl J. Colonial Ste. Genevieve: An Adventure on the Mississippi Frontier. Gerald, Mo.: Patrice Press, 1985. The standard account of the French and Spanish period, including the notarial marriage contracts, the parish registers, and the common fields.
• FamilySearch Research Wiki. "Missouri Probate Records," "Missouri Land and Property," and "How to Find Missouri Marriage Records." Confirms that marriage records are held by the recorder of deeds, and describes the pre-1881 practice of recording at any courthouse. FamilySearch. https://www.familysearch.org/en/wiki/Missouri_Probate_Records (accessed 10 August 2026).
• Garland, James S., comp. An Index to the Statute Laws of Missouri: Comprising All the General and Special Acts Contained in the Authorized Editions of the Laws from the Inauguration of Its Territorial Government to the Close of the XXIV General Assembly in 1868. St. Louis: St. Louis Book and News Co., 1868. Gathers Missouri laws by topic, 1804–1868, and is the fastest route into the territorial and antebellum session laws. HathiTrust. https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/010448338 (accessed 10 August 2026).
• Jenkins, Ebony. "Freedom Licenses in St. Louis City and County 1835–1865." The contents of a license entry and the grounds of revocation. National Park Service History Electronic Library. https://npshistory.com/publications/jeff/jenkins.pdf (accessed 10 August 2026).
• Keysor, W. W. "Legal Status of Women in Missouri: Part I." St. Louis Law Review 1 (1915): 1. A contemporary account of the married women's acts of 1875 and 1889. WashU Scholarly Repository. https://openscholarship.wustl.edu/law_lawreview/vol1/iss1/1 (accessed 10 August 2026).
• Missouri Juvenile Justice Association. "Celebrating 100 Years of Juvenile Justice in Missouri." Missouri Juvenile Justice Association. https://mjja.org/images/resources/publications/100Years.pdf (accessed 10 August 2026).
• Missouri State Archives. Census records and tax lists. Missouri Digital Heritage. https://s1.sos.mo.gov/records/archives/ArchivesMVC/census/ (accessed 10 August 2026).
• St. Louis County Library Special Collections Department. "For the Records: Marriage & Divorce in St. Louis, Part 1: Marriage Records." PastPorts 6, no. 3 (March 2013). Sets out what a pre-1804 notarial marriage contract and a colonial Catholic parish entry each contain, and the practice of publishing banns. https://www.slcl.org/sites/default/files/2024-07/pastports-03-2013.pdf (accessed 10 August 2026).
• State Historical Society of Missouri. "Ste. Genevieve Parish Records," collection C3040. Registers of baptisms, marriages, and deaths in French, covering the whole community including enslaved people, with a separate register of marriages involving non-Catholics. https://collections.shsmo.org/manuscripts/columbia/c3040 (accessed 10 August 2026).
• U.S. Women's Bureau. The Legal Status of Women in the United States of America: January 1, 1948, Report for Missouri. Bulletin of the Women's Bureau, No. 157-24 (Revised). Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1949. Digests majority, minors' contracts, married women's property, dower, allowances, wills, intestacy, guardianship and curatorship, marriage, spousal testimony, and jury service, printing each section of the Revised Statutes of 1939 in full. Digital images. FRASER, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. https://fraser.stlouisfed.org/files/docs/publications/women/b0157-24-rev_dolwb_1949.pdf (accessed 10 August 2026).

Citations

1. Stuart Banner, Legal Systems in Conflict: Property and Sovereignty in Missouri, 1750–1860 (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2000), 1–30; and Carl J. Ekberg, Colonial Ste. Genevieve: An Adventure on the Mississippi Frontier (Gerald, Mo.: Patrice Press, 1985) ↩
2. Picotte v. Cooley, 10 Mo. 312, 314–15 (1847), setting out both systems and the marriage contract of Joseph Brazeau and Marie Therese Delisle; digital images, Caselaw Access Project (https://static.case.law/mo/10/html/0312-01.html : accessed 10 August 2026). See also Little's Administrator v. Chauvin, 1 Mo. 626 (1826), on a St. Louis contract establishing shared property according to the customs of Paris (https://static.case.law/mo/1/html/0447-01.html : accessed 10 August 2026); and Gonsolis and Wife v. Douchouquette, 1 Mo. 666 (1826) (https://static.case.law/mo/1/html/0476-01.html : accessed 10 August 2026) ↩
3. Riddick v. Walsh, 15 Mo. 519, 531 (1852); digital images, Caselaw Access Project (https://static.case.law/mo/15/html/0519-01.html : accessed 10 August 2026); and Boussin v. Parks, 8 Mo. 528 (1844) (https://static.case.law/mo/8/html/0528-01.html : accessed 10 August 2026) ↩
4. Laws of a Public and General Nature, of the District of Louisiana, of the Territory of Louisiana, of the Territory of Missouri, and of the State of Missouri, Up to the Year 1824, 2 vols. (Jefferson City: W. Lusk & Son, 1842), 1:5–14, ch. 2 (1804), continuing the laws then in force until altered; digital images, Missouri Digital Heritage (https://mdh.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/molaws/id/42550 : accessed 10 August 2026) ↩
5. Riddick v. Walsh, 15 Mo. at 532–33, holding that the territorial act of 4 July 1807 superseded the law of shared marital property, so that a woman married after it took effect had dower and not a half share ↩
6. Laws of a Public and General Nature, 1:436, ch. 154, § 1, approved 19 January 1816. Re-enacted at each later revision and now R.S.Mo. § 1.010 ↩
7. Lindell v. McNair, 4 Mo. 380, 383 (1836), holding the Spanish rule allowing a wife to sell her own property jointly with her husband still in force after the reception of the common law; digital images, Caselaw Access Project (https://static.case.law/mo/4/html/0380-01.html : accessed 10 August 2026) ↩ ↩
8. R.S.Mo. § 474.110, enacted by the Probate Code of 1955 and effective 1 January 1956. For the change and its effect on titles, see David Y. Campbell, "Marital Rights Under the Missouri Probate Code of 1955," Washington University Law Quarterly 1961 (1961): 43; digital images, WashU Scholarly Repository (https://openscholarship.wustl.edu/law_lawreview/vol1961/iss1/8 : accessed 10 August 2026) ↩ ↩
9. The Revised Statutes of the State of Missouri (St. Louis: Printed at the Argus Office, 1835), wills, p. 617, § 1; jurors, p. 342, §§ 2, 6; and guardians, curators and minors, p. 293, §§ 2, 7; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/revisedstatuteso00miss : accessed 10 August 2026). The volume declares no age of majority in terms; 21 is the common-law age adopted in 1816 and assumed throughout ↩
10. The Revised Statutes of the State of Missouri, 1939 (Jefferson City, Mo.: Midland Printing Co., 1939), § 374; digital images, Missouri Digital Heritage (https://mdh.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/p16795coll26/id/40937 : accessed 10 August 2026). The section is printed in full in U.S. Women's Bureau, The Legal Status of Women in the United States of America: January 1, 1948, Report for Missouri, Bulletin 157-24 (rev.) (Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1949), 3; digital images, FRASER, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis (https://fraser.stlouisfed.org/files/docs/publications/women/b0157-24-rev_dolwb_1949.pdf : accessed 10 August 2026) ↩
11. Laws of a Public and General Nature, 1:141, ch. 40, § 6, minors attaining full age "when they arrive to the age of twenty-one years" ↩
12. Dougal v. Fryer, 3 Mo. 40, 44 (1831), upholding a restraint on sale until the youngest child should have twenty-five years complete as running to the age of majority under the Spanish law; digital images, Caselaw Access Project (https://static.case.law/mo/3/html/0029-01.html : accessed 10 August 2026) ↩
13. Youse v. Norcoms, 12 Mo. 549, 557–58 (1849); digital images, Caselaw Access Project (https://static.case.law/mo/12/html/0549-01.html : accessed 10 August 2026) ↩
14. R.S. 1939, § 3446, printed at Women's Bureau, Legal Status of Women … Missouri, 3; Phillips ex rel. Phillips v. Savings Trust Co. of St. Louis, 231 Mo. App. 1178, 85 S.W.2d 923 (1935) (https://static.case.law/mo-app/231/html/1178-01.html : accessed 10 August 2026); and Fenn v. Hart Dairy Co., 231 Mo. App. 1005, 83 S.W.2d 120, 123 (1935) (https://static.case.law/mo-app/231/html/1005-01.html : accessed 10 August 2026) ↩
15. Ekberg, Colonial Ste. Genevieve, 138–58, on the parish registers and the notarial marriage contracts; and St. Louis County Library Special Collections Department, "For the Records: Marriage & Divorce in St. Louis, Part 1: Marriage Records," PastPorts 6, no. 3 (March 2013), 1–4, on banns and the contents of a colonial contract; digital images (https://www.slcl.org/sites/default/files/2024-07/pastports-03-2013.pdf : accessed 10 August 2026) ↩
16. Laws of a Public and General Nature, 1:83, ch. 25, "An Act concerning Marriages" (1806), §§ 1–3 ↩
17. Laws of a Public and General Nature, 1:65–67, ch. 16, "A Law regulating Marriages," passed 24 April 1805, §§ 1 ("Males of seventeen and females of fourteen may be joined in marriage"), 3 (publication for fifteen days, or the governor's license), 4 (males under twenty-one and females under eighteen to obtain the consent of parents), and 6 (certificate to the register within three months) ↩
18. Revised Statutes of 1835, marriages, pp. 401–02, §§ 1–13, approved 20 February 1835. The act fixes consent ages in § 7 and sets no minimum marrying age anywhere, leaving that to the common law adopted in 1816 ↩
19. Laws of Missouri, Passed at the Session of the Fiftieth General Assembly (Jefferson City, 1919), 494, H.B. 27, approved 30 May 1919, repealing and re-enacting § 8289 of ch. 76 of the Revised Statutes of 1909: "No recorder shall in any event except as herein provided issue a license authorizing the marriage of any person under fifteen years of age," with a proviso for an order of the circuit or probate court "for good cause shown and by reason of such unusual conditions as to make such marriage advisable"; digital images, Missouri Digital Heritage (https://mdh.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/molaws/id/23068 : accessed 10 August 2026) ↩
20. R.S. 1939, § 3370, printed in full at U.S. Women's Bureau, The Legal Status of Women in the United States of America: January 1, 1948, Report for Missouri, Bulletin 157-24 (rev.) (Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1949), 9. The section carried into R.S.Mo. § 451.090 without amendment until 1974 ↩
21. Revised Statutes of 1835, marriages, p. 401, § 7 ↩
22. Revised Statutes of 1835, marriages, p. 402, § 8 ↩
23. Laws of Missouri, Passed at the Session of the Thirty-First General Assembly (Jefferson City: Tribune Printing Company, 1881), 161–62, § 3, approved 26 March 1881; digital images, Missouri Digital Heritage (https://mdh.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/molaws/id/13316 : accessed 10 August 2026). Commonly given as effective 26 June 1881 ↩
24. Laws of Missouri, 1921, 468–69, H.B. 159, approved 31 March 1921, amending § 7302 of the Revised Statutes of 1919 by adding that "no marriage hereafter contracted shall be recognized as valid unless such license has been previously obtained, and unless such marriage is solemnized by a person authorized by law to solemnize marriages. Common-law marriages hereafter contracted shall be null and void"; digital images, Missouri Digital Heritage (https://mdh.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/molaws/id/21139 : accessed 10 August 2026). Carried into R.S. 1939, § 3364, and now R.S.Mo. § 451.040. For the operative date see McAdoo v. Metropolitan Life Insurance Co., 233 Mo. App. 900, 110 S.W.2d 845 (1937); digital images, Caselaw Access Project (https://static.case.law/mo-app/233/html/0900-01.html : accessed 10 August 2026) ↩
25. Revised Statutes of 1835, marriages, pp. 401–02, §§ 6, 9–12 ↩
26. Laws of Missouri, 1881, 161–62, §§ 1–2, 5–6 ↩
27. Revised Statutes of 1835, marriages, p. 401, §§ 1–2. First cousins are outside the degrees this act declared void ↩
28. Revised Statutes of 1835, marriages, p. 401, § 5; and see Henderson v. Ressor, 265 Mo. 718, 733 (1915); digital images, Caselaw Access Project (https://static.case.law/mo/265/html/0718-01.html : accessed 10 August 2026) ↩
29. Laws of Missouri, Passed at the Session of the Fifty-First General Assembly (Jefferson City, 1921), 469–70, H.B. 156, approved 25 March 1921, repealing § 7299 of the Revised Statutes of 1919 and enacting a new section of the same number, which barred marriages between "first cousins, white persons and negroes or white persons and Mongolians, and between persons either of whom is insane, mentally imbecile, feeble-minded or epileptic"; digital images, Missouri Digital Heritage (https://mdh.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/molaws/id/21139 : accessed 10 August 2026) ↩
30. Laws of Missouri, Passed at the Session of the Sixty-second General Assembly (Jefferson City, 1943), 641–42, C.S. for H.B. 45, adding §§ 3364-A to 3364-D; digital images, Missouri Digital Heritage (https://mdh.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/molaws/id/30017 : accessed 10 August 2026) ↩
31. Ordinance abolishing slavery, adopted by the Missouri state convention 11 January 1865; digital images, Missouri Digital Heritage (https://www.sos.mo.gov/archives/resources/africanamerican/guide/image005c : accessed 10 August 2026) ↩
32. Laws of the State of Missouri, Passed at the Regular Session of the Twenty-Third General Assembly (Jefferson City: W. A. Curry, Public Printer, 1865), 68, § 1, approved 20 February 1865; digital images, Missouri Digital Heritage (https://mdh.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/molaws/id/9177 : accessed 10 August 2026) ↩
33. Laws of Missouri, 1865, 68, § 6 ↩
34. Laws of Missouri, 1865, 68, §§ 2–5. The same provision was carried into the general marriage law and stands today as R.S.Mo. § 451.160, which still directs the officer to record the names of children born before the ceremony ↩
35. Revised Statutes of 1835, marriages, p. 401, §§ 3–4 ↩
36. Revised Statutes of 1835, free negroes and mulattoes, p. 413, § 1; the same one-fourth rule appears in the territorial slave law, Laws of a Public and General Nature, 1:28 ↩
37. The Revised Statutes of the State of Missouri, 1879, 2 vols. (Jefferson City: Carter & Regan, State Printers and Binders, 1879), § 1540, quoted in full in State v. Jackson, 80 Mo. 175, 176 (1883); digital images, Caselaw Access Project (https://static.case.law/mo/80/html/0175-01.html : accessed 10 August 2026). The 1879 volume itself is at Missouri Digital Heritage (https://mdh.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/p16795coll26/id/10856 : accessed 10 August 2026) ↩
38. State v. Jackson, 80 Mo. at 175–78, reversing the circuit court of Cape Girardeau county, which had sustained a demurrer, meaning an objection that the charge was bad in law, on Fourteenth Amendment grounds ↩
39. Loving v. Virginia, 388 U.S. 1 (1967); digital images, Caselaw Access Project (https://static.case.law/us/388/html/0001-01.html : accessed 10 August 2026) ↩
40. Marre v. Marre, 184 Mo. App. 198 (1914), an annulment suit on this ground in which the plaintiff failed to prove his wife's descent; digital images, Caselaw Access Project (https://static.case.law/mo-app/184/html/0198-01.html : accessed 10 August 2026) ↩
41. Banner, Legal Systems in Conflict, 11–40, on concessions, surveys, and possession; and Ekberg, Colonial Ste. Genevieve, 105–37, on the common field and the commons ↩
42. Revised Statutes of 1835, conveyances, p. 118, §§ 1–7, which speak of "any person" throughout and impose no racial test; compare free negroes and mulattoes, p. 413, §§ 7–9, which regulate residence in the state and say nothing of holding land. For free Black landholding in practice, see Ebony Jenkins, "Freedom Licenses in St. Louis City and County 1835–1865"; digital images, National Park Service History Electronic Library (https://npshistory.com/publications/jeff/jenkins.pdf : accessed 10 August 2026) ↩
43. Revised Statutes of 1835, "An act respecting aliens," p. 66, § 1, approved 17 February 1835 ↩
44. Laws of a Public and General Nature, 1:436, ch. 154, § 2 (1816), ending survivorship in joint tenancy and converting entailed estates; carried forward as Revised Statutes of 1835, conveyances, p. 118, §§ 5–6 ↩
45. Revised Statutes of 1835, "An act concerning slaves," p. 581, § 7, penalizing an owner who hired one enslaved person to another or permitted them to go at large, hire their own time, or trade on their own account; and revenue, p. 528, art. I, § 1, fourth, listing "all slaves over three years old" among the objects of taxation as property ↩
46. Laws of Missouri. General and Local Laws Passed at the Regular Session of the Twenty-eighth General Assembly (Jefferson City, 1875), 61–62, "Husband and Wife: An act relating to rights of married women"; digital images, Missouri Digital Heritage (https://mdh.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/molaws/id/12316 : accessed 10 August 2026). Codified at R.S. 1879, ch. 51, § 3296; amended by Laws of Missouri, 1883, 112, and 1895, 222; standing as R.S. 1939, § 3390 ↩
47. Laws of Missouri, Passed at the Session of the Thirty-fifth General Assembly (Jefferson City, 1889), 168–69, § 3468, indexed in that volume under "Married Women: May sue, how"; digital images, Missouri Digital Heritage (https://mdh.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/molaws/id/14580 : accessed 10 August 2026) ↩
48. R.S. 1939, §§ 855, 3385, 3390; printed at Women's Bureau, Legal Status of Women … Missouri, 4–5 ↩
49. Revised Statutes of 1835, dower, p. 227, § 1, endowing the widow of "the third part of all the lands, whereof her husband … was seized, of an estate of inheritance at any time during the marriage … to hold and enjoy during her natural life"; carried forward as R.S. 1939, §§ 318, 319 ↩
50. Revised Statutes of 1835, dower, p. 228, § 7: no act, deed or conveyance of the husband, without the assent of his wife evidenced by her acknowledgment in the manner required by law to pass the estates of married women, shall prejudice her right ↩
51. R.S. 1939, §§ 330, 319; printed at Women's Bureau, Legal Status of Women … Missouri, 7; and see R.S.Mo. § 442.050, on release by a joint power of attorney ↩
52. Revised Statutes of 1835, "An act regulating conveyances," p. 118, § 25 ↩
53. Farmers Exchange Bank v. Hageluken, 165 Mo. 443, 450, 452 (1901); digital images, Caselaw Access Project (https://static.case.law/mo/165/html/0443-01.html : accessed 10 August 2026); and Brook v. Barker, 287 Mo. 13, 28 (1921) (https://static.case.law/mo/287/html/0013-01.html : accessed 10 August 2026) ↩
54. Ashbaugh v. Ashbaugh, 273 Mo. 353, 367 (1918); digital images, Caselaw Access Project (https://static.case.law/mo/273/html/0353-01.html : accessed 10 August 2026); and Otto F. Stifel's Union Brewing Co. v. Saxy, 273 Mo. 159, 172 (1918) (https://static.case.law/mo/273/html/0159-01.html : accessed 10 August 2026) ↩
55. O'Brien v. Sedalia Trust Co., 319 Mo. 1001, 1008–09 (1928); digital images, Caselaw Access Project (https://static.case.law/mo/319/html/1001-01.html : accessed 10 August 2026) ↩
56. Revised Statutes of 1835, conveyances, p. 121, § 23; and § 22, naming the courts and officers before whom the release might be taken ↩
57. Revised Statutes of 1835, conveyances, p. 121, § 24, requiring the certificate to name the two identifying witnesses where she was not personally known to the officer, and to recite that she was made acquainted with the contents and acknowledged the conveyance apart from her husband ↩
58. Laws of Missouri, Passed at the Session of the Fifty-First General Assembly (Jefferson City, 1921), 119, H.B. 178, approved 29 March 1921; digital images, Missouri Digital Heritage (https://mdh.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/molaws/id/21139 : accessed 10 August 2026). Carried into R.S. 1939, §§ 318, 319, which speak of either spouse ↩ ↩
59. Revised Statutes of 1835, conveyances, pp. 119–20, §§ 13–16 (proof by a subscribing witness) and pp. 122–23, §§ 30–32 (recording), neither of which states any age for a witness; and witnesses, pp. 621–23, §§ 1–19, whose list of persons incompetent to testify contains no age bar ↩
60. Revised Statutes of 1835, free negroes and mulattoes, p. 414, §§ 7–9 ↩
61. Laws of the State of Missouri, Passed at the Session of the Twelfth General Assembly (Jefferson City, 1843), 66–68, §§ 11, 12, 14, approved 23 February 1843; digital images, Missouri Digital Heritage (https://mdh.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/molaws/id/41035 : accessed 10 August 2026). And see the act of 16 February 1847, §§ 1, 4; digital images, Missouri Digital Heritage (https://www.sos.mo.gov/CMSImages/MDH/AnActRespectingSlaves,1847.pdf : accessed 10 August 2026) ↩
62. Revised Statutes of 1835, free negroes and mulattoes, pp. 414–15, §§ 10–13 (the description, the clerk's register, and children under 21) and § 14 (fresh entry on moving county) ↩
63. Laws of Missouri, 1865, 66, § 21, repealing ch. 114 and the acts of 1847; § 26 repealed the act concerning slaves ↩
64. Riddick v. Walsh, 15 Mo. at 531–32. The headnote to Picotte v. Cooley puts it shortly: under the Spanish law property acquired or purchased during marriage was shared, and at the husband's death one half went to the wife ↩
65. Laws of a Public and General Nature, 1:128, ch. 39, § 6, "An Act directing the probate of Wills, and the descent of intestates real estates, and the distribution of their personal estates" (1807) ↩
66. Revised Statutes of 1835, "An act to direct descents and distributions," p. 222, § 1, approved 11 February 1835; carried forward as R.S. 1939, § 306, printed at Women's Bureau, Legal Status of Women … Missouri, 10–11 ↩
67. Revised Statutes of 1835, descents, p. 222, § 2 (children born after the father's death), § 5 (division per capita and per stirpes), and § 6 (gifts made in the parent's lifetime) ↩
68. Revised Statutes of 1835, descents, p. 222, § 3; and R.S. 1939, § 306 ↩
69. Revised Statutes of 1835, dower, p. 229, § 15; R.S. 1939, § 338; and Falvey v. Hicks, 315 Mo. 442, 458 (1926); digital images, Caselaw Access Project (https://static.case.law/mo/315/html/0442-01.html : accessed 10 August 2026) ↩
70. Revised Statutes of 1835, dower, pp. 229–30, §§ 19–21 (commissioners and the county surveyor), §§ 23–24 (value where the estate cannot be divided), and §§ 26–27 (who may apply) ↩
71. Revised Statutes of 1835, dower, p. 227, § 2, giving the widow, where the husband left a child or other descendants, a share of the slaves and other personal estate "equal to the share of a child … after the payment of debts"; R.S. 1939, § 323; and Trautz v. Lemp, 329 Mo. 580, 612 (1932); digital images, Caselaw Access Project (https://static.case.law/mo/329/html/0580-01.html : accessed 10 August 2026) ↩
72. Revised Statutes of 1835, dower, p. 227, § 3, third clause; and R.S. 1939, §§ 326, 319 ↩
73. Revised Statutes of 1835, dower, pp. 227–28, §§ 3 (first and second clauses), 4; R.S. 1939, §§ 325, 319; and Collier v. Porter, 322 Mo. 697, 709 (1929); digital images, Caselaw Access Project (https://static.case.law/mo/322/html/0697-01.html : accessed 10 August 2026) ↩
74. Revised Statutes of 1835, dower, p. 228, § 5; and R.S. 1939, §§ 327, 319 ↩
75. R.S. 1939, §§ 328, 319; printed at Women's Bureau, Legal Status of Women … Missouri, 7 ↩
76. Revised Statutes of 1835, dower, p. 228, §§ 9–10; and R.S. 1939, §§ 332, 333 ↩
77. Waters v. Herboth, 178 Mo. 166, 171 (1903); digital images, Caselaw Access Project (https://static.case.law/mo/178/html/0166-01.html : accessed 10 August 2026); and Collier v. Porter, 322 Mo. at 710 ↩
78. Revised Statutes of 1835, dower, p. 228, § 6 ↩
79. R.S. 1939, § 106 (family books to $200, wearing apparel, implements of domestic industry, household furniture to $500, and a year's support), §§ 107–109, and § 612 (homestead, held by the widow and minor children); printed at Women's Bureau, Legal Status of Women … Missouri, 8 ↩
80. Revised Statutes of 1835, dower, p. 227, § 2; and § 3, third clause, on enslaved people who came to the husband through the marriage ↩
81. Revised Statutes of 1835, "An act concerning guardians, curators and minors," p. 293, § 1: the father while living, and after his death the mother, is natural guardian, "and when such estate is not derived from the parent acting as guardian, such parent shall give security and account as other guardians" ↩ ↩
82. R.S. 1939, § 375, printed at Women's Bureau, Legal Status of Women … Missouri, 10: parents living together are natural guardian and curator with equal powers, rights and duties, the survivor taking the office on the death of either ↩
83. Laws of a Public and General Nature, 1:140–41, ch. 40, § 2 (choice above 14, appointment below), § 7 (religious persuasion and the minor's own inclination), § 8 (bond in double the value of the estate), and § 9 (binding out where the estate will not maintain the child) ↩
84. Revised Statutes of 1835, guardians and curators, pp. 293–94, § 2 ↩
85. Revised Statutes of 1835, guardians and curators, p. 294, § 6 ↩
86. Revised Statutes of 1835, guardians and curators, pp. 294–95, § 7 (age 21 and bond in double the value of the estate), § 9 (money loaned out), § 10 (annual settlements), and § 12 (final discharge) ↩
87. Revised Statutes of 1835, guardians and curators, p. 294, § 5; and p. 295, § 14 ↩
88. Revised Statutes of 1835, descents, p. 223, § 8; and R.S. 1939, § 314 ↩
89. Revised Statutes of 1835, descents, p. 223, § 9; the same rule stood in the territorial descent act, Laws of a Public and General Nature, 1:130, ch. 39, § 16; and it descends to R.S.Mo. § 474.070, whose elements are fatherhood, later marriage, and recognition. See Simpson v. Blackburn, 414 S.W.2d 795 (Mo. App. 1967); digital images, Caselaw Access Project (https://static.case.law/sw2d/414/html/0795-01.html : accessed 10 August 2026) ↩
90. Revised Statutes of 1835, descents, p. 223, § 10 ↩
91. State ex rel. Canfield v. Porterfield, 222 Mo. App. 553, 555–56, 565 (1927); digital images, Caselaw Access Project (https://static.case.law/mo-app/222/html/0553-01.html : accessed 10 August 2026); and see Women's Bureau, Legal Status of Women … Missouri, 11, noting that no statute provided for determining fatherhood ↩
92. Laws of a Public and General Nature, 1:131–32, ch. 39, § 18 (a will of land and slaves by any person "aged twenty-one years or upwards … and not a married woman," attested by three or more competent witnesses unless wholly written and signed by the testator) and § 19 ("Any person above the age of eighteen years shall be capable of disposing of his or her goods and chattels by will") ↩
93. Revised Statutes of 1835, "An act concerning wills," p. 617, §§ 1–2 ↩
94. Revised Statutes of 1835, wills, p. 617, § 3 ↩
95. R.S. 1939, § 518 (a male person: real and personal estate at 21, personal estate only at 18) and § 519 (a woman, married or unmarried, both at 21); printed at Women's Bureau, Legal Status of Women … Missouri, 6 ↩
96. Revised Statutes of 1835, wills, p. 617, § 4; carried forward as R.S.Mo. § 474.320 ↩
97. Revised Statutes of 1835, wills, p. 619, §§ 22–23; and § 27 ↩
98. Laws of a Public and General Nature, 1:135, ch. 39, § 38, "No person can act as an executor or administrator unless he be twenty-one years of age or upwards"; and § 37, administration during the minority of a named executor ↩
99. Revised Statutes of 1835, administration, p. 41, § 4, which also bars a county court clerk or his deputy in his own county ↩
100. Revised Statutes of 1835, administration, pp. 41–42, §§ 9, 11, 15 ↩
101. Revised Statutes of 1835, administration, p. 41, §§ 5–6 ↩
102. Laws of a Public and General Nature, 1:34, ch. 4, §§ 1, 20 (1804) ↩
103. Revised Statutes of 1835, revenue, pp. 528–30, art. I, § 1 ("First, All free male persons, over twenty-one and under fifty-five years old") and § 3 (the rate of thirty-seven and one-half cents); and art. II, on the assessor's lists and the tax book ↩
104. Revised Statutes of 1835, revenue, p. 529, art. I, § 2, whose first clause exempts "All free white male persons, above twenty-one and under sixty-five years old, belonging to the army of the United States." The word "white" appears in this exemption and not in the charging section ↩
105. Constitution of the State of Missouri, 1875, with All Amendments to 1903, Annotated to Date, comp. Sam B. Cook, Secretary of State (Jefferson City: Tribune Printing Company, 1903), 44–45, art. VIII, § 2; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/cu31924030493419 : accessed 10 August 2026). Missouri Constitution of 1945, art. VIII, § 2, is to the same effect ↩
106. Constitution of 1875, Cook comp., 53, art. X, §§ 1, 3, 4; and R.S. 1879, 2:1304–05, ch. 145, §§ 6658, 6663, laying the state levy on all property real and personal at one-fifth of one per centum of assessed value ↩
107. R.S. 1879, 2:929, § 4695, from Laws of Missouri, 1877, 116, § 2, the levy applied to street improvement and to no other purpose ↩
108. R.S. 1879, 2:1367, ch. 151, § 6945, "Who subject to road work," from Laws of Missouri, 1877, 397, § 15; and § 6946, on payment in work ↩
109. Laws of Missouri, Passed at the Session of the Forty-First General Assembly (Jefferson City: Tribune Printing Company, 1901), 233, 235, §§ 9436, 9437, 9441, approved 13 March 1901; digital images, Missouri Digital Heritage (https://mdh.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/molaws/id/16584 : accessed 10 August 2026) ↩
110. Revised Statutes of 1835, jurors, p. 343, § 6: "Every petit juror shall be a free white male citizen of this state, resident in the county, above the age of twenty-one years, and not otherwise disqualified" ↩
111. Revised Statutes of 1835, jurors, p. 342, § 2: "Every grand juror shall be a citizen of the state, resident in the county, over twenty-one years of age, be a house-holder or freeholder, and otherwise qualified." The section does not repeat the words "free white male" used of petit jurors in § 6 ↩
112. Revised Statutes of 1835, jurors, p. 343, §§ 7–8 ↩
113. Revised Statutes of 1835, jurors, p. 343, § 9 ↩
114. The Revised Statutes of the State of Missouri, 1845 (St. Louis: J. W. Dougherty, 1845), ch. 91, §§ 2, 6, repeating the 1835 wording for both bodies; digital images, Missouri Digital Heritage (https://mdh.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/p16795coll26/id/2918 : accessed 10 August 2026) ↩
115. The Revised Statutes of the State of Missouri, Revised and Digested by the Eighteenth General Assembly, 2 vols. (Jefferson City: Printed for the State, by James Lusk, Public Printer, 1855–56), 2:909–10, ch. 88, art. I, § 3: "Every juror, grand or petit, shall be a free white citizen of this State, resident in the county, sober and judicious, of good reputation, over twenty-one years of age, and otherwise qualified"; and § 5, directing the sheriff to select grand jurors from the townships in proportion to their free white population; digital images, Missouri Digital Heritage (https://mdh.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/p16795coll26/id/4584 : accessed 10 August 2026) ↩
116. The General Statutes of the State of Missouri (Jefferson City, 1866), 597, ch. 146, § 2; digital images, Missouri Digital Heritage (https://mdh.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/p16795coll26/id/6606 : accessed 10 August 2026). This section merged the two 1835 tests and dropped the householder or freeholder requirement ↩
117. R.S. 1879, 1:468, ch. 43, § 2777, headed "Qualifications," the reviser giving its source as "G. S. 597, § 2, amended"; carried through R.S. 1889, § 6060, R.S. 1899, § 3762, R.S. 1929, § 8746, and R.S. 1939, § 697 ↩
118. Civil Rights Act of 1875, § 4, 18 Stat. 336, quoted and upheld in Ex parte Virginia, 100 U.S. 339, 344–45 (1880); digital images, Caselaw Access Project (https://static.case.law/us/100/html/0339-01.html : accessed 10 August 2026); and Strauder v. West Virginia, 100 U.S. 303 (1880) (https://static.case.law/us/100/html/0303-01.html : accessed 10 August 2026) ↩
119. Missouri Constitution of 1945, art. I, § 22(b), adopted 27 February 1945, text printed at 1945 Laws of Missouri, 1–60; Missouri Revisor of Statutes (accessed 10 August 2026); digested at Women's Bureau, Legal Status of Women … Missouri, 15. The exemption scheme was later held unconstitutional in Duren v. Missouri, 439 U.S. 357 (1979); digital images, Caselaw Access Project (https://static.case.law/us/439/html/0357-01.html : accessed 10 August 2026) ↩
120. State v. Tice, 90 Mo. 112, 113 (1886): "Under seven years of age an infant cannot be guilty of felony. In the interval between that age and that of fourteen years, he is prima facie adjudged to be doli incapax," a presumption the State had to rebut with evidence "strong and clear beyond all doubt and contradiction"; digital images, Caselaw Access Project (https://static.case.law/mo/90/html/0112-01.html : accessed 10 August 2026). Doli incapax means incapable of wrong ↩
121. Laws of Missouri, Passed at the Session of the Forty-Second General Assembly (Jefferson City: Tribune Printing Company, 1903), 213–17, §§ 1–2, 8, 10, approved 23 March 1903; digital images, Missouri Digital Heritage (https://mdh.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/molaws/id/16895 : accessed 10 August 2026). The volume index records the courts as established in the city of St. Louis and in Jackson county ↩
122. Laws of Missouri, Passed at the Session of the Forty-Third General Assembly (Jefferson City: The Hugh Stephens Printing Company, 1905), 55–61, approved 8 April 1905; digital images, Missouri Digital Heritage (https://mdh.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/molaws/id/17249 : accessed 10 August 2026); and Laws of Missouri, Passed at the Regular and Extra Sessions of the Forty-Fourth General Assembly (Jefferson City: The Hugh Stephens Printing Company, 1907), 216–22, approved 15 April 1907 (https://mdh.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/molaws/id/17736 : accessed 10 August 2026). Each reached children of sixteen years of age or under ↩
123. Laws of Missouri, Passed at the Session of the Forty-Sixth General Assembly (Jefferson City: The Hugh Stephens Printing Company, 1911), 177–85, Senate Bill 115, § 1, approved 11 April 1911, raising the age to seventeen and reaching counties of fifty thousand and over; digital images, Missouri Digital Heritage (https://mdh.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/molaws/id/19211 : accessed 10 August 2026) ↩
124. Laws of Missouri, Passed at the Session of the Forty-Seventh General Assembly (Jefferson City: The Hugh Stephens Printing Company, 1913), 147–53, §§ 1–2, 10, approved 21 March 1913; digital images, Missouri Digital Heritage (https://mdh.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/molaws/id/20126 : accessed 10 August 2026) ↩
125. John L. Sullivan, comp., Laws of Missouri, Passed at the Session of the Forty-Ninth General Assembly (Jefferson City, 1917), 194–200, approved 10 April 1917; digital images, Missouri Digital Heritage (https://mdh.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/molaws/id/22257 : accessed 10 August 2026) ↩
126. Laws of Missouri, 1903, 214–16, §§ 3, 17, 19; and see 1911, 178, § 1, and 1913, 149–50 ↩
127. Revised Statutes of 1835, "An act concerning witnesses," pp. 621–23, §§ 1–19, approved 27 January 1835. The act names the persons who could not testify, and no section imposes a minimum age ↩
128. Revised Statutes of 1835, witnesses, p. 623, § 18 ↩
129. Revised Statutes of 1835, witnesses, p. 623, §§ 16–17 ↩
130. R.S. 1939, § 4081 (criminal) and § 1892 (civil), printed at Women's Bureau, Legal Status of Women … Missouri, 14; State v. Burlingame, 146 Mo. 207, 226 (1898); digital images, Caselaw Access Project (https://static.case.law/mo/146/html/0207-01.html : accessed 10 August 2026); and Hughes v. Renshaw, 314 Mo. 95, 118 (1926) (https://static.case.law/mo/314/html/0095-01.html : accessed 10 August 2026) ↩
131. Revised Statutes of 1835, witnesses, p. 623, § 19 ↩
132. The Revised Statutes of the State of Missouri, Revised and Digested by the Eighteenth General Assembly, 2 vols. (Jefferson City: Printed for the State, by James Lusk, Public Printer, 1855–56), ch. 168, "An act concerning witnesses," approved 1 December 1855, § 6, ninth subdivision; digital images, Missouri Digital Heritage (https://mdh.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/p16795coll26/id/4584 : accessed 10 August 2026). Struck by Laws of Missouri, 1865, 66, § 29 ↩
133. "An Act to repeal certain acts and parts of acts relating to persons of African descent," approved 20 February 1865, Laws of Missouri, 1865, 63–67, whose preamble recites the emancipation ordinance ↩
134. Laws of Missouri, 1865, 64, § 7 (striking "white" from the depositions chapter, Revised Statutes of 1855, ch. 53, § 11) and 66, § 24 (striking the racial words from Revised Statutes of 1855, ch. 128, art. 5, §§ 7, 18 and 23, on executing a summons and serving a notice); § 23 struck "or is a slave" from ch. 127, art. 5, § 19, and § 6 made Black Missourians subject to the same fines, penalties and punishments as white people, and none other ↩

Note: This law guide was created with assistance from multiple AI tools. Though a diligent effort was made to ensure the accuracy of the information provided, there may be unintentional errors. It's important to check the primary sources as needed to ensure accuracy.