Lafayette County, Missouri - Biographical sketches, 1910

By Hon. William Young

Whether America came forth as an habitable continent when God said, "Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear," or whether when fabled Atlantis sunk into the sea, America lifted herself up from out of the waters, or whether her physical development is comparatively as modern as her civilization, must remain the sport of conjecture. No ancient record speaks of her existence. Until her new phase of civilization commences, her past is indeed a dead past.

The design of this work is to present a history of Lafayette county, Missouri, which is indeed a very small plat in this great territory, omitting as far as possible all those matters of general history which it shares in common with the rest of the country and limiting the record to those facts, figures and circumstances that particularly affect the small territory selected.

The first historical event in this county was the location of old Ft. Orleans by the French voyageurs in 1720 on the Missouri river, near the mouth of Tabo creek. Unfortunately there are no records in existence which of themselves establish its location beyond a doubt. Lippincott's "Gazetteer of Missouri," published at an early date, locates it in a general way as on the Missouri river some fifty miles above Jefferson City, but another and more accurate author fixes the locality as on the south side of the river, about twenty miles above the mouth of the Grand river, which comes within ten miles of what we here claim as the exact spot, and which, considering the usual want of accuracy in giving distances in those times, may well pass for that location. The writer is assured in his own mind that the location of Fort Orleans is as here claimed. There is no other spot between there and the mouth of the Grand river to which any reference has been made as to its location and the writer was assured in his early boyhood by old men who had followed the line of occupation and settlement from their youth and who had received this in- (2) formation from others still older who had made incursions into this section long before there was ever a permanent white settlement. The original fort was completely destroyed and its occupants massacred by the Indians not many years after its location and the fort was never rebuilt, but there was always a landing place there from which a trail ran out into the interior and the location was always called Fort Orleans until, after the settlers began to come in, a small hamlet was built on or near the site of the old fort which the patriotic Americans called Mount Vernon. This trail began at the river landing, ran up along the river north of what is now the Dover road to the city of Lexington. From thence it turned almost due south, running along what is now Twenty-first street, keeping on the dividing ridges between the branches and ravines which flowed away from it on either side, and did not cross running water until it crossed Little Sniabar creek, at a ford in section 30, township 50, range 27, where there is now a bridge, passed on to the crest of a high ridge known as the Devil's Backbone, thence on out south, where it finally terminated at the old Jesuit mission in southeastern Kansas, called Osage Mission.

As the country settled and the farms were fenced in, the trail was changed to division lines and turned into a public road which from the earliest day was called the "Old Missionary Road." This trail was used by the early travelers and traders with the Indians.

But the history proper of Lafayette county begins with the advent of the first permanent settler, in 181 5, and it may be profitable to take a view of the country as it then appeared. The general appearance of the country at that time, except along the bluffs of the Missouri river, was that of a low rolling prairie, threaded east, west, north and south by narrow strips of timber which skirted the larger streams. The line of demarkation between prairie and timber was very sharply defined. Prairie fires occurred every spring before the grass began to grow, burned the grass up to the very edge of the timber, thus keeping the timber within its bounds. It may be wondered why these fires did not destroy the timber also. This is the reason : All the timber regions were covered with a heavy undergrowth of green pea vines and weeds ten feet high. These grew so dense, I have been told by the old settlers, that the ground never froze in the hardest winter. The tops of the vines were killed for several feet and fell over in a mat, while underneath the vines continued green the whole winter long so that the mass was never dry enough to burn, but effectually stopped the fire.

All over the prairies the grass grew luxuriantly and the soil was loose and held water like a great sponge. When it rained the water did not rush off down the hills into the creeks, as it does now, but was held by the grass roots and soil, whence it slowly trickled in tiny rivulets, keeping them and the streams running full the whole year round. The prairies were all full of dangerous bogs and wet-weather springs where the water seeped out along the hillsides continually. It was most difficult and occasionally dangerous to travel across the prairie on foot, and horseback riding across such a country, except along a few well marked lines, was all but impossible. The dense undergrowth of vines in the creek bottoms was impassable except along paths made by the elks, which here abounded. These animals, standing six feet high and over at the shoulder, with spiked and spreading antlers, almost as tall again, by their great strength made themselves paths through the bottoms and ranged over the country without fear of molestation by any beast of prey. For many years malaria was prevalent. Every house and family had its fever and ague patients. The settlers seemed to take this as a matter of course. To shake and burn every third day seemed the natural thing to do. James Lillard, of Tennessee, who had gained great prominence here, on his return to Tennessee wrote letters advising his countrymen not to come to such an unhealthy country. This so offended the people of Missouri that at the first opportunity they changed the name of the county, which had been called after Lillard, to Lafayette. This unhealthy condition has passed away, fever and ague are things of the past, and Lafayette county will now compare with any other section of the country in healthfulness.

Perhaps the most difficult thing to realize about the section of country in which we live is its newness - its newness to civilization. When we look over the broad land, thickly settled, widely improved and well cultivated, dotted over with thriving towns and villages, with here and there magnificently built cities, all evidences of a state of high civilization, it requires no small effort to realize that less than a century ago all of this great country was just as it came from the hands of its Creator, adorned only by nature, without a sign of the hand of man to mar its appearance, its few inhabitants, the children of nature, leaving its wilds unmarked by the labor of their hands.

For the first fifteen years the population of the county increased very slowly. The immigrants were mostly roving pioneers, who had been keeping in advance of civilization from the beginning of its march westward. They were restless under any control and loved to live in surroundings where every man could do that which was right in his own sight, and they generally pushed on as other settlers followed.

seeking immigrants began to pour into this new and fertile country where land was so cheap they could easily find homes for their growing families. While there was some immigration from nearly every quarter of the United States, the vast majority came from Virginia, Tennessee and North Carolina. A sprinkle of New Englanders and Pennsylvanians were included. After a while, beginning in the late forties, there was an inrush of Kentuckians, who were closely allied by blood and marriage to many of the settlers already here. While almost every nationality had a representative, the great mass were descended from the inhabitants of the British Isles, and the great majority of these were of the most aggressive branch of the dominant family of the superior race of mankind. Their names spoke their origin. There were Johnsons, and Jacksons, Wilsons and Petersons, and all the other sons! Then there were the Carpenters and Bakers and Masons and Carters and Taylors and Coopers and all other callings and occupations ; there were Blacks and Browns and Greens and Redds and Greys and all the other shades and colors; there were Rylands and Hills and Fields and Longs and Shorts and Walkers and Rhodes; there were Barnes and Calloways and Youngs and Smiths and Smiths! In addition there were Irish Aulls and O's and Mac's and Scotch Campbells and Stewarts.

There was a sturdy German here and there and an occasional Frenchman, but the great mass were descended from the middle English. But soon another element made its appearance. The thrifty German began to come in colonies. They founded settlements completely German. In the town of Lexington there was a small colony ; the north side of Main street was almost exclusively occupied by their business houses and was popularly called "Dutch Row." The southern part of Freedom township was almost exclusively occupied by them and Concordia was as much a German town as if it had been located in Germany itself. Drawn together by a language different from that of their neighbors, with different social customs, they lived almost to themselves, with very little intercourse with their English-speaking neighbors. From this condition there naturally arose no small jealousy and mutual criticism. As the passage of time was bringing about a better understanding, the Civil war broke out. The great majority of the English-speaking people sympathized with the South, while the Germans were almost unanimously loyal to the Union. This could have no other effect than to intensify the antagonism and excite animosity between the two peoples. Naturally there were some outrages committed on both sides during the war, but, considering the circumstances, they were remarkably few. Here the writer will stop to remark that the people of Lafayette county, English and German, have reason to be proud of their record in respect to their treatment of each other during those trying times. Nearly fifty years have passed since the close of that wonderful contest. In the light of the present, events take on a different aspect from that in which they appeared at the time. We challenge the world to produce a parallel. A civil war that divided households, raging in an open country where there were no forts or fenced cities, where the citizen remained in his own home comparatively defenseless, composed of two nationalities divided in sentiment along that line. They being in close proximity to one another, yet as a general thing regardful of each other's rights, social, political and otherwise, with scarcely a personal clash, with very little interference, during four years of a hot civil war, presents a spectacle never seen in any other country save our own United States. Lafayette county emerged from the war rejoicing that it was over and without a single feud in its borders.

Since the war the German population has steadily increased. Many of the settlers of English descent have moved out farther west and their places have been taken by German immigrants from other parts of the state and from the old country and should the same conditions continue it will not be many years before they will rival in numbers the other white settlers of the county.

Lafayette county's large coal fields have created a demand for miners, which has brought in other elements of population. For ten years past there have been at least two thousand miners engaged in this business, most of them foreigners, and while this population is rather transient, some of them have made permanent homes here. There are French and Swedes and Italians and Syrians and others, forming no inconsiderable addition to the population.

There is another element in its population to which no reference has as yet been made but whose presence adds to the difficulties of the problems which arise. This is the negro element. Lafayette county ranked second among the counties in Missouri, in the number of slaves owned before the war. The negroes who were brought here and who have been raised here are far superior in intelligence and good citizenship to the negro of the South. There were few large plantations in the county and the slaves, being owned in small numbers, were managed by their own masters on their farms without the intervention of overseers. In fact the great majority of them were slaves with which their masters had grown up on their fathers' farms and which they had inherited from their fathers' estates and were thus brought into closer relationship and sympathy than simply that of master and slave. There was an exodus of slaves from this county to Kansas during the latter part of the war, but many returned after the war was over. They were attracted back to their old homes as much by their affection for their old and young masters as by any other motive. This may account for the fact that notwithtsanding the large number of negroes in Lafayette county, there has never been any serious clash between the races.

For years past writers on public questions have been predicting that the great social problems of humanity would be worked out in the Mississippi valley. Here, they have said, all creeds and nationalities would meet on equal terms in a country surpassing in resources, under a free government, where everything that affects the social excellence and progress of mankind would be put to the test of actual experience and comparison, and that here will survive the best and fittest for the use of man. It is plain that a great drama is being acted here. Missouri, occupying a central position in this great stretch of country, will share her part and Lafayette, holding within its borders all the elements and factors of the problem, will enjoy and suffer the fullest experience of the struggle and present in its borders a miniature of the great

History is but a record of the rise and fall of nations and empires. It repeatedly records how primitive people with primitive habits and virtues, march out and conquer older civilizations and lift themselves up in power and might, until, becoming rich and luxurious, in their turn they become corrupt and effete and are themselves conquered and subdued by a newer people. The rise of every nation has been based on the primitive virtues. Their fall has followed their moral degradation. As the morals decay the nation decays. Moral corruption is but the consequence of debased conscience and conscience has always been developed by the nation's religion.

Strictly speaking, Lafayette county is too young to have a history. So far, only the foundations of civilization have been made ; the elements have only been brought together. The consequences are to follow and it is their development that constitutes the true history of a country. The pages that follow are necessarily more statistical than historical. The future historian will gather from these statistics the reasons, causes and events which he may be called upon to record. An examination into the church history of Lafayette county, as shown by the statistics here given, will impress upon any thinking mind the fact of how deeply is the religious idea fixed in the very heart and soul of the county's society and Lafayette county is only an index of all of rural Missouri, which in turn is a fair illustration of society in the great Mississippi valley. It is not too much to hope that the theme of the historian will constantly be the rise of the nation; that while there may be retrogression, it will be saved from fall by the activity of her conscience, controlled by the only perfect code of personal, social and political conduct.