Macon County, Missouri - Chapter 1, 1910

"Tue SrarE or Macon'' - Suertrr Hap Wine JURISDICTION - TROUBLESOME INDIANS - IMPORTATION or BLUEGRASS FROM Kentucky - Firsr COTSWOLD SHEEP AND SHORTHORN CATTLE - ÜRGANIZATION OF Macon County - RivaLky ror County Seat - Loc House ror Court Rooms.

This term was formerly used in referring to Macon county because of its extensive area, as compared with most counties of Missouri. It takes a swift-running passenger train the greater part of an hour to er Macon county in either direction. Until Adair and Schuyler counties were organized, the Macon county authorities had jurisdiction clear up to the Iowa line. The whole district was spoken of as ** Macon county?" or "The State of Macon." Its first sheriff, Jefferson Morrow, frequently had to serve process thirty or forty miles outside the legal border of his county. It was the same way with Randolph county, which was organized in 1829, eight years previous to Macon county's organization. There were many settlers here quite a while before the county was organized, and a number of subordinate officers acting under the jurisdiction of Randolph county. Taxes paid by the settlers went down to the Randolph county treasury. A while before Macon county was created an officer residing near Bloomington or old Winchester was sent out on a tax-collecting expedition clear up to the northern border of the state. Returning, he reported that he had succeeded in collecting every tax bill he presented, but explained that one ''poor widow woman" didn't have her dollar - which was the amount of her tax - and to make his record clean, the ambitious tax-gatherer paid her dues out of his own fees.

Once the tide of immigration began land was entered very rapidly. The first obstacle was the Indians. Residents of Virginia still retained a wholesome dislike for the Red man, a prejudice handed down from their fathers. The Kentuckians who came here first became homesick over the absence of bluegrass, which was the pride of their state. The Indian spectre did not last long after the frontiersman got down his fowling piece and showed his markmanship. The exodus of the homesick Kentuckians was prevented by the strategy of the late Captain William Smith, who settled south of where the city of Macon is now, in

1839, only two years after county went on the map of Missouri. When a young man of twenty-two Captain Smith left Clark county, Kentucky, for Missouri. He had $1,200 in his pockets and was offered a large slice of the village of St. Louis for his money, but declined the bargain, and never regretted it. He took up land here, along with a number of other Kentuekians. "There was nothing but tall, wild prairie grass in these parts then, and it didn't look cheerful to the men who had been raised among the bluegrass hills. "They were discontented and talked seriously of returning. Captain Smith judged there were many other Kentuckians of the same mind in northern Missouri, so he hitched up his team and drove baek to his old home for a load of bluegrass seed. "This he distributed among his neighbors, and soon the country about here began to look very much like old Kentucky. The Kentuckians quit grumbling; they were satisfied. Captain Smith made other trips for Kentucky bluegrass and before many years the greater part of northern Missouri was carpeted with the development from his importation. Captain Smith also introduced to this section the first Cotswold sheep and Shorthorn cattle. In his latter days he spoke of these enterprises with pride, saying that much of the finest stock now found in this eounty were descendants from his herds. Captain Smith died at Macon, March 18, 1909, being but a few months short of ninety-two.

In the winter of 1836-7 the General Assembly at Jefferson City passed the aet organizing Macon county, with boundaries as follows: * Beginning at the southeast eorner of township 56, range 13 west of the prineipal meridian; thence north, on the range line, to the northeast corner of township 59, in said range; thence three miles west on township line to the southeast corner of section 33, township 60; thence north on section line to the northeast corner of section 4, in said township 60; thence west on township line to the northwest corner of township 60, range 17; thence south on the range line to the southwest corner of township 57, in said range; thence east on township line to the northwest of section three, township 56, range 16; thence south on the section line to southwest corner of section 34, in same township; thence east on township line to the place of beginning,'' which gives an area of 830 square miles. Since then two Macon county townships were added to Adair county, reducing Macon' county's area to 810 square miles.

The aet appointed as commissioners to select the county seat Joseph Baker and Henry Lassiter. The villages of Winchester, Box Ancle (Bloomington) and Moccasinville were all considered as eligible sites for the honor, and it is said the rivalry was pretty keen, each asserting some distinet advantage over the other. In the summer of 1837 the commissioners decided on Bloomington, in what was then calied the Owenby settlement. That same year the civil government of the county was organized. A two-room log house served the purposes of the County and Circuit courts.