CLOSE UPON THE HEELS of John Lewis, first English-speaking farmer on the Missouri river in what is now St. Louis
county, came another noted family out of Virginia by way of Kentucky, the family of Summalt or Zumwalt. For many
years in the closing period of the Spanish dominion and the beginning of Missouri Territory, the Lewises, Boones
and Zumwalts were neighbors and associates on the Missouri border.
Jacob Zumwalt and his brother, Christopher, arrived in the Spanish territory in 1796, and settled on Peruque Creek,
in St. Charles county, across the river from the John Lewis settlement. Members of the families of both these Zumwalt
brothers at a later period settled in Pike county, Illinois, where many descendants of the Jacob and Christopher
lines still abide.
Jacob Zumwalt, in 1798, built the first hewed log house north of the Missouri river, erecting it on his Spanish
grant, about 30 miles west of St. Louis, near present Highway 40. In times of Indian trouble, Jacob's log house
became a fort, and to this day the place is known as Fort Zumwalt. Here, in this old fort, the early Lewises and
Boones often gathered. Here, too, the noted Indian, Black Hawk, was often a guest of the Zumwalt family. Black
Hawk lived one winter, in early territorial days, at Jacob Zumwalt's
Miss Marcia Williams of O'Fallon, Missouri, an authority on Missouri history, legend and folklore, whose family
for generations has dwelt in the vicinity of old Fort Zumwalt, on a recent afternoon related to the writer the
story of the family life of those early Zumwalts as it has come down to her in an unbroken chain from one who talked
to old Jacob Zumwalt and Daniel Boone and Black Hawk, the Indian.
The Zumwalts, originating in Germany, came in an early day to America. The first Zumwalt (a Jacob Zumwalt) of record
in the new world, emigrated from Germany to America and settled first in Pennsylvania, where the town of Little
York now is. There he purchased land upon which the town was subsequently built; and there he built his cabin.
Jacob Zumwalt was afflicted with cancer. So deep was he in the wilderness that medical attention could not be had.
He thereupon removed to Virginia, to obtain medical aid, and settled on the Potomac, not far from Georgetown. He
grew worse, and soon died.
The deed to Jacob's lands in Pennsylvania was destroyed, his children thereby losing a princely fortune. The deed
was lost in a singular manner. A girl, hunting a piece of pasteboard to stiffen her sunbonnet, found the deed and,
being unable to read, supposed it some useless scrap of paper, and used it in her bonnet. The deed had never been
recorded. The heirs, among them the numerous Pike county descendants, who have been importuned at times to join
in attempts to prove heirship, have never succeeded in establishing title.
Mr. Zumwalt was twice married. By his first wife, his children were Henry, George, Dolly and Lizzie; by his second
wife he fathered Christopher, Jacob, John, Adam, Andrew and Catherine.
Adam Zumwalt followed his brothers, Jacob and Christopher, to the Missouri border, arriving in 1797, the same year
that Daniel Boone came to the territory. Adam placed his family and $800 worth of goods aboard a flat boat, with
stock consisting of 30 head of cattle, 11 sheep and 12 horses, and came down the Ohio and up the Mississippi to
St. Charles county with his clumsy raft. He settled near the present town of Flint Hill and not far from his brother
Jacob's fort.
There Adam Zumwalt erected two still houses and made whiskey to sell to the Indians, camped near his place. The
great chief, Black Hawk, made his home at Adam Zumwalt's for some time, and was a regular and frequent visitor
until after the commencement of hostilities between the whites and Indians.
In very cold weather, Mr. Zumwalt's whiskey would freeze and become solid ice, in which state he sold it to the
Indians by the cake. Bryan and Rose, in their "Pioneer Families of Missouri," are authority for the statement
that the Indians often bought as much as $100 worth of frozen whiskey in a single day.
Zumwalt was a friend of the early border preachers and whenever one of them came into his neighborhood he had services
at his house. Jesse Walker and a German minister named Hostetter preached there as early as 1800.
During the Indian war, Mr. Zumwalt's family took shelter in Pond Fort (where now is Wentzville), while he and his
son Jonathan remained at home to protect the property and prevent the Indians from destroying it. Jonathan had
learned to use his gun when only five years old and was as quick and accurate a marksman as could be found on the
border. Once, when he was six, he killed a large buck, which plunged about so in its death agonies that he became
frightened and ran home and lost his gun in the woods.
On one occasion the Indians crossed the Mississippi river on the ice and murdered an entire family of 12 persons,
near neighbors of the Zumwalts. Mr. Zumwalt helped bury the victims. The bodies were wrapped in quilts and buried
under the house, in a place used as a cellar. The Indians burned the house soon after, and the bodies were consumed.
On one occasion an Indian chief died at Mr. Zumwalt's house. He and his sons buried the chief with a loaf of bread
in one hand and a butcher-knife in the other. The chief's dog was killed and buried at his feet. These preparations
were made so that when he reached the happy hunting ground he would have something to eat and a dog to find him
game.
Mr. Zumwalt's children were John, Elizabeth, Andrew, Rachel, Mary Catherine, Jonathan and Solomon.
John Zumwalt, another brother of Jacob of the fort, settled Darst's Bottom in St. Charles county in 1806. His children
were George, John, Barbara, Mary, Elizabeth, Adam, Andrew, Jacob, Henry and William. They were closely associated
in early times with the Samuel Hardin Lewis family which established itself on the border near the beginning of
1800.
Andrew Zumwalt, son of John, was a devoted Methodist, but three of his daughters joined the Baptist church (which
was the church of the Lewises), and their mother said she was glad of it. The old gentleman was very angry and
said he hoped, now that the family was divided among the churches, that one of them would find the right one and
get to heaven and be contented when they got there, and not want to go somewhere else.
There were five Jacobs in the different Zumwalt families, according to Bryan and Rose, designated as Big Jake,
Little Jake, Calico Jake, St. Charles Jake and Lying Jake, so-called because of his hair-raising accounts of border
warfare.
The first battle of the War of 1812 in Missouri was fought at Fort Zumwalt where the men of the settlement, with
soldiers from St. Louis, engaged the British-controlled Indians. Behind the log walls and stockade at Zumwalt's
on that occasion, fighting shoulder to shoulder with the Zumwalts themselves, were the sons of John Lewis, and
John Lewis's brother, Samuel Hardin Lewis, the early Pike county settler. Here also, battling the Indians, were
John Long, the Virginian-born husband of Rachel Zumwalt (daughter of Adam), and Daniel McCoy, who married another
Rachel Zumwalt (daughter of Henry), together with two of McCoy's brothers, John and Joseph. McCoy Creek, which
travelers to St. Louis over U. S. Highway 61 cross near Flint Hill, was named for this Daniel McCoy. Descendants
of all of these families, including Lewis, Zumwalt, Long and McCoy, later settled in Pike county, Illinois.
Often as many as ten families (and families were large in those times) found refuge in Zumwalt's hewn log house
during the Indian troubles. Here the family of Samuel Hardin Lewis found shelter in those dangerous days, before
they moved farther north in St. Charles county, to that part that is now Lincoln county, where they located not
far from Wood's Fort where now is Troy, county seat of Lincoln county. The early Missouri Galloways were also frequenters
of this old fort in time of Indian troubles. James, Elijah and Peter Galloway, and the girls who later became their
wives, namely, Ursula Lewis, Rebecca Laird and Matilda Wilson, all then children, are said to have played behind
the stockades at Zumwalt's in times of Indian uprising, while numerous of their elders were abroad with Howard's
Rangers.
The first Methodist sacrament in Missouri was administered in old Jacob Zumwalt's house by the Reverend Jesse Walker
in 1807. The wine was made by Mrs. Zumwalt and Mrs. Colonel David Bailey (of the Bailey family that was later so
prominent in Pike county history), from the juice of pokeberries, sweetened with maple sugar, and for bread was
used the crusts of cornbread.
Later, Zumwalt's house was used by the Reverend John Travis, Missouri's first Methodist preacher, and among the
pioneer families who gathered for services held there, was organized the Mt. Zion Methodist church of O'Fallon.
In the early days of Missouri Territory, when Meriwether Lewis, first cousin of John and Samuel H., was territorial
governor, the noted Indian, Black Hawk, was a frequent and welcome visitor in the log homes of the Lewises, Zumwalts
and Boones. He often danced with the girls of these families, who sometimes turned the Indian's admiration to their
own account, prevailing upon him to do their chores for them, such as carrying water, helping with the churning,
bringing in the firewood, etc. Along the Peruque and the Cuiver, along Dry Branch and McCoy Creek, still linger
amusing anecdotes of how the daughters of these houses were wont to practice upon the noted chief in the days before
the Indian war.
Bryan and Rose, in their "Pioneer Families of Missouri (1876)," relate that Black Hawk often danced with
Mr. (Adam) Zumwalt's daughters and that he was so fond of Mr. Zumwalt's whisky that he frequently became very drunk,
but never caused any disturbance or acted in an ungentlemanly manner.
Christopher Zumwalt, who came with his brother Jacob to the Spanish territory in 1796, settled on Peruque Creek,
on land adjacent to the Spanish grant on which Jacob built his fortified home. There Christopher built a mill,
a most important contribution to the wilderness settlement. Christopher was a soldier of the Revolution. His name
has been perpetuated among his descendants who settled in Pike county, Illinois.
Fort Zumwalt was one of a line of rude frontier forts that defended the Missouri border. Other forts in the time
of the Indian war were Wood's Fort, at the big spring where Troy now is; Buffalo Fort, near Louisiana; Howell Fort,
on Howell's Prairie; Pond Fort, where now is Wentzville; Stout's Fort, near Auburn; Callaway's Fort, near Marthasville;
and Cooper's Fort, in the Boonslick settlement, with its flanking cabins constituting a stockade.
According to "The Pioneer Families of Missouri," heretofore quoted, Jacob Zumwalt's house, with its huge
fireplaces, was made of white oak and roofed with heavy clapboards of the same wood. The main part consisted of
two ground-floor rooms, duplicated to form a second story. A one-story wing to the east and another to the south,
each with a loft, completed the structure. The foundation stones are still observable, marking the extent of the
ground floor. Part of the main building still stands, together with a portion of the stone chimney.
The split oak floors which have worn away revealed the primitive method of fastening logs together with wooden
pegs instead of nails. The wooden pins have been carried away by Zumwalts from many states as mementoes of the
fortress home of their pioneering ancestors.
The house is on the brink of a low hill at the foot of which runs a spring from which Lucy Anne Zumwalt, old Jacob's
wife, carried water for the household, sometimes until the protecting guns of those behind the walls. The wings
of the house have been torn down and the remaining part is succumbing to time and the elements. The portholes in
the upper part, which were used in repelling Indian raids, may still be seen, although the stockade which surrounded
the house disappeared long ago.
A small private cemetery, shaded by ancient cedar trees, adds a touch of pathos to the scene as voices of the past
seem to whisper around the old fort. Exploring the vicinity of the fort, the writer stumbled upon what appeared
to be rude markers of some early burials, rough sandstones plucked from the surrounding lands, bearing a single
letter, a rudely carved "H." And by this token we were reminded that this 87-acre fortress estate was
owned by the Heald family for a hundred years, and that here, near the old fort, were buried a hero and a heroine
of the Fort Dearborn massacre, Major Nathan Heald and his wife, who was Rebecca Wells. Here also lies the dust
of Mrs. Heald's father, Samuel Wells, a soldier of the Revolution, who was presented with a sword for his bravery
in the War of Independence, and who later was with Harrison at Tippecanoe.
The great forests that clad the surrounding hills in the days of the territory have been reduced by constant cutting,
but the remnants of the old fort still stand surrounded by forested hills, interspersed with rolling farm lands.
Leaving Highway 40, at a point a short distance southwest of O'Fallon, one skirts a corn field to a large brick
house southwest of which, in what is now a pasture land, stands the old skeleton fort, relic of border days. Off
to the northwest, on a forest-clad hillside, are the burials of the Indian tribe that once inhabited the region.
On the south side of Highway 40, near the spot where you turn into a field to reach the old fort, the Missouri
Division of the National Society, United States Daughters of 1812, have erected a monument on which appears the
following inscription:
"FORT ZUMWALT - 850 yards south - built 1798 - on Spanish grant - homestead of Major Nathan Heald - Commander
Fort Dearborn in 1812 - and his wife, Rebecca Wells - from 1817 to 1853."
The Missouri Daughters of 1812 who erected the monument hope to raise funds for the restoration of the old fort.
The Missouri legislature has been petitioned to buy the 87-acre tract surrounding the fort for a state park.
In 1817, five years after the Fort Dearborn massacre, Major Nathan Heald, commanding officer of Fort Dearborn,
came to Missouri, purchased the old Zumwalt place and lived there with his wife, Rebecca Wells Heald, heroine of
the War of 1812 and of Randall Parish's "When Wilderness Was King."
In 1909, the Rebecca Heald Chapter, Daughters of 1812, was organized there by a granddaughter, Rebecca Heald McCluer,
now deceased, and for a number of years the chapter held its meetings in the old fort.