in Moniteau County, Missouri, USA

Moniteau County, Missouri

Encyclopedia of Missouri
Edited by Conrad, 1910
Volume IV, Pages 454-458

     A county in the central part of the State, bounded on the north by Cooper County and the Missouri River, which separates it from Boone County; east by Cole; south by Miller and Morgan, and west by Morgan and Cooper Counties.
     Soon after the beginning of the century James Savage it is stated by good authorities, became a resident of the county, and was there during the Indian War of 1812. In 1816 Jeremiah Clay, his wife, Abram Otts and his step-son, William Parker, Jackson Vivian and John B. Longan, all natives of Kentucky, settled in the territory now embraced in the county. The same year John and Curtis Johnson, Charles, Matthew, and George Pettigrew, James Williams, Joshua McDaniel, Daniel Kenney, George Cooper and a few others settled in the county at the mouth of the Moniteau River.
     In the summer of 1819 a party of about eighty left Tennessee to make new homes in Missouri. Ascending the Mississippi River, ten of the number died of Malaria fever. Their mode of river travel was by "dugouts" and they met with many adventures before reaching their destination. Many of these colonists settled in Cooper County territory, others in what is now Moniteau County. Among the latter were Thomas Stephens, Nathan Huff and Thomas Strain.
     Among the other early settlers, all of whom located in the county before 1830, were John Inglish, who burned the first brick in the county limits about 1824; L. L. Wood, Green Clay, Jonathan P. Martin, Thomas Scott, Benjamin Gist, John Kelly, Frederick Thomas, Jesse Eads, James Maupin, Sr., James Hickman, John D. Williams and numerous others. One of the first children born within the limits of what is now Moniteau County was John Maupin, born in 1818, in what is now Linn Township. He died in the county in 1886.
     The first marriage in territory of which there is any record was about 1823, when James Howard and Jane McDaniel were married by J. B. Longan. The next marriage was that of Adam Vivian and Evalina Alexander, who were united by Justice of the Peace Walker, in 1826. At that time Moniteau County territory was a part of Cole County.
     Moniteau County was organized out of the western part of Cole County and a part of Morgan County by legislative act approved February 14, 1845. The word Moniteau is a corruption of the work Manitou, meaning the Deity, and was first applied to a stream which flows through the county into the Missouri, and after this stream the county was named. The creative act directed that the first meeting of the county court be held at the Salem meeting house, "near Reuben Job's" who lived four miles northwest of the site of California, until otherwise ordered. Edmund Wilkes, of Miller County, William Massie, of Osage County, and Jacob Burrows, of Cooper County, were appointed commissioners to select a permanent seat of justice, and they were instructed to locate it at the most eligible point near the center of the county, and to meet at the house of Allen Bowlin, about one and a half miles north of the present city of California, on the first Monday in May, 1845. The first Salem meeting house on February 27, 1845, with William Miller presiding justice, and Robert Moore and Buforn Allee, associate justices, and James Anderson clerk. At this meeting the only business transacted was to pass a resolution fixing the permanent place of holding court at the town of California. The court met again the following day, and Jonathan P. martin was appointed surveyor, and, in compliance with the act of General Assembly, was instructed to assist the surveyor of Cole County in locating the boundary line between Cole and Moniteau Counties.
     Alexander Doggett was appointed the first treasurer of the county. In May, 1845, A. T. Byler and wife donated to the county fifty acres of land for county seat purposes, lying near the old town of California. Boonesborough was the name by which the new town was known until the latter part of 1846, when the post office was removed from the old town of California to the new town, which then ceased to be known as Boonesborough and became California.
     The first session of the circuit court for Moniteau County was opened August 25, 1845, in the Salem meeting house near the old town of California, Judge W. Morrow presiding, James Anderson, clerk, and Nicholas H. Gray, sheriff. The first grand jury was composed of Reuben Smith, Daniel Keeney, William Jackson, Solomon Kemp, James Hollingsworth, Sampson Farish, Richard Taylor, Alfred Norman, Abraham Laving, James Inglish, Solomon D. Spain, T. H. Templeman, John Maupin and William Moore. The first case before the court was an appeal from a justice's court, John Allison against Richard Lundy. The first divorce case was in 1852, entitled, Malinda Rains vs. Adam B. Rains, and judgment in favor of the plaintiff was rendered in march, 1852. As late as March, 1864, Green McPherson was indicted, tried and fined five dollars for dealing with a slave, more than a year after Lincoln had issued his proclamation of emancipation.
     Members of the bar who practiced in the Moniteau County Circuit Court prior to 1861 were Benjamin Tompkins, J. L. Stephens (father of Governor Stephens), W. D. Meier, George D. White, Charles Drake, J. W. Draffin, T. M. Rice, Monroe M. Parsons, Benjamin Stringfellow and L. F. Wood.
     In 1822 the first religious organization was formed, the Union United Baptist Church, and a small log house of worship was built at Union Springs, one mile and a half west of Jamestown, on the farm of Charles Bodamer. Among its first members were Snelling Johnson, who preached at the church at a later date for fifteen years; members of the Vivian family, Martin Moad and wife, David Chambers, Mary Inglish, John Mulkey and Elizabeth Howard.
     The first resident physician of the county was Dr. William A. Lacy, who died at Prairie Home, in 1888. He came from Virginia and settled in the territory now Moniteau in 1834. Prior to that time doctors from Boonville attended the ill and ailing residents of the county. Dr. J. P. H. Gray, a native of Virginia, who spent some of his boyhood days in Kentucky, and settled in Cooper County in 1842. He studied medicine and was licensed to practice in Missouri May 4, 1846, settled in California, and was the second resident physician, and now (1899) at the age of seventy-eight years, is still practicing in that city.


Taken from:      Preface of Moniteau County, Missouri
          Marriage Records 1845-1860
          & Will Index 1845 - 1914
               by Ellsberry
Located at:     St. Louis Public Library (downtown)