This project is brought to you by Benton County Historical Society and Genealogy Trails
The
History
Of
Benton County, Missouri
1969
Volume 1
ILLUSTRATED
Compiled And Written By:
KATHLEEN KELLY WHITE
KATHLEEN WHITE MILES
Publishers: White & Miles
Copyrighted
November 1, 1969
The Printery
Clinton, Mo.
Warsaw, Mo.
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FROM OGLE & CO. 'S PLAT BOOK OF 1904
THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED
TO
THOMAS HART BENTON
United States Senator
OJ Missouri
FOR WHOM·
OUR COUNTY WAS NAMED
BENTON COUNTY COURT HOUSE
In excellent condition, the two story brick is a soft rose color with wooden door and window facings white side has a two-story, four room addition built in 1954 which overlooks the natural rock fountain and fish pond
This is the third Benton County Courthouse, The second, The east built in 1846, on this same location, also was of brick it had replaced a 20'x30' log structure across the street :on the northwest where the county jail now stands.
Foreword
You are looking at a copy of The History of Benton County, Missouri, Volume I, 1969.
This is the first all-inclusive history written since 1889, that being the Goodspeed Publishing Company edition which followed Judge James H. Lay's history by thirteen years. Love of this beautiful and historic place, and the tantalizing bits of the past constantly popping up, prodded the two authors into action after years of gathering memorabilia because they thought it too precious to discard. Mrs. White's job was gathering material and writing about the Mexican War, Civil War, early residents, the postal and early political system, the Indians and the pre-historic animals, writing countless letters and driving miles to ferret out data to fill "blind spots." She also supervised make-up and production of the final product. Mrs. Miles labored five months on old newspaper files from 1880, interviewed countless people about their families, family lore and pictures. The great volume of writing in this book was her lot. And she admits that she thoroughly enjoyed ·the tedious task---most of the time! She has this to say about her research: .. "Benton ·County has been my home for 42 years--since my birth-and even though I was away in the nation's Capitol for nine years, this remained "home" to me. In going through the old copies of The Enterprise since 1880 on (and the old files furnished much of the material for this book), I gradually began to realize something•.....and that was that nothing has changed here nothing at all, Only the outside trappings are different. In 1830,1860,1890,1915 --you name the year -- people were basically the same as they are now. They worried about their children, hated war, lost their loved ones, cried, laughed; they were petty, generous, kind, spiteful -- nothing has changed much, really."
***
If anything in this book causes you to say: "Now, why did they put that in the book .......it wasn't necessary.........please remember...........this book is about people....human beings........many long dead and gone and their human frailties were as much a part of the pattern of life as our own errors are today. If' reading this book causes you to say: "Well, why didn't they write about this-or-that .or such-and-such a person" ....please remember.... we beseeched you, The Enterprise, to bring us any story any picture you would like to have included. " We hope you enjoy this book as much as we enjoyed compiling it. If you do, remember, there's more coming up. Volume II will include material on schools, teachers and students, Bagnell and Kaysinger Dams and resort developments in the county, transportation (steamboats, stage coaches, Fred Harvey's bus line, etc.), interesting material on Benton County's towns and communities (some long gone), the Great Depression in Benton County, storms and disasters, court trials through the years, wars (from World War I up and how Benton Countians took part), post offices, births and deaths and interesting (we think) material about people, people and more people. We imagine we'll also have to include a "catch-all" chapter titled "Miscellaneous" to gather all the loose ends we missed in Volume I. Again, thanks for picking up this book to read. We do hope you enjoy it.
(Mrs. Mablon Neill White) (Mrs. Daniel Black Miles)
October, 1969 Warsaw, Missouri
Table Of Contents
Title
1904 Plat Map Of Benton County
Dedication To Thomas Hart Benton For
Whom The County Was Named
Picture Of Benton County Court House
Foreword By Authors
Chapter I: Pre-Historic Times
Chapter II: Indians Of The Area
Chapter III: Early Settlers
Chapter IV: Politics And Government
Chapter V: Wars Of Nineteenth Century
Chapter VI: How It Was To 1900
Chapter VII: People From 1885 To 1900
;Chapter VIII: Marri ages, Births And Deaths To 1900
Chapter IX: Wi lis
Chapter X: The Churches
Chapter XI: Marriage Licenses 1839 Thru 1870
Chapter XII: Biographical Index 1889
Chapter XII I: Listing Of Benton County Officials
Chapter 1: Pre-Historic Times
Pictures Thru Courtesy University Of Missouri Department Of Archaeological Research
EARLIEST INHABITANTS
Fertile prairies and valleys, an everlasting water supply from springs and three rivers--the Osage, Grand and Pomme de Terre--an~ a bountiful variety of wild game may have been the inducements to furnish Benton County with as constant habitation as anywhere on earth. Because Kaysinger Dam will spread water over the basins of these three rivers, archaeologists from the state university, Columbia, and the National Park Service have been conducting explorations of Indian village sites in the bottom lands since 1962. Work has centered on the Rodgers Shelter, a bluff overhang on the Pomme de Terre just south of the Benton-Hickory County line; in the Trolinger Spring bog, and Boney Spring Bog in nearby Benton County. This research has uncovered one of the longest cultural sequences in the Midwest, and also has provided significant climatic, faunal and floral information about the western Ozarks region. It has tested as far back in the past as 10,000 B.C. • R. Bruce McMillan of the research department of anthropology at the university has been in charge and now is compiling a detailed report as the work continues. The report will concern findings indicating that once there lived in the county elephant, mastodon, mammoth, musk ox, wild hog, bear, deer, horse and elk.
* * *
The pre-historic animals from the Benton County area were written about by the famous French naturalist, Baron George Cuvier and American Naturalist B. S. Barton of Philadelphia in 1806. They told of a mastodon skeleton from the Pomme de Terre, where also were dug up seventeen tusks, some a foot in diameter and six feet long. These bones were displayed in the British Museum in London. The Cincinnati, Ohio, Museum displayed a mastodon delivered to them by S. H. Whipple of Warsaw in 1843. This was Samuel H. Whipple who with his brother-in-law. DeWitt Ballow, established the Whipple Ballow addition to east Warsaw. In 1852 peccary and mastodon remains were found by Dr. R. W. Gibbs of Warsaw, and displayed in his drug store.
* * *
But "Prince" of the early day archaeologists was Albert Carl Koch,
or "Dr. Koch" as he began to call himself in 1845, who also was among
the first to collect mastodon bones in America. His name and early
fossils are almost synonymous in the annals of Missouri. His greatest
fault was lack of accuracy. Koch excavated on the "Brashear" farm in
Benton County early in the nineteenth century and found a variety of
mastodon bones. However, his location as given by longitude and latitude
describes a point in the Atlantic Ocean. Koch's physical description of
the site places his findings on the Pomme de Terre or "Big Bone" River.
Koch's description continues: "There is every reason to suppose that the
Pomme de Terre at some former period was a large magnificent river from
one half to three quarter of a mile in width, and that its water then
washed the high rock bluffs on either side where the marks are perfectly
plain; they present a similar appearance to that of the Missouri and
Mississippi."
 UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI Excavation in progress at the Trolinger Spring Bog. |
The M. U. CREW Uncovers mastodon |
 MASTODON LOWER LEFT MANDIBLE -- Note size of hand for scale. |
 .VIEW OF RODGERS SHELTER Excavation -1967 |
 MAIN PROFILE OF SOIL STRATIGRAPHY At Rodgers |
 Main Profile showing soil stratigrahy at |
|
.VIEW OF RODGERS SHELTER Excavation -1967 |
He further describes the various' strata saying there are lots of cypress burs, wood and bark, tropical moss, palm leaves in the diggings. From the center arose a seemingly bottomless spring. These findings by early-day scientists gave evidence of a more ancient people than could be accounted for through ordinary channels. However, very little work was done until 1962 to determine the extent of an early habitation by humans or animals. Nor did the old relics at Fort Carondelet at Halley's Bluff up-river from Warsaw on the Osage, with remains of furnaces and twenty-three.. jug-shaped holes excavated in the rocks, whet the appetite of post nineteenth century explorers. Some thought they were made by Desoto on an expedition with his Spanish troops--no fragment of memory reminded that the Spanish fort, Carondelet, with its commanders, Auguste Chouteau, and Manuel Lisa of the St. Louis fur company,--was once the proud stronghold on this spot. And all traffic to the fort from the east drifted through Benton County on the reaches of the mighty Osage River.
* * *
The bones of the mammoth or mastodon have also been found on the old Charles Wickliffe farm west of Warsaw on the Osage River, where Case and Redmond took out nearly a whole skeleton and sold it to a museum for $20,000 a century ago. One tusk was said to be nine feet long. The Jeffersonian Republican newspaper (Jefferson City) it its issue of November 12, 1842, reported, "The recent discovery of bones by Messrs. Case and Redmond of Warsaw transcends anything of the kind yet offered to the public in point of number and size. The place where these bones were found is about two miles from town, and is familiarly known by the western people as a lick. The number of different heads found amounts to seventy or eighty, and the large amount of detached teeth shows that a greater number of these monsters have found a common grave in this basin." Again, from the Jefferson Enquirer of January 22, 1843: "We had last week exhibited in the State House the bones of the great Mastodon and Behemoth found in the vicinity of Warsaw, Benton County, Missouri. They were brought to the city some ten days ago by Mr. Case. He also brought a large number of bones belonging to various other animals," Other nineteenth century finds were by Drs. Sill and Crawford who displayed an interesting array of bones; also from the Wickliffe place-r-In their store on Main Street in Warsaw; and Scotchman named Cott was paid a huge sum of money for a large skeleton from the Pomme de Terre.
VARIOUS SIZES OF PROJECTILE POINTS
From the Rodgers Shelter on the Pomme de Terre River.
News of their finds spread and two Bradley brothers from Boonville moved a crew of twenty men to the "Bone Hole" in Breshears Valley
but their large quantity of unearthed bones fell to .pieces when they reached the air. The hole also filled rapidly with water despite their
efforts and the men went broke for their efforts.
* * *
The Bone Hole eventually went dry. But there are numerous
legends attached to this area on the Pomme de Terre River close to the Rodgers
Overhang now being excavated by the archaeologists. One story relates that once a couple of youngsters played around the Bone Hole With It's high,
grassy swampland filled with cat-tails and swamp iris, an isolated area where a wandering mastodon still would feel at home. When the parents
went to claim the youngsters" they found them in a state of shock and speechless. Later one told of a huge, snake-like reptile crawling towards them from the Bone Hole.
The other never regained his speech.
PROJECTILES SHOW VARIETY
More from the Rodgers Shelter south of Warsaw.
Another tale based on fact concerns the great earthquake which devastated Alaska and the whole western coast in 1961. The Bone Hole,
dry for many years , overnight filled with water, as did the dry Monegaw
Springs, once a famous health resort and only a few miles
west of the Breshears Valley Bone Hole. The water gradually ceased
flowing however, and now it is sufficiently dry for continued scientific
excavation,
* * *
Arrowheads, stone tools and other impedimenta used by man also have been found in the Bone Hole mixed with animal bones at depths
of many feet. One large tree, covered with several feet of silt, still had its bark. Its wood was a very hard substance much like walnut.
It was perfectly preserved and although some pieces have weathered since removed from the Hole two years ago, they are as firm as when
first unearthed. The tree's age has been estimated at several thousand
years.
***
Diggings this summer on Bell Island west of Warsaw in the Osage disclosed early-day habitation by humans but nothing of unusual nature.
c~
MYLDDDN
"SMALL SLOTH"
REFERENCES:
Missouri's Ice Age Animals: by M. G. Mehl, Educational Series
No.One. State of Missouri.
Indians and Archaeology Of Missouri by Carl H. Chapman and Eleanor F. Chapman.
University of Missouri Press. 1964.
History of Benton County by Jas, H. Lay 1879.
University of Missouri Department of Archaeological Research. R. Bruce McMillan,
research associate. 1969.
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