Dallas County, Missouri Genealogy Trails
Dallas County History
Dallas County.— A county in the southwest central part of the State, bounded on the north by Hickory and Camden; east by Laclede; south by Webster and Greene, and west by Polk and Hickory Counties ; area 345,000 acres. The surface of the county varies from level prairie to undulating table lands and hills and ridges.
Along some of the streams are steep, rocky hills. The country is well watered. The Niangua enters the central southern part and flows northwardly to near the center, thence eastwardly within a mile of the county line, where it again flows toward the north. The chief tributaries of the Niangua are Jones, Dusenberry and Greasy Creeks. In the western part flows the little Niangua, fed by numerous tributaries. Ever flowing springs abound in different sections of the county.
Nearly one-third of the area of the county is prairie in character; the greater part of the remainder is covered with good growths of timber, principally the different kinds of oak and white and black walnut, hickory, ash, elm, cherry, maple, sycamore and less valuable woods. The soil varies from clayey and gravelly to a rich black alluvial loam, sandy in places and nearly all of great fertility and adopted to a wide range of products.
Coal, lead, iron and limestone are the minerals found, though little effort has been made toward the development of mines.
The manufacturing interests of the country are limited to a few flouring mills, gristmills and sawmills. About fifty per cent of the land is under cultivation.
Among the exports from the county in 1898 were:
cattle, 2,850 head;
hogs, 7,675 head;
sheep, 1,850 head;
horses and mules, 200 head;
cross ties, 5,090;
wool, 5,750 pounds;
poultry, 75,865 pounds;
eggs, 225,250 dozen;
butter, 2,890 pounds;
game and fish, 4,785 pounds;
hides and pelts, 3,980 pounds;
apples, 490 barrels;
dried fruit, 6,400 pounds;
honey, 350 pounds;
furs, 1,460 pounds;
feathers, 1,030 pounds.The exports here enumerated are taken from the report of the Bureau of Labor Statistics for 1899. As all the surplus products of Dallas County are shipped from various railroad points outside the county, it is a difficult matter to get exact statistics, and it is likely that the figures here given are lower than the actual shipments.
The first settlement in the region that now is Dallas County was made on what is known as Buffalo Head Prairie. Just who was the first settler is a little obscure, though the claim that Mark Reynolds and family, natives of Tennessee, settled in 1832 on Buffalo Head Prairie, northwest a short distance from the Blue Mounds, is tolerably well authenticated. He lived on his claim for a year and then sold his improvements to Bracket Davidson, and afterward moved to land three miles west of the site of Buffalo, where he resided until his death. Soon after Reynolds settled in the county he placed a large buffalo head which he found on the prairie on a pole, where it remained for years as a way mark for hunters and emigrants, and thus the prairie became known as Buffalo Head. Soon after the Vanderford, Haines, Cox, Wright, Wilkerson and Gregg families from Ohio settled on land, and within the next few years there was a healthy increase of home-seekers from New York, Pennsylvania and other States of both East and South. The early settlers suffered many hardships and privations. Journeys of miles were made for such small things as to grind an ax, and a trip of more than thirty-five miles to Springfield for a few needed supplies was common.
The greater part of the territory now comprising Dallas County, in 1842, was organized into a county called Niangua, the name a corruption of the Indian word Nehemgar. December 16, 1844, the boundaries of the county were slightly changed and an act passed providing that all that portion of the county heretofore known as Niangua shall hereafter compose and be known as the County of Dallas in honor of Honorable George M. Dallas, of Pennsylvania, then Vice President-elect of the United States.
The commissioners appointed to locate a permanent seat of justice selected the present site of Buffalo. The tract was originally located upon by Joseph F. Miles, an Irish-American who was born in New York. He built the first house on the tract in 1839, and named the place Buffalo, after his birthplace in New York. In 1876 Miles died—a bachelor—at the age of one hundred and six years. The first courthouse was built of logs. This was burned October 18, 1863, by Confederate soldiers. Another building was fitted up for court purposes and was burned July 30, 1864, and again the building occupied by the county offices was burned September 3, 1867. The county records were destroyed in the second fire, were replaced and again burned in 1867. In 1868 a substantial courthouse was built, with fireproof vaults, and has since been in use, slight repairs having been made at different times.
The first jail was built in 1842, by Caleb Williams, at a cost to the county of $400. This is the only jail the county has ever had. Owing to the destruction of the county records, the early transactions of the court are lost to the historian.
There have been a few murders in the county, but no one has been legally executed within the county limits; in each case the accused was found not guilty, or punished by being sent to the penitentiary.
In 1846 Dallas County supplied a company of soldiers to Major Gilpin's battalion of mounted dragoons for service in the Mexican War. More than two-thirds of the residents of the county were strong Unionists during the Civil War. The county supplied a large number of soldiers to the Federal army, and a few sympathizers with the Confederacy left the county and joined the army of the South. The county was overrun with scouting parties of both the North and South, and there was considerable bushwhacking, and numerous cold-blooded assassinations of good citizens.
The courthouse and its records were burned in 1864—it is alleged—by Confederate sympathizers. Prior to 1840 schools on the subscription plan were conducted in Dallas County, and in 1868 the public common school system was inaugurated.
The first church of any denomination in the county was organized by the Methodist Episcopal denomination, about 1839, in a log schoolhouse at Buffalo. Methodist Episcopal, Baptist, Christian and Presbyterian Churches are now located in different parts of the county.
The most important matters to occupy the attention of the courts at Dallas County were the legal complications arising out of the issue of bonds by the county to assist in the building of the Laclede 6 Fort Scott Railroad, a line projected in 1869 to run from Lebanon, in Laclede County, via Buffalo, in Dallas County, to Fort Scott, Kansas. August 5, 1869, the County Court of Dallas County ordered that $150,000 in bonds be subscribed to the capital stock of the company. These bonds were issued, of the denomination of $1,000 each, bearing 7 per cent interest to be paid semi-annually, and payable in twenty years. The proceeds of the bonds were to be used entirely for the construction of the road in Dallas County, and one of the provisions was that the bonds be issued upon the completion of the roadbed from Kansas to the western boundary of Dallas County. May 18, 1871, the county court issued additional bonds to the amount of $85,000 in favor of the projected road, considered necessary to build the roadbed through Dallas County, complete bridges, etc., but it was specifically set forth that the bonds be issued when the roadbed be ready to receive the cross-ties. The bonds—a total of $235,000—were issued, but owing to the stringency in money markets in 1873, the road was never completed further than the grading of the roadbed, which was all that it was agreed to complete according to the provisions for the issue of the bonds, nor has the road ever been completed. Under the act of the General Assembly, approved April 12, 1877, entitled, "An act to authorize counties and towns to compromise their indebtedness," August 7, 1878, the county court ordered that an election be held on September 10, 1878, for the purpose of submitting to the voters a proposition to compromise $147,000 of the 7 per cent bonds, with accrued interest and judgments on past due coupons, at a discount of 22 per cent on the whole amount, by issuing new bonds, bearing 6 per cent interest, payable in twenty years, and after five years redeemable at the pleasure of the county. The election was held and of the total votes cast, 131 were in favor of the proposition and 791 against. Thus the proposition was defeated and the bonds left outstanding. Then ensued suits in the Federal courts for the collection of bonds and interest. The county court, ignoring the orders of the Federal court, refused to make a levy for the payment of the bonds, and for years avoided being served with papers of the United States Court by hiding from the United States marshals, and a number of different judges served terms in prison for contempt rather than impose on the taxpayers of the county a tax which they deemed oppressive and unjust, as no benefit had in any way accrued to the county through the company in favor of which the bonds were issued. The original bonds and accrued interest amount to more than $1,500,000. Recently efforts toward a compromise have been made, and it is expected soon a satisfactory settlement will be made of what has been such an incubus to the rich County of Dallas.
Dallas County is divided into seven townships, named respectively;
Benton,
Grant,
Jackson,
Jasper,
Lincoln,
Miller
and Washington.The assessed value of real estate in the county in 1897 was $1,150,061; estimated full value, $2,300,122. Assessed value of personal property in the county, $608,835; estimated full value, $1,217,670. There are no railroads in the county. In 1897 there were seventy-four public schools; ninety-four teachers, and 5,286 pupils enrolled. The population of the county in 1900 was 13,903.
[Encyclopedia of the History of Missouri: Edited by Howard Louis Conard; Publ. 1901; Pg. 217; Transcribed by Andrea Stawski Pack]
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