The Missouri Connection: Profiles of the Famous and Infamous

INTRODUCTION

When French explorers Louis Joliet and Father Jacques Marquette traveled down the Mississippi River in 1673, they became the first Europeans to visit the state now known as Missouri. Nine years later, Robert La Salle canoed the length of the Mississippi River and claimed the entire Mississippi Valley for France. He named it La Louisiane (Louisiana) in honor of his king, Louis XIV.

Adventurers entered this region seeking gold and silver. Instead, they found an abundance of wildlife, fertile soil, and rivers capable of transporting their goods. Soon, both the British and French were claiming the same lands.

In 1754, the Seven Years War between France and England came to America as the French and Indian War. The thirteen colonies fought side-by-side with the British soldiers against the French. When defeated, France was forced to give up the eastern part of Louisiana to England, and the western part to its ally, Spain, to compensate for that country's loss of Florida.

Soon after, the American colonists became angry with King George III of England. They felt it was unfair for him to levy taxes to protect the newly acquired land. Even more upsetting was his ruling that they could not move further west. This led to a war of independence and, ultimately, to the formation of the United States.

When Thomas Jefferson became the third president of the United States, the nation was dependent on the rivers for the transportation of its goods. After the French, again, took possession of the Louisiana Territory in 1802, they denied Americans access to the warehouses in the port of New Orleans. Fearing that the French would close off the city entirely, some Americans considered war.

Jefferson sent representatives to France to negotiate possession of New Orleans. Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte, in need of funds to fight his war in Europe, sold the seaport along with the entire six hundred million acres composing the Louisiana Territory for $15 million (about 4 cents per acre). This area would become all or part of fourteen states—one of which was the state of Missouri.

Seeking to take advantage of the rich farmlands in Missouri, settlers from Tennessee, Kentucky, and Virginia, came with their slaves. Immigrants also arrived. While many had come from wealth, others had grown up from more humble beginnings. These diverse citizens fought in wars, started business ventures, and developed the state. Some individuals labored unselfishly, while others worked solely for their own personal gains.

It is impossible to recognize all those who made significant contributions towards the making of Missouri. I have chosen fifty individuals who are connected to the state. While many are well known, others have been more or less forgotten. Because of their contributions, each has left an imprint—a legacy for all time.

David Rice Atchison

1807–1886

U.S. President for a Day

"We are playing for a mighty stake. If we win, we carry slavery to the Pacific Ocean,

if we fail, we lose Missouri, Arkansas, Texas, and all the territories."

To ensure that Kansas would enter the Union as a slave state, Senator David Atchison supported the Kansas-Nebraska Act. He then encouraged Missouri slave-owners to settle in the Kansas Territory so they could vote for slavery. In 1854, the town of Atchison, Kansas, was named in his honor.

David Rice Atchison was born on a four hundred acre farm in Frogtown, which is now part of Lexington, Kentucky. His parents hoped their son would enter the ministry. However, after graduating from Transylvania University, he instead chose to become a lawyer.

Atchison first practiced law in Carlisle, Kentucky, in 1829. The following year, he moved to Liberty, Missouri, and set up a law practice. Although a slave-owner, Atchison agreed to represent the Mormons in land disputes with their neighbors. Since many opposed the religious group because of their anti-slavery views, he lost a number of his slave-owning clients. They worried that slavery would be abolished if the Mormons gained political control in the state legislature.

Disregarding his own pro-slavery beliefs, he protected the Mormons from the locals who continued to vandalize their shops, seize their land, and tar and feather leading church members. In appreciation for his support, the Mormons helped elect him to the Missouri General Assembly. Atchison worked hard for the passage of the Platte Purchase, which extended the northwest boundary of the state to the Missouri River. He also helped create Caldwell County as a place for the Mormons to reside.

Riots began when many Mormons moved further north in 1838. Atchison, now a general in the state militia, tried to stop the violence on both sides. After Missouri Governor Lilburn Boggs issued an order to drive the Mormons from the state, Atchison was relieved of his command because of his sympathy towards the group.

Returning to the General Assembly, he attempted to settle the issue. However, the governor refused to cooperate, and the matter was dropped. Defeated in his bid for re-election in 1941, Atchison served as circuit judge. Two years later, Governor Thomas Reynolds appointed the thirty-six-year-old to fill a U.S. senate vacancy. There, Atchison served as chairman of the Indian Affairs committee. He also sponsored land grants for Missouri railroads. It was his proposal that resulted in the first transcontinental railroad being built from St. Louis through Missouri, Kansas, and into Utah.

Well-liked by his fellow Democrats, Atchison was chosen President pro tempore in 1845. This made him responsible to preside over the U.S. senate when the vice president was absent. It also made him third in line for the presidency.

When President James Polk’s term ended on Saturday, March 3, 1849, his successor, Zachary Taylor, refused to be sworn in as president the following day because it was the Sabbath. Despite not having taken his own senate oath, many believe Atchison to have been the U.S. president that Sunday. Atchison reportedly slept most of the day. He made no claim to having been president, but did say, if I was entitled in it, I had one boast to make, that not a woman or a child shed a tear on account of my removing anyone from office during my incumbency..

Having allied with the pro-slavery Southern faction of the Democratic Party, he contributed to Senator Thomas Hart Benton's defeat for re-election. In 1854, when the Missouri legislature was unable to decide whether to appoint Benton or Atchison to the senate, he returned to his law practice, while his senate seat remained vacant for nearly two years.

During the Civil War, Atchison supported Missouri’s pro-Confederate government. While serving as a general in the Missouri State Guard, he led 3,500 troops to help defeat Union forces at the Battle of Liberty. After he and his men lost at the Battle of Pea Ridge in Arkansas, Atchison retired to the pro-Confederate state of Texas. Five years later, he returned to his farm near Plattsburg, Missouri.

After his death, Atchison was buried at Greenlawn Cemetery in Plattsburg. Although his grave marker credits him as President of the United States for One Day, it does not have a Presidential seal. There is a statue in front of the Clinton County Courthouse to honor him. In 1991, he was inducted into the Hall of Famous Missourians. Eleven years later, a museum exhibit opened in the Atchison County Historical Museum in Atchison, Kansas. Although not recognized by the U.S. government, it claims to be the country’s smallest Presidential library.

DID YOU KNOW? Joseph Smith, Jr. (1805-1844) was the founder of the Mormon religion. After escaping from jail in Independence, Missouri, Smith led his 10,000 followers, also known as the Latter-Day Saints, to Commerce, Illinois. The city was renamed Nauvoo with Smith serving as both mayor and commander of the militia. In 1844, when running as a third party candidate for president of the United States, Smith ordered that a Nauvoo newspaper critical of him be destroyed. He then declared martial law to control public outrage. Smith was jailed and later murdered. Brigham Young led most of the remaining Mormons to Utah, which was then Mexican Territory. Members of the RLDS (Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints) returned to Independence, Missouri.

Moses Austin

1761–1821

Founder of the U.S. Lead Industry

"It is not possible a country which has within itself everything to make its settlers

rich and happy can remain unnoticed by the American people."

Moses Austin's revolutionary strategies helped found lead mining in America. This gave Missouri its first major industry. Lead was important to the nation for ammunition, plumbing, painting, construction, printing, tableware, and in dozens of other ways.

Moses Austin was the youngest of eight children born to Eunice Phelps and Elias Austin in the village of Durham (Connecticut), then a part of the British Empire. At the age of fourteen, Moses was orphaned and most likely raised by his married sister, Martha Bates. After receiving an inheritance, the twenty-one-year-old started a clothing business with his brother-in-law, Moses Bates.

At the end of the American Revolution, Austin joined his brother, Stephen, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. After becoming partners with Merrill Maning, he opened a wholesale store selling goods imported from England.

In 1785, Austin married Mary Maria Brown. That same year, he expanded his business to Richmond, Virginia, opening Moses Austin and Company. Four years later, he secured a contract to put a roof on the new Virginia capitol building. Since the state agreed to pay an additional five percent for using Virginia lead, Austin purchased an abandoned lead mine. It turned out to be among the richest in the state. Stephen then joined Moses in the venture.

The two brothers borrowed heavily to bring the lead industry to America. They hired skilled English smelters (men trained to separate the ore from the metal) and paid them high salaries. Believing that President George Washington favored a tariff protecting their business from foreign competition, they increased production. To be closer to the mines, Austin built the village of Austinville (now in Wythe County). However, with the capitol roof leaking, people continuing to purchase their buckshot abroad, and their mines nearly depleted, the company went bankrupt.

After hearing of rich lead mines in Spanish Upper Louisiana, Austin secured a Spanish passport and traveled across nearly two thousand miles of wilderness to examine them. Although only a half dozen villages existed in what would become Missouri, he petitioned for 70,000 acres to manufacture his lead and to build a village that would sustain his mining year-round.

In 1797, Baron de Carondelet, governor general of the Louisiana Territory, granted Austin 7,153 arpents (4,250 acres) and permission to bring thirty families into Spanish Missouri. In return, Moses promised to develop the mines, make improvements to the area, and furnish lead shot for the Spanish army and navy.

Austin sent his nephew, Elias Bates, and eight men ahead to lay out the settlement and build a furnace, mills, and other buildings. They also were to begin sinking a mine shaft. The men lived at the nearby village of Ste. Genevieve, in order to remain safe from the hostile Osage natives.

Austin later led a group of forty, which included his family, additional miners, and slaves. Of the seventeen who survived the three-month journey, fifteen were too sick to walk off the barge. He then swore his allegiance to the Spanish crown and made his home at Mine a Breton (now Potosi, Missouri).

Using the same ore refining techniques that he learned in Virginia, Austin built the first reverberatory furnace west of the Mississippi River. (This furnace isolated the ore as it was processed.) For protection against native attacks, Austin built a fort. He also constructed a magnificent home for his family and named it Durham Hall, after his birthplace.

By 1800, Austin had produced the first sheets of lead in Missouri. He began selling his lead in parts of the West, accruing $190,000 in earnings. (From 1798 to 1817 his mine accounted for almost a quarter of the lead produced in Upper Louisiana.)

When the Louisiana Territory was transferred to the United States, Austin again became an American citizen. The new immigrants in this area increased his business. He was appointed one of five judges on the first Court of Common Pleas and Quarter Sessions for the Ste. Genevieve Court. However, when James Wilkinson became territorial governor, he tried reducing Austin’s political power to gain control of the lead-mining district.

Faced with increased competition and confusion over Spanish land grants, Austin lost most of his properties. Looking for new ways to make money, he began purchasing land around Potosi, believing it would become the new state capital. He also invested in the Bank of St. Louis, the first bank west of the Mississippi River.

In 1817, Austin turned over his mining operations to his son, Stephen, and moved to Herculaneum, a city he founded as a shipping port for his lead. When the Panic of 1819 had the banks failing and land prices falling, Austin became bankrupt, and his estate was taken over by creditors. Determined to rebuild his fortune, he rode to Tejas (Texas), then a Mexican province. With the help of his friend, Felipe Enrique Neri, Austin obtained permission to start an American colony made up of three hundred families on 200,000 acres. While returning home, he encountered severe weather, ran out of food, and was robbed. Too ill to continue his travels, Austin remained in Natchitoches, Louisiana, with his friend, Hugh McGuffin until his nephew, Elias Bates, went there to bring him back to Herculaneum.

Sick with pneumonia, Austin was unable to honor his commitment, so he asked his son, Stephen, to take his place and establish the first Anglo-American (English speaking) colony in Tejas. Austin died months later and was buried in St. Francois County. In 1831, his remains were moved to the Potosi City Cemetery. Seven years later, an undertaker was caught trying to steal Moses Austin's body for burial in Texas. Later, the Secretary of State of Texas came to Potosi to apologize.

DID YOU KNOW? When Missouri was granted statehood in 1821, nine cities competed to become the temporary capital while the City of Jefferson (Jefferson City) was being built. After the village of St. Charles pledged free meeting space, it became Missouri's first capital.

Tom Bass

1859–1934

Equestrian Showman

"I was sitting on the mares when I was no larger than a horsefly.

Tom Bass had been riding horses since the age of four. He never beat them or raised his voice, believing animals needed to be treated with kindness. Tom invented a lighter bridal bit to ease the pain that ill-fitting equipment caused when training horses. He refused to apply for a patent, wanting others to benefit from the new design.

Tom Bass was born in a slave cabin on the Bass Plantation in Columbia, Missouri. His mother, Cornelia Grey, was a teenage slave, and his father, William Bass, was the son of the plantation owners. As was the custom with slaves, he received his name from his owner, who happened to be his grandmother, Margaret Bass. She chose the name Thomas. Soon after his birth, his mother moved to the main house, leaving Tom to be raised by his grandparents, Presley and Eliza Grey.

Following the Civil War, six-year-old Tom and hundreds of other slaves on the Bass Plantation were set free. Many left, but his grandparents remained as tenant farmers. Bass quit school after finishing the third grade and worked in the stables. Noticing his son’s talent with horses, William began taking him to fairs. There, Tom listened and observed the other trainers.

At age sixteen, Bass worked as a bellhop at the Ringo House in Mexico, Missouri. He also drove the hotel's patrons to and from the railroad depot. Many noticed that Tom