Page:History of Southeast Missouri 1912 Volume 1.djvu/123

 HISTORY OF SOUTHEAST MISSOURI 63 ity of Big River Mills in St. Francois county, a settlement, was begun in the year 1796. The men who located there at that time were John Ally, Andrew Baker, Francis Starnater and John Andrews. They had marked out their claims two years earlier than this. At fii-st they did not erect houses, but lived for a time in camps. This settlement grew rapidly and soon became one of great importance. On the first day of March, 1707, Henry Fry and Rebecca Baker, two inhabi- tants of this settlement, accompanied bj' a number of their friends, set out for Ste. Genevieve; they intended to be married at that place. There was no one nearer than Ste. Genevieve who was authorized to per- form a marriage ceremony. While on their way in the vicinity of Terre Blue, they were met by a party of Osage Indians who stopped them and robbed them of everything they possessed. These circumstances compelled them to return to the settlement and post- pone the intended marriage for one year. In 1798, Reverend William Murphy, said to have been a Baptist minister, living in Tennessee, together with his son William and a friend named Cyrus George, came to Upper Louisiana and received permission from the authorities to form a settlement in St. Fran- cois county. The site chosen by them is that of the present town of Farmington: William Murphy returned to Tennessee and died while there. In 1801 other sons of William Mur- phy came to the settlement and began to open farms on the land granted to them. Sarah Murphy, the widow of the minister, deter- mined to make the trip from Tennessee to Louisiana and to take possession of the land which had been granted to her husband; this she did in 1803. The party with whom she came consisted of three sons, Isaac, Jesse and Dubart, a daughter, a grand-son, and a negro woman. The journey was made in a keel-boat down the Tennessee river and then up the Mississippi to Ste. Genevieve. It was a most arduous undertaking and it was only after very great difficulty and dangers that the party arrived at the settlement which came to be called Murphy's. Mrs. Murphy was a sister of David Barton, afterward United States senator from Missouri, and was a woman of great intelligence and force of character. She organized and taught the first Sunday school west of the Mississippi river. This was probably in the year 1807. Some others who early settled in the vi- cinity were Michael Hart and his son Charles, his son-in-law Davis F. Marks, Isaac Mitchell, Isaac Burnham, James Cunningham and John Robinson. The settlement which came to be called Cook's in the southeast part of St. Francois county, still bears the same name. The first settler here was Nathaniel Cook who came in the year 1800. Cook was a prominent and influential man, having been one of the first judges of the court of Quarter Sessions held at Ste. Genevieve and was also elected Lieu- tenant Governor of the state at the first elec- tion for state officers. He afterward resided in Madison county near Fredericktown. Others of the early settlers here were James Caldwell, William Holmes, Jesse Blackwell, Elliott Jackson, and James Davis. The first people who came to Madison county were miners and their stay was ordi- narily transitory; the first men who came to settle on a farm within the county was John Callaway, who came from Kentucky in 1799, and obtained a grant on Saline creek near the head of the Little St. Francois about the same time the sons of Nicholas Lachance set- tled on Castor creek. Their father lived at