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Greene County, Missouri History
By reason of discovery the French laid claim to the whole valley of the Mississippi. Marquette, a French Jesuit Missionary from Canada, descended the Mississippi to a point below the mouth of the Arkansas in the year 1673. LaSalle made a more complete exploration in 1682, and at the mouth of the river erected a column claiming the country in the name of his sovereign, Louis XIV., of France. French missionaries founded Kaskaskia, the first permanent settlement in the Mississippi Valley, about the year 1685. Ste. Genevieve, the first permanent settlement in Missouri, was made some time previous to 1750. New Bourbon, in the vicinity of Ste. Genevieve, was likewise an early settlement. St. Louis was founded in 1764, Carondelet three years after, and St. Charles in 1769. The French possessions in the Mississippi Valley were known under the general name of Louisiana. In 1762 France ceded all Louisiana west of the Mississippi to Spain, but the Spanish authorities did not take possession till 1770. By a treaty made in 1800, Louisiana passed from the control of Spain back again to France; and in 1803 France ceded the Territory to the United States, the latter acquiring actual possession on the tenth of March, 1804.
The country was known as the District of Louisiana till 1805, when the Territory of Louisiana was erected by Congress, comprising the same limits. It embraced the present states of Missouri, Arkansas, Iowa, Nebraska and Oregon; the largest parts of Kansas and Minnesota; the territories of Washington, Montana, Idaho, Dakota, and parts of Wyoming, Colorado, and the Indian Territory. The capital was at St. Louis. The Territory of Missouri was organized in 1812, with the same boundaries. The State of Missouri was organized in 1820, and formally admitted into the Union in 1821.
EARLY SETTLEMENTS
The Delaware, Kickapoo and Osage Indians formerly inhabited this portion of Missouri, and a flourishing Indian town stood twelve miles distant from Springfield, on James' fork and White river, near the junction with that stream of Wilson's creek. It was a short distance south of the present southern boundary line of Greene county. With the Indians lived a Frenchman, who was known as Joseph Philabert. He and some associates in St. Louis carried on a trade at this Indian town for many years by which he accumulated considerable riches; and he now possesses large paying estates in the city of St. Louis. From early life he had been a pioneer, and much of his career has been passed in close association with the Indians. When the red man migrated to the Indian Territory, Philabert remained in this country. He still lives, and has his home in Stone county. He takes a great interest in the affairs of government, reads the weekly newspapers, and discusses, with earnestness, the political questions of the day. Many years have passed by since he was at any distance from his comfortable home on the banks of the White river and the James. His agent in St. Louis makes him monthly statements of his property, and this is the only care he gives to his large St. Louis estates. He is the oldest settler in southwest Missouri now living.
From year to year until about 1845, with the coming of the autumn and the falling of the leaf, the Osages and Delawares were accustomed to visit their old houses quietly and peaceably, sojourn for weeks amid the scenes where they had hunted and fished in earlier years, and then as quietly find their way back to their new homes in the Indian Territory. The improvements finally became so numerous and the pale faces so thick that they no longer found pleasure in their woodland and prairie life in their old haunts, and their visits ceased.
The neighborhood of the James in southern part of Greene county was the seat of some of the earliest settlements made within its present limits. The pioneers came up the James, and found peaceful homes amid the solitudes that lined its banks until they were compelled to remove by the occupancy of the country by the Indians. Albert G. Patterson, living on the James, eight miles south of Springfield, is now the oldest settler living in Greene county. The period when his father came to that locality dates back to 1822. His father was Thomas Patterson, a native of North Carolina, and a subsequent emigrant to Tennessee, who moved to the Little North fork of the White river in 1819, and two years subsequently followed up the course of the James river till he came to a spot which he selected as his future home. This was in the immediate vicinity of where Albert G. Patterson now lives. He brought his family in 1822, and continued to live there till the arrival of the Delaware Indians a few years later occasioned the removal of the white settlers from the territory which had been assigned to the Indians. On the migration of the Indians farther westward he moved back to the place of his original settlement. There were several families of Pattersons who were early settlers in that part of the county. Alexander Patterson, brother of Thomas, made an early settlement, and lived for many years at the place which many old settlers will recollect as the home of David Wallace. Thomas Patterson settled higher up on the James, a little above the present farm of Samuel Crenshaw. Soon afterward the James received a new settler in the person of a man named Ingle, who located at the bridge, or where the stream is crossed by the Patterson, the first mill ever erected in Greene county. Between 1823 and 1825 a man named Taggart settled in the neighborhood of the McCracken Mill. These comprised about all the white families living in the present limits of the county at the period of which we write. There were other settlers living farther down the James, in what is now Christian county.
THE EARLY SETTLERS PRINCIPALLY FROM TENNESSEE
The fact will be noticed that nearly all the early settlers of the county were from Tennessee. Many of these had been born in North Carolina, and at an early day immigrated to Tennessee, and afterward moved to Missouri. Southwest Missouri early attracted the attention of Tennessee emigrants, and the tide of emigration first started by a few families flowed on stronger and stronger till the homely and honest characteristics of the Tennesseeans impressed themselves indelibly upon the population of the county. Twenty years ago it was hard to find a resident of the county who did not hail from Tennessee. A few existed who had found their way hither from scattering states, but the great bulk of the emigration was from old Tennessee--a state which to this day is regarded with pride and affection by a large proportion of the people of the county. These emigrants were not usually possessed of much wealth or worldly goods. They were poor but honest, and had come to the undeveloped fields of southwest Missouri with the intention of earning a hard but honorable livelihood, and of founding homes which their children might enjoy after them. The pioneers were commonly from rich and wealthy counties, like Maury and Williamson, where the land was held by rich planters in large estates, and where but little opportunity existed for a poor man to secure a competence or obtain possession of any great amount of land. Maury, from which came a large proportion of families than from any other county, was one of the best counties of Tennessee--a county said to embrace as fine a body of land as can be found anywhere in the United States, with fields of unsurpassed fertility and beauty, and broad plantations yielding yearly a princely revenue to their wealthy proprietors. In such a country many of the pioneers of Greene county had passed their early lives.
taken from: AN ILLUSTRATED HISTORICAL ATLAS MAP of GREENE COUNTY, MO. Carefully Compiled from Personal Examinations and Surveys.
Published by BRINK, McDONOUGH & CO., 1876
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