PURPOSE -- TRADITIONAL AND AUTHENTIC HISTORY -- NOT CONFINED BY BOUNDARIES -- SCOPE -- GEOGRAPHICAL -- LACK OF APPRECIATION -- ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT -- MISSOURI, THE MOTHER OF THE WEST -- MISSOURI OF THE FUTURE

The story of the beginning, development and progress of a community is always interesting; and it appeals specially to the posterity and successors of those who have gone before. Every modern community has had its "early days" of trials, struggles and successes, as well as its days of progress and achievements. Hence the story of a community like Bates county is an intensely interesting one to those who now live within her borders. The purpose of this book is to present her story as fully and completely as historical data and the recollections and memories of people now living can do it. It is a regrettable fact that much of historical worth has perished with the death of leading actors in the early days of the county; and that much of the preserved data is meager in detail, uncertain in value, and much confused by the early writers.

Much of the history peculiar to Bates county in the very beginnings of our story is so shrouded in uncertainty, and upon authority so indefinite and obscure, that it becomes difficult to separate authentic history from legend and tradition. The wonderful era of the French and Spanish fur traders, antedating the coming of the American to our soil more than an hundred years ago, can never be adequately presented by the conscientious historian; for the voyageurs kept no records and left none. All that can be said of them is what may be gleaned from the data left by their employers, and even that is limited and confusing. When we come to what may be properly called the "Pioneer days" the story becomes easier and safer, as some records and folk lore have come down to us upon which we may rely.

It will be difficult to confine this story wholly to the confines of Bates county as it exists now and has existed since its present boundaries were fixed in 1855; for much of the most interesting part of our early history occurred along the Osage, the little Osage, and the Marais des Cygnes rivers, and part of which, of course, occurred in what is now Vernon county. It is true that in the real pioneer days Bates county included all of what is now Vernon; and hence a discussion of some things which took place south of both the Osages could not be objectionable in a present-day history of Bates county. But our purpose is, as nearly as possible, to keep within the boundaries of this county, and anything of occurrences beyond will merely be excursions worth while to illumine our own history.

Notwithstanding the difficulties and perplexities involved, the writing of the story of this community, the story of the lives and accomplishments of our people and their ancestors, is a pleasant one; and we hope to do it so well that all who read these pages will thereby be pleased and profited. The scope of the work is sufficiently broad to take in everything in the life and labors of our people worth recording.

The progress of this state and county is such that we need not refer to latitude and longitude, or appeal to the Gunter's chain, to locate Bates county as it is today. It has a place "on the map," and all that need be said to locate and identify it is this: Bates county, Missouri, is a border county, joining the state of Kansas on the west, the third county south from the Missouri river in the western or border tier of counties running south to Arkansas. It joins Cass and Johnson on the north, Henry and St. Clair on the east and Vernon on the south. It lies about half way between the great Missouri river bottoms on the north, and the western foothills of the Ozarks on the south; about half way between Kansas City, Missouri, on the north and Joplin on the south. With this description any school child in the Union can locate and point out Bates county on the map. It contains 866 square miles, or 554,240 acres -- more than a half million, nearly all in a high state of cultivation, one of the very largest producers of corn, cattle, hogs, horses and mules in the state. Bates county is a little more than two-thirds the size of the state of Rhode Island. A circle drawn with Butler, the county seat of Bates county, as its center, and whose diameter is 200 miles and its radii 100, will inclose the richest and most productive area to be found on the face of the globe in similar area around any center; and this circle will touch only parts of Missouri and Kansas. It might well be called a magic circle, for its agricultural possibilities are wonderful and its mineral resources marvelous; and if the diameter and radii of this circle should be doubled the same statements of its area would still be true. Such a circle would include the very heart of this country, and Bates county lies at its center.

People who now live and own homes within 100 miles of Butler -- of the center of Bates county -- do not properly appreciate the great privileges and advantages which are theirs.

A broader view of our relation to history requires that a brief account of the state, its origin and development be given. Prior to 1763 the territory of Bates county belonged to France and was a part of that vast western empire which, wherever settled or occupied, recognized Louis XV as its king and sovereign. This ownership was predicated upon "the right of discovery" made by the French Canadians who as explorers, voyageurs, and trappers and fur dealers, had pushed far west and southwest from Canada by way of the Great Lakes on the north to the waters of the Mississippi and thence down that river, and up its tributaries, to greater or less distance.

Prior to 1763 the entire continent of North America belonged to France, England, Spain and Russia. France owned prior to 1760 all that portion west of the Mississippi river as well as all of Canada. The "French War in North America," as it is usually called, between the French and English began in 1752. and closed in 1760. This war was waged between them for possession of this continent. The French were in possession of Canada and Louisiana. They entrenched their forces on the banks of the St. Lawrence river, and near the mouth of the Mississippi and attempted by the occupation of various points in the interior to confine the English colonies to a narrow strip on the Atlantic coast. The Indians of the West became the allies of the French. The French and English both claimed the country drained by the Ohio, but it had been settled by neither. The governor of Virginia organized a force to take possession of the spot where Pittsburgh now stands; but the French beat him to it, and established there Fort Duquesne and held it until 1758. A long struggle ensued to dispossess the French. Here in 1755 Braddock was defeated and General Washington won his first renown. Then followed the battles of Ticonderoga, Crown Point, and Niagara, in 1759, all taken by the English, and the war in America terminated in the capture of Quebec by General Wolfe; but the struggle for the possession in Europe continued until, on September 8 1760, it was ceded to England. But France retained possession of Louisiana until 1762, when she ceded it to Spain, thus yielding her last foothold upon the American continent. At that time neither France nor any one else had any adequate idea of the vast territory west of the Mississippi river. It was practically an unexplored country which we know as the "Louisiana Purchase." As long as the French held it, it was called the "Province of Louisiana" and it included what is now the state of Missouri, as well as all the states west of the Mississippi, except the territory afterward acquired from Mexico and Russia and the state of Texas. Then for thirty-seven or thirty-eight years what is now Missouri was under Spanish rule, and the whole cession was known as the "Illinois country." During that time free commerce on the Mississippi became a burning question. Spain controlled both banks of the river at New Orleans and the settlers in Kentucky, Tennessee and other parts of the Mississippi valley clamored for an open way for commerce to the sea, or at least to New Orleans and the Gulf of Mexico. The point was that Spain claimed the right to close the river to all but Spanish commerce. The controversy was serious. It is not necessary to go further into this vexed question. In 1802 the Spanish intendant at New Orleans withdrew the right of deposit, and that again inflamed conditions. But about that time it became known in this country that Spain had retroceded Louisiana to France by the secret treaty of San Ildefonso two years before 1800, in return for an Italian principality to be granted to the son-in-law of the King of Spain. The doings of Napoleon in this country led President Jefferson to send Monroe to France in 1803, with instructions to buy New Orleans and the Floridas, or at least secure a port of deposit or similar concession.

When Mr. Monroe reached Paris, he discovered that Livingston, the resident minister, had completed the preliminaries of the purchase not only of New Orleans, but of the whole of Louisiana. At that time England and France were at peace, but Napoleon's continental policy, he knew, was certain to bring on war with England. On account of dangers threatening from that quarter and unexpected obstacles he was encountering in San Domingo, where the heroic resistance of Toussaint L'Ouverture was giving him much trouble and exhausting his resources, he suddenly abandoned his dreams of a colonial empire on this continent. Colonial expansion and war with England at the same time would prove too great a burden. "Napoleon, therefore, with the remorseless disregard for sentiment that made and ruined him, met Livingston's demands for concessions on the Mississippi with the proposal to sell all of Louisiana to the United States." Before Mr. Livingston could recover from his astonishment Mr. Monroe arrived, and after talking the matter over together they resolved to exceed their instructions and accept the bargain "tossed into their laps."

For $15,000,000 the United States secured all the claims of France to New Orleans and the watershed of the Mississippi on the western bank. Thus began the colonial expansion of our own government. This purchase more than doubled our material domain, settled forever the Mississippi question and hastened the inevitable advance to the Pacific.

From this it will be noticed that Missouri has twice been under the sovereignty of France and once under Spain. The history of Missouri, or the Province of Louisiana as it was known under French rule, and as the Illinois country under Spanish rule, would be interesting; but we need not go into that. At the time of the transfer from France to Spain in 1762 there was only one settlement within the bounds of the present state of Missouri, Ste. Genevieve, 1735, the oldest in the state. St. Charles was established the year of the cession, 1762, and St. Louis in 1764. Then came Carondelet in 1767, Florissant in 1776; and these seem to have been all the towns in existence at the time of the Louisiana Purchase.

Missouri was admitted as a territory by James Madison, June 4, 1812. Missouri territory then embraced what is now Missouri state, Arkansas, Iowa, Minnesota west of the Mississippi, Oklahoma, North and South Dakota, Nebraska, Montana, and most of Kansas, Colorado and Wyoming. It was admitted as a state, conditionally, March 2, 1820, by James Monroe, President; but was not formally admitted until August 10, 1821. The story of Missouri's struggle for admittance as a state is an intensely interesting one, but too long for a work like this.

It has been truly said that Missouri is the mother of all the great West. Her sons and daughters have followed the sun to the Pacific, and every state west of the mouth of the Kaw is indebted to Missouri for many of the brave pioneers who have blazed the way to statehood and greatness in the land of their adoption and settlement; and notwithstanding the stream which has flowed out to the westward the "Mother State" has waxed great and strong and fat.

Any extended eulogium upon our state would be manifestly out of place here; but it requires no great vision to see her fifty or a hundred years hence, still leading all the boundless West in commerce and material greatness, strong, prosperous and patriotic; the home of good folk then as now, and as beloved by her children of the generations to come. Her continued progress is assured. She has the love and devotion of her people; and her internal values and her external environments are guaranties of her future greatness.

Map of Bates County