History Detective

As much joy as I felt in the Jefferson Library, I doubled that when I learned that one of my presidential siblings had moved to Missouri in 1820! Now that I live near the University of Missouri libraries (oh, great joy! So many books; so little time!) I haunt the stacks and the files of the Missouri Historical Society Library!

My sibling is Joseph Jones Monroe, the youngest brother of President James Monroe. Couldn’t do a thing in his life except rack up bills that he expected his presidential brother to pay–which President Monroe did, to the detriment of his own family. Finally, enough was enough, and Joseph headed west. It was the time of the Missouri Compromise state, and it was a personal Missouri compromise between the brothers. Joseph would go west, and President James would never, ever again pay any of his brother’s bills.

Joseph went to a town named Franklin, right on the banks (literally, with no flood protection) of the Missouri River. Growing up, my high school played basketball against New Franklin, three miles away. I knew there was an Old Franklin that had been washed away by the river, but I knew nothing more than that. Imagine my delight to find that Old Franklin had been quite the kicking town! Santa Fe Trail started there; Kit Carson rebelled against his apprenticeship to a saddler and took off for parts west at age 16. The famous artist George Caleb Bingham’s father had a hotel there, and a young, 9-year-old George aided the painter of the presidents, Chester Harding, as he painted the only two portraits of Daniel Boone done from life. Ole Dan’l died before they were completed. A land office was opened there to sell all the Howard County land obtained by the Louisiana Purchase. It was a place ripe for duels and shoot-outs and lawsuits–and an Eden for lawyers. Our Joseph Monroe set up shop there, along with future governors and supreme court judges and other Missouri leaders–and Dabney Carr, a cousin of Thomas Jefferson’s brother-in-law.

Joseph’s son-in-law was a man named Edward Cabell. Edward married Harriett Forbes Monroe back in Virginia and they moved west, landing in the area before Joseph Monroe did. A prominent family, it was a Cabell who was a prime mover with Thomas Jefferson in the founding the University of Virginia. Cabells were governors and senators. Edward’s own sister gave birth to a future vice president of the United States.

Edward and Harriett moved upriver to a town named Chariton, a place where, earlier, the Lewis and Clark expedition had landed. Because the mosquitoes were so bad, they got right back in their boats and moved on! Not a good place for a town. Many of the citizens became deathly ill–or died–from mosquito-borne malaria. Chariton eventually got washed away, too. But while it existed, Chariton was the first county seat for Chariton County, and Edward Cabell was named the first Circuit Clerk, a job he held for 30 years, as well as being named the first County Clerk. In the 1880’s, their son gave a speech to an Old Settlers’ Reunion, and said that for years, his father could carry all the papers of the court around in his hat. He told that his mother had hand-sewn the first Chariton County court books from quires of foolscap.

I traveled to the Chariton County Court House to see those first records. It was truly a trip to hold those 1820 records in my hands. At first, I thought I would be disappointed. The first record book looked like something that had been professionally bound. Then I opened it. There, inside, was the index to that record book, a small foolscap booklet, handsewn. I was holding in my hands what Harriett Monroe Cabell had carefully prepared in 1820. I was holding in my hands history.