history

Missouri’s Emancipation

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AN ORDINANCE ABOLISHING SLAVERY IN MISSOURI Be it ordained by People of the State of Missouri, in Convention assembled That hereafter, in this State, there shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except in punishment of crime, whereof the party shall have been duly convicted; and all persons held to service or labor as slaves are hereby declared free.

One hundred and fifty four years ago today, Missouri freed their enslaved. The State’s constitution allowed slavery with the Missouri Compromise, as it gained statehood on August 10, 1821. Many would later reflect as this was the beginning of the “War between the States” otherwise known today as the Civil War.

On January 1, 1863, President Lincoln would issue his famous Emancipation Proclamation, and the former enslaved would literally dance in the street. However, Lincoln’s Proclamation did not free those within the State of Missouri. And that would take a Constitutional Convention, of the elected officials of the State of Missouri, with a Representative from each county. That Convention convened on January 6, 1865 in St. Louis. On the opening day, the first order of business would be to elect a President to preside over this history making event, as the Convention had been called in order to deal with the issue of “Emancipation” for those enslaved.

They elected a German born immigrant, who had arrived in Missouri on November 1, 1832. His father had brought the family to America, because he had been told by his friend Gottfried Duden, about this wonderful place that was full of opportunity for a better life. Arnold’s mother died on the journey west to Missouri. Arnold would attend school in St. Charles, become an attorney, begin a German newspaper, found the town of O’Fallon, Missouri (named for his friend John O’Fallon, William Clark’s nephew, both of who were slave owners) and become a highly respected member of the Statehouse.

By the 10th of January, a new Ordinance had been written and laid upon the table to be read before the proceedings the next day. On January 11, the Convention dispensed with the rule that the new Ordinance had to be read and voted on three separated days, and allowed for all three to happen at the same instant. The first reading was held, and the vote was 60-4. With three members not present. There was some discussion, and a few words were substituted but the essence of the motion remained the same. The second reading was held, and a highly respected Unitarian minister, William Greenleaf Eliot offered a prayer for the proceedings. Drake asked that the 44th Rule be suspended and that the Constitutional Amendment be adopted. And for the third and final reading, William G. Owens from Franklin County, called for the vote, and the issue was so adopted. From that moment forward, all of those who had been born enslaved, brought to Missouri to continue their enslavement, and any in the future, would be forever free!

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Announcement, Civil War, history

Archer Alexander’s Grave is Located

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The final resting place of Archer Alexander, who was famously immortalized in the Emancipation Memorial, in Washington, D.C. in 1876 has been found. The location was unknown, and searched for by his descendant Keith Winstead for years. The funding for that memorial began when a woman in Virginia named Charlotte Scott, donated the first $5 she earned as a free woman for a monument honoring Lincoln’s proclamation. That started a fundraising effort among newly freed people that raised $16,242 — enough to build a memorial. The statue, also known as the Freedman’s Memorial, sometimes referred to as the “Lincoln Memorial”, now sits in Washington‘s Lincoln Park and depicts Lincoln standing above a former slave holding broken chains. That freed man is Archer “Archey” Alexander, who succumbed to asthma on December 7, 1880 and was buried on December 8th, in the Common Field burying ground at St. Peter’s U.C.C. Cemetery in St. Louis, Missouri, (2101 Lucas & Hunt Road) without any stone to mark his grave site. Though “his last words were a prayer of thanksgiving that he died in freedom” he would never see the beautiful monument that bears his image.

Born in Virginia, Archer Alexander is thought to be the son of Sally, a slave of David Farrell and Aleck Alecksander a slave of the Alexander family. In the early 1830s the Alexander family moves to St. Charles County Missouri, and Archer is sold first to Louis Yosti, then to Richard Pitman, son of David Pitman. Sold because he was considered “too uppity” as punishment. Archer meets Louisa, who is the nearby property of James Naylor. And although they marry, they remain separate property and have several children, all of which are property of Naylor, a German who manages a stagecoach stop further west on the Boone’s Lick Road. 

In February of 1863, Archer becomes one of America’s heroes, when he informs the Union Troops in St. Charles County, known as Krekel’s “Deutsch” that the railroad bridge has been tampered with! After overhearing his owner in conversation plotting the intrigue with his thneighbors the Campbells and McClure’s and knowing the bridge will collapse as soon as the next train passes, Archer takes bold action, and runs 5 miles north in the darkness, to warn those guarding the Peruque Creek bridge, just west of O’Fallon. Archer Alexander is the first to be suspected of having alerted and of somehow betraying this information when the bridge failed to collapse. Knowing that he was in mortal danger, Archer manages to flee to St. Louis.

“Under the best of circumstances, the best condition of slavery was worse than the worst condition of freedom—I doubt if a man or woman could be found who would exchange freedom, such as it is, for the old relation under the best master that ever lived” He thinks to himself, “Go for your freedom, ef [sic] you dies for it”. Archer Alexander. His desire for freedom allows him to reach St. Louis. There Archer meets Abigail Adams Eliot, a niece of Abigail Adams, who is the wife of a Unitarian minister named William Greenleaf Eliot. He is a radical abolitionist who hires Alexander to be his gardener and when he learns Alexander’s story, obtains an order of protection for the fugitive slave, and then attempts to purchase his freedom.
Soon, however, slave catchers make several attempts to abduct Alexander from the Eliot property- where he is under an order of protection. Three men, slave catchers threatened Alexander’s life with pistols and daggers, cruelly beat him with clubs, knocked him down, stamped upon and handcuffed him, dragged him to a wagon and carried him to jail. Eliot arranges to have Archer’s captors arrested on a military arrest warrant because what they had done was illegal, as Alexander was still under the Order of Protection. The slave-catchers, upon learning of their impending arrests, hastily flee St. Louis without Alexander. Eliot has negotiated for Alexander’s release and Alexander is freed once again when Captain Dwight issues orders for the Jail to do so.

Eliot is able then to obtain a full order of protection. But the political situation remains volatile. Though President Lincoln had issued the ¬Emancipation Proclamation in January 1863, it did not apply to slave-holding border states. In Missouri, the “peculiar institution” of slavery would 44964288_10213562349596476_1947459586436890624_ncontinue to apply until January 11,1865, when Missouri’s Constitutional Convention under the leadership of German born Arnold Krekel, signed Missouri’s Emancipation Proclamation. Archer’s son Thomas had also escaped and joined the U.S. Colored Troops, recruited under German immigrant George Senden, on Main Street in St. Charles. He would later die “in action” during the Civil War. Disease took a huge toll on soldiers, especially the Colored Troops because of the conditions that they lived under. Archer was grieved but proud saying “I couldn’t do it myself,” “but I thank the Lord my boy did it.”

Alexander is hidden in Alton, Illinois, a free state, where he works as a farmhand, saves his wages and six months later, returned to Eliot and deposited $120 in the ¬Provident Savings Bank. It was a large sum as over the same period, a Union private would only have earned $78 at best. He then sent word to Louisa, whose freedom he hopes to purchase. He wrote a letter to her owner. “My dear husband,” Louisa wrote back. “I received your letter yesterday, and lost no time in asking Mr. Jim if he would sell me, and what he would take for me. He flew at me, and said I would never get free only at the point of the [bayonet], and there was no use in my ever speaking to him any more about it. I don’t see how I can ever get away except you get soldiers to take me from the house, as he is watching me night and day.”

Eliot and Alexander worry that having now sought to leave, Louisa might be in even greater danger. “Her life wasn’t safe if they got mad at her.” But Alexander had a back-up plan: Wary of writing again, Alexander arranges for his wife and as many children as possible to escape. William Eliot, sensing slavery’s imminent demise, cautioned Archer that the few months of freedom might not be worth the risks of flight. On a moonlit night, Louisa and Nellie, the couple’s young daughter, climbed into an ¬ox-drawn cart and hid beneath the corn shucks. A horseman soon rode by. He grilled the farmer: “Have you seen Louisa and Nellie?” “Yes, I saw them at the crossing, as I came along, standing, and looking scared-like, as if they were waiting for somebody,” the farmer coolly replied. “But I have not seen them since.” Mother and daughter arrived at Eliot’s before dawn. Alexander paid the German farmer $20. Soon they were reunited with two more additional daughters.

After the war finally ended, Eliza began to yearn for her former belongings. She went to her former master to retrieve them, and suddenly took ill. She died within two days. Her belongings were sent to St. Louis to Archer. Archer eventually remarries, to Julia, who also knew how to speak German. She died September 13, 1879 and is also buried at St. Peter’s U.C.C. Cemetery in another unmarked grave in the Common Grounds.

history

Freedom of the Press

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“as long as I am an American citizen, and as long as American blood runs in these veins, I shall hold myself at liberty to speak, to write, and to publish, whatever I please on any subject, being amenable to the laws of my country for the same.” Elijah Parish Lovejoy

“I plant myself down on my unquestionable rights, and the question to be decided is, whether I am to be protected in the exercise and enjoyment of those rights,–that is the question, sir,– whether my property shall be protected; whether I shall be suffered to go home to my family at night without being assailed and threatened with tar and feathers, and assassination; whether my afflicted wife, whose life has been in jeopardy fromElijah P Lovejoy continued alarm and excitement, shall, night after night, be driven from a sickbed into the garret to escape the brickbats and violence of the mobs,–that, sir, is the question.[Here the speaker burst into tears.] Forgive me, sir, that I have thus betrayed my weakness. It was allusion to my family that overcame my feelings; not, sir, I assure you, from any fears on my part. I have no personal fears. Not that I feel able to contest the matter with the whole community: I know perfectly well I am not. I know, sir, you can tar and feather me, hang me, or put me in the Mississippi, without the least difficulty. But what then? Where shall I go? I have been made to feel that if I am not safe in Alton I shall not be safe anywhere. I recently visited St. Charles [301 South Main Street, St. Charles, MO] to bring home my family. I was torn from their frantic embrace by a mob. I have been beset day and night in Alton. And now, if I leave here and go elsewhere, violence may overtake me in my retreat, and I have no more claim upon the protection of any other community than I have upon this; and I have concluded, after consultation with my friends and earnestly seeking counsel of God, to remain at Alton, and here insist on protection in the exercise of my rights. If the civil authorities refuse to protect me, I must look to God; and if I die, I am determined to make my grave in Alton.”

Five days later, Nov. 7, 1837, a citizen mob took him at his word, beset him at his printing-office, and murdered him.

From the pages of William Greenleaf Eliot’s book “The Story of Archer Alexander“, where he writes “I am indebted for nearly all the details to several recent articles in the “Globe Democrat” of St. Louis, and in the “St. Louis Republican,” the latter of which are from the pen of Mr. Thomas Dimmock, one of the ablest editors of that well-known and influential journal.” who wrote “Mr. Lovejoy first came to St. Louis in 1827, being at the time twenty-five years of age. “Having a decided taste and talent for journalism, he naturally drifted into it, and in 1828 became editor of the long since forgotten ‘Times,’ then advocating the claims of Henry Clay. His editorial work made him quite popular with the Whig party, and might have opened the way to political advancement; but in the winter of 1831-32, during a religious revival, his views of life underwent a radical change, and he united with the Second Presbyterian Church, then in charge of Rev. W. S. Potts. Believing he had a call to the sacred office, he entered the Princeton Theological School in the spring of 1832, where he remained until April, 1833, when he received his ministerial credentials. In the autumn of the same year he returned to St. Louis, then a city of seven thousand inhabitants, and, yielding to the solicitations of many friends, established a weekly religious newspaper, called the ‘Observer,’ the friends furnishing the necessary funds, and the entire management being intrusted to him. The first number appeared Nov. 29, 1833. In the spring of 1834 he publicly announced his anti-slavery principles, and thus began the bitter warfare, which finally cost hirn his life. He was not, however, what was then popularly known as an abolitionist. He favored gradual emancipation, with the consent, compensation, and assistance of the slave-owners; and this should be considered in our estimate of the character and conduct of the man, and of those who hounded him to death.”

Post by Dorris Keeven-Franke November 16, 2018

 

 

County, history, St. Charles County

War of 1812

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Two hundred years ago, those living here in the Saint Charles District of the Territory of Louisiana, did not know that our young United States had just officially gone to war for the very first time. Without today’s internet, blogs and tweets, they were totally unaware that the House of Representatives had hotly debated the issue, behind closed doors, ending with the closest vote for war in our Nation’s entire history. For most of the United States, this war would be over the issues of trade embargoes and the impressment, the forced service of over 10,000 of our men into the British Navy. But for those living here on the frontier, it was “The Indian War”, which had started years before. The British used the Indian tribes, inciting them to slaughter, because of our expansionist activities. Britain was involved in a fierce struggle with Napoleon in Europe. Our pride would not allow us to ignore these threats to our national honor, that most viewed as a continuation of our War for Independence.

Here, the war actually began with Jefferson’s purchase of the Louisiana Territory in 1804. Quite a deal had been cut because France needed the money. Saint Charles territory stretched northwest of the Missouri River to uncharted lands. After the Corps departed that May, a trickle of settlement began. We were far outnumbered then by the Indian tribes. The Territory contained nearly the entire domain of the Sauk and Fox. We lived in constant fear of attack.

When Sauk and Fox killed several settlers north of Saint Charles, they turned over one of the warriors involved in the incident, with a petition for pardon to Governor Harrison. The result was a Treaty, in 1804, that read,

“As long as the lands that are now ceded to the U.S. remain their property, the Indians belonging to the said tribes shall enjoy the privilege of hunting on them.” Some even questioned whether the U.S. had the right to Treaty, the paper was so freshly inked. The treaty did NOT sit well with the settlers.

In June of 1805, the Federal government established Fort Bellefontaine, the first American fort west of the Mississippi River. A young man named George Sibley served as the factor’s assistant.  John Johnson from Tennessee, an avowed Indian hater, settled his family east of Portage des Sioux, about fifteen miles from Saint Charles. The settlement was growing with families like Boone, Howell and Cooper, mixing with the earlier French and Spanish. Benjamin Cooper, a friend of Daniel Boone would settle first at Hancock’s Bottom, today’s Dutzow, but soon move westward within two miles of Boone’s salt lick, or today’s Arrow Rock. This was all the Territory of Saint Charles and we made the Indians mad with all this settlement.  Acting Governor Dr. Joseph Browne gave out Military appointments in 1806 for the District of Saint Charles Militia that created 6 companies.

In 1808 General William Clark, asked for volunteers to accompany him and the Militia, under the command of Eli B. Clemson, to establish a fort and factory, Fort Osage, or Clark as referred to by some. They made 21 miles their first day, and camped near a chain of three small ponds, where Pond Fort would later be built.  In September they arrived at what would become the most western point of Military occupation by the U.S. Government and within the Territory of Saint Charles at that time. The site had been chosen by Lewis and Clark years before. Young George Sibley was appointed factor there, and the government hoped to further friendly Indian relations.

There General William Clark began to negotiate a Treaty with the Osage, which would cede nearly 200 square miles of land between the Missouri and Arkansas River to the United States. Soon it was renegotiated, and on November 10th a Treaty negotiated by Auguste Choteau added “all claims to land north of the Missouri River” another 20 million acres, for an overall total of 50 million acres. Clark and Choteau thought with this Treaty would put an end to all of our Indian problems.

But much more would be needed to co-exist with the Native Americans. KaKaGiChe, a Sauk warrior had killed a trader at Portage des Sioux, Antoine Le Page. Two Iowa braves, White Cloud and Mera Naute killed Joseph Thibault and Joseph Marechel. In November, Governor Lewis gave Orders for 370 men to organize, arm and equip for actual service, to be the militia of the Territory of Louisiana. Each officer of that detachment was ordered to furnish himself with a sword, uniform coat and hat; non-commissioned officers were to furnish themselves with a good rifle, tomahawk, scalping knife, horn and pouch, 24 rounds of ammunition, a blanket and a knapsack. All of this created a false sense of peace, while the threat of attack was just a half day’s ride from St. Charles.

Settlement was sparse, and in clusters. Attacks by the Sauk, Fox, Potowatomis and Iowa increased. They stole horses from the settlers and murdered four members of Stephen Cole’s party when they set out to retrieve them. St. Charles was incorporated in 1809, and by1810 the population of the Territory would reach 20,845 with just over 3,500 residing in our District.

George Gatty had settled west of Dardenne Creek, (near the Intersection of Mexico and Jungerman Roads) where he built a home that he quickly turned into a fort to protect his family and neighbors. His neighbor, William Becknell, would first join Daniel Morgan Boone’s company – the U.S. Mounted Rangers. Later, Daniel Morgan’s nephew James Callaway took command of them.  Becknell would join Capt.Callaway in Major Zachary Taylor’s campaign on the Sauk Indians, against the British, at the battle of Credit Island. Later Becknell would take command of Fort Clemson (a fort across from today’s Hermann Missouri) built by the Missouri Rangers on their way home from building Fort Osage. Becknell is considered the father of the Sante Fe Trail.

Other settlements were soon “forting up,” such as the home of Isaac Van Bibber, an adopted son of Daniel and Rebecca Boone. The farm of John Pitman, which he’d purchased from George Huffman, and included land previously purchased from the Cottle family, near today’s Cottleville was forted up. Capt. James White settled his family on land west of the Mississippi, east of Peruque Creek, south of the Quivre River, along the Salt River trail, and established White’s Fort. Tiny settlements ranged across the entire Territory. Settlements from Femme Osage to La Charrette to Cote Sans Dessein (near today’s Jefferson City) dotted the Missouri riverbank, and would soon become local “forts”.

The attacks increased. A newspaper report read:

“The family of Mr. Neal was killed in the district of St. Charles on the bank of the Mississippi by a party of unknown Indians; it was believed that the mischief was done by a party of Illinois … I saw the bodies, nine in number, principally females. “  Immediately after… Governor Howard sent orders to Col. Kibby, who commanded the St. Charles Militia to call out the portion of the men he had held in reserve, to march at a moments notice.”  These troops were waiting for just such a moment.

On the 3rd of March in1812, Governor Howard acting on his own authority ordered  a company of mounted riflemen raised, for 3 months, all from the District of St. Charles to be put under the command of Capt. Nathan Boone. Then he sought authorization for his actions from the President Madison. In May, word came “that a Federal Commission has come for Nathan Boone, as Captain, for a company of Rangers to be raised for 12 months.” Many of those finishing their 3 months of service eagerly rejoined for another 12. George Huffman’s son, Peter, served in Nathan Boone’s Militia, which officially was called the St.Charles Mountain Men. They earned 75c a day when serving on foot, and $1 when mounted. Boone’s log book refers to them as “Minute men.”

Back east, John Clopton, Congressman from Virginia stated:

“The outrages in impressing American seamen exceed all manner of description. Indeed the whole system of aggression now is such that the real question between Great Britain and the U.S. has ceased to be a question merely relating to commerce… it is now clearly, positively, and directly a question of our Independence.”

War was official on June 18, 1812, and some would call it the “Second American Revolution,” here it would simply be our “The Indian War.” Callaway’s Rangers included settlers from Howell’s Prairie, Pond Fort, Femme Osage and the Boone Settlement. Companies were raised by James Musick at Black Walnut, Robert Spencer at Dardenne, John Weldon of Dardenne Prairie, Benjamin Howell out on Howell’s Prairie, and Christopher Clark in Troy.

Governor Howell, advised those settlers with Benjamin Cooper out near Boone’s Lick, to move in closer to the main settlements where they could be afforded some “smallest measure of protection.”  Col. Cooper replied:

“We have made our homes here and all we have is here, and it would ruin us to leave now. We be all good Americans, not a Tory or one of his pups among us, and we have 200 men and boys that will fight to the last and have 100 women and girls that will take their places with [them]. Makes a good force. So we can defend the settlement. With God’s help we do so.” And so they did.

Closer to St. Charles the settlers gathered at Griffith’s farm, Johnson’s farm, Portage des Sioux, Royal Domaine, Wood’s Fort, Clark’s, the Peruque settlement, Price’s farmstead, Baldridge’s farmstead, Zumwalt’s Fort, Kountz’s Fort, and waited. Where ever they could, settlers created forts out of their homesteads or erected house forts. Where there were several families, cabins were erected and stockades connected them, with wells dug, protecting their livestock as well.

Further west on the frontier was Journey’s near Warrenton, Kennedy’s near Wright City, Quick’s Fort and  Talbott’s Fort were near McKittrick (now Warren County) and Isaac Best’s and McDermott’s were near Big Spring, and Jacob Groom’s near Readsville (today’s Montgomery County) . North, in today’s Lincoln County, was Buffalo Fort near Louisiana, Stout’s Fort near Auburn, Clarksville had a stockade, Fort Independence,  and Fort Mason was near today’s Hannibal.

In August, Winnebagos, Ioways, and Ottos joined nearly 100 Sauk Indians with  the British above Fort Mason, and stole horses.  A company of Rangers and Cavalry commanded by Capt. Alexander McNair were at Fort Mason at the time. With troops  commanded by Col. Nathan Boone,together they pursued the thieves that had made their way to an island on the Mississippi near Portage des Sioux,  and were about 200 yards out. When Boone and McNair caught up with them, they fled to the Island’s interior. The troop’s horses were too fatigued to swim, but McNair and his Rangers swam over and recaptured the stolen horses, after they had marched 60 miles that day.

In September, 100 Sioux attacked a settler and his wife, stole their horses and cow, which they slaughtered. Captains Musick and Price pursued the attackers in their canoes. There were said to be at least 70 of them. They recaptured the stolen beef.  Then in October, the Van Burkleo family was attacked near Black Walnut.  A member of the Militia, Van Burkleo would later serve as an interpreter at the Treaty at Portage des Sioux when the War ended.

Those years were filled with danger, and the settlers were constantly being attacked. Men were torn between serving in the Militia and protecting their families. Pleas were made to the Federal government, who the settlers did not believe were doing enough to protect them.  Its location made Saint Charles a passageway for all the Indian nations to the north, who had hunted this area for years prior to the arrival of the white man. Settlement was so scattered that communications were difficult. Just as we were the last to know of the beginning of the War, news of the Treaty ending it, at Ghent  on Dec. 24, 1814, was just as slow. Too slow, to prevent the horrible incidents that occurred next.

Here on the frontier, Daniel Boone’s grandson James Callaway, had taken command of Nathan Boone’s company of Rangers at Fort Clemson on Loutre Island. They were about to mount another campaign, so Callaway had sent many of his men home to prepare, when the alarm came that Sauk and Fox had stolen several horses. Callaway gathered his men still at the Fort and took out in pursuit westward. They followed their trail up the dry fork of the Loutre, and discovered an abandoned Indian camp, with just their horses and a few Indian women there. They retrieved their horses, and turned towards home, with some believing that to return the same way would take them into a trap. It did.  As they forded a creek, they were fired upon and Capt. James Callaway was shot. He and five other lives were lost that day.

In May, atrocities against the settlers continued, despite the events in the East. One of the worst happened when a band attacked the Ramsey family, murdering and scalping the entire family, except a two year old and an infant. The final battle here came on May 24, with the Battle of the Sinkhole, when Black Hawk and a band of Sauk attacked Fort Howard.(near Old Monroe) north of the Cuivre River. An ambush on a group of Rangers led to a prolonged siege in which seven of our Rangers were killed.

Finally, word reached the frontier about the end of the war five months before.  President James Madison called for a Treaty to be made with the Indians, and selected Portage des Sioux for the location. He appointed Gov. Wm Clark, Illinois Gov.  Ninian Edwards, and Col. Auguste Choteau to handle the affair. With the U.S. showing their strength with Col. John Miller and his Third Infantry, and almost the entire force under Gen. Daniel Bissell stationed at Ft. Bellefontaine in place, the drums began to roll. The tribes began arriving July 1st and negotiations lasted for months, with Black Hawk never signing. But the War of 1812, our Indian War, was finally over.

 

African American History

Sage Chapel Cemetery

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Near the center of the largest city of St. Charles County  sits a quiet little plot of ground that transports a visitor to an earlier time when many of its residents were enslaved people. Samuel Keithly brought his family and property to  what is today’s City of O’Fallon, in the early

Sage Chapel
a wonderful sign which was the original idea of Jim Pepper and it was constructed as an Eagle Scout Project by Jim’s grandson, Jackson Pepper.

1800s at the same time that the friends and followers of American pioneers like Daniel Boone, Jacob Zumwalt and Francis Howell were settling the area. Keithly was one of the largest slave owners in St. Charles County according to the U.S. Slave Schedules of 1850 and 1860. Among those slaves were John Rafferty and his sisters Ludy, Elsie and Lizzie according to oral history.

 

In 1855, a German born attorney named Arnold Krekel, purchased 320 acres of land on thwhich he platted a town named O’Fallon, naming it after the railroad magnate John O’Fallon in hopes that it would become a stop on the westward push of progress. He set up his younger brother Nicholas as the Station Agent and Postmaster, giving him credit as the town’s founder. This created the unlikely neighbors of the Keithlys and the Krekels, with yet one common denominator. Both Samuel Keithly and Arnold Krekel owned slaves in 1860. Yet there their stories parted. Arnold Krekel, President of Missouri’s Constitutional Convention would go on to sign its’ Emancipation proclamation ending slavery in the State on January 11, 1865.

Samuel Keithly didn’t free any of his slaves. Oral tradition states that he gave the land that we call Sage Chapel Cemetery to his slaves, where they worshiped in a field of Sage.  We do know that in 1881, his daughter Mahala and her husband Jasper Castlio legally transferred  property that included a small church building of the African Methodist Episcopal Church on today’s Sonderen Avenue and the cemetery which lay at its southern

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Preacher Jefferson Franklin Sage

terminus  to three A.M.E. Trustees. At the same time there was a traveling minister with the A.ME. Church Conference named Jefferson Franklin Sage that preached along the route of today’s Interstate 70 between the city of St. Charles and further west in Jonesburg. He would preach there for many years before moving on to Kansas in the late 1890s. And by that time, there were two other black churches along today’s Sonderen Street, where a large African-American community lived.

Wishwell Baptist Church was begun in 1891 and was a plant of Hopewell Baptist Church that had begun in the 1850s south of Wentzville on the Boone’s Lick Road. Wishwell was near the creek, on the east side of Sonderen, close to Sage Chapel Church. The other African-American Church was Craven’s Methodist, begun in 1871, near the corner of Elm and Sonderen. Next to Craven’s, on the corner, was the town’s African-American school, and across the street was the “Colored Odd Fellow’s” lodge that met in Willis Thornhill’s house until Henry Obrecht purchased the property in 1910. All of these lay on today’s Sonderen Avenue, which ran north to south from the Wabash Railroad to Sage Chapel Cemetery near the former Keithly plantation. This was also the dividing line between the property of the Krekel Addition and the former Keithly’s until 1951 and the City’s annexation of property. This was the line for  segregation.

Even though all three of these African-American Churches are no longer standing, and the buildings that once housed the black school and the Odd-Fellows lodge are largely

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O’Fallon residents

remodeled, Sage Chapel Cemetery still exists. Significant in today’s world where such places are so often lost and forgotten. A peaceful and quiet testament to a difficult time and such families as Hayden, White, Edwards, Thomas, Rafferty and Ball. While many of the community of African Americans left O’Fallon in the late 1950s and early 1960s in search of better job opportunities for their families, some remained. And while many of Sage Chapel’s residents died living in St. Charles, St. Louis or even as far as New Orleans,  they were brought home to Sage Chapel when they passed. Eventually all three churches would use Sage Chapel to bury their families.

Today the City of O’Fallon sees that the grass is cut, trees cut and that Sage Chapel is well maintained. The City truly understands that this place has a collective memory that is an  integral part of its’ City’s rich history. Its’ Historic Preservation Commission shares in this mission and is working to see that Sage Chapel is preserved for future generations.

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Ceremony for the laying of a new memorial for Veteran Howard Morris

Members of the community are working to see it placed on the National Register of Historic places. One of the largest cities in Missouri, O’Fallon is setting an example of how to honor its history, even the more difficult stories. This in turn leads to a greater understanding and a richer dialogue for everyone. Thank you O’Fallon, Missouri, a great place to live!

Today research tells us that Sage Chapel Cemetery has 38 marked burials, yet is estimated to have an  115 grave sites on this small one acre which lies next to O’Fallon’s Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 5077 at 8500 Veterans Memorial Parkway in O’Fallon, Missouri. It is estimated that nearly twenty percent of its burials were former slaves. To watch a video by O’Fallon’s Communications about Sage Chapel Cemetery CLICK HERE.

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Phyllis Hayden meets her new relative George Abington

 

 

 

African American History, German-American, O'Fallon History

Arnold Krekel

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On January 11, 1865, Arnold Krekel, serving as the elected President of the Missouri Constitutional Convention signed Missouri’s Emancipation Proclamation thereby ending the enslavement of all African American’s in Missouri. The Krekel family were part of the huge wave of German immigrants that came in the 1830s. Their journey was a difficult one. Arnold Krekel’s brother Nicholas recalled the journey “In the fall of the year 1832 we sailed from Bremen. It took about three months, we landed at New York, went up the Hudson River to Albany, and from Albany to Erie by canal. Intending to go to Cleveland Ohio from there and to Missouri. On arriving at Erie, there was so much ice in the lake that we could not make the trip, so we went overland to Pittsburgh Pennsylvania, a distance of 160 miles. Mother, my sister Katherine (11 years), myself (Nicholas Krekel) rode in the wagon. Father, my three oldest brothers, Godfred [sic], Arnold and Frank walked. On this overland trip my mother took cold which continued to get worse when coming down the Ohio River, so we landed at Louisville, Kentucky to get medical assistance and religious consolation. She died there on December 14, 1832 and was also buried there. Three years later Arnold went there to find his mother’s grave but the city had been built beyond it. The voyage across the Ocean took 9 weeks, the overland trip from Erie to Pittsburgh took about 3 weeks. After her burial we continued our way to St. Louis. On arriving there we put up at the William Tell house on Main Street, a two-story stone building.” 

Germany

Arnold Krekel was born in the small village of Berghausen, by Langenfeld in the Rhineland “near Cologne on the Rhine” and was seventeen years old when he made the journey. Born on March 12, 1815 to Franz Leonard Krekel (1783-1862) and Maria Catherine Schumacher (1779-1832), he was their second son in a family with nine children. His family would settle in the far southwestern tip of St. Charles County near Dutzow, a small German village in Warren County, where Gottfried Duden had lived. Duden was a friend of Arnold’s father and had authored A Report on a Journey to the Western States of North

Gottferied Duden
A Report on a Journey to the Western States of North America

America in 1829, inspiring thousands of Germans to immigrate to the U.S.

Missouri

There his father purchased U.S. Congress land from the government, and purchased a house built by a previous squatter. While his oldest brother Gottfried, a farmer, purchased adjoining land, Arnold was turning eighteen and would strike out in new directions and make changes in the world. He would first attend the St. Charles College in the old city of St. Charles, fifty miles away, where he would meet the Americans. This was a school filled with the “old families” wealthy with property and slaves. There his connections with society began, as he studied law. Familiar with the process of surveying, he also grew his network of those actively involved in the growing city.

His religious views took him in another direction as well, as a member and one of the original 36 members of the Friends of Religious Enlightenment in 1838. The 29-year-old man was a member of the Association of Rational Christians, or Frei Denkers (Free Thinkers) in 1845 when Friedrich Muench performed his marriage to 28-year-old German born Ida Krug. Her father, was a wealthy physician in the Dutzow community, who had come with the huge Giessen Emigration Society back in 1834. They began married life in St. Charles where Arnold had already taken an active role. He had been elected a Justice of the Peace in 1841, and as a surveyor, and lawyer, he was involved in property deals all over the area. After his friend William Eckert died in 1845, former Secretary of State William Pettus had hired him to survey Eckart’s land. Eckert was the son-in-law of Francis Smith, whose estate Krekel would purchase 320 acres of land from ten years later.

Arnold’s law career began in St. Charles after being admitted to the Bar in 1845. As the City’s attorney and prosecuting attorney this brought him into close connection with theth City’s rapidly expanding and prominent population.  In 1852, Krekel is a rising star, as he wins the race for a seat in Missouri’s House of Representatives, the first German to be elected to Missouri’s House.  He had run a campaign using his newly created newspaper, Der Demokrat, which was the first German newspaper in St. Charles County. While Krekel’s business associates were wide, he was still very proud of his German heritage and his closest friends, like Friedrich Muench and Emil Pretorius were examples. In 1853, he attended the North Missouri Railroad Convention in St. Charles, where St. Louis businessman and philanthropist John O’Fallon was also in attendance. On August 6, 1856, he surveyed and laid out a plat of a town on the 320 acres he had purchased from Smith, calling it “O’Fallon” hoping that the North Missouri Railroad would create a station. The need for wood and water at certain distances were necessary for the engines. And the U.S. Postal Service had announced that station stops would also be the locations for Post Offices.

Arnold established his younger brother, Nicholas, as the first resident of this new town of O’Fallon, with a house and property of his own.  Nicholas served as the town’s founder, Postmaster and the Station Agent for the railroad all the while running his own mercantile. Nicholas would later oversee the Public sale of the lots in O’Fallon, on July 22, 1870. It was the intention of Nicholas and his wife Wilhemina (nee Moritz) to see the Catholic Church established in O’Fallon. Arnold was busy elsewhere as he had been nominated for the office of Missouri’s Attorney General in 1856.

Slavery

As the state headed for the crisis over slavery, Krekel the abolitionist was a radical voice and leader among the Germans. The U.S. Slave Schedule shows him to have one thirty-

1860Slaveowner
1860 U.S. Slave Schedules for St. Charles County, Missouri

year old male mulatto living in the household in 1860, but he was not alone in this regard, as there were several German families in St. Louis, St. Charles, Warren and Franklin Counties that also owned or rented their servants as well. Most were of the belief, that until the practice of slavery was abolished, they could provide a much better living environment for the African-Americans than they would encounter in the south.  He attended the Republican National Convention in May of 1860 with his friend Muench, where Germans were the only foreign born were in attendance. This gave the nomination to Abraham Lincoln for President. Up until that time, Krekel like many other German immigrants, were Benton Democrats in their politics, but the parties had shifted with the issues of immigration and slavery. In 1861, Krekel was appointed Provost Marshall for St. Charles, Warren and Lincoln counties. Provost Marshalls were established only where the local government was either failing to or refusing to meet the needs of the local citizens. Things were in turmoil and one of the most striking acts was when members of the Board of Directors of the same college where Arnold had been a student, and studied law, the St. Charles College, refused to take an Oath of Allegiance. Krekel threw out the entire board and turned the school into a hospital – for Union Troops in December of 1862.

Krekel was serving as a Colonel in the Enrolled Military Militia. His troops’ career is storied with unfortunate events that are best explained in the annals of a war that rocked the country. His Home Guards, was where his involvement brought Germans into action at the Camp Jackson affair in April of 1861. The Union soldiers managed to secure the Arsenal and rifles that could have fallen into southern hands.  His troops were next called into action as Federal troops in July 1861, and while away in maneuvers in western Missouri, Krekel’s troops were accused of marauding Confederate sympathizers’ homes. Back in St. Charles County, his troops were placed in charge of guarding the crucial Peruque Creek bridge, just west of O’Fallon, which enabled vital rail transport.

emancipationproc
An Ordinance Abolishing Slavery in Missouri

Arnold’s younger brother Nicholas, who had served in the Mexican War, was a Captain in the Home Guards, back in O’Fallon.

In 1862, Arnold served as Vice President of the State’s Radical Emancipation Convention. Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863 did not cover Missouri because it was a “slave state” and one of three that did not secede from the Union.

When the Civil War began, Missouri’s plans for gradual emancipation infuriated the Radical Republicans, who wanted slavery abolished immediately. They took their grievances to Lincoln, who refused to take sides in Missouri’s politics, which infuriated them even more. Provisional Governor Gamble offered to resign, but the First Constitutional Convention would not accept it. Gamble died in office on 31 January 1864. Missouri’s radicals arranged for elections and for a new Constitutional Convention in November 1864, where they elected Thomas C. Fletcher Missouri governor.

Constitutional Convention of 1864

Arnold Krekel, a Democrat, was elected President of the new Constitutional Convention that convened in the Mercantile Library in St. Louis on January 6, 1865. On January 11, 1865 the convention, by a 60 to 4 vote, abolished slavery in the state with no compensation for slave owners. A month later the convention also adopted the 13th Amendment to the United States Constitution to abolish slavery throughout the U.S..

On March 31, 1865, shortly before his assassination President Lincoln appointed Arnold Krekel as Federal Judge for the Western District of Missouri. On September 17, 1866, Arnold who was long a proponent for public education, would help establish Lincoln University, Missouri’s first African-American college. For more than ten years, Krekel and his family lived in Jefferson City where he would lecture at the University for free. He was a member of the Board of Directors, and elected President of the Board in 1883. From 1872 until 1887, he also taught at the newly established School of Law at the University of Missouri, in nearby Columbia. He served as a Federal Judge for 23 years, and only retire when his health began to fail.

The family would continue to live in Jefferson City for many years. There his wife Ida,

historic-home-built-in
Arnold Krekel’s home is Cliff Manor Inn Bed & Breakfast today, at 722 Cliff Street, Jefferson City, Missouri

mother of his six children, Laura, Alfred, Franklin, Hilma, Alma and Walter, passed away in 1870. They had lost two sons as young children, Walter when he was two, and Franklin at age 6. By 1880 he had gone to live with his oldest daughter, Laura, who had married Louis Schmidt, still in Jefferson City.  In November, Arnold at age 65, remarried to Mattie Perry of Kansas City.  Early in 1888 Krekel resigned his Judgeship because of illness, and he and his wife had moved to Kansas City. In July of 1888, Arnold Krekel passed away from Bright’s Disease, a kidney ailment, in Kansas City. His body was brought home to Saint Charles by his brother Nicholas and was laid to rest in the City’s Oak Grove Cemetery. A German emigrant’s amazing career was memorialized by his close friend Emil Pretorious as many mourned his loss.

 

Sources for this post are Krekel family papers, Dictionary of Missouri Biography and Crossroads by Steve Ehlmann.

German-American, O'Fallon History

Nicholas Krekel founds O’Fallon

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The third in a continuing series on the Krekel family of O’Fallon: “In the fall of the year 1832 we sailed from Bremen. It took about three months, we landed at New York, on the ship Isabella, on November 1st, 1832. We went up the Hudson River to Albany, and from Albany to Erie by canal. Intending to go to Cleveland Ohio from there and to Missouri…The voyage across the Ocean took 9 weeks, the overland trip from Erie to Pittsburgh took about 3 weeks …During the high water of June 1844 I was working for Steven Hancock who lived in Hancock’s Bottom in a double log house later owned by the Kunsels [Kuenzel] next to Anton Reuther’s farm. (Nicholas Krekel to his daughter Bertha Krekel)…

Germans began arriving in Missouri in 1830 due to a small book written and published by Gottfried Duden called A Report on a Journey to the Western States of North America. Nicholas’ father personally knew Duden and first settled adjoining a parcel of his land when the family arrived in Missouri. The father settled his motherless family at the far southwestern corner of St. Charles County near Dutzow. There the children grew up near the village and were members of the Catholic church known as St. Peter and Paul, now St. Vincent de Paul. It sits atop the hillside not far from his childhood home. The oldest son Gottfreid would purchase land that adjoined his father’s only in Warren County.  Arnold would pursue his dreams in St. Charles. (See https://stcharlescountyhistory.org/2018/02/26/arnold-krekel/) and Nicholas would grow up working for his father, then pursue his military duty and become a veteran of the Mexican War. He would return home and work in north St. Louis County which is where he most likely met his future wife.

O'Fallon Plat
Original Plat of O’Fallon in the St. Charles County Recorder of Deeds (Justin Watkins and Dorris Keeven-Franke presented January 9, 2018 to the O’Fallon Historic Preservation Commission and the City of O’Fallon)

 

From the Journal of Nicholas Krekel and his daughter Bertha Krekel

Nicholas Krekel to his daughter Bertha Krekel: Wilhelmina Moritz and I were married

KR1020
Wilhelmina Moritz Krekel

 

August 15, 1857 at St. Louis coming to O’Fallon Missouri shortly after, where I had built a home, having come here on August 6, 1856”. 

Nicholas Krekel was an enterprising young man, building a home to bring his young wife to within a year. Wilhelmina “Mena” Moritz was the daughter of Casper and Sophie Moritz. Born in Bielefeld, Germany, July 17, 1838, she and her family came to America by way of New Orleans during the 1850s, and her family was living in Florissant then. This  was a strong Catholic community that had begun coming to America in 1833, and most likely had many families that had connections all the way back to Germany.

Mrs.N.KrekelThe Krekel’s first child was a daughter who they named Emma, born in 1858. Nicholas had been appointed Stationmaster on the North Missouri Railroad* which began in 1851. Soon after Nicholas was appointed Postmaster of O’Fallon on February 11, 1859, as all Station Agents were also Postmasters. That Christmas their next daughter Bertha was born. And by 1860, he was well on his way to establishing himself as a merchant and running the town’s new Post Office. A young 17 year-old German girl from Hannover named Donetta Kipp was a servant in their home.

In 1861, Nicholas had joined the Union Army, and was serving in Missouri’s Home Guard, in Captain Newstadter’s Company H, as a Private. His brother Arnold, who was a Lt. Colonel in the Home Guard, was not well liked either by some of the Krekel family’s neighbors, and this story which was shared in the Keithley family papers at the St. Charles County Historical Society andKE1018(1) recounts a day in the life of O’Fallon during the Civil War: “They marched in front of us, on the road that ran past the house, and they did this regular patrol almost every day.” The Keithley farm was “on the main road” (today’s Main Street). They were known as Krekel’s “Deutsch” and “southern sympathizers like the Keithleys had very little respect. Never the less “Krekel was and there were more Union sympathizers in the O’Fallon area than Southern. He had the perfect right to march his contingent, up and down certain roads. Virtually every morning they did that march.” We are not sure which Krekel brother Julia Darst is sharing a story about since Nicholas held the rank of Private, and Arnold attained Lt. Colonel. She is either elevating one brother or demoting the other!

One day, Aunt Duck (Julia Darst) had gone upstairs to make the beds, and she looked out the window and saw Krekel’s army marching down what they considered “their road” and  with a wicked impulse and not thinking she raised the window and yelled “Hooray for Jeff Davis”!  Well of course the soldiers all looked up to see who would have the nerve to say such a thing! Grandmother Keithley heard and came running. She was terrified that Krekel would be furious and come for the only male resident, the youngest son in the Keithley home. Of course, they didn’t stop. Apparently soon all was forgotten.

KrekelsDepot“O’Fallon, thirty-three miles from St. Louis, is a small town, first settled in 1856.  It has a population of about 100.  It has two dry goods and a grocery store, a hotel, boarding house, steam flour mill, brick yard, broom factory, depot and stock yard, post office and express office.  Farmers do well here, and there is a good chance for all kinds of manufacturers.” (http://www.ofallonmohistory.org/HistoryPage4.html) After the close of the Civil War, O’Fallon would grow rapidly around the stately two-story home of the Krekel family. Today the Krekel home has beenrenovated and brought to life once again by  Jason and Jessica Orf, and is Cleo Bridal Shop.

I would like to thank John Griesenauer and all of the members of the Krekel family who have been sharing their personal family history, Jason and Jessica Orf for allowing me to share their progress, and Jim Frain with his wonderful collection of O’Fallon photos.

*The History of St. Charles, Montgomery and Warren Counties” was first published in the 1870s when the North Missouri Railroad had become part of the St. Louis, Kansas City and Northern Railroad, just as the Wabash, St. Louis & Pacific had, which is the name the County history gives to the O’Fallon Railroad. Both these railroads became part of the Wabash, St. Louis & Pacific, which ultimately became the Wabash Railroad System in 1889.

 

Augusta History, German-American, O'Fallon History

Coming to America

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In the decade of the 1830s alone over 120,000 Germans immigrated to America, and one-third of those settled in Missouri. Those are the emigrants that made it. Thousands would not survive the journey at sea or the difficult overland trek westward.

Nicholas Krekel: “In the fall of the year 1832 we sailed from Bremen. It took about three months, we landed at New York, went up the Hudson River to Albany, and from Albany to Erie by canal. Intending to go to Cleveland Ohio from there and to Missouri. On arriving at Erie, there was so much ice in the lake that we could not make the trip, so we went overland to Pittsburgh Pennsylvania, a distance of 160 miles. Mother, my sister Katherine Nicholas Krekel(11 years), myself (Nicholas Krekel) rode in the wagon. Father, my three oldest brothers, Godfred [sic], Arnold and Frank walked. On this overland trip my mother took cold which continued to get worse when coming down the Ohio River, so we landed at Louisville, Kentucky to get medical assistance and religious consolation. She died there on December 14, 1832 and was also buried there. Three years later Arnold went there to find his mother’s grave but the city had been built beyond it. The voyage across the Ocean took 9 weeks, the overland trip from Erie to Pittsburgh took about 3 weeks. After her burial we continued our way to St. Louis. On arriving there we put up at the William Tell house on Main Street, a two story stone building.” 

Of the forty thousand immigrants that arrived in Missouri in the ’30s, at least one-fourth of those Germans chose the city of St. Louis. The city’s population grew from approximately 15,000 to 35,000, meaning that half of that growth was by Germans alone. The city’s Germans were often affluent and educated, supporting six German newspapers. The sound of German voices filled the air and it was said one could spend the day and never hear a word of English.

“From there we came to St. Charles and were there during the Christmas holidays and New Year. A man from the western part of the county named Cashew and his son named Jackson were there with a team of four horses having been to St. Louis. They took us to our new home. While looking about for a location we stopped with a man named Bonet, a bachelor that made spinning wheels (the place was later owned by the Braehus family) he showed my father a piece of land owned by the government on which a man named Wood had built a log house. After looking at the land which was covered with heavy timber my father went to St. Louis where the land office was and bought it for the sum of $__for ____ acres. He paid the man Wood $9 for the log cabin that was on it, he seemed well paid and settled further towards Warren County”

Warren County had been carved out of Montgomery County in 1833. St. Charles County which had been created out of the St. Charles District of the Louisiana Territory in 1812 had stretched to the Pacific Ocean until the counties like Montgomery and Franklin werecropped-cropped-1823-missouri.jpg created in 1818. At least 30,000 German immigrants chose to go west in the 1830s, settling in St. Charles, Warren, Franklin and Gasconade counties. They settled along the Missouri River valley creating the towns of Dutzow, Dortmund and Hamburg. They helped the town of Washington grow and become a German town. They turned The Philadelphia Settlement Society into the German town of Hermann.

“The name of the vessel we came to America in was Isabella. Two years later Anton Hoester’s father and family came over in the same vessel. In the year 1835 it was wrecked at sea. Before leaving Europe my father had decided to settle in this neighborhood. A criminal Judge named Duden with whom my father was personally acquainted had come to America several years previous and wrote such favorable letters to Europe that my [father] thought well of this country”

In 1829, Gottfried Duden published A Report on a Journey to the Western States of North America and a Stay Along the Missouri (During the years 1824, ’25,’26., 1827). dudenBorn in Remscheid in 1789, the young attorney had lived with the farmer Jacob Haun, even though he had purchased a large parcel of land himself. Observing the life of the “American farmer” and describing the life of Missouri’s earliest residents Duden described a place where freedom and opportunity were almost taken for granted, causing some Germans to decry Duden’s description as an impossible fairy tale.

“On our way there through St. Charles County we passed prairie lands that now are fine farms, but we were under the impression that where no trees grew, no vegetables would grow. So we settled in the dense forest and it took several years of hard labor to clear the land, burn the logs and the brush. Many large walnut trees were cut and burned.”

Duden’s farm was approximately 50 miles west of St. Louis on the eastern edge of Warren County adjoining St. Charles County, near the Missouri River. In 1832, a group of Germans often referred to as “the Berlin Society” made the first German settlement in Missouri when a town named Dutzow was established here. The village is named after the former estate in Germany of its founder, Johann Wilhelm Bock and adjoins Duden’s farm to the south.

“In sight of our home in Germany was the home of Carl Deus. Carl’s father was a brewer, distiller and coal merchant. The family was quite wealthy and of high social class.”

The conditions in Germany were desperate following the Napoleonic War, leading to overpopulation and famine. Revolutions were stirring among the students, and hundreds of such books as Duden’s were being written about Russia, Brazil, and England as places to immigrate to.

“In the year 1832 when Carl’s father heard that our family intended going to America he asked my father to wait until ’34 when there was a colony coming over, but my father was of a disposition not inclined to subject himself to anothers’ dictation so came alone with his family”

The Giessen Emigration Society  was founded by friends of the Krekel family, Paul Follenius and Friedrich Muench, whose farms adjoined Duden’s to the north. Their arrival in Missouri in July and August of 1834 brought over 500 Germans who settled all over St. Charles County, including St. Paul, Cottleville and St. Charles. By 1850 St. Charles County was over 50% German with many of them being established second generation families.

Next: Life of a German Immigrant Family

This is the voice of Nicholas Krekel and the story as told to his daughter Bertha Krekel. He was the founder of O’Fallon, Missouri, born in Germany on August 30, 1825 and emigrated with his family to America in 1832. The story was shared in his final years just shortly before his death. The journal has been graciously shared with me by a descendant, John Griesenauer. The author extends her utmost appreciation for allowing her to share this wonderful piece of family history.

 

African American History, Civil War, German-American

Missouri’s Slaves Emancipated

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On January 11, 1865, Arnold Krekel signed the Missouri Constitutional Conventions Proclamation ending slavery here in Missouri.  Krekel, was born in Germany in 1815, served as President of Missouri’s Constitutional Convention when slavery was abolished in Missouri on January 11, 1865. He emigrated with his family to Dutzow, Missouri in November of 1832. The young man moved to searchSt. Charles and attended the  St. Charles College where he studied law. He worked as a surveyor and became a Justice of the Peace as well. In 1844 he graduated the bar and opened his law office. Krekel became the St. Charles County and city attorney from 1846 to 1850. He was elected to the Missouri House of Representatives in 1852. In 1855, he purchased 320 acres of land, and platted the town of O’Fallon. There his brother Nicholas Krekel, built the first house, and established the town’s Post Office. They established O’Fallon as a town on the Wabash Railroad, with Nicholas the agent.

Krekel Addition

 

Arnold Krekel was editor of the St. Charles German newspaper, Der Demokrat from 1850 until 1864, and when the Civil War began, Krekel served in the Union Army, as Lt. Colonel of a regiment of Missouri volunteers. When the Civil War began, Missouri’s plans for gradual emancipation infuriated the Radical Republicans, who wanted slavery abolished immediately. They took their grievances to Lincoln, who refused to take sides in Missouri’s politics, which infuriated them even more. Provisional Governor Gamble offered to resign, but the First Constitutional Convention would not accept it. Gamble died in office on 31 January 1864. Missouri’s radicals arranged for elections and for a new Constitutional Convention in November 1864, where they elected Thomas C. Fletcher Missouri governor.

Constitutional Convention of 1865

Arnold Krekel, a Democrat, was elected President of the new Constitutional Convention that met in the Mercantile Library in St. Louis on January 6, 1865. On January 11, 1865 the convention, by a 60 to 4 vote, abolished slavery in the state with no compensation for slave owners. A month later the convention also adopted the 13th Amendment to the United States Constitution to abolish slavery throughout the U.S..

On March 6, 1865, Krekel was nominated by President Lincoln to the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Missouri, and confirmed on March 9, 1865. Krekel later taught law at the University of Missouri Law School in Columbia from 1872 to 1875, and continued to as a Judge for the Court until his retirement on June 9, 1888.

 

EmancipationProc

County History

War of 1812 Begins

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When Saint Charles County Would Be the Last to Know of War

In 1812, over two hundred years ago, those living here in Saint Charles, in the Saint Charles District of the Territory of Louisiana did not know that the United States had just officially gone to war. The Territory in 1812 was was virtually uncharted, stretching all the way to the west from the Mississippi and everything to the north of the Missouri. Without today’s internet, blogs and tweets, the residents were totally unaware that the House of Representatives had hotly debated the issue (behind closed doors) ending with what would become the closest vote for war in our Nation’s entire history. For most of the United States, this second war with the British would be over the issues of trade embargoes and the impressment, the forced service of over 10,000 of our men into the British Navy. These issues were of no matter here.

For those living here on the frontier this was the “Indian War” which had really begun with the purchase of the Louisiana Territory in 1804. The British used the Indian tribes, inciting them to slaughter because of our expansionist activities. Quite a deal had been cut for the purchase because France needed the money for their fight with the British. Here we were far outnumbered by the Indian tribes.

In June of 1805, the Federal government established Fort Bellefontaine, the first American fort west of the Mississippi River. A young man named George Sibley served as the factor’s assistant.  John Johnson from Tennessee, an avowed Indian hater, settled his family east of Portage des Sioux, about fifteen miles from Saint Charles. The area was growing with families like Boone and Zumwalt, mixing with the earlier French and Spanish, like Saucier and Pujols.

In 1808 General William Clark, had asked for volunteers to accompany him and the Militia, under the command of Eli B. Clemson, to establish a fort and factory. Young Nathan Boone who worked with James Morrison at the Boone’s Lick knew the region well would become their overland guide on what would become the Boone’s Lick road. The fort’s site had been chosen by Lewis and Clark years before. Young George Sibley became the administrator, known as the “factor”, as the government hoped this would further friendly relations with the Osage, the largest tribe. Nathan Boone negotiated a Treaty with the Osage there which would cede nearly 200 square miles of land between the Missouri and Arkansas River to the United States which soon became “all claims to land north of the Missouri River” another 20 million acres, for an overall total of 50 million acres. The U.S. Government thought this Treaty would put an end to all of our Indian problems.

url-2But much more would be needed to co-exist with the Native Americans. KaKaGiChe, a Sauk warrior had killed a trader at Portage des Sioux, Antoine Le Page. Two Iowa braves, White Cloud and Mera Naute killed Joseph Thibault and Joseph Marechel. In November, Governor Lewis gave Orders for 370 men to organize at St. Charles. They were to arm and equip for actual service, to be the militia of the Territory of Louisiana. Each officer of that detachment was ordered to furnish himself with a sword, uniform coat and hat; non-commissioned officers were to furnish themselves with a good rifle, tomahawk, scalping knife, horn and pouch, 24 rounds of ammunition, a blanket and a knapsack. All of this created a false sense of peace, while the threat of attack was within a half day’s ride from St. Charles.

[See St. Charles County War of 1812 VETERANS ROLL]

Settlement in the territory was sparse, and in clusters. Attacks by the Sauk, Fox, Potowatomis and Iowa increased. They stole horses from the settlers and murdered four members of Stephen Cole’s party when they set out to retrieve them. When St. Charles was incorporated in 1809 (the same year as St. Louis)   the population of the entire Territory was 20,845 with just over 3,500 residing in our District, and a few hundred in St. Charles.

Indian attacks were increasing. A newspaper report read “The family of Mr. Neal was killed in the district of St. Charles on the bank of the Mississippi by a party of unknown Indians; it was believed that the mischief was done by a party of Illinois … I saw the bodies, nine in number, principally females. “  Immediately after… Governor Howard sent orders to Col. Kibbe in St. Charles, who commanded the St. Charles Militia to call out the portion of the men he had held in reserve, to march at a moments notice.”  These troops were waiting for just such a moment.

On the 3rd of March in1812, Governor Howard acting on his own authority ordered  a company of mounted riflemen raised, for 3 months, all from the District of St. Charles to be put under the command of Capt. Nathan Boone. Then he sought authorization for his actions from the President Madison. In May, word came “that a Federal Commission has come for Nathan Boone, as Captain, for a company of Rangers to be raised for 12 months.” Many of those finishing their 3 months of service eagerly rejoined for another 12. George Huffman’s son, Peter, served in Nathan Boone’s Militia, which officially was called the St.Charles Mountain Men. They earned 75c a day when serving on foot, and $1 when mounted. Boone’s log book refers to them as “Minute men.”

War was official on June 18, 1812. Callaway’s Rangers included settlers from Howell’s Prairie, Pond Fort, Femme Osage and the Boone Settlement. Companies were raised by James Musick at Black Walnut, Robert Spencer at Dardenne, John Weldon of Dardenne Prairie, Benjamin Howell out on Howell’s Prairie, and Christopher Clark in Troy. At St. Charles the settlers gathered at Griffith’s farm, Johnson’s farm at Portage des Sioux, Zumwalt’s Fort (O’Fallon), Kountz’s Fort (Cottleville), and waited. Where ever they could, settlers created forts out of their homesteads or erected house forts. Where there were several families, cabins were erected and stockades connected them, with wells dug, protecting their livestock as well.

In August, Winnebagos, Ioways, and Ottos joined nearly 100 Sauk Indians with  the British above Fort Mason, and stole horses.  A company of Rangers and Cavalry commanded by Capt. Alexander McNair were at Fort Mason at the time. With troops  commanded by Col. Nathan Boone,together they pursued the thieves that had made their way to an island on the Mississippi near Portage des Sioux,  and were about 200 yards out. When Boone and McNair caught up with them, they fled to the Island’s interior. The troop’s horses were too fatigued to swim, but McNair and his Rangers swam over and recaptured the stolen horses, after they had marched 60 miles that day.

In September, 100 Sioux attacked a settler and his wife, stole their horses and cow, which they slaughtered. Captains Musick and Price pursued the attackers in their canoes. There were said to be at least 70 of them. They recaptured the stolen beef.  Then in October, the Van Burkleo family was attacked near Black Walnut.  A member of the Militia, Van Burkleo would later serve as an interpreter at the Treaty at Portage des Sioux when the War ended.

The settlers were constantly being attacked. Men were torn between serving in the Militia and protecting their families. Pleas were made to the Federal government, who the settlers did not believe were doing enough to protect them.  Its location had made Saint Charles a passageway for all the Indian nations to the north and west, who had hunted this area for years prior to the arrival of the white man. Yet settlement was so scattered that communications were difficult…

Is YOUR FAMILY A Veteran of the War of 1812?