ST. CHARLES COUNTY HISTORY

In 1829, James Alexander (1785-1835) would find Missouri to be a promised land, full of opportunities. He and his wife, the former Nancy McCluer (1791-1833) had come with her brother Dr. Robert McCluer (1792-1834), arrived in October, and immediately joined the Dardenne Presbyterian Church on the Boone’s Lick Road. They had left Virginia, according to their cousin William Campbell, that August with five children, but when they arrived had two sons, John and William, and two daughters, Agnes Jane and Sarah Elizabeth, all under the age of seven. They also brought five enslaved individuals, Archer, his wife Louisa, their son James, Louisa’s sister and mother. James would immediately purchase property near the McCluers and begin to build a beautiful stone home, while living in a log cabin built by a previous owner.

James Alexander employed two stonemasons from Ireland named Pourie, that were nephews of the Millingtons who had built Stone Row in St. Charles on Main Street. Archer, who knew brickmaking and masonry techniques would work with them, as overseer of the other enslaved workers. Other families nearby, the Bates, McCluers, Naylors, Gills and Pitmans would lease their enslaved to help with the building as well. Archer was a talented carver and is said to have done some of the interior carpentry.

By 1834, the stone house would be complete, and James Alexander was appointed the area’s U.S. Postmaster of what was designated as Stockland. The region was growing rapidly and being located directly on the Boone’s Lick Road was a great advantage. Nearby Cottleville a few miles to the east was growing as well with David Pitman’s addition. Just to the west of James Alexander’s was John Gill’s mill, and then came John Naylor’s store, before the huge Bates plantation. The area was also experiencing growth because a wave of German immigrants had arrived in the area that summer, with some settling in Cottleville, St. Paul (Dog Prairie) and creating the town of Hamburg, near Howell, just south of Dardenne along the Missouri River. However with all of this growth also came cholera, and it grew to epidemic proportions. Nancy Alexander would die first, and then Dr. McCluer and his littlest son. They were buried in the Old Dardenne Presbyterian cemetery.

By 1835, James Alexander was not only the Postmaster, but the stagecoaches that travelled the Boone’s Lick Road also stopped at “Alexanders”! Then more tragedy hit. James Alexander succumbed to the cholera epidemic that was sweeping the valleys, indiscriminately, black, white, young or old, including the German immigrants. James Alexander left four orphaned children behind, and several enslaved people. James Alexander assigned his cousin William Campbell, an attorney, to be his Executor, leaving instructions that neither the enslaved nor the farm were to be sold. He became their agent. They were to be leased to others and all of the income generated was to be sent to Virginia, to support his children. Campbell would take the orphaned children back to their Aunt’s home in Virginia to live with her and her husband.

The enslaved continued to live on the farm and they were leased out to others, generating a huge annual income for many many years. Archer Alexander and his wife Louisa would have ten children over those years as well. They are the great-great-great grandparents of Muhammad Ali. In 2019, several members of the family were able to visit the home as St. Louis Public Radio followed their journey to learn their family history…. You can listen to that here… https://archeralexander.blog/louisville-family-learns-about-their-ties/

Over the years the house, which sits on the Boone’s Lick Road in St. Charles County has often been known as Captain Campbell’s house (and he did live there at one time) as dubbed by historian Edna McElhiney Olson, or Twin Chimneys because of another nearby similar house that also had Twin Chimneys. Let’s give it its rightful name now, the Alexander house at Dardenne. It still stands proud and tall, one of the oldest homes in St. Charles County, a private home, on Hwy N, just west of the intersection with Hwy K, just past all the shopping centers and highways.

For more stories by Dorris Keeven-Franke like this…