History of Vernon County, Missouri, 1887
The History of Vernon County Missouri was published in 1887 by Brown & Company, St. Louis. The book must be obtained from a local library. However, the index to the book is available at the following link.
Index, History of Vernon County, Missouri
First Settlers of Vernon County, Missouri
The origin of the first settlement of Vernon county, and of the present Bates county, was the establishment, in the year 1821, of the Harmony Mission, on the Marais des Cygnes, six miles above its mouth, in what is now Bates county. This mission, or station, as it was sometimes called, was planted under the auspices of the American Board of Commissioners of Foreign Missions, an organization composed of Presbyterians and Congregationalists. The first organization was effected in New York City, and was a home missionary society, having for its object the establishment of missions among the Indians, but in 1819 this was con- solidated with the A.B.C.F.M., a Presbyterian organization, of Boston.
The first actual settlements of Vernon county, by individuals with the intent of making their future and permanent homes here, were made in the year 1829, by Jesse J. Summers, Moses Summers and Allen Summers, three brothers, and their location was on the Osage, in the northern part of this county, in what is now Metz township. Jesse and Moses came with their families in the spring, and located on the north side of the Osage, and their brother Allen came in the fall and settled on the south side (n. 1/2 se. 1/4 section 22, township 37, range 32), within 100 yards of where his son Moses now lives.
Harmony Mission
Historic Harmony Mission, a school for the Indians of Missouri, once stood east of Rich Hill, on the north bank of the Osage River, near the centuries-old camping sites of the Great and Little Osage tribes.
The mission was founded in 1821 by the United Foreign Missionary Society of N.Y., supported by Presbyterian, Congregational, and Dutch Reformed churches. Among the 41 members of the mission family were teachers, mechanics, and farmers, headed by minister Nathaniel B. Dodge. The Osage gave land and the U.S. provided a building fund.
With heroic effort, the missionaries soon built homes and a school. An Osage-English dictionary of some 2000 words was made with the help of "Bill" Williams, later famed as the "Mountain Man," but then serving as interpreter at a nearby U.S. trading post.
The school was only a moderate success, largely because the Osage ceded the last of their Missouri land to the U.S. in 1825 and began to move away. The mission was closed in 1836. The main building, moved to Papinsville, was burned in the Civil War.
Harmony Mission, Missouri's first Indian mission school, was the first county seat and the first white settlement in Bates County, organized, 1841, named for Missouri Governor Frederick Bates. Later the once thriving Osage River town of Papinsville, named for a French trader, was county seat. In 1856 centrally located Butler, named for a Ky. congressman became county seat.
During the Civil War, Bates was one of the counties depopulated by Union General Thomas Ewing's Order No. 11 of 1863. The next year only 390 persons were living in the county, but the post war years brought over 10,000 by 1868 to farm the fertile acres and mine the rich coal deposits.
Here in the Osage Valley of Bates and Vernon counties were the villages of the Wazhazhe Indians, called Osage by the French. In 1808, less than 100 years after they were first visited by a white man, Du Tisne, 1719, they ceded most for their Missouri land to the U.S. They ceded the rest, 1825. The first chief called Pahuska (White Hair) once lay buried in Blue Mound and for years they returned to honor him.
Erected by the State Historical Society of Missouri and State Highway Commission, 1955.
