Waverly Missouri, an historic Missouri River town - American Guide Series on Waymarking.com

Long Description:
"WAVERLY,(684 alt.,876 pop.), high on the southern bank of the Missouri River, was formerly an important river port. First platted as Middletown in 1845, it was renamed Waverly three years later. John Brown, famed abolitionist , is supposed to have stopped here on his trek to Kansas. The story goes that one of his children died and was buried here, but that Brown returned years later and exhumed the body, being unwilling to leave any of his family in a slave State.

Brown may have had a particular distaste for Waverly because it was the home of General Joseph Orville Shelby from about 1852 until the beginning of the Civil War. Shelby (1830-97) was born and educated in Lexington, Kentucky, and came to Waverly to operate a rope factory. By 1861 he was known as one of the wealthiest slave and land owners in Missouri.

At the outbreak of the war, he joined the Confederate forces and is said to have raised his first command in the red brick WAVERLY METHODIST CHURCH, in the western portion of Waverly. After the Civil War, he offered his services to Maximilian in Mexico. When the Emperor died, Shelby returned to Missouri…He is buried in Forest Hill Cemetery in Kansas City, Missouri.

Waverly is at the southern junction with US 24… On the bluffs south of the river, apples and small fruits are cultivated. Here is one of the most extensive loess areas in the State. The brown, porous soil lies in a narrow strip along the banks of the Missouri River. It is a wind-blown deposit formed at the close of the Ice Age.”

Today, its population is listed as 806, which is smaller than when the Writers Project Guide came out in 1941. They still grow fine apples and peaches here, and a large grain storage elevator is near the river’s edge and the railroad tracks. They also have a new bridge across the Missouri River.

In the news in the very hot summer of 2004 was the Lewis & Clark bicentennial reenactment that reached Waverly in mid-June. The group was heading up the Missouri with a big black Newfoundland dog similar to Meriwether Lewis’dog. The dog died of unknown causes (probably due to the heat) while the reenactment group camped at Waverly. It made national headlines and was the Discovery Expedition of St. Charles only fatality on their 2004-2006 adventure across the country.

In the news in 2009 was the dedication of the new General Joseph Shelby park on Main Street in Waverly.

Book: Missouri Page Number(s) of Excerpt: 478 and 479 Year Originally Published: 1941

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