Early Days of Adair County, Missouri - Kirksville, Missouri - Missouri Historical Markers on Waymarking.com

Text of marker:

Early Days of 
 Adair County, Missouri

The first attempt at a settlement by Whites in this county was in 1828, twenty-five years after the Louisiana Purchase and three years after extinction of the Indian title.  Settlers from Howard Country decided to locate on the east side of the Chariton River, about six miles west of present day Kirksville in an area later known as the The Cabins, which had long been the hunting ground for the Sac and Fox Indian tribes.  Broken up by the Indians in 1829 and restored in 1830, this settlement was more than 30 miles from the nearest neighbor to the south.  Hannibal and Quincy to the east and Huntsville to the south provided trading posts for the early settlers.  Conditions during the first years of the early settlement were hard and primitive.  Circuit riding ministers served early pioneer settlers.  The first church in Adair County was the Bear Creek Baptist Church in 1838.  By 1840, settlers had located in practically all the county.  Created January 29, 1841, Adair County was named for the Honorable John Adair of Kentucky.  Immigrants from Kentucky wanted this prominent public figured remembered.   Kirksville was established as the county seat by 1842; the county was originally divided into five townships; Morrow, Liberty, Benton, Pettis, and Wilson.  In 1865, five more were added: Walnut, Nineveh, Clay, Polk and Salt River.  The county had no official seal until 1848.  Adair County is rectangular in form, with twenty-one miles north to south and twenty-seven miles east to west.  It developed into many small communities with some fifty-seven post offices; in 2008 it had three.  Initially, the mail came by horseback or stage from Bloomington in Macon County.  In these early days, no postage stamps existed and the receiver of the mail paid the postage.  Frequently the addressee had to borrow a dime to receive the addressed letter.  The railroads that came in 1868 and 1870 provided daily mail service.  The first public school began in Kirksville in 1867, in two buildings; the Free Will Baptist Church and the Mercer building.  By 1873, 4,957 students attended 76 schools in the county.  As roads and highways improved, schools consolidated; in 2008, three school districts existed: Novinger, Brashear and Kirksville.  Agriculture, timber, coal mining resources and some manufacturing, coupled with the founding of the First District Normal School (Truman States University) in 1867, and the founding of the osteopathic professional in 1892, caused early growth in Adair County. The population rose from 2,342 in 1850 to 22,700 in 1910.  During the same period the assessed wealth of the county rose from $90,290 to $5,840,078.  In 2007, the population of the county was slightly less then 25,000 with an assessed wealth of $243,233, 734.