County: Lincoln County
Location of courthouse: Main St. & College St., Troy
Location of county: Mid-state-eastern border, on the Mississippi River; crossroads of: MO-79, US-61 & MO-47
Organized: Dec. 14, 1818
Named after: Gen. Benjamin Lincoln of Massachusetts
County seat: Troy
Elevation (highest): 980 feet, 299 meters
Population: 59,013 (2019)
The Person:
"Benjamin Lincoln
DATE OF BIRTH - January 24, 1733
DEATH - May 9, 1810
Benjamin Lincoln was born on January 24, 1733, in Hingham, Massachusetts, to one of the first dynastic American families. The Lincolns had been one of the first families to settle in Hingham and were able to establish themselves through vast farmlands along with local governance. Benjamin Lincoln’s father, Colonel Benjamin Lincoln, amassed a considerable fortune through his family farms and his longstanding seat on the Governor’s Council. The younger Lincoln followed his father into governance from a very young age, becoming town constable of Hingham, Massachusetts, at the age of 21. Benjamin also followed his father into the colonial militia, enlisting in the same regiment where his father was colonel. Lincoln was active in the militia during the French and Indian War, but saw no actual combat, despite this, he was promoted to major by the end of the conflict. After the war, Lincoln used his place in local governance to actively protest Parliamentary taxation and the Boston Massacre.
From the onset of revolution in the colonies, Lincoln played an essential role in the war. In 1774 the Massachusetts Provincial Congress appointed Lincoln to oversee militia organization and supply in Massachusetts. This role became vital with the outbreak of war at Lexington and Concord, less than 30 miles away from Lincoln’s home in Hingham. As the initial conflict expanded and developed into the full Patriot siege of Boston, Lincoln’s job became pivotal. Both British and American forces dealt with a lack of supplies during the siege, Lincoln’s supply line kept the colonial army’s hopes alive, until General Henry Knox, on George Washington’s orders, brought heavy artillery to colonial forces outside the city. Knox gave the Continental Army a clear advantage and effectively ended the siege as the British soon evacuated the city.
After the evacuation of the British in 1776, Lincoln was promoted to Major General of the Massachusetts militia. Having learned from the siege, Lincoln sought to fortify the coast of the colony. Lincoln’s efforts overall were a success, in May 1776 his forces removed the last Royal Navy ships from Boston Harbor.
As a significant part of two colonial victories over the British, the Continental Congress placed Lincoln in charge of a brigade of militia. Lincoln’s militia served with Washington in New York. Washington initially ordered Lincoln to organize raids against the British in Long Island, however, after Washington’s defeat at the Battle of Long Island, Washington ordered a retreat from New York. Lincoln’s troops helped to secure the retreat. By the end of the withdraw, most of Lincoln’s men’s enlistment terms expired, forcing him to return to Massachusetts and recruit new men for his militia. During his time in Massachusetts, based on Washington’s recommendation, Congress made Lincoln a major general in the Continental Army and granted him a small command in Bound Brook, New Jersey.
After months of small skirmishes in Bound Brook, the British launched a surprise attack on Lincoln’s small garrison. Outnumbered 5,000 to 400 men, Lincoln suffered a decisive defeat and barely avoided capture by the British. Returning to Washington’s side after the defeat, Washington ordered Lincoln, along with other top-ranking commanders, Colonel Daniel Morgan, and General Benedict Arnold to assist General Philip Schuyler in the Saratoga Campaign. Lincoln, along with 2,000 troops, disrupted the British supply line outside of Fort Ticonderoga. General Horatio Gates, Schuyler’s replacement, ordered Lincoln’s troops to join him.
Gates assigned Lincoln and his men to hold the Hudson River. At the Battle of Bemis Heights, Lincoln’s troops were present but did not fight, as most of the fighting happened on the opposite side of the river from where Gates had placed them. After the battle, Lincoln’s troops performed reconnaissance and pushed the British back further. While fortifying Fort Edward, a British musket ball shattered Lincoln’s ankle. For the rest of his life, Lincoln’s right leg became two inches shorter than his left. Lincoln was bedridden for months as a result of the injury, and during this time he was demoted to the lowest-ranked major general.
Lincoln’s return would not be a glorious redemption, however. When he returned in 1778, Washington placed Lincoln in charge of the Southern Department, a very large and independent command. Lincoln commanded his soldiers to join the 1779 French siege of Savannah, Georgia, but the siege failed. Lincoln and his men retreated to Charleston, South Carolina, but in 1780, British forces besieged the city. Lincoln was forced to surrender over 5,000 men to the British ? the largest surrender of American troops until the Civil War. Denied honors of war in surrender by the British, Lincoln was paroled by the British and returned to Washington’s army.
Washington made Lincoln his second-in-command for the Yorktown Campaign. Meeting up with French troops, the American forces successfully trapped the British forces in Yorktown. The siege at Yorktown devastated British troops and forced General Lord Charles Cornwallis to surrender to the Americans. Cornwallis feigned illness to avoid having to appear before the American and French armies. Instead, Cornwallis ordered his second, General Charles O’Hara, to deliver his sword to the Americans. Washington, insulted, had Lincoln accept the surrender, therefore refusing to be disrespected by Cornwallis and allowing Lincoln to have revenge for his defeat in Charleston.
After the conclusion of the war, Lincoln was appointed by the Confederation Congress to be the first US Secretary at War, a position created by the Articles of Confederation, and modeled after Britain’s Secretary at War. Lincoln served in this position from 1781 to 1783. He was replaced by Henry Knox who would later become the First US Secretary of War under the government created by the Constitution.
After his brief stint in the Confederation’s government, Lincoln returned to what he was doing before the revolution, leading small governments and commanding a militia. Lincoln served various public offices in his late life, notably as a Suffolk County representative at the Constitutional Convention. He remained true to his militia roots and helped to lead 3,000 men to put down Shay’s rebellion in west Massachusetts. He retired from public life in 1809, having given all he could to the new country, and died the next year in 1810.
Lincoln’s military career was one of great victories but also great defeats. He was the only soldier present at all three great victories of the revolution—twice as a victor and once in defeat. Though his career was often marred by great defeat and lack of experience, his last moment as a general in the continental army was accepting the surrender that ended the war. John Trumball’s classic painting “The Surrender of Cornwallis” still hangs in the US capital immortalizing Lincoln as the man who accepted the surrender of the British." ~ American Battlefield Trust
The Place:
"Lincoln County, Missouri, is located the east central part of the State, and occupies portions of Townships 48, 49, 50 and 51 north, and Ranges 1, 2, and 3 east and west of the fifth principal meridian. It is bounded on the north by Pike County, on the east by the Mississippi River, which separates it from Calhoun County, in Illinois, on the south by St. Charles and Warren Counties, and on the west by Montgomery County... The 59th degree of North latitude passes through its center, and its isometrical line is 56, which passes through the mouth of the Potomac River, giving the same degree of temperature as that point on the Atlantic coast, which is intersected by the 38th degree of latitude.
"There are several small caves in the county... On Sukphur Fork of Cuivre, in Waverly Township, there is a cave and Natural Bridge ... (1888). It was situated on the old J.S. Wilson farm, Section 15, Township 51 N, Range 2 West. At this point the right bank of the Sandy Fork, with a north and south trend, rises an abrupt limestone cliff, and then slopes westward to a hollow. The Natural Bridge, as it is called, connects this hollow and the creek. This archway is in length about 125 feet, and has an average width of some twelve feet, though its walls are quite irregular. Toward the center the walls, all at once, contract, thus cutting the bridge into two rooms, leaving just space for a man to pass from one to the other. The ceiling of the room is apparently one large, flat rock, extending the entire 125 feet...
"The county of Lincoln was organized in accordance with an act of the Legislature of the Territory of Missouri, passed December 14, 1818, and a subsequent act passed on the 23d day of the same month. To the first settler of the county was reserved the honor of securing its establishment, and of selecting its name. In the Territorial Legislature which convened at St. Louis, in December, 1818, being the fifth session after the creation of the Territory, the organization of several new counties was discussed. Maj. Christopher Clark, who was a member from St. Charles County living in that portion out of which Lincoln was carved, proposed the creation of the new county, with the boundaries corresponding very nearly to the present limits. The project met with favorable consideration, and a bill providing for the organization of the county was prepared, a blank space being left for the insertion of its name. Several names were proposed and discussed...
"Finally, Maj. Clark addressed the Assembly...He said, "Mr. Speaker, I was the first man to drive a wagon across Big Creek, the boundary line of the proposed new county, and the first permanent white settler within its limits. I was born in Link-horn County, N.C. I lived for many years in Link-horn County, in old Kaintuck. I wish to live the remainder of my days, and die in Link-horn County, Missouri; and I move, therefore, that the blank in the bill be filled with the name of Link-horn."
"The motion was carried unanimously, and the clerk, not adopting the frontier parlance of the Major, wrote "Lincoln" in the blank spaces of the bill. The was on the 14th day of December, 1818, and on the 8th Jefferson County had been created, and on the 11th, Franklin and Wayne. In 1813, Washington County had been established, and in 1815 the county of Howard. Thus Lincoln was the sixth county established by the Territorial Legislature, not counting the county of Arkansas, set off during the session of 1813-14, and afterward formed into a separate State...
"The court then divided the county into four municipal townships, Monroe, Bedford, Union and Hurricane...
"In April, 1819, Ira Cottle, Almond Cottle and Nathaniel Simond, offered to donate to the county a tract of land containing fifty acres, at the town of Monroe, as a site for the seat of justice... During the summer, the commissioners appointed for the task, caused to be erected a jail at Monroe, and in December, following they reported to the county court that they had selected, and fixed upon a site for the seat of justice, at the town of Monroe. The court then ordered that the courts within the county be thereafter held at the town of Monroe...
"It is very evident that the commissioners who selected Monroe as the place for the seat of justice did not take into consideration the extent of territory included within the boundaries of the county, else they surely would have not located the county seat clear to one corner. It was certainly a very inconsistent act and was soon so regarded by the people. The only reason, apparently that can be given why they selected Monroe, was because it was then in the most thickly settled portion of the county...
"The selection of Monroe as the county seat was never satisfactory to the people of the county. By reference to the session act of the Legislature for 1822, will be found an act, Chapter 38, providing for its removal from that point.
"New commissioners were appointed, and were empowered to select a suitable site in accordance with the petition which had been presented, asking for the removal. The courts were to be continued at Monroe until the erection of a court-house and jail at the new county seat, Alexandria.
"The last term in Monroe was held in November, 1822. No mention is made on the records of any compliance with the terms of the legislative act, before the removal of the county seat, but on the first Monday in February, 1823, the county court convened at Alexandria, the point selected by the commissioners as the new county seat. The books and papers had been sent up the previous Saturday, and deposited in the only dwelling house in the place. This was a hewed-log building, one and a half story, with one window containing twelve lights of 8 x 10 glass, a clapboard roof, floor and door of rough planks...A small room adjoining was used for a kitchen..." ~ History of Lincoln County, 1888, Goodpspeed, pp. 203, 205-206, 260-262, 265-269, 271, 173.