Early settlers:

A small family from Lafayette County, Kentucky, was among the first pioneers to settle in Mid Missouri.

William B. Scott Jr., his wife, Lydia, and their small family left their life in Lafayette County, Kentucky, and arrived at Cote sans Dessein in Callaway County, Missouri, by keel boat in the fall of 1816. The couple had learned the pioneer crafts on the Kentucky frontier that would serve them in the Missouri Territory, which had recently been opened to settlers following the close of the War of 1812.

At some point in their journey to Missouri, Scott purchased, by assignment, New Madrid earthquake land certificate No. 289. That certificate could be redeemed for 640 acres of land in what would become the central area of Missouri, approximately a year and a half before the public sale of land.

On July 18, 1817, Scott chose to redeem his certificate for essentially Section 09, Township 44N, Range 11W. This amounted to 1 square mile of land immediately north of the partial section of land that would contain the village of Hibernia. This was choice land in the Missouri River bottoms with a large stream known as Cedar Creek flowing through it. At that time, Cedar Creek flowed east along the bluffs until it joined with Turkey Creek where it turned south and flowed into the Missouri River. It is this section of land that now contains Turkey Creek Golf Center.

Scott did not know that on Dec. 31, 1821, the Missouri Territorial Legislature would pass the Missouri Statute, Chapter 351, which would affirm four sections of land set aside in Chapter 326, dated June 28, 1821, to become the seat of government known as the City of Jefferson.

Scott’s developing plan for the use of his land was later revealed in an advertisement in the “Missouri Intelligencer,” April 29, 1823, which offered the sale of lots in a town in which he had platted named Washington. The ad announced the sale of lots would occur on site or at the City of Jefferson on the same day the first 200 lots were offered in the City of Jefferson on the first Monday of May 1823. We have no indication as to whether any lots were sold by Scott at that time, but we do know that a town did not develop at that location.

Scott was not to be deterred by the apparent lack of success. In 1834, the County Court of Callaway County ordered the school lands in the partial Section 16, just south of Scott’s Section 09 holdings, be sold. He paid a premium price, approximately 10 times the going rate for public lands, to acquire 138 acres land being sold by the Callaway County Court. The land was situated on the Missouri Riverbank with Cedar Creek flowing through it. This land contained the village of Hibernia, which was soon to grow even larger due to an influx of Irish stone masons that would be working on construction of the second Capitol. The land patent issued to Scott was a Missouri state patent, which read: “assignee, Cedar City Land Company.” This would indicate that Scott was interested in developing a community to be named Cedar City at that site.

He apparently had additional plans for that land which included a steamboat landing from his lands on Cedar Creek to provide ferry service to the City of Jefferson. On Aug. 23, 1838, he made application to the Callaway County Court for a steam ferry license from his lands on Cedar Creek to the opposite shore for the term of one year. At that time, licensing for ferry service to the City of Jefferson was controlled by the Missouri Legislature. On Feb. 11, 1839, James A. Crump, Enos B. Cordell, Jefferson T. Rogers and John Yount received authorization by the Legislature giving them the exclusive right and privilege of keeping ferry service in the City of Jefferson for the term of 15 years.

Also in 1839, James Crump completed the construction and operated a grocery out of the western third of what was later called the Lohman Building. E.B. Cordell and others bought the center third of the building where they operated a business receiving and forwarding freight. John Yount operated a warehouse in the eastern third. Yount had purchased land adjacent to that of Scott at a significantly lesser price, and it was from this land the ferry service was operated. With this action, Scott was precluded from serving the City of Jefferson with steam ferry service.

What Scott’s next plans were we will never know. William B. Scott died early in February 1840, in early middle age without developing the city of Washington, completing the transition from Hibernia to Cedar City or realizing his dream of providing steam ferry service to the City of Jefferson.

Wayne Johnson is a Jefferson City native and retired engineer and chemist. For the past two decades, he has worked closely with four local historical societies, setting up websites, digital imaging, search and retrieval of those images and now compiling brief general histories of people, places and events in Callaway and Cole counties’ early history.