Callaway County, Missouri

Callaway County, Missouri
The Callaway County Courthouse in Fulton
Location in the U.S. state of Missouri
Missouri's location in the U.S.
Founded	November 25, 1820
Named for	James Callaway
Seat	Fulton
Largest city	Fulton
Area
• Total	847 sq mi (2,194 km2)
• Land	835 sq mi (2,163 km2)
• Water	13 sq mi (34 km2), 1.5%
Population (est.)
• (2015)	44,834
• Density	53/sq mi (20/km2)
Congressional district	3rd
Time zone	Central: UTC−6/−5
Website	callawaycounty.org

Callaway County is a county located in the U.S. state of Missouri. As of the 2010 United States Census, the county's population was 44,332.^[1] Its county seat is Fulton.^[2] With a southern border formed by the Missouri River, the county was organized November 25, 1820, and named for Captain James Callaway, grandson of Daniel Boone.^[3] Callaway County has been historically referred to as "The Kingdom of Callaway" after a 19th-century incident in which some residents confronted Union troops, during the U.S. Civil War.^[4]

Callaway County is part of the Jefferson City, MO Metropolitan Statistical Area.

Vineyards and wineries were first established in the area by German immigrants in the mid-19th century. Since the 1960s, there has been a revival of winemaking there and throughout Missouri.

The Callaway Nuclear Generating Station is located in Callaway County, near Fulton.

History

This area was historically occupied by the Osage and other Native American peoples, some of whom migrated from east of the Ohio River Valley. Others emerged as cultures in this area, following thousands of years of settlement by indigenous peoples.

The European-American settlement of Callaway County was initiated primarily by migrants from the Upper South states of Virginia, Kentucky, and Tennessee. Some of them brought African-American slaves and slaveholding traditions with them, and quickly started cultivating hemp and tobacco, the same crops as were grown in Middle Tennessee and Kentucky. Callaway County was one of several to the north and south of the Missouri River settled mostly by Southerners in the early antebellum years. Given their culture and traditions, this area became known as Little Dixie. ^[5] By 1860 slaves made up 25 percent or more of the county's population,^[6] a higher percentage than in most parts of the slave state. In an unusual case, an African-American woman known as "Slave Teney" was lynched by whites near Fulton on October 27, 1860, after she confessed to killing the daughter of her mistress.^[7][8] Whites abused their slaves but did not usually kill them because they were valuable property, but the people of the town were outraged at Teney's attack on the daughter.

Callaway and Lewis County Missouri pioneer families were among influential early settlers of the nascent state of California. Callaway families were instrumental in establishing new US settlements in areas of California near the Oregon border as they entered the state via the Oregon Trail, then southward toward San Francisco, Lewis County relatives were key in the building of Sacramento and development of viticulture in the California Central Valley and areas north of San Francisco Bay. Some of these Missouri families, later key US/Unionist advocates and military personnel during the US Civil War, held early political offices in California.^[9]

The idea has been put forth that most Callaway residents supported the Confederacy during the Civil War. However, one should read the minutes of the US Congressional hearing on the legitimacy of war-era elections in Callaway, including reports of substantial election meddling and voter harassment and intimidation (sometimes almost violent), summarized in the 1867-68 US Congressional 'Reports of Committees of the House of Representatives' before jumping to conclusions on how popular the Confederacy actually was in the county. 1867 US House of Represeentatives report on the legitimacy of Callaway County war-era elections. The minutes of these hearings should also be read before considering further the ramifications of glorifying the Civil War as a wonderful time in Callaway history to be somehow replicated.

The Battle of Moore's Mill was the only significant Civil War battle that took place in Callaway County. The county was called 'Kingdom of Callaway' due to what one published history source (in bibliography below) described as a truce with US/Union forces that allowed Confederate advocates to continue to operate under surveillance, in proximity to the Missouri government offices in Jefferson City. While one published historical reference (in bibliography) indicates there may have been over twice as many Confederate as US/Union troops in Callaway, whether the Confederate troops were committed advocates or just mercenaries paid by Confederate organizations operated by wealthy plantation owners, by Confederate government agencies in southern states, or by foreign companies wanting continued cheap 'Confederate' slave-labor produced agricultural products, is to be considered. While the old Civil War still festered in Callaway, a so-called "Confederate government of Missouri" set up offices in southwest Missouri near the northwest corner border of Arkansas, while a line almost straight south along the Arkansas-Oklahoma border connected it to a known Texas-affiliate (and possibly controlling) office set up across from the southwest corner of Arkansas in Marshall, Texas.

Despite the Confederate-labeled upstarts of the mid-1800s, according to "A Short History of Callaway County" by Ovid Bell, the publisher for years of the (county seat) Fulton Daily Sun Gazette, "Fulton was occupied during the greater part of the war by Union soldiers and militia, and Southern (i.e. Confederate) sympathizers were in constant fear of imprisonment and death." And US forces loyal to the Union were raised by Captains William T Snell, Henry Thomas, and JJP Johnson; who were in turn reinforced by troops under General John B Henderson from the town of Louisiana in Pike County, Missouri.^[10]

After the late-1860s Reconstruction era, an element of 'white' residents in the state and county worked to restore what some have labeled 'white supremacy'. Primitive violence against black people reached a peak around the turn of the 20th century, and some radicalized, fanatical white people lynched a total of four African Americans in the county.^[11] They included Ham Peterson in May 1884, killed because his brother spoke disrespectfully to whites; an unnamed African-American man killed by a mob in October 1884, after being accused of raping a young girl; and Emmett Divens, lynched August 15, 1895.^[7][12]

Other settlers in the Missouri River valley included German immigrants from the mid-19th century following the Revolutions of 1848 in the German states; they established a strong wine industry in the area and built towns with German-influenced architecture, concentrated substantially in counties south of Callaway and across the Missouri River, celebrated annually in the Maifest events in the Gasconade county seat, Hermann. Missouri was the second-largest wine-producing state nationally until Prohibition. Since the 1960s, numerous vineyards and wineries have been established again in the river valley, including Summit Lake Winery in Holts Summit. One definition of the Missouri Rhineland can be found in a Chicago Tribune article of September, 2018.^[13]

Callaway has remained largely agricultural, economically, with its rich farmlands, yet borders Missouri's capital city and Lincoln University (Missouri) in Cole County, to the south, and the main University of Missouri campus in Columbia, 40 miles or less from the most populous areas of the county. Callaway County has for years hosted William Woods University and Westminster College in the county seat, Fulton, while Osage county, to the south, hosts the State Technical College of Missouri in Linn.

Geography

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of 847 square miles (2,190 km²), of which 835 square miles (2,160 km²) is land and 13 square miles (34 km²) (1.5%) is water.^[14]

The northern part of the county is relatively flat and devoid of large tracts of forests. The southern border of the county is the Missouri River, and the area is heavily forested over large hills and valleys. Cedar Creek makes up the bulk of the county's western border. Jefferson City lies across the Missouri River from the southwestern corner of the county.^[15][16]

Demographics

As of the census^[22] of 2000, there were 40,766 people, 14,416 households, and 10,336 families residing in the county. The population density was 49 people per square mile (19/km²). There were 16,167 housing units at an average density of 19 per square mile (7/km²). The racial makeup of the county was self-identified as 91.79% White, 5.66% Black or African American, 0.52% Native American, 0.52% Asian, 0.01% Pacific Islander, 0.30% from other races, and 1.21% from two or more races. Approximately 0.92% of the population identified as Hispanic or Latino of any race. 29.9% identified as of German ancestry, 22.0% s American, 9.1% as Irish (including Scots-Irish) and 9.1% as English ancestry.

There were 14,416 households out of which 35.80% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 57.10% were married couples living together, 10.40% had a female householder with no husband present, and 28.30% were non-families. 23.00% of all households were made up of individuals and 8.80% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.56 and the average family size was 3.00.

In the county, the population was spread out with 25.40% under the age of 18, 11.10% from 18 to 24, 31.00% from 25 to 44, 21.50% from 45 to 64, and 11.00% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 35 years. For every 100 females, there were 107.60 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 108.90 males.

The median income for a household in the county was $39,110, and the median income for a family was $44,474. Males had a median income of $29,574 versus $22,317 for females. The per capita income for the county was $17,005. About 6.00% of families and 8.50% of the population were below the poverty line, including 10.30% of those under age 18 and 8.30% of those age 65 or over.

Education

Politics

Communities

See also

• National Register of Historic Places listings in Callaway County, Missouri

References

Further reading

• Bell, Ovid. "A Short History of Callaway County" (Fulton, MO: Ovid Bell Press, 1875).
• Bryan, William Smith. "A History of Pioneer Families in Missouri" (St Louis, MO: Bryan, Brand & Co, 1876).
• Kingdom of Callaway Historical Society. A History of Callaway County Missouri (Fulton, MO: Kingdom of Callaway Historical Society, 1983).
• Kingdom of Callaway Historical Society. Combined Atlases of Callaway County Missouri 1876-1897-1919, Indexed'. (Mount Vernon, IN: Windmill Publications, Inc, 1994).
• Mather, Otis. "Six Generations of LaRues and Allied Families". (Hodgenville & Louisville, KY: C T Dearing Printing Co, 1921).
• Missouri State Library. "History of Callaway County." (St Louis, MO: National Historical Company, 1884).
• Saeger, Andrew M. "The Kingdom Of Callaway: Callaway County, Missouri during the Civil War." (MA thesis, Northwest Missouri State University, 2013). bibliography pp 75–81 online
• Smith, Harriet E. "Autobiography of Mark Twain" (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2010).
• Williams, Walter, ed. "A History of Northeast Missouri" (Chicago, IL: Lewis Publishing Company, 1913).

External links

• Callaway County official website
• Callaway County Clerk website
• Kingdom of Callaway Historical Society
• Callaway Chamber of Commerce
• Digitized 1930 Plat Book of Callaway County from University of Missouri Division of Special Collections, Archives, and Rare Books
• Callaway County in 1930 (w townships boundaries) A 1930 map of Callaway County, including township boundaries.
• Callaway County in 1919 (w township boundaries) A 1919 map of Callaway County, including township boundaries.
• Callaway County in 1876 (w township boundaries) (page2)] (Note that in 1850, the US Census referred to numbered districts in the county rather than the townships which were created around the time of Missouri statehood and described, in text, in the Missouri State Library's "History of Callaway County", listed above in the bibliography section.)
• Map of Slave-holder percentages in US southeastern states, per 1860 census, published by a University of Central Florida scholar, showing that Callaway County was Not among the more slave-populated counties of the southeastern US states in general, or even of Missouri. Note that other maps on the same topic show substantially different indicators. All data should be checked for sources, and compared to census records, with attention to the difference between the number of slaves in a county and the percentage of slave population in a county, as well as willingness of residents to declare slave ownership or not.

Coordinates: 38°50′N 91°55′W / 38.84°N 91.92°W / 38.84; -91.92