Notes: VIII. The Missouri Frontier

Notes for Jesse Evans: VIII. The Missouri Frontier

Note 1. See the page “1794 – Address by Wythe County Democratic Society.”

Note 2. A late nineteenth century regional history stated that Evans’s son Joseph Evans was a “colonel in the War of 1812.” See History of Franklin, Jefferson, Washington, Crawford and Gasconade Counties, Missouri, Chicago: Goodspeed Publishing Co. (1888), pp. 985-86. But a search of military service records, bounty land warrants, and pension records related to the War of 1812 discloses no Evans from Wythe County.

Note 3. Wythe County, Va., Deed Book 6, p. 293.

Note 4. The date of Elizabeth Evans’s death is not recorded on any official documents. She was still alive on May 19, 1815, because she is mentioned in the contract of sale to Jackson. See Wythe County, Va., Deed Book 6, p. 293 (providing that “Mrs. Evans will relinquish her claim to dower”). A cousin of the Evans family, James Malcolm Breckenridge, claimed that Jesse Evans kept a journal, in which he wrote: “Elizabeth Breckenridge Evans died June 7, 1815, in Virginia, wife of Jesse Evans, Sr.” See James Malcolm Breckenridge, William Clark Breckenridge: His Life, Lineage and Writings, St. Louis, Mo.: published by author (1932), p. 129. James Malcolm Breckenridge (1865-1952), a great-great-great grandson of Jesse Evans’s father-in-law George Breckenridge, had family ties to Washington County, Missouri, where Jesse Evans’s favorite son Joseph Evans lived. It is therefore possible that a journal existed and was available for historical research.

Note 5. Wythe County, Va., Deed Book 6, p. 295 (1000 acres from Jesse Evans to Thomas Jackson on Sept. 1, 1815, for $11,000); Wythe County, Va., Deed Book 6, p. 322 (150 acres from Jesse Evans to Thomas Jackson on Sept. 13, 1815, for $1,000); Wythe County, Va., Deed Book 6, p. 320 (one-quarter acre from Jesse Evans to Thomas Jackson on Sept. 14, 1815, for $100).

Note 6. Wythe County, Va., Deed Book 6, p. 313 (8 acres from Jesse Evans to David Pierce on Sept. 12, 1815, for $767); Wythe County, Va., Deed Book 6, p. 297 (approximately 301 acres from Joseph and Betsey Evans and Jesse Evans to James Ward on Sept. 1, 1815, for $3,300). Joseph Evans had married Betsey Smith on March 14, 1811. See Wythe County, Va., Marriage Book 1, p. 44.

Note 7. James Malcolm Breckenridge, William Clark Breckenridge: His Life, Lineage and Writings, St. Louis, Mo.: published by author (1932), p. 129. See also Note 4 above.

Note 8. Documentation of various Missouri connections of Jesse Evans’s children appear in the text and notes following. Some may not have stayed in Missouri permanently. His oldest daughter, Ann, and her husband James McCampbell had previously moved to Tennessee. See Wythe County, Va., Deed Book 5, pp. 440-43. A summary list of Jesse and Elizabeth Evans’s children and their spouses is included in Part I Note 13.

Note 9. St. Charles County, Mo., Deed Book D, pp. 87-88 (Isaac Myres to Prospect K. Robbins and Joseph Evans on Oct. 22, 1816).

Note 10. St. Charles County, Mo., Marriage Book 1807-1826, p. 48.

Note 11. For a biographical article on Robbins, see Lynn Morrow, “A Surveyor’s Challenges: P.K. Robbins in Missouri,” Big Muddy: A Journal of the Mississippi River Valley, Vol. 7.2, Cape Girardeau, Mo.: Southeast Missouri State University Press. The article is available online at: http://www6.semo.edu/universitypress/bigmuddy/NF/Surveyors_Challenges.htm.

Note 12. For a history of the meridian, see Dick Elgin, “The 5th Principal Meridian: Its Initial Point, Surveyors and Errors,” Missouri Surveyor, Jefferson City, Mo: Missouri Society of Professional Surveyors (June 2012), pp. 4-8. Robbins’s contract dated Oct. 9, 1815, can be found at Missouri Surveying Contracts, Vol. 1 (Oct. 9, 1815—May 8, 1843), pp. 1-2, U.S. Surveyor General of Missouri, Microfilm F1483, Missouri State Archives.

Note 13. Missouri Surveying Contracts, Vol. 1 (Oct. 9, 1815—May 8, 1843), pp. 15-16, 60-62, U.S. Surveyor General of Missouri, Microfilm F1483, Missouri State Archives. The April 7, 1816 contract at pp. 15-16 described surveying the township boundaries of much of present-day Boone County and Callaway County. The September 25, 1816 contract at pp. 60-62 described surveying sections and quarter-sections in Range 9 West from the Missouri River to the northern boundary of present-day Callaway County, which included the village of Cote Sans Dessein.

Note 14. For more on the surveying work of Prospect K. Robbins and Joseph Evans, see Lynn Morrow, “A Surveyor’s Challenges: P.K. Robbins in Missouri,” Big Muddy: A Journal of the Mississippi River Valley, Vol. 7.2, Cape Girardeau, Mo.: Southeast Missouri State University Press. The article is available online at: http://www6.semo.edu/universitypress/bigmuddy/NF/Surveyors_Challenges.htm

Note 15. Missouri Surveying Contracts, Vol. 1 (Oct. 9, 1815—May 8, 1843), pp. 97-99, U.S. Surveyor General of Missouri, Microfilm F1483, Missouri State Archives.

Note 16. Letters and Surveying Contracts Received by the General Land Office from the Surveyor General for Illinois, Missouri, and Arkansas, 1813-1822, Microfilm M1323, Roll 1, National Archives and Records Administration.

Note 17. For more on Boone’s Lick, see the page “William Becknell: III. Boone’s Lick and Franklin.”

Note 18. Meriwether Lewis and William Clark made no mention of any settlement at Cote Sans Dessein when they passed by in 1804. Their Corps of Discovery Expedition landed mostly on the south side of the Missouri River in that vicinity, but would have known in advance if there had been a European/American settlement that far west on the river.

Note 19. Ovid Bell, Cote Sans Dessein: A History, Fulton, Mo.: published by author (1930), p. 36.

Note 20. “Letter from T.J. Ferguson,” Callaway Gazette, Fulton, Mo. (Nov. 16, 1883).

Note 21. Biographical and public service information on John Scott and Rufus Easton are taken from the United States House of Representatives website: http://history.house.gov/People/.

Note 22. Missouri Gazette, Vol. IX, No. 417, St. Louis, Mo. (Sept. 18, 1816), p. 2.

Note 23. “Objections of Rufus Easton to the return of John Scott,” Missouri Gazette, Vol. IX, No. 434, St. Louis, Mo. (Jan. 25, 1817), p. 2. Although Easton was successful in voiding the election results, the House of Representatives did not seat him but instead required a new election. In the next election, Scott was successful and served as Missouri’s congressional delegate for the remainder of the territorial period, as well as the new state’s first representative from 1821 to 1827. Easton, who had practiced law in the Indiana and Missouri territories, was appointed a federal territorial judge in 1805 and served as St. Louis’s first postmaster from 1805 to 1815. Easton was appointed Missouri’s first attorney general upon statehood and served until 1826.

Note 24. St. Charles County, Mo., Deed Book E, pp. 430-32.

Note 25. St. Charles County, Mo., Deed Book E, pp. 49-52.

Note 26. St. Charles County, Mo., Deed Book E, pp. 90-91.

Note 27. St. Charles County, Mo., Deed Book F, pp. 143-45.

Note 28. Plate VI, 1894 Missouri River Commission map series, USGS-Biological Resources Division, Columbia Environmental Research Center, Columbia, Mo. (available at http://aa179.cr.usgs.gov/1894maps/mrc.html).

Note 29. Jesse Evans, Jr., probably also served as the justice of the peace for the seller’s acknowledgement in the April 24, 1818 deed, but that is not explicitly stated.

Note 30. No documentation of the marriage has been found. The fact of the marriage is supported by numerous circumstances described elsewhere throughout this text.

Note 31. St. Charles County, Mo., Deed Book E, pp. 306-07 (Bateast (Baptiste) and Mary Grayson to George Evans and Drury R. Prichard). Prichard was the step-father of George Evans’s wife and therefore his step-father-in-law.

Note 32. A copy of the census, including a researcher’s transcription, is in the archives of the St. Charles County Historical Society, St. Charles, Mo.

Note 33. Callaway County, Mo., Deed Book A, pp. 93-94 (sale on Dec. 29, 1817 and recorded on Oct. 23, 1821).

Note 34. St. Charles County, Mo., Deed Book D, pp. 442-43.

Note 35. George King and Nancy Evans were married February 4, 1813. See Wythe County, Va., Marriage Book 1, p. 45.

Note 36. Missouri Gazette (April 20, 1816), p. 3, col. 1 (Jesse Evans and Jabez Hubbard appraised stray horse found by Andrew Downing on Feb. 15, 1816); Missouri Gazette (April 27, 1816), p. 4, col. 1 (same); Missouri Gazette (Oct. 23, 1818), p. 3, col. 3 (Jesse Evans, as justice of the peace, took oath of Baptist (Baptiste) Roy, W.H. Dunnica, and Daniel Colgan, on their Sept. 26, 1818 appraisal of horse found by Patrick Ewing). It has been asserted elsewhere that Ewing was a Revolutionary War friend of Jesse Evans who moved to Missouri at the same time.

Note 37. Establishment of the post office with Jesse Evans as postmaster was reported in the Missouri Gazette (May 1, 1818), p. 2, col. 5. That the first postmaster was Jesse Evans, Jr., and not his father was stated in A History of Callaway County, Missouri, 1984, Fulton, Mo.: Kingdom of Callaway Historical Society (1983), p. 36.

Note 38. Edwin James, Account of an Expedition from Pittsburgh to the Rocky Mountains Performed in the Years 1819 and ’20 by Order of the Hon. J.C. Calhoun, Sec’y of War: Under the Command of Major Stephen H. Long, Vol. I, Philadelphia: H.C. Carey and I. Lea (1823), pp. 83-85.

Note 39. Jesse Evans to William Clark, May 14, 1821, William Clark Papers, Box 13, Folder 7, Clark Family Collection, Missouri History Museum.