Jefferson County

Thomas C. Fletcher, the Herculaneum-born governor on the plaque, was the man who proclaimed the end of slavery in Missouri. Born on January 21, 1827, he was Jefferson County's circuit clerk from 1849 to 1856 and backed Abraham Lincoln as a delegate to the 1860 Republican convention. In the war he was captured at Chickasaw Bayou, held in Libby Prison until May 1863, and led a regiment at Pilot Knob in 1864. Sworn in as governor on January 2, 1865, nine days later he issued a Proclamation of Freedom endorsing the state convention's ordinance abolishing slavery.

What the plaque says

Jefferson County Historic Jefferson County, organized in 1818, the eighth to be formed in Missouri, lies in the southeast Lead Belt, region of the state's oldest settlements. Probably the first American settlement in Missouri was made in this county near the mouth of the Meramec about 1770 by the Hildebrands, Germans from Penn. De Gamache ran the first ferry in Mo., near there in the 1770's. Herculaneum, on the Mississippi, first town in the county and first county seat, was founded by Moses Austin and Samuel Hammond in 1809 as a lead depot for the mines at Potosi. Shot towers built on the Mississippi bluffs supplied shot to troops in War of 1812. In 1839 centrally located Hillsboro succeeded as county seat and Herculaneum languished. In the 1890's the St. Joseph Lead Co. smelter, built on the original townsite, brought renewed growth. Herculaneum is the birthplace of Thomas C. Fletcher (1827-99) the first native-born governor, 1865-69; and Campbell Morfit (1820-97) noted chemist. Daniel Dunklin, the fifth governor of Missouri, is buried in the family plot at nearby Riverside. (See other side) Erected by State Historical Society of Missouri and State Highway Commission, 1955 Jefferson County (Continued from other side) A spur of the Ozark Highland runs into Jefferson County, lying at the middle of Missouri's Mississippi River boundary. Many ancient Indian mounds are found in the area, and near Kimmswick is the site of a noted bed of prehistoric animal bones. Osage Indians, who gave up this region in 1808, greatly harassed the early settlers. Grain and stock farming and industries associated with county resources brought rapid settlement, many coming from the South and later, Germany. In 1857, Thomas C. Fletcher and L. J. Rankin laid out De Soto. The St. Louis, Iron Mountain, and Southern R.R. (now Missouri Pacific) opened repair shops there in 1872. Phenomenal silica deposits brought a plate glass industry and the towns of Crystal City and Festus in the 1870's. This industry is now one of largest plants of the Pittsburgh Plate Glass Co. Among places of interest in the county are Maclot's shot towersite at Herculaneum; Thomas C. Fletcher House at Hillsboro; Grace Presbyterian Church at Crystal City; marker on the route of the 1789 El Camino Real (Sp. King's Highway) at Kimmswick. Erected by State Historical Society of Missouri and State Highway Commission, 1955

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Washington State Park — 12 mi
  Big River hills with the largest group of petroglyphs found in Missouri and the stonework of Company 1743, an African American Civilian Conservation Corps company that named its camp for a carved thunderbird.
• Mastodon State Historic Site — 14 mi
  The Kimmswick Bone Bed, misread and quarried for more than a century until a Clovis point found among mastodon bones in 1979 gave the first solid evidence that people and mastodons lived here together.
• Ulysses S. Grant National Historic Site — 25 mi
  White Haven, the Dent family farm where Grant courted Julia and farmed in the 1850s beside the enslaved people her father held, some of whom the park now names.

More markers nearby

• Bonne Terre — 21 mi
• Saint Louis — 23 mi
• Potosi — 24 mi
• Washington — 33 mi