Trenton

Grundy County's namesake was a Tennessee lawyer whose courtroom drew crowds. Felix Grundy, born in Berkeley County, Virginia, on September 11, 1777, became chief justice of Kentucky's Court of Appeals in April 1807, at 29, and moved to Nashville later that year to practice criminal law. He served in Congress from 1811 to 1814, in the Senate for most of the years from 1829 to 1840, and as Martin Van Buren's attorney general from 1838 to 1839. Counties in Illinois, Iowa, Missouri and Tennessee carry his name.

What the plaque says

Trenton Trenton, settled in 1834, became the seat of Grundy County in 1841, when James S. Lomax gave 80 acres for a townsite. The county is named for Felix Grundy, United States Attorney General 1838-1839. The town name is from Trenton, N. J. Important in the history of Grundy Co. is Grand River College, founded in nearby Edinburg in 1850 and chartered in 1851. In this pioneer school in coeducation, women and men were offered college work on an equal footing at the outstandingly early date of 1850. A grade school now stands on the old college site. Among distinguished alumni is Gen. Enoch H. Crowder (1859-1932), author of the Selective Service Act of 1917. Nearby Crowder State Park is established in memory of General Crowder, who was born in Edinburg. In Grundy County's fabulous "Heatherly War," 1836, Missouri's top military leaders, a regiment, and two companies turned out to fight the Indians maliciously reported on the warpath by the Heatherly family to cover their own misdeeds. The "Army" soon disbanded when no Indians were found. (See other side) Erected by State Historical Society of Missouri and State Highway Commission, 1953 Trenton (Continued from other side) Trenton serves a rich agricultural area. Grain and livestock farming predominate in this region of productive prairies, stream- fed valleys, and green-wooded hills. In the 1870's, the city became a railroad division. In Trenton's first 100 years, 3 colleges were established here. Avalon College, founded by United Brethren at Avalon, Mo., 1869-1873, was moved to Trenton, 1890. In 1900, founders of Ruskin College bought Avalon to establish a branch of an English socialistic movement. This group formed "The Multitude Incorporated," to care for cooperative businesses and the school, but the whole venture failed, 1905. The present day Trenton Junior College, a pioneer in the public school junior college movement, was established, 1925. Arthur M. Hyde, Governor of Missouri, 1921-1925, and U.S. Secretary of Agriculture, 1929-1933, lived here. J. R. Atkinson, one of the co-founders of the Braille Institute of America, was born in nearby Galt. Jewett Norris, early resident, gave $50,000 for the library, 1890. Nearby town is the Gen. W.P. Thompson House, the oldest in the county. Erected by State Historical Society of Missouri and State Highway Commission, 1953

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Locust Creek Covered Bridge State Historic Site — 28 mi
  Missouri's longest surviving covered bridge, 151 feet of 1868 white pine that carried a transcontinental road and now stands over a creek bed the creek abandoned.
• General John J. Pershing Boyhood Home State Historic Site — 31 mi
  The nine-room Gothic house in Laclede where John J. Pershing grew up, with the Prairie Mound School he taught in before West Point and a museum of his career.

More markers nearby

• Gallatin — 21 mi
• Chillicothe — 22 mi
• Harrison County — 26 mi
• Laclede — 31 mi