Lucinda Owens Memorial - Washington, MO - Missouri Historical Markers on Waymarking.com

William G. Owens, a Kentuckian, was born on November 5, 1796. He was educated to be a lawyer. In 1815 he married Lucinda Young, and in 1818 came to Franklin County, settling first at New Port, now Dundee. He was the first clerk of the county after it was organized in 1818. He owned the property on which the future town was to be located, and before his death there is evidence that he had begun to plan and plot the townsite. His plans, however, were abruptly cut short when he was shot in a duel on November 16, 1834. Nearly at the same time a neighboring community was rising just a short distance east of Washington Landing, settled largely by Polish immigrants, which chose for itself the name of Bassora. It was plotted on October 5, 1836, and a post office under the name of Bassora was established there on November 1, 1837. The origin of the name is uncertain. It hardly seems possible that it was borrowed from the ancient Turkish city of Bassora, now Basra, the chief seaport of modern Iraq on the Persian Gulf. Mr. Kiel suggests that it was coined from the name Bass, a member of a real estate firm at Union, by addition of the suffix -ora. This method of coining names does occur, by the process known as "clipping;" e.g. Laddonia from Ladd by adding -onia, clipped from such names as Caldonia or Livonia, or Peytonia, Columbia, Centralia, formed with the very common suffix-ia, as in Virginia; so Bassora might have been modeled on such names as Angora or Pechora. The difficulty is to authenticate Mr. Bass; if the place was named for him, it is strange that he is not included among the men who laid out the town, listed as George Morton, William Walker, Andrew King and Baldwin King. On the whole, however, Mr. Kiel's explanation is preferable to supposing that the name was a Turkish borrowing. The village of Bassora was not destined to a long life as a separate community. The post office was discontinued on April 4, 1840, evidently having been absorbed by the adjoining town of Washington. The name is still used, however, for the eastern section of Washington. The nickname of Goosetown for that section was inspired by the large number of geese raised by the Polanders. On April 3, 1837, the post office of Washington was established, and since 1840 has superseded all other names. The town was laid off, on the property of Mrs. Lucinda Owens, in 1839, and incorporated in 1841. It was obviously shortened from Washington Landing, the older name of the settlement, which neither William nor Lucinda Owens apparently wished to change.