County of memorial: Montgomery County
Location of school: Booneslick Rd. (Old US 40 now N. service RD of I-70) & MO-161, Danville
Marker erected: 2005
Marker erected by: Missouri Civil War Heritage Foundation
Funding provided by: Bank of Montgomery County
Marker Text:
DANVILLE FEMALE ACADEMY
Missouri's
CIVIL WAR
You are standing on the site of the Danville Female Academy, and at your front is the sole surviving building of the Academy, the chapel and dormitory.
The Female Academy was founded in 1853 by the Reverend James H. Robinson at a time when Danville was an important stop on the Boonslick Road, and it is considered one of the first female "colleges" west of the Mississippi River. As shown by the woodcut at the upper right, the academy became a substantial facility during the years of its operation (1853-1865). The Rev. Robinson moved to St. Joseph, Missouri, in 1865, and he became a prominent educator there.
On the evening of October 14, 1864, rebel horsemen rode east into Danville on the Boonslick Road - a rare segment of which survives two blocks northwest of here. Danville was a predominately Unionist settlement at the time and was garrisoned by Union troops operating out of a large blockhouse that stood at the southeast corner of the public square. The night of the Anderson's Raid, these union troops were stationed several miles to the east, protecting the North Missouri Railroad.
Arriving in town at 8:30 p.m. without warning, Anderson's men began their rampage by indiscriminately killing several of the townspeople, including 12-year-old Ira Chinn. For three and one half hours, the southern raiders practiced their grisly trade. Some, like "Little Archie" Clements had been at Centralia just two and a half weeks earlier and knew well how to terrorize a town. The raiders moved east, to New Florence, about midnight and left most of the town of Danville in flames and ruins. Still intact was the substantial brick home of Missouri legislator Sylvester Baker, which stands to this day down the road about a mile to the east.
The most fascinating story to come out of the Danville Raid happened right here. Guerrillas entered the academy grounds believing that Union troops had secreted themselves in the chapel and demanded the keys from Mrs. Robinson. While this scene transpired, some of the students housed in the second floor dormitory ran for the woods, while some came out to confront the guerrillas, claiming they were southern girls and begging that the school be spared. Local lore holds that one of the girls hung her petticoat on a staff over the front door of this place as a sign of truce. Whatever the reason, the school survived and this chapel survived, a testament to the grit of some young Missouri women, some northern and some southern in heritage.
This building was a Methodist Church until the 1950's and is considered by some to be the finest example of Greek Revival architecture still standing in central Missouri.
The Danville Raid
On October 11, 1864, at Boonville, Missouri, Confederate General Sterling Price met with an already infamous "Bloody Bill" Anderson, during Price's westward march on his 1864 Missouri Expedition. Price instructed Anderson to take a party east to disrupt and destroy the North Missouri Railroad. Anderson's men traveled east on the Boone's Lick Trail (Road), passing through Franklin and Rocheport, and skirting Columbia, then continuing to Williamsburg and Danville. After the attack on Danville, described here, the raiders moved on New Florence and High Hill, to the east, and destroyed tracks and railroad facilities there. The damage to the railroad, however, was relatively slight, and the raiders ended their eastward dash well before reaching their objective, a bridge at the St. Charles County line.
After High Hill, Anderson's men camped on the New Florence - Hermann Road several miles southeast of here, then crossed the Missouri River west of Hermann.
Was "Bloody Bill" Anderson at Danville? Major historians have disagreed on the issue of whether Anderson commanded the raiders at Danville, but some of the literature also places him at Glasgow, Missouri on the wrong date - i.e. on the same day as the Danville Raid. The Draper sisters believe they saw the infamous Anderson here. If he was not, then his sidekick, the diabolical "Little Archie" Clements was in command.
Marker text: THE HISTORIC BOONSLICK REGION
CIVIL WAR
Missouri achieved statehood in 1821 as a result of the famous "Missouri Compromise." It was decreed that Missouri be admitted as a slave state, but thereafter no state north of the 36° 30' North latitude in the Louisiana Territory would be permitted to harbor the institution." The Compromise left an uneasy equilibrium that kept the country together until the troubles in Kansas began in the 1850s.
The first consequence of Missouri's admission as a slave state was a flood of immigration by people of Southern heritage, from states such as Tennessee, Kentucky and Virginia. Southerners, like Easterners, were on the move westward in the first half of the nineteenth century. Many of these new Missourians located in the fertile Missouri River Valley; Some brought slaves, and many others who did not own slaves brought with them the tolerance for the slave culture.
The area of central Missouri having the highest proportion of slave-holders came to be known as the "Boonslick." The boundaries of this territory are subject to conjecture, then as now, but in this part of Missouri the boundary can be laid out along the deep valley of the Loutre River that exits 2½ miles west of here. This natural barrier, the existence of German settlements centered at Hermann, only 15 miles to the south, and of a railroad tying commerce to St. Louis, just to the east, would turn Danville into a no-man's land by the end of the Civil War.
The Boonslick was isolated from the rest of the slave-holding South by the mountain region known as the Ozark plateau, where (as elsewhere in the South) the slave culture did not take root. Even as the 1860s arrived, transportation of goods and agriculture products in and out of the Boonslick depended inordinately on steamboats plying the Missouri and Mississippi. St. Louis, by then a manufacturing center with a large proportion of European immigrant labor, stood squarely between the Boonslick and the rest of the slave-holding South.
In 1861, the area we now know as "Little Dixie" - the Boonslick - was the northernmost pocket of Southern and slave-holding sympathies in all the United States. By early 1862, the Confederacy lost any opportunity it ever had to control the Boonslick by force of arms and regular Confederate armies were operating out of Arkansas. It was simple geography, and some say a heavy-handed military administration of a population sympathetic to Southern viewpoints that brought about the fierce guerrilla style of warfare, practiced by both sides, that most people associate with Missouri's Civil War.
All of these factors helped to bring about Danville's date with destiny, October 14, 1864.
[One point of view of the Danville Raid can be read here.]
A trace, then a trail, was laid out to an animal salt lick which was "mined" and processed for the salt to be sold to pioneers and used by the Boone brothers, and hence was known as Boone's Lick. The road which connected St. Charles to these sources became the Boonslick Road. Later, the entire region that straddled the Missouri River came to be known as the Boonslick. Now, it is better known as Missouri's "Little Dixie".
The Boonslick Road originally ended in Howard County, Missouri, where the Boones' salt works is now a Missouri State Historic Site. After this road was extended westward from Howard County, the old Boonslick Road would become the Santa Fe Trail. This ancient thoroughfare later became U.S. Highway 40
[Not true] and finally Inter state 70.
The portrait that appears above was painted from life in 1820, the same year Daniel Boone passed away at his son's home near Defience, Missouri.
[Now called the DANIEL BOONE HOME incorrectly] The home still stands 45 miles southwest of here, in St. Charles County, and is a popular visitors attraction. The artist is Chester Harding, whose son Chester Harding, Jr., was a colonel in the Union army who figured prominently in Missouri's Civil War.
The Boonslick Today
The historic Boonslick region today reflects rich mixture of its agricultural roots with educational and cultural activities that draw the attention of the entire Midwest. At the center is the growing urban area of Columbia, home of the University of Missouri, the first land-grant institution west of the Mississippi River. Festivals, art shows and farmers markets draw visitors from around the state to Columbia, which has also became a regional shopping hub. Rocheport, Boonville and Fayette to the west and northwest each offer unique attraction for history-minded visitors, as do Centralia and Fulton to the northeast and east.