Cass County - Harrisonville, Mo - Missouri Historical Markers on Waymarking.com

Text of the marker - Front side:

Midway on Missouri's western border, Cass County was organized in 1835 and named Van Buren. The Free-Soil Party affillation of Martin Van Buren led to name change, in 1849 for Democrat Lewis Cass. In territory ceded by Osage tribes 1825, the county was first settled 1828, by David Creek. Early pioneers were mainly from Ky., Tenn., Va.

Harrisonville, the county seat, was laid out 1837, and named for Albert G. Harrison, Mo. Congressman. The 1897 courthouse is the county's third. Pleasant Hill, the second town founded, was laid out 1844 near store opened by "Blois," a French Canadian, 1833.

Torn by strife in the 1854-59 Mo.~Kan. Border War, Cass was one of the counties named in Thomas Ewing's Order No. 11. Issued Aug. 25, 1863, to curb guerrilla warfare, it forced people from their homes except in or near Union~held Pleasant Hill and Harrisonville. Near Freeman is the site of the "Battle of Morristown," where about 500 men under Union Colonel H.P. Johnson, who was killed, routed some 100 State Guards led by Col. H.I. Irvin, Sept., 1861. Resettlement brought the county a 19,296 pop. by 1870.

Text of marker - back side:

County of handsome livestock and grain farms, Cass is in Missouri's Western Prairie Region. During 1865~1904, the Mo.Pac.; M.K.T; K.C.So.; C.R.I. & Pac.; Frisco; K.C., Clinton & Spfd. railroads were built in the county and many towns were laid out. Pleasant Hill and Harrisonville grew as shipping points.

In 1872 the county was victimized by a county court railroad bond swindle. Two of the guilty officials, out on bond, and a friend, attempting to leave, were killed by a mob which boarded their train at Gunn City. No one was ever punished. It took some 50 years to pay off the bond debt.

At Belton is buried temperance agitator Carry (Moore) Nation (1846~1911). Her grave marker states "She hath done what she could." In Pleasant Hill post office is Tom Lea's mural "Back Home April, 1865." Buried in cemetery there are Confed. Gen. Hiram S. Bledsoe and Caroline Abbott Stanley, the author of novel "Order No. 11," and there lived Mo. geologist Garland Carr Broadhead (1827~1912) and political scientist James A. Smith (1860~1924). Musician Robert Russell Bennett lived near Freeman as a youth.

Erected by State Historical Society of Missouri and State Highway Commission 1959.

Web link: [Web Link] History of Mark: Corrections and updates since 1959: 1. Some speculate that only two courthouses have been built. Plan for a courthouse were approved in April 1837, but records indicate that the approval was rescinded the following month. A courthouse plan approved for completion by September 1844 created a two-story brick building on the square that served Cass County until 1896. The cornerstone of the current building designed by W.C. Root, was dedicated in 1897. Additional point: Not Listed

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Date Logged Log User Rating   07/05/2014 Woobie491 visited it