County of marker: Knox County
Location of marker: 4th St. & E. LaFayette St., courthouse lawn, Edina
Marker erected by: State of Missouri Historical Society and State Highway Commission
Date marker erected: 1957
The Person:
Born: July 25, 1750, Boston, MA
Died: October 25, 1806, Thomaston, ME
Education: Boston Latin School
Party: Federalist Party
Spouse: Lucy Flucker
Previous office: United States Secretary of War (1789–1794)
"Henry Knox was an energetic, 300-pound, self-taught soldier who became the chief artillery officer of the Continental Army and a close confidant of George Washington. He was born in Boston to Irish immigrant parents, the seventh of 10 children. When Knox was nine years old, his father died. The boy gave up formal schooling and became a bookstore clerk. By age 21, he operated his own shop and devoted much time to the study of military writings, particularly those devoted to artillery matters.
"In 1772, Knox joined a local militia unit, and later, at the outbreak of the War for Independence, volunteered for service at the Battle of Bunker Hill (June 1775), where he served with distinction. Knox caught Washington's eye and received an appointment as an artillery colonel in the Continental Army. In the winter of 1775-76, Knox was sent to recently captured Fort Ticonderoga to remove the cannon and mortar left by the departing British. In a truly remarkable trek, Knox and his men managed to transport 60 pieces of artillery on oxen-drawn sleds over 300 miles of snow and ice to Washington’s waiting army. The artillery pieces were installed on Dorchester Heights, where they commanded the British-occupied city of Boston below. The futility of the situation was not lost on the British, who departed for Halifax on March 17, 1776.
The fortunes of war dimmed for Knox after the triumph at Boston. He and Washington’s forces spent most of the remainder of 1776 in retreat. The badly outnumbered and inexperienced American forces matched up poorly against the Redcoats.
"Knox later commanded the American artillery at many of the conflict’s most important encounters, including Trenton, Princeton, Brandywine, Germantown, Monmouth and Yorktown. He also made a major contribution by helping to create a national arsenal at Springfield, Massachusetts, a facility that did much for the war effort by producing new arms and repairing old pieces.
" At the end of the war, Knox became the commander at West Point and remained at the post until the British fully withdrew from New York City in late 1783. In December of that year, he was on hand for the emotion-filled farewell dinner that Washington held for his officers at Fraunces Tavern in the reoccupied city.
"In 1785, Knox resigned from the army, but was drawn back to public service the following year as secretary of war for the Articles of Confederation government. He continued with the same position in Washington's new government until retiring in 1795. In this role, Knox developed a reputation as a strong law-and-order advocate, urging armed action against Shays’ rebels and other domestic malcontents.
"Knox spent his retirement at his home in Maine, dabbling in a number of business ventures. He died in 1806 from an infection caused by a chicken bone that had become lodged in his intestines."
~ United States American History
The County:
"Edina, the seat of Knox County, was laid out here in the glacial plains of northeast Missouri, 1839, by W.J. Smallwood. Scotsman S.W.B. Carnegy, who surveyed the new town, named it the poetic form of Edinburgh. The county, formed 1843 and organized 1845, is named for Revolutionary War General Henry Knox. An area rich in soil and water resources, Knox County lies in territory ceded by the Iowa, Sac, and Fox Indians in 1824. Some 70 Indian mounds have been found in the county.
The county was first settled near Newark, to the south, by James Fresh in 1833. Early pioneers coming mainly from Ohio, Indiana, Maryland, and Kentucky were followed by a large Irish immigration and also a number of Germans in the late 1830's. One of the first Catholic parishes in northeast Missouri was St. Joseph's, formed here in 1837. Today's St. Joseph Church was built, 1873-1875.[construction actually began in 1872.]
Early schools in Edina were St. Joseph's Academy [which became a grade school then closed its doors in 1996.] founded, 1865; Lyon Academy, 1866; Edina Seminary (Knox Collegiate Institute), 1878; St. Joseph's College for Boys, 1883; and at Novelty, to the south, was Oaklawn College, founded in 1876.
Centered in rolling prairie land of Knox County, a grain and livestock farming area, Edina lies north of the South Fork of the Fabius (name probably derived from early trapper). Also in the county are North and Middle Fabius and the Salt and North Rivers.
During the Civil War, Edina was occupied July 30, 1861, by Colonel M.E. Green and the pro-Southern State Guards. At Newark, Union troops led by Capt. W.W. Lair surrendered to Confederates under Colonel Joseph C. Porter, August 1, 1862, after a sharp skirmish. In the railroad boom after the war, Knox County subscribed $184,000 in bonds by 1870 to the unsuccessful Mo. and Miss. Railroad. By 1899 the debt was paid. The Quincy, Mo., and Pac. R.R. (C.B.& Q.) reached Edina, 1872.
Edina was the birthplace of noted jurist George Turner (1850-1932). Union General T.T. Taylor edited an Edina newspaper, 1868-73, and Confederate Capt. Griffin Frost, author of "Camp and Prison Journal," edited another paper here, 1874-1905. Henry E. Sever, book publisher, born near Hurdland to the south, bequeathed $100,000 to Knox County for a Wildlife Sanctuary, 1941."
~ State Historical Society of Missouri and State Highway Commission
"The first step to organize the county was made by the General Assembly, which convened in November, 1842. By the first section of this act "to define the bounds of Scotland County, and for other purposes (approved January 6, 1843), it was provided that "all that part of the county of Scotland south of the township line dividing Townships 63 and 64 is hereby constituted and established a distinct county, to be called and known by the name of Knox County." Another section provided that Knox should be attached to Scotland, "until such time as said county of Knox shall become fully organized."
"The county was named in honor of Gen. Henry Knox, the Boston bookseller who became Washington's chief of artillery during the Revolutionary War...He was the first Secretary of War of the United States, serving from 1789 to 1795. A number of other counties in the Union were named Knox.
"The county remained as an attached part of Scotland until in 1845, when it was fully organized, "with metes and bounds as at present", by an act approved February 14, 1845. At the same time, andin the same act, the organization of the counties of Atchison, Dunklin, Harrison, Hickory, Mercer, Mississippi, Moniteau, Nodaway, Oregon, Schuyler and Texas were erected...This territory, from the time it was settled--the only period worth considering--belonged to Lewis County until the organization of Scotland, when it formed the south half of that county.
"By the terms of this act the first county court judges of Knox County were Edward Milligan, Melker Baker and Virgil Pratt, who were ordered to meet at Edina on the first Monday in April following, and put up the political machinery of the county and set it in motion.
"The first term of the Knox County Court convened at Edina, April 7, 1845...The first business transaction transacted after the selection of an elizir* was the appointment of Thomas Ferguson, John Black and Louis Fox, commissioners to view a road petition for and by John Black and others, and designated to run from somewhere on the South Fabius "to the road between Quincy and Kirksville"...About the only other business transacted at this term was the appointment of other road viewers...and the division of the county into four municipal townships: Benton, Center, Fabius and Salt River.
* Elizor -- Elisor Electors or chosen persons appointed by the court to execute Writs of Venire, in cases where both the sheriff and coroner are disqualified from voting, and whose duty is to choose--that is, name and return the jury. (--Black's Law Dictionary, Henry Campbell Black, M. A. 467.)
[II]
Locating the County Seat
"From the first it was generally understood that Edina was to become the capital of Knox County. It would seem, however, that no official action was taken in the premises until May 7, 1845, when the county court appointed three commissioners "to select the permanent seat of justice for the county of Knox"...The commissioners made their report, locating the county seat at Edina, on the second day of October, following, and were allowed $36 for their services.
First Settlement
"It has become to be pretty generally accepted as a fact that the first settler in Knox County was Stephen Cooper, who is reported in the atlas sketch and in Campbell's Gazetteer to have located in the northern or northeastern part of the county in the fall of 1832, and built a cabin a mile and a half west of Millport. A thorough investigation of the subject demonstrates the incorrectness of this assertion. Stephen Cooper settled in Lewis County, a mile west of La Grange, in 1829. Here he resided until the fall of 1833, when he sold his land to Judge William Hagood...and who stated that Cooper did not leave Lewis County for some months after he had sold out.
"Cooper did not come to what is now Knox County until some time in the fall of 1833. He located in the northeastern part of this or Scotland County, and was the founder of what became to be known as Cooper's settlement, which includes lands in both counties. In March, 1834, he was joined by James and Willis Hicks, who located in what is now Scotland County. Willis Hicks stated that Cooper and John E. Cannon came to Knox County in the fall of 1833, and that Cannon settled in the northeastern corner of Benton Township (southwest quarter of Section 1, Township 63, Range 11)...and that Cooper's location was on a tract adjoining...In a few years, say in about 1839, Cooper and Redding Roberts began the erection of a mill at Millport, which was completed the same year.
"Stephen Cooper was probably a native of Kentucky. He was a son of Captain Sarshel Cooper, who with Col. Benjamin Cooper and others, came to Howard County, Missouri, prior to the War of 1812, and was killed by the Indians in 1815.
"Perhaps the first bona fide settler in the territory now included within the metes and bounds of Knox County, was James Fresh. It is quite certain that he entered land a mile west of Newark, (Section 22, Township 60, Range 18) in October, 1833, and that a few days later he took up other lands in the same neighborhood. It was reported by certain old settlers that Fresh began the improvement of his first claim even before he had entered it. He had come from Maryland to Missouri and made a temporary location in Marion County until he could secure for himself a permanent home to his liking.
[III]
"The fact that Mr. Fresh entered his land in the fall of 1833, that he built a mill in the early spring of 1834, and that the exact location of Stephen Cooper can not be determined, indicate, if they do nor prove, that Fresh's settlement in the county antedated Cooper's. It may be that the two pioneers came about the same time, each in the fall of 1833, but it is proper to call attention to the recorded facts.
"After the creation by the Lewis County Court, of Benton Township (in 1834) and of Allen Township (in 1836), which was the first political division of the territory afterward constituting Knox County, important to be noticed, a correct map of Knox County would have been interesting.
Townships
"In February, 1840, while the present territory of Knox formed a part of Lewis, the population here was sufficient to warrant the creation of a distinct municipal township, and upon the petition of a number of the inhabitants, one was formed. This township was called Central, and its boundary line began at the northeast corner of Township 62, Range 11, and ran west to Range 14; then south on the range line to Township 61; thence east to Range 10; and then north to the beginning. The territory south belonged to Allen, and that north to Benton.
"Upon the organization, at the first session of the county court, in April, 1845, the county was divided into four municipal townships, Benton, Center, Fabius and Salt River, whose metes and were as follows:
Benton - Beginning at the northeast corner of the county; then south to Congressional Township 61; then west to Range 11; then north two miles; then north to the county line; then east to the beginning.
"Center - Beginning on the line between Townships 61 and 62, where the line between Ranges 10 and 11 crosses; then west to the Adair County line; then north to the northwest corner of the county; then east to Range 11; then south seven miles to Benton Township; thence east and south with the line of Benton to the beginning.
"Fabius - Beginning at the southeast corner of the county; then west to the center of Section 32, Range 11; then north to Township 62; then east to the Lewis county line; then south to the beginning." ~ Arthur Paul Moser for Springfield-Greene County Library