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Brief History of Early Ralls County Missouri

Ron Leake, President of the Ralls County Historical Society

The history of Native Americans in Ralls County can be traced back to the Paleo-Indians who appeared there around 12,000 years ago.  Only a few artifacts, mounds and one petrography can be found of their long history in the county. The Sauk and Fox are conceded to be the last tribe to have rights to the county and most of northeast Missouri. The tribe remained in the area until after the War of 1812.

On their passage down the Mississippi River in 1673 explorers Marquette and Joliet were the first Europeans to see the area that became Ralls County. A little more than a hundred years later Maxent, Laclede and Company of St. Louis were given rights to the fur trade north of the Missouri river and records show they went up Salt River as far as present Florida, Monroe County, passing though Ralls in the late 1700’s.  Martin Bouvet in 1792 started a salt operation at present Spalding Spring, but because of unpredictable water levels on Salt River he built the first road in the county to move his product to a Mississippi outlet at Bay de Charles in now Marion County, where he was killed in 1800 in an Indian raid. A salt spring near the creek to the south of Saverton probably led to the first settlement of the area called Little Prairie. In 1808, a Kentuckian Samuel Gilbert, determined to remove to the springs and on his arrival he found a French settlement consisting of three old cabins, and as many families where the town of Saverton is now located.  Gilbert bought the spring from a Frenchman who said he had a claim on the operation. Indian raids before the War of 1812 caused the few shattered settlers and other salt operations in the area to withdraw to forts nearer to St. Louis. After the war broke out a series of forts where built and one of these was Fort Mason built near present Saverton. Nathan Boone supervised its construction and John Colter of the Lewis and Clark expedition served there during the war.

Slowly after the War of 1812 the few settlers who lived in the county before the war and left returned and the immigration of the area that became the county began and reached its peak in the mid 1830’s. Most of these first families came from Kentucky and Virginia settling first along the Salt River and its tributaries.

When Ralls was formed out of Pike County in 1820, its northern border was the present Iowa state line and it contained eight complete and parts of four present northeast Missouri counties. It was named for an early settler that lived near New London and who severed in the Missouri General Assembly when the county was organized.

Missouri voted to remain Union in 1861 during the Civil War, but most of the families who settled in the county were from southern states and owned slaves. Because of this many men joined the confederate army or where members of rebel groups who raids in and around the county. No major battles took place in the county, but many skirmishes. 


Owner/SourceHistory of Ralls County
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