A History of the Howell County Courthouse

   Utilizing their government through the county court system could be a challenge for the early pioneers living in what would become Howell County. In that era, the center of county government was a moving target and often a great distance away. 

 

   After the 1804 Louisiana Purchase, our part of the land in that deal had been in the former Spanish District of Upper Louisiana, known as New Madrid. In 1805, an act of the United States Congress included us in the "Territory of Louisiana."

 

   The New Madrid Earthquakes of 1811 and 1812 are said to have driven several families westward into South Central Missouri. Land grants on the Upper Eleven Point River were awarded to a few victims to replace their land after they fled the quakes. The other inhabitants living here were necessarily squatters or Native Americans.

 

   The first permanent inhabitants were arriving. Long hunter and farmer Charles Hatcher settled on the Eleven Point River upriver from today’s Thomasville sometime between 1806 and 1809. He started a trading post and small family community called Rich Hill. Osage hunting parties hunted and trapped on the rivers, later to be joined by the Shawnee, Delaware, and other tribes displaced by warfare with the United States, living on our rivers and streams.

 

   In 1812, Congress moved again in the naming business and decreed we would henceforth be in the "Territory of Missouri." In that territory, New Madrid was designated one of its first counties, and we were in it, barely. The 37-degree north latitude and the north boundary of the new county ran north of present-day Willow Springs and Mountain View. The southern end of the new county took in pretty much what is today the State of Arkansas, but mind you, neither we nor Arkansas were states yet. We were in the Territory of Missouri. 

 

   In 1815, we were again renamed. Now, the Territorial Legislature decided our name should be Lawrence County, Missouri Territory. Our seat of government was Davidsonville, on the Black River in Arkansas. With the establishment of an honest county government, Charles Hatcher pulled up stakes and moved to Davidsonville and began survey work for the government. 

 

   Surveying was important. There was no way for the government to sell or tax land until that work was done, and the General Land Office surveys were started in 1817. Another important function of county government from the beginning was road building. In 1818, the county court ordered a road to be built from Davidsonville northward into the Eleven Point country, perhaps as far as present-day Thomasville. Howell County would not be fully surveyed until 1848, impeding government land sales.

 

   In 1819, we were again carved away from our mother county. A new "Territory of Arkansas" was created to the south, and we became part of a new county named "Wayne," so large it was often referred to as the "State of Wayne," Missouri Territory, with a county seat at Greenville. 

 

   Missouri was admitted into the Union of the United States on August 10, 1821, with a State Capitol at St. Charles. A bit of a problem was attached to the otherwise positive event, however. Part of the border between the State of Missouri and the Arkansas Territory had not been surveyed, and a large area south of 37 degrees north latitude (where Howell County is) was designated as "Unattached Territory." This left us temporarily without a seat of government, but we were soon adopted by Wayne County again. The survey of the Arkansas/Missouri line was not completed until 1843, and as a consequence, Howell County, especially the southern portion, was nicknamed as part of "Lapland."

 

   By the 1830 census, Wayne County had a population of just over 3,200. Less than 20 families on that list are believed to have been located in what is today Howell County. But migration into Southern Missouri was on the rise. In 1833, Wayne County was divided, and a new county, Ripley County, with a seat of Van Buren, was created, and we were part of the new county. As more and more immigrants arrived, the need to divide the counties again was pressing. The force driving county formation at this point was that logical desire to have your seat of government and county business as near as possible. For that reason, the county seat was located as centrally as possible, but a multiple-day trip to the courthouse was necessary for those living on the edge of the county line. 

 

   Several early accounts credit a "hunter named Adams" as the first white settler to arrive in what is today West Plains, in the summer of 1839. He landed at the spring a block east of the current square, which in later years became a city park, U.S. Post Office, Public Library, a Baptist Church annex building, and today a meeting venue. Delaware Indians were in the habit of visiting the spring when the first settlers appeared, and the spring became essential to the fledgling town. Native peoples were being removed from the Ozarks to be taken west to reservations, but small bands resisted removal in the wilds of the Ozarks for a decade after the start of the Trail of Tears in 1836. 

 

   Adams was not enamored with the loneliness of the place; his nearest neighbor was said to live twenty miles away. He soon sold his improvements (he did not own the land) to a newly arrived family from Tennessee, the Howells. Josiah Howell and his wife, four children, and a small group of slaves moved into the area. His eldest son, Thomas, built his log home near the spring in 1839. 

 

   In 1841, Oregon County was formed and its boundaries defined. It would be 1845 before the act of organization was approved. The county was named after the Oregon Territory, and at that time had a population of around 700. Today's Howell County was a part, and the county seat was established at Thomasville. Thomas Jefferson Howell, mentioned earlier, was the new county's first State Representative. He had previously served as our Representative of Ripley County in 1842.

 

   In 1848, a sectional survey of this area was near completion, and much of the better land was snapped up, as people began arriving in greater numbers. It was in this time frame that the herds of elk roaming the county disappeared. 

 

   Contrary to some accounts, Howell County was not named in honor of Josephus Howell, but rather for his son, Tommy. In 1857, Thomas Simpson, then Oregon County State Representative, introduced a bill to divide the county and form a new county named "Howell" in honor of Thomas Jefferson Howell. Tommy had been Oregon County’s first State Representative in 1845, before Howell County was created. Howell's home was designated as the meeting place of the county and circuit courts until another seat of justice was selected. Ben Alsup, James Ellison, and Joseph H. Russell were appointed as “judges” or commissioners of the new county court, and Josiah Howell was appointed as Sheriff.

 

   The land upon which the first Howell County courthouse was built was donated by two pioneers in 1858, Jasper Howell and Mary Wells Mattox. Jasper was part of the extended Howell family living near the spring and around West Plains, and Mary, born in Georgia, was the wife of John Hartridge Mattox. John and Mary were living in Georgia during the 1850 census, but only Mary is shown in the Howell County 1860 census. John died in Georgia in 1855 and is buried there. Mary is buried in the Oaklawn Cemetery in West Plains.

 

    A wooden frame courthouse for Howell County, unusual for a time when most buildings were made of logs, was completed in 1859. Trees were scarce around West Plains, and sawmills were not nearby, so lumber had to be hauled overland with oxen teams and freight wagons from Ironton, Missouri. To me, this indicates the pride felt in our new county, when a log cabin would have been so much easier and less expensive.

 

   The new courthouse was shelled and damaged by a mountain howitzer cannon during the Civil War in 1862 and burned during a guerrilla raid in fall 1863, in which every building left in West Plains was destroyed by fire. The war devastated Howell County. In 1860, the census counted 3,169 people living in the new county. In 1865, more than 3,000 of those souls had fled the county or died here. Following the attack, our county namesake, Thomas J. Howell, a southern sympathizer, was arrested by the Union Army and held as a hostage for the return of Howell County Unionist judge/commissioner Benjamin Alsup. Both men, county officials and civilians with opposing sympathies, survived the war. Thomas Howell died in office while serving in the Missouri Legislature in 1875. He had served nine terms in the Missouri House of Representatives and was buried in Jefferson City.

 

   Following the war, county records preserved in a cave during the war, including land records, were stored in a small shed, which mysteriously burned in 1866. 

 

   Following the war, courts were held in nearby buildings or outdoors under a shade tree. While holding circuit court outdoors in 1858, Judge Albert Jackson stopped proceedings to fine an intoxicated man who stopped to watch the proceedings. The town square was overgrown with brush and small trees following the war. Hogs created pathways through the thick, high brush, which were used to traverse the city by the first to return. Witness Alice Carey Risley called the brush covering the square dog fennel. 

 

   The antebellum wooden courthouse was set in the center of the square, and succeeding permanent courthouses would follow. In January 1858, a survey and a plat for the town were completed. Main Street ran through the center, with North and South Streets intersecting in the center. This was and is a rare configuration known as the Lancaster plan, after the city in Pennsylvania that used it in the 18th century. We are one of seven communities in Missouri using the plan where streets enter the midpoint on all four sides rather than the corners. I suspect traffic flow wasn’t a problem in 1857, but today, you learn quickly that traffic is one-way and flows to the right! The walkthrough arcades that this plan created are a vibrant part of the community today.

 

   After four years of restored government and the collection of taxes, in 1869, Howell County employed T.E. Britton to build a second temporary courthouse, this time located south of the square. A small, twenty-four by thirty-foot wooden frame building with three rooms, costing twelve thousand dollars, would serve the county for another fourteen years before we could build something better. I think we accomplished it in 1883, with the construction of what I believe was the prettiest courthouse in our county’s history.     

 

   We will look at that courthouse in my next issue.