Monroe County Article written by Thomas V. Bodine, Paris

Green V. Caldwell, of Ralls county, was the first storekeeper in Jackson township, establishing a trading point two miles south of where Paris now stands in 1831---probably where the county infirmary is located. Paris was laid out the same year and for many years thereafter had Florida as an ambitious county seat rival. The fight began with the organization of the county and did not end until the late forties, when, to lay the rivalry, Major Howell and Dr. Flannigan, members of the legislature. the county having double representation in those days, hit upon the trick of having a row of rich sections cut off the north and south ends of the county, making it impracticable to divide it further east and west, as proposed by Florida, with Paris the seat of one county and Florida of the other. As a result Monroe county was ravished of some of its richest territory and both men forever forfeited their political standing. Howell was among the most brilliant Missouri lawyers of that day and the consequences were serious as regarded him, spoiling a career which would have no doubt been useful and distinguished. The geographical effects of the rape may be seen by looking at the map and noting the cut-off into Shelby in the northwestern part of the county. Even in those days Monroe countians were true Bourbons and those cut off into Shelby never forgave the authors of the enforced separation, it requiring a new generation to obliterate traces of the feeling engendered. For forty years it remained a miniature Alsace­Lorraine, the inhabitants persisting in calling themselves Monroe countians and their political interests centering in Monroe county elections.

    In those days Salt river was thought to be a navigable stream and Florida was looked upon as the headwaters of navigation, an important advantage considering that there were no railroads. Among the county seat boomers at Florida was John Marshall Clemens, the visionary and impractical father of Mark Twain, who moved to Hannibal before the fight was settled.

    The land on which Paris is located was deeded to the county seat commissioners by Hightower I. Hackney and wife, James K. Abernathey and wife and J. C. Fox and wife. The first sale of town lots occurred September 12, 13, and 14, 1831, and a letter to the St. Louis Republican at the time stated that the results were gratifying. The first two lots were bought by Marshall Kelly for $301 and are occupied by the Glenn hotel, Paris’ historic hostelry, built in the fifties. Among the purchasers was Eben W. McBride, father of Mrs. W. S. Woods, and one of the famous pioneer citizens of the county, a man of learning, wit, and kindly heart, who having grown rich and become the head of one of the most historic homes of the state, gave up his life in a steamboat explosion on the lower Mississippi in the late sixties. He was going south with mules and his body was never recovered, though a big shaft in his honor stands in beautiful Walnut Grove cemetery at Paris today. Perhaps no couple in Monroe county were so justly famed as Mr. McBride and his wife, Julia Snell McBride, both Kentuckians.

    When the court house site was being surveyed the men engaged in the work caught a spotted fawn, which leaped from the thicket, and it was taken to the home of James R. Abernathy, afterwards the famous Whig editor of the Mercury, and raised until it grew into a large deer.

    The first house in town was erected by J. C. Fox and Hightower Hackney and the first business house by Fox, standing until 1887, where the Paris opera house now stands. It was occupied by Fox & Caldwell. Marshall Kelly kept the first tavern in a log cabin where the Glenn house now stands and Alfred Wilson, afterwards famed as a Christian preacher, along with Henry Davis. another Kentuckian, afterwards county judge and business man, was among the first blacksmiths. Taliafierro Bostick and Jonathan Gore were saddlers and William Stephens was tailor. Among the early citizens were the eloquent Dr. Flannigan, referred to before, Wm. K. Van Arsdale, whose name appears as among the charter members of Paris Masonic lodge, and Anderson Woods.

    Just north of town on a big farm, surrounded by an accomplished family and a large number of slaves, lived that Dr. Bower, afterwards congressman, who was in the march on Detroit during the ‘War of 1812, and who earlier was a survivor of the Indian massacre at the River Raisin. He was a Kentuckian and a graduate of the Philadelphia school of medicine and was surgeon of the first company sent from Kentucky in response to call for troops. Being captured and taken to Malden he fell into the hands of the women of the family of a well known English officer, one of whom lie fell in love with, and was finally sold as a captive to an American citizen for $12. He lived to return to Malden a conqueror and to return the kindness of his English lady friends. When arraigned by General Mc Neil during the Civil war and compelled to give ransom he proudly related the incident of having been sold once for $12 while in his country’s service, and declared he had never thought to be subjected to like humiliation again. The story procured his release from McNeil’s superiors, but the old veteran never recovered from what he deemed an insult and died soon afterwards. He had lost three boys in the Confederate army and one in the war with Mexico. Dr. Bower was captain of the Kentucky guards sent out to meet Marquis de Lafayette on his visit to Kentucky and was a gentleman, a real gentleman, of the old school, famed in the history and traditions of Monroe county.