WARSAW, MO – So Many Good Stories!

As I left the Wilson's Creek Battlefield, I checked my time, still hoping for a stop at Sedalia for the night.  I headed for Springfield, swinging onto the interstate for better time, picked up Hwy 65 on the south side of town and headed north.  I was looking for the sign to Preston, MO -- the next town (just to know I made the right turn!!)  I drove thru the little burg of Preston, population 200, and moved on to Warsaw.  Then it would be a stop at the monument at Cole Camp, the actual battlefield is not accessible, it is on private property, before I hit Sedalia.

I made a quick stop at a local establishment in Warsaw to see if I could get some local “color” regarding the town's history. Oh, MY! Those guys started talking and the history is 'colorful!” I should have allowed more time for this visit, however, I'm so close to Sedalia, I know I can get there for the nite, so, after a quick visit and some notes, I headed on down (or up) the road!

The first documentation of white explorers/settlers in the Warsaw area is 1719,

The Osage River was a main trade route for the French hunters, trappers, and traders. The Osage, Delaware, Shawnee, Kickapoo, Sac and Fox called the area home. With the rivers and springs, it was an excellent hunting ground, game was plentiful, and flint rock was available for arrows and knives in the bluffs and hills.

Farmers of English, Irish and German ancestry, from Kentucky and Tennessee, were the first settlers in the area that would become the town of Warsaw, about 1820. Lewis Bledsoe had the first ferry on the Osage River by 1831. His ferry served the Boonville-Springfield Road, also called the Old Military Road or Wire Road. Another ferry was established to the west and soon the community was a crossroads of freight wagons, stagecoaches, and wagon trains. The county "offices” were in a home near Bledsoe’s Ferry and the Nicholas Tavern, built in the 1840s, was the daily mail and stage stop for the Butterfield Stage Line from 1851-1861.

The population was growing rapidly and a legal system was needed to control the area. Steven Houser (Stephen Howser) built the first house in Warsaw, and, for several years, provided a court room in his home. Coming from Kentucky with his wife, Sally, they settled here in 1831. The Howser's son, Stephen Hogue Howser, would make his own news during the Civil War – and it had nothing to do with the war!

In 1836, the Gazetteer of Missouri described the town, then called Osage or New Town, as including plans for a hotel, mills, warehouses, and merchants, as well as predicting a population of several thousand over the next 5 years. Town lots were first sold in February, 1838.

Steamboats on the Osage River, docked in Warsaw and riverboat traffic was brisk during the 1850’s, often as many as 7 steamboats at the wharf at a time. Guerrilla activity up and down the river put a stop to the river traffic and trade prior to the Civil War.

In 1840, an old style family style feud occurred in Benton and Polk Counties between the Hiram Turk family, who owned a store and saloon south of Warsaw, and the Andy Jones family, who lived along the Pomme de Terre River. Over the next several years, the feud would expand resulting in a number of killings, and dubbed the "Slicker War." (More about that in a later blog entry.)

In 1857, the Mechanics Bank of St Louis established “ the most expensive bank building in western Missouri.” It would close 4 years later when Warsaw was destroyed by Union General John C. Fremont’s troops in 1861. It stood empty until 1912 when it was bought by the Benton County court and converted into a jail.

At about the same time that Civil War was declared in 1861, Benton County was more interested in a local story. Stephen Howser, son of one of the town's first residents, was accused of killing a man on his way to California, as well as a Gasconade County man in 1859. Sentenced to prison by a St. Louis Court in 1859, he was pardoned in 1861. On his way back to Warsaw, he killed a man in Baldwin, MO. Soon after his return to Warsaw, he shot and killed another man after robbing him. Although he left Benton County, he was tracked down and killed in Vernon County, MO.

Although it did not secede from the Union, Missouri was a slave state; this created conflict between families, friends and neighbors. On April 23rd, a crowd of citizens raised a rebel flag on the courthouse lawn. Two months later Missouri joined the war on the side of the Union.

The Benton County Missouri Home Guards (Union) was established on June 13, 1861. Made up of members primarily German descent, they saw combat 6 days later at the Battle of Cole Camp, 25 miles north of Warsaw. The battle was a Confederate victory, with 34 Union soldiers killed, 60 wounded, and 25 taken prisoners. The Benton County Home Guards officially lasted for only 90 days - members either returned home or joined other regiments.

October 17-21, 1861, Union General Fremont determined Warsaw to be a "treasonous” city. His troops devastated the town, taking supplies and homes for their own needs. The next month, on Nov 22, as Union Army stragglers followed Fremont’s troops, they burned about all of what was left of the town.

On February 13, 1862, Major Ed Price, son of Confederate General Sterling Price, was captured. Price convinced his captors that he was disillusioned with the Confederate cause and took an oath of allegiance to the Union. Based on this, his Union captors granted him full pardon and he represented himself in public as a northern supporter. In an “under cover” type of mission, Price worked with the guerrillas in the area, gathering information for them and about them to take to the Confederate forces. While he was recruiting for the Southern cause, he felt it was his duty for the protection of the people and the region to target "radical" northerners who victimized them and pomoted enlistment of black men into the Union Army. Edwin's suppossed, and publically visible, change of heart embarrassed his father and created rumors about Sterling Price's own allegiance. Edwin Price, known as “Stump” Price, eventually achieved the rank or Brigadier General in the Confederate Army.

A few months later, in April, there were a number of nearby skirmishes, as well as more fighting in Warsaw that October. Before the war was over, what was left of the town would be burned again on Nov 7-9, 1863 by Confederate Colonel J O Shelby’s troops as they marched through the town on their way to Cole Camp.

Warsaw residents would rebuild. Navigation and trading on the river returned and merchants again prospered. In 1874, Warsaw had 15 retail establishments, 2 newspapers, a flour mill, and a sawmill.

Riverboat traffic on the Osage ceased shortly after the first train arrived in Warsaw from Sedalia in November, 1880. On November 2, 1897.

By the turn of the century, automobiles were replacing horses and buggies; there was a need for new bridges. The first suspension toll bridge in the area was built in 1895. Several others were built in the area, all lost to disaster, tornado, flood, even one to a stampede of cattle.

The 600 foot pathway across the river, the Upper Bridge was renamed "The Joe Dice Swinging Bridge” and is the last of 15 swinging bridges that once crossed the Osage River, linking the Great Lakes with the Gulf of Mexico. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, the bridge was limited to pedestrian traffic until 2000 at which time conditions required it to be closed.