From: R Kelley       rkelley@sheltonbbs.com
To: Mary Hudson      mahud@fidnet.com 
Subject: Stoddard Co. History
Date: Thursday, July 15, 1999 11:41 AM

Dear Mary,

Our county origins are confusing unless one knows the entire history of
this area.  Before 1803, control of what is now the state of Missouri
passed back and forth between France and Spain, but it was mostly accepted
that land south of New Madrid was regarded as Spanish, while land from Ste.
Genevieve north was French.  The land in between wasn't settled by white
people, and it's uncertain who actually had title to it.  Indians and a few
transitory frontiersmen were the only inhabitants.  By the late 1700s, New
Madrid was officially part of Spanish Territory  (hence the name, even
though it isn't pronounced the same way as the Spanish capital) but
ownership of the Cape Girardeau area (Girardeau was a French name) was
still in dispute.  Some of the French had moved south from their
settlements in Ste. Genevieve and areas north of there, into the disputed
area, and established a town on a point jutting into the Mississippi River,
and named it Cape Girardeau.  The Spanish weren't too happy, since they
considered that part of their territory, and one  of the Spanish territory
officials contacted Major George F. Bollinger, a man he knew who lived in
Lincoln Co. NC, and asked Major Bollinger to bring settlers into the land
west of Cape Girardeau and settle it under the Spanish government, in
exchange for free land.  Bollinger agreed, and his first wagon train left
NC in 1799, crossed the Mississippi River on 1 Jan 1800 at Ste. Genevieve,
picked up supplies there and turned south, settling on the Whitewater River
in what is now Burfordville, Bollinger County.  My ancestor, Peter Cryts,
was on that first wagon train.  Bollinger made three more trips bringing
mostly German settlers from NC.  The settlers were to receive Spanish land
grants which would be made permanent after five years if certain
specificied improvements were made to the land.  (Spain wanted to check the
spread of French settlers any further into what they considered their
territory.)

Soon after the Bollinger settlers arrived from North Carolina,  Spain ceded
her claims to France, and France quickly sold the entire Louisiana
Territory to the U.S. in 1803.  That threw the Bollinger settlers into an
unusual situation, of having land titles issued by a territorial government
which no longer existed.  At first the U.S. government did not recognize
the Spanish land grants and most of the Bollinger settlers fought long
court battles before finally gaining legal title to their land.  My Peter
Cryts finally received legal title in the 1820s to his land along the
Whitewater River.  There are records of the court hearings that were held
in St. Charles.

Although this area was included in the Louisiana Purchase area of 1803,
government acts take time, and Missouri didn't officially became part of
the Louisiana Territory of the United States of America until 1805.

In 1812, the Missouri Territory was carved from Louisiana.  It included
most of present day Missouri and Arkansas, except for the Platte Purchase
area of Missouri in the northwest area of the state.  The original
districts of Missouri Territory of Upper Louisiana, formed in 1812, were
Cape Girardeau, New Madrid, Ste. Genevieve, St. Louis, and St. Charles. 
They stretched west across the state, although at that time, no one was
really certain where the western bound