CHAPTER IV.-ORGANIZATION.

Date of Organization-Treastise on County and Other Corporations-The Act Making Pettis County--Its Bourdaries--Named for Hon. Spencer Pettis--The Second Act-Name of Commissioners to Locate County Seat--The Law making St. Helena the County Seat--The First Land Entry--First Deed Recorded-First Mortgage--Statutes of 1835 Defining County Boundaries-Area of County--Present Boundaries--The County Half a Century Old-Organization of Town of Georgetown-Organization of Schools-County Buildings-Township Organization-Description and Names of Townships.

Pettis county was organized on the 26th day of January, 1833, by severances effected from the counties of Saline and Cooper.

Before proceeding to give the details of this organization, and formally presenting to the reader the actors who carried into effect the will of the people, it will be well to consider the county system and its operations in general. No person, till he has investigated the subject, is aware of the unity which pervades the plan or the principles of law and government in volved. Pettis county is no exception to the rule, and what applies to county organization throughout the world, is pertinent more or less to one whose history we trace on these pages. Just as a student of law can better understand the statutes and codes of the youthful states of the American Union, by a careful study of the ancient common law of England and civil law of Rome, so he can with greater pleasure and profit, follow the practical workings of county affairs, having first obtained a clear idea of what such an organization has been and is still considered to be.

Counties are quasi corporations. The Latin word quasi signifies as if, or almost. A county then is almost a corporation, or has certain features of a corporation. A corporation in the full acceptation of the term, is a body formed and authorized by law to act as a single person, and endowed with perpetual succession, as an expressly chartered city government, a bank or railroad company. Counties, townships, parishes, school districts, and some other political divisions of a county, are ranked as quasi corporations.

In Great Britain and most of her colonies, a county is a subdivision of territory corresponding to a province of Prussia, or a department of France. In the American Union, except Louisiana, which is divided into parishes, counties are divisions next in size and importance to states. This division, in England, is synonymous with the shire, but not so in Ireland; this division is said to have originated in England, under the reign of the ancient Saxon kings, though popularly attributed to Alfred the Great. England and Wales contain fifty-two counties, Scotland thirty-three, and Ireland thirty-two. The principal officers of a county in England are a lord lieutenant, a keeper of the rolls, a sheriff, a coroner, a receiver of general

taxes, justices of the peace, an under sheriff, and a clerk of the peace. The lord lieutenant has command of the militia of the county, the keeper of the rolls, or custos retulorum, is custodian of the archives. The other officers perform such duties as are naturally indicated in their titles. The United States for local government and other porposes are divided into counties, townships, school-districts, and municipal corporations. In all the counties in the several states and territories, including the parishes of Louisiana, there are officers who superintend the financial affairs, a court of inferior jurisdiction, and, at stated times, the circuit court, or supreme court. As the state is subordinate to, and a part of the federal government, so the county is a part of the state, but possessing only such rights as are delegated to it by the statutory enactments.

The people in each local division have entire control over the subjects. in which they only are interested; and the whole works together like an extensive system of machinery, wheel fitted to wheel. There is very little opportunity for the exercise of arbitrary power, from the lowest to the highest. Executive power may be changed by election or impeachment, if the officers are recreant to duty, or do not give satisfaction, and there are constitutional provisions for making improvements if the people think they should be made. Thus our country is secured against serious and protracted discontents for which there is no remedial law as in some countries, where the internal disturbances interrupt progress, and destroy the resources of the nation. The value of any office, from that of a school director to county judge, governor, or president, is determined by the relation it bears to the public welfare; and when, in the opinion of the people, it ceases to be useful, there are means of laying it aside according to law. This is true democracy.

The powers and rights of counties go no further than defined by statute, though it is provided that each is a body corporate with capacity to sue and be sued, to purchase and hold land within its own limits, and for the use of its inhabitants, subject to the power of the general assembly over the same, to make such contracts, and purchase and hold real estate and personal property, and to make such orders and regulations for the disposition of such property as may be deemed conducive to the best interests of the people.

When the general assembly deemed it necessary, or to the interest of the people to organize a new county, the first was to pass an act defining the boundaries and assigning a name to the new political division.

The citizens living in the portions of Saline and Cooper counties, from which Pettis county was formed, were set off by the following act: Be it enacted by the General Assembly of the State of Missouri, as follows: All that portion of territory, lying and being south of Saline county proper, in the State of Misseuri, and which has heretofore been attached

to Saline county for all civil and military purposes, and also a part of the territory now composing the counties of Cooper and Saline, included within the following boundaries, to-wit: Beginning on the range line dividing ranges twenty-three and twenty-four, (the line now dividing Saline and Lafayette counties), at the northwest corner of section nineteen, in township forty-eight; thence running due east with said section line, to the range line between ranges nineteen and twenty; thence due south with said range line, to the middle of the main channel of the river Osage; thence up said river Osage, in the middle of the main channel thereof, to the southeast corner of Lafayette county; thence due north, with the range line dividing Saline and Lafayette counties to the beginning, be, and the same is hereby declared a separate and distinct county, to be known and called by the name of Pettis county.

The courts to be holden in said county, shall be held at the house of James Ramey, until the tribunal transacting county business for said county shall fix a temporary seat of justice for said county; and the county courts to be holden in said county, shall be held on the third Mondays in February, May, August and November.

It shall be the duty of the governor, so soon as it shall be convenient after the passage of this act, to appoint judges of the county court for the said county, who shall hold their offices until the next general election in eighteen hundred and thirty-four, and until their successors be duly elected and qualified.

All taxes now due the counties of Saline and Cooper, by citizens residing in the county of Pettis, shall be collected and paid to said counties of Saline and Cooper, in all respects, as if this act had not passed.

This act shall take effect and be in force from and after its passage. January 26, 1833.

At this time the name of Hon. Spencer Pettis, who served the people as a member of congress when Missouri was but one congressional district, was fresh in the memory of the friends of this new county, hence its

name.

After the county was organized, the seat of justice was temporarily kept at St. Helena, which commonly bore the name of Pin Hook, till 1837.

The following is an act in regard to the southern boundary of Pettis. county, and selecting commissioners to locate the seat of justice:

Be it enacted by the General Assembly of the State of Missouri, as follows:

The following shall be, and is hereby established as the permanent southern boundary of Pettis county: Beginning on the range line dividing ranges twenty-three and twenty-four, the line now dividing Lafayette and Pettis counties, at the southwest corner of township forty-four; thence due east with said township line to the eastern boundary of Pettis county. Joseph S. Anderson, of Cooper county, John Stapp, of Lafayette county, and John S. Rucker, of Howard county, be and they are hereby appointed, commissioners to select and locate a site for the permanent seat of justice within and for the county of Pettis: provided, however, the said commis

sioners shall select and locate said site within three and a half miles of the geographical center of the said county of Pettis.

The said commissioners shall meet at St. Helena, in the said county of Pettis, on the first Monday of March next, for the purpose of carrying into effect the provisions of the second section of this act; and before entering upon the duties hereby required, shall severally take an oath, as is required by the third section of an act, entitled an act to provide for organizing counties hereafter established, approved January 14th, 1825; and the said commissioners, circuit and county courts, shall perform all the duties, and be governed in all cases by the provisions of the above recited act; and in case vacancies should occur, by death, resignation or otherwise, of said commissioners, the vacancy shall be filled agreeably to the provisions of the said act.

The temporary seat of justice for Pettis county shall remain at St. Helena, until the permanent seat of justice is located, and a house provided suitable to hold court. December 3, 1834.

Owing to the fact that the county records containing the buisness transactions of the county courts for the first few years of the county's history having been destroyed or carried away, the historian must seek the most reliable source outside of the missing books.

Daniel Klein made the first government entry in the county, July 16, 1823. The first deed was put on record June 14th, 1833, from Middleton Anderson to Andrew Anderson. The first mortgage is dated July 9, 1834, and was made by E. B. Rathburn to George Gill. Qualified office seekers were hard to find here in the organization of the county. In the statutes of Missouri, approved February 20, 1835, defining county boundaries, the following appears:

Pettis: beginning at the southwest corner of Saline county; thence east to the range line between nineteen and twenty; thence south to the line between townships forty-three and forty-four; thence north to the beginning.

Since then the boundary lines have been changed. Its greatest width is twenty-four miles, and its greatest length twenty-nine miles, containing 672 square miles, or an area of 430,080 acre. Since the boundaries were originally fixed, there has been an addition of twenty-four sections from townships 4 and 3, in ranges 22 and 23. This is on the southern end of the county. Now the county begins in the northwest corner of section 19, township 48, range 23, and extends east on township line to the northeast. corner of section 24, township 48, range 20, thence south on the range line to the southeast corner of section 36, township 44, range 20, thence west on the township line to the southwest corner of section 31, township 44, range 21, thence south on range line to the southeast corner of section 12, township 43, range 22, thence west on township line to the southwest. corner of section 7, township 43, range 23, thence north to the place of beginning.

As will be noted elsewhere elaborately, this county has passed through

many changes. However, it has been fortunate enough to retain its good reputation and hold itself faithful for every emergency during the half a century through which it passed. The turmoils of internecine war did. not blast this corporation, neither was it reluctant to duty, for during that struggle, those who could, assisted in holding together the common ties and interests of a county that citizens mutually hold sacred in self-defence and the protection of home and property. The fruits of this they now enjoy.

THIS MAP INDICATES THE VOTING PRECINCTS IN 1860.

The town of Georgetown was incorporated by an act of the General Assembly of Missouri, January 4th, 1860. The first board of councilmen was organized with the following appointed members: John H. Griffin, Wilkins Watson, Thomas E. Staples, John Hancock, Elias Bixby, B. F. Hughes, and James H. Brown, who were to hold their office till their successors were elected and qualified.

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