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| Monroe and Caldwell Counties Missouri |
So what was life like for Hannah once they got to Monroe County in
Missouri. It might instructive to
discuss briefly the place they decided to settle. Monroe County hadn’t been organized until
1831. The Carters were back on the
American frontier, but this time a different frontier. This state, and Monroe County in particular,
was a part of the South. A majority of
the settlers were from the Upper South, especially Kentucky and Tennessee, and
they brought their traditions and slaves with them to Monroe County. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monroe_County,_Missouri) Interestingly Samuel Langhorne Clemens,
better known by his pen name Mark Twain, was born in 1835 in Florida, Monroe
County, Missouri. I must have been hard
for Hannah to adjust to slavery and the Southern way of life. This area actually was called Little Dixie
because everything, including even the architecture of the homes tended towards
the Antebellum South colonial style.
Monroe County, was and still is, a very rural area with only 9,000 or so
residents listed on the 1840 census. (Today the population is almost the same.)
When Hannah arrived in Jefferson Township in
Monroe County, Missouri, in autumn of 1838 she and John had already been
married 32 years. A house would have
been one of their first projects after getting their farm started on their 40
acres. Surely John got a blacksmithing
business going and the family could settle in at their third home since their
marriage. The four Carters probably were able to
acclimate to the new home fairly quickly as John and Richard, who was now 18,
could work the land and build a house.
Hannah and Mary Jane, who was 15, could work the garden and make the
house into a home.
At first glance
moving to Monroe County may see to be a little strange if the assumption was
that Hannah wanted to live with her children.
Given John’s apparent reluctant to live in locations where the Mormon’s
congregated and caused unrest, the decision to settle in Monroe county makes
perfect sense. The distance to Caldwell
County was about 125 miles. John
probably felt that this was as close to the family as he dared get. Ironically they were now only about 70 miles
from Lima, Illinois where they would ultimately move.
John had good
reasons not to want to move all the way to where his children resided. Problems had already begun in Missouri prior
to the time that the Carters arrived. In
fact, in the month prior to John’s purchase of land in November, 1838, the
situation had reached an intolerable point for the Mormons. It appears that the
Carter children arrived in Far West, Missouri on or about October 2, 1848. They must have felt that they had been thrown
literally from the fat into the frying pan as northwestern Missouri was rapidly
becoming a war zone. On October 27, 1838, Governor Lilburn Boggs
issued Missouri Executive Order 44, also known as the Extermination Order. The order was issued in the aftermath of the
Battle of Crooked River, a clash between Latter Day Saints and a unit of the
Missouri State Guard in northern Ray County, Missouri, during the 1838 Mormon
War. Claiming that Latter Day Saints had committed open and avowed defiance of
the law and had made war upon the people of Missouri, Governor Boggs directed
that "the Mormons must be treated as enemies, and must be exterminated or
driven from the State if necessary for the public peace—their outrages are
beyond all description". (Wikipedia – Missouri Exectutive Order 44)
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| Haun's Mill |
Just three days
later, on October 30, 1838, the Haun’s Mill massacre occurred when a
mob/militia unit from Livingston County, Missouri, attacked a Mormon settlement
in eastern Caldwell County, Missouri, United States, after the Battle of
Crooked River. By far the bloodiest event in the 1838 Mormon War in Missouri,
it has long been remembered by the members of the Latter Day Saint movement.
(Wikipedia – Haun’s Mill massacre)
To the best of my knowledge none of the Carter family
was directly associated with either of these events but because of them it was
imperative that the Mormons move out of Missouri or die. John’s children and their families shortly
began their journey by January,1839 as the Church “realized they would not be
helped by the legislature, and determined to leave as best they could. Most
families were destitute, so those who had extra pooled their resources,
determining to leave no one behind. Those who had been fortunate enough to
retain their property sold it to gain funds with which to leave the state, but
they were only able to get a fraction of the properties’ values. The exodus
from Missouri took place in the dead of winter, with many Mormons trudging
eastward with bare feet and little to keep them warm.” (online source:
http://historyofmormonism.com/mormon-history/two-church-centers/tcc-1838) For those that are interested the Saints left
Caldwell County and the areas around there and headed generally Marion County,
Missouri where they crossed the
Mississippi River and first stopped at Quincy, Illinois before moving on to
Nauvoo.
Hannah’s heart must have been broken to see her
children, destitute and weary being driven from place to place. John and Hannah must have feared somewhat for
their own lives. It was bad enough that
they were Yankees (from Maine) in a Southern slave state, but if word got out
that part of their family was Mormon their lives could be in danger. One must imagine that the Carter’s kept their
connection with the Church hidden as much as possible. It is very telling that John – now that he
was in Missouri was in no hurry to leave.
Cautious would probably be the best way to describe his actions at this
point in time. He most likely chose to
remain where he was and wait out the events that were transpiring around him
before he made any decisions about moving.
By the time of the 1840 census John
and Hannah had been in Missouri a little under a year and a half. The family is found on
the 1840 census for Jefferson, Monroe, Missouri:
Male age 20 – 29
Richard age 20
Male age 50 – 59
John age 58
Female age 15 – 19 Mary
Jane age 17
Female age 20 – 29 ??? (no idea whom
this might be)
Female age 50 – 59 Hannah
age 54
The year 1840 would be pivotal for
one member of the household as Mary Jane had found love and was married to
Jacob Dooley in Monroe County, MO on 27 Aug 1840. The text of the marriage document found in
the courthouse reads:
Dooley to Carter
State of Missouri, County of Monroe: I do certify that I did on
the 27th day of August, AD 1840, celebrate the rites of matrimony between Jacob
Dooly and Mary Jane Carter daughter of John Carter by consent of parents, both
of the county and state aforesaid. Henry Thomas, Preacher of the Gospel
Filed for Record on the 1st day of Augst 1840 - duly Recorded
Theo S Miller, Recorder
(Ancestry.com. Missouri Marriage Records, 1805-2002 [database
on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2007. Original data: Missouri Marriage Records.
Jefferson City, MO, USA: Missouri State Archives. Microfilm.)
Educational Employees Credit Union - Home |
| Marriage record of Jacob Dooley and Mary Jane Carter |
The importance of this document goes
beyond proving the marriage and Mary Jane and Jacob, it also proves that the
John Carter in Monroe County was in fact our John Carter who married
Hannah. His having to sign for the
underage Mary Jane has added significance for us.
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| Land Owners - Monroe Co., MO Carter land in Yellow, Gideon Dooley in Purple |
So as 1840 came to a
close, John and Hannah had their lone child, Richard, still living with
them. Most of the kids were now living
in the area of Lima, Illinois some 70 miles to the northeast across the
Mississippi River.
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