Editing Perry County, Missouri (section)

==History==

===Early Native Americans===
The first inhabitants of what is now Perry County were [[Mound Builders|Mississippian Mound Builders]] who cultivated [[Maize|corn]] and constructed [[Platform mound|earthen mounds]]. The [[Mississippian culture]]s inhabited the region until their decline in the 12th and 13th centuries. Remnants of their earthen mounds can be found in the eastern part of the county.<ref>{{Cite book | url = https://archive.org/details/ahistorymissour01houcgoog | page = [https://archive.org/details/ahistorymissour01houcgoog/page/n98 72] | quote = mounds in perry county missouri. | title = A History of Missouri: From the Earliest Explorations and Settlements Until the Admission of the State Into the Union | publisher = R. R. Donnelley & Sons Company | author1 = Louis Houck | year = 1908}}</ref>  By the time of European contact, the area was populated by Native Americans of the [[Illinois Confederation]]<ref>{{cite web | url = http://www.native-languages.org/missouri.htm|title=Native American Tribes of Missouri | access-date=December 30, 2015}}</ref> who inhabited much of eastern Missouri.

===French and Spanish rule===
During the 18th Century, the Perry County area, like the rest of the future State of Missouri, was part of [[New France|French Louisiana]], also known as the [[Illinois Country]]. For most of the 18th Century the area of present-day Perry County was left largely uninhabited, even by the French of nearby [[Ste. Genevieve, Missouri|Ste. Genevieve]]. The latter was the first permanent [[White (U.S. Census)|White]] settlement in the Missouri area. In 1764, when the terms of the [[Treaty of Paris (1763)|1763 Treaty of Paris]] were announced in Louisiana, the French settlers found themselves transferred to an alien domination, that of Spain. In general the French were unhappy with the change of rule and the Spanish governance of the territory was an uneasy one, occasionally punctuated by armed rebellion. In the Ste. Genevieve area, the Spaniards, making a virtue of necessity, tended to let the French govern themselves.<ref name="archive.org">{{Cite book | url = https://archive.org/stream/saintegenevieves00yeal/saintegenevieves00yeal_djvu.txt | title = Sainte Genevieve; the story of Missouri's oldest settlement | author1 = The Bicentennial Historical Committee Sainte Genevieve, Missouri | year = 1935| publisher = St. Genevieve, Mo., Bicentennial Historical Committee }}</ref><ref name="The Spanish regime in Missouri">{{Cite book | url = https://archive.org/stream/saintegenevieves00yeal/saintegenevieves00yeal_djvu.txt | title = The Spanish regime in Missouri | author1 = LOUIS HOUCK | year = 1909| publisher = St. Genevieve, Mo., Bicentennial Historical Committee }}</ref>  During the 1770s and 1780s members of the [[Peoria tribe|Peoria Tribe]], whose situation had deteriorated under British and American rule in Illinois, migrated west across the Mississippi River into Ste. Genevieve and the lower part of the Bois Brule Bottoms.

The French population suffered continued harassment by the [[Osage Nation|Osage]] to the southwest. In the 1790s, [[Louis Lorimier]], authorized by Spanish officials, invited the [[Shawnee]] and [[Lenape|Delaware]] tribes in [[Ohio]] to immigrate and settle along [[Apple Creek (Mississippi River)|Apple Creek]] in Perry County in the hope that they would act as a buffer between the French to the north and the Osage to the south.<ref>{{Cite book | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=iHr4Z4a6VMEC&q=shawnee+village+perry+county+missouri&pg=PA524 | title = Missouri: A Guide to the Show Me State | isbn = 9781623760243 | author1 = Federal Writers’ Project | year = 1941| publisher = Best Books on }}</ref> Their largest village, [[Le Grand Village Sauvage, Missouri|Le Grand Village Sauvage]] - with a population of some 400, was located in the southern part of the county, just above Apple Creek, near present-day [[Old Appleton, Missouri|Old Appleton]]. Within a decade of the Native American immigration, Spanish authorities showed an interest in opening the area to colonization by Americans.<ref>{{Cite book | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=gX8_AAAAYAAJ&q=shawnee+delaware+perry+county+missouri&pg=PA214 | title = Hand-book of Missouri: Embracing Exhibits of the Agricultural, Commercial, Industrial ... Interests of the State | author1 = Missouri Immigration Society | year = 1880}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.greatriverroad.com/meetohio/countyperry.htm|title=Greatriverroad.com - Perry County, Missouri |access-date=December 31, 2015}}</ref> The first French settlers were Jean Baptiste Barsaloux and his father Girard Barsaloux who lived in the Bois Brule Bottom in 1787.<ref name="archive.org"/><ref name="The Spanish regime in Missouri"/>

===American settlement===
The first American settlers to Perry County arrived during the latter half of the 1790s and claimed rich land in Bois Brule Bottom. These Americans organized the region's original Baptist Church in 1807. In the early 19th century, a second group of American settlers crossed the Mississippi River to take advantage of Spanish land offers. These were Roman Catholics of English stock from north-central [[Kentucky]]. They had originally come from [[Maryland]] to escape religious discrimination and prided themselves on being descendants of Lord Baltimore's original colonists. The first of these to settle permanently in the future Perry County was Isidore Moore. He arrived in 1801 and became a patriarch of the area, and founded [[Tucker's Settlement, Missouri|Tucker's Settlement]]. Others soon followed whose family names predominated the decades: Tucker, Fenwick, Cissell, Hayton, Riney, Hamilton, Layton, Manning, and Hagan. Most of these settled in the uplands around Perryville in a place called the Barrens because of its open land. Another Maryland Catholic, Joseph Fenwick, established the short-lived [[Fenwick Settlement, Missouri|Fenwick Settlement]] at the mouth of [[Brazeau Creek]] in the [[Brazeau Bottom]]s.<ref>{{Cite book | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=gX8_AAAAYAAJ&q=shawnee+delaware+perry+county+missouri&pg=PA214 | title = Hand-book of Missouri: Embracing Exhibits of the Agricultural, Commercial, Industrial ... Interests of the State ... | author1 =  Missouri Immigration Society | year = 1880}}</ref>

When the region was transferred to American sovereignty in 1803–1804, the Barrens became part of the Louisiana Territory. Prior to the admission of Missouri to statehood in 1821, several new migrations altered the religious composition of the future county. In 1817, a large group of [[Presbyterians]] from [[North Carolina]] settled in the neighborhood of [[Brazeau, Missouri|Brazeau]], an area roughly bounded by the Mississippi River and the [[Cinque Hommes Creek]] and Apple Creek. These settlers organized a church in 1819. They were soon followed by [[Methodists]] from the same state whose family names live on, like Abernathy, Farrar, and Rutledge. In 1826, they built their first log meeting house, which was later replaced by York Chapel.<ref>{{Cite book | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=7j3NNrHFVR4C&q=perryville&pg=PA396 | title = Opening the Ozarks: A Historical Geography of Missouri's Ste. Genevieve District, 1760-1830 | isbn = 9780826263063 | author1 = Walter A. Schroeder | year = 2002| publisher = University of Missouri Press }}</ref>

Until 1821, the Barrens region formed the southern portion of [[Ste. Genevieve County, Missouri|Ste. Genevieve County]]. When Missouri was granted statehood, Perry County was organized out of the parent district. It was divided into three townships: [[Brazeau Township, Perry County, Missouri|Brazeau]], [[Cinque Hommes Township, Perry County, Missouri|Cinque Hommes]], and [[Bois Brule Township, Perry County, Missouri|Bois Brule]]. Their boundaries, following natural geographical features, were quite irregular. In 1856, the borders were made symmetrical and two new townships, St. Mary's and Saline, were added.<ref>The Centennial History of Perry County Missouri 1821-1921 Committee of Citizens 1921 reprinted by the Perry County Historical Society; Perryville MO: 1984</ref>

After 1821, the descendants of French colonial families from Ste. Genevieve trickled into Perry County, and in the middle of the next decade, their ranks swelled by immigrants from France itself. They settled on the lands that were near the present city of Perryville. At about the same time, a small group of Flemings settled in the northeastern part of the county, with the present town of Belgique as their center.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://shs.umsystem.edu/manuscripts/ramsay/ramsay_perry.html |title=Missouri Historical Society: Perry County Place Names, 1928-1945 |access-date=December 31, 2015 |archive-date=March 31, 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160331203235/http://shs.umsystem.edu/manuscripts/ramsay/ramsay_perry.html |url-status=dead }}</ref> There were also [[Swiss people|Swiss]] in the same area.

===German immigration===
The late 1830s saw the beginnings of a heavy [[Germans|German]] immigration that would permanently alter the ethnic balance of the county. In the fall of 1838, more than 600 Saxon Lutherans, under the leadership of Pastor [[Martin Stephan]], uprooted themselves and migrated to Missouri in what is called [[Saxon Lutheran Immigration 1838-1839|The Saxon Lutheran Migration]], seeking to avoid the enforced religious conformity brought about by the [[Prussian Union of churches]].<ref>The German Evangelical Movement http://www.ucc.org/about-us_short-course_the-german-evangelical</ref> They settled in the southeastern corner of the county and moved inland through a series of towns whose names enshrined both religion and nationality: [[Wittenberg, Missouri|Wittenberg]], [[Friedheim, Missouri|Friedheim]], [[Frohna, Missouri|Frohna]], [[Dresden, Missouri|Dresden]], [[Altenburg, Missouri|Altenburg]], and Paitzdorf, which was renamed [[Uniontown, Missouri|Uniontown]] during the [[American Civil War]]. Much of the legacy of the German immigration lives on today through the [[Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.greatriverroad.com/meetohio/altenburg.htm|title=Greatriverroad.com - Altenburg, Missouri |access-date=December 31, 2015}}</ref> A distinct Saxon dialect of German continues to be spoken by about 250 residents (in 2014), although that number is declining with the youngest speakers being over 50 years old.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.stltoday.com/lifestyles/when-we-re-gone-it-will-be-german-dialect-has/article_45715974-e8bd-5abd-888d-a14777195eee.html|title='When we're gone, it will be': German dialect has survived nearly 200 years in southeast Missouri|last=Hahn|first=Valerie Schremp|date=October 7, 2018|website=stltoday.com|access-date=May 21, 2019}}</ref>

Others who settled in the area were German Catholics, mostly from [[Bavaria]] and [[Baden]]. They settled in the Barrens area. The Lutherans and Presbyterians established churches in the region bounded by the 1856 [[Brazeau Township, Perry County, Missouri|Township of Brazeau]]. The Methodists located farther west in the area that comprised the 1856 [[Cinque Hommes Township, Perry County, Missouri|township of Cinque Hommes]]. There they set up two churches, the first York Chapel, near present-day [[Longtown, Missouri|Longtown]], about {{convert|5|mi|km|0}} southeast of Perryville,<ref>York Chapel Methodist Church and Cemetery, Perry County Historical Society, Book committee, 2009 www.perrycountyhistoricalsociety.org</ref> and in 1836 a second in Perryville itself. Then in 1844–1845, they divided between north and south over the question of whether a bishop could own slaves. The two Methodist churches in Perry County parted company, the city congregation going with the North and the York Chapel siding with the South. The Baptists of the county tended to congregate in both Bois Brule Bottom and in the area of [[Saline Township, Perry County, Missouri|Saline Township]]. In the first decades of the 19th century, they met in private homes.

While it is one of the oldest communities in Missouri, Perry County also founded the first college west of the Mississippi River, dating to 1827.<ref>{{Cite book | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=bGCz07w5IgYC&q=st.+mary%27s+of+the+barrens+rosati+cabin&pg=PA523| title = Missouri A Guide to the "Show Me" State |isbn = 9781603540247 | author1 =  By Federal Writers' Project| year = 1959 | publisher = US History Publishers }}</ref>