Howard County Courthouse, Fayette, Missouri
Howard County
Chapter
History
Howard County Courthouse, Fayette, Missouri
Howard County
Chapter
History
| Howard County Chapter was
organized
January 12, 1914, in Fayette, Missouri, at the residence of Samuel C.
Major,
his wife, Mrs. Elizabeth Major Simpson Major, being the organizing
Regent.
Mrs. Macfarlane of Columbia had long desired a Chapter in Fayette,
because
Howard County was settled almost exclusively by descendents of men who,
after the close of the Revolutionary War, had come to the West from
Virginia
by way of Kentucky, from the Carolinas by way of Tennessee, and from
the
New England states directly or indirectly. Howard County itself
is
of peculiar interest from a historical point of view, having been a
part
of upper Louisiana. The tract of land then known as Howard County
contained so vast an area that from it have come some 29 Missouri
counties
and parts of 9 others, three of which are in present-day Iowa.
The
County was reduced to its present size when Missouri came into the
Union
in 1821. The town of Fayette was founded as its county seat in
1823.
Although the Chapter had a number of members with a more distinguished lineage and even longer residence in the county than Mrs. Major, she was asked to be the organizing Regent. She previously had been a member of Jane Randolph Chapter in Jefferson City, and her husband, at that time State Senator, had aided the Society in obtaining the money for the marker which stands at the beginning of the Santa Fe Trail in New Franklin, Howard County, Missouri (see photos below). Because of Mrs. Major's experience in the other Chapter, her ability and her willingness to serve, she was made the first Regent and at the end of her term was re-elected. Unfortunately the minutes, which were kept at her home, were lost when her home was destroyed by fire in 1918. |
Santa Fe trail marker placed on the town square in New Franklin,
Howard
Co., Missouri
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