Legend of The Kingdom of Callaway
By Bob Ford Special to
Articles and Podcasts are complementary from those helping to preserve our history: Nodaway Valley Bank, Eagle Communication, Rupp Funeral Home, Stevenson Family Pharmacy and Anonymous Buffs. To comment or join them as sponsors, email robertmford@aol.com.
Callaway is a county in Mid-Missouri that has a history like no other … it’s a kingdom!
Populated in the early 1800s by pioneers from Virginia, Tennessee and Kentucky, the region along the Missouri River is still known as “Little Dixie.”
When the Civil War broke out in 1861, Missouri was divided, but Callaway was solid southern. As troops assembled for both sides, civilians were far more used to farming than fighting. The Union army was green but much better supplied and organized. The Missouri River on Callaway’s southern border was strategic for the movement of troops and commerce.
In October of 1861, 600 Union soldiers converged in neighboring Montgomery County to subdue “Rebel Callaway.”
A lawyer and former state politician Jefferson Jones sounded the alarm, sending riders throughout the county to recruit a militia and counter the upcoming attack, explained county historian Bryce Gordon.
Three hundred locals heeded the call, most were settlers who brought their own firearms, shotguns and small caliber rifles. Jones’ men were more than green, they were undisciplined and naïve to military ways. With only days to prepare, Jones trained them as he could but time was of the essence.
Moving towards the Yankee line, he knew Union sympathizers were watching his every move. Trying to give the appearance of what they were not — a well trained and equipped regiment — the Callaway boys proceeded to deceive the opposing force. Jones drilled his troops constantly, making it seem like there were more fighters than actually existed, lighting many more campfires than needed and painting large black logs creating “Quaker Cannons.” Jones indeed succeeded in fooling the Federal Commander, Gen. John Henderson.
Jones’ next move was to send an envoy into the Union camp with a letter stating that if the Yankees, “didn’t invade, molest or occupy Callaway County, Jones would disband his army,” proudly stated lead historian, Barbara Huddleston. It worked, Gen. Henderson agreed to the terms of the letter rather than risk losing to a “well armed and trained army.”
This seemed to mean that the Union general had allowed Callaway County to negotiate a peace agreement with the Federal Government as though it was a “sovereign entity!” Thus the title, “Kingdom of Callaway,” was born.
The name stuck but peace did not. The Union Army would later came back, occupying the county, arresting Jones and implementing martial law. For many, the name “Kingdom of Callaway,” is a source of pride but with others it’s a reminder of harsh war days, filled with oppression and military rule.
Ten years after the war, continuing to display the county’s southern bent, defeated past president of the Confederacy Jefferson Davis was invited to speak at an agricultural conference in Fulton, the county seat of Callaway … 12,000 people showed up to enthusiastically hear him talk. The Kingdom treated him like the return of a conquering hero but Davis was subdued. Perhaps what many didn’t want to hear, he spoke about peace, prosperity and agricultural trade with other regions in the south.
The house where Davis stayed is still in Fulton. Lore has it that it also housed teenage bushwhacker Jesse James in 1864 after Jesse and fellow bandits stole Union munitions.
None-the-less, in his memoirs, Davis, praised his hosts, “If I ever move to another Kingdom, let it be the Kingdom of Callaway.”
Callaway County has other claims to fame with Daniel Boone, Harry Truman and Sir Winston Churchill paying visits. The National Churchill Museum in Fulton on the campus of Westminster College founded in 1852 is America’s tribute to the man that “saved the world,” according to Tim Riley, executive director of the museum.
On March 5, 1946, Winston Churchill, ousted prime minister of Great Britain, came to Fulton at the invitation of President Harry S. Truman, delivering his “Iron Curtain,” speech. In that address, Churchill, “stressed the necessity for the United States and Britain to act as guardians of peace and stability against the menace of Soviet communism, which has lowered an “Iron Curtain” across Europe.”
America’s Churchill Museum is housed in a 1677 Sir Christopher Wren-reconstructed London church that was severely damaged during the Battle of Britain in 1940. The Church of St. Mary the Virgin, Aldermanbury, was disassembled in 1964 and brought to Fulton stone by stone to be rebuilt in Churchill’s honor. It took nearly five years to reassemble in what the London Times called, “perhaps the biggest jigsaw puzzle in the history of architecture,” dedication ceremonies were held on May 7, 1969.
Another anomaly about the Kingdom, in 1851 it was the new home of the first mental hospital west of the Mississippi, then called the Missouri State Lunatic Asylum. Perhaps because of the Hospital, Fulton native Henry Bellamann in 1940 wrote Kings Row, a disturbing book turned film considered one of Ronald Reagan’s best.
The mystique of the story behind the Kingdom lives on with Kingdom City, until recently the Kingdom of Callaway Chamber of Commerce and many locally owned businesses with Kingdom in their name.
People gravitate to historical circumstances and events that define their community especially if it happened in trying times. Good for Callaway in reaching back, it’s unique and a story worth remembering.
