Spring Garden

by Kelly Warman-Stallings

(Published to Window to the Past website 23 January 2021)

The history of Spring Garden is an interesting one. It was located in the northern region of the county, in eastern Saline Township. Long before the government surveyors came through the area and divided the land into sections, townships and ranges, the Miller family were homesteaders on the native soil and had been since 1821. At that time, the land belonged to Cole County.

When official filing at the district land office became a requirement, William Miller was the first person to file a claim on the Spring Garden prairie in July, 1826. Soon his brothers followed suit and filed their own claims: Boyd Miller (1827); Gaddis and Samuel Miller (1836); John and Jefferson (1837).

The Miller family were instrumental in getting the county organized. William Miller carried a signature-filled petition to Missouri's state legislature to request the county be formed from land north of the Osage River (Cole County) and an equal amount from the south side (Pulaski County). Miller was indeed successful in his task.

Spring Garden church was organized in 1840 and pastored by Rev. Phillip Mulkey, one of the first Campbellite preachers to come into Central Missouri. Mulkey's church became the mother church of the Campbellites in Miller County. In 1845, Boyd Miller donated two acres of land to the small community for 999 years and it was there the frame church was built and the cemetery situated. In the Spring Garden cemetery some of the earliest burials in the county can be found.

In 1866, the Spring Garden Seminary was founded and classes were first conducted in the old Christian church. The seminary, an exclusive school for girls, was the first educational facility in the community. When a new two-story building was erected in 1868 and classes were moved there from the church it was not long afterwards that the settlement began to grow.

William M. Lumpkin, Julia A. Cloby and Edward A. Henry were the school's first teachers. In 1879, the name of the school changed to Miller County Institute and both sexes could be found in attendance. The school was closed and the building torn down in 1907. The elementary school was later built on the same site. In the year 1930-31, the teacher at Spring Garden was Vernie Harbison, who resided in Cole County at Eugene.

At one time, Spring Garden grew to be a fairly large settlement with a population of around 100 people. The post office was established in 1882, after being moved from Locust Mound. A general store, blacksmith shop, and various other businesses had been located there over the years. Some early pioneer merchants were: D. F. Atkinson, Louis Atkinson, Emil A. Becker, Madison H. Belshe, J. B. Henley, and Calvin Simpson.

After the turn of the century, it had two general stores; one was owned by Jim Bond and the other was operated by J. Roberts. It was an incorporated village with a town board and laws referring to activities in the town. Racing horses up and down the street resulted in paying fines of $5.00 and $25.00 for repeated offenses.

Spring Garden, named for a village in Virginia by William Miller and William P. Dixon, suffered immensely when the Rock Island railroad bypassed the bustling little town. It was a fate that many small settlements experienced long ago. The post office was discontinued in 1918.

Ancestral Names of the Area: Agee, Atkinson, Baker, Bassett, Baysinger, Becker, Belshe, Binley, Bond, Bontrager, Buster, Carter, Cugwin, Curty, Dixon, Dooley, Edgemond, Enloe, Franklin, French, Fox, Haynes, Henley, Hicks, Kohm, Lumpkin, Miller, Mulkey, Musick, Plummer, Roark, Rossen, Roth, Rush, Simpson, Slaughter, Steenbergen, Sullens, Thornton, Ulmstead, Walker, Witten, Wyrick