Peggy Smith-Hake's
"Window to the Past"
The Two St. Elizabeths​
​(printed in THE MILLER COUNTY AUTOGRAM-SENTINEL, in the column, WINDOW TO THE PAST, May 2, 1996)
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Did you know there have been two towns named St. Elizabeth in Miller County? St. Elizabeth was established as a community in the late 1860s. It was located about 35 miles by land or 50 miles by river southwest of Osage City, its river shipping point. Land was worth about $1 to $10 per acre. Its nearest bank was at Jefferson City. In 1874, there was a mail delivery three times weekly and the postmaster was William Wetlock.
Other business places and their owners included Henry Boedecker, a wagon maker; Henry Evers, a blacksmith; Casper Morff, a shoemaker; Owen R. Pendleton, a clerk; and William Wetlock owned a general store as well as serving as the town's postmaster. In 1874, the town's population numbered 60 persons. It had a Catholic church, overlooking the Osage River, the only Catholic Church in the county in 1874.
Several years ago I found the above information in CAMPBELL'S GAZETTEER OF MISSOURI 1874. I was puzzled at the description of St. Elizabeth or the St. Elizabeth I know today, being "by the river". With research I realized it was the first St. Elizabeth that was described in 1874, not the present St. Elizabeth.
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Old St. Elizabeth, on the Osage, was established by an Irishman named Owen Riggs (actual name was Awhen Ricces). He came to Miller County from Tyler County, Virginia with his brother, Calvin Riggs. The Riggs' were early settlers of Jim Henry Township and in 1838, patented many acres of land. By the end of the Civil War, Owen was a large landowner in Miller County. He established the old town of St. Elizabeth in 1869 and the town was laid out on the southeast band of the Osage River in Section 18, Township 41, Range 12. It had 8 blocks with 16 acres in each block.
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The streets named in the old town's plat were: Water, First, Madison, Buckeye, Osage, Washington, and St. Louis. On the south edge of town was a large lot measuring 250'by278' and was the site of an old gristmill. To the north was a church measuring 172' square. Owen Riggs was instrumental in getting the first Catholic Church in the county build on that site, sitting atop a bluff overlooking the Osage. Some who assisted in the construction of the church were named Kemna, Heckemeyer, Buechter, Boedecker, Borgmeyer, Duerhoff, Schell, Whalen, Leibert, and Koester.
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Some of the early settlers in the old town of St. Elizabeth, in addition to Owen Riggs, were Peter Koenig, Jacob L. Miller, Sarah J. Fancher, Eliza Schell, David Fancher, Henry Libbert, Frank Avers/Evers, Henry Borgmeyer, Peter R. Kendrick, Ludwig Henke, William Hopen, Joseph Kroeger, Henry Boedecker, William Wetlock, and William Pendleton.
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Owen Riggs and his wife, Malinda, were the parents of four daughters with the unusal names of Tennessee, Missouri, Virginia, and Elizabeth (that one isn't too unusual). Owen Riggs died in 1875 and it seems that with his death, Old St. Elizabeth began to die also.
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On May 8, 1882, an Order of Publication appeared in the Miller County newspaper listing all the land owned by Owen Riggs and it was being sold through the Miller Co. Probate Court. Included in the various parcels of land were several lots and blocks in Old St. Elizabeth. Many of those lots were sold to William Wetlock, the town's postmaster and storekeeper. When I added up the acreage for sale in the other tracts of land owned by Riggs, they totaled 1, 804 acres. In Judge Jenkins "History of Miller County", he stated that Riggs had once owned over 6,000 acres in the county. It took 9 years to settle his estate. The final settlement was filed 15 Feb. 1884.
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The site of today's St. Elizabeth is about 3 miles inland from the original St. Elizabeth on the Osage. The present town was surveyed on August 6, 1880 by H.S. Burlingame, the county surveyor, and was filed for record at the courthouse on December 18, 1880. The town was first filed for record with the name "Charlestown", named for Charles Holschneider who had bought the land on which the town was platted. Charlestown contained six original blocks platted on the exact spot where they now lay. It was much later, June 5, 1961, the town's name was officially changed to St. Elizabeth.
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The old church, built at Old St. Elizabeth on the Osage, was brought from its river site to the new town and was used as a school for many years.
Until I took time to research the facts all those years ago, I had no idea there have been two towns in Miller County named St. Elizabeth and each with a history of their own.