Williamsburg

WILLIAMSBURG by Kelly Warman-Stallings

In the southern section of Miller County, about one and half miles southwest of present-day Iberia, once was "the town that never was". On May 28, 1840, Squire Williams and his wife, Jane received a U.S. Certificate of Entry for almost 240 acres in Richwoods township. On this land they built their homne and began planning the establishment of a new town along an old trail that led from Tuscumbia on southward through the Big Richwoods and into Pulaski County. Williams drew up the projected plan, including 20 lots and a public square, which would sit on 10 acres of his land. He then had the proposed town of Williamsburg (named for the Squire, of course) surveyed.

Williams recorded his town's plat at the courthouse and the old survey showed the names he chose for his streets which were: High, Main, Broadway, Mercantile, Locky, and Water.

It is unclear what took place between 1840-1847. However, on May 19, 1847, a judgment was rendered against Williams, in the amount of $1,079.05, by a man named Michael Allen of Cole County, Missouri. Exactly what happened here is not certain, but it is a fact that Squire Williams was sued for some reason. Williams' land was seized by the sheriff of Miller County, Samuel Cecil Holiday Witten, who, ironically had surveyed the platted land of Williamsburg seven years earlier! All the property, except the 10 acres of Williamsburg, was sold to Thomas Winston and Phillip Miller of Cole County. These men were active in the trading business and it was their intention to set up a trading post on the old trail. On November 17, 1847, Winston and Miller bought the remaining 10 acres which was not included in the original sale.

The town of Williamsburg never materialized after the sale of his property, so Squire Williams and his wife, Jane, left Miller County soon afterward. For some reason, Winston and Miller's plan for a trading post never came about because on January 3, 1850, they sold the land to Wilson Lenox. It was Lenox and his partner, Andrew Corley, who finally established a trading post there. They built the trading post about a half mile from the old town site on Rabbithead Creek. It became a popular trading post among traders and hunters prior to the Civil War.

A post office was set up at Lenox/Corley trading post to accomodate the residents in the area. This post office could have possibly been called Norway, which was in operation from 1851-1855. The trading post was destroyed by marauding soldiers during the Civil War and Wilson Lenox died in 1863 during this devastating time in our country's history. Lenox's wife, Susannah, soon left war-torn Miller County and moved to Phelps County, Missouri after this. Eventually their land, which contained about 600 acres, was sold for debts that had been incurred against the partnership of Lenox and Corley.

So, the proposed town of Williamsburg never became a reality and its namesake, Squire Williams, became just another name that disappeared from the county's past, lost somewhere in obscurity. The land, in recent years, has been owned by the families of Condra and Graves. If you use your imagination, you can almost see Old Williamsburg sitting there on the rolling hills of southern Miller County.

Regional Ancestral Names: Allen, Austin, Blevans, Corley, Dyer, Henderson, Lane, Lenox, Long, Mace, Record, Reynolds, Short, Stewart, Williams