February 22, 1818…Joseph Washington McClurg born in St. Louis County

Joseph Washington McClurg, pioneer merchant, became Missouri's second native-born governor. Born in St. Louis county February 22, 1818, he went to Xenia academy and Miami university at Oxford, Ohio. He taught school in Louisiana and Mississippi and was admitted to the bar in Columbia, Texas. In 1841 McClurg returned to Missouri and two years later began his merchandising career at Hazelwood in Wright county. Lure of the gold fields soon overcame his desire for slow profits, and he outfitted twenty-four ox teams and crossed the plains and mountains to join the "forty-niners." Back in Missouri in 1851, McClurg with two other men opened a general store at Linn Creek in Camden county. His "Big Store on the Osage" became the chief trading point for southwest Missouri, and his business extended into Kansas, Arkansas, and the Indian territory.

McClurg joined the Union ranks in the Civil War. He organized, equipped, and commanded the Osage regiment of Missouri volunteers and the Hickory County battalion. He supplied about $6000 or $8000 of camp utensils, powder, and lead from his store, of which $4000 was a total loss to him.

He was first elected to Congress in 1862, serving three terms. In 1868 he was elected governor of Missouri on the Republican ticket. During his administration, the fifteenth amendment was ratified; the Eads bridge was completed at St. Louis, the school of mines and metallurgy located at Rolla, the agricultural college located at Columbia, and the normal schools started at Kirksville and Warrensburg. Except for a term as registrar of deeds in the United States land office at Springfield from 1890 to 1894, McClurg withdrew from public life entirely at the end of his governorship. He returned to Linn Creek, and tried to gather up the strings of his once vast mercantile enterprise, which had been shattered, burned, and destroyed in the war. McClurg died in Lebanon, December 2, 1900.

For primary source material see…

Letter from McClurg to Thomas C. Reynolds regarding the Great Seal of Missouri (May 27, 1869). Joseph Washington McClurg Papers, 1869