A Directory of Towns, Villages, and Hamlets
Past and Present
of Perry County, Missouri

Compiled by Arthur Paul Moser


Perry County

Perry County was settled between 1796 and 1800 by emigrants from Kentucky and Pennsylvania, the latter locating in the rich bottom lands of Bois Brule; the former generally settling in the "Barrens" and along the waters of Saline Creek. About the same time the "Long Tucker" settlement was established on the Saline, and the "Short Tucker" settlement in the Barrens. Also about the same date the Layton settlement was made, part of which subsequently became the site of Perryville, which is located in the Barnard Layton survey ...

Perry County was organized November 16, 1820 ... The first circuit court was held at the house of Bede Moore about two miles northeast of the present site of Perryville. Richard Thomas was the presiding judge, and Greer W. Davis, later of Jackson, Mo., prosecuting attorney, Robert T. Brown, sheriff, and Cornelius M. Slattery, clerk.

Until 1824 there were about 3,000 Indians in the country -- two-thirds of them Shawnees and the remainder Delawares. Their chief village, Shawneetown*, was about 9 miles south of Perryville ... (--Campbell's Gazetteer of Missouri, 1874, p. 422.)

*Shawneetown was in Cape Girardeau District. (--Hist. of Southeast Mo., 1888, Goodspeed, pp. 316, 317, 318.)

Originally Perry County was included in the District of Cape Girardeau. (--Encyclopedia of the History of Mo., 1901, Conrad, Vol. 5, p. 92.)

 


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