Excerpt from General History of Shelby County, Missouri

The invasion and conquest of a wilderness; the wresting of a vast domain of hill and valley, forest and prairie, from its nomadic and unproductive savage deni zens; its transformation into an empire rich in all the elements of modern civiliza tion, - basking in the smiles of pastoral abundance, resounding with the noise of fruitful industry, busy with a mighty volume of multiform and far-reaching com merce, and bright with the luster of high mental, moral and spiritual life - the home of an enterprising, progressive, all-daring people, as they founded and have built it, is the theme of this volume.

Its pages teem with biographies of many of the progressive men of Shelby county - those who laid the foundations of its greatness and those who have built and are building on the superstructure - and is adorned with portraits of numbers of them.

It also gives a comprehensive survey of the numerous industries and lines of productive energy which distinguish the people of the county at the present time and those in which they were engaged in all past periods since the settlement of the region began. And so far as past history and present conditions disclose it, the work indicates the trend of the county's activities and the goal which they aim to reach.

How trite, oft-told and well-worn seems the story herein briefly chronicled! And yet how full of suggestiveness, interest and incitement is it all! It opens impressively to View the mighty field for earnest endeavor and successful striving there is in the boundless realm of opportunity that is called The Great American Republic, and has been aptly pronounced The last great charity of God to the human race. It emphasizes anew the value of courage, self-reliance, industry, devotion to duty and firm and sturdy manhood and womanhood.

The story might well be taken as that of Man himself in his contest with Nature on a gigantic theater of action. Poetry sparkles, Heroism glows, Comedy gambols, Tragedy darkens in its texture, and the golden thread of sentiment runs brightly through its woof. It is, in all essentials, an epitome of American history, too. Wide gulfs of time and space are compassed in its range and made as naught. Since the morning hymn and the evening anthem first rose in hope from its primeval solitudes, distant countries have become near neighbors, the Atlantic has been reduced to a narrow frith across which the Old World and the New shake hands the Pacific has been bound to it with hoops of steel, and our own East and West have been brought so close together that they look into each other's windows.

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