Jamesport, Town on the Move
The town was beginning to assume considerable
importance, and the citizens felt as though their dignity could be
very materially advanced. and sustained if Jamesport was an
incorporated town. They were out on the open prairie without metes
or bounds, and they felt lonely standing in this ex-posed way. To
remedy the evil and to effect a local habitation and a name, and to
be anchored for all time in. the place of their adoption, they felt
that nothing could achieve this object so well as corporation stakes
driven here and there, and the town fastened to them by act of
incorporation. This feeling culminated in the following petition:
Incorporation
"Now at this day comes Nathaniel G. Cruzen and sixty other citizens
of the town of Jamesport and present their petition for the
incorporation of the town of Jamesport, which petition is in words
and figures as follows:
"To the Honorable County Court of Daviess County:
"Your petitioners, inhabitants of the town of
Jamesport, beg leave to represent that the town of Jamesport in said
county and State, with the adjacent commons is located and described
by metes and bounds as follows:
"Beginning at the northwest corner of the southeast quarter of the
south-east quarter of section number twenty-seven (27), in township
number sixty (60) of range number twenty-six (26); thence running
south one hundred and twenty (120) rods; thence east one hundred and
twenty (120) rods; thence north one hundred and twenty (120) rods;
thence west one hundred and twenty (120) rods, to the place of
beginning; containing ninety (90) acres. And pray that we may be
incorporated, and a police established for our lo-cal government and
for the preservation and regulation of our commons, etc." [Signed:]
"Which petition is received, and it appearing to the satisfaction of
the court that two-thirds of the taxable inhabitants of said town of
Jamesport have signed said petition and that the prayer of said
petitioners is reason-able, it is therefore ordered by the court
that the said town of Jamesport be and is hereby incorporated under
the name and style of the town of James-port, and the metes and
bounds of said town of Jamesport be, and they are hereby fixed as in
the petition called for, and that all the territory within the above
described bounds be and is hereby invested with all the rights and
privileges guaranteed to such towns incorporated under chapter
forty-one of the general statutes of the State of Missouri. And it
is further ordered by the court that Franklin Callison, Nathaniel G.
Cruzen, Marc) Thomas, A. B. Barnes and Isaiah H. Jones be and they
are hereby appointed the board of trustees in and for said town, to
hold their offices until their successors are elected and
qualified."
This act of incorporation was passed August 6,1872, by the County
Court, and Jamesport from that time on assumed metropolitan airs.
Situated in one of the finest agricultural districts to be found in
the valley of the Grand River, she has reason to be proud of her
location and the energy and progressiveness of her people.
Back to: Daviess County