An early atlas of Boone County shows the l...

An early atlas of Boone County shows the location of a combination gristmill and sawmill a few miles north of Columbia on Rocky Fork Creek near Brown’s Station. This mill was owned and operated by James Lawrence Henry and his partner, James Dysart. Henry was my mother’s father, my grandfather.

William Switzler’s “History of Boone County” described the mill this way: “The building covers an area of 30 feet by 36 feet and is 21/2 stories high. The machinery is driven by an engine of 25 horsepower. There are two run of burrs, and the grinding capacity of the mill is about 35 barrels of flour or 300 bushels of cornmeal per day.

“The machine is from Logansport, Ind., and is called an automatic grinding mill, the only one of the kind in the country except at Sturgeon. The sawmill can turn off from 4,000 to 5,000 feet of hard lumber per day. The size of the engine house is 17 feet by 46 feet.” Barrel was a common unit of measurement and was said to be established by law or usage to be between 31 and 42 gallons.

Let’s glance at the lives of Henry and Dysart: Jim Henry, my grandfather, was born in New York but left home at age 16 or 17 “to seek his fortune.” He learned milling in Knox County, Mo., in partnership with a man named Hill. He sold his interest in the mill and went to “Macon City, Mo., to operate a livery stable for a short time and then~ in 1859, he came to Boone County.”

He first drove the stagecoach between Sturgeon and Columbia and then bought and operated a steam-powered sawmill near Centralia. Henry later moved his mill to a spot on Hinkson Creek 10 miles northeast of Columbia. His first wife -- not my grandmother -- was Frances Lampton. They married a few months before he enlisted in the Confederate Army in 1861. He was one of the few surviving soldiers of the Missouri Brigade and, on returning three years later, he operated his mill on Rocky Fork Creek near Brown’s Station. That was when he and Dysart were owners of the large mill described above.

James C. Dysart was born in Callaway County and his family moved to Boone County. As a young man, he owned a partnership in a dry goods store in Sturgeon. He married Mary Reid on Jan. 4, 1849, and they had five sons and three daughters. In 1864, he sold out and was moving his family to Montana on a steamer that sank in the Missouri River. He got on another steamer and later arrived in Helena, Mont., and opened a grocery store and also mined quartz. Six years later all 10 Dysarts returned to Missouri, farming near Hallsville and operating a mercantile store at Brown’s Station. Then he bought a partnership with James Henry, and the two operated the combined saw and gristmill described above.

Many of the descendants of these two hard-working millers are presently residents of Columbia and the surrounding area. James L. Henry’s other mid-Missouri descendants include:

James Denver Meyers, Connie Ann Meyers Grant (Mrs. Lee~) and Tom Denver Grant, Columbia.

Nancy Sue Gerard Russell (Mrs. Michael L.) and Sam Denver Russell, Columbia.

Walter Eugene Johnson-Gerard, Cole Avery Gerard, Peter Thomas Gerard and Oliver Denver Gerard, Columbia.

Elizabeth Ann Howell Ransdell, Mexico.

Perhaps some of the descendants of James C. Dysart will mail me a similar list? Address me at Route 2, Columbia, 65201, or e-mail, at the Trib.


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