Clinton County MO Archives History .....FIRST SETTLER IN LATHROP, CLINTON CO 
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File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Karen Walker khw4@yahoo.com September 4, 2008, 4:51 pm

FIRST SETTLER IN LATHROP, CLINTON CO.
	Narrator:  Matt Nicholson, 95, Lathrop
                                       
     Mr. Nicholson's story comes to us through the kindness of his daughter, 
Mrs. C.C. Campbell formerly of Hamilton and his granddaughter, Mrs. Glenn 
DeWalt south west of town.
     Matt Nicholson celebrated his 95th birthday in August 1935.  He came to 
Lathrop before there was a Lathrop.  Hence he really became that city's first 
settler.  He was born Aug 12 1840 in Garrett county Ky., and came to Lathrop 
in 1865 in the rush of the midwest immigration just after the Civil War.
     In the fall of 1867, the Hannibal and St. Joseph railroad built a section 
house at what is now the southern limits of Lathrop.  In this house, Mr. and 
Mrs. Nicholson lived.  He was the section boss, in charge of the construction 
crew, and had a part in building the Burlington into Kansas City.  There being 
no freight office or agent yet, since there was no town, he handled the first 
shipment of local freight consigned to the Lathrop office, and he delivered 
the consignment by wagon to Barnesville, its final destination.
     At that time, in the midst of waving prairie grass, one could see only 
one chimney of a lone settler, James Leake, in the view one mile south of the 
spot selected to be the depot.  Soon after the section house was built, the 
first lumber yard was opened, which was used as the railroad depot till the 
railroad built one.
     Interview  1935.


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