In the beginning. To be chronologically correct in 1817, James Madison then was President and there was no Untied States west of the Missouri. In this year Littleberry Estis, John Evans, Hyde Russell and others settled in Lafayette county a mile or two south and west of what is now Waverly. They lived together for mutual protection against the Indians. In 1819 they organized the first school in Lafayette County and employed a boy named Estis to teach, he was succeeded in 1922 and 1923 by Ed Ryland, a brother of Judge Ryland. It is said that Mr. Estis's daughter, who was Mrs. Wm. Fristoe, was the first white girl who grew to womanhood south of the Missouri River and west of Arrow Rock.

What is now Waverly was in part laid out by Mr. Washington Shroyer, in about the year 1845. It was on a hill overlooking the river, west of what is now the business district, (locally known as Mt. Ennis). Mr. Shroyer called his town Middleton, supposedly because it was midway between Marshall and Lexington. A few years later Col. John Dennis Thomas, of Virginia, platted a town joining Middleton on the east and called his town St. Thomas. Col. Thomas is worthy of special mention in this narrative as he served in the War of 1812, retiring with the rank of Captain. He came to Missouri as a surveyor and bought a large tract of land, paying for it, I have been told, with script issued in payment for military service. In the Mexican War he received a Colonel's commission; should you visit the Alamo you may read his name written on those historic walls.

As it was found inconvenient, to have two towns so near with different names, it was decided to incorporate the two as one. A committee was appointed to select a name for untied village. E. M. Edwards, who at one time represented Lafayette County in the State Legislature, was on that committee. He told me, that after much discussion during which many names were suggested and rejected, a tailor (whose name I can't recall) told them that his home town was Waverly, Ill., that it was a nice little town and he thought Waverly was a good name. The committee agreed with him and thus Waverly, Missouri became a United States Post Office.   Another story is that a lady, who was reading Scott's Waverly Novels, had suggested that Waverly would be a nice name.

I have been told that Col. Thomas built the first house in what is Waverly, in 1818. (A part of this house is still used as a dwelling today, 2006.  It is also the only original log house still standing on the Santa Fe Trail.) Standing on a hill top it looked down through the interlacing branches of the primeval forest, on the keel boats of the fur traders, and saw them give way to the steam boats, carrying commerce and restless people to a little town called Independence. The Santa Fe Trail, the road to the far west, the trail of romance, adventure and profit B passed near the front of this old building. No doubt Thomas Fitzpatrick (the great Chief With-the-White-Hair, of the Western Indians), Jedidiah Smith and many others enjoyed its hospitality.

Mr. Notley Thomas raised the first crop of hemp, in about 1819 or 1820 and sold his crop at Old Franklin for $7 a hundred. This was the beginning of hemp growing in Lafayette County.

The Presbyterian congregation built the church in 1853, it was used until -------.  In 2002 the church was put on the most endangered buildings list, in Missouri.  Today, 2006, the Citizens For Progress are in the process of saving this building. This congregation had an earlier church in Dover. Later they built a church on a hill called Mt. Hope, on the farm belonging to Col. Joseph Chrisman. It is interesting to know that on January 18, 1844, there was received into this congregation Ann, a Negro slave belonging to Col Chrisman, and Jim, also the property of Col. Chrisman. Jim was accepted on the testimony of Col. Chrisman, to effect that Jim was a member in good standing of the Presbyterian church back in old Virginia.

When the new brick church in St. Thomas (for it was St. Thomas at that time) was dedicated, there was a tremendous gathering to the ceremony. Seven prominent Presbyterian Devines participated. Mr. W. Scott Thomas of Lexington, tells me, his father, Mr. Oscar Thomas lived at that time in the John Thomas home; and true to the tradition of old Virginia he extended a hospitable invitation to all who would dine with him that day. He says, when Uncle Elik was leading some horses to the stable, a citizen who had imbibed too freely of native "con" tried to make the old darkey turn the horses loose. Mr. Thomas witnessing this got a club and gave the irreligious individual a different view of things in general.

About this time a company of what was called "movers" stopped in Waverly. Their stay was prolonged several days due to the illness of a child which died. These people were remembered by the folks in Waverly because of the aloof, not to mention hostile, attitude toward our townspeople. No one knew of the death, until the leader of the party, a rather wild looking positive old man, secured a place in which to bury the child. After the funeral the party drove away. This might have been forgotten but for the fact that a few years later this old man came back with a small party, disinterred the body and took it away. The old man was John Brown and he would not leave a dead in the soil of a slave state.

The Waverly of the fifties, when hemp was king---before Mr. Lincoln had issued his proclamation---when there was no convenient railroad---when they used the only steam whistle, that was heard in the land---Waverly, then was a town of real importance. Its Justice Court had enlarged it's jurisdiction, to the flat ground between the river and the bluff (which has since been washed away), there was an iron foundry, a rope walk, a flouring mill, four large warehouses a blacksmith shop, several stores and a number of dwellings.

An old man once called my attention to a little clump of hard maples on Mt. Rucker, (named for an early day physician who admired the view from its summit). He told me that Gen. Shelby's home once stood there and the General was married in that house, said Gen, Shelby (not Gen. Shelby then but the proprietor of a warehouse and a large land owner) had a steamboat wait all day to take his bridal party to St. Louis (a wedding those days was quite an event, and divorces weren't fashionable). Gen. Shelby raised his first command in the Methodist Church.

Waverly, may be unique in that it was the only inland town to be bombarded by a man-o-war. Some time in the latter part of the war the U. S. Gunboat, Thomas E. Tutt, was passing up the river when a bushwhacker called "Squirrel Tail" who was standing on Mt. Rucker, for no reason fired on the boat with a six shooter. The Captain of the boat, presumably in the interest of education, tied his craft up at the lower end of Willow Bar (Willow Bar was quite an island just above Waverly, but the flood of 1903 scattered it all the way to the delta, leaving nothing but a memory) and fired two shots from some kind of small cannon. It was a quiet, peaceful summer day, all the old gentlemen from miles around had put on their white linen dusters and were assembled at Mr. Patterson's Post Office, (located a block north of the Christian Church) talking of crops, politics and the latest returns from the war.

The immediate result of the bombardment was to fill the streets and roads with hurrying figures and floating "dusters."  Suggesting, to Mr. A. H. Leadford, who was on the boat, a flock of large white insects in hurried flight. Jim Brooks, then a Negro boy belonging to Mr. Geo. Fackler, tells me that the Negroes had a gathering in Waverly that day, when the Negroes heard the cannon they immediately started home. Mr. Fackler ask him what the darkeys did when they heard the cannon. Jim said, "Lord, Mars, Gorg. them niggers were five miles away when the smile riz."  So far as I know this was the only damage done, and all that was intended.

Mr. Baltimore Cooper owned a warehouse in Waverly which burned one night, without any insurance. This may have been a bit of luck for Courtney Riley Cooper; as it gave him a Kansas City address very early in life.

There used to be a house in Waverly, which was the home of a little red headed boy who was later know as the Hon. James McCorkle, Governor of West Virginia. The junior member of Tuck and Palmore Drug Co., was later the Rev. W. B. Palmore of the Methodist Church, South an eloquent minister, high in the council of his church, Editor of the St. Louis Christian Advocate, world traveler and lecturer.

Immediately after the War, in the 1860s there dwelt in Waverly a maiden, who was so wondrously fair, whose grace and charm was such that her home was the mecca of many an ardent swain, among whom were two captains, of Shelby's command, full of romance and heroics, and since she was but one maiden 'twas natural that these two comrades in arms should disagree so bitterly that a duel was arranged on a hill just west of Dover. With their old general as master of ceremonies, the sharp cold breath of a November morning, the solemn sound of buck shot tolling down the barrel of a ten-gauge shotgun, presence of a battle-scarred and blood-stained ambulance which had served its purpose on many a stricken field, the bright array of saws and knives and other tools of the surgeon's kit, the mild influence of friends and perhaps the return of reason, averted what probably would have been a fatal affray. All for the love of a girl who didn't marry either of them.

Waverly didn't entirely miss out on the lawlessness which followed the close of the war. At one time there was a gang who grew up in the uncertain atmosphere and violence of that period. Robbery was not unusual, perhaps a few murders were committed. Our town is about a quarter of a mile from the river. The steamboat landing was reached by a narrow road through the bluff, called the "Cut."  Ben Moore, an old darkey, said that white gentlemen who were going away on a boat would often give him a dollar to carry their pocket book down to the boat if they had to make the journey at night.

Conditions became so bad that a number of good citizens met one night, in an open field, to guard against listeners or spies for the purpose of discussing measures of repression. Mr. Edwards told the crowd that the city officials were powerless and that should he, as mayor, take any action he probably would be murdered the first night that he was away from home after dark. The efficiency of the underworld was evidenced by the fact that they knew all about the meeting the next day. However, a few nights later some men dressed after the manner of the K.K.K. rode into town, shot the leader of the undesirables and hung his body on a thorn tree, which stood at the junction of the bridge approach and Main Street. Fifty years later when the tree was cut down, the mark of the rope showed clearly on the limb from which he was hanged. While we do not care to champion the cause of the vigilante, the fact is that the decisive measure taken that night ended, to a large extent, crime in Waverly. The bad men all left town and I have heard, died violent deaths in various part of the west from Texas to Canada.

There was a decided inclination on the part of our citizens at this time, to settle difficulties with a shotgun rather than in the courts of law. One summer day a friend told the proprietor of a mill that one of his neighbors, whose dwelling he had to pass, was waiting to kill him. The miller decided that speedy and positive methods were necessary, went home by a different route, secured his shotgun and ended his neighbor's waiting with two hands full of buckshot. There was a funeral a few days later, but no legal action was taken.