Wayne County's Lost River Settlements

About the Book

Wayne County’s Lost River Settlements is a history of six hamlets in southeastern Missouri that were destroyed by the government to clear the landscape for development of Lake Wappapello on the St. Francis River in the late 1930s. Several of the profitable river bottom homesteads had been in the families for well over 100 years, but with nothing else to do the evicted farmers moved on reluctantly in what became the greatest upheaval in the history of the county.

With so much of Wayne County’s assessed valuation lost in the government buyout, it was feared remaining tax revenues would be inadequate to support essential services and that the county’s various parts by necessity soon would be attached to adjoining counties. That didn’t happen, but citizens at the doomed county seat, Greenville, struggled through an ordeal of pain and uncertainty that went on for several months before finally coming to an agreement to build a new town outside the flood plain.

Greenville’s turmoil and fight for survival is covered in the concluding segment of the book. It lives on as the county seat in its new location, but little is known today of the lost settlements—Chaonia, Taskee, Ojibway, Bethel, Center Ridge and Kime, each near the other and all at the time of their destruction closely aligned by blood and marriage—which gives added significance to the discovery of the papers of Henry Yeakley Mabrey (1836-1915), who spent his childhood at Kime and for the greater part of the rest of his life resided a few miles to the south at Center Ridge, which was just north of Chaonia, whose birth he witnessed in 1888. Chaonia, a railroad town, became the trading center for one of the richest farming areas in the southeastern part of the state.

Much of what is known of the settlements’ formative years is based on information gleaned from the Mabrey papers, which include school, church, governmental, and Civil War journals, as well as diaries, letters, and personal notes. Mr. Mabrey, a teacher, served in a number of political posts, including two terms as commissioner of public schools and two terms as probate judge of Wayne County.

The author brings a unique perspective to the story, since he has lived with it since early childhood. As he states in the preface of the book, “My involvement, my yen to write about these people, was possibly ordained, for I had heard much chatter about many of the families and of course the lost settlements while growing up at Greenville.” It is his hope his work brings a measure of honor if not appreciation to the families in the lost settlements whose sacrifices for the common good were for the most part made without fanfare or public notice.

About the Author

Swindled is the last of five books retired weekly newspaper publisher Cletis R. Ellinghouse has written to describe historical milestones in the neighborhood that embraces the place of his birth, Wayne County. He practically grew up in the offices of his father’s newspapers at Greenville and Piedmont before earning a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Arkansas State University at Jonesboro in 1958. His writing career included stints on daily newspapers in three states before he returned to his home grounds to commence publishing weekly papers of his own at Bonne Terre, Jackson, Marble Hill, and Puxico, where he now resides.