Thursday, December 23, 2010

1845 Elgin / Cottrell House History

  A little history behind the story of the 1845 Elgin / Cottrell House, in Clarksville,Mo.
  The Elgin Family can be traced back to the Mayflower. They first settled in Virgina. Samuel Elgin, fought in the Revolutionary War, under George Washington. He married a cousin to John and Samuel Adams. In 1815, he was given a US Land Grant from President James Manroe, for 300 acres of land in the territory of Missouri. Missouri became a state in 1821. Clarksville became a town in 1821. When Elgin first arrived in Missouri ,it was mostly a wilderness. He cleared some land and made a trading post and delt mostly with the Native Americans. He had two sons. Samuel and Hazakeiah. Together they made the first road from Clarksville to St. Louis. Latter they had a River Boat, Steamwheeler and took people up and down the river. The Mississippi River is only 200 feet away from the house. Elgin and his brother developed the Missouri Mule, by breading the horse to the Donkey. They made a lot of money, during the Civil War, selling the Mules to the US Army.
  It was Hazaheiah that built this house. It was started in 1845.  The bricks were hand  made right on the spot. Elgin married Elizabeth Mountjoy in 1860. She was a widow with two children and 300 more acres of land and 25 slaves. After the marriage, he built an addition to the house, in 1860, adding a second  parlor,  Master bed room and formal entrance. Several porches were used to tie the two structures together. Elgin and his wife had two more children, but both died  before the age of two. After Elgins death, the house went to his step son, Plato and step daughter, Elizabeth. The house  remained in that family for over 100 years.
  When I bought the house in 2006 it was not liveable. I have spent the last four years, working to bring it back ,to its formal glory. I redid the house to the 1860 period, when Elgin lived there with his wife and was the most prosperious.
  








8 comments:

Unknown said...

Fascinating Richard, did not know the Elgins were a part of the Missouri Mule history.

Donna@Conghaile Cottage said...

LOVE your homes History! It is so wonderful that you have all this information... I hope someday people will feel this way about my home!
Happy New Year to you,
Donna

Robin's Egg Bleu said...

Love the history, unfortunately your photographs at some point were misidentified. The two children are brothers, Charles and Stephen Decatur Gore of St. Louis, MO. The woman is Cephalide Metoyer, and the gentleman is Emil Locoul. They are from Louisiana, near New Orleans. Emil Locoul's daughter, Laura Locoul, married Charles Decatur Gore of St. Louis, MO. He and his wife lived and raised their three children, Desiree, Lollie and Charles, Jr. in St. Louis, MO. Perhaps either Desiree or Lollie Gore married into the Elgin family and the photographs were accidentally misidentified. Cephalide Metoyer is the maternal grandmother of Laura Locoul Gore.

You can find more information about the identities of the people in your photographs at the Laura Plantation outside New Orleans, Louisiana.

Richard Cottrell said...

Dear Robin's Egg, Thank you so much for bring this to my attention. I was given a family paper by someone who said this was correct. I am so embarased, Please forgive me. I have taken the pictures off. I have to do more research in the future.

Robin's Egg Bleu said...

It's amazing how old photographs can be misidentified. I do work for an historic house museum in San Diego. We received a family photograph donated back to us which appeared to solve a great family mystery.

One of the daughters ran away and eloped, her husband after two weeks, left her and she committed suicide. The circumstances of the elopement and her death were kept hidden from the public by the prior curator for over 50 years. We'd been searching for more information on this situation and finally got lucky when we received this photograph, which appeared to answer some questions, not to mention, create new ones.

The name on the only known photograph of her and her husband (who was correctly identified) was not hers, but seemingly, an amalgamation of her mothers name. Her mother's maiden name was Anna De Launay, also found in print as Anna Lannay. The name on the photograph was "Anna Lane...Massachusetts" ...so we thought that perhaps this was an alias the girl used when she ran off to elope, altering her mothers maiden name.

It was surprising to us that she'd have run from California to Massachusetts to elope, a piece of lost history.

Two years later, on Ancestry.com in researching the husband of this girl, I found that before he married her, he'd been married to one Anna Lane of Massachusetts. Her death is recorded and pre-dates the family member in question, so there's no mistaking that these were two completely different people.

If I hadn't been snooping on Ancestry.com, we never would've realized that we were inadvertently creating a false history out of a new document that had fallen into our lap!

That's why I mentioned this to you. These things occur with the best intentions. It does seem as there's indeed a possible connection between either the Locouls or the Gore family and the Elgin family, being as such the Gores hail from Missouri as well.

It's worth investigating, and if they are indeed connected, I suggest contacting the Laura Plantation in Vacherie, Lousiana with any information you may find, which would enable them to add missing pieces to their historic puzzle as well.

Funny, the photographs of the real Elgins might too be misidentified, by some well meaning descendant; hopefully, their true images will turn up somewhere.

Richard Cottrell said...

Thanks Ms. Robins Egg for all your help with this problem.Richard

Unknown said...

I love hearing the stories and history, even if they may be misaligned. I'm not checking into it, and while it's integral to be correct, the story paints a very interesting scene within my own imagination...something that's fun, despite exact preciseness. Thank you, RC!!!

Visitor to Laura Plantation said...

Haven't seen the picture but this information can't be correct. Just finished reading Laura Locoul Gore's memoirs: Laura Locoul was 18 yrs old when her father Emile Locoul died. She met her future husband years later in her mid 20s. Her maternal grandmother Cephalide Metoyer died just after her parent's wedding years before she was born. More likely that Laura's mother and brother Desiree and George Locoul would appear in a photo with the adult.Gore brothers.