Scene of Civil War Battle

Monroe City, Missouri

Monroe City was the site of one of Northeast Missouri’s leading colleges in days gone by. E. B. Talcott gave the property originally known as the “Mound” for use as a seminary or institution of learning when Monroe City was officially plotted in 1857. The townspeople spent $10,000 to erect a two story brick building with twenty four well equipped classrooms on a seven and a half acre campus.

After receiving the charter in 1860 the school opened with brothers G.B. and S.C. Comings as principals. They maintained the school until 1876. Rev. James S. Green was in charge for three years after the Comings brothers and Rev. R.M. Beeson was principal between 1879 and 1882. He was succeeded by Prof. A. Wood Terrill, 1886-1886, who developed a broader field of studies. Under his administration, the Institute reached its height in 1884 when it had an enrollment in excess of a hundred pupils.

The curriculum was considered liberal and prepared students for more advance institutions. The Monroe Institute was considered one of the leading colleges in Northeast Missouri. Professor Terrill introduced to the seminary a music department, business and art classes as well as improving the logic, geometry, rhetoric and literature courses. The faculty that year included:

In 1886, the Rev. J.S. Dongle assumed management of the Institute which was sold the next year to J.H. Blincoe. It was feared the Institute would be used as an apartment building. However, Mrs. M.H. Hubbs, Macon, leased the school and tried to maintain it. But interest was dwindling mainly because of the progressive public school system which had been established and the high cost of tuition to the private institution. A school year consisted of two terms. Costs per term in 1887 were listed as: Juvenile course, $10, Preparatory, $15: Academic, $20; and Collegiate, $25.

Mrs. A. Wood Terrill and W.J. Marr tried to keep interest in the dying institute but the doors were forced to close on May 12, 1892.

The building has since been used as private residences.

In July 1861 war clouds gathered over northeast Missouri and the Monroe Institute became involved in the Civil War. The Union Army’s 16^th Ill. Guard under the command of Col. Smith, stationed at Palmyra, Mo. was ordered to break up a camp of secessionists at Florida. Col. Smith and his five hundred men met opposition in a skirmish in the Swinkey hills south of Monroe City. It was here while camping overnight that he learned from reports that he had stirred up a veritable hornet’s nest. Secessionists were swarming all around him, causing him to withdraw to Monroe City where he took refuge in and fortified the Monroe Institute. The troops remained here for four days, being shot at many times with musket and cannon. Out of twenty five rounds of cannon fire from 1 ½ miles east of the Seminary building, it was hit only three times.

It was the battle of this building which brought a relatively unknown man, later General and President, Col. U.S. Grant and his troops out of Illinois into Missouri with orders to relieve the men in Monroe City and squelch the uprising in Northeast Missouri. This first battle of the Civil War in Northeast Missouri ended just before Grant arrived, so he marched on crossing Salt River at Hunnewell and continued on to Florida and Mexico.