Jackson County Notables

Events, locations, and industries important
to Jackson County history.

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MCCOY'S PASS: EARLIEST SETTLEMENT OF WESTPORT

About the middle of August, 1830, a cavalcade of 6 person, riding and walking, herding a string of heavily laden pack horses, entered the stump-covered streets of Independence. They made purchases at the OWENS & AULL store. Their appearance created quite a ripple of interest, dressed as they were, in clothes of the East. After pleasant interchanges of courtesies and news, giving and receiving, they proceeded west in single file.

The rear of the Reverend Isaac McCoy's cavalacade was kept in motion by 19 year old John C. McCoy, who whipped up the lazy, straggling pack animals. The 6 had left their Kentucky home and were soon to reach their ultimate home.

After crossing the Big Blue River, they came to a deserted Sauk Indian Village from which the last tribal inhabitant had departed in 1824. The village was south of Brush Creek, near the Santa Fe Trail. The father, Isaac McCoy, built a frontier-style log cabin high on a hill (NE corner of Main & Linwood Blvd.) overlooking what afterwards was to be a trade center. When the Rev. McCoy arrived at the site, he knelt and offered prayer. "And now, O Thou Father of the Fatherless and friend of the poor, in these deserts, where, with a few, I have been allowed the privilege of bowing the knee and lisping a song, grant that prayers and praises may arise from thousands of people to be saved there by Thee, and all the glory shall be Thine."

Thus the earliest settlement of Westport was dedicated by prayer by one of the early missionaries.