The wandering state seal – Missouri State Quarter Coin

Today, the Missouri State Quarter Coin remembers the return of the state’s seal on May 26, 1869 by ex-Governor T. C. Reynolds.

As the war approached Missouri in 1861, Governor Jackson with Lt. Governor Reynolds and other state officials began the state seal’s journey.

The History of the Bench and Bar of Missouri by A. J. D. Stewart, published in 1898, told the story as part of the biography of Benjamin Massey:

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Benjamin F. Massey, our subject’s father, was a man of strong and virile character and in his time an influential factor in the affairs of Missouri, having been Secretary of State during the stormy days of 1861 and those following.

He was born in Kent County, Maryland, in 1811 and came to Missouri sometime in the ’thirties. Our subject’s mother was Maria Hawkins Withers, daughter of an old family of Virginia, having been born in Fauquier County, in 1822.

She came to Missouri with her parents about 1832 and was married to Benjamin F. Massey at Boonville, Missouri, in 1839.

The young couple established themselves at Sarcoxie Missouri, where the country for hundreds of miles in all directions was little more than unbroken prairie and forest, where deer, bear and other game roamed at will.

There their son was born in 1842.

The latter was educated in such private country schools as existed at Sarcoxie in the primitive days of the ’fifties and in such private schools as Jefferson City afforded between 1856 and 1860.

This schooling was afterward supplemented with much self instruction and an exhaustive and general course of reading.

It was during the early period while his father was Secretary of State that the son attended school at Jefferson City, to become later his father’s chief clerk, or assistant Secretary of State.

The father by virtue of his office was a member of the official family of the courageous and fiery Claib Jackson, then Governor.

The son as his father’s chief helper was thrown into intimate relations with the public men of that day, was an active participant in the stormy scenes of those times, and can therefore now relate many interesting incidents respecting the men and events that then made history.

His narrative of the evacuation by the State government of Jefferson City, of how it followed Price’s Army South after the battle of Boonville, of the convening of the Legislature at Neosho and the varying fortunes of the great seal of Missouri, is especially interesting.

Because of their historical import the facts are here incorporated as Mr. Massey’s friends have often heard him relate them.

In the spring of 1861, the capture of the State Militia at Camp Jackson, in St. Louis, by the Federal troops under the command of General Lyon, caused great excitement at Jefferson City and a call was made by Governor Jackson for 75,000 of the volunteer militia to assemble there to protect the State against Federal invasion.

It soon became apparent that no sufficient force could be gathered at the Capital to resist the march upon that city by General Lyon, and so about the first of June it was determined that the State government should remove, or retreat from Jefferson and carry with them such of the records of State as were portable and absolutely necessary to conduct the State government while it was thus on wheels.

In a state of intense anxiety and expectation and in great haste, after dark one night about the 12th of June, such records were packed in the Secretary’s office as had been determined it was necessary to take, and with them the State seal, and carried for concealment and protection to the residence of Captain Rogers, an old gentleman who lived in a stone house just back of the Capitol, inside the corporate limits and up the river from the main part of the town.

The seal and records were stored in his house for a day or two, then packed in wagons and hauled to Boonville and from there, after the skirmish of June 17, followed the fortunes of the retreating State forces from the first battle in the State at Boonville to the encampment down on the Cowskin, a stream in the southwestern part of the State, in McDonald County.

The seal, which is now one of Missouri’s historical relics, remained in the custody of the Secretary of State, who was with the Governor, and its impress appeared on the certified copy of the ordinance or act of secession passed by the Legislature convened at Neosho.

This seal remained, after the battle of Wilson Creek, in custody of the subject of this biography at Springfield, Missouri, until the retreat of General Price in the spring of 1862.

He had it in charge at the time of the battle of Pea Ridge in March of that year, and took it on the march from Van Buren, Arkansas, after the battle of Pea Ridge, to Des Arc on White River in Arkansas.

When General Price’s Army and Governor Jackson’s civil staff, including the Secretary of State, Lieutenant Governor and others, reached this little town of Des Arc they there met the Committee or Commission which had been appointed by the Legislature at Neosho to superintend the engraving or lithographing of $10,000,000 in State bonds, by which the seceding State expected to obtain the sinews of war.

These bonds were there signed by the Governor and sealed with the said seal and attested by the Secretary.

As the Secretary of State was absent it became the duty of his son as his representative to affix his father’s name and the seal of the State to many of these bonds.

The bonds of smaller denomination were then used for paying the State troops whose time had about expired.

Shortly thereafter Price’s Army disbanded as a State organization, and the larger part of the troops enlisted in the Confederate service.

Governor Jackson died shortly afterward at the home of his son-in-law, at Des Arc, and Lieutenant Governor Reynolds, who was then with Governor Jackson, assumed the reins of State government, guided the ship of State as well as might be under existing circumstances.

It is Mr. Massey’s impression that he (Governor Reynolds) then took charge of the State seal, as that was the last he saw of it until after the war, when this seal was presented by Governor Reynolds in person to Governor McClurg, at Jefferson City, and where it now remains as a relic and souvenir of the part taken by Missouri in the conflict of States.

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The Missouri State Quarter Coin shows with an image of the state seal and a portrait of ex-Governor T. C. Reynolds.

Missouri State Quarter Coin