Biographical Sketches

Lilburn W. Boggs

In 1824, Lilburn W. Boggs, at the age of 18, migrated from New England to St. Louis, a row of wooden buildings along the riverfront and the seat of the fur trade. He married into the fur trade group. His wife was JULIA ANN BENT, daughter of SILAS BENT. She died at an early age. In St. Louis, Boggs was named cashier of the Mission Bank. This was a nice start for the ambitious man, but Boggs did not conform to that mold, he was an adventurer and the frontier called.

In 1826, he landed at Fort Osage, then known as Sibley, and became engaged in merchandising in the riverfront town. It was here that he married his second wife, PANTHEA GRANT BOONE, a granddaughter of DANIEL BOONE. From here they moved to Independence and he became a frontier merchant.

As a popular citizen, he was appointed the first clerk of Jackson County, and his handwritings are to be seen in the first records. He wrote the contract for the first courthouse, as well as other buildings. As a merchant he was an agent for a patent medicine. In his advertising he claimed that his medicine was "unequaled in powers in eliminating from the human system, all the poisonous juices" and was good for "scrofula, white swelling, rheumatism and liver complaints" (1) It is not known just where his store was located, but his home was on South Spring, across from a large public spring, which gave the street its name.

(1) Hickman, History of Jackson County, p. 251

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This page was last updated August 2, 2006.