Father of the Bootheel

On January 8th, we posted the blog entry "Prayer for Statehood." This week we follow with a related blog about John Hardeman Walker, whom we will dub "Father of the Bootheel;" his contemporaries called him "Czar of the Valley." Popular petitions, or prayers, circulated in 1817-1818 (as quoted in our earlier post) called for Missouri's southern border to be a parallel line at 36 degrees 30 minutes.

John Hardeman Walker was January 13, 1794 in Fayette County, Tennessee. About 1810, Walker emigrated and settled near present-day Caruthersville. Many early settlers left the area after the New Madrid earthquake and after-shocks during 1811-12; Walker a young man with enterprising zeal remained and acquired large tracts of vacated land.

Legend has it that in 1818 Walker traveled to St. Louis to lobby Missouri's territorial legislature. Some claim he even traveled to Washington, D.C. about the matter. Whether Walker exerted his influence in such a manner, it is clear he was vocal about the subject and it was in his interest not to be connected with Arkansas. Rather his fortunes would prosper more with the greater natural resources of Missouri: chiefly the confluence of two great rivers near St. Louis.

Whether a result of one man's efforts or many, in 1818 the Missouri Territorial Legislature petitioned Congress to include within the boundaries of Missouri the land between the St. Francis and Mississippi Rivers extending south to the 36th Parallel. In 1819, Congress set the northern boundary of the Arkansas Territory thereby setting Missouri's southern boundary. And Congress gave Missouri a bootheel.

Sources

• Shoemaker, Floyd Calvin. Missouri Day by Day, Volume 1. Columbia, MO: State Historical Society of Missouri, 1942.
• Shoemaker, Floyd Calvin. Missouri's Struggle for Statehood, 1804-1821. Jefferson City, MO: The Hugh Stephens Printing Company, 1916.
• Stein, Mark. How the States Got Their Shape. New York: HarperCollins, 2008.