| 112 said, 'the grave of Adam,' as certain of the Mormon wise men claimed it to be the burial place of the progenitor of the human race! Some of the Mormons located at Gallatin and elsewhere throughout the county. Over in Clinton County there were perhaps fifty Mormon families in 1833. Down in Carroll County, at DeWitt, on the Missouri, in the spring of 1838, General George M. Hinkle and John Murdock, as trustees for the Mormons, purchased the town site, laid it off into lots, and soon a thriving village of one hundred houses was built. DeWitt was designed to be a steamboat landing and a point from which goods and immigrants could be forwarded to Caldwell County.
"It is claimed that all the Mormon settlements outside of this county were made with the prior consent of the inhabitants then living where the settlements were made; the consent was obtained, in nearly every instance, by the payment of money, either for the lands of the pioneer Gentiles or for some articles of personal property they owned. Money was scarce at that day, and although the pioneers did not approve Mormon doctrines, they did approve of Mormon gold and silver, and they were willing to tolerate the one if they could obtain the other. But afterward certain of the Gentiles claimed that the Mormon occupation had been by stealth and fraud, and perhaps in some instances this was true.
"By far the majority of the Mormon settlers in this quarter were poor. Many of them were able to enter and improve but forty acres of land, and nearly all their houses were cabins. Like other pioneers they had come to the country to better their condition; to worship as they pleased, and to be with their brethren, were of course considerations. Every head of family was guaranteed a home, and if he was unable to buy one it was given him from the lands held by the trustees of the church. Among so many, however, there could but be those of some wealth, as well as craftsmen of various kinds, skilled mechanics and artisans. There were also many persons of education and accomplishment. School-teachers were plenty and schools were numerous."-History of Caldwell County, pp. 118, 119.
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