Information Sheet

 

 

R         Pearson, William N.

750                  Sherwood: The Forgotten Village, 1978

                                    One folder, photocopies.

 

 

 

This is a brief history of the village of Sherwood in the southwestern corner of Jasper County, Missouri.  Closest to present-day Carl Junction, the village was destroyed in 1863 by Union forces from Baxter Springs, Kansas.

 

Daniel Hunt originally platted the village known as Rural after the post office by that name that existed from 1851 to 1855.  Rural was the third town platted in Jasper County, and served as a trading post for the Indian Territory lying west of the nearby Missouri state boundary.  The village was near the “Texas Trail” and the military road leading south from Fort Scott, Kansas.  A post of­fice on the site, known as Sherwood, was re-established in 1858.  It existed until 1871, and was briefly re-established from 1882 to 1883.

 

The seventeen-page history of Sherwood by William N. Pearson is based on county records, census data, and secondary historical material, including the writings by Jasper County historian Ward L. Schrantz.  Four pages of endnotes and bibliography follow the text.   The narrative con­centrates on the Civil War period, particularly May 1863, when Sherwood and the homes in its vi­cinity were burned by federal troops from Baxter Springs, Kansas.  The destruction was in retalia­tion for an attack a day earlier by Confederates under the command of Thomas R. Livingston on black and white troops on a foraging expedition.

 

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