Caledonia Washington County

From Goodspeeds History of Washington County, Missouri (1888 Reprint): Caledonia had its origin in a blacksmith shop & a whisky distillery built near the big spring. Thomas Sloan fitting up the former, & Ferges Sloan & Joshua Morrison the latter. After them came Alexander Craighead, who put up the first store as early or perhaps earlier than 1817. His store was a double cabin, one end being used for a dwelling. The first dwelling house, a hewed-log house, was built by Robert Sloan. When Caledonia was platted in 1819 & the lots offered for sale, it was announced that whoever purchased the first lot could name the town. Alexander Craighead named it after Caledonia, Scotland. The land on which the town is located was secured to Miles Goforth in 1804 by the Spanish Government. Goforth taught the first school in Bellevue Valley in 1804 (now in Iron County). The first school taught in Caldeonia seems to have been in a round log house, built prior to & near the situation of the first Methodist Church. The place is still a small village of less than 400 inhabitants. The merchants are E.E. Southall, A.F. Carr, J.B. Headlee, S. McSpaden & C. Goodykoontz. The physicians are W.R. Goodykoontz, J.S. Eaton & G.A. Eversole. There are two churches - Methodist & Presbyterian - the Bellevue Collegiate Institute, a public school, the flouring mill of Harvey & Casey, which was erected in 1875, at a cost of $12,000, the blacksmith & wagon shop of Frank P. Morrow, & a blacksmith shop by James Jennings (colored).

Possum Trot Farm: In 1941 Leonard Hall married Virginia Watson, who thereafter collaborated with her husband on many endeavors, particularly the production of nature films. In 1945 they made their permanent home at “Possum Trot Farm” near Caledonia, Missouri. In 1943 Leonard Hall became a regular columnist for the St. Louis Post‑Dispatch, specializing in “outdoor” writing. Over the years the focus of the column came to be upon "nature" and the environment. In 1959 he moved the column to the St. Louis Globe‑Democrat, where it appeared regularly until 1980. Hall was also the author of several books, including Possum Trot Farm (1948), Country Year (1958), and Earth’s Song (1981), and many articles. http://web.mst.edu/~whmcinfo/shelf17/r408/info.html