White settlement in Adair County began in 1828, twenty-five years after the Louisiana Purchase and three years after extinction of the Indian title, when settlers from Howard County located on the east side of the Chariton River about six miles west of present-day Kirksville in an area known as the Cabins that had long been the hunting ground of the Sac and Fox tribes. Broken up by Indians in 1829 and restored in 1830, the settlement stood more than 30 miles from its nearest southern neighbor, with Hannibal and Quincy to the east and Huntsville to the south serving as trading posts. Early conditions were hard and primitive, circuit-riding ministers served pioneer settlers, and the first church in the county was Bear Creek Baptist Church in 1838. By 1840, settlers had located in practically all the county. Created on January 29, 1841, Adair County was named for the Honorable John Adair of Kentucky, whom immigrants from Kentucky wanted remembered, and by 1842 Kirksville had been established as the county seat. The county was first divided into the townships of Morrow, Liberty, Benton, Pettis, and Wilson, with Walnut, Nineveh, Clay, Polk, and Salt River added in 1865, and it had no official seal until 1948. Rectangular in form, Adair County measures twenty-one miles north to south and twenty-seven miles east to west. It developed many small communities with about fifty-seven post offices, though by 2008 only three remained. Mail first arrived by horseback or stage from Bloomington in Macon County, and before postage stamps existed the receiver paid the postage, sometimes borrowing a dime to claim a letter. Railroads arriving in 1868 and 1870 brought daily mail service. Public education began in Kirksville in 1867 in two buildings, the Free Will Baptist Church and the Mercer building, and by 1873 the county had 4,957 students in 76 schools. As roads and highways improved, schools consolidated, and by 2008 three school districts remained: Novinger, Brashear, and Kirksville. Agriculture, timber, coal mining, some manufacturing, the founding of the First District Normal School in 1867, and the founding of the osteopathic profession in 1892 spurred early growth. The county's population rose from 2,342 in 1850 to 22,700 in 1910, while assessed wealth increased from $90,290 to $5,840,078; in 2007 the population was slightly less than 25,000 and assessed wealth stood at $243,233,734.