New Madrid was the first American town in Missouri. It was founded in 1789 by George Morgan, a Princeton graduate and Indian trader, on the site of Francois and Joseph Le Sieur's trading settlement, L'Anse a laGraise, meaning Cove of Fat. Floods and caving banks destroyed the first town site. Named for Madrid, Spain, the town was intended as an American colony. Morgan was promised 15 million acres by the Spanish ambassador, who was eager to check U.S. expansion with large land grants, but Spain did not confirm his grant and instead gave land to colonists. Morgan left, but he had begun American immigration to Missouri. French and American settlers helped the town grow. A Catholic church was founded here in 1789, a Methodist church in 1810, and this was the southern extent of El Camino Real, or King's Highway, in 1789. The county contains more than 160 Indian mounds, two of them near the town. The Boot Heel counties, including a strip of New Madrid, are said to be part of Missouri through the efforts of J.H. Walker, a planter at Little Prairie in Pemiscot County. In nearby Mississippi County is Big Oak Tree State Park, a notable hardwood forest. The New Madrid Earthquake, a series of monstrous and lesser shocks, began on Dec. 16, 1811, continued for more than a year, and centered here. Because it struck a thinly settled region, one of the world's great earthquakes caused little loss of life despite its severity and length. Some shocks were felt as far as 1100 miles away, and Reelfoot Lake across the river resulted from the disaster. Under a U.S. relief act of 1815, sufferers received New Madrid land certificates that were good for public land elsewhere, though the measure benefited mostly speculators. In 1862 Union forces captured New Madrid and, by means of a canal sawed through a submerged forest to a bayou, gained control of Island No. 10 and command of the river. Nearby in Mississippi County is Belmont battlefield, scene of an 1861 engagement in which both Federal forces under Grant and Confederates under Pillow claimed victory. New Madrid, once the seat of government of one of five Spanish districts and later one of Missouri's first five counties, serves a farming community where cotton and soybean crops predominate. Rich land has been reclaimed by the Little River and St. Johns Levee drainage systems.
