Ten years after the Civil War, former Confederate president Jefferson Davis came to Fulton, Missouri, on September 10, 1875, to speak at the Callaway County agricultural fair before a community known for many Southern sympathizers and former Confederates. After arriving by train from DeSoto, he was welcomed at the Italianate home of Missouri attorney general John A. Hockaday and honored with a reception and dinner attended by both Southern and former Union political leaders in a spirit of fellowship and reconciliation. Davis spoke on behalf of the Mississippi Valley Association, an English venture that sought to promote agricultural trade with, and perhaps emigration to, the region. Although resentment toward Davis remained strong in much of the North, his journey into the Kingdom of Callaway drew enthusiastic welcomes, and despite illness and fatigue, he responded graciously to a serenade at Hockaday's home. The next day, an estimated 10,000-12,000 people greeted him at the fairground, now Westminster College's Priest Field. In his address, he praised agriculture, urged development of local manufacturing instead of exporting raw resources, and endorsed cooperation between the upper and lower Mississippi valleys through shared river transport. Moved by his reception, he remarked that if he ever moved to a kingdom, it would be the Kingdom of Callaway. Missouri Governor Charles Hardin shared the platform, and former Confederate general and newly elected U.S. senator Francis M. Cockrell also spoke during the visit. The account also places Davis within a broader life that included Kentucky birth, education at Transylvania University and the U.S. Military Academy, service at Jefferson Barracks and in the Mexican War, later roles as a Mississippi planter, U.S. Congressman, Senator, Secretary of War, and from 1861-1865 the first and only president of the Confederate States of America, followed after the war by imprisonment, release, refusal to take a loyalty oath, and posthumous restoration of citizenship in 1978.