Lexington, on the bluffs above the Missouri River, grew up around Jack's Ferry in 1819 and by 1860 had become one of the state's great river ports. Prosperous river trade and the agricultural richness of the area made it a commercial center, an outfitting point for emigrants going west, and an educational and financial metropolis. It became the seat of Lafayette County, then called Lillard County, in 1823, and gained a U.S. Land Office that year, a fifth Branch Bank of the State of Missouri in 1845, and offices of the freighting firm Russell, Majors and Waddell in the 1850s. Its early schools included Masonic College, opened in 1848 as the first college founded by Masons in the world, Baptist Female College, chartered in 1855, Elizabeth Aull Seminary in 1859, Central College for Women in 1869, and Wentworth Military Academy, founded in 1880. Antebellum homes reflected the Classic Revival design of the courthouse, built in 1847–49, where a cannon ball embedded in a column remains from the Confederate victory in the 1861 Battle of Lexington. In 1861 Lexington was seen as a strategic military prize and was occupied by Union troops to prevent State Guard forces north and south of the Missouri River from uniting. General Sterling Price moved on the town to break federal control, and a bitter three-day battle from September 18 to 20, 1861, ended with the attack known as the Battle of the Hemp Bales and the defeat of the Federals under Colonel J.A. Mulligan. Other historic places include Lexington Battlefield, the Anderson House of 1853, used as a battle hospital during violent fighting, Machpelah Cemetery with the grave of first settler Gilead Rupe, the Episcopal Church built in 1846, the former Cumberland Presbyterian Church of about 1840 that houses the Public Library and Historical Association, and the site near Lexington Bridge where the side-wheeler Saluda exploded in 1852, killing most of its passengers, who were Mormons.