Danville Female Academy, founded in 1853 by Reverend James H. Robinson when Danville was an important stop on the Boonslick Road, was considered one of the first female colleges west of the Mississippi River, and its chapel and dormitory is the academy’s sole surviving building. The academy grew into a substantial facility during its years of operation from 1853 to 1865, and after Robinson moved to St. Joseph, Missouri, in 1865, he became a prominent educator there. On the evening of October 14, 1864, rebel horsemen rode east into Danville on the Boonslick Road during Anderson’s Raid. Danville, then a predominantly Unionist settlement, was usually garrisoned by Union troops from a large blockhouse at the southeast corner of the public square, but that night those troops were several miles east protecting the North Missouri Railroad. Arriving at 8:30 p.m. without warning, the raiders began by indiscriminately killing several townspeople, including 12-year-old Ira Chinn, and for three and one-half hours they terrorized the town before moving on about midnight, leaving most of Danville in flames and ruins. Guerrillas entered the academy grounds believing Union troops were hidden in the chapel and demanded the keys from Mrs. Robinson. As this unfolded, some students in the second-floor dormitory ran for the woods, while others confronted the guerrillas, saying they were Southern girls and begging that the school be spared. Local lore holds that one girl hung her petticoat on a staff over the front door as a sign of truce. Whatever the reason, the school survived, and the chapel remained standing as a testament to the resolve of young Missouri women of both Northern and Southern heritage. The building later served as a Methodist church until the 1950s and is regarded by some as the finest example of Greek Revival architecture still standing in central Missouri. The raid grew out of Confederate General Sterling Price’s meeting with “Bloody Bill” Anderson at Boonsville, Missouri, on October 11, 1864, when Price directed Anderson to take a force east to disrupt and destroy the North Missouri Railroad during the 1864 Missouri Expedition. The raiders traveled east on the Boonslick Road through Franklin and Rocheport, skirted Columbia, continued to Williamsburg and Danville, then struck New Florence and High Hill and damaged railroad tracks and facilities, though the destruction was relatively slight and they turned back before reaching a bridge at the St. Charles County line. After High Hill, the raiders camped on the New Florence–Hermann Road several miles southeast of Danville, then crossed the Missouri River west of Hermann. Historians have disagreed over whether Anderson himself was at Danville, though the Draper sisters believed they saw him there; if he was not present, then “Little Archie” Clements was said to have been in command.
