These former inhabitants of Henry County were a war-like nation of savages. They were remarkable for their skill in the use of the bow and arrow; the bows were about four feet long and made out of hickory or similar wood, using for a cord a buffalo or elk sinew. The arrow was some two feet long with an elongated, triangular spear-head made of sheet iron; the difference between the hunting and the war arrow was that the spearhead of the war arrow was lightly attached, so that when withdrawn from the wound this spear-head would remain. According to Pike, the country around the great village of the Osages, which is near the present site of Papinville in Bates County, is "one of the most beautiful the eye ever beheld, the Osage River winding round and past the village, giving advantages of wood and water and at the same time an extensive prairie crowned with rich and luxuriant grass and flowers, gently diversified by rising swells and sloping lawns, present to the warm imagination the future sight of husbandry, the numerous herds of domestic animals which are no doubt destined to crown with joy those happy plains."
It was in this section of Missouri, in 1821, that the Harmony Mission was established, on the banks of the Marais Des Cygnes, about six miles from where it joins the Osage. This Mission was about fifteen miles from the great Osage village, suggested above as being near the present town of Papinville. The location is described as follows:
"Our limits embraced excellent timber in abundance, vast prairie for plowing and pasturing ; the only minerals known in this vast country, stone and coal, on the surface of the ground and within a few rods of our buildings, and a large region of limestone sufficiently near for convenience. Our river bottoms are rather low for cultivation, without draining; but our prairies are high and inclining toward the creeks which receive and carry off all the surplus water. The soil of our prairies is a dark, rich loam about two feet thick, beneath which we have clear clay as deep as we have yet penetrated. We shall depend on wells for water for family use.
The grass of the prairie varies from two feet to seven in height and forms an impediment to traveling equal to that of snow, from eight to ten inches deep."
As to the field for missionary work, it is aptly summed up by some of the missionaries: "It is painful to reflect on the condition of the Indians to whom we have come; the moon, they call Heaven, to which we are all going at death; the sun, they call the Great Spirit which governs the moon and the earth. The moral darkness in which these people are involved is greater than has yet been communicated to the Christian world. It has been commonly reported that they worship God and acknowledge Him as the first great cause of all things; this, however, will, I believe, be found to be a misrepresentation. From the best information I can obtain, it appears that they are an idolatrous race and that they worship the sun, the earth, the moon and the stars. They worship these creatures of God as creators. If asked who made the sun, moon, earth, etc., they can not tell. It is no uncommon thing to see them start immediately after their morning devotion on some mischievous and atrocious expedition - perhaps to murder some neighboring tribe or to steal their substance. Many of them are playing cards around me while I am writing and uttering in broken English the oaths which are so commonly uttered at the card table. Both card-playing and profanity, they have doubtless learned from the traders who pass much of their time in the village."
The above account of the Osage is included in order that we may know something of the people who undoubtedly lived in Henry County prior to the coming of the white man. No doubt, the road from Jefferson City to the Harmony Mission crossed the present limits of Henry County and missionaries who came out to work in this early Christian establishment so well described in Atkeson's History of Bates County, traversed many times the fields of the western part of Henry.
