Monroe County was formed from Ralls in 1831. Palymra is the land office where many of the early deeds were recorded. David G. Davenport's story is also an interesting comment on Southern sympathizers during the Civil War in Monroe County. According to a profile in the 1884 History of Monroe and Shelby Counties, Missouri: DAVID G. DAVENPORT (Attorney at Law, Monroe City.) Mr. Davenport, who has been engaged in the practice of law for over 30 years continuously, except during most of the war and for a short time afterards, has been located at Monroe City since 1873. As a lawyer, his career has been one of substantial success, and he is now one of the well-to-do citizens of this place as well as one of the prominent attorneys of the county. Mr. Davenport, although partly reared in Marion county, was born in Baltimore, Md., his natal day being the 20th of January, 1822. His father was David G. Davenport, and was originally form Lewistown, De., He was reared, however, in West Virginia, but educated at Washington City, D.C. He early went to Baltimore, where Miss Susan Green became his wife, a young lady of Maryland birth and education. When David G., Jr., was some 15 years of age his parents removed to Missouri, settling near West Ely, in Marion county. Young Davenport received a good educaiton and begand the study of law in 1848, under Judge Van Swearengen, who is well known to Missouri lawyers by his long and eminent service at the bar and hardly less by his being the subject of ex-Senator Waldo P. Johnson's famous poim, entitled "The Nestor of the Missouri Bar," which was read for the first time before the Bar Association of Vernon county some 10 or 12 years ago. Mr. Davenport also read law under A.W. Lamm, a leading lawyer of Hannibal, and for whom Judge Van Swearengen's son, A. W. Van Swearengen, a prominent lawyer of Montevallo, Mo., was named. Admitted to the bar in 1850, Mr. Davenport went at once thereafter to California, where he resided for about two years. He then returned to Missouri and engaged in the practice at Palmyra, where he continued with sucess until the second year of the war. By this time affairs had become so critical that it was no longer safe for a man of pronounced Southern convictions to remain at home, and he accordingly joined the Southern army, becoming first lieutenant of a company under Col. Porter, and taking charge of Porter's bodyguard. Later along in the war he was wounded and taken prisoner. After his capture he was taken to Jefferson City and then to St. Louis where he was court-martialed and thereupon committed to prison at Alton. He was finally transferred to camp Chase, being kept in confinement until the close of the war. After his return home he found that loyalty had not only been victorious but thrifty. Both Southern rights and Southern property had suffered, the latter perhaps even more than the former. Mr. Davenport found that his worldly possessions to the amount of about $20,000 had been swept away in common with those of other "rebels." It is a poor thing that can't be made to pay, and in the late war, "patriotism" was by no means an unprofitable enterprise, considering the bounties, the pickings from wicked "rebels," and the back pay and fat pensions that have followed. After the war Mr. Davenport resumed the practice of law, not, however, for a few years, on acount of the proscriptive clause of the Drake Constitution, which prohibited every one identified or sympathizing with the South in the remotest degree from practicing law, preaching, teaching school, or following almost any other occupation except manual labor, or business pursuits. After the removal of his political disabilities, however, he commenced the practice at Palmyra, but in 1873 came to Monroe City. On the 2d of October, 1852, he was married to Miss Fannie C. Lair, daughter of William Lair of Marion county. They have had three children: David R., of the Phoenix Insurance Company of London, England, with headquarters at Chicago; Fannie O., now Mrs. William E. Moss; and Palmyra M., now the wife of James Shaw, of Hannibal. Mrs. Davenport is a member of the M.E. Church, South. Hope this helps you. Nancy Stone, president Monroe County Historical Society