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First Bilyeu Came To County Over 150 Years Ago, by Clyde Lee Jenkins, The
Elden Advertiser, October 26, 1972
Distributed with permission of the Eldon Advertiser, Vernon Publishing, Eldon,
Missouri.
The first Bilyeu in what is now Miller County was, without any doubt, Isaac.
He appeared in the Gasconade River country on a hunting expedition in late
1818, and having found game so plentiful, camped for more than a year near the
Shawnee villages by the Big Maries river. During this time he made several
excursions into the wilds of the Big Richwoods with Indian Chief Rodgers,
hunting for dear and bear. An excellent hunter, old Chief Rodgers was a white
man, having been removed from the breasts of his mother by Indians raiding
settlements near the falls of the Ohio River before the Revolutionary War.
Isaac found wild game in the Big Richwoods so abounding that he raised a log
cabin near the mouth of the Atwell, Johnston, and Little Tavern forks,
probably on land now owned by Leonard Keeth. In the summer of 1820, having
married an Indian maiden, Isaac moved with his new bride, both under 20 years
of age, into their log cabin home. Their closest neighbors were John Wilson by
the Barren Fork Creek, and Daniel Brumley by the Big Tavern Creek to the
north.
Isaac kept his wife supplied with sugar by gathering wild honey. Every season,
at the Missouri River, he got salt from the canoes coming down from the
Boone's Lick. For three or more years he got corn from James Harrison at the
mouth of the Little Piney River. He kept the corn inside his cabin, concealed
in a hollow-log barrel, and when needed for bread-stuff, a small portion of
the grain was placed in a bowl-shaped rock and crushed with a round stone by
hand. The bear and deer furnished meat for food, and skins for leather
breeches, skirts, jackets, moccasins, and hammocks. Having a trio of Indian
dogs for chasing bear made Isaac a wealthy hunter. These animals were
vicious, a cross between early puritan mongrels and domesticated prairie
wolves.
In fact, it may be said, Isaac hunted like an Indian, was married to an
Indian, and generally, lived like an Indian. Little or nothing is known of his
ancestors, and upon his death in late 1829, his wife returned, with at least
two children, to her own people.
Without any doubt he was a relative of the Bilyeus who commenced entering the
area before his demise. In fact, he may have been a son of the Isaac who
followed him. Isaac Bilyeu, born in Maryland in 1780, grew to manhood there,
then, after his marriage to Mary Ann, moved into Tennessee, where they settled
in Overton County about 1799.Their known children included Jacob, born 1803;
Mary Ann; John Witten, born 1809; Elizabeth, born 1813; Margaret Ann, born
1821; and Stephen, born 1826.
During the War of 1812, Isaac served in the First Regiment of Bradley's
Tennessee Volunteers. After the war he moved with his family into Green
County, Ky., and from this point in time, Isaac was always on the go,
following the fur trade.
During the 1820's he often visited the area now Miller County. His first trips
were made to obtain saltpeter, a necessary ingredient for the manufacture of
gunpowder. The soil in the floors of the many caves in Central Missouri,
heavily saturated with nitrate of lime, when leached with wood ashes, yielded
nitrate of potash. In this manner saltpeter was manufactured by the patriots
in Kentucky and Tennessee for the government during the War of 1812.
By 1830, Isaac Bilyeu and his family were situated in present day Glaze
Township, Miller County, then Crawford County, Mo. Jacob, the eldest known son
of Isaac and Mary Ann, was married to Catherine Elizabeth Williams, daughter
of William Williams and Sarah Ann Sullens Williams. They lived in Miller
County until the middle 1840's then moved to Taney County, Mo., and after a
few years there, moved to Carroll County; Ark., where Jacob died in the early
1850's. He was buried at the head of the Big Indian Creek.
It is known that Isaac Bilyeu, the old fur trader, was living with his son,
Stephen Bilyeu, in Carroll County, Ark., in 1860, in the 80th year of his
lifetime. It is believed he died soon afterward; his wife, Mary Ann, having
died a few years before in Taney County, Mo.
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