Holt County, Missouri

Early Settlements
Oregon and Forest City

Source: History of Holt and Atchison County, 1882

ORIGINAL SETTLERS of Forest City, few now (1882) continue to reside there. They include Captain W. S. Canon, manager of Zook & Canon's mill; Dr. H. M. Wilson, the pioneer physician of the place; George Weber, the banker, and George Turnham. These were all in the town when it first started, in 1857. William Burgess, G. W. Hitt and Thomas Collins were there in 1858. W. H. Williams came in 1859, and J. M. Ford in 1860. R. P. Zook is among the earliest settlers. Dr. H. M. Wilson, the pioneer physician of the town, is also an active promoter of the fruit interests of the neighborhood. Near his residence, in the north part of the town, he has an orchard of two hundred apple trees, one hundred and fifty bearing pear trees, large peach and cherry orchards, besides currants, gooseberries and small fruits without end. He has also sixty-five stands of bees.

Forest City is no less noted for the longevity of its people. Among the most remarkable instances of this character was Mrs. Elizabeth Pope, a native of Lincoln County, Kentucky. At the period of her death, which occurred October 7, 1878, at the residence of her grandson, A. B. Brady, in the country, she was one hundred and four years old. For the twenty years previous to her death, she had made her home in Forest City, with Dr. Wilson, whose wife was her grand daughter, and to the last seemed to be in almost full possession of her faculties. Squire J. D. Perkins, another pioneer of Holt County, and a native of Virginia, died at his home in Forest City, in 1880, at the advanced age of eighty-six years.