Jefferson County, Missouri
Missouri - "the Gateway to the West" -- was on the western bank of the Mississippi where early French-Canadian explorers and hunters established settlements as early as 1735 (Ste. Genevieve) just to the south of what was to become Jefferson County. Lead deposits had been found in the area and Ste. Genevieve was located at the Mississippi River crossing into the lead country. At the confluence of the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers, to the north of present-day Jefferson County, a fur trading post founded in the winter of 1763-64 which was to become St. Louis, one of the four or five largest cities in America during the nineteenth century before settling back into the "second ten" during the latter part of the twentieth. The Louisiana Purchase brought settlement from east of the Missippi and they quickly outnumbered the original settlers of French ancestry. Growth was relatively slow until around 1815 when a surge of pioneers poured into the area, particularly along the rivers and by 1818 the settlers were clammoring for statehood. Due to a clash over "North-South" interests the Missouri Compromise ensued before Missouri was admitted as a new state in 1821 (as a slave state).
Michael McKee went to Missouri around 1820
For more information see information on Michael McKee
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