There have been several men influential in Missouri State government that lived in and around Huntsville among them being Hancock Jackson, Augustus Hall, Uriel Hall and Haskell Holman. Further afield there was George W.P. Hunt first governor of Arizona. The first though was George Frederick Burckhartt, the first elected State Representative from the area. Burckhartt was first elected to represent Chariton County in 1820, but went on to represent Randolph County after it was created.
George F. Burckhartt was born October 4, 1782 at Frederick, Maryland to Christopher F. Burckhartt and Elizabeth (Hobbs) Burckhartt. Christopher served under General George Washington during the Revolutionary War acting as an interpreter at the Battle of Trenton. Being the son of German immigrants he was fluent in the language. Christopher moved to Kentucky in 1795 residing near Louisville. He then moved to Missouri in 1809 settling near Saint Louis. Finally, he moved to Howard County in 1811 where he lived until he died in 1828. His son, George Frederick Burckhartt married Ruth Dorsey in Jefferson County, Kentucky on January 4, 1803. He served in the War of 1812 in the Kentucky Militia with the rank of sergeant major in the 3rd Regiment, and fought under Brigadier General William Henry Harrison.
After the war, George F. remained in Jefferson County Kentucky a few years before moving to Howard County Missouri in 1815 to be with his father. He and his family traveled by keel boat west on the Ohio and Missouri Rivers. The journey took three months.. They landed in an area that would become Chariton County not far from present day Glasgow. The next year that spot would become the town of Chariton which was the first county seat of Chariton County. Burckhartt moved again in 1820 to what would become Randolph County then a part of Chariton County. He first settled eight miles southeast of Huntsville in the area of Randolph County Road 2450, but he quickly moved again to eastern Randolph County. There he built a large plantation of 1400 acres which he called Burckhartt Fields. It was close by what is now Milton, Missouri (between Moberly and Madison, Missouri on Highway 24). He raised tobacco, horses, cattle, and swine. Part of his plantation was a stage stop called Burckhartt’s Station which appears on many early maps of Missouri, and was a campsite for the Potawatomi on the Trail of Death.
He was the first Justice of the Peace of Chariton County in 1818, and then served as State Representative of Chariton County having been elected to office in 1822 the year after Missouri became a state. He ran again in both 1824 and 1826 being reelected both times. During his first three terms in office he was known for securing legislation for the improvement of roads. Building of roads was something very important to him. Even as late as 1839, he introduced a bill to create a state road from Paris, Missouri to Fayette, Missouri.
One thing often attributed to him is the design of the Missouri State Seal which was adopted on January 11, 1822. There is some debate about this. The official stance of the Secretary of the State of Missouri’s office is the State Seal’s designer is Judge Robert William Wells. This is based on a letter Wells wrote to a Jefferson City newspaper in 1847 detailing the seal’s design. There are also those that have argued William Grimes Pettus who was Secretary of State was the seal’s designer as well as arguments for Judge Nathaniel B. Tucker, and Henry S. Geye, an attorney having designed it. However, the seal resembles the arms and crest of the Burckhartt family, and Burckhartt introduced what is known as the Burckhartt Law, the bill that proposed the Missouri State Seal. A good argument for Burckhartt designing the seal is in the short book, “George Frederick Burckhartt and the Origin of the Missouri State Seal and Burckhartts in Missouri History” by Mary Simiser.. Burckhartt did not run for office again in 1828 as a new county was being formed, Randolph County. Randolph County was established January 22, 1829, and on May 4, 1829 Burckhartt was appointed Justice of the Peace for Prairie Township.
In addition to serving as a State Representative, Burckhartt and members of his family were also educators. He would take students into his home and he or his children would then teach them the basics. This did not always work out well. One of the students, “Wild Bill” Hickman eloped with his daughter Bernetta who had been his teacher. Hickman would later convert to Mormonism and take Burckhartt’s daughter west where he became a noted outlaw. In addition to children, Burckhartt also taught law to those wanting to become attorneys. One of his students was Captain Thomas B. Reed who served as a judge advocate during the Civil War and served in the State Senate for two terms after the war.
Burckhartt was baptized into the Lutheran Church as a child, but upon moving to Missouri he attended the Methodist Episcopal Church as there was no Lutheran Church in the area. He was one of the early members of the Methodist Church in Huntsville. His name is in the records of that church. Every Sunday he would pack up the family and go by horse and carriage the thirteen miles to Huntsville. Just getting to and from the church would take the better part of the day. He attended church in Huntsville, until the Methodist Church in Milton was built in 1840 for which he donated the land and the lumber. In 1836 he helped found Milton, Missouri out of part of his property. That year the post office moved from nearby Elk Fork which has long since been forgotten to Milton. Though it does not look like it now, Milton was once an important town in Randolph County having one of the earliest post offices and being a major center of commerce. It appeared on several state maps of the period.
In 1838 Burckhartt again ran for State Representative and returned to the State Legislature. He was reelected again in 1840. During this time he still advocated the construction of new state roads. He retired from the Legislature in 1842, but continued to be active in the Whig Party of which he was a member. He ran for Representative again in 1858 as an independent against the younger H.D. Wilcox. Wilcox won by only 18 votes and this ended Burckhartt's political career.
He shortly thereafter moved to New Franklin, Missouri where he lived until he died March 29, 1864. His body was taken to the home of his son Judge George Hobbs Burckhartt in Huntsville where he lay in state for a day. His remains were then taken to near Milton where he was buried on a hill in Burckhartt Fields. In 1931, his body and that of his wife were taken from the land of his beloved farm and moved to Mount Pleasant Cemetery at New Franklin. A monument was erected by the DAR in honor of Burckhartt, his father, and his brother Nicholas Selmon Burckhartt on the Howard County Courthouse lawn in Fayette, Missouri in 1931.
George F. Burckhartt accomplished much for Randolph County in its early days, and he is the ancestor of most of the Burckhartts (Burkhardts) in the area. His son George Hobbs Burckhartt was very influential in the growth of the city of Huntsville serving as a judge for many years. George Hobbs owned a great deal of land on the east side of town, and his home was on what is now Holman Heights in Huntsville. Another son Dr. Christopher F. Burckhartt owned land around Jacksonville and served as a doctor there many years. It is a shame, that unlike Howard County where he lived only a few years, Randolph County does not have a monument to George Frederick Burckhartt. Perhaps, if the old courthouse in Huntsville is demolished a monument to him and other historic figures of Randolph County can be erected in its place under what was once the dome of the 1858 courthouse. George Frederick Burckhartt was after all the first State Representative from the county in the State General Assembly, and such men should not be forgotten.