A brief history (EDITOR'S NOTE: The following information may be found on the sign erected on the east lawn of the Webster County Courthouse in Marshfield. The sign was erected by the State Historical Society of Missouri and the State Highway Commission in 1958.) Webster County, organized March 3, 1855, encompasses 590 miles of the highest extensive upland area of Missouri's Ozarks. The judicial seat, Marshfield, lies 1,490 feet above sea level, the highest county seat in Missouri. Pioneer legislator John F. McMahan named the county and county seat for Daniel Webster, and his Marshfield, Mass. home. Marshfield was laid out in 1856 by R.H. Pitts on land given by C.F. Dryden and W.T. and B.F.T. Burford. Until a courthouse was built, county business was conducted at Hazelwood, where Joseph W. McClurg, later governor of Missouri, operated a general store. Today's Carthage marble courthouse, built in 1939-1941, is the county's third. During the Civil War, a small force of pro-southern State troops was driven out of Marshfield in February, 1862, and 10 months later a body of Confederates was routed east of town. On January 9, 1863, Gen. Joseph O. Shelby's troops burned the stoutly built Union fortifications at Marshfield and at Sand Springs, evacuated earlier. By 1862, the telegraph line passed near Marshfield on a route later called the "Old Wire Road." In Webster County, straddling the divide between the Missouri and Arkansas rivers, rise the headwaters of the James, Niangua, Gasconade and Pomme De Terre Rivers. A part of the 1808 Osage Indian land cession, the county was settled in the early 1830s by pioneers from Kentucky and Tennessee. An Indian trail crossed southern Webster County and many prehistoric mounds are in the area. The railroad building boom of the post Civil War period stimulated county growth as a dairy, poultry and livestock producer. The Atlantic & Pacific (Frisco) was built through Marshfield in 1872, and by 1883 the Kansas City, Springfield and Memphis (Frisco) crossed the county. Seymour, Rogersville, Fordland and Niangua grew up along the rail routes. Early schools were Marshfield Academy, chartered 1860; Mt. Dale Academy, opened 1873; and Henderson Academy, 1879. Astronomer Edwin P. Hubble (1889-1953) was born in Marshfield. The composition "Marshfield Tornado" by the musician John W. (Blind) Boone gave wide publicity to the April 18, 1880 tornado which struck town, killing 65 and doing $1 million worth of damage.