Welcome to Hickory County! The buttons above will take you to the main pages of
this website. Here's a summary of what you'll find on each of these pages:
RECORDS: provides links to Birth, Cemetery, Census, Land,
Marriage, Military, Obituary/Death, Wills & Probate records plus links to
Histories & Biographies and Personal Web pages about Hickory County families
GEOGRAPHY: links to Hickory County Maps, Historical data, and
information about Communities in Hickory County.
Your county coordinator is Ginny Sharp. I live in
Seattle, WA, and am always looking for more materials to post to this site. I'm
happy to post any information
and resources related to researching families who have lived in Hickory County.
The success of this site depends on submissions from you and other researchers. Please
email me if you have
information to share or suggestions for improving these pages.
Good luck with your research! Please share
what you learn with others.
Hickory County was formed on February 14, 1845
from parts of Polk and Benton Counties. It was named for Andrew "Old Hickory"
Jackson and the county seat, Hermitage, for his home in Tennessee. Original
inhabitants were primarily Osage Indians on the North and the Sacs in the
Southwest. Earliest discoverers were probably French, based on the names of the
rivers in the area -
Pomme de Terre (Potato), Gravois, Weaubleau, and the Auglaise. Most early
settlers came from Kentucky and Tennessee.
The earliest white settlers were probably a German named
Hogle (for whom Hogle's Creek was named) and his partner Pensoneau, a Frenchman
from Cahokia, Illinois. Hogle and Pensoneau were Indian traders who settled in
the Osage Valley. The earliest families appear to be the Zumwalts and the
Ingleses who appear on Lindley Creek (near Pittsburg) by 1832. Other early
settlers were the Vandevers, Judys, and the Grahams.
Currently, the county has a population of approximately
9,000 [2003 estimate] and covers about 411 square miles. It is bordered on the west by
St. Clair County, on the
South by Polk and
Dallas counties,
on the East by Camden
County, and on the North by
Benton County.
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