Joseph Washington McClurg (R)

Overview

At a Glance

• Cut state debt by 50%
• Secured establishment in 1870 of the Missouri School of Mines and Metallurgy (now Missouri University of Science and Technology)
• Supported the establishment of normal schools for teachers in Kirksville in 1870 (now Truman State University) and Warrensburg in 1871 (now University of Central Missouri)
• Dismissed dissident state employees and required remaining employees to contribute 5% of their annual salaries to the Radical Republican campaign fund

Personal History

Joseph Washington McClurg was born on Feb. 22, 1818. His mother, Mary Brotherton, was from St. Louis, and his father, also named Joseph, owned an iron business in Ohio. McClurg attended Ohio academies, taught school in Mississippi, and became a St. Louis County deputy sheriff in 1837, working for his uncle, Sheriff James Brotherton.

McClurg traveled to Texas, where he studied law and was admitted to the bar; then, he served as clerk of a circuit court from 1839 to 1841. He returned to Missouri in 1841 and married Mary Johnson of Farmington, Missouri. His wife’s stepfather, William Murphy, was a frontier entrepreneur, and following his marriage, McClurg entered a decades-long association with Murphy and other relatives in merchandising in the Ozarks.

McClurg mined lead and managed a general store in southwest Missouri before joining the '49ers gold rush to California. He stayed in California for two years, working at a store. He returned to Missouri in June 1851, and within a year joined relatives on the Osage River in a wholesale and retail business in Linn Creek, which became the seat of Camden County in 1855.

At the beginning of the Civil War, McClurg took up the cause of the Union and organized the Osage Regiment of Missouri Volunteers and the Hickory County Battalion. After his wife died in 1861, he left their children with family and friends, turned his energies toward the Civil War, and became a colonel.

In the fall of 1863, McClurg freed his own slaves. Southern sympathizers burned his store in Linn Creek twice, resulting in a loss of more than $150,000 in goods, an enormous sum in that day. McClurg’s business partner fled to St. Louis with his remaining assets. McClurg spent the next 20 years working to pay off his debts.

McClurg’s two-year term as governor ended in 1871. Afterward, he returned to Linn Creek to resume his business ventures, including merchandising, mining, steamboating, and land speculating. He used profits from his merchandising business to pay for his mining operations in Missouri's Central Lead District near the Osage River. By 1885 profits were low. Creditors and courts seized McClurg's steamer, forcing him to sell his landholdings and home. In 1886, he moved his family to South Dakota to homestead but returned to Missouri a year later.

In 1889, McClurg was appointed government land office receiver in Springfield, Missouri, where he worked for four years. In 1893 he moved to Lebanon, Missouri, where he taught Sunday school, visited the public schools, and became an active village elder until his death on Dec. 2, 1900. He was buried in Lebanon Cemetery.

Political History

In November 1862, voters in Missouri’s 5th Congressional District elected McClurg to the first of three terms in the U.S. House of Representatives. In the turbulent, war-torn 1860s, McClurg joined the ranks of storekeepers, country doctors, and other political novices who assumed leadership roles.

In July 1868, Missouri's Radical Republicans nominated McClurg for governor. This faction of the Republican Party believed in swift eradication of slavery and favored outlawing alcoholic beverages, among other beliefs, At the height of Radical political power, he defeated the Democratic nominee, Congressman John S. Phelps of Springfield. He was Missouri’s second to last governor from the Radical Republicans.

As a result of the Drake Constitution of 1865, McClurg became Missouri's first governor to have a two-year term. Named after state legislator Charles Drake, this constitution took effect in 1865, but it was replaced in 1875. It limited the rights of former Confederates and those who sympathized with the Confederacy, among other provisions.

Voices in Missouri called for an end to Radical-sponsored restrictions on voting and the rights of citizenship. This eventually led to the establishment of the Liberal Republican Party, which effectively ended Radicalism in Missouri. Liberal Republicans believed that universal political participation was necessary to heal postwar society and rebuild the economy. Although the Radicals nominated McClurg again for governor, Liberal Republican Benjamin Gratz Brown, with Democratic support, defeated him in a landslide victory.

Gov. McClurg followed a conservative fiscal policy that cut the state debt in half. Noteworthy in his administration were the founding of the Missouri School of Mines and Metallurgy in Rolla, the Agriculture School at the University of Missouri, and teachers’ colleges at Warrensburg and Kirksville.

McClurg's tenure, however, was known more as a time of party strife and growing dissatisfaction within the ranks of state government. The governor dismissed dissident state employees and required remaining employees to donate 5% of their salaries to the Radical Republican campaign fund.

Historical Significance

Governor McClurg's commitment to education in the state of Missouri resulted in the creation of three new state universities during his term.

The Missouri School of Mines and Metallurgy (MSM) was founded in Rolla in 1870. It was the first technological institution west of the Mississippi and one of the first in the nation. Now known as Missouri University of Science and Technology, the school reports having more than 65,000 alumni.

The University of Central Missouri at Warrensburg was founded in 1871 as a normal school to train teachers with just a few dozen students. In fall 2023, the school reported having more than 12,780 students, and this number included more than 5,580 graduate students.

Truman State University was founded in Kirksville in 1867 as North Missouri Normal School and Commercial College. According to the school’s website in 2024, the school annually serves more than 3,630 students from nearly 50 countries.