Bartonville, MO, was the second town named as the

county seat A county seat is an administrative center, seat of government, or capital city of a county or parish (administrative division), civil parish. The term is in use in five countries: Canada, China, Hungary, Romania, and the United States. An equiva ...

of Gasconade County, in 1825. It was abandoned to the

Gasconade River The Gasconade River is about longU.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map, accessed May 31, 2011 and is located in central and south-central Missouri. The Gasconade River begins in the O ...

after severe flooding. Its location in Township 43, Range 7 West was not identified again until 1998, when a researcher found a notice of sheriff's sale which included a legal description of the "Bartonville tract". Bartonville, a lost town, was situated in what is now

Osage County Osage County is the name of several counties in the United States: * Osage County, Kansas * Osage County, Missouri * Osage County, Oklahoma Osage County () is the largest county by area in the U.S. state of Oklahoma. Created in 1907 when Ok ...

, across the Gasconade River from Cooper Hill. Bartonville was the county seat until 1828, when like its predecessor Gasconade, it was flooded. The county seat was then moved to the higher town of Mount Sterling. In 1842 residents voted to move it again, to Hermann. ''The Encyclopedia of the History of Missouri'', 1901, Conard, Vol. 3, Page 5, erroneously listed Bartonville as the first county seat of Gasconade County. Gasconade (city) held that distinction. The encyclopedia also mistakenly identified Mount Sterling as a renaming of Bartonville. In fact, the towns were distinct and were in different locations.

Gazetteer reference

The

Geographic Names Information System The Geographic Names Information System (GNIS) is a database of name and location information about more than two million physical and cultural features, encompassing the United States and its territories; the Compact of Free Association, asso ...

lists Bartonville, a.k.a. ''Bartonsville'', with a location of "unknown".

Gazetteer reference

References

Further reading