Perhaps the most prominent man and largest landowner from Lincoln County, North Carolina, to move to Missouri in the early 1800s was Captain Henry Whitener. Capt. Whitener was the second son of Georg Heinrich (Henry) Weidner and Catharina (Mull) Weidner, born in 1752 in present-day Catawba County, North Carolina.
Henry Weidner, Sr. was a Patriot when the Revolutionary War began and opened his home to militia officers as a depot to raise supplies to feed the army. Later, his son Henry Whitener enlisted in the militia and was chosen captain of his own company.
He led his men into battle on June 20, 1780, in Lincolnton at the Battle of Ramsour’s Mill, a Patriot victory. As with so many conflicts in the southern theater of the war, this battle was truly a civil war between Loyalists and Patriots who were neighbors and even immediate family.
Later the same year, the Patriots surrounded a force commanded by British Major Patrick Ferguson at Kings Mountain, South Carolina. The ensuing attack on October 7 surprised and defeated the Loyalists and killed Ferguson. Again, Capt. Whitener led militia from the South Fork at Kings Mountain, and his younger brother Abram perished in the battle.
At about this time, Capt. Whitener married Anna Sarah Shell, daughter of Johannes Schell. Sarah would die within two years of unknown causes, and Whitener then married her sister Mary Catharine Schell.
Capt. Whitener went on to command his men at the Battle of Cowpens on January 17, 1781, in South Carolina. This crucial victory against Loyalists and British regulars was a great boost for Patriot morale, especially because it was such a thorough defeat. Whitener’s last campaign was in 1782 against the Cherokee, and his company participated in a skirmish on Sandy Mush Creek in western North Carolina.
After the Revolution, Whitener accumulated land and prospered. He and his father were instrumental in 1784 in a successful campaign to transfer their area of Burke County, North Carolina, to Lincoln County.
Opportunities for better land and for expansion for his children moved Captain Whitener to move to Missouri, initially in 1804 after harvesting his crops in the fall. Whitener’s destination was the west side of Castor River about 1 ½ miles south of present-day Marquand. The site he chose for his house was next to a good spring and within 200 yards of another spring. In the words of one descendant, the house was “….a large double log house. The kitchen…was unusually commodious, with a fireplace 8 feet wide….” The family grew corn, rye, flax, barley, oats, cotton, and tobacco and possibly other crops.
Whitener also was not the first settler of European descent to settle on the 640-acre tract. It was on a Spanish claim made by Robert Harper, who sold to Samuel Campbell in 1803. The land was tied up in the Spanish and French land grant confirmation process for some years, and title only cleared in 1820 to Henry’s son Henry. Today it appears on maps as Survey No. 2280.
Capt. Whitener enjoyed his Missouri land for only 7 years, dying in 1812. His widow survived him by over 20 years, and surviving records suggest she was a force to be reckoned with. His son s, particularly Henry, were prominent in the development of Fredericktown and Madison County, where son Henry served as a county court justice and commissioner for the laying out and sale of lots in Fredericktown. Capt. Whitener is widely and fondly remembered locally, with one commemoration being naming of the local Capt. Henry Whitener Chapter of the DAR for him.
