The Catholic Church was the only Christian faith in the Upper Riverways from the arrival of the first white man till the Christian Indians of mixed blood arrived from the East where they had accepted the Protestant faiths.
The Indian was always tolerant of the white man's faith and showed respect for it; the Catholic Church took advantage of this, allowing the Indians to become converts and still retain their small deities and omens.
Some of the early Protestant Missionaries accepted the Indian but most considered him a heathen and wished only to minister to the people of their church.
One who was effective in spreading the Protestant faith toward the West was William Shirley, who came to this area during the War of 1812. After the war, he took an Osage Indian wife and joined the Small Osage tribe. They moved to Little Town located on the Upper Neosho and built a church that existed many years. Their children were recorded as Mary, born 1815, and Sarah, born 1816.
One block met by the Protestant Ministers as they worked hard to sow a few seeds of good along the wild frontier was the French People who said, "Keep the west bank of the Mississippi River as it was with social activities such as, dancing, drinking, and games."
After the area became part of the United States, groups of dedicated preachers formed circuits; these they rode to minister to the Christian settlers thus becoming known as the Circuit Riders. They were most often family men who moved their families West as the area became safe from lawless elements. From this location, they established a Circuit to serve the settler's family.
The Circuit Rider's interval of arrival at a scheduled community was from 6 to 10 weeks but some early circuits had an interval of 6 months to once a year. He ministered to poor folks who had poor ways. In the simple crowded homes of his congregation, his lot was a happy one if he had a warm place next to the chimney to spread his blankets, a warm drink and food. Sometimes the food was only thickened gravy with bread. A story is told of one who was so tired of thickened gravy that he refused it and said instead that it had sent many to hell because without it they could never have grown up to sin.
The Circuit was ever changing, new settlers were moving in and making new roads, but they seldom changed the fingerboards that told who lived on a certain road. The Circuit Rider had many tasks not connected with preaching. The record book he carried was a record of his official acts and it was considered binding though these acts were seldom recorded by him at the seat of justice. His tasks consisted of: sitting in judgement over disputes involving the community; establishing ownership of the effects of the dead; solemnizing marriages and recording the children; declaring missing persons dead; performing new marriages; and acting as council for all troubles, large or small.