Three years ago I composed a blog post on a region in Randolph County, Missouri called Titherow Hills. It is about five miles north of Huntsville, Missouri and about six miles west of Cairo within only a few miles of Darksville . At that time I was just beginning to solve the mystery of the area my mother's family claimed to hail from. I since learned from discussions with a Towles cousin there was also a stream called Titterow Creek.
The area of Titherow Hills seems to largely be somewhere in 55W-15N Sections 26, 35 and 36, and 54W-15N Sections 1 and 2. I had assumed from a young child the name for the area had came from
Thither "to go to or towards that place" and
row perhaps describing how the hills ran to and fro. I later learned it was named for John Titherow. The name for the region is variously spelled "Titterow Hills" and "Tettero Hills." Another spelling of the Tetherow/Titherow name is Dettero, not unlike Tettero. These corruptions of the spelling of the Titherow's surname in the place name may be indicative of the different ways to spell the surname, or just a matter of the name being passed down orally with no one having written it down until many decades had passed,
A John Titherow appears in a land patent dated to 1833 in Howard County, Missouri as Titherow. The minutes of the Howard County, MO Circuit Court of April 17, 1817 show Solomon Tetherow about 15 chose Henry Weedin as his guardian. The Court appointed Thomas Herrington guardian of David Tetherow about age 11, and Robert Brown guardian of John Tetherow about age 13 at that time. As the name is not a common one in this part of the state it is assumed John Titherow and John Tetherow are the same person. There appears to be only three Tetherows and one Titherow in Howard County in the period from 1817 to 1833. The other two were brothers to John, Solomon and David Tetherow
The Tetherow's were famous pioneers. John's brother Solomon went to Oregon in 1845, and his life from thereon is well documented including a journal about the wagon train he lead there. David appears to have tried to go to Orgeon with Solomon, but died in transit. Prior to that, Solomon and David along with their brother George had helped settle Daviess County, Missouri in 1831. In 1837, George sat the first jury in Livingston County, Missouri. He founded Stewartsville, Missouri in DeKalb County. He first named the settlement, Doodlesville for Evan Doodle. This place was then renamed Tetherton, and finally Stewartsville for Missouri Governor Robert M. Stewart. Stewartsville currently has a population of 750.
John Titherow lived very near my Great Grand Uncle William Payne Towles, guardian of my Great Grandfather Robert D. Towles in Howard County. This was in the vicinity of what is now Armstrong, Missouri, It appears he moved north with my Great Grandfather and my Great Grandfather's First Cousin Stokeley William Towles or they followed him as their families wound up in Titherow Hills by 1850. According to Towles descendants Titherow Hills was named for John Titherow. The tale goes that my Towles ancestors and their friends were looking for John Titherow as he was missing. They stopped some folks that appeared to be passing through, and asked if they had seen John Titherow. They said they had not. It was then they noticed blood pooling under the strangers' wagon.They thought nothing of it assuming the strangers had killed wild game. It occurred to them later that the strangers had killed John Titherow, and his body was in the wagon. They never saw Titherow again.
Another tale appears in an article that touches on the naming of Titherow Hills in the Dec. 3, 1931 edition of the Monitor-Index. This one stemmed from an interview with Warren Turner, a man about 80, and son of David Turner one of the first men to settle Titherow Hills. Warren Turner appeared to be an oddball claiming to be "Governor of Tettero Hills." His version of the naming of Titherow Hills was that a man named John Tettero moved 3/4 of a mile north of his father's place, his father having settled the area before Randolph County was organized. Tettero talked to no one, lived alone, and only owned a dog, a pony, and a rifle. Yet, he always seemed to have plenty of money. Finally, Tettero's cabin burned, and Tettero, the dog, and the pony were never seen again.
It is difficult to say which tale is true, and indeed both may be. It is entirely possible Titherow was robbed, murdered, his body hauled away in a wagon, and his cabin burned to hide evidence. There being no written records from the period, no missing persons report, no investigation, no cold case files as one would have were a person to disappear today there is no way to know what happened to John Titherow. He may have been murdered, or he may have just took off and left for greener pastures. All that perhaps can be known with a certainty is that he disappeared, and was never heard from again. As to when this took place, it can be assumed to be after 1833 when Titherow obtained his land patent in Howard County. However, he appears in neither the 1840 Howard County Census Records nor those for Randolph County. It is likely therefore that John Titherow was either killed or left Randolph County sometime between 1833 and 1840.
As to the name itself, John Titherow's name is spelled Tetherow in one record, and Titherow in another. Tetherow seems to be the more common spelling of the family name although Titherow does appear in old records. Dettero is another variation of the spelling of the surname, although John does not seem to have ever spelled his name that way. There are many other variations of the family name. although John and his siblings seem to have preferred "Tetherow." Family names were often spelled different ways in the 19th century. An example of this can be seen with my mother's family. The accepted spelling is Towles, and this spelling goes back to before the Colonial Period to England. However, my Grand Uncle William Payne's name appeared Toles in a Census Record for Howard County, and my Great Grand Father signed his name "Robert Toles" on a tax receipt shortly before he died while his name appeared in some census records as "Robert Tolls." This despite his name being spelled Towles on most other records. It would not be a far reach to assume that John Titherow may have spelled his name both Titherow and Tetherow. The question of the spelling of the name of the area as Titterow Hills or Tettero Hills is answered easily enough. As stated earlier the variations of the place name may be due to the name being passed down orally. Both the Towles and Turner families had probably never seen the name spelled. Even if the earliest generations that had known John Ttherow had seen the name written down, the name may have become corrupted as it was passed down orally to each succeeding generation. Thus you see the Towles descendants spelling it Titterow while the Turner descendants spelled it Tettero.
The question of how much of an area constituted Titherow Hills is not easily answered. Parts of 55W-15N Sections 35 and 54W-15N Sections 2 are a certainty. Both the Towles and Turner families claimed to be from Titherow Hills and their homes were in Sections 2 and 35. However, they owned land in adjacent sections, and it appears from newspaper accounts the Davis and Winkler families also claimed to live in Titherow Hills. Their homes were in other adjacent sections. I can only therefore assume that Titherow Hills was in all or parts of 55W-15N Sections 26, 35, and 36 as well as 54W-15N Sections 1 and 2 in Randolph County, Missouri. It may have consisted of an area of 2,500 acres or more. Or it could have been a much smaller area if only portions of the above named sections were a part of it. Looking at a topographical map, the hills in the area which are about 860 feet above sea level are bounded roughly by County Road 1275 on the north side, the flood plain of the East Fork of the Chariton River on the east side, Route Z on the south side, and Route C on the west side. The hills may have extended farther into Section 26 to the north. This area of Section 26 has been strip mined however and any hills there leveled so as not to appear on modern topographical maps. Regardless, the hills cover the greater part of Section 35 and parts of Sections 1, 2, 26, and 36. The area is roughly a mile wide and two miles long. This would make the size of Titherow Hills roughly 1300 acres. However, going by the families that claimed to have lived there the area could be much larger. One can therefore only assume Titherow Hills was somewhere between 1300 and 2,000 acres more or less.
All of this pretty much solves the mystery of Titherow Hills for me. I have located it which was my first aim. I had always thought it north of Randolph County Road 1275, and indeed part of it may have been, but most is to the south of that road. I have also found who the area was named for, and the names of four families that say they lived in Titherow Hills. The question of the spelling of the name is one I can live with. Spelling of names has only recently become fixed with surnames and names of unofficial settlements changing with the stroke of a pen being spelled one way one time, and another way another time. I spell it "Titherow Hills" as Titherow is how John Titherow's name appears on his land patent. However, other spellings I feel are valid. Regardless, I hope that the name for the area will be preserved and not forgotten. It is a part of my family's history after all.
View of Titherow Hills from the north:
Below is an interactive map of the area showing the outline of the Hills, as well as important sites and features. You can click on a marker to gain information about it. To enlarge the map click or press on the square in the upper right hand corner.
