Avilla is a rural village in Jasper County, Missouri, United States. The population was 103 at the 2020 census. It is part of the Joplin, Missouri Metropolitan Statistical Area. Avilla is the fourth-oldest settlement in Jasper County today, founded in 1856. It was platted and laid out for public use on July 23, 1858, by Andrew L. Love and David S. Holman.1883 History of Jasper County, Missouri, (McDonald Township)
Geography Avilla is located at (37.193821, −94.128991), ten miles east of Carthage, Missouri, on MO Route 96 (formerly Historic U.S. Route 66) and four miles west of the Lawrence County line. The village is surrounded by pasture and farmland, small forested areas, and branching spring-fed streams. White Oak Creek is the nearest to the south and east, and Dry Fork & Deer Creek to the north. Spring River runs past about three miles to the south, which is eventually fed by these headwater streams.
According to the United States Census Bureau, the village has a total area of , all land.
History
1831–1861
Founders of Avilla Pioneers who came to this region in the 1830s and 1840s saw a "beautiful prairie land, interspersed with timbered belts along winding streams".Livingston, Joel Thomas. A History of Jasper County, Missouri, and its People, vol. 1. Settlement of the grasslands presented more challenges than other types of terrain, and for this reason, northeastern Jasper County developed more slowly than the rest of the county. Split-log homes were built near wooded locations, and rock and sod were also used in early constructions. Although families were many miles apart, they still called each other neighbors. Some of the earliest settlers near present-day Avilla were John K. Gibson in 1831 (just across the Lawrence County line), James Blackwell in 1835, and John Fishburn on White Oak Creek in 1836. Nelson Knight was the first settler on the prairie north of Avilla, building a cabin and farm in 1837, and Jasper County itself was established in 1841. Thomas Buck came all the way from Indiana in a wagon drawn by a team of horses in the 1840s and built a farm just east of the future town site.
The first schoolhouse in the Avilla area was a one-room, dirt-floor log cabin also founded in the 1840s, called White Oak School, located about southeast near White Oak Creek.1883 History of Jasper County Missouri, McDonald Township Arriving with his family in 1853, Dr. Jaquillian M. Stemmons was the first physician to practice medicine in the Avilla area, doing so from his farm. The town of Avilla was founded in 1856 and platted and laid out for public use on July 23, 1858, by Andrew L. Love and David S. Holman. Mr. Love was the first Justice of the Peace, and Mr. Holman was the first merchant and postmaster, establishing the post office in 1860.McGregor, Malcolm G. The biographical record of Jasper County, Missouri A Dr. Young later came just before the Civil War and established a medical office within the town limits.
Indigenous People
This had been the hunting grounds of the Osage Indians who were known to have camped at nearby Spring River, about to the south. Their lands to the east had been previously purchased by the government in 1808 (Treaty of Fort Clark), and other tribes had been moved to this location as well, and then later all were moved again to the Osage Nation areas elsewhere. Notwithstanding, a few that possibly returned or had simply refused to leave could still be seen trading in Avilla and the nearby towns throughout the Antebellum Period.
Avilla at the Beginning of the Civil War By 1861, there were several small river mill settlements, some mining camps, and about nine or ten towns (seven platted) in Jasper County, Missouri. Avilla was newly formed and "bustling" with over one hundred citizens (compare with the county seat of Carthage that had an estimated population between four and five hundred at that time). As in all of the border state towns, families in Avilla were split over the question of Missouri secession, and some were slave owners. Dr. Jaquillian M. Stemmons actually owned eight inherited slaves himself; however, he and the other town leaders were Unconditional Unionists and remained aligned with newly elected president Abraham Lincoln. Dr. J.M. Stemmons never bought or sold slaves and was known to have retained his family's inherited slaves simply for their very own safety. He supported the abolition of slavery in the United States.
Avilla's political alignment was in sharp contrast to neighboring Sarcoxie to the south, where the first regional Confederate flag was raised. The rebel "Stars & Bars" also flew over Carthage to the west in 1861, following an early Confederate victory at the Battle of Carthage on July 5. At a distance of only two counties away, Arkansas had already become the ninth state to secede, and on October 28, 1861, Governor Claiborne Fox Jackson met with the Missouri General Assembly in Neosho and declared Missouri as the twelfth state to join the Confederate States of America. In spite of being engulfed by the Confederacy, the United States flag continued to fly over Avilla, boldly hoisted to the top of a flagpole in the town center park and guarded by the townsmen. Schoolhouses were closed and many families evacuated their women and small children to safer areas in other states.The Carthage Press, Centennial edition dated July 5, 1961 (Battle of Carthage)Conrad, Howard L. Encyclopedia of the History of Missouri, vol. III. 1901, p. 418.
1861–1865
Confederate guerrillas attack Dr. Jaquillian M. Stemmons, an early settler, town leader, and staunch Union man, organized a company of local men and neighbors in Avilla for the protection of their own homes from roaming bands of bushwhackers. In 1861, this town militia, also known as the "Avilla Home Guard", was one of the first in the area and consisted predominantly of the oldest citizens, as most of the younger men were leaving to join regular military forces. This action was strongly opposed by local secessionists, and it was even rumored that a price had been placed on the doctor's head. By March 1862, the town militia had been tipped off about an impending assault, and General James G. Blunt at Fort Scott, Kansas had pledged reinforcements, but they had not yet arrived. After nightfall on March 8, 1862, a group of over a hundred pro-Confederate guerrillas, believed to have been led by William T. Anderson, attacked northeast of Avilla, routed perimeter sentries, and engaged defenders at Dr. Stemmon’s home. Defending were about 25 town militiamen and some men from Carthage who were there attending a meeting about the organization of a county-wide patrol.
A US Cavalry officer named Captain Tanner was also there recruiting men for the Union Army. The rebels surrounded the two-story log home and were met with heavy gunfire, but the doctor and his sons, Bud, Pole, and Jimmie were trapped inside with many of the men. After numerous attempts to penetrate the defense, amidst flying buckshot and bullets, the attackers managed to ignite the cabin, and it eventually burned to the ground. Dr. Stemmons and Lathan Duncan, an Avilla militiaman, were killed, several others shot and burned, and two were taken prisoner (the number of guerrilla casualties was not recorded). After the house was lost to flames, the heavily outnumbered militia withdrew and scattered in the darkness. They re-formed near the north edge of Avilla and braced for another onslaught, but it did not occur. The guerrilla force instead ended the attack and rode east toward Springfield, where the two elderly prisoners were later "given stern warnings to leave the state" and released.
Dr. J.M. Stemmons had been considered an "influential area figure against secession", and this was thought to be a chief motive for the attack and his murder. Nevertheless, the "defiant and heroic actions" of Dr. Stemmons, Mr. Duncan, and the town militia's "bold resistance" undoubtedly repelled further violence and probably prevented the burning of Avilla on that or ensuing dates. Names that are known of the courageous militiamen and allies defending on that night also included: Miles Overton, George Moose, Jap Moody, Ben Key, Cavalry Chapman, Robert Seymour, Orange Clark, Humphrey Robinson, Tom Driver, James S. Carter, Reuben Fishburn, William Club (seriously wounded), Nelson Knight (taken prisoner), Rabe Paul and Coleman Paul, Isaac Schooler, "Dutch" Brown (taken prisoner), Nip Walker, Peter Baker, Renard Napper and Cpt. Tanner from Fort Scott (The Captain was a Union Army Recruiting Officer and reportedly continued to fight after taking a shotgun blast to the face).
Humphrey Robinson (1812–1864) was abducted in 1864 by bushwackers from his Lawrence County, Missouri farm and never seen again. Many, at the time, believed he was recognized by his captors as one who stood against them in the defense of Avilla and was killed in retaliation. A marker to his memory was laid beside his widow at Gray's Point Cemetery, near Miller, Missouri.
A Gruesome Warning to Bushwhackers
The rebel attack on the Stemmons home was intended to terrorize and diffuse, but essentially had the opposite effect, infuriating the townsmen and altering the defensive efforts to offensive as everyone in Avilla took up arms. The Union Army gained possession of Missouri in 1862, but the terrain encompassing Avilla remained plagued with bushwhackers and occasionally small bands of Confederate regulars or guerrilla raiders on horseback. The town militia inherently became the earliest county militia for a period, headquartered in Avilla (this was before the formation of the Missouri County Militias in 1864). The patrol areas were then extended within eastern Jasper and western Lawrence Counties. Patrols of mounted militiamen were augmented by a few Union soldiers of the US Cavalry and continued to protect the town and countryside in several local skirmishes. Many bushwackers were tracked down and shot, and within a short time, the rest of them grew to fear the deadly Avilla "pioneer marksmen". In one account, a rebel’s skeleton was found just south of town with a bullet hole in the skull, and his name was never identified. He had apparently been killed during a previous skirmish with militiamen, but his remains were not found until they were in an advanced state of decomposition. The skull was then hung from the "Death Tree" in Avilla, suspended from a tree limb for over a year near the road at the Dunlap apple orchard "as a warning to all other bushwhackers".
Union Army Garrison at Avilla
By 1863, the Enrolled Missouri Militia was stationed at the Union Army garrison in Avilla; these new soldiers were under the command of Major Morgan. Tents were erected, and storehouses, barns, and homes were converted to temporary Army barracks & headquarters which housed hundreds of soldiers at various times, and several refugees. The town became known to the Missouri Militiamen informally as "Camp Avilla'", and by 1864, many of the original town militiamen continued to assist the new Missouri Militia, functioning as patrol leaders in the newly organized Jasper County Militia. Avilla supported anti-guerrilla operations in the region while under Lieutenant-Colonel T.T. Crittenden of the Missouri State Militia's 7th Cavalry, and served as a way station when needed in the transportation of Confederate Prisoners of War. Being situated in open grassland, Avilla was able to maintain a formidable and effective defense and became a sanctuary for refugees of nearby burned-out towns such as Carthage, but the county remained dangerous until the end and even for some time after the war.The War of Rebellion: A compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, Series 2 Volume 5, Government Printing Office 1899.
1865–1900
Boom town during the Reconstruction Era