Program

DAR Revolutionary America

Subject

Event, People

Location

5335 State Rte N, Cottleville, MO 63304, USA

Lat/Long

38.746176318173, -90.652903829491

Grant Recipient

NSDAR - Treasurer General

Born in Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, in 1755, Warren Cottle dedicated his early life to both military service and civil enterprise. During the American Revolution, he served as a Captain in the Cumberland and Windsor County, Vermont Militia. After the war, he transitioned to civic life, serving as a representative from Woodstock, Vermont in the General Assembly.

Cottle was an entrepreneur, owning and operating a grist mill with his brother Jabez from 1779 until 1798. Yet, the call of the western frontier proved stronger than his established life in New England. In 1798, Cottle dissolved his partnership and made the monumental decision to move west. His destination was the vast, Spanish-controlled Louisiana Territory.

In that pivotal year, Cottle was granted a tract of land by the Spanish government. This land, located in what would later become St. Charles County, Missouri, was surveyed around 1800, and Cottle settled his family there shortly after. Warren Cottle died on April 12, 1811, in St. Charles County, leaving his vast estate to his son, Dr. Warren Cottle Jr. In 1839, Warren Cottle’s grandson, Lorenzo Cottle (son of Warren Jr.), inherited 200 acres of the original Spanish grant. Lorenzo parceled the land east of the Dardenne River into lots and named the town “Cottleville” in honor of both his father and his grandfather.

Two years Cottle’s senior, John Pittman was born in Bedford County, Virginia, in 1753. Pittman served as a Private in the Virginia Militia. He served under Capt. John Dougherty and General Rogers Clark, participated in the arduous Illinois Expedition, and fought at the Battle of Blue Licks, Kentucky.

Pittman also established a family, after marrying Dorothy Peyton Robinson in 1785 and having four children. When Dorothy passed, John remarried Magdaline Irvine Price in 1805 and had another son.

A prominent landowner, Pittman and his brother owned large farms. He was also known as a tobacco commissioner and an enslaver. In 1810, just two years before the Territory of Missouri was organized, Pittman made his final move, settling in St. Charles County, specifically in the same burgeoning area pioneered by Warren Cottle. He served as a representative from St. Charles County at the Missouri Constitutional Convention, helping to shape the foundational laws of the state. He died on January 1, 1839, a long-time resident of the community he helped establish.