09/02/2026
Four antebellum homes still stand in the Liberty area, each preserving a complex piece of our community’s history. 🧱 🏦
Behind their handmade brick walls are stories of prosperity, agriculture, transformation and the enslaved people whose labor helped build them.
Read more about them in this week's America 250 article, submitted from local historian Chris Harris. 👇
ANTEBELLUM HOMES - Part 1
Many of the first settlers in this area came from the upper south. Places such as Virginia, Tennessee, and North Carolina. The land here was good and the price of land was inexpensive enough to own larger sections of land than where they emigrated from. They had thousands of acres in some instances and very large houses.
In the Liberty area, there are four of these houses left. Some terminology is helpful to give context.
Plantation – family who owned 20 or more enslaved persons.
Mansion – 5,000 square feet or more with other requirements.
IMPROVED LAND: Land regularly tilled or mowed, rotated pastures, land in gardens, orchards, and land occupied by farm buildings.
UNIPROVED LAND: Rough, rocky, brush-covered, or swampy land within the farm boundary that was not tilled, grazed as cleared pasture, or managed as forest.
Thinking of plantations, one may envision a plantation with very large houses such as Multnomah, built in 1852 and burned in the early 1960’s. While not as large as Multnomah in size, scale or amount of land, these four homes in today’s article have been commonly to referred to as Mansions or Plantation houses.
In research for today’s article, only one house qualifies as both a Mansion and Plantation and the size of the house is using square footage as the house is now. The size when built is unknown.
In the 1860 Agricultural Census there are 19 farms over 1,000 acres. The largest was owned by Judge James T.V. Thompson with 7,000 acres. The Multnomah Plantation was 2,400 acres. Of those 19 farms only 8 qualify as plantations. The largest plantation used 56 enslaved people to work it.
With the work of these enslaved people these homes were built. Using hand-made bricks from claypits, some of these claypits are now ponds, such as “McCoy Lakes” on EE Hwy east of Liberty.
To make the bricks, clay and sand were mixed together, then put in forms, left outside to dry and then fired in kilns. In the case of the Multnomah Plantation, it is said that 1,000,000 bricks were used.
The construction of the houses was made of three course sunbaked bricks roughly 12- to 14-inch-thick walls. The original layout of each of these homes is identical. They are one room deep and two stories tall with a center hall. The rooms are between 18 and 20 feet square with a 10 to 15 wide center hall with 12 foot ceilings. As with other houses, additions were made over time.
Adkins House (Mansion status / Plantation owner)
2101 W. Liberty Dr.
Built: 1859
Notes: Built by Darwin J. Adkins (1821 - 1885) to replace a two-story log-cabin built by his father, Robert Adkins. Darwin J. Adkins had several vocations. In addition to his farm, he raised horses and mules, which he took to Alexandria, Mississippi and New Orleans, Louisiana for stock sales. In 1856 he was instrumental in establishing Farmers Bank in Liberty. This bank later became the Clay County Savings Association, which was robbed by Jesse James and friends in February of 1866. For the safety of his family during the Civil War, Mr. Adkins moved his family into town, where they lived in the apartment above the bank. In 1868, he assisted in founding the Commercial Savings Bank.
On February 24, 1869, Darwin purchased the Samuel Ringo house at 758 W. Liberty Dr. for $65,562.50 [$1,609,742.56] while also keeping the other farm.
The 1860 and 1870 Agricultural Census shows that Darwin became more successful in farming after the Civil War then before. In property value alone the 1860 Agricultural Census shows ownership of 690 acres valued at $12,000 [$482,773.01]. In 1870, he owned 1,630 acres, worth $45,000 [$1,147,046.56].
Darwin passed away in 1885 and the farm remained in the family until 1928 when his son, Robert I. Adkins sold the home and 142 acres to Charles Harter for $1,000 [$19,527.37]. The house at 758 W. Liberty Dr. remained in the family until 1889 when it was sold after the death of Elizabeth Ringo, the widow of Darwin.
Ringo / Adkins House
758 W. Liberty Dr.
Built: late 1830’s by William L. Smith
Finding the exact year this house was built is not clear. The records seem to indicate it was built between 1836 and 1841. The Century House plaque says 1838 which, if this is the case, the house was built by William L. Smith, who then sold 15 acres, “lying in the angle between the Garrison [now Harrison] and Kansas Roads” to Samuel Ringo on September 2, 1841. Samuel Ringo was from near Mt. Sterling, Kentucky. He operated a grocery and mercantile business along with his is brother Andrew and brother-in-law. They also operated similar stores in Richmond, Missouri. In an advertisement in the Liberty Tribune, the farm is listed as 200 acres. The home underwent major renovations between 1900 and 1910. [side note: the outlaw Johnny Ringo was a cousin and lived in Liberty for a few years before moving to Tombstone, Arizona – Johnny was in the social circle of Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday and others].
Moss /Jones House
438 Moss Ave
Built: 1853
Notes: This home, while built in the same manner as the other two, however, no longer has a second story. I have not been able to determine when the second floor was removed. In looking at the house today, one would not think it to be antebellum nor twice the size as it was when built.
The property changed hands several times before James H. Moss purchased 30 acres from William C. & Elizabeth Ligon for $2,000 [$86,731.95].
This grand home had a commanding view of Liberty, facing east and on the crest of a hill. The Moss property had several hundred acres surrounding later on it including an Apple Orchard on the south and a freshwater spring on the north. In February 1865, James and his wife Susan sold the house and 30 acres to Louis Sharp. In the Liberty Tribune is an advertisement beforehand that states, “. . . containing thirty acres more or less being the premises upon which the brick dwelling home now owned by said Moss.”
During the Civil War, Colonel Moss was a Union sympathizer and spoke out against succession. In the Liberty Tribune it mentions that he, along with his brother Oliver P. Moss, Edward M. Samuel and Judge James M. Jones, were forced out of Liberty because of their stance. They settled in Mirabel, Caldwell County, Missouri for a period, returning to Liberty after the threat to their family had subsided.
By 1869 the house had been sold to Judge James Jones who purchased the home, planted a vineyard. He had also built a huge w**e cellar to the north which could store 1,000 barrels of w**e and as many bottles. This history was covered in an earlier article under the topic of the Jones Distillery.
Parrish / Bell / Pharis House
20611 EE Highway
Built: between 1846 – 1852 by Isaac O. Parrish
Notes: While not inside the city limits, this home is the fourth and last remaining house in this area that is of the same style. It is known as the Bell-Pharis Farm and is roughly five miles east of Liberty, south of H Hwy on EE Hwy. The Bell-Pharis farm is now part of the Clay County Parks system as a historic site with activities on a regular basis.
This home was built between 1846 and 1852. Isaac O. Parrish purchased it from Walker and Nancy Turner in 1846 as a parcel of land. In December of 1852. Isaac advertised the farm for sale which included the house (see image). Ten years later, the Parrish’s sold 200 acres which also included the house and other dependent buildings to Edwin D. Bell. Edwin did quite well with the farm, expanding the farm from 160 acres to 509 acres, with a value of $25,000 [$637,248.03] in 1870. His farm focused on raising sheep, hogs, wheat and corn.
In 1927 the farm was purchased by Donald Pharis from the Bell family and owned it up until his death in 1992. He was the first to use terrace farming in Clay County and was active in the education of farming. He and his wife hosted countless field trips for school kids, including this historian, where they shared about the importance of farming.
These large farms, and plantations are long gone, yet the homes remain to tell the antebellum history of Liberty.
For more information, contact Chris Harris at on Facebook: Christopher A. Harris or [email protected]
Thank you to:
Clay County Archives & Historical Library
https://claycountyarchives.org
Clay County Museum
https://claycountyhistoricalsocietymuseum.org
Friends of the Pharis Farm
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