The Bates boys were sons of Quakers from old Virginia stock, earnest and sober. Frederick became the Secretary of the Territory of Missouri, and later its second governor. He wrote the first book published in St. Louis, a rather dry and already dusty compilation of the laws of the Territory of Louisiana, in 1808. Edward followed his brother here, and loved St. Louis with such uncharacteristic fervor that he celebrated every year on April 29, the anniversary of his arrival.
A lawyer, senator, and judge, Edward was on hand for the framing of Missouri’s first constitution. He freed his own slaves and fought in court to free others. Land he secured gave St. Louis’ public schools a head start that lasted for decades.
Edward also raised our stock a few notches back East when a letter, written to The New York Times urging him as the Republican candidate for president, described St. Louis as “situated on the verge of the unbroken wilderness, and then surrounded by bands of savages,” yet the home of “several French families of wealth and refinement.” A gawky guy named Abe won the nomination instead, and he made Edward attorney general.
He took the loss of the nomination in stride; later, he would refuse an appointment as Secretary of War because of his Quaker roots and family obligations. Personally, he must have been either a pragmatist or a masochist: When Caroline Coalter rebuffed him, blurting that she loved Hamilton Gamble instead but could not marry him because he drank, Edward went straight to Hamilton and persuaded him to pour out his whiskey. Edward then married Caroline’s sister Julia. And Hamilton became governor of Missouri.
While it’s no guarantee of love, Edward and Julia did manage 17 children, though only eight survived. Their firstborn, Joshua Barton, settled in St. Charles County, became friends with James Eads, and helped plan his bridge project, afterward naming one of his sons Eads). Another son, Richard, so grieved his father with his escapades that Eads, by now a family friend, persuaded the Navy to keep him at sea for a while. The youngest son, Charles Woodson Bates, had a daughter, Caroline, who was a fellow in Wash. U.’s School of Social Economy in 1909 and went on to help establish a modern parole system in Missouri.
Another Charles Bates, this one Charles Frederick (and no apparent relation, although the families aren't ruling it out) came to St. Louis in the 1860s. He married Ann Beale “Nancy” Maffitt, the daughter of Julia Chouteau Maffitt. Nancy and Charles' son, William Maffitt Bates, was a World War I veteran who became a state senator and died at 48 of heart disease. (He’d certainly thrown his heart into his law practice—he once waved an American flag in one hand and a murdered girl’s coat in the other and demanded that the jury “choose between them.”) He left a daughter, Frances, and two sons, William Maffitt Jr. and Charles F. “Charles was my father,” says Ellen Maffitt Bates Scott. “He married my mother, Dorothy McBride Orthwein, and they had eight children.” Ellen’s siblings: Charles F. Bates III, David Bates, Dorothy Bates Engler, Frances Bates Pope, Janet Bates Rallo, Katherine Bates Ruwitch, and Nancy Bates Rianhard.
Charles F. Bates III just died this February, but many Bates descendants remain, and a few still cherish Edward’s dream: that St. Louis would become “the greatest city upon the continent.”
➡ Tell us your experiences with this family, or tell us about your own favorite dynasty. Who'd we miss? Add stories, interconnections, and examples to our St. Louis Family Histories by filling out this form.
