Brunswick, Missouri
Early History of Brunswick
Settlement of Brunswick dates back thousands of years as numerous indigenous peoples migrated along the Missouri River. At the point of European contact, the area that is now Brunswick was home to Missouri, Osage, Kaw, and Otoe tribes.
The earliest European settlement near Brunswick was Fort D'Orleans, which sat at the junction of the Missouri and Grand Rivers. Occupied from 1723-1726, D'Orleans was the first long-term fort and settlement in what is now Missouri. However, large-scale settlement did not follow.
It would not be until the Louisiana Purchase in 1803 that a large influx of settlers arrived. These settlers were mostly migrants from the American states, particularly Kentucky and Tennessee, who arrived with slaves and hoped to cultivate tobacco. James Keyte charted the original town of Brunswick in 1836, however his initial plot soon fell into the water due to changes in courses of the Missouri and Grand Rivers. The modern town of Brunswick had to be relocated 500 yards to the north. Like many towns along the Missouri River, steamboat travel and migration grew the town in the 1840s. By the 1850s, Brunswick was a regional trading center.
Jews of Brunswick
Like many small towns in Missouri, there was little Jewish life in Brunswick, with the only known residents being the household of William Rosenstein. Rosenstein opened a dry goods store in Brunswick in the 1860s, married his wife Tille Cole Rosenstein in 1874, and had a daughter Carrie. Living with the small family was the clerk at Rosenstein's store, Moses Shire.