August 31, 1825… Birth date of Odon Guitar.
Odon Guitar, prominent citizen of Columbia, was born, August 31, 1825, in Richmond, Kentucky. When he was 4 years old his parents moved to Columbia. There, when he was about 16, he entered the first session of the University of Missouri, from which he graduated with an A.B. degree in 1846. Two months before the commencement, Guitar marched toward Santa Fe, a member of Doniphan's 1st Missouri Mounted Volunteers. As a consequence, he was the first graduate of the University to receive his degree “in absentia.”
After the war Guitar returned to Columbia to enter the law office of his uncle, but in 1850 he left to take part in the California Gold Rush. Returning to Columbia in 1851, he resumed his law practice. In this profession he made a fortune and a brilliant record, especially as a criminal lawyer. During his career he represented the defendants in more then 140 homicide cases, of which only one received the penalty of capital punishment and only 5 were sentenced to the penitentiary.
A Whig, Guitar represented Boone County in the Legislature in 1854 and 1858. As the Civil War approached, he displayed strong Union sympathies. After the outbreak of the war, Governor Hamilton R. Gamble commissioned Guitar to raise a regiment, and he organized the 9th Cavalry, Missouri State Militia, later famous as the “Bloody Ninth.” He was commissioned its colonel, May 3, 1862, and promoted to the rank of brigadier general, June 27, 1863, in reward for his services in the field. Guitar resigned his commission, August 31, 1864. When the war was over, he resumed his law practice in Columbia.
In 1892 when the main building of the University of Missouri was destroyed by fire, Guitar represented the claims of Boone County and was largely instrumental in keeping the university in Columbia. He served as mayor, councilman, and president of the school board of that town. One of the prime movers in the Columbia branch of the Wabash Railroad, he was also a leader in laying out the M.K. and T. Railroad through Boone County. Credit has been given him, more then any other man, for the vote to build Boone County's courthouse in 1907. Guitar died at his Columbia home, March 13, 1908.
Letter from Emily Guitar to her son, Odon Guitar, ca. 1846. For primary source material see…
