MOUNT VERNON A post village of Lawrence county, 132 miles south-west of Jefferson city. (Missouri State Gazetteer..., 1860)
MOUNT VERNON, the county-seat, was laid out in 1845, by the county, as a seat of justice, and the first court was held in October of the same year, at the house of George White, Esq., and presided over by Hon. Chas. S. Yancy; Thomas Ash was the first clerk; Washington Smith, first sheriff; Jno. Williams, one of the oldest settlers, was foreman of the first grand jury held in this county. Mount Vernon occupies an elevated site near the center of the county, on a clear, bold stream, a tributary of the Neosho or Grand River of the South. Mount Vernon was incorporated as a city, November 4, 1847, and now contains 350 inhabitants. (Parker's Missouri as it is in 1867..., 1867)