Wettershaw Manor has all the charm of an old plantation house, taking you back to Colonial times and the founding of our great nation.

The home can trace its history back to 1819 when famed naturalist Dr. William Baldwin died at the home while on an expedition up the Missouri River. Baldwin is buried in the cemetery behind the house.

The home belonged to John J. Lowry, one of the University of Missouri's first currators. Lowry was elected twice to the legislature of our new state and was the president of the State Bank in Fayette. Due to financial difficulties, Lowry sold the manor and after passing through several owners it came into the hands of Lodawick Mode in 1841.

Mode died suddently in 1844 causing his family to spend the next five years fighting to save their home only to loose it in 1849. Mode and his sons are also buried in the cemetery behind the house.

The manor was then sold to Levi Parks, a strong anti-war sympathizer. It was in this home that many of the Kingdom of Callaway County Independence organization meetings were held, a plot that would cost Parks his life.

Dr. George R. Jacobs, a wealthy Virginian, then purchased the plantation, as well as many others in the Two Mile Praire area, making him one of the largest land and slave holders in Boone County.

In the Southern tradition, Jacobs sent his sons to the Virginia Military Academy (the West Point of the South) and later they would fight for the Confederate cause.

Both Union and Confederate troops would camp on the Manor grounds during 1861 through 1865. The site of the 1864 Centralia Massacre and subsequent battle took place just fifteen miles from the Manor.

The Jacobs family remained at the top of both Columbia's and Boone County's social elite even after the war, marrying into the Rollins family. The Rollins were related to the Guitars, the Leonards, and the Conleys.

When Dr. Jacobs died in 1874 the plantation with all of its lands and resources were split and the members of the family fought over it for the next twenty years.

The Hart family became the owners of the manor in the early 20th century and lived at the manor for the next forty years. The nearby community of Harsburg is named for Luther D. Hart. High in the society of their time, the Harts had many overnight guests. Among those guests included Hans Heinrich Wetter. Wetter's grand-daughter later married into the Ralls family of Ralls County.

The manor was finally sold to Sanford F. and John C. Conley. John Conley would later become the first professor of agriculture at the Univerisyt of Missouri. The manor became the Conley family's country home, although they continued to spend most of their time at their house in Columbia that also still stands today.

Wetter stayed at the manor many times during his subsequent visits to the area during the late 1920's. The manor was later sold to the Brays in 1956 and subsequently to many others during which time it fell into a state of disrepair.

In the early 21st Century the manor was bought by the Wetter family who have spent many years restoring the manorand returning her to her once grandeur.