Farmington is a city in St. Francois County located 72mi southwest of St. Louis in the Lead Belt region in Missouri in the United States. As of the 2010 census, the population was 16,240. It is the county seat of St. Francois County. Farmington was established in 1822 as Murphy's Settlement, named for William Murphy of Kentucky who first visited the site in 1798. When St. Francois County was organized, the town was briefly called St. Francois Court House and later renamed to Farmington.HistoryWilliam Murphy arrived on the land west of the Mississippi River in 1798, when it was part of the upper Louisiana Territory and under Spanish rule. Murphy was searching for the ideal site to relocate his family and, as the tradition goes, came to find a spring near what is now the St. Francois County Courthouse with the aid of a local Native American. Deciding that this was an excellent place to set up home, Murphy acquired a Spanish Land Grant, allowing him and his family to establish a settlement along the St. Francois River.In his travels back to Kentucky, Murphy died, leaving it up to his wife, Sarah Barton Murphy, and their grown sons to establish the settlement, which they did around 1800, and named the area Murphy's Settlement. Sarah Barton Murphy is known to have assembled the premier Protestant Sunday School west of the Mississippi River. Because Spanish law barred any religious services that were not Roman Catholic, Murphy and her students orchestrated the learning in secret.
