History:
Jefferson City was originally named for a creek...Mossy Creek. The first explorers to the area chose the name because of the vivid green moss growing in the creek bed. Apparently Mossy Creek was a supply point for these early explorers. When Adam and Elizabeth Sharkey Peck and family arrived from Virginia in 1788, they found a small abandoned fort or blockhouse beside a spring of fresh water flowing into a nearby creek. Tradition goes that the Pecks set up their dwelling in this structure until their own log cabin, slightly northwest of the present city, was ready for occupation. Despite the danger from the Indians, Mossy Creek proved to be so desirable that by 1797 seventy-five to one hundred families had settled within a four-mile radius of it.