A History of Missouri from the Earliest Explorations and Settlements Until the Admission of the state into the union, Volume III, Part 24

Author: Louis Houck
Publication date: 1908
Publisher: R. R. Donnelley & sons company
Number of Pages: 405


USA > Missouri > A History of Missouri from the Earliest Explorations and Settlements Until the Admission of the state into the union, Volume III > Part 24


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211


COLDEN WILLIAMS


rubbing his limbs and rolling on the ground. In addition he had received a gunshot wound in the arm, and the loss of blood greatly weakened him. After incredible suffering he reached the Badgley settlement 35 miles away on the next morning. Here several Baptist families lived, and here he was seized with a burning fever and remained sick for several weeks, until his friends from the Boonslick settlement came and took him back home.15 But Samuel Cole gives a more prosaic account of his escape. He says that McLain escaped by pulling a purse of twenty silver dollars out of his pocket, stopping and throwing it, he hit the Indian with it, upon which the latter stopped and picked it up, and, evidently pleased with the prize, pursued him no further.16


In 1813 Elder Colden Williams, already mentioned, severed his connection with Bethel church and removed to Boonslick settlement, and was one of the first Baptist preachers in that remote region. "He was possessed with a strong discriminating mind, loved the work of the ministry and was faithful in his calling." 17 At the close of the war of 1812, Elder Edward Turner, "a man of moderate abilities and correct deportment as a minister of the gospel," also settled there. Another early preacher in north Missouri was Elder J. Hubbard, a man of strong mind who had received the benefit of a better education than most of the other early Baptist ministers. He was well equipped with a full and correct knowledge of the Scrip- tures.18 All these early Baptist ministers came from Kentucky.


Most of the original settlers belonged to the Baptist church. Daniel Boone himself attended the services of this church. His son- in-law, Flanders Callaway, was a leading member of Friendship Baptist church, located near the mouth of Charette creek, and so also was his wife, Rebecca, eldest daughter of Daniel Boone, as well as Squire Boone and his wife. When Peck, in 1819, preached at the house of Flanders Callaway, he had Daniel Boone as a hearer.19


In 1816 the Baptist Foreign Mission Board resolved to send two missionaries to the Missouri territory. The Board was fortunate in the selection of one at least of these missionaries, in that it chose a man not only of great religious zeal, but also of indefatigable literary


16 Life of Peck, p. 142.


"' Draper's notes, vol. 23, Trip 1868, p. 65 to 81, inclusive.


17 Life of Peck, p. 141.


18 Ibid., p. 140. His daughter, Huldah, married Joseph Monroe, a brother of President James Monroe.


" Life of Peck, p. 127.


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activity. This was the Rev. John Mason Peck, a man of Puritan ancestry, born in Litchfield, South Farms, Connecticut, October 31, 1789. His parents were in very humble circumstances, and when a youth he consequently enjoyed the benefits of only a common school education. But equipped with these scanty advantages he improved himself and made rapid advances in acquir- ing general information, so that before his death he was not only recognized as a very able, but also as a very learned man. He married Sarah Payne, in May, 1809, before he attained the age of 21 years. In 1811 he removed to Wind- ham, Green county, New York, where he became a member of the Baptist church. In 1813 he was ordained a Baptist minister at Catskill, and held the pastorship of several REV. JOHN M. PECK congregations in that locality. When, in 1816, he first learned that the establishment of a Baptist mission in the Missouri territory was contemplated, he became an applicant for this missionary work. In order to better qualify himself, he spent some time at a theological seminary in Phila- delphia, where he studied Latin, Greek, and obtained a little knowl- edge of Hebrew. With wise forethought, he also attended lectures at the Medical college in order to be better able to protect his health in what then was generally considered a malarious and unhealthy country. In August, 1817, he left Philadelphia for the West, accom- panied by his family and the Rev. James E. Welch, as his associate in the work. On October 6, 1817, they arrived at Shawneetown, where he says "the glad tidings of salvation were but seldom heard." From Shawneetown he journeyed by keel-boat down the Ohio and then up the Mississippi to St. Louis, arriving there December Ist, 1817. He came slowly JAMES E. WELCH up the Mississippi river, and, arriving at what is now known as Gray's Point, but then as Ross' Point, they landed for the night. Here he met Mr. Ross, a Baptist, and "was agreeably surprised to learn that there were seven churches asso- ciated in this part of the territory of Missouri." He reflectively notes: "Here is a vast field for labor and the work already commenced."


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JOHN MASON PECK


Learning that a Mr. Edwards would preach the next day at a Baptist church about fifteen miles above (at Bethel) he exclaims, "Oh, that I were there to aid him in declaring the name of Jesus."


Much of our knowledge of the early religious history of the state we owe to Peck. He was a zealous, sincere, earnest, deeply religious and able man, public spirited and ever ready to promote the cause of education, fearless too and ready to denounce evil in every form. As a minister, he was earnest and laborious. He had the eye of a keen observer and was careful in recording his observations, so that he gives us a vivid picture of things spiritual, as well as material, in the early days of Missouri. It is indeed fortunate for the history of pioneer days in the state, that Peck was sent out as a missionary into this then spiritually "desolate region" as he frequently calls it. Although greatly absorbed in his religious work he gave much time to literary and historical studies. He published many articles and lectures on various subjects, wrote a life of Daniel Boone, with whom he was personally acquainted, edited the " Western Annals," a work of merit and a complete compendium of Western history, and also was the author of an "Emigrant's Guide," a work at that time of great public use. During his long and busy life he kept a daily journal filling, in all, 53 volumes, "some small and portable for his conven- ience in traveling," but most of them large, either folios or quartos of some hundred pages each, in which were recorded the facts and incidents his inquisitive and ubiquitous spirit had brought under his observation.20 He died March 15, 1855, aged 68 years, at Rock Spring near Belleville, Illinois, but was buried at Bellefontaine cemetery, St. Louis. His biographer says, "In that central position of the wide field which he had watched over and labored so long and well to cultivate, his remains repose."


When Peck arrived at St. Louis in 1817 he was sick with the inter- mittent fever. The keel-boat upon which he made the voyage landed at the foot of Elm street. His associate, Rev. Mr. Welch and wife,


20 See Preface to Life of Peck, p. 5. These priceless volumes containing so much relating to the pioneer history of Missouri, as well as the many letters he received, all well arranged, with the substance of his replies, came in possession of the St. Louis Mercantile Library. From this "abundant and reliable material" his biographer, Rev. Rufus Babcock, has preserved for us a few extracts relating to the early history of Missouri, just enough to show the value of these journals. This material Dr. Peck no doubt designed for "a more full and extended memoir of his life and times." But if he indeed had this hope, it will never be realized. When inquiry was made during the, preparation of this history, for these journals and manuscripts' in the St. Louis Mercantile Library, in 1899, it was found that all this invaluable historic material -¿ journals, letters and


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HISTORY OF MISSOURI


with Peck's brother-in-law, Payne, arrived one week earlier by land with the horses, and had secured as a residence a single room on the corner of Main and Myrtle streets, the only place that could be secured in the village. The room had been just vacated as a place of business by Mathew Kerr and Mr. Bell. Here Peck was sick for two months, being attended and at last restored to health by two of the early physicians of St. Louis, Drs. Farrar and Walker. Truly a discouraging beginning in a new country and an unpromising mis- sionary field. But Peck and Welch were not easily discouraged. They secured in the rear of the storehouse of Joseph Robidoux, a room 14 by 16 feet, for school purposes, at a rental of $14 a month. Here they established a school and began to teach, and in the same room preached every Sunday and Wednesday evening.


Just seven members constituted the first Baptist congregation of St. Louis, but after awhile this number was increased to thirteen, and in February, 1818, a regular church was organized. It also deserves to be recorded that Peck preached the first missionary sermon west of the Mississippi river in the Legislative Hall at St. Louis, and collected the sum of $26.25 on that occasion for this cause. In the following fall several candidates were baptized in the Mississippi river, and soon subscriptions were obtained for the erection of a Baptist church. In June of the same year a lot was purchased on the corner of Myrtle and Third streets and there the construction of a church was begun by laying the corner stone of the edifice with appro- priate ceremonies. The school also flourished and all those unable to pay tuition were admitted free. In addition Peck commenced a course of lectures in order to arouse interest in popular education. Afterward he opened a Sunday school for the instruction of colored children and adults. Over 100 names were enrolled, and some of the colored people also became members of the Baptist denomination. It ought to be noted that these colored people were slaves, and only


MSS .- had been destroyed, burned up as worthless, because, so it was said, the library had no room for keeping such material - considered, no doubt, as "literary junk." It is strange that by fire in 1852 when his Rock Spring Semi- nary burnt his great collection of papers, periodicals and other pamphlets amounting to several thousand volumes, all gathered in a laborious life and care- fully filed should have been destroyed and which he had "intended for some public institution to be preserved for generations to come" - and which he laments "can never be replaced." Then with resignation he says: "Well it seems to me to be providential. I have done all I could, and failed ! I am afraid my materials are so destroyed that I cannot obtain means to prepare my pro- jected work on the Moral Progress of the Great Central Valley of the Western World. I can only say, the will of the Lord be done."- Life of Peck, p. 346.


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JOHN JACOBY


such as were permitted by their masters, attended this Sunday school. Peck says, "When the religious influence began to manifest itself among them, the sons of Belial began to sound out the notes of remonstrance and alarm."


Peck complains that the other Protestant denominations were hostile, although he says that he and his assistant " sedulously endeav- ored" to unite the Protestant denominations through organized and monthly missionary concerts; they also alternately held a monthly meeting at Mr. Giddings' school room, which was also his preaching place. To show his liberality he tells us that the Cumberland Presby- terians and the Methodists, who had no place of religious worship in St. Louis, were allowed to use the Baptist place of worship. At that time Peck and Welch21 frequently rode out in the country and preached in "destitute settlements" quite a distance from St. Louis.


The most prominent member of the Baptist congregation of St. Louis in 1817 was John Jacoby, who at that time carried on the business of a saddle and harness maker. Jacoby was born in Vir- ginia in 1781, and with his parents moved to Kentucky at an early date. In Kentucky he was bound out to learn the saddlery and harness making trade, and after serving a faithful apprenticeship, started out for himself. In 1806 he married Miss Jane Starks. In 1810 he became a member of the Baptist church. In 1816 he moved to St. Louis and there became a constituent member of the First Baptist church. He was in every respect a leading and prominent member of the congregation, holding the office of deacon, and taking a lively interest in everything appertaining to its welfare. In 1820 he moved to St. Charles, where he died in November, 1823. Peck, who knew him well and admired his character, preached his funeral sermon in Legislative Hall at St. Charles on November 12, 1823. Thornton Grimsley, so long and favorably known in St. Louis as a prominent and leading business man and citizen, was reared by Jacoby, and to him he transferred his business when he removed from St. Louis.


21 Rev. James E. Welch, intimately associated with Peck in his early religious work in Missouri, was born in Lexington, Kentucky, February 28, 1789, and became a member of the Baptist church in October, 1810; entered the ministry in 1815; studied theology in the year following at Philadelphia; then acted as minister at Burlington, New Jersey; in 1817 tendered his services to the Board of Missions and was sent to the Missouri territory with Peck; he remained for three years then returned to Burlington; then returned to Missouri and lived . for a number of years in Warren county; in 1875 moved to Warrensburg, and died while on an excursion to the seashore with a party of Baptists in 1876. His son, Aikman Welch, born in 1827, Warren county, was Attorney-General of Missouri from 1861 to the time of his death in 1864 at Jefferson City.


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HISTORY OF MISSOURI


FeeFee Baptist church, located on FeeFee creek, St. Louis county, is said to have been organized as early as 1807 by Elder Thomas R. Musick. Among the first members of this church were Abraham Musick and wife, John Sullens and wife, Adam Martin and wife and Mary Martin, Richard, Jane and Susan Sullens, John Howder- shell and wife, Hilderbrand and others, all pioneers and settlers in that neighborhood during the Spanish dominion. No minutes of this church exist prior to 1820, but no doubt occasional meetings were held by the Baptists. Thomas R. Musick, said to have organized this church, was a son of Ephraim Musick, and came to the upper Louisiana territory in 1801. He was born in Spottsylvania county, Virginia, in 1756.22 The family were Episcopalians, and although his father violently opposed the step, his son became a Baptist. From Virginia the latter removed to North Carolina where he married Miss Mary Neville. He removed to the Spanish possessions in 1801, his father having settled in this territory in 1798. However, it is not likely that Thomas R. Musick, at the time of his emigration into upper Louisiana, was a preacher, for as such the Spanish Com- mandants certainly would have denied him the privilege of settle- ment. He may have been influenced by Clark and other Protestants to embrace the religious avocation. No mention is made by Peck of FeeFee as an early Baptist preaching station, and the only time he seems to have made an appointment to preach there was in 1822; even then he records that he found no hearers.23 But Musick ·preached in Illinois with Peck in 1822.


In 1818 only five Baptist churches were to be found north of the Missouri river, and the members of all the churches in that country did not exceed one hundred. In that year these five churches united to form the "Mount Pleasant Baptist association," the churches belonging to the association being named Concord, Mount Zion, Mount Pleasant, Salem, and Bethel; the last ought to be called Bethel No. 2. In 1820 these churches reported seven ministers and two hundred and thirteen communicants. To these churches north of the river soon were joined Providence, Mount Ararat, Little Bonne Femme and Chariton. Chariton church was situated near


22 Mrs. Elizabeth Sullens Musick says that he died in Central township, St. Louis county, Mo., in November, 1842; was buried near FeeFee church; that he was in the Revolutionary war .- Draper's Notes, vol. 6, p. 312. His wife died six years before him. "A loud and stormy preacher, not talented, but useful."- Draper's Notes, vol. 24, pp. 157, 204. " Life of Peck, p. 175.


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BETHEL ASSOCIATION


the old town of Chariton, and the names of Ebenezer Rogers and John Bowles appear on the minutes as preachers." Rev. Thomas Fristoe, as early as 1818, was a Baptist preacher in this region, so also was Rev. Parker Williams. Rev. William Turnage preached as early as 1817 in the Buffalo settlement, in what is now Pike county, and in 1821 at Bluffton in the present county of Ray.


In 1819-20 Mount Pisgah church was organized, with thirty members, south of the river, in what is now Cooper county. This church was about twenty-five miles south of Boonville, and reported three ministers, Elders John B. Logan, Jacob Chism and Lewis Shelton. In addition, the rapidly increasing immigrants organized the Petite Osage Bottom churches, called "Teetsaw," Mount Nebo, Double Springs, and Big Bottom churches, in which Patton Nowlin, William Jennings and Peter Woods were elders, all having recently immigrated into the country. Big Bottom church was organized with twelve members only a short time before the visit of Rev. John Mason Peck in that section.


At a gathering of the association held in North Missouri in 1820, seven new churches were received, and also four new Baptist minis- ters. At that time there was general complaint that but few Baptist ministers emigrated to Missouri. Peck records in 1819 that since he arrived in 1817 only one came to the country within 100 miles of St. Louis. And concerning this one he adds, "We heartily wish him back again," although the region is "deplorably destitute of minis- ters." Another venerable Baptist of North Missouri, who mourned "the low state of Zion," was Father Stephen Hancock, eighty years of age when Peck met him. Hancock came with Daniel Boone to the Spanish possessions about twenty-five years before that time, and was now a regular attendant at a prosperous little Baptist church at Point Labadie.


Immediately after the Mount Pleasant association was organized, it sent its ministers to the Bethel association, and Elder Edward Turner, already mentioned, and William Thorpe were the delegates selected. The Bethel association met that year at the house of Mr. Duval (or DuVol) in the "Barrens," in what is now Perry county, and thither came Peck then on his first missionary trip to southeast Missouri. He tells us that he preached, although excessively fatigued from his long ride on horseback, from Isaiah xlix, 20; but does not seem to have very much edified his associates, because "a set of " Life of Peck, p. 148.


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crude and erroneous notions had been stereotyped into their minds in Kentucky, about gospel doctrine and moral obligations, and they were fixedly resolved to learn nothing else." From Duval's, Peck rode to Jackson and preached at the house of Judge Richard S. Thomas where he "was kindly and hospitably entertained," Mrs. Thomas and her daughters being members of Bethel church. He next visited St. Michaels 2% where he says he met a venerable minister by the name of George Guthrie, formerly from Ohio, and then residing near the mouth of the Saline. At St. Michaels Peck "tarried at" brother James James' cabin. At this time Bethel Baptist association was composed of Bethel church, on Hubbell creek, in what is now Cape Girardeau county, Tywappity church now in Scott county,. Providence church near Fredericktown, now in Madison county, Barrens church now in Perry county 27 St. Francois church now in Wayne county, Bellevue near Caledonia, now Washington county 28 Dry creek church in Wayne, and Salem church now in the state of Arkansas, on Fourche-à-Thomas. Two ministers, Benjamin Clark and Jesse James, and twelve members were in attendance. James subsequently disappeared from the minutes, perhaps by death, but Clark lived and labored in that desolate region for many years with great self-denial, zeal and success.29


Bethel Association then held correspondence with the Little river Association of Kentucky. The messenger in that year from that Association was Josiah Horne, who seems to have been a good preacher, and on that occasion is said to have preached an excellent sermon on the Sabbath. It was during this meeting that Peck organized the first society ever formed west of the Mississippi for philanthropic and missionary purposes. It was a society for " spread- ing the gospel" and for "promoting common schools in the western part of America both for the whites and the Indians." All "persons of good moral character, by paying five dollars annually," were eligible, but in order to be equipped as a missionary of the society, it


2% Life of Peck, p. 167.


" "That village then was a very wicked place," says Peck. A man named John Faroe, who had been a dancing master, was a leading Baptist here. He ived in the "Caldwell Settlement." Life of Thompson, p. 213.


17 This church was organized at the house of Brother Evans, and Elder Thomas Donnahue "lived and labored" with his church until he died.


28 Elder Felix Reading, of Kentucky, was the first pastor of this church. He afterward became a resident of Madison county, Missouri.


" Life of Peck, p. 107. The first meeting of Bethel Association took place the year before, in 1816, and the following messengers from churches were


219


THOMAS PARISH GREEN


was requisite that the applicant "be in full standing in the Baptist churches, and give satisfactory evidence of genuine piety, good tal- ents and fervent zeal in the Redeemer's cause." It was also expressly . provided that no person of immoral habits should be employed as school teacher. This clause seems especially to have been aimed at drunkenness, and we are told that "in three years, by so simple and cheap an agency, more than fifty good schools were established in Missouri and Illinois where common nuisances with drunken teachers had before existed." "0 But the attempt to establish a school among a band of Indians residing in a village near Pilot Knob failed, and no further effort was made in that direction.31


Another prominent member present on that occasion was Rev. Thomas Parish Green, of Cape Girardeau, for many years one of the leading Baptist preachers of Missouri, a man of learning, ability, and great piety. Green was born in Chatham, North Carolina, on June 3d, 1790, and in 1807 removed with his father's family to Maury county, Tennessee, where under the instruction of Elder John Record he was converted and baptized into fellowship with the Lebanon Baptist church in 1812. He was licensed to preach and ordained sometime between 1814 and 1816. In 1817 he came to Missouri, settling in Cape Girardeau county, and there he resided until his death. To him we owe the preservation of the early minutes of the Bethel Baptist church. Missionary work and Sunday school work greatly appealed to him, and the resolutions of the Bethel Association on these subjects were penned by him. In 1829-30 he published a Baptist paper, "The Western Pioneer," at Rock Springs, Illinois. He was agent for the American Sunday School Union Mission in Southeast Missouri many years. In 1835 he was pastor of the Second Baptist church of St. Louis. He died in 1843 in the city of


enrolled : Bethel, Thomas Wolf, John Shepard, Elder Benjamin Thompson and Robert English; Tywappity, Henry Cockersham, John Baldwin, William Ross; Providence, William Savage, Elder Thomas Donnahue and John Duval (Or DuVol); St. Francois, Elder William Street and Jonathan Hubbell; Turkey creek, William Johnson, E. Revelle, and E. Baker; at the time Elders H. Cocker- sham, John Farrar, Thomas Donnahue and James P. Edwards were appointed to preach, and organize churches in different parts of the territory .- Tong's Baptists S. E. Missouri, p. 22. It was at John DuVol's in "the Barrens," where Peck stopped on his missionary journeys into southeast Missouri. James P. Edwards came to Cape Girardeau from Kentucky in 1811; he had studied law, but in 1812 was ordained to the ministry, and in 1818 removed to Illinois. Wingate Jackson, another early member of the association came from Virginia, settled in the New Tennessee settlement and died there in 1835.


80 Life of Peck, p. 106.


31 Life of Peck, p. 108.


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Cape Girardeau. It is greatly to be regretted that the personal journal which he carefully kept for many years was accidentally destroyed by fire. The "Baptist Repository" of 1844 says that "in his death the Baptist cause has lost a bold and able defender, and the pulpit one of its brightest ornaments."32


But this Missionary Association, and of which Green was ap- pointed corresponding secretary, aroused great antagonism among some of the good Baptists of those early days. For instance, Peck tells us that Turner and Thorpe knew "not a single fact about missions, nor anything correctly of the Kingdom of Christ on earth or its destiny," and that although not openly hostile they "shook their heads doubtfully." Afterward, however, they took "a bolder and more decided stand against all organized efforts to publish the glad tidings to a sin-ruined world." They maintained that "missions, Sunday schools, Bible societies and such like facilities were all man's contrivances to take God's work out of his own hands."




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