USA > Missouri > A History of Missouri from the Earliest Explorations and Settlements Until the Admission of the state into the union, Volume III > Part 8
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Ferries across the great rivers to facilitate travel were not want- ing. At Bainbridge, Thomas Nichols and Jacob Littleton operated a horse ferry. A good road led from Golconda to a point opposite Bainbridge, and a road was cleared out in 1815 from Bainbridge to Winchester (then the county seat of New Madrid county) and the White river settlements in Arkansas. These ferries were then im- portant enterprises, and the horse ferry-boat established at a point opposite Alton was indispensable to emigrants moving from the east to the Boonslick and Salt river settlements in Missouri. Roswell Merrick and Company were proprietors of this ferry, and Eneas Pembroke, manager. Of course the ancient ferry at St. Louis, es- tablished by Piggott, was the great crossing on the river and in constant operation after the acquisition of the Territory. Charles Findley in 1805 had a ferry near the mouth of the Ohio across from the Tywappity bottom, and a road led from there to New Madrid. Lorimier maintained a ferry before and after the Louisiana purchase,
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at Cape Girardeau. John Ross operated a ferry on the lower Missis- sippi, at what is now known as Gray's Point, then known as Ross' . Point. Other ferries were maintained farther up the river by William Hickman, James Edmonds, and by John Hays near the mouth of Apple creek in Cape Girardeau county. On the Missouri Alexander . McCortney was authorized to establish a ferry below Tavern Rock opposite the Femme Osage settlement in about 1805 and at St. Charles David McNair had a ferry in 1816, and advertised that he would "always be ready to convey passengers" with safety and dis- patch.2 In 1813 Lockhardt had a free ferry at St. Louis - why free is not recorded - but St. Louis has not enjoyed that advantage since. Alexander Nash in 1817 ran a large flatboat and two keel-boats as a ferry, and says that he lands "just above the sand-bar." Further up on the Missouri, in Howard county, ferries were maintained by Thomas Haldiman, Adam Woods and Shadrach Barnes, and in Cooper county by William Shackleford and William Potter, the first in that vicinity being established by the Cole boys at Boonville.27
Then, as now, roads and ferries were intimately connected with the establishment of postal facilities. . In no single respect was the change of government in the country more conspicuous than in the immediate demand for posts. During the Spanish dominion, no one dreamed of demanding the establishment of post-routes and post-offices; but after the acquisition of Louisiana post-offices were established without delay in the old Spanish posts of St. Louis, Ste. Genevieve, New Madrid, Cape Girardeau and St. Charles. In St. Louis the post-office, in 1805, was in the residence of Rufus Easton on Third street under the Courthouse hill. In no subject were the early American settlers more interested than in the mail facilities, and constant complaints were made about the uncertainty and irregularity of the mails. Postage was from 25 to 75 cents a letter, and a letter from New England was sometimes three months on the way.28 Kaskaskia seems to have been the distributing center, at first, for the Missouri Territory. The earliest post-road in Illinois
26 Other ferry keepers at this period were, George Boli, over the Maramec, (1804); John B. Belland, at St. Charles, (1805); George Smirl, on the Maramec, (1806) and Lawson Lovering in 1819; Nathaniel Carpenter, at St. Louis, (1807); Silas Bent, across the Mississippi to Kahokia, (1807); Samuel Saloman, across the Mississippi, at St. Louis, (1809) and Elisha Ellis in 1819, opposite Harrison. John Jolly kept the first ferry across the Lamine river, still known as Jolly's ferry. The Jollys settled in that region in 1812.
" History of Cooper County, by Levins and Drake, p. 127.
" Letter of Lewis Bissell, in the Archives of Missouri Historical Society.
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POSTAL FACILITIES
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extended from Vincennes to Kaskaskia; afterward this road was extended from Vincennes to St. Louis, and a route established from Golconda and Shawneetown to Cape Girardeau. In 1816 Rufus Easton at that time Delegate in Congress, in a circular letter advised the people that a post-route had been established from St. Charles via St. Johns (Charette) to Fort Cooper on the Missouri, and to Potosi from St. Louis, and that service once a week will be estab- lished from New Madrid, via Cape Girardeau, Jackson, Ste. Genevieve, Potosi and Herculaneum to St. Louis. But the mails were irregular, and the "Gazette" and other newspapers in the Territory frequently mention that the mails and papers were not received. On the 3Ist of January, 1820, the "Gazette" says it was reported "that Mr. Lindsley, agent for the post-office department has this day started four or five bushels of mail for St. Louis by special contract." The "Independent Patriot" of Jackson, says, in February of the same year, speaking of publications from east of the Alleghenies, that "none of the papers are less than 34 days from the press, and many nearly double that time," and the editor suspects that "some of the public documents have been purloined by the deputy-postmasters on the way." Also note is made of the fact that the mail road from Golconda does not bring the papers to Jackson, but that the mail is sent by way of Kaskaskia, although that route is longer. The "Ste. Genevieve Correspondent" com- plains that "it takes fourteen days to three weeks to get mail from St. Charles, a distance of eighty miles, and that the country printers have got tired of grumbling, * that more attention should be paid in Washington to the mail establishments of the western country."
In 1819 the Postmaster-General, for the first time, called for pro- posals to carry the mail by steamboat between Louisville and New Orleans. Occasionally the mails were robbed; thus on February Ist, 1819, a highwayman, on the route between the Boonslick country and the mines, took the mail-bags, horse, blanket, bridle and spurs of the mail carrier. The robber was described as "about six feet, short sandy hair, both ears cropped and branded in the left hand; dressed in a buckskin dress and had a rifle." Among the earliest postmasters of the Territory were Rufus Easton at St. Louis; Joseph N. Menefee at Cape Girardeau; J. Frizzel and E. N. DeLashmutt at Jackson; Robert P. Clark at Boonville; Samuel H. Lewis at Stout's Fort; Uriah Devore at St. Charles; - at Ste. Genevieve; Nathaniel Patten at Franklin, and Duff Green at Chariton. Duff Green was
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one of the first mail contractors in the territory, carrying the mail between St. Louis and Franklin. Nothing gives a better idea of the immense difference in conditions then and now than this postal service. It shows at a glance the difference in transportation facili- ties. Now mails are carried daily by railroad to the most remote territory, while carrying mail on horseback is the exception; then, it was the rule. Bradbury remarks that, in 1809, the "post" of St. Louis was dispatched by a mail rider from Louisvile in Kentucky, a distance of more than three hundred miles, through a wilderness, and from various causes was often retarded for several weeks.29 The distances traveled by these mail riders at that time, in good and bad weather, along bridle paths in many instances, were immense; and but fifteen minutes were allowed for opening and closing the mail at all offices where no other time was specified. Free white persons only were allowed to carry the mail.30
In 1819 Return J. Meigs, Postmaster-General, advertised the following and only mail routes in Missouri territory: Mail from Shawneetown to St. Louis, once a week; from Smithland on the Ohio river to Cape Girardeau, once a week; from Vincennes to St. Louis, once a week; from St. Louis to Florissant, once a week; from St. Charles to Missouri Crossing, Montgomery Courthouse, St. John's, Prices, Bibbs and Big Bonne Femme to Howard Court- house, once a week; from St. Charles by Clark's Fort, Stout's Fort, Lincoln Courthouse and Clarksville to Louisiana, once a week; from St. Louis to Bellefontaine, Portage des Sioux by Lincoln Court- house, once a week; from Harrisonville in Illinois, by Herculaneum, Potosi, St. Michael's (Fredericktown), Wayne Courthouse (Greenville), Hick's Ferry, Doct Betties, Ballinger's (Bollinger), Currans (Current river), and Laurens (Lawrence) Courthouse to Poke Creek on White river, once in two weeks; from Harrisonville by Herculaneum, Mine à Breton (Potosi) Ste. Genevieve to Kaskaskia, once a week; from Kaskaskia by Ste. Genevieve, Tucker's, Hughes', Cape Girardeau and Winchester to New Madrid, once a week; from Ste. Genevieve to St. Michael's (Fredericktown), once in two weeks; from Ste. Genevieve by Potosi to Franklin Courthouse, once in two weeks; from Franklin Courthouse to Montgomery Courthouse, once in two weeks; from Jackson to Wayne Courthouse, once in two weeks; . " Bradbury's Travels, p. 11.
30 In 1809-12, Henry Wilton, an Englishman from Cambridgeshire, was the mail carrier between Kentucky and the settlements south of St. Louis in upper Louisiana.
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NEWSPAPERS
from Potosi by Bellevue to the Murphy settlement (Farmington), once in two weeks.
The first newspaper published west of the Mississippi was estab- lished by Joseph Charless, in 1808, in St. Louis, under the name of the "Missouri Gazette," but the following year the name was changed to the "Louisiana Gazette," and in 1812 the name was again changed to "Missouri Gazette and Public Advertiser." In 1810 the proprie- tor of the "Gazette" was not too proud to receive from his subscribers "pork and flour as pay for subscriptions." Charless sold his interest in the paper to James C. Cummins September 12, 1820, and Cummins in 1821 again disposed of his interest to Edward Char- less, son of the original owner, and who changed the name from "Missouri Gazette" to "Mis- souri Republican."31 In 1815 Mr. Joshua Nor- JOSEPH CHARLESS vell founded the "Western Journal" as an opposition paper, Drs. Far- rar and Walker, W. C. Carr, C. B. Penrose, Robert Wash and William Christy advancing one thousand dollars to start the paper. The paper proving a financial failure he sold the printing office to Sergeant Hall, a lawyer from Cincinnati, who, in 1817, began the publication of the "Western Emigrant," but soon abandoned it. The St. Louis "En-
31 The first number of the "Missouri Republican" was issued Wednesday, March 20th, marked "Vol. I, No. I," Edward Charless, proprietor, and Josiah Spaulding, editor; from which it appears that it was intended to discontinue the "Gazette" and start the "Missouri Republican" as a new paper. The editor says: "The Missouri Gazette having changed its name as well as its proprietors, it may not seem improper to give some account of the manner in which it will be conducted," and the readers are then told that "it is not intended that this paper shall be the hand-maid of party," and further that " the paper is offered to all fair and candid discussion, but personality and indecency will not be tolerated. Whatever has a tendency to preserve, strengthen and per- petuate the Union, and aid the prosperity and respectability of our own State in particular, will always find admittance in this paper." And finally the editor and proprietor says, that "The Missouri Republican will continue to be sent to the subscribers of the Gazette should they not withdraw their names within three months." Nathaniel Paschall was an apprentice in the printing office of the "Gazette" in 1814-in 1828 became one of the proprietors of the "Re- publican," but in 1837 sold out his interest. In 1844 he was Associate Editor with Col. A. B. Chambers and after the death of Chambers, chief editor of the paper. He was born in Knoxville, Tennessee, and his father before he removed to St. Louis located at Ste. Genevieve. George Knapp, also for many years con- trolled the paper; was born in Orange County, New York, in 1814 and came to St. Louis with his father in 1819. In 1827 he became a printer's apprentice in the "Republican" office, and in 1834 acquired an interest in the paper which he retained until his death in 1883. A noble character, and who I am proud to say was my friend.
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quirer" was next published by Isaac N. McHenry and Evarist Maury, two young men from Nashville, Tennessee, the first number appearing in July, 1819. Thomas H. Benton was for a time editor of this paper. Apparently great rivalry and bitter personal feeling existed between these early newspaper men of St. Louis, and as a consequence Char- less was assaulted by McHenry. The Rev. Joseph Piggott happened to be present when the assault took place and tried to prevent it, but was hindered in his laudable effort by Wharton Rector, who with . pistol in hand ordered him to desist. McHenry died January 21, 1821, aged 24 years, and the paper was thereafter published by P. H. Ford and Walter B. Alexander; and, in 1824, Duff Green became the sole proprietor. Tubal E. Strange in July, 1818, began to publish the "Missouri Herald" weekly at Jackson in Cape Girardeau county, and this publication was continued until 1820; in April, 1820, Dr. Zenas Priest acquired an interest in the paper. The "Missouri Intelligencer" was established by Benjamin Holliday, July, 1819, at Franklin. He sold his interest to John Payne who for a time pub- lished the "Intelligencer," then sold it to Holliday again who then transferred his interest to Nathaniel Patten and John T. Cleveland; but afterward Cleveland sold out to Patten. In November, 1820, the "Independent Patriot" was founded in Jackson by Stephen Reming- ton, Minor W. Whitney and William Creath, as partners doing business under the style of Stephen Remington and Company; subsequently James Russell " purchased the interest of Whitney and Creath, and in 1824 was the sole publisher of this journal. Robert McCloud, in June, 1820, started the "Missourian " at St. Charles with the motto. "Intelli- gence is the life of liberty." In the following year, the "Ste. Genevieve Correspondent and Record" was established by Thomas Foley. Incidently it may be observed that at that time the papers usually abbreviated the name Missouri, "Mri." Robert McCloud was elected the first public printer by the first legislature of the State." The first book printed west of the Mississippi was a compilation of the laws of the "Territory of Louisiana" made by Frederick Bates
"2 A native of Rockbridge county, Va .; came to Missouri about 1820; removed to St. Louis in 1826. In Virginia he married Miss O'Bannon, and after her death in St. Louis married a daughter of Silas Bent. Died at Oak Hill, May 3, 1850.
" He was a stepson of Joseph Charless, Sr .; his mother, whose maiden name was Sarah Jourdan, first married McCloud and after his death married Mr. Charless at Louisville, Ky., in 1798. Robert McCloud married Daphne, daughter of Hon. Benjamin Emmons, of St. Charles, in 1821, but she after- ward obtained a divorce from him.
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SCHOOLS
in 1806, containing 312 pages, Joseph Charless being the printer. In 1821 William Orr printed in St. Louis a "Manual or Handbook Intended for the Convenience in Practical Surveying" for John Messinger."
During the Spanish occupation of the country, a few schools existed in upper Louisiana in the most important villages. Almost imme- diately after the acquisition of the Louisiana Territory efforts were made to establish schools and seminaries of larger pretensions. The first convention which met in St. Louis, in 1805, urged that land be set apart to maintain "a French and English school in each county, and for the building of a seminary of learning, where not only the French and the English languages, but likewise the dead languages, mathematics, mechanics, natural and moral philosophy and the prin- ciples of the constitution of the United States should be taught." As early as 1806, Benjamin Johnson taught an English school on Sandy creek in what is now Jefferson county. In 1808 the Ste. Genevieve Academy was organized with twenty-one trustees, composed of the leading citizens of the town, and Mann Butler, who afterward be- came the historian of Kentucky, was employed as teacher of this academy." The trustees began the erection of a handsome building on a beautiful hill commanding a wide prospect, but before the build- ing was finished the enterprise, not being sufficiently supported, failed. In 1809 Christopher F. Schewe proposed to open a French and Eng- lish grammar school in St. Louis; however he did not meet with much encouragement. Isaac Septlivres also advertised in 1809 that he would teach drawing, geography, mathematics and French grammar at the house of Vincent Bouis. In 1810 George Tompkins, who afterward abandoned school teaching for the law and became judge of the Supreme court, opened a school in St. Louis. In 1812 he and Septlivres formed a copartnership to teach a French and English school, but in 1814 Tompkins gave notice that he would "decline keeping school any longer," and consequently offers for sale his
" A native of Massachusetts; born at West Stockbridge in 1771; a mathe- matical genius; moved to Illinois in 1804; appointed Deputy United States Surveyor; taught mathematics at Peck's Rock Spring Seminary; member of Illinois Constitutional Convention in 1808; Speaker of the first General Assem- bly of Illinois. Died in 1846 on his farm in St. Clair county, Illinois.
" These trustees were the Rev. James Maxwell, Vicar General of upper Louisiana and priest of the village, Jean B. Valle, Jacques Guibourd, St. Gem Beauvais, Francis Janis, J. B. Pratte, Dr. Walter Fenwick, Andrew Henry, Timothy Phelps, Aaron Elliott, Nathaniel Pope, Joseph Spencer, John Scott, William James, Thomas Oliver, Joshua Penneman, William Shannon, George Bullit, Henry Dodge and Henry Diel.
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HISTORY OF MISSOURI
furniture, bookcase, and "a ten-plate stove." In 1813 Mrs. Jane Richards commenced a school in the house of Manuel Lisa on Second street. In 1815 James Sawyer advertised that he would open a seminary, and in the following year he and the Rev. Timothy Flint associated themselves together to continue "their school on the Lan- casterian system." But in Ste. Genevieve a school was established by Joseph Hertich in 1815, in which the pupils were educated accord- ing to the more enlightened methods of Pestalozzi. Hertich was a native of Switzerland, and hence, no doubt, came under the influence of this great master. With his mother, brother and sister, in about 1796 he came to America, landing at Baltimore, where his mother died from the hardships endured during sea voyage. Some time afterward with his brother and sister he moved west across the moun- tains to Danville, Kentucky, and engaged in teaching school there. In 1810 he went from Danville to Ste. Genevieve, with a stock of merchandise, and which he carried on a pack-train through the wilderness of Southern Indiana and Illinois, then still to some extent tenanted with Indians. Arrived at Ste. Genevieve he opened a store and sold goods for several years, but with indifferent success. In 1815, he retired from this business and resumed teaching. He opened a school, which in the true Pestalozzian spirit he named "The Asylum." In this school he first in Missouri applied the educational theories of Pestalozzi, as contra-distinguished from the so-called Lan- casterian system, and put into practical play the ideas of Pestalozzi as expounded in his book, "How Gertrude Teaches her Children," and as practised by Pestalozzi himself. He was deeply interested in his educational work, his constant aim was to foster the moral develop- ment of his pupils, to build up the higher and better principles of human nature, and he felt a sympathetic interest in all their work. Abstract knowledge was not allowed in his school to supersede moral culture or religious impulses and knowledge. The fact that three of the pupils of the "Asylum" finally reached the United States Senate and that others although not filling positions so conspicuous became useful and distinguished in their local spheres, makes evident the value of his educational work, and the value of good teachers and good schools in a community. Augustus C. Dodge, United States Senator from Iowa, Hon. George W. Jones, also a United States Senator from the same state and Hon. Lewis V. Bogy, United States Senator from Missouri, enjoyed the benefits of his instruction at the "Asylum." Rev. Thomas Parrish Greene taught school in territorial Missouri
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TEACHERS
in 1820, advertising in Jackson that "ten or twelve students can yet be received in my school at this place." The Rev. Timothy Flint also conducted a school at Jackson before this time. An academy was incorporated at Potosi, in 1817, to be under the direction of seven trustees who were to be elected annually. Every free white male inhabitant of 21 years and upwards, who sub- scribed and paid $5 towards said academy, and who was a resident of the country one year preceding was entitled to vote for trustees of the school at the annual election. Rev. J. M. Peck and Rev. James E. Welch, in 1817, opened a school near the post-office in St. Louis; and in the following year, in St. Charles, Peck with Rev. Mr. Robin- son opened a school there. But in 1820 Peck advertised in the "Mis- souri Gazette" that "he has resumed school teaching at the Baptist church, in St. Louis." Rev. Salmon Giddings, in 1816, shortly after his arrival taught a school there with Miss Mary L. Elliott whom he engaged as instructress; the terms - "first class, per quarter, five dollars; second class four dollars, and for the small Misses three dol- lars per quarter." In 1818 A. C. Van Hertum, from Amsterdam, advertised in the "Gazette" that he would teach the "Forte Piano" and clarionet; and in the same year Mrs. Perdreauville advertised her "young Ladies' Academy." A seminary for young ladies was also established by Mrs. Francis Carr in St. Louis, in 1820, "number limited to twenty; reading, writing, English, grammar, composition, geography, etc.," and in addition "embroidery, paper-work, wax- work, filigree, grotto-work, gilding on wood, fine needle work, netting, fringing and plain sewing and marking" were all taught in this semi- nary. P. Sullivan and Frances Regnier were instructors in English and French, in 1821, in St. Louis. Miss LeFavre gave notice in 1820 that she would teach French and English; and Francis Demailliez and Elihu H. Shepherd issued a prospectus of the St. Louis College shortly after, in which they say that "The most careful attention will be given to the morals and conduct of students, but no influence exercised over religious sentiments." The settlers near Herculaneum had a school in 1815, and in the two following years. In 1818 St. Mary's Seminary was organized and located near Perry- ville in Perry county. In Jackson subscription "schools of various degrees of excellence" existed from the time the town was laid out in
" Of this academy Gen. Wm. H. Ashley, Lionel Browne, John Rice Jones, Moses Austin, David Wheeler, Moses Bates, Benjamin Elliott, James Austin, William Perry, John McIlvain, Andrew Scott, John Hawkins, and Abram Brinker were named as trustees in the Act.
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1815. Henry Sanford taught the first grammar school there; and Beverly Allen, in 1820, advertises in the "Missouri Herald" that he will teach Latin. Primary schools were taught by Mrs. John Scripps, Mrs. Edward Criddle and Miss Rhoda Ranney. Dr. Barr was another early teacher in the town. The first school in Cooper county was established in 1813 by John Savage about one mile from the present town of Boonville; but owing to Indian troubles, after a month this school was discontinued.37 In 1817 William Anderson had a school near Concord church in this county, and in the following year a number of other schools in different sections were opened by Andrew Reavis, James Donaldson, Judge L. C. Stephens, Dr. William Moore and Rollins.38 In Franklin, Howard county, a number of educational institutions were opened at an early day. Grey Bynum, a South Carolinian by birth, who came to the Boonslick country with the first settlers was the first school teacher in that then remote land, and taught forty-three children residing in the settlement within a radius of five miles from the school. Among his pupils were Polly Smith, Matthew Kinkead, Dorcas Kinkead, the Alcorn chil- dren, the Hubbards and others." The school books used were the "Kentucky Preceptor" and "Lessons in Elocution," all published in about 1800. The school house was a cabin which stood about a mile from the Hickman graveyard, not far from the present town of Franklin. Thus early the foundations of an educational system were laid in that part of Missouri. A few years afterward James Daly advised the public, in the "Intelligencer" that he was able to instruct sixty or seventy students by having his son assist him "in the capacity of usher." J. B. C. Washington opened a select school in Franklin in about 1820 to instruct young ladies and gentlemen "in most of the solid and ornamental branches of a polite English education," and Mr. Fisher advertises that he teaches the classics, and that he "will take under his immediate superintendence a limited number of young men." Pleasant Grove Academy was established by Alonzo Pierson, in Howard county, soon after the organization of the State government. George Crawford was another early teacher, a resident of Cooper
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