USA > Missouri > A History of Northeast Missouri, Volume I > Part 18
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Between the years 1830 and 1840 quite a number of able and distin- guished ministers entered Northeast Missouri. In Callaway and Boone counties were R. L. McAfee, Thomas Durfee, Benjamin F. Hoxie, J. L. Yantis, F. R. Gray, Luther H. Van Doren, R. G. Barrett, Joseph Ander- son, Hiram Chamberlain, Job F. Halsey, Allen G. Gallaher, Thomas Lafen, Charles W. McPheeters, James Gallaher, Ezra S. Ely, Harvey H. Hays, John H. Agnew, Charles W. Nassau, F. B. McElroy and J. M. C. Inskeep. The Rev. J. J. Marks was supplying Hannibal church and a number of the professors in Marion College were supplying nearby churches.
Presbyterians have ever boasted of their zeal for education. So the handful of men in the sparsely populated country felt they must have a college or university. They procured a charter for Marion College from the Missouri legislature of 1831-1832. A five thousand acre tract of land in Marion county, not far from Palmyra, was secured through the zeal and generosity of Colonel Muldrow, temporary buildings were erected and agents sent for students and money. The Rev. Hiram Chamberlain was one of the agents. The college faculty was as follows: The Rev. William S. Potts, president; the Rev. Job F. Halsey, professor of mental and moral philosophy; the Rev. Sam C. McConnell, M. D .. professor of natural philosophy and mathematics; John Roche, profes- sor of Latin and Greek; Samuel Barschell, professor of German, French and Hebrew; Allen Gallaher, principal of the preparatory school. The theological faculty was as follows: The Rev. Job F. Halsey, professor of pastoral theology; the Rev. James Gallaher, professor of didactic theology and sacred eloquence; the Rev. Ezra Styles Ely, D. D., pro- fessor of polemic theology and biblical literature and sacred criticism ; the Rev. Charles W. Nassau, assistant professor of Oriental languages.
As Dr. James A. Quarles has written: "This enterprise had con- nected with it some of the grandest men who ever trod the soil of Mis- souri and labored for the salvation of souls-Nelson, Potts, Ely and Gallaher."
The tottering foundation on which this magnificent superstructure was reared soon gave way and let it fall into utter ruin, but not until some men had been educated who did great good in Missouri and else- where.
It may be doubted whether this great educational failure was due entirely to financial causes, for just at this time there occurred a widely felt ecclesiastical earthquake that shook the Presbyterian church apart. This was the division caused by the New and Old School differences. Northeast Missouri held to the Old School.
The great war of the states, which began in 1861 and lasted three years, had the effect of bringing the Old side and the New side to see eye to eye as they read the Old Confession of Faith and they became one again in 1869.
But the assembly of 1866 had ordered that, if any synod or presby- tery admitted to a seat any minister or elder who had signed a paper called Declaration and Testimony (which set forth the spirituality of the church) before such minister or elder had appeared at the bar of the assembly and had been tried, such synod or presbytery was dissolved- ipso facto.
The Synod of Missouri, meeting in Boonville, October, 1866, refused by a strong majority to carry out the order of the assembly. The ad- herents of the assembly could not therefore carry off the records as they had 'been told to do and were obliged to walk out themselves. That left the Synod of Missouri independent, which position it held until the year 1874, when by vote of presbyteries it decided unanimously to
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unite with the Southern church. Not a minister nor a church in North- east Missouri, so far as known to the writer, objected to this union. The Cumberland Presbyterian ministers were early in Northeast Missouri. The Church of Antioch in Pike county, organized in 1818, was the first of these churches. Missouri is one of the states in which their work had been abundantly rewarded. Only two other states, Tennessee and Texas, show a more abundant ingathering of souls. In the territory of Northeast Missouri they counted at the time of their union with the Presbyterian, U. S. A., 102 churches and 6,469 members; while the Pres- byterian, U. S. A., counted but thirty-three churches and 2,683 members. The Cumberland church has not failed in the matter of Christian edu- cation. For a good many years they maintained McGee College, but when Missouri Valley College was put forward as the college of the synod, they did not hesitate to transfer their work and their gifts to the school in which the better education could be given and better fitted for the greatest degree of usefulness. It would be easy . to mention many
WESTMINSTER COLLEGE, FULTON
men in the Cumberland church who, in education, oratory, influence and piety, are the equals of any to be found in the other churches, but we are not here to praise the living and the work which has been done by those who have passed on is their adequate praise and is left to be spoken by those who knew them personally or who knew those who knew them.
Prior to 1850 there had been a few schools organized for classical and advanced education. One of these was in Marion county in the neighborhood of the Big Creek church. From this school came many fine students to enter Westminster as soon as it was chartered and manned with a faculty. Another school was the Fulton College, started in 1849, at the head of which was Prof. William H. Van Doren. When synod located Westminster at Fulton, largely through the influence and energy of the Rev. W. W. Robertson, pastor of the Fulton church, this Fulton College, with Prof. Van Doren, was merged into it. West. minster was chartered by the legislature of 1853 and sent out its first graduate, the Rev. James G. Smith, a Baptist preacher. Up to the present time, 1912, it has sent forth four hundred graduates, among
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whom are many ministers, lawyers, doctors and teachers. It survived the war of the states and when, in 1909, its main building was burned it erected, as soon as possible, Westminster Hall, a fine science hall, a commodious dormitory, and an elegant president's mansion. It has a beautiful campus, which together with Priest Field, the grounds for athletics, amount to thirty-six acres. The endowment is $222,149.77.
The list of the presidents of Westminster College is as follows: Dr. Samuel Spahr Laws, 1855-1861; John Montgomery, D. D., 1864; Nathan L. Rice, D. D., 1868-1874; M. M. Fisher, D. D. (Acting) 1867-1868; 1874-1877; C. C. Hersman, D. D., 1881-1887; W. H. Marquess, D. D., 1888-1894; E. C. Gordon, D. D., 1894-1898; John H. McCracken, Ph. D., 1899-1903; John J. Rice, LL. D. (Acting) 1898-1899, 1903-1904; David R. Kerr, Ph. D., D. D., 1904-1911; Charles B. Boving, D. D., 1911.
During the administration of Dr. McCracken the Synod of Missouri, U. S., offered a joint interest in and control of the college of the Synod of Missouri, U. S. A., which was accepted. Each synod elects twelve trustees. The student body numbers this year, 1912-13, one hundred and fifty-five.
The Synodical College for young ladies was located in Fulton by the Synod of Missouri, meeting in Cape Girardeau October 10, 1871. The college secured its charter and the board of trustees named by the synod was made a corporate body in December, 1871. The Rev. W. W. Robertson was the man by whose influence and zeal the college was located in Fulton. He had managed a college for girls in Fulton for ten years and his zeal for this work had never flagged. He was the president of the board as long as he lived and his zeal has descended to his grandson, W. Frank Russell, who has managed the local and financial interests of the college for a number of years. Daniel M. Tucker gave a special piece of ground, nearly four acres, as the site of the col- lege and the citizens of Fulton and Callaway county gave the money for the building, which was completed in the summer of 1873. The presidents of the college have been : T. Oscar Rogers, 1873-1874; the Rev. W. W. Hill, D. D., 1874-1875; the Rev. B. H. Charles, D. D., 1878-1889; the Rev. H. C. Evans, D. D., 1889-1894; the Rev. J. W. Primrose, D. D., 1894-1896; the Rev. T. Peyton Walton, 1896-1901; the Rev. J. M. Spen- cer, 1901-1906; the Rev. Colin A. McPheeters, 1906-1909; Miss Mary Allison, 1909-1912; Prof. L. J. McQueen, 1912.
At Rensselaer, in Marion county, is a school under the care of the Rev. J. E. Travis, which gives to boys and girls the educational work which fits them for entering college. The Rev. Mr. Travis, a Presby- terian minister and pastor of Big Creek church, has been, with a com- petent corps of teachers, carrying on this academic and preparatory work for several years. His school is one that is recognized by the Synod of Missouri as one of its valued educational helps. Mr. Travis not only teaches and trains the youth in that immediate neighborhood, but canvasses Northeast Missouri for boys and girls and is prepared to take care of them in his students' boarding house.
Lindenwood College for young ladies is located in St. Charles, but can hardly be reckoned a Northeast Missouri school. It is under the care of the St. Louis Presbytery and its scholars are largely from St. Louis, south Missouri, and Illinois. It has recently erected a $40,000 dormitory, which enables it to care for one hundred boarding pupils. Arrangements are being made for other improvements. The local attendance of seven or eight girls is scarcely appreciable. Dr. George F. Ayres is a Northeast Missouri man and a son of Westminster. He makes a successful president and all Presbyterians will rejoice in his success
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and in the immense good he is doing in sending out so many educated Presbyterian Christian girls.
Before this history is brought to a close, there is one feature of the planting and growing of Presbyterianism, often lost sight of, that de- serves to be spoken of, and that is the work of the men who cultivate the small fields in the country. It is from such fields that, later on, much of the best material in the churches of the cities and larger towns has drifted. This was the kind of work which filled up the evening of the life of Dr. W. W. Robertson, a work that gave him delight, organ- izing churches such as Ebenezer in Callaway, Laddonia and Vandalia in Audrain, caring for them almost free of cost to them and like a grandfather spoiling the children by failing to develop in them the thought that they were able to take care of themselves.
And if I may for one time go over the line that separates the dead workmen from the living workers, I will mention the Rev. Franc Mit- chell, who for years fed the weak churches of Callaway county, with one break in his life when synod made him one of its evangelists, then falling back into the same sort of work in Chariton county, feeding its half dozen weak churches with the gospel of God's grace. This is the sort of men, not rare, that silently, like corals of the sea, create the foun- dation work on which, later on, other men rear strong and mighty churches.
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CHAPTER VII THE LITERATURE OF THE LAND By Edgar White, Macon
The section represented in this history has produced some writers who are known wherever books and papers are printed. It has produced many who have enjoyed a state and national reputation. The average Missourian is an impressionist. If he can't write a story he can tell one. The art seems his by birthright. Samuel L. Clemens ("Mark Twain") found his real mission when he began to put on paper stories told him by Missourians. The New York Sun once said of him that when "The Jumping Frog of Calaveras County" was printed, his standing as a writer of humor was assured. The "running gears" for the yarn were related by Judge John A. Quarles, Clemens' uncle, to the village folk at Florida, Missouri, and many years afterwards, while in the far west, "Mark Twain" put the flesh and blood and sinew on, and a ripple of laughter ran 'round the world. While in other lands, amid a new people. Clemens saw, as perhaps he never did here, the possibilities of Missouri character for fascinating fiction.
Northeast Missouri writers have given to the public history, fiction, humor, poetry, and technical work that will stand the most critical anal- ysis. In the great white-topped ox wagon of the pioneer was always a Bible and oftentimes a history of the American Revolution and Shakes- peare and Scott. Later his children read the lives of American and Eng- lish statesmen, promptly selecting their ideals, and being able to give their reasons therefor. Many a log cabin contained quite an extensive library. While the state was making history the germs were sown that ripened into the substantial literature of yesterday and today.
The splendid, far-reaching valleys of northeastern Missouri, the majestic river that ripples against its eastern shores, the towering hills, the fertile prairies, the alert, active characters one sees everywhere- all these are like a beckoning hand, inviting narration. The impulse is irresistible. It is like placing before the artist a beautiful form to repro- duce on his canvas.
That the writers of northeastern Missouri have risen to the situation is attested by the large list of books they have written. If the section is not known from. ocean to ocean it is not the fault of the men who wielded the pen. They have covered the ground, and they have done it with an earnestness and a loyalty that are as touching as the subject is important.
MARK TWAIN AND HIS WORKS
To the little hill village of Florida, in eastern Monroe county, belongs the distinction of being the birthplace of Mark Twain. November 30. 1835, was the date of the future humorist's entrance into the world. John Marshall Clemens, the father, was a native of Virginia. He
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was of a roving disposition, moving from one locality to another, always in search of a place where he could grow up with the boom. Having tried various settlements in Kentucky and Tennes- see, he moved to Florida in 1833, became a merchant and justice of the peace. In 1839 he moved to Hannibal, where he lived, until his death, March 24, 1847. Mark Twain went to school at Hannibal, and afterwards learned to set type in the office of the Journal, a paper pub- lished by his older brother, Orion. Printers who worked in the office with Mark Twain are quite certain they never discovered any outcrop- pings of the genius which was to develop later, unless mischievousness was an indication. Orion did the editorial work, and until he had be- come broken down in health by writing too late at night, it is said his compositions were excellent. The old printers who remember Mark Twain as a companion of the case say they do not recall his having written anything for the paper. In those days, Mark Twain's ambition-like that of nearly every other normal boy in Hannibal-was to go on the river.
MARK TWAIN
Literature never appealed to any of them as a man's work. To be really great, one must be either a pilot or a pirate. Letters were at the foot of the professions.
At the age of twenty Mark Twain took passage in the "Paul Jones" for New Orleans. He had read somewhere that a party organized to explore the headwaters of the Amazon river had failed to complete its purpose satisfactorily, and he set out with thirty dollars in his pocket to finish the job. At New Orleans he learned the next ship for the Ama- zon river would not sail for short of ten or twelve years, and that even if it sailed in the morning he didn't have money enough left to pay his passage out of sight of New Orleans. So he prevailed on Horace Bixby, pilot of the Paul Jones, to teach him the river for $500, to be paid out of his first wages.
In time, under Mr. Bixby's skillful tutorage, Mark Twain became a first class pilot, and, during the years of his after life, he always referred Vol. 1-U
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to that accomplishment with peculiar pride. The men of the river he never forgot. His fame as a writer was well established before "Life on the Mississippi," was published in 1883, but that work greatly. en- hanced his reputation. It is said that the Emperor of Germany once told Mark Twain that he regarded that as his best book.
Mark Twain admits in his fascinating river story that he stole his pseudonym from Colonel Isaiah Sellers, whom he refers to as "that real and only genuine son of antiquity." Colonel Sellers was an experienced riverman. Whenever there was any controversy among the pilots and Colonel Sellers would happen along he would always settle it. He was the high court on river disputes. He knew so much more about the craft than the other pilots did that they became jealous of him. The old gentleman, while not of a literary turn, yet was fond of jotting down brief paragraphs containing general information about the river, and handing them to the New Orleans Picayune. These he signed "Mark Twain," a term used by the leadsman indicating "twelve feet."
Colonel Sellers would prove all his points by referring to conditions before the other pilots were born, and they had no way to answer him.
It chanced one day that the Colonel printed a paragraph in the Picayune which seemed to lay him open to ridicule. Young Clemens took advantage of the opportunity and tried out his first attempt at humor on the ancient mariner. He showed what he had written to several of the pilots, who grabbed it and rushed to the New Orleaans True Delta with it.
Clemens said that he afterwards regretted it very much because "it sent a pang deep into a good man's heart." There was no malice in it, but irresistible humor, and it made all the rivermen laugh. From that day henceforth Colonel Sellers did the young pilot the honor to profoundly detest him. He never sent another paragraph to the news- paper and never again signed his name "Mark Twain" to anything. When Clemens heard of the old man's death he was on the Pacific Coast engaged in newspaper work, and as he needed a nom de guerre, he con- fiscated the one which had been used by Colonel Sellers. Feeling him- self bound to maintain the reputation so long held by the original owner of the name, Mark Twain wrote: "I have done my very best to make it remain what it was in his hands-a sign, symbol and warrant that what- ever is found in its company may be gambled on as being the petrified truth."
Mark Twain left the river in 1861. when his brother. Orion, was appointed Territorial Secretary of Nevada. Orion, who always took a fatherly interest in Sam, took him along with him. The trip overland to the far west and the wonderful experiences there Mark Twain told in his first book, "Roughing It." At one time he and a mining friend, Calvin Higbie, struck a blind lead and were millionaires for ten days. According to the law those locating a new claim had to do some active development work within that time. Both Higbie and Clemens under- stood the importance of this, but it happened that Clemens was called away to attend a sick friend and that Higbie had gone into the mountains on very urgent business. Neither knew of the other's mission and each left word for the other to be sure and do the work required by the law before the ten days were up. They returned to their mine just in time to find a new company relocating it.
While in the depths of the blues over his loss of a fortune, Clemens was tendered a position as city editor on the Daily Territorial Enterprise. That fixed his career and from the hour he entered the sanctum of that live western newspaper his pen was never idle. Some of his earlier work, and Clemens frankly confesses it, was rather wild and woolly; he wrote
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all sorts of yarns, without much regard to their foundation, but he was always interesting and the people loved to read his work. From Nevada he drifted to San Francisco, became very hard up again, and was created special ambassador to write up the Sandwich Islands for the Sacramento Union. His work on the Islands began to show the real mental status of the man. While humorous in the main, there was a great deal of solid information given. The beautiful descriptive sketches he sent his paper could only have been produced by a literary genius. The reception accorded them by the public caused the production of "Roughing It."
"Innocents Abroad" followed. This was a narration of a voyage made by Mark Twain and a ship-load of American sightseers to Europe and portions of Asia and Northern Africa. That time the humorist trav- eled as a plain citizen. None of the great men of Germany, France,
ENTRANCE TO MARK TWAIN CAVE
Great Britain or elsewhere thrust through the crowd to shake his hand. But after the quaint and humorous "Innocents Abroad" was published, and one or two other works of equal originality and merit, the crowned heads of the old countries were eager to extend the welcoming hand to the distinguished American when he touched their shores.
"Tom Sawyer," "Huckleberry Finn," "Gilded Age," "The Prince and the Pauper," "Life on the Mississippi," "A Tramp Abroad," etc., all became successful books, and were read with pleasure everywhere.
In 1884 Clemens established the publishing house of C. L. Webster & Co., in New York. The failure of the firm, after it had published General Grant's Personal Memoirs, and paid over $250,000 to his widow, involved Mr. Clemens in heavy losses; but by 1900 he had paid off all obligations by the proceeds of his books and lectures.
The Missouri General Assembly of 1911-12 appropriated $10,000 for a statue of Mark Twain to be erected at Hannibal.
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The Clemens home on Hill street, Hannibal, was built by John Mar- shall Clemens in 1844. It was purchased by Mr. and Mrs. George A. Mahan and dedicated to the city of Hannibal, May 7, 1912. The dedi- catory exercises occurred May 15. A large crowd of citizens and people from abroad attended. The presentation address was made by Mr. Mahan. Mayor Charles T. Hays accepted on the part of the city. Other addresses were made by Walter Williams, Dean of the School of Jour- nalism of the University of Missouri, and the Rev. Ben-Ezra Styles Ely, Jr., D. D.
The old house has been repaired and strengthened, though every out- ward feature has been faithfully retained. It is used as a sort of Mark Twain Memorial House, and contains many interesting relics and sou- venirs of the dead writer. On a bronze tablet is the bust of Mark Twain, and underneath it these words: "Mark Twain's life teaches that poverty is an incentive rather than a bar; that any boy, however humble his birth and surroundings, may by honesty and industry accomplish great things .- George A. Mahan."
There are some who think that when Mark Twain exiled himself from Missouri, he lost his love and veneration for the state of his birth. Those who knew him best, however, will never believe this. He visited Han- nibal several times after his place had been fixed among the literati, and on each occasion showed the warmest affection for his old friends and his native state. If any greater proof were needed, the record stands in his own words, as he lay upon a sick bed, near the close of his life, when engaged upon his autobiography. While the shadows crept about him he looked through the gloom and sketched a picture of the old state as he had seen it in his boyhood days, and for tenderness and beauty no writing he ever did surpassed it. It showed where his heart was, and the unexpected depth of his feeling.
Mark Twain died at Redding, Connecticut, April 21, 1910.
EUGENE FIELD
Eugene Field, who was born in St. Louis, September 2, 1850, enjoyed an advantage which Mark Twain did not-that of a good university edu- cation. This gave a smoothness and sureness of touch to his work that caused it to excel Mark Twain's earlier efforts. While attending the Missouri University Mr. Field wrote a poem which he styled "Sketches from College Life, by Timothy Timberlake." It was descriptive of a college prank-the capture and painting of the college president's horse, "Bucephalus." Although several words were misspelled and but little attention paid to commas, one of Field's college chums, the late Lysander A. Thompson of Macon, begged the author for the manuscript, frankly telling Field that he knew one day he would be a famous writer and poet, and that he wanted as a souvenir what he understood to be Mr. Field's first real effort at poetry. The manuscript is still preserved by a rela- tive of Mr. Thompson's. It has been submitted to several who were closely associated with Field in newspaper work, and they unhesitatingly pronounce it a genuine Field manuscript. Of course its main value is the fact, as asserted, that it was Mr. Field's first venture of the sort. It was highly appreciated by the college boys, and even members of the faculty forgot the stern call of discipline to smile at the young poet's good-natured and clever rhymes.
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