USA > Missouri > A History of Northeast Missouri, Volume I > Part 40
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Schools came early. Among the first, if not the first, was one taught by Joseph James, four miles above Cote Sans Dessein (in the Ramsey settlement, probably), in the winter of 1818-19, according to T. J. Fer- guson, who has been previously quoted. Another pioneer schoolmaster was "Peg-leg" David Dunlap, who taught in Fulton shortly after the town was laid out.
POPULATION AND POLITICS
The population increased rapidly, going from 1,797 by the state census in 1821, to 6,159 by the government census in 1830. Its growth in political prominence was equally rapid. Besides having a member of the first constitutional convention of the state (Jonathan Ramsey), it had a state senator (Benjamin Young), and later it furnished a speaker of the lower house of the general assembly (John Jameson) in 1834 and 1836. It was Whig in its politics and remained so practically until the Civil war, though occasionally a Democrat succeeded in being elected to office. Notwithstanding its Whig tendencies, it always gave a major- ity to the county candidates for congress. Thus Albert G. Harrison," who was elected representative in congress in 1835 as a Van Buren Democrat, got the highest vote given that year to any of the four candi- dates for congress. Capt. John Jameson,t another Democrat, who served three terms in congress between 1839 and 1849, also carried the county every time he was a candidate.
Mr. Harrison and Mr. Jameson were among the first, if not the first, resident lawyers in the county. Mr. Jameson opened an office in Fulton in 1826, and Mr. Harrison arrived and entered upon practice the fol- lowing year. Both were men of strong intellect and fit to lead at the bar and in public affairs. Mr. Jameson followed Mr. Harrison in congress, and was the last man from Callaway county to serve in the Federal legislature.
SOME OLD TOWNS
The exact facts concerning the establishment of the old towns of the county probably have been lost forever. Either Smith's Landing, lo- cated on the site of the present town of Mokane, or Elizabeth, the first county seat, was the next village after Cote Sans Dessein. Thomas Smith settled on the ground on which Mokane is built in 1818, and soon afterward established a cemetery and boat landing. Samuel Ewing, his brother-in-law and the brother of Capt. Patrick Ewing, looked after his business at the landing. The cemetery is still used as a burial place by
* Mr. Harrison was born in Mount Sterling, Ky., June 26, 1800. He was edu- cated at Transylvania University, graduating in law therefrom in 1821. He moved to Fulton in 1827, and the next year President Andrew Jackson appointed him one of the visitors to attend the annual examination at West Point Military Academy. Mr. Harrison died September 7, 1839. He lived on the hill west of Fulton, near the residence of David Smith. Jilson P. Harrison, of Calwood, is his nephew. The family is not related to the other Harrisons of the county.
t Captain Jameson was a son of John Jameson I of Montgomery county, Ken- tucky, who settled one mile north of Fulton in 1824, and built one of the first mills in the vicinity of Fulton. It is said that Mr. Jameson ran a race all the way from St. Louis to get the land on which he settled. He was a member of the first board of trustees of the Fulton Primitive Baptist church, while his son was one of the two founders of Christian University, at Canton, Mo. Captain Jameson disagreed with . Senator Thomas Hart Benton while he was a member of congress and was bitterly denounced by Benton in a speech made in Fulton in 1849. Captain Jameson died in 1856. He has grandchildren and great-grandchildren living in Fulton at the present time.
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the descendants of the early settlers. The village was known as St. Aubert for many years.
Thomas Miller, who came to Callaway county from Kentucky in 1826, laid off the town of Millersburg, and named it for Millersburg, Kentucky. The records of the county recorder's office show that the plat of Millersburg was filed on October 15, 1829. It ranks next to Fulton in age.
Portland was laid off September 8, 1831, by John Yates, the Fulton merchant, and Eden Benson. Possibly the village was in existence at an earlier time. Later on Portland became second in importance only to Fulton, and at one time was its commercial rival. Located on the Mis- souri river, shipping to and from it was easy, and it became the trading point for a large section. It retained its importance as a tobacco market up to about 1885, when the culture of tobacco in the eastern part of the county became unprofitable.
Williamsburg was laid off December 1, 1836, by B. G. D. Moxley, and named for Harvey Williams, who was interested with him and a man named Compton in the town's first store. It is said that the town was founded two years before it was laid off.
Concord, which is not even a postoffice now, was laid off by John Henderson on May 18, 1837. Before the building of the Chicago & Alton Railroad it was an important trading point.
IN WAR TIMES
Two companies were furnished by the county in the Black Hawk Indian war, one going out under Capt. John Jameson, and the other under Capt. Patrick Ewing. They did duty alternately at Fort Pike, on the Des Moines river, just below Keokuk, Iowa. Jameson's com- pany left Fulton on July 1, 1832, and was away about six weeks, while Ewing's company went out in August and was on duty even a shorter time. Neither company participated in an engagement.
The next war to which the county furnished men was that with Mexico. Company H of Doniphan's immortal expedition was organized in Callaway with Capt. Charles B. Rodgers" as captain. The roster of the company contained 111 names, according to Connelley's "Doni- phan's Expedition" (pp. 560-62). The company left Fulton on June 14, 1846, going to Fort Leavenworth, where it joined the remainder of the expedition, and then began the most spectacular military exploit in the history of the United States. The company served throughout the campaign and was mustered out at New Orleans on June 21, 1847.
THE EARLIEST NEWSPAPERS
The Banner of Liberty, established in Fulton in 1839 by Warren Woodson, Jr., was the first newspaper t published in the county. The
* Captain Rodgers also served in the Florida Seminole war under General Gentry, and was wounded in the right arm by an arrow at the battle of Okeechobee. He was born in Halifax, Va., on November 25, 1802, and was married to Aletha Ward Over- felt in Bedford county, Virginia, in 1823. With his family he moved to Fulton in 1830, and a few years afterward bought and moved to the farm now owned by James Walthall, just east of the Fulton city limits. He died there on March 7, 1853, and is buried in the Rodgers burying ground, eight miles northeast of Fulton. His son, Charles Austin Rodgers, served under him in the Mexican war; and in the Civil war was a captain in the Confederate army. The family of Captain and Mrs. Rodgers consisted of eight sons and four daughters.
t Though the county has a number of newspapers at this time, and has had many which had brief careers, only two of her newspapers have attained considerable age. The Telegraph is one and the Fulton Gazette is the other.
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STATE HOSPITAL FOR THE INSANE, No. 1, FULTON
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next year Isaac Curd and William Henry Russell became editors of the paper and changed its name to Fulton Reformer. Then the name was changed to Western Star by W. A. Stewart, who remained in charge until 1843. Duncan & Goggin in 1845 named the paper Fulton Tele- graph, and as the Telegraph it is still published .*
STATE HOSPITAL FOR THE INSANE
, The State Lunatic Asylum, now known as State Hospital No. 1, was located in Fulton on July 13, 1847. An act of the general assembly ap- proved on February 16, 1847, provided for the establishment of the insti- tution, and for its location within the counties of Boone, Callaway, Chari- ton, Cole, Cooper, Howard, Moniteau and Saline. When the commis- sioners met at Boonville, bids from a number of counties were received, and the offer of Callaway to give about five hundred acres of land and $11,500 in money being considered the best, the institution was located here. The contract for erecting the building was let to Solomon Jenkins on April 16, 1849, for $47,450, and the building was opened and the first patient t received on December 2, 1851. The first superintend- ent of the hospital was Dr. Turner R. H. Smith,# and the first treasurer Judge James S. Henderson." Charles H Hardin, afterward governor
"Two men of special brilliance have been engaged in newspaper work in Fulton. One was John G. Provines, who owned an interest in the Telegraph before the Civil war, and later published the Press in 1868, and the other was Maj. Nathan C. Kouns, who published the Fair Play in Fulton about 1871.
Mr. Provines was a native of Boone county, a graduate from the State Univer- sity an able lawyer, and a writer and speaker of rare ability. He was prosecuting at- torney of Callaway county from 1873 to 1875, and afterward editor of the Moberly Monitor many years. He died in Randolph county about 1902. Mr. Provines wrote a small hand, but formed every letter perfectly, and spelled and punctuated cor- rectly, and printers were always eager to get his copy. Though his style would be called florid now, for his day it could not be excelled. The writer believes he knew more about English composition than any person it has ever been his fortune to know. He was tall, erect and knightly, and even in his old age, his long hair and beard were very black.
Major Kouns was a son of Dr. Nathan Kouns, one of the pioneer physicians of Fulton, and was born here in 1831. At the age of nineteen he was professor of Greek and Latin in a school at Palmyra. Afterward he studied law and practiced in Fulton until the beginning of the Civil war, when he joined the Confederacy. Just after the war he was married to Miss Anna Overton Rootes, daughter of Commodore Thomas Rootes, of the United States navy, and also of the Confederate States navy. He was a prolific writer of fiction, and besides many magazine stories, published two books "' Arius, the Lybian, " in 1883, and "Dorcas, the Daughter of Faustina," in 1884. The last-mentioned book had a large sale in France, Germany, England and Scotland. ""Arius, the Lybian" is a story of the time of Constantine, and critics have said of it that it showed a profound knowledge on the part of its author of the religious factions of that time. Major Kouns died in 1890. His only child, now Mrs. Thomas C. Martland, resides in Fulton.
t The first patient at the asylum was Thomas Green, who came from Jackson county and was discharged March 22, 1852. H. F. Hunter, of Callaway county, who was admitted December 4, 1851, was the second patient. Charles H. Thorp, of Adair county, who was admitted October 30, 1852, and was the sixty-third patient received, died at the institution on August 4, 1911. He was dismissed from the hospital four times, but each time had to be returned. More than 10,400 patients have been treated at the institution, while 1,100 are under treatment at this time.
# With the exception of about seven years, Dr. Smith was superintendent of the Fulton State Hospital from the time it opened until his death at the institution on December 21, 1885. He was born in Christian county, Kentucky, February 21, 1820, and was a practicing physician at Columbia, Mo., when he was 21 years old. His wife was Mary E., eldest sister of Governor Charles H. Hardin. Few men who have lived in Fulton have left such an impress upon the life of the town, and prob- ably none has been more universally loved.
T Judge Henderson was a son of Daniel Henderson, who died July 10, 1828, and was the second person buried in Old Auxvasse Presbyterian church cemetery, the
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MISSOURI SCHOOL FOR THE DEAF, FULTON
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of Missouri," was the first secretary of the board of managers, and held the position about ten years. The hospital was closed during part of the Civil war and the buildings and grounds were used for barracks by the Federal soldiers stationed in the county, and also for a military prison in which to confine disloyal Callawegians.
THE MISSOURI SCHOOL FOR THE DEAF
Before the Hospital for Insane was opened, an act of the general assembly was approved on February 28, 1851, establishing the Asylum for the Education of the Deaf and Dumb (now officially designated The Missouri School for Deaf) and giving to it forty acres of ground and a two-story frame building that had belonged to the State Lunatic Asylum. The building was located near the building now used by the State Hos- pital as a cow barn, and there, on November 5, 1851, under the superin- tendency of Prof. William Dabney Kerr t the first pupil # of the school was enrolled. In 1854 the present site of the school was bought and a building costing $28,000 erected. The school closed during the first two years of the Civil war, part of which time its buildings were used by soldiers as barracks, but was reopened in April, 1863. The principal buildings of the institution were burned on the night of February 27, 1888, making the largest fire in the history of Fulton. Temporary build- ings were provided immediately, and the work of the school went on with- out interruption until new buildings could be erected. Professor Kerr continued as superintendent of the school until February 28, 1889, when
first person buried in the cemetery being a child. Judge Henderson was a success- ful merchant in Fulton from 1830 to 1842, when he was elected county treasurer, and he held that position until he became treasurer of the State Hospital. He con- tinued as treasurer of the hospital until 1883. Judge Henderson assisted in organ- izing the Fulton branch of the Western Bank of Missouri in 1857 and became its cashier, continuing in the position until after the beginning of the Civil war, when the bank went into liquidation. The bank was the first in Callaway county, and the Callaway Bank of Fulton traces its history back to it. Judge Henderson lived many years in a brick house on the north side of the courthouse square in Fulton. His wife was Emily Boone, daughter of Jesse Boone and granddaughter of Daniel Boone. He died in Fulton in January, 1884.
* Eighteen of the twenty-three years Governor Hardin was engaged in the active practice of law were spent in Fulton and here he made the reputation which gained the governorship for him over Gen. Francis Marion Cockrell, who afterward served thirty years in the senate of the United States. Governor Hardin located here in February, 1843, and from 1848 to 1852 was circuit attorney of the district of which Callaway was a part. He was the county's representative in the general assembly in 1852, 1854 and 1858, and was elected state senator in 1860. The next year he moved to Audrain county, where he resided until his death. He was elected governor of Missouri in 1874 and served a term of two years. He was born in Trimble county, Kentucky, on July 15, 1820, and died at Mexico, Mo., on July 29, 1892.
t The life of Professor Kerr will be forever associated with the history of deaf- mute education in Missouri, while his memory is more revered by the deaf of the state than that of any other man. His father, the Rev. John Rice Kerr, was super- intendent of the Kentucky School for Deaf at Danville, prior to 1833, and Professor Kerr took up in that school the work to which he devoted his life. In Danville he was the school-mate of the Rev. Dr. W. W. Robertson, and partially through Dr. Robertson's influence, he came to Missouri. Professor Kerr was born in Charlottes- ville, Va., on March 4, 1808, and died in Fulton May 24, 1889. His only surviving child is Mrs. John T. Brown, of Fulton.
Rather notable in connection with the history of the Missouri School for Deaf is the fact that it has had only four superintendents during its existence Professor Kerr from the beginning to 1888; Dr. J. Nolley Tate from 1888 to 1896; Dr. Noble B. McKee from 1896 to 1911; and Prof. S. T. Walker, the present superintendent. # John Isaacs, a Jew boy of St. Louis, was the first pupil enrolled in the school. The enrollment the first year was 17, and the second year it was increased to 54. The enrollment now is 299.
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he resigned, after having devoted fifty-eight years of his life to the edu- cation of the deaf.
WESTMINSTER COLLEGE
The first institution of higher learning in Fulton was the Fulton Fe- male Seminary, established in 1850 by the Rev. William W. Robertson, D. D.,* and at which many of the older women of the county received their education. It was the only school for the higher education of women between Fulton and St. Louis, and during the ten years of its existence was liberally patronized, the attendance probably averaging 125. The school opened in a dwelling located somewhere southeast of the State Hospital, and soon afterward moved into buildings Dr. Robert- son erected for its use at the corner of West Seventh and Walnut streets. Mrs. Anna Patton Vance, then and now a resident of Fulton, was the first graduate, receiving her diploma in 1854. At the beginning of the Civil war, Dr. Robertson moved to Concord, where he opened and con- ducted a seminary for boys and girls several years.
From Fulton College, chartered by the officials and members of the Fulton Presbyterian church on February 18, 1851, grew Westminster College, which is the only college in Missouri outside of St. Louis that did not suspend during the Civil war. Fulton College was owned inde- pendent of both presbytery and synod, and located on the site of the present Westminster. The college opened on the first Monday in October, 1851, and the record shows that the Rev. Benjamin Y. George, D. D., then a resident of Fulton and now a resident of Elmwood, Illinois, was the first student enrolled. Prof. William Van Doren was the presi- dent and during the first session fifty students were in attendance.
Westminster College t dates from February 23, 1853, when it was chartered by the general assembly of Missouri, though Fulton was se- lected as the site of a Presbyterian college for boys at a meeting of the Synod of Missouri in Fulton in October, 1852. The corner-stone of the main college building and the corner-stone of the School for Deaf were laid on July 4, 1853, when the principal address was delivered by the Rev. Nathan L. Rice, D. D., afterward president of the college. The main building, with a chapel building which was erected in 1887, was de- stroyed by fire on the night of September 10, 1909. James Green Smith,#
* The strong tendency of Callaway county toward Presbyterianism is due more to the work of Dr. Robertson than to any other person. He became pastor of the Fulton Presbyterian church in 1840, and during the remainder of his life preached and taught in the county. He held many revivals, and through his earnest exhorta- tion, many persons united with the church. Besides establishing Fulton Female Semi- nary, Dr. Robertson was a member of the board of trustees of Westminster College from the time the college was established until his death, and for nearly forty years served as president of the board, and also during part of the time acted as its finan- cial agent. He had a strong personality-was, indeed, a thorough-going Scotch Pres- byterian. He was born in Danville, Ky., December 6, 1807, and died in Fulton May 29, 1894. Mrs. Robertson was a daughter of the Rev. Robert H. Bishop, D. D., an early president of Miami University, Oxford, O. She died about six months before her husband. Two of their daughters-Mrs. Anna Russell and Mrs. Nicholas D. Thurmond-live in Fulton.
t An excellent history of Westminster College from 1851 to 1887 was written by the late Rev. M. M. Fisher, D. D., once acting president of the college, and in 1903, Prof. John Jay Rice, LL. D., at that time acting president, revised the manu- script and. brought the history up to date. Through the generosity of the late Mr. S. J. Fisher, of St. Louis, who was a member of the college board, the work of his brother and Dr. Rice was published in book form for the golden jubilee of the college, which was celebrated in October, 1903.
# Mr. Smith was a son of Elkanah Smith, who lived on "the old Smith place." at the northeast corner of Fulton, and in early times had a carding mill there. Of Mr. Smith, the "History of Westminster College" (p. 11) says: "That the first
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afterward a minister of the Baptist church, who received his diploma in 1855, was the first graduate from the college. Judge Robert McPheeters, an honored and respected citizen of Fulton, who was a member of the class in 1856, is the oldest living alumnus of the college. Westminster has had the following presidents : Rev. Samuel Spahr Laws, D. D., Rev. John Montgomery, D. D., Rev. Nathan L. Rice, D. D., Rev. Edwin Clif- ford Gordon, D. D., John Henry MacCracken, Ph. D., Rev. David Ram- sey Kerr, D. D., and Rev. Charles Brasee Boving, D. D., the latter being in office now. Though the college is in its sixtieth year, all of, the men of this illustrious list are living except Dr. Montgomery and Dr. Rice. After the Civil war the college for many years was controlled entirely by the Synod of the Southern Presbyterian church, but in 1901 the Sy- nod of the Northern church united in its control and support.
FLORAL HILL COLLEGE
Floral Hill College, located on the west end of what is now known as Hockaday Hill, just south of Fulton, was opened about 1858 by the Rev. P. K. Dibble, a minister of the Christian church, who came from Ohio. A comfortable frame college building was erected, a large and competent faculty was employed, and until the beginning of the Civil war the school enjoyed a substantial patronage. Many of its pupils were from places outside of Callaway county, and but for the war, the college doubtless would be in existence today.
THE FIRST RAILROAD
Callaway county's first railroad, which was one of the first completed in the state, was built between the years 1855 and 1857,* and extended from Cote Sans Dessein back into the county a distance of about seven miles to a large cannel coal mine. The road was built by the Callaway Mining and Manufacturing Company, which was chartered by the gen- eral 'assembly in 1847, and was composed of Pennsylvania men. The company planned to mine cannel coal extensively and also to extract oil from the coal and sell it for commercial uses. To this end the railroad was built, a mine opened, an oil factory erected, and a number of houses constructed for the use of employes. After the railroad was built, the product of the mine was shipped on a steamboat owned by the company. The enterprise proved to be a wild dream of riches, for the demand for the coal was small, while the oil-producing scheme was impracticable.
graduate chose to preach the gospel may be regarded as an earnest of what God had in store for an institution planted for his glory-an earnest of what that college, as we trust, will be to the latest generation, a fountain of genuine Christian educa- tion and a school of the prophets. Mr. Smith was born in Fulton in 1830; he was ordained to the full work of the ministry in June, 1859, and died the thirtieth of June, 1863. His end was peace. His body rests near the old homestead and near the college of which he was the first graduated son."
* This date may be slightly inaccurate. A right-of-way deed on file in the recorder's office of Callaway county, dated December 10, 1855, contains the state- ment that the railroad was then under construction, while a deed of trust which was given in November, 1857, indicates that it was completed then. James Smith, who was for many years a coal operator in the Fulton fields, came to Missouri in 1854 to prospect the mine for the company, and work on the railroad had not begun at that time. Tousand Foy, of Fulton, who was born at Cote Sans Dessein in 1842, but spent part of his boyhood elsewhere, does not remember the date of the building of the railroad, and neither does John W. Hord, of Tebbetts, who was a boy at the time and saw the locomotive used by the company unloaded from a flat boat at Cote Sans Dessein. It is said that Samuel Maycock, once a Fulton coal miner and operator,. was the engineer on the locomotive.
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The property was sold at trustee's sale in St. Louis on September 26, 1859, and was bid in at $95. At least part of the first railroad track built by the company was laid with wooden rails, and it is said that horses were the first motive power used. The whole of the track was finally laid with steel rails and a locomotive put into use. Traces of the old track and the foundations of the building are yet to be found.
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