A History of Northeast Missouri, Volume I, Part 6

Author: Williams, Walter, 1864-1935, editor
Publication date: 1913
Publisher: Chicago, New York, The Lewis Publishing Company
Number of Pages: 731

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* History of Marion County, page 236.

HISTORY OF NORTHEAST MISSOURI

Hubbard, of Marion county, with eight men and two wagons, joined our company there.

The committee returned from St. Joseph and reported that the chol- era was killing tens of thousands of gold seekers on the Salt Lake route. We concluded it was better to take the longer route, and get to California alive, than to try the northern route and be buried where the coyotes would feast on our dead bodies. The company crossed the Missouri river at Fort Leavenworth, thence southwest about twenty miles, and struck the Santa Fe trail. We met with Col. Congreve Jackson's com- pany from Howard county, of twenty men and five covered wagons, each drawn by four mules, and consolidated trains for mutual defense and convenience. Colonel Jackson was a hero with General Doniphan, in his celebrated victorious march and captures in Mexico, in the War of 1846, and had large frontier experience. He was appointed captain of the combination when together, Captain RoBards of the 2d division when separate.

Near the Arkansas river several immense herds of buffalo were seen and chased and a number killed. Colonel Jackson rode his very fleet black mule, and took good care of John L., his special pet, whose horse was gentle, spirited and fast, who had his father's hair trigger ounce ball pistol belted to him, with which he shot several buffalo. They met with several roaming bands of Shawnee, Pawnee and Comanche Indians west of Tucson, Colonel Jackson passed through the Pemo Indian village several miles and camped. Captain RoBards' division halted before reaching the village, and formed corral for the night. A stranger with two horses rode up and asked to eat with us. A number of Indians recognized the stranger's pack horse, and told our interpreter, Pedro, that he was stolen by some Mexicans several months before. The stranger hotly refused to give up the horse. The chief came with several hundred armed warriors and surrounded our corral. They were angry and excited about the horse, and became very noisy and demonstrative. The crisis was urgent. Captain RoBards held up some trinkets, and said to the interpreter, tell the chief to take his choice. The pistol was in his face. The chief waved his men away, and accepted some of the beads and rings. The horse was taken away by the Indian owner. About ten o'clock our sentinel heard a rapid tramping of feet, as of horses running. Our company was aroused at once, when Colonel Jackson galloped in at the head of his men to our rescue. One of our men had slipped away when our lives appeared in jeopardy. He found Colonel Jackson's camp and told him of our danger. Forthwith through the night came Jackson and his men to our rescue. The danger had passed, but we had a joyful, hilarious time. We felt the prompt, fearless, friendly act was brave and noble, and we loved them for it.

We passed en route through Los Angeles on Christmas day. The mule teams went into Mariposa mines only one day before the ox teams, ten months and four days from Hannibal. Not a man had died from disease on the trip, while tens of thousands of emigrants died of cholera on the Salt Lake route. In Sacramento City, in the fall of 1850, Captain RoBards voluntarily gave his slave Green, his liberty, the first slave set free in California. A band of Digger Indians had elected Green their chief. His owner said, Green had been faithful in Kentucky, in Missouri, and for two thousand miles from Hannibal, Missouri, to Sacramento, and a chief of free men ought to be a free man.

THE PIONEER IN WAR TIME

Our pioneer section of this state was troubled with war in various forms and against divers enemies. Black Hawk, the Indian insurgent,

HISTORY OF NORTHEAST MISSOURI

with his desperate braves was the object of a hurried call by the governor for several thousand militia. Black Hawk's famous defiance was, "The white men do not scalp the head, but they do worse, they poison the heart." He and his band of bloodthirsty braves were exterminated by the military forces of Illinois.

The Mormon war was almost a bloodless affair. But it manifested the spirit of Missourians to drive polygamy from the state even though it paraded in ministerial uniform.

The Mexican war of 1846 was a brilliant historic reality. The pio- neers of Northeast Missouri furnished about two thousand soldiers under General Doniphan. The length of the march, the hardship of the cam- paign, conferred great renown upon them. For they defeated the enemy in every battle. The pioneer military spirit was splendidly illustrated in their matchless achievements.

WILLIAM H. DULANY, PIONEER

A prominent and wealthy citizen of Hannibal has the providential distinction of having lived more than ninety-four years, and all that period in the charming locality, Northeast Missouri. He is a native of the Louisiana Purchase territory, antedating the state of Missouri sev- eral years. William H. Dulany was born in what is now Howard county, Missouri, on January 9, 1818. He has three sets of great grandchildren. He is in fine health, and will probably yet live a full century. He is a member of the Christian church, and enjoys the blessings of a long prosperous and useful life.

CHAPTER III THE PART WOMAN PLAYED By Mrs. Lily Herald Frost, Vandalia

Whether preserved on Babylonian bricks, or painted on American bluffs, whether written by the stylus of Herodotus, or the typewriter of today, history is the record of the achievements of man, of his con- quest of the world. Since Deborah's wild war cry stung the Jews to victory, but few women have been instrumental in shaping the des- tinies of peoples or of nations. And yet she is the sub-structure of every world accomplishment. The toil of her hands, her sacrifices, her insight, the deep red depths of her heart and the clear-eyed vision of her intellect constitute the welding material that has given strength and permanency to every establishment of civilization, whether of the old world or of our own Northeast Missouri.

REAL HISTORY AROUND THE HEARTH

The real history of a country is made around the hearthstone where women reign. The written page with its record of the deeds of men and the rise and fall of governments is only the result.

The wanderlust is an ineradicable heritage. When the Aryans swept down out of Asia and flowed up into Europe, they set in motion vast currents that still move and sway. They developed instincts that still pervade the blood, and men and women are ever traveling hither to new countries, to far horizons, to wide silences, ever going, ever traveling, seeking the Land of the Heart's Desire. The same tang in the blood sent adventurous spirits across the great America, and shortly over a century ago the tide of life paused here on the edge of this won- derland, with silent mysteries brooding along the shores of its wide and shining river, which came from they knew not where and went on toward the sea, slowly moving, majestic. Into this land of mystery man came like King Arthur of old, to let in the light. Nor did he come alone. But hand in hand with his mate, the woman. And who shall say which was the stronger of the two? Back of them many days' journey they had left friends, home and comparative comfort. Here on the bosom of the mighty river their souls were charged with the awe of vast potentialities. Under a sky of brilliant blue, a slow-moving, molten-yellow stream moved sluggishly away between caressing low lying shores. Stretches of low lands, miles of crowned bluffs. Pleasant val- leys, the songs of birds, alluring, beckoning, but everywhere mystery, mystery! What Indians lie in wait under that dense foliage! What wild beasts lurk in those fair valleys! What pestilences hang along that sluggish stream! They were heroic, those pioneer women. What wonder their descendants walk like free women, with head erect, squared shoulders, meeting the issues of life with courage, with serene eyes.

HISTORY OF NORTHEAST MISSOURI

IN THE SILENCES OF THE FORESTS

"Thales remained motionless four years. He founded philosophy." Succeeding the first valorous onslaught on the primitiveness of North- east Missouri, passed a long period of pioneer years, apparently con- secutive duplicates. The women spun and wove and cut-Clotho, Atro- pos, and Lychesis, weaving a wonderful cloth of character, an even, beautiful fabric for their daughters and granddaughters for inter- minable generations. While the good pioneer women brewed like sybils and wove like the Fates, great dynamic forces were silently at work and suddenly it seemed the light was shining. In less than three gen- erations life swung the limit, from pioneer days to the crest of civiliza- tion. The needle was relegated for the sewing machine, electric range and fireless cooker had supplanted the open fireplace, and instead of her woven, hand made dress, grandmother can now wear the most per-

SYNODICAL COLLEGE FOR WOMEN, FULTON

fect of garments, turned out ready to wear by great industrial fac- tories.

Civilization is the hand of God working through human agencies. When the work has been accomplished and valley and plain are blos- soming like the rose the transformation seems a bit of alchemy, or a fairy tale. Man may claim the glory, but God planned, and also while Adam delved Eve span.

BETSY BIGGS

When Betsy Biggs moved from Kentucky in 1817 with her husband, Wm. Biggs, she brought courage and character and a copy of Milton's Paradise Lost along with slaves and gold and furniture and a brood

HISTORY OF NORTHEAST MISSOURI

of incipient citizens. The book is a keynote. Her myriad descendants are lovers of learning, and that Betsy read the book is proven by her giving her son the name of the blind poet. The book, nearly 200 years old, was printed in Edinburgh in 1726 and is now the most valued pos- session of a granddaughter. And Betsy was a wonderful wife, for when she was to be baptized along in the late twenties, her husband rode horseback from Jefferson City, where as representative he was attending the legislature, to observe the rites. And Betsy was a lover of fine horses and on her eightieth birthday went riding, keeping up with the best of them. So strong was this love that it passed into the line of inheritance and wherever a drop of it prevails it means the pos- session of blooded animals and fine stock. Her women slaves were taught by her to weave and they were splendid weavers, their wool and linen being remarkable for their smoothness. When one of her sons was mar- ried he and also his bride were dressed in fine white linen from head to foot, even wearing moccasins of deer skin tanned to a gleaming white. It is related that one of the guests, a pioneer gallant, slipped while playing ball and had the misfortune to get his pants so stained with grass that he disappeared in mortification from the company. Betsy Biggs was a woman of such strong character that among her descend- ants scattered over several counties of northeast Missouri, her name is still a household word. "How strangely do things grow and die and do not die."

MADAME SCHRIEFER

Only sixty years ago when plodding, ponderous oxen brought Madame Schriefer, a buxom German bride, through forests, over streams and by perilous ways to the broad prairie, her chief assets were courage and youth. Away from her one room log house, prairie grass, taller than herself, stretched as far as eye could reach, shimmering in the gleaming sun. Green flies buzzed all day and rattlesnakes were so numerous it was not safe to venture out without a stout stick. This precaution Mrs. Schriefer forgot one day when going a few yards away to the well, but when she stepped on a coiled snake her presence of mind did not desert her, and she quickly plumped her bucket over the writhing mass. There were no clubs and receptions in Mrs. Schriefer's day and when her husband made his three days' journey to the mill, her chief diversion was climbing a ladder to the roof of her home, where she would sit and watch the deer go plunging through the tall grass.

No Parsee guarded his altar fires more zealously than this indis- pensable article was guarded on this hearthstone. Matches were as rare as jeweled stickpins and one day when not a live coal could be found in the ashes, a member of the family rode several miles to pro- cure some from their nearest neighbor, on the return journey riding with extended arm that the rushing wind might fan the coals and keep them alive. A spacious home now replaces the log cabin and from where Mrs. Schriefer watched the deer, now can be seen fallow fields rimmed with trim hedges, sleek, fat cattle grazing, winding railroads, and a breath of peace and opulence.

As a mark of great favor she brings out her spinning wheel and shows you how she spun a stout woolen thread and a fine linen thread. "Life was not hard. No, it was fun. I could do it again," says this indomitable will that helped to make the prairie blossom as the rose.

Here and there in Missouri are women who have seen King Arthur pass, slaying the beast, felling the forest and making broad pathways for the children of men. There are only left a few of these dear roses

HISTORY OF NORTHEAST MISSOURI

of yesterday, clinging tenaciously to life, faded, fragrant, anachronisms among the gorgeous bloom and blossom of today.

Unfortunate indeed is one who does not count among their acquaint- ance, one of those dear, sweet, white-haired women, in their eyes linger- ing shadows and depths and vision of things long swept out by the march of progress. When they say, "I remember," it has the folk lore quality of "Once upon a time." Their story is of those who have gone before in the wilderness.

Each pioneer woman, living or dead, has added her little molecule to the glory of the state. The story of each life is a sentence in its his- tory. They are the real uncrowned heroines of Northeast Missouri. And how pitifully few are left. How close they are to the brink of the river. Every day one slips over. Perhaps another decade will mark their complete passing. How strangely odd and lonely the world will seem then.

THE PIONEER WOMAN

Every community has its few pioneer women. Their stories all vary and are yet all typical and can be duplicated in any other com-

WILLIAM WOODS COLLEGE FOR WOMEN, FULTON

munity. Men and women are so absorbed in the mad rush of the day, commercial, industrial and social, that they do not realize that the last human documents of an historic period are yet open about them. That it is their rare and rich privilege to read if they will. The names and deeds of these women are never written in books. They have only been written in human lives. They have done nothing great, only lived and loved, and made a home and borne children, and lived life to the full of its circumstance, the while unconsciously fostering, developing, crystallizing the character of the men and women of their state. The historic atmosphere is elusive but their story should have a setting of the wildness of a century ago. It should be told about a cavernous fireplace with the tea kettle hanging on the crane, and the blaze creep- ing up through the hickory logs and breaking into flickering, waver- ing shadows on walls of log and puncheon floor. In the gleam and glow the old wrinkled faces would turn magically back to the smooth bloom and beauty of youth.

HISTORY OF NORTHEAST MISSOURI

CEVILLA INLOW ROLAND

In 1829 civilization had not disturbed the lair of the panther or frightened away Indians, or bear or deer. Cevilla Inlow Roland, who was born in that year, can still, despite the lapse of eighty-three years, remember vividly, the screams and cries of "painters" that made the nights hideous and kept her shivering even in her warm featherbed.

Around her pioneer log home lay primeval wildness, and once while fishing in a nearby stream a bear came stealthily padding on a log across the water, but was seen in time and the children fled in wild haste. The Indians, too, kept the hearts of the children in terror. They only: committed occasional depredations, but this fact conveyed no feeling of safety to the children of pioneer days, and one day Cevilla was almost paralyzed with fright to see an Indian brave with feathers in his hair emerge from the woods and loom suddenly, before her. Though he only demanded a handshake, the courtesies of the high- way were ignored and she fled precipitately, followed by sounds that her imagination freely translated as challenging war whoops. This was in 1838 and the last Indian Cevilla ever saw.

In 1843 when Cevilla was fourteen years old tragedy came into the pioneer home. The mother died. Also the old black mammy slave of the family. There were ten bodies to feed and ten bodies to clothe in that stricken household, and the work devolved solely on Cevilla, aged fourteen, and her sister, aged sixteen, and nobly they rose to the work.

From early dawn to late candle light these two young heroines wrought miracles with their slender, marvel-working fingers. They carded the wool into rolls, spun it into thread, wove the cloth, made the garments worn by the father, the children and the cabin of little darkies. Sometimes there was a roll of jeans to spare and it was car- ried on horseback forty miles away to the town and exchanged for tea and coffee and many coveted things. There was not an article used in that home, sheets, table cloths, towels, but these two girls, fourteen and sixteen, had not made.

A happy feature of this pioneer life was the over-Sunday visits of a certain pioneer swain, who arrived on Saturday evening and stayed until Sunday evening. He gave the ladies the latest news, how mother was checking the cotton she had in the loom, and they were keeping their sheep pens covered to keep out the wolves. And they roasted wild turkey in the fireplace and carefully turned the corn pone on its board taking on a golden brown before the mellow blaze. On the man- tel overhead ticked the clock bought from a journeyman peddler the year Cevilla was born and as the flames danced eyes sent fair speech- less messages.

The same old clock ticks today in a dignified, deliberate way as befits its years. Underneath it sit the same swain and the same maid telling the story of that far-off day. "It was hard work," says Cevilla, "but we didn't know anything else." By the side of the clock in a hand- carved frame is a silhouette, ninety years old, of Cevilla's mother, Anne Briscoe, born in 1803, a Bourbon county, Kentucky belle, and a woman of great strength of character. How else could her daugh- ter, aged fourteen, have accomplished the work she did in that pioneer home ?

MRS. LEWIS COONTZ

Though one of the first settlements of Missouri was made along Salt river and Spencer creek, life there remained primitive for a long period. Even at this day a ride in certain communities is like dropping into

HISTORY OF NORTHEAST MISSOURI

HARDIN COLLEGE FOR WOMEN, MEXICO

HISTORY OF NORTHEAST MISSOURI

the atmosphere of a century ago. Hills are wild and lonely. A brood- ing quiet prevails. Perhaps in going around a curve a tiny home is nestled by the side of a small patch of corn, as if it were the first tenta- tive pioneer essay at cultivation.

In riding over the rocky bed of the shallow stream there are glimpses of overhanging low growth. A canoe of Indians can easily be pictured paddling toward you over the green and glassy water. Under the dense growth of hillsides a thousand feather helmeted braves could easily hide. There is no noise but the clear bird calls. On a hill etched against the sky is a gaunt two-story log house, leaning, tottering. The setting sun sends shafts of light through its open windows. It is ghostly, a last lingering shadow. The historical atmosphere antedates the pioneer. It is tinged with medievalism. An automobile is an anachronism. It needs slow moving oxen. Even in 1833 when Mrs. Lewis Coontz came into this country with her father, life was pitifully primitive.

This family built a one-room cabin of poles and prepared to chal- lenge the forest for a living. Wild turkeys were in abundance but they were elusive and wary. One expedient for catching them was for one to sprinkle corn on the earth floor of the cabin, meanwhile counterfeit- ing on a bone the cluck of a turkey, while two others held a blanket at the top of the door ready to drop when the cautious birds had ven- tured in. More often than not this ruse was unavailing. But a tur- key trap was maintained which was more successful in contributing to the family needs.

Getting shoes in those days was not the simple matter of sitting in a leather chair while an obsequious clerk fits a rather fastidious foot and fancy. Instead there was waiting sometimes months until the shoe- maker of the section arrived and made the shoes for the family, the hide from the last cow killed having been dressed and tanned and waiting for his skill. If shoes wore out before his arrival there was nothing to do but go barefooted, without any reference to the zero tendency of the thermometer. This last was the condition of both the family and the weather when it became known that the turkey trap, a quarter of a mile away, held a bunch of coveted birds. Mrs. Coontz and the girls ran to the trap with all speed. Each grasped a bird, but on the return home they were compelled to frequently sit down and warm their feet in their woolen skirts before dashing on, on another lap of the journey. These stories seem like a fiction coined by the imagination, but those who have seen these things still live and tell the story.

MRS. SUSAN FOX

Today in Northeast Missouri woman has every facility for learning that an overeducated age can offer, yet many of their grandmothers progressed no farther than the Rule of Three and learned that sitting on a split log seat. It is a rare privilege to meet one of these old ladies who, so to speak, were in at the birth of our great educational system. Mrs. Susan Fox, sitting bent with the weight of her eighty-six years, began her schooling in one of those log buildings that belong now only to history. She is a dear, quaint, but remarkably strong-minded old lady, with a very just doubt as to the spelling ability of the younger generations, given to phonetics and queer markings.

She was seven years old in that far-away spring of 1833 when she started to the log cabin schoolhouse, just at the edge of a forest, pass- ing on the way with great fear and trembling, a bunch of wigwams, but gathering courage she stopped to see the Indians execute a dance, Vol. 1-8

. 34

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the braves making queer noises on queerer instruments. while the squaws circled in a slow, fantastic, aboriginal dance. "The school- house," says Mrs. Fox, "was built of logs, with an enormous fireplace occupying one entire end. On one side a log was left out and this gave us the only light we had. The floor was just a rough puncheon one and the seats made of logs split in two. There we sat all day, our lit- tle feet dangling and our poor little backs nearly breaking."

These little martyrs of learning possessed an incongruous collection of books. Mrs. Fox rejoiced in a "blue back" speller and the Life of Wash- ington, while next to her a little maid had to learn the mysterious proc- ess of reading from the cheerful source of Fox's Book of Martyrs, and another still used the Bible. Her father had decided ideas about learning and his daughter was sent to town where a select school was taught by a lady late from Philadelphia, who added philosophy to her curriculum as a touch of eastern culture. Her father also sent his

Howard Payne College

MAIN DORMITORY, HOWARD-PAYNE COLLEGE FOR WOMEN, FAYETTE

daughter to a dancing school but never permitted her to attend dances. However, it was an accomplishment he said that every lady should know.

While spinning and weaving were done in this home, it was for the use of the darkies, with the exception of flannel which was made into petticoats, gathered at the waist and three yards around. top and bottom.

In 1840 when Mrs. Fox was fourteen years old she made a visit to her grandfather in Kentucky and brought home with her a salmon- colored silk that she rejoiced in greatly. One day she wore it to church. accompanied by a young gallant, also her father, all on horseback. They stopped at the creek to let the horses drink, when Mrs. Fox's horse laid down in the cool water. The young man was so excited and fright- ened that he rode out and left her to her fate. Her father rescued her. not before, however, the salmon-colored silk was a total ruin, the water turning it to a bright purple. In those days the stork had not been dislodged from his supremacy and when the young people returned home a mischievous aunt asked the young man how he expected to take

HISTORY OF NORTHEAST MISSOURI

care of a wife and twelve children if he couldn't pull one girl out of the creek, a question that so abashed him that he did not call again for a month.

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A History of Northeast Missouri, Volume I, Part 6

Author: Williams, Walter, 1864-1935, editor Publication date: 1913 Publisher: Chicago, New York, The Lewis Publishing Company Number of Pages: 731

Author: Williams, Walter, 1864-1935, editor
Publication date: 1913
Publisher: Chicago, New York, The Lewis Publishing Company
Number of Pages: 731