A History of Northeast Missouri, Volume I, Part 62

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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As early as 1817 parties came into what was then Pike county and laid out tracts of land near Middle Grove, but no permanent settlements were made in what is now Monroe county until 1820, when Ezra For. Andrew and Daniel Wittenberg and others located three miles east of what is now Middle Grove and began that historic community. About the same time a settlement was formed by Joseph and Alexander Smith and others between the North and Middle forks of Salt river close to Florida, being known as the Smith settlement, another by the McGees south of Paris, and others by Daniel Urbin east of Madison, near old Clin- ton by Robert Martin and Caleb Woods, and by Robert Greening and

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Samuel Nesbit at Florida following. As early as 1820, Benjamin Young settled on South Fork near Santa Fe and remained there until 1828, only eight families residing in this, one of the richest sections of Missouri, when the county was organized. A colony of Virginians joined these, extending along the river from Lick Creek in Ralls past Florida, and as elsewhere in the county the names found there today are much the same as those of the first settlers. The Kentuckians invariably settled in the timber, near springs or along water courses, leaving the prairie wild.

Paris was laid out in 1831, and was named by Mrs. Cephas Fox of the Middle .Grove settlement, wife of the famous pioneer merchant and philanthropist by that name, for her native town, Paris, Kentucky. Trading places were few for ten years. The first blacksmith shop in the county was opened on the Louisiana road south of Paris by Charles Eales and the first store was opened up by Major Penn, afterwards county clerk and enshrined in tradition by reason of his connection with the Clemens family, at Florida. The town of Florida was laid out in the winter of 1831, by Robert Donaldson, John Witt, Dr. Kennan, Joseph Grigsby, W. N. Penn and Hugh Hickman, and here three years after transpired an event of historical importance to the whole nation and by far the biggest event in the history of Monroe county-the birth of Samuel Langhorne Clemens, known to the literary world as Mark Twain, of whom more hereafter. The first mill in the county was built by Benjamin Bradley two miles northeast of Florida and along with the Hickman mill at the same place, both operated by water power, be- came famous throughout this section of Missouri, people coming forty miles with grain. The first road laid out in the county was "the old London trace," and ran from Middle Grove to New London, being surveyed by J. C. Fox and others on order from the county court of Ralls county. The houses were all of log and seldom had glass.

POLITICS, FARMING AND FIGHTING

The history of the county centers around its agricultural develop- ment and its military and political activities. As early as 1832, on the outbreak of the Black Hawk war, Major Thomas W. Conyers, a Monroe countian, commanded two companies, one under Captain Jamison from Callaway and the other under Captain David H. Hickman of Boone, which occupied Fort Pike for thirty days. The strain was built for war and when the war with Mexico came on sent a company under Cap- tain Giddings to Santa Fe, the command marching every foot of the way. This company afterwards elected T. H. Mckamey captain and saw valiant service, not, however being in the march to Mexico. It returned home following the war and the trenches for the big barbecue given across the river from Paris in its honor are still partly preserved.

With the piping days of peace an adventurous spirit, which was a distinguishing mark of the race, led the younger men by scores in cara- vans across plains and deserts to the California gold fields. Some per- ished on the way in battle with Indians, others returned empty-handed, and yet others remained and became rich, the names of Glenn, Biggs and others becoming a part of the history of the golden state. Perhaps Monroe county is famous for nothing so much as the men of note it has furnished the states to the southwest and west and also to the northwest -governors, congressmen, judges and business men. Hugh Glenn, owner of the Willows wheat ranch in Tulare county, California, and at one time grain king of the world, was from Monroe county, as was also his slayer, Hurem Miller, the story being one which mocks manufactured romance but not within the province of historical narrative. Vol. 1-30

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The Civil war followed in ten years and the inborn soldier bent of the people of this county showed itself. It sent twelve hundred men into the Confederate army to fight under Price, Cockrell and Bledsoe, and almost half as many into the Union army. It was known as "Little North Carolina," and for thirty years after the war "the brigadiers," as the old Confederate organization was known, dominated the political and business activities of the county. It elected Frank L. Pitts, hero at Franklin, state treasurer, and elevated Theodore Brace to the supreme bench. Only in the late nineties did it give way to the younger crowd and even after that was a power. In politics besides these Monroe has furnished the state two speakers of the house, T. P. Bashaw in 1880 and James H. Whitecotton in 1902, and two congressmen from the Second district-A. M. Alexander in 1886, and R. N. Bodine in 1896. Gov- ernor Shortridge of South Dakota-1896-was a Monroe countian, as was Supreme Judge Reavis of Washington, Attorney-General Ford of California, and Superior Judge Eugene Bridgford of the same state. Others of minor note by the score might be named, it being the pride of the strain to have itself elected to office wherever it goes. Politics has been its specialty since war has passed.

A NORTHEAST MISSOURI FARM SCENE

Besides Hugh Glenn Monroe has furnished the country another of its big business figures-Dr. W. S. Woods, of Kansas City, who, while born in Boone, began his career in Monroe, marrying Miss Bina Mc- Bride of Paris, and claims it at his home. To the banking world it has given also J. Fletcher Farrell, vice-president of the Fort Dearborn National Bank at Chicago, and vice-president of the American Bankers' Association. The county is provincial only about its horses and its people.

IN THE EMPIRE OF AGRICULTURE

The development of its stock and agricultural interests from the days when only a timbered farm was visible here and there contains most of romance. The Kentuckians and Virginians, next to corn, naturally took to hemp, but there is not a stalk of it raised in the county today, the only reminder that it was ever a staple here being in the wreck of an old hemp-breaker encountered now and then in the outhouse on some farm long in possession of a single line. The crop, along with tobacco, which supplanted it in the late sixties and early seventies, exhausted the soil in the less fertile portions, constant corning added to the ruin, and it was years before the people knew what was the matter. All the waste and impoverished land, however, has been built up again by scientific methods, no county being more progressive in its agriculture, and it is

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now one of the richest stock and grass counties in the state. Blue grass and corn are its staples and its big farmers are mostly "grass men" and feeders. They feed on the land and reap a double profit. But little grain is shipped, the act being considered treason. Contemporaneously it has developed into the greatest fine stock county in the state, espe- cially in horses, mules and sheep. The Kentuckians who came to Mon- roe county had.the race failing for fine horses and with the develop- ment of the saddle type-the Denmark strain-began to breed for it, buying the pick of Kentucky stallions as early as 1870. Today, with the Hook Woods training barns at Paris, the biggest institution of its kind in the country, as evidence of the fact, Monroe is the greatest fine horse county in the middle west. The story of the development of this great industry also reads like romance. The county is equally as famous for its mules and in the persons of B. F. Vaughn, Stone & Son and James Warren, has the most extensive feeders and developers in the state. This ascendancy is due to the work of the Agricultural College of the Uni- versity of Missouri, which numbers many graduates in Monroe, and to that more historic institution, the Paris fair, established in 1838, and which has devoted over half a century to developing the stock and agricultural interests of the county. As far back as 1859, David Major, a prominent planter and slave owner, was awarded a gold-headed cane for the best essay on agriculture, and the association has ever since emphasized the farm and its stock, having little to do with racing. Each year sees thousands of people gather on its beautiful grounds with nothing more to attract them than friendly contests of neighbors in grain, poultry and stock shows, Monroe leading the state in poultry also. However, this is immaterial as history.

ON THE CHURCH ROLLS

The religious evolution of the county, in its intimate phases, carries an absorbing interest. The Kentuckians were originally Old School Baptists or Presbyterians, occasionally Methodists, but early fell under the spell of the Campbell movement which swept the central valley states in the early years of the last century. Barton Stone, "Raccoon John" Smith and other great pioneer preachers of the Disciples movement came to Missouri in the thirties, swaying the thought and intelligence here as they did in Kentucky, and Alexander Campbell himself was twice a visitor at Paris, the last time in 1848. As a result the county is pre- ponderantly of this faith in its religious ideals, or rather was, the Dis- ciples predominating. The Old School Baptists, once the most power- ful and numerous sect in the county, have gradually vanished, and only three or four of their church edifices, some of these, like Berea in South Fork, having no congregation remain. They furnished the county with some of its most militant and heroic figures, such men as Wm. Priest, Elder Sutton and Epaphroditus Smith, known in person and tradition, but save for Cedar Bluff, Stoutsville, Berea and Old Baptist, there re- mains not a vestige of them. Every other denomination has grown and in a measure kept pace, but the faith of the pioneer is evidently no more. Monroe has one Catholic community, Indian Creek.

BY WAY OF REMINISCENCE

Green V. Caldwell, of Ralls county, was the first storekeeper in Jackson township, establishing a trading point two miles south of where Paris now stands in 1831-probably where the county infirmary is located. Paris was laid out the same year and for many years there-

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after had Florida as an ambitious county seat rival. The fight began with the organization of the county and did not end until the late for- ties, when, to lay the rivalry, Major Howell and Dr. Flannigan, mem- bers of the legislature, the county having double representation in those days, hit upon the trick of having a row of rich sections cut off the north and south ends of the county, making it impracticable to divide it further east and west, as proposed by Florida, with Paris the seat of one county and Florida of the other. As a result Monroe county was ravished of some of its richest territory and both men forever forfeited their political standing. Howell was among the most brilliant Missouri lawyers of that day and the consequences were serious as regarded him, spoiling a career which would have no doubt been useful and distin- guished. The geographical effects of the rape may be seen by looking at the map and noting the cut-off into Shelby in the northwestern part of the county. Even in those days Monroe countians were true Bourbons and those cut off into Shelby never forgave the authors of the enforced separation, it requiring a new generation to obliterate traces of the feeling engendered. For forty years it remained a miniature Alsace- Lorraine, the inhabitants persisting in calling themselves Monroe coun- tians and their political interests centering in Monroe county elections.

In those days Salt river was thought to be a navigable stream and Florida was looked upon as the headwaters of navigation, an important advantage considering that there were no railroads. Among the county seat boomers at Florida was John Marshall Clemens, the visionary and impractical father of Mark Twain, who moved to Hannibal before the fight was settled.

The land on which Paris is located was deeded to the county seat commissioners by Hightower I. Hackney and wife, James R. Abbernathey and wife and J. C. Fox and wife. The first sale of town lots occurred September 12, 13, and 14, 1831, and a letter to the St. Louis Republican at the time stated that the results were gratifying. The first two lots were bought by Marshall Kelly for $301 and are occupied by the Glenn · hotel, Paris' historic hostelry, built in the fifties. Among the purchasers was Eben W. McBride, father of Mrs. W. S. Woods, and one of the famous pioneer citizens of the county, a man of learning, wit, and kindly heart, who having grown rich and become the head of one of the most historic homes of the state, gave up his life in a steamboat explosion on the lower Mississippi in the late sixties. He was going south with mules and his body was never recovered, though a big shaft in his honor stands in beautiful Walnut Grove cemetery at Paris today. Perhaps no couple in Monroe county were so justly famed as Mr. McBride and his wife, Julia Snell McBride, both Kentuckians.

When the court house site was being surveyed the men engaged in the work caught a spotted fawn, which leaped from the thicket, and it was taken to the home of James R. Abbernathy, afterwards the famous Whig editor of the Mercury, and raised until it grew into a large deer.

The first house in town was erected by J. C. Fox and Hightower Hack- ney and the first business house by Fox, standing until 1887, where the Paris opera house now stands. It was occupied by Fox & Caldwell. Marshall Kelly kept the first tavern in a log cabin where the Glenn house now stands and Alfred Wilson, afterwards famed as a Christian preacher, along with Henry Davis, another Kentuckian, afterwards county judge and business man, was among the first blacksmiths. Talia- ferre Bostick and Jonathan Gore were saddlers and William Stephens was tailor. Among the early citizens were the eloquent Dr. Flannigan, referred to before, Wm. K. Van Arsdale, whose name appears as among the charter members of Paris Masonic lodge, and Anderson Woods.

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Just north of town on a big farm, surrounded by an accomplished family and a large number of slaves, lived that Dr. Bower, afterwards congressman, who was in the march on Detroit during the War of 1812, and who earlier was a survivor of the Indian massacre at the River Raisin. He was a Kentuckian and a graduate of the Philadelphia school of medicine and was surgeon of the first company sent from Kentucky in response to call for troops. Being captured and taken to Malden he fell into the hands of the women of the family of a well known Eng- lish officer, one of whom he fell in love with, and was finally sold as a captive to an American citizen for $12. He lived to return to Malden a conqueror and to return the kindness of his English lady friends. When arraigned by General McNeil during the Civil war and compelled to give ransom he proudly related the incident of having been sold once for $12 while in his country's service, and declared he had never thought to be subjected to like humiliation again. The story procured his release from McNeil's superiors, but the old veteran never recovered from what he deemed an insult and died soon afterwards. He had lost three boys in the Confederate army and one in the war with Mexico. Dr. Bower was captain of the Kentucky guards sent out to meet Mar- quis de Lafayette on his visit to Kentucky and was a gentleman, a real gentleman, of the old school, famed in the history and traditions of Monroe county.

IN PARIS AND JACKSON TOWNSHIPS

In the early days, before the organization of the fair association, there was a race course at Paris, southwest of town, and here the pioneers gathered to witness the racing feats of such horses as "Tom," and "Charlemagne," belonging to the Bufords, Kentuckians, as will be recognized by their names. People came for miles and money and whiskey were generally waged on the result, more often whiskey, as it was more plentiful. Here also was the muster field, where General R. D. Austin drilled his daughty warriors.

Perhaps the history of Jackson township would not be complete without mentioning names like Curtright, Grimes, Ragsdale, Barker, Arnold, Bridgford and McCann, associated with the early agricultural and stock interests of the county and still inseparably identified with these industries. First the most famous short-horn man in the state, both breeder and importer, Jefferson Bridgford, afterwards became the main factor in the development of its saddle horse industry, winning the prize for the best gentleman rider at the Columbian exposition at Chicago on his famous "Artist Montrose" when a man of seventy-five. Avory Grimes owned "Black Patsy" and "Ned Forest," the foundation almost of the horse stock of Monroe county, the Arnolds owned "Tom Hal," and the McCanns and Ragsdales were cattle men.

The early physicians of the town included Dr. Abner E. Gore and Dr. Long, later Dr. Ben Dysart, surgeon of Cockrell's fighting brigade, also Dr. D. C. Gore, the Gores, father and son, both being honored with the presidency of the Missouri Medical Association. These men con- tinued down until the new order in medicine was practically established, and, along with Dr. Loyd, were regarded as among the brightest physi- cians in the state. The elder Gore used to tell this story of his early struggles as a young practitioner : He was young, but had already ac- quired a wife and one boy, afterwards Dr. D. C. Gore, then of Marshall, but patients were few. Finally an epidemic of pneumonia broke out south of Paris and he was kept busy day and night. During his absence

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one day a stranger rode up to the gate where his young hopeful of a son was idly casting rocks and inquired for him.

"Where is your father ?" he asked.

"Dunno," replied the boy.

"Gone to see his patients ?"

"Nop-patients all dead," said the boy tersely and resumed his rocks. The elder Gore, as indeed also his son, were men of wide culture and fine wit. Dysart ranked as one of the greatest surgeons of the state in his day. They were men whose names are still loved and revered and are enshrined in the town's traditions.

Aside from Major Howell the early bar at Paris included such names as that of Theodore Brace, afterwards supreme judge of Missouri, Hum- phrey McVeagh, who quit the law for business and grew rich at Hanni- bal, James R. Abbernathey, and Colonel Philip Williams, Virginian, miser and hermit, owner of a hundred slaves, who died unmarried and without direct heirs and whose estate was the subject of one of the greatest pieces of litigation in the history of Northeast Missouri, Senator Vest and Judge Samuel Priest, then a young barrister, being among the opposing counsel. The estate went to a niece, Mrs. Annie Williams Magreiter, the old hermit's housekeeper, who speedily dissipated it, and as mysteriously disappeared. A clause in the old miser's will is worth reproduction in the "Green Bag." It mentions a woman he had known in Virginia, refers to an alleged illegitimate son, and says: "I do not of my own knowledge know that said - Williams is my son, but it being ungallant to dispute the word of a lady in such matters, I hereby bequeath him the sum of $10,000."

Colonel Williams was one of the historic figures of early Paris and lived in a picturesque grove east of town. Later came A. M. Alexander and R. N. Bodine, both elected to congress from the second district, and it may be said that the Monroe county bar has always been a brilliant one. It included T. P. Bashaw, Jas. H. Whitecotton, Judge W. T. Rag- land, Senator F. W. McAllister and other men of note throughout the state. Like everything else in Monroe county, it is well supplied with tradition.

Back in the days of the tobacco industry two men obtained their start at Paris and subsequently became famous in both business and philan- thopy in this section of Missouri. They were Daniel and William Du- laney of Hannibal, founders of the Empire Lumber Co., and their names live today on account of good deeds associated with them. At one time they bought and prized tobacco at Paris.

The Masonic lodge at Paris was organized March 1, 1835, and boasts a continuous charter, being the fourth oldest lodge in the state. Its first master was Stephen Barton and it owns and occupies its own struc- ture, a three story building. Monroe Chapter was organized in 1861. with Dr. Gore and W. F. Buckner as its leading spirits, and Parsifal commandery was organized in 1884.

Paris Odd Fellows lodge was organized March 2, 1848, and retains today the traditions of its founders as does the Masonic lodge, both being agencies for good during their long history. The charter members of the Odd Fellows lodge were Wm. Taylor, Joseph Lefever, A. J. Cap- linger, P. A. Heitz and others.

CHURCHES AND CONGREGATIONS

The Paris Christian church was among the earliest of the congre- gations established by the Disciples in Missouri and dates back to the thirties, first meeting in the old brick house known as the Addison Bodine

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place, and later-in 1848-building a brick structure on the present site. This building was torn down and a new one erected in 1884, and this in turn demolished and supplanted by a modern $35,000 structure in 1910. Among its ministers have been Alexander Proctor, famous throughout the brotherhood, W. J. Mountjoy, J. B. Davis, the Rev. Samuel McDaniel, T. W. Pinkerton, W. N. Briney, -. -. Wright, J. R. Perkins and F. W. Allen, all distinguished men and the two latter known outside their denominational world, Perkins as a publicist and Allen as a novelist.

The Paris Baptist church was organized at the home of Eli Bozarth, four miles south of where the town now stands, in May, 1831, and the Rev. Edward Turner was its first pastor. He was followed by Anderson Woods in 1836, the name of the body first being Bethlehem church. It has had a succession of able ministers and has been a power for good in the development of community life.

Paris Methodist Episcopal church was organized in 1832, and was among the first to join the Southern Association following the division in 1844. Its first minister was the Rev. James Jameson and among its first members Thos. Miller, Thos. Noonan, Joel Maupin, Jefferson Marr, William Stevens, names known still in the history of the county.

Paris Presbyterian church was organized in 1842, and its first pastor was the Rev. W. P. Cochran. Among the charter members were Thos. Barrett, J. S. Caldwell, O. P. Gentry, Welthy Applegate, Rosella Vanars- dale and John Curry.

The organization at Paris followed that at Pleasant Hill, seven miles south by several years. Pleasant Hill was organized in 1825, before the county had a separate existence, and is probably the oldest as well as the most historic congregation in the county. The Rev. Thomas Durfee, a missionary, was its founder, and the Rev. Alfred Wright its first pastor. James McGee and the McKamey family were its charter members, a slave woman by the name of Marietta also being included in the number. The church is still very much alive and is one of the few original con- gregations to maintain a continued existence. In its yard sleep many of the famous pioneer men and women of Monroe county.

The Methodist church at Goss, Jackson township, was organized in 1833, and was founded by Henry Marr, Samuel West, Susan Austin, John Shearman, David Ashby and others.

Salem Baptist church was organized in 1857, by the Rev. Henson Thomas, one of the most noted of the county's pioneer preachers, and among its charter members were a group of Kentuckians, hailing from Madison county-Lewis Philips, Thomas P. Moore, Samuel Willis, Richard Thomas and others.

Long Branch Baptist church was organized in 1844, by John B. Rudasill, James Botts, Edward Goodnight and others, and its first pastor was Wm. Jesse. For over twenty-five years W. B. Craig of Paris, the most famous of Monroe county Baptist preachers, ministered to it, and his labors ceased only with his death.

These congregations are singled out on account of their age and the traditions that cluster about them. It is interesting to note that the names appearing on their charter rolls continue in their present mem- bership, illustrating as nothing else can the degree to which the county has maintained its racial solidarity.

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A History of Northeast Missouri, Volume I, Part 62

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