A History of Northeast Missouri, Volume I, Part 65

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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Farrell, J. W. Atterbury and a dozen more from representative families of that section-the Drys, Hunters, Overfelts, Eubanks and others.

Sidner was captured at Kirksville after the battle of Porter's com- mand with those of Guitar, Merrill and McNeil. He was recruiting for Price at the time, had a captain's commission, and was shot by McNeil's order, along with nine others. Sidner was captured at Shelbyville after being wounded and just as he was stepping into a carriage clad as a girl to make his escape. Tradition still exists as to his handsome bear- ing and brave conduct in the face of a shameful death. Story says he was as beautiful as a woman and as shapely and that many women loved him, as cavaliers were supposed to be loved.

This company had many members who fought Sherman from At- lanta to the sea and who opposed Grant at Shiloh.

In the spring of 1862 Braxton Pollard organized a company at Florida and in August of the same year at Newark was so severely wounded as to be incapacitated for further service. A number of his men were killed and the company reorganized with Worden Willis as captain and Dave Davenport as first lieutenant. This company was also in the battle at Kirksville and finally made its way south to join Price.

Aside from these regularly organized companies, hundreds of men joined Porter on his raid or rode singly to the river, running the gaunt- let of Federal troops, and joined Price on the other side. The county was practically robbed of its young manhood.

The first serious invasion of Monroe county by Federal forces came in September, 1861, when a force of two thousand men under command of Colonel Williams of the Second Kansas Infantry and Major Cloud of the Second Iowa Infantry rode into Paris without warning, the pur- pose, as soon discovered, being to loot the Farmers' Bank, of which the late O. P. Gentry, a wise and thrifty man, was cashier. Gentry had hidden his money under the counter, the vaults were empty, and Cloud especially expressed his disappointment. The command remained over night, ordering the citizens indoors, and camped in the old courthouse yard, the officers taking possession of the Glenn hotel for headquarters. Strong pickets were placed out in every direction and Paris had its first real taste of war. Brace's company, which had recently taken part in the battle at Monroe City, was in camp south of town, and the next day the first blood was shed when one of the Federal scouting party was killed in a running fight near the county farm. Cloud moved out toward Shelbina next morning and was followed by Brace's company and a motley of free riders urged on by Dr. Bower, whose military spirit was irrepressible. An attempt was made to cut off the Federal retreat, but was useless. Cloud's command, though fired on from every side, moved on evenly and in good order, arriving at Shelbina after eluding his pursuers at old Clinton. One man of the Federal rear guard was killed in the running duel. At Shelbina, Brace was joined by General Green and Gen. Tom Harris and the combined commands forced Cloud to evacuate, Green having cannon.

The only real battle fought in Monroe county during the war was at Monroe City, July 14, 1861, between Gen. Tom Harris' command of five hundred men and Colonel Smith's Sixteenth Illinois, reinforced by Iowa troops, then located at Palmyra. Harris had been in camp at Florida and his command was growing so fast that orders were sent from St. Louis to Smith to go out and attack him. Smith started and when near Swinkey ran into an ambush prepared by a body of Harris' scouts under Clay Price. Alarmed he went into camp at Hagar's farm and waited until the following day. The next day he found himself

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almost surrounded by Confederates and began his retreat to Monroe, arriving there in time to find the station house in flames, freight cars burning, and the Confederates in possession. He entered, driving out the small command, and took refuge in the seminary building, and the siege began. The Harris command was soon increased to one thousand men by recruits from all directions and confidence was enhanced by the arrival of a nine-pound cannon from Hannibal. This was turned on the seminary while the Confederates cheered and General Harris made speeches, and it looked for a time, even to the spectators, who were present by hundreds in all manner of vehicles, as if the Federal command would be compelled to surrender-only the nine-pound balls gave out and firing six-pounders was as dangerous to the gunner, an Ohio man, as it was to the besieged. By this time rumors that Smith's regiment was cut off at Monroe and was being annihilated reached all the sur- rounding country, even getting as far as Washington, and commands from Illinois, one under Lieutenant Grant at Springfield and the other under Gen. John M. Palmer, were ordered to his relief. In the mean- time 250 men from Hannibal and Palmyra, with a brass field piece loaded on a flatcar, started for Monroe City and as they came in sight Harris' command melted away. Its retreat was a rout in buggy, carriage and on horseback over the prairie, some of the soldiers even throwing away their guns and jumping into vehicles with lady friends. Three shots struck the seminary, wounding two of Smith's men, and one Confederate was killed by the accidental discharge of his own gun, yet the battle raged for a day.

The Harris command reassembled in camp at Florida, its numbers being again augmented, and for the second time orders were sent out from St. Louis to disperse it, this time to Lieutenant U. S. Grant, who had come over from Springfield, Illinois, and who with Gen. John M. Palmer had just opened up the Hannibal & St. Joseph Railroad again by rebuilding the bridge, burned by Monroe county rebels, over North Fork near Hunnewell. It is needless to say that Grant acted more quickly and with more efficiency than Smith. He marched twenty-five miles to Florida, but when he arrived there found that General Harris and his men had again decamped, scattering as it were to the four winds. This was Grant's first military experience during the war and the beginning of the career that ultimately led him to the command of the entire Union army. His dispatch is brief, wasting no words, and in his autobiography written long years afterwards he wrote that it was during the Florida expedition that he learned the most important of all military lessons-that was that the other fellow was always "just as scared" as he was, which stood him in good stead in the bigger cam- paigns to follow. In the Harris command at Florida was Mark Twain and a number of other men afterwards noted in war and peace, and the humorist's war papers, which ran in the Century, were perhaps the most delightful bits of fun he ever wrote, dealing as they did with his own disastrous retreat as Grant approached. Yet the men in the Harris command proved themselves on a hundred bloody fields in the struggle that followed, dying at Vicksburg, Franklin and Shiloh by scores.

On July 22, 1862, four hundred Confederates under Col. Joseph Porter encountered fifty men of the Third Iowa cavalry near Florida and a fight ensued in which the Federals lost six men and the Confed- erates one. The Federals were under command of Col. H. C. Caldwell, afterwards appointed to the Federal bench by Lincoln, and now judge of the eastern district of Arkansas, a man still kindly remembered in Monroe county for his justice and mercy, who has made an admirable record as judge. His company retreated to Paris, where the main body

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was quartered, and Porter went south. A few days afterwards & company of the Iowa regiment met a detachment of Porter's men on the Botts farm near Santa Fe and another fight ensued in which each side lost four killed and wounded. It was at Santa Fe that Lieutenant Brooks of Guitar's command, leading a scouting party, was killed by one of his own soldiers during a night alarm.

In the spring of 1862, a band of Confederates under Marion Marma- duke encountered a troop of state militia under Captain Benjamin of Shelby county near the Elliotsville bridge on Salt river above Stouts- ville and the Confederate lieutenant and four men were captured. Marmaduke jumped his horse over a high bank, swam the river and escaped. The lieutenant, Rowland Harvey, was taken to Shelbyville and shot in alleged retaliation for similar outrages committed by bush- whackers-a word as applied to military warfare which Col. R. N. Bodine says undoubtedly originated at Florida.

On the afternoon of October 15, 1864, when the Confederate cause was hopeless north of the river, five hundred men under Colonel Mc- Donald rode into Paris and engaged in battle with Capt. Wm. Fowkes' company of home guards, fortified in the Glenn House. The firing con- tinued all day and until the invaders set fire to a frame building below the hotel near the Masonic Temple, which compelled Captain Fowkes to surrender, all his men being paroled. The bullet holes can still be seen in the door frames at the historic hostelry and in the sides of the brick walls.

In July, 1862, a flag pole stood just at the corner of the Glenn House, where Main and Marion streets intersect and for months the starry banner of the Union had been floating from its top-to the disloyal breezes of Monroe county. A proud-spirited people chafed but there was no help. Price had failed with his army of deliverance and had sent Porter on his reckless detour north of the river, with Kirksville yet to be fought. The flower of the county's young manhood had long since run the gauntlet to the South and was fighting on southern fields and the inevitable had begun to dawn on those at home. The bush- whacker flourished, of course, there was murder, the midnight call to the door, the shot and scream, but the war was practically over so far as this section of Missouri was concerned. Yet one night irreverent hands were laid on the flag and down it came at the hoarse yell of five hundred drunken and unorganized men who were on their way to join Porter. "Paris is free" was shouted as it lay in the dust, but the bravado of a wild night and a drunken orgy came to a sudden end. Next morning when the town awakened it heard the measured tread of Federal troops and on rubbing its eyes and looking out the window saw McNeil and Strachan, twin horrors of that terrible struggle in this part of Missouri, riding at the head of one thousand men into the public square. They had come to avenge the insult to the flag. The first man encountered felt the impact of their drunken wrath.

"Where is Mr. Crutcher ?" (referring to Thomas Crutcher), McNeil thundered. "The flag pole yonder has been cut down and if it is not up again by night I will burn the town. Go tell him."

By noon the pole had been restored, and four pieces of artillery facing in each direction were stationed beneath it, but that did not placate the pair. Incoming farmers were pulled from their horses and the animals appropriated by McNeil's troopers. Protest was met with violence. Two young men, "Ake" Johnson and Armstead Ragland, had already been ordered shot as a sort of blood lesson to a disloyal people. They were of rebel connection, so informers had said, and Captain Cox had captured them that morning before they arose from

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bed, but Cox was as just as he was brave, being the same Cox who sub- sequently slew the noted guerrilla, "Bill" Anderson, in personal com- bat, and had no idea of the contemplated murder. He despised McNeil, his superior, hated Strachan as he did a viper, and determined to save the young men. McNeil was in an upper room at the Glenn House drink- ing, his thirst for liquor and desire for blood being fed by the cunning Strachan, and had just declared to interceders that he would "smother the whole d-d breed in their mothers' wombs if he could." Cox, hear- ing of the sentence, leaped the fence at the court house, rushed up the stairs, and brushing past Strachan, confronted McNeil and in angry but determined voice told him it should not be. Then McNeil started in to curse and abuse his inferior, but the look in the eyes of Captain Cox deterred him. He followed the young officer into another room and grew quieter as the latter talked. The result was that he went to sleep drunk and that the execution was stopped. It was the one real day of terror for Paris in the latter part of the war and many live who recall it yet with a tremor in their voices. McNeil was the Claverhouse of Northeast Missouri.

Scarcely less terrifying was another visit by soldiers of an entirely different but none the less dangerous kind. On the 23d of September, 1862, there rode into Paris from the south a troop of three hundred men from St. Charles county, militia under command of Major Bailey and Captain Krekel. Their conduct in the homes on which they quar- tered themselves was intolerable. It was Krekel's men who murdered John Ownby near Madison. At their request Ownby's step-father, Judge Quary, had sent the boy with them as a guide and out of wanton cruelty and for no other reason, when they had gotten where they wished to go, they stood him up against a tree and shot him. Two years after the war while shipping cattle to St. Louis, Quary met Krekel near an alley-way unexpectedly, seized him, and grasping a brick, beat him into insensibility, his life for a time being despaired of. Judge Quary was driven from the city in a buggy to escape arrest.

If the war had its dark side it also had its lighter side and more humorous aspects.

During Christmas week, 1861, Capt. Jim Crow's company had been lined up along the curbing on Main street at Paris and sworn into the Confederate service. They were all young fellows, cavaliers from the best families in the county, and on Christmas night, before going to war, they gave a farewell ball to their sweethearts at the Glenn House. Snow was over the whole state and the night was cold, but not to the young warriors and their lady-loves, who, amid sentiment excusable at all times, had forgotten the virtue of vigilance. The ball had barely closed and Captain Crow mounted his horse preparatory to leaving when the sound of a bugle came across the crisp night and the echo of cavalry at a gallop was borne to his ears. He wheeled in time to face a column of riders under General Prentiss, the subsequent hero of Shiloh, who captured him and took him before Colonel Glover. Some of the Confederates escaped, but a great many were captured. Next day General Prentiss published the names of two hundred alleged Con- federate sympathizers and ordered them to report at the courthouse yard. Here, inside a high board fence and surrounded by a cordon of five hundred men commanded by Colonel Glover, into which the male citizenship of the town was driven like so many sheep, the work of extortion was begun. All had to pay to get out and many amusing incidents occurred. The old Farmers Bank was then in a failing con- dition and knowing beforehand what was to happen, some of the more far-sighted had slipped several hundred dollars of its notes into the

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stockade, paying it for liberty and demonstrating at the same time that thrift was not a "Yankee" possession altogether. General Prentiss himself stood at the gate and called off the names. "Samuel Thomp- son," he called, and one of the older men ambled up-the possessor of a wit and eccentricity still noted in the county. "Mr. Thompson," asked General Prentiss, "how do you stand, North or South ?" "Well, General, to tell the truth," replied Thompson, "I lean just a leedle South."

"Twenty-five dollars, Mr. Thompson," retorted the General, and it was years before the aged joker joked again on serious matters.

John Cheny, another citizen, asked to borrow his ransom from the General and Prentiss was not without humor enough to get enjoyment out of the occasion, along with the money. He left Paris with his coffers bursting and in 1901, when he refused to ask for a pension, pre- ferring to die in poverty, it was difficult to convince Monroe county citizens that he was in earnest. However, there was naught set down in malice. It was whispered that the old hero's pet vice was gambling. faro being his hobby, and that when at Paris his funds to gratify the passion were low.

Monroe county sent one bersiker to the war. He was Robert Swin- ney of Middle Grove, son of Preston Swinney, ex-sheriff, and had lost a hand with Walker in Nicaraugua. He carried no carbine, fought with a revolver alone, and was assigned to no command or company in Price's army, fighting alone and if necessary attacking an entire company. Legend avers that he loved bloodshed and frothed at the mouth when in battle. Swinney rode with Shelby across the border into Mexico and John N. Edwards tells of his death in storming a hacienda where an American woman had been imprisoned and whom Shelby's men. like knights of old, had gone to aid.

The Civil war history of the county might be written into thousands of words without loss of interest, but enough of the really important happenings have been given to give an idea of what Monroe county suffered and endured during that period and the heroism and sacrifice of which its people were capable. Its young men fought on nearly every southern battle field of note and those that were not killed returned home to make useful citizens, some of them to become state and national characters. The record would not be complete without mentioning that a large number of returning Confederates from Monroe county were on the ill-fated transport Tennessee, which sank in Red river after the surrender at Shreveport and that some lost their lives, most of them. however, escaping. Wm. Farrell of Pindel's command. now cashier of the Paris Savings Bank, was one of the guard of honor that accom- panied General Price down the river to surrender. It might be well to mention also that X. O. Pindel, acting governor of Arkansas in 1908. was the son of Col. Lebius Pindel of sharp-shooter fame in Price's army and that L. R. Wilfley, judge of the first extra territorial court in China, of which Arthur Bassett, another Monroe county boy, was gor- ernment's attorney, was a nephew of the same man, showing that blood lines sometimes do persist.

AFTER THE CIVIL WAR

Since the war Monroe county's history has been uneventful and given mainly to its material development principally agriculture. In 1898 it sent a company of gold hunters to Alaska who were among the first over Chilcoot Pass. They were to have had a dredge boat. but the boat did not reach them and they proceeded without it. like hundreds

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of others being subjected to many privations and much suffering that first winter, when supplies were scarce. Among these argonauts were T. G. Bassett, Tom Murphy, C. R. Buerck, Marcus Rodes, C. L. Dry, D. M. Fields, J. B. Davis, and others.

In 1879 Paris was visited by a disastrous fire, which consumed the block on the east side of Main street and in 1900 it was visited by an epidemic of small-pox, brought home from the Spanish war and con- tracted mainly by negroes. There were eighty cases in all and the town was practically segregated from the surrounding country for a period of six months.

CHAPTER XXIII MONTGOMERY COUNTY By Howard Ellis, New Florence MOTHER OF WARREN COUNTY

The early settlers of Missouri were liberal indeed in their distribution of lands. The counties of Montgomery, St. Charles and Warren have many things of a kindred nature and truly can be called sisters. On October 1, 1812, Governor William Clark, in accord with an act of congress, proclaimed St. Charles a county within itself and defined its limits as follows: "From the Missouri river on the south to the British possessions on the north, and from the Mississippi river on the east to the Pacific Ocean on the west." This territory embraced Montgomery county and continued to do so until December 14, 1818, when Mont- gomery and Lincoln counties were organized and the dimensions of St. Charles county correspondingly decreased. Consequently it can truth- fully be said that St. Charles county is the Mother of Montgomery county.

The territory, as embraced by Montgomery county at its organization in December, 1818, remained so largely until January, 1833, when the legislature, then in session at Jefferson City, Missouri, duly designated by metes and bounds the county of Warren, taking such territory from Montgomery county; hence, it can also be truthfully said that Mont- gomery county is the Mother of Warren county. The early history of these three counties is so interwoven as to apply directly to each other in many incidents.

ORGANIZATION AND SETTLEMENTS

Callaway county was organized November 25, 1820, securing from Montgomery county a portion of its territory.

The early settlers no doubt reached what is now Montgomery county interior as early as 1725, being the French, who ascended the Missouri river, and Loutre creek in search of game. Along this stream of Loutre were found many otter, and the stream was named in their behalf. The first actual settler within the border of either of the four counties was Louis Blanchette, a Frenchman, who located at the present site of St. Charles in 1769. The first American to settle in the territory was Daniel Boone, who also located in St. Charles county about 1791. His son, Daniel M. Boone, settled in St. Charles county in 1795, afterwards mor- ing to Montgomery county in 1816, thereby becoming among the first American settlers within Montgomery county.

· The early French settlers located along the Missouri river and on Loutre island, where trading posts were established and commerce car- ried on with the Indians. The Indian in his attempt upon the life of

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these settlers, apparently in his effort to take from them their hunting ground, was very daring and cruel in his treatment and the settlers never left the water or ventured away from the timber, leaving the fertile prairies on the north to later and more progressive inhabitants. Accom- panying the Boone family from Kentucky were a great many from their native county, and Montgomery county received as its earliest American settlers the best blood of Kentucky. The county received its name for Montgomery, Kentucky, because so many citizens from that county had settled here previous to its organization.

The early settlers of Montgomery county made their homes in the southern section and did not venture into the northern section until after the red man began to take his course westward. Therefore, the earliest history connected with the county is. found in the southern part. Many evidences can be found as to settlers earlier than this record of 1725. Along the Loutre river stood for years block houses built of stone with portholes. To these houses the settlers are supposed to have re- treated from the Indian. Even as late as 1864 there stood in the middle street of Danville a block house built for the protection of the people and to keep away the intruder.

EARLY SETTLEMENTS AND SETTLERS

The Big Spring settlement was next in order following that at Loutre island. Here the first cabins were built in about 1808. Jacob Groom was a prominent citizen of this place in 1810. Later in the year and during the attack of the Indians, Mr. Groom moved from the Big Spring settlement to Fort Clemson for protection. Mr. Groom was a native of Kentucky, a man of considerable education and was among the first school teachers of the county. He also represented the county in the state legislature.

James Massey, who located at the Loutre Lick springs in 1813, was the first white settler in what is now known as Danville township. Fol- lowing James Massey was Major Isaac Van Bibber and a little later Robert Graham from Kentucky. Daniel Boone, the noted Kentuckian and the father of Daniel M. Boone, made frequent visits to the homes of Major Van Bibber and Graham.

TOWNSHIPS

From 1818 to January, 1872, Montgomery county consisted of five townships, and at this latter date the county court changed these town- ships and formed the county into six municipal townships. The new one created was called Montgomery and was taken in part from Danville, Upper Loutre and Prairie.

WARS WITH THE INDIANS

In the years 1808 to 1811 a great influx of people came to the county, chiefly from the state of Kentucky. Most of these settled along the Loutre river and all that country was thoroughly explored by the new people who kept one eye open for game and the other for Indians. The hills along Loutre creek were sparsely timbered and the new comers peered from the edges before exhibiting their entire bodies. The first victim of the Indian wars was Harris Massey, who in the early spring of 1813, was killed while plowing in his father's field near Loutre Lick.

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A History of Northeast Missouri, Volume I, Part 65

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