USA > Missouri > Jasper County > A history of Jasper County, Missouri, and its people > Part 25
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WILLIE WATSON'S CHRISTMAS STOCKINGS
The following little story illustrates the tender side of the miner's life and is one of hundreds of pathetic incidents which might be related of early Joplin.
Among the men prominent in the early business life of Joplin was William Watson, who operated a bus and carriage line. During the quiet times of the later 'seventies his business fell off, and although not many people knew it, he was on the verge of financial ruin. For sev- eral days prior to Christian of 1879 he had been morose and down-hearted and his old-time friends missed his droll stories and side-splitting jokes. Christmas eve he was standing in front of Billy Teet's saloon and some of the boys asked him why he was so quiet at so merry a time, and he told them of his busines failure. Some one said, "Bill, why don't you hang up your stocking; maybe Santa will put something in it?" Bill replied that he believed he'd do it. It was a happy thought. A. B. McCarty, Matt Stafford, Kit Carson and a few others hurried out and got half a dozen gunny sacks and, making a large ten-foot stocking hung it in front of the Joplin Hotel and labeled it "Willie Watson's Stocking." What Bill intended for a joke now became a reality. His old butcher friend, Bill Beal, came by and dropped in the stocking several links of fresh bologna. A grocer came by and catching the spirit left a sack of flour. . A feed man came and dropped by the stocking a couple of bales of hay and a hundred weight of chop. The fever was catching and every man who went by put something in the stocking, or on the ground near by, and Christmas morning Bill Watson took to his barn two wagon loads of feed, groceries and wearing apparel which had been given him, and he used to say that the little bit of a joke tided him over the crisis.
RIVALRY BETWEEN JOPLIN AND CARTHAGE
During the 'seventies and the 'eighties there was consederable rivalry between Joplin and Carthage and the papers of each occasionally took a good natured dig at each other. The following little clipping from the News in August, 1878, illustrates the pleasure the papers took in com- menting on each other : "A couple of Joplin men went up to the county seat several nights ago, became somewhat hilarious and created an ex- citement second only to the hanging of Ables. The good old burg of Carthage makes a nine-day wonder over a little affair like the kicking over of a stove, smashing a few chairs, stopping telegraphic communica- tion for a few minutes, and a three-dollar fine in the police court. Wait until the M. & W. opens its heart and gives Joplin an excursion, and then call out the Light Guards."
WEBB CITY
Webb City, the second city of Jasper county in point of population, like Joplin, had its beginning in the 'seventies and came into existence as a result of the great mining industry. John C. Webb was the founder
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of the city and around his name clusters the early history of that im- portant mining center.
Mr. Webb was a native of Tennessee and the second of a large family of children. He was brought up on the farm and received his education in the log schoolhouses of that day. In January, 1849, he married Miss Ruth T. Davis. In 1856 he and his wife came to Jasper county and set- tled near the head of Turkey creek, the Webb cemetery east of Harmony Grove being on the old home place.
In 1857 he entered two hundred acres of land where the original Webb City was later laid out. At that time, however, Mr. Webb never dreamed that the land for which he paid the government a few hundred dollars would ere long yield him a snug fortune. He gradually added to his original entry until he was, at the begining of Webb City, the owner of half a section.
During the war he served in the Confederate army, responding to Governor Jackson's call for volunteers to defend Missouri and entering the southern army at the expiration of his term of service with the State Guard. After the war he returned home and again worked his farm.
LEAD DISCOVERED
In June, 1873, while plowing corn, he accidentally turned up a good sized chunk of lead and in the fall, when the crops were in, began pros- pecting, but with little success on account of the water. The next year he put in his crop as usual and after it was gathered purchased a pump and other necessary machinery and, in the parlance of the miner "beat the water." The pump worked to perfection and in a few days the water was out and the shaft drained sufficiently to go in the ground. The second day after he began work in the old shaft a chunk of lead weighing over one thousand pounds was hoisted. From then until now the mining industry has been pushed and today the mines of Webb City have a world-wide reputation.
In July, 1875, Mr. Webb platted the original town of Webb City. In the original dedication Mr. Webb reserved a block for a church and pub- lic school site, the old Central building standing on the block donated by the founder of the city. Webb City grew so rapidly that the next year four additions to the city were platted and in 1877 six more additions were opened to the public. During that year the city had a building boom and at the close of its first five years growth had some two thous- and inhabitants-1,588 within the city limits and from 400 to 600 just outside, but properly a part of the town.
Mr. Webb did not mine the land on which he discovered the first lead, but leased it to a company, and before he died was one of the county's millionaires, made so by the royalties from the mines and the sale of town lots.
G. P. ASHCRAFT
G. P. Ashcraft was the first man to sink a shaft on the Center Creek land and also marketed the first carload of ore from the Webb City dis-
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trict. The following little reminiscence which appeared in the Joplin Daily Globe, Sunday, July 30, 1875, illustrates the important part Mr. Ashcraft played in the early history of Webb City.
In having the man who "windlassed," cleaned and shipped the first wagon- load of ore ever marketed from here, and then within less than forty years wit- nessing the growth of the mines on that particular bit of ground expand until now over ten million dollars' worth of ore has been shipped from the Center creek mines, probably gave Granville P. Ashcraft, the pioneer who died a few days ago, a much better chance to witness the activities and accomplishments of life than did Methuselah, reputed to have spent more years on earth than any other man on record.
For in these days of modern achievement, the events of a man's life follow each other with such lightening-like rapidity that a single year in the century now passing has become much more than the equivalent of one hundred years in the patriarchal days when that oldest man of ancient history moved along his quiet and uneventful path.
The distinction that came to Mr. Ashcraft, of making the first sale of lead from Webb City, was, however, like many of the events that make history for Individuals and communities, more of chance than of design. For the writer well remembers how, in a conversation with this pioneer citizen whose death all Webb City mourns, he recalled how his coming to Webb City, instead of prospecting elsewhere, was very much the whim of a moment.
"It was because I got mad," said Mr. Ashcraft, "over some things about a deal in Oronogo, that I threw up a lease for $50 when, only a few weeks before, I had paid $1,500 for it. That was how it happened that I came to Webb City, and have remained here the rest of my life, instead of working in the original shaft of what afterwards became the Oronogo Circle mines."
Only a few of the older men of Webb City are still living to give their personal recollection of the beginning of the mines in Webb City. Benjamin F. Hatcher, who has been in Jasper county fifty-four years, is one of the few survivors, and he certainly had as good a chance of knowing as any of the pioneers of the early 70's, for he was the man who helped pull the water out of that first shaft from which "mineral" was hoisted, and thus assisted in the foundation work of the immense mining industry now so firmly established.
"When Grant Ashcraft came over from Oronogo and undertook to sink the shaft on Center creek, where there had been the first lead find in this dis- trict," says Mr. Hatcher, "I started with him to run the pump. My recollection is that it took a relay of seven horses, working each horse for two or three hours at a time, to keep the pump going, and all we had then was literally 'horse power.' It wasn't much of a shaft, as we should think now. It was something less than thirty feet deep, and some lead had been taken out, that was in the dump, but none had been sold. It looked very doubtful about getting any more, as the water was so strong it came out of the top of the hole within a few hours whenever the pump stopped. We kept at it until he got enough out to make several sales of lead, but under great difficulty, and when there was high water there was nothing doing.
"People didn't know much about pumps in those days, not around here, anyway, and I remember that Thomas N. Davey, then and for a long time after in the foundry business at Carthage, devised a new kind of pump that he had hoped would prove adequate to the water proposition, as we should call it now, at Center creek. But it didn't work; and for years there was little else but discouragement as to continuous work, for when the 'pump shaft' was down, none of the numerous prospectors were able to get in the ground. Among those interested in working this shaft in the early days were Ben Webb and John C. Webb, on whose land the discovery was made; Thomas N. Davey, W. A. Daugherty. S. B. Corn. of Joplin, and a practical miner, named Mike Jones, who came here from Oronogo."
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Being the first man to mine and ship lead ore from the locality that after- wards became Webb City was not Grant Ashcraft's only distinction. When he came there was nothing in sight but the log house of John C. Webb, for whom the town was named. By the time Webb City was incorporated in 1875, Mr. Ashcraft had laid the foundation of his fortune to a sufficient extent to become the purchaser of the largest number of city lots, consisting of the greater part of the block bounded by Daugherty, John, Pennsylvania and Ball streets. At one corner of this tract of the original town site, he built the first frame house, adding others on the vacant lots later on, and living in one of them from those early days until within the last couple of years. He was, therefore, the first house-builder and lived on the site of his first choice nearly thirty-five years.
While Mr. Ashcraft was a native of Missouri, being born in that part of the original Bates county which afterward became the county of Cass, he spent his early manhood in California, on a. ranch belonging to Granville Swift. As Swift lived on the next farm to that on which Mr. Ashcraft's parents resided at the time he was born, and it was for him he was named Granville, although 99 per cent of his friends knew him all through his life as "Grant."
It was a visit that his brother, Samuel P. Ashcraft, made by stage to Call- fornia in 1864, that brought "Grant" back to Missouri. The trip, from start to return, occupied from January 19 until March 4, and no time was lost in the journey.
"It was while he was on Swift's ranch in California," says Sam Ashcraft, "that he acquired his love of horse flesh that became one of his characteristic hobbies all through life. 'Grant' knew a good horse as well as any man in Jas- per county, perhaps, and no end of stories could be told of his venturesome and daredevil exploits.
"One day in the early days of the old 'Red Plant,' a Frisco train was passing when he was on his way to Webb City. He made a bet with the man who was riding with him that he could beat the train to town. No doubt he did his best to win the bet, as was shown by the fact that in his mad race he killed a cow on the roadway and had to pay the owner for the loss of the animal, besides getting unmercifully 'joshed' by his friends for years afterwards.
"One of my brother's characteristics was that he always backed his own judgment, rarely told any one what he Intended to do in business matters and never asked advice of anybody. He was a hard man to persuade into any- thing, but when once he gave his word, everyone knew that he could be relied upon to do just what he said."
THE TOMS SMELTER
In 1876 Mr. William Toms built a lead furnace on Bens branch be- tween Webb City and Carterville and this was operated until 1880, when it was destroyed by fire.
WEBB CITY'S FIRST ELECTION
Webb City had grown to such an extent that during the presidential campaign of 1876 the county court designated it as a voting precinct and at its first election went Democratic, the vote being as follows: Hayes, Republican, 142; Tilden, Democratic, 195; Cooper, Greenbacker, 4.
WEBB CITY AS A TOWN
In December, 1876, the citizens of Webb City petitioned the county court to incorporate that place as a town and accordingly on the 11th
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day of December the court formally granted the petition and issued a decree to that effect. W. A. Ashcraft, O. Jacobs, James Smith, J. E. McNair and R. A. Sterling were appointed the first board of trustees.
The same evening the board was sworn into office and organized by the election of J. E. McNair as president; I. Brunnin, as clerk; W. A. Ash- craft, as treasurer, D. H. Thomas, as collector; L. Mark, city marshal, and R. L. Thomas as city attorney. The first ordinance of the city was drafted by Attorney Thomas.
J. E. McNAIR
James E. McNair, the first executive officer of Webb City, was a na- tive of North Carolina and of Scotch descent. He was born December 13, 1833. His father was a Revolutionary patriot, having served in the Continental army during the entire seven years of hostilities. Mr. Mc- Nair's boyhood was spent in the south, having lived in Mississippi and Tennessee before the War between the States. In the spring of '52 he caught the gold fever and started to cross the plains enroute for Cali- fornia. Arriving at Bates county, this state, he became ill and was obliged to leave the party of overland tourists, and remained in that county until 1854 when he had regained his health. Still determined to go to the gold fields, he hired to Henry Riggs as a cowboy and crossed the plains that summer, helping to drive a herd of cattle to Sacramento. He returned to Tennessee in 1859 and began the study of medicine.
Mr. McNair had been brought up an Andrew Jackson Democrat, but when Fort Sumter was fired upon he cast his lot with the north and en- listed in the First West Tennessee U. S. Volunteers. On account of sickness he was discharged from the service in the fall of 1864 and the next year was elected a member of the legislature of Tennessee. In 1865 he was elected a delegate to the Southern Loyalists convention which met in Philadelphia, and there urged the extending of the right hand of fellowship to the defeated states. During the war he was married to Miss Patience Flippen, a charming Tennessee belle.
In 1869 he came to Missouri and worked for the St. Louis & San Francisco Railway in the capacity of a bridge carpenter, coming to Oro- nogo in that railway's employ in 1874. In 1875, when John C. Webb laid out the town of Webb City, Mr. McNair came to the place which then was only represented by the surveyor's pegs in the ground, and built for Mr. Webb the first house. On January 13, 1877, after having served the city as mayor for one month and two days, Mr. McNair was appointed postmaster of Webb City, which office had just been established, and re- signed his position as a member of the board of trustees. F. Ball was appointed trustee to fill the vacancy and (vice Chairman James Smith) filled out the remainder of the term as president of the board. During the administration of Messrs. McNair and Smith order was established and the preliminaries of the founding of a city government gone through with.
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SPRING ELECTIO 1877
In April, 1877, the first regular e for trustees occurred and the
following were chosen : George H. Sm H. Vincent, John Pratt, M. J. Faubin and W. A. Ashcraft.
The new board organized by elecung George H. Smith, chairman; D. H. Endrickson, city clerk; Charles Metcalf, treasurer; David Carant, marshal, and William H. Metheny, city attorney. Mr. Metheny re- signed before the expiration of his term and L. A. Thomas, the first at- torney, was appointed to fill out his unexpired term.
AS A FOURTH-CLASS CITY
On the 28th day of February, 1878, the town voted on a proposition to incorporate as a city of the fourth class and the proposition carried by a majority of three votes. At the regular city election in April, 1878, the following officers were elected: Mayor, Ben C. Webb; aldermen, H. I. Shafer, J. M. Whitworth, A. J. Sinclair and A. F. Scott; marshal, David Currant.
The appointive officers were Charles Metcalf, treasurer; J. C. Col- umbia, collector ; S. D. McPherson, attorney. Before the end of the year Mr. Metcalf resigned as city clerk and J. E. McNair, the first Elm board of trustees, was appointed. At the election in 1879 Mr. Webb was reelected mayor and the following gentlemen served as aldermen : Waller Tholborn, R. S. Gaston, D. J. Horn and M. Worden.
John W. Vermillion succeeded Mr. Currian as marshal. The ap- pointive officers were the same as in 1878, save the collector, J. W. Cald- well, who succeeded Mr. Columbia.
TAX LITIGATION
The early city administration did not have all smooth sailing in building up and beautifying the young city.
The first city council, or rather board of trustees, planned great things, among which were the thorough policing of the town and the improvement of the streets. On account of the many needed improve- ments, the young town levied a tax which was slightly in excess of the constitutional limit. The city taxes could not be levied and collected until the regular time of assessment, in the meantime anticipating returns from the tax levy, policemen were hired and they, with other help were paid in city warrants. When the time came for collecting the tax the levy was contested by some of the people and, at the trial, declared by the court to be illegal. As a result the city government did not receive the anticipated revenue for 1877 and 1878. City warrants went down to fifty cents on the dollar and the wheels of government for a time were almost stopped. It was then that the proposition was submitted to organize as a corporation of the fourth class, which would allow the levy necessary to carry on the business of the city. The proposition carried by three majority and in 1879, and the city collected its taxes for the first time.
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FIRST C URCH IN WEBB CITY
The first work for the M "En Webb City was begun by a little
band of Presbyterians-W. . "heatley, C. S. Manker and - Van
Pelt, who with their good w .. organized a union Sunday school at Webb's Hall in the latter part of 1876. The school from the first day was a success, not only in point of number, but in the interest manifested. W. A. Wheatley was its superintendent.
The attendance grew so rapidly that it was necessary to secure a larger place of meeting and permission was given to use the new school- house that recently had been completed. And here the work was carried on during 1877-8. At the time the Sunday school moved to the school- house it numbered over two hundred regular attendants, the primary class, in charge of Mrs. W. A. Wheatley, containing forty-two little tots.
The matter of organizing a church was now agitated and from this union Sunday school grew later the First Presbyterian church of Webb City, which was organized March 27, 1877, with eight members. Messrs. Wheatley, Manker and Van Pelt, who had taken the initiative in the organization of the Sunday school, were elected the first session of the new church.
During the remaining 'seventies, the church did not have a regular pastor, but the Rev. D. K. Campbell, of Joplin, preached to the con- gregation, which grew slowly but surely, every Sunday afternoon, until after he closed his ministerial work in Joplin. In 1879 the society, which now had grown to twenty-six, purchased a building on Allen street which had been erected for a saloon, fitted it up for a church and there worshiped until the latter 'eighties.
During the pioneer days of Webb City the church exerted a great influence. Its choir-the famous Stevenson-Wheatley quartette, con- sisting of W. A. Wheatley and wife and Prof. J. M. Stevenson and wife -won great distinction, singing at all of the principal gatherings over the county. In April, 1879, the Ozark Presbyterians met in the Webb City church. One other little incident might be mentioned which shows the influence that the church exerted on the community.
During the winter of 1877-8 there was a great amount of sickness in Webb City, due partly to the inclemency of the weather and partly to the lack of proper shelter, and quite a number died of pneumonia. Mrs. Wheatley and Mrs. Hull, both active workers in the church, were min- istering angels who went out and helped care for the afflicted. Many a sick room was cheered by the kindly attentions of these two church workers. In those days there was no undertaker in Webb City, and when death entered the home of a friend they came and, with loving hands, helped prepare the body for burial. Thus, as they performed these kindly acts of love and tenderness, they reflected credit on the church, whose deaconesses they were.
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ORGANIZATION OF THE SCHOOL DISTRICT
The Webb City School district was organized in 1876 and a sub- stantial four-room frame schoolhouse was built during the winter of 1876-7 on the site of the old Central High School building.
Prof. Dickey, late of the Carthage schools, was the first principal, did a good work of organization and remained in charge of the school to the close of the 'seventies.
THE BLUNT RAID
A few weeks after the city government of Webb City had been or- ganized the town experienced an excitement, which, for a day, resembled a western cowboy raid. On January 25, 1877, James Missick of Car- terville came over to Webb City and, having imbibed too freely, became hilarious and was placed in jail by Marshal Marks and his deputy. Hearing of his incarceration a party of his friends came over to Webb City and attempted to take Missick from jail, but did not succeed. Later, however, bail was procured and the party returned to Carterville. The next morning four of the friends of Missick came over to Webb City, bent on raiding the town, but nothing was done save to hang around the saloons and threaten the mayor and police. That afternoon the party returned, this time having been reinforced to seven, and galloped through the streets at full-speed, firing promiscuously at people on the thoroughfares. Uriah Fishburn, "Monkeywrench" Jones and several others were shot, but none of them were killed and a horse was shot from under one of the raiders by the marshal. The marshal then rode to Oronogo and telegraphed to Sheriff Beamer for help and in the evening the sheriff, with two hack-loads of special deputies, came to Webb City for the purpose of restoring order. Their presence was not needed, however, as the raiders had departed. A number of persons were arrested for complicity in the affair, but no convictions were ever made. . Two of the raiders, who could not give bonds, were taken to Carthage and placed in the county jail and while they were confined there, at a time when all the deputies were away excepting the jailer, they overpowered him, escaped and were never retaken.
George Hudson, one of the gang, gave bonds for his appearance and was discharged for want of evidence. The strangeness of fate, which allowed him to go unpunished, was as follows. Uriah Fishburn had been shot by Hudson during the raid and he was the principal witness for the state. On the morning of the trial, before going to the court room, Mr. Fishburn went out to his mine to give directions for the day, and while showing one of the miners how to do a certain piece of work was caught in a large wheel in the machinery at the plant and in- stantly killed. When the trial came on, there was no witness for the state and the case was dismissed.
George Hudson was killed by a sheriff in Colorado while resisting an arrest.
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CARTERVILLE
Webb City and Carterville are often spoken of as the Twin Cities and very properly so, for they both came into existence the same year; both are sustained by the same great industry and, except to those who are familiar with the dividing line between the two towns, it is hard to tell just where Webb City ends and Carterville begins; for Ben's branch, which is between the two towns, wends its way in its meanderings first one side and then the other of the imaginary line which divides the two municipalities.
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