Centennial history of Missouri (the center state) one hundred years in the Union, 1820-1921, Volume I, Part 12

Author: Stevens, Walter Barlow, 1848-1939
Publication date: 1921
Publisher: St. Louis, Chicago, The S. J. Clarke publishing company
Number of Pages: 1074

USA > Missouri > Centennial history of Missouri (the center state) one hundred years in the Union, 1820-1921, Volume I > Part 12

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A Turkey Dinner Won the Name.

When Kirksville was laid out the founders met at the farm house of Jesse Kirk. That morning Mr. Kirk had killed two wild turkeys. The game was on exhibition. When other legal formalities had received attention the question of naming the town site was raised. "Call it Kirksville," said Mrs. Kirk, "and I will give you a dinner of roast turkey, corn bread and wild honey." It was done.

Adair county is divided by a ridge. On one side the streams flow toward the Mississippi and on the other side the slope is to the Missouri. When Gar- land C. Brodhead was state geologist he estimated the coal underlying Adair at 2,754,385,920 tons. A locality is known as the "Barrens." It consists of Irregular, winding, sharp ridges from one hundred to one hundred and fifty feet in height.

A distinguished characteristic of Phelps county is the "prairie hollow." These hollows lie between ridges. They are not usually more than half a mile in width but are often several miles in length. They are undulating, well drained and very fertile.

Dunklin county has but one hill and no rocks. Franklin is the largest county in the state ; it has 560,000 acres.

"Polecat creek," in Harrison county, received its christening from a party of bee hunters who found the place infested with skunks. Uncle Tommy Taylor, a pioneer settler in Harrison, located well up toward the source of this creek. It was a current joke of the pioneers that Uncle Tommy was the smart- est man on Polecat creek because he had shown his wisdom in locating so near the head of the "critter."

Geographers of Missouri have found it necessary to revise their conclusions repeatedly. When Holcombe wrote his history of Marion county in the begin-

MISSOURI GEOGRAPHY

ning of the eighties he said the Fabius river was so named by Don Antonio Soulard, the Spanish surveyor. But when he concluded his researches for the history of Lewis county, he said that "with more light on the subject" he believed the Fabius was a corruption from the Indian name of Fabbas given to this river and its south fork, fabba meaning bean. Holcombe said "the real English name of the stream is Bean creek."

The Two Kansas Cities.

For many years the dividing line between Kansas City, Mo., and Kansas City, Kan., was utilized by law breakers. Missouri had a very stringent anti- gambling law and Kansas enforced prohibition. The saloons flourished on the Missouri side and the gamblers' lay-outs were many on the Kansas side. Bill Lewis located his resort so that the line ran through the middle of the room. He baffled the authorities for a long time. At last the Kansas City chief of police, Thomas Spears, set a trap and caught him :

"For many years Bill had a deep-seated and chronic objection to paying any licenses for the sale of liquor. His bar and dance house was a sort of a movable affair which he had located on the edge of the city near the state line of Kansas. I made several sorties on Bill's lay-out, as he was violating the law for selling liquor without a license, but he always got wind in some mysterious manner of my coming and would gently push his bar over into Kansas and he and his patrons would amuse themselves by giving me the laugh. When the Kansas City, Kan., authorities got after him he would baffle them by moving into Missouri again, and so the thing went on.

"I was not to be outwitted, however, as my reputation was at stake, and finally the authorities of both states put their heads together and we determined to make a joint attack on Bill. Bill at the time was raking in the shekels on the Missouri side, and I swooped down on him. He started to move across the room over into Kansas, as usual, but was surprised when he saw a posse of Kansas state authorities waiting to seize him. This was a critical moment. What was Bill to do? He was fairly and squarely in a trap, but he did not abandon hope. Suddenly a bright idea struck him. He pushed his bar half over the state line in the floor and left it there. It was for us to do the thinking now. Bill thought he had got us and indulged in a broad grin when he saw us scratching our heads. Neither state could claim the bar, but we compromised matters in a way which caused Bill's smile of delight to change into a look of dismay. We secured saws and axes and actually cut the bar in halves, Missouri claiming one half and Kansas the other. This settled Bill. He came to the conclusion that it was better to obey the law."

The Original of Eden.

A promising metropolis of Missouri was located on the Mississippi about half way between Hannibal and Quincy. It was named Marion City. The founder was William Muldrow who came from "Muldrow's Hill" in Ken- tucky. In "Martin Chuzzlewit," Dickens tells the story of an ambitious city site scheme which he called "Eden" and which he located on the Mississippi river. Martin Chuzzlewit put his money into city lots of Eden, having been led to believe it was to become a place of great importance. He made the journey to Eden and found instead of the business blocks, fine residences, parks, churches and institutions of learning, a small collection of log cabins. Some time after Martin Chuzzlewit appeared people who knew the history of Marion City said that it was the original of Dickens' "Eden." At a later date there

CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF MISSOURI

were those who believed that William Muldrow suggested to Mark Twain the famous character, Colonel Mulberry Sellers.

Muldrow was a man of extraordinary initiative and great expectations. After carrying out several lesser schemes with success Muldrow conceived the idea of creating a city. He had maps drawn, showing streets, locations of banks, churches, hotels and wharves, a theater and a newspaper office. He secured- as the location a considerable tract of ground on the river. This was about 1830. Muldrow took his maps east and told of Marion City with such enthusiasm that many lots were bought. He urged eastern people to locate in Marion City. The result wa's that not only did the intending settlers come in numbers but they had prepared for them in eastern states the parts of build- ings to be shipped to Marion City in sections. For some months Marion City grew very rapidly. A large warehouse was constructed by the river; the coun- try was cleared; there was considerable trade done by the business men.

Early in the spring of 1836 came an extraordinary flood in the Upper Mississippi. Heavy rains and melting snow carried the river over the site of the city. The exodus was as rapid as the influx had been. Muldrow promised to build a levee, got some of the leading men together and used every possible argument to stay the collapse. He succeeded in quieting some of the settlers. Boats continued to land and several stage coaches made connections with Marion City. But the flood was followed a few years later by a great fire and then a cyclone unroofed many of the remaining houses. Gradually those who had remained with Muldrow after the early disaster sought other locations. The founder was overwhelmed with law suits. He stood his ground and for a time was able to put up plausible defense. In the end the litigation went against him. Gold was discovered in California and about 1849 Muldrow went there. On the coast he attempted to establish another city and got into more litigation. After his failure in California he returned to Missouri and was known as "Old Bill Muldrow." When he died he left his estate so complicated that the admin- istrators were twelve years in settling it.

There seems to be good authority for the statement that the expression, "There's millions in it," which Mark Twain puts in the mouth of Mulberry Sellers, was original with Muldrow. Old residents of Hannibal held to this as historical truth. Muldrow was a Kentuckian by birth, typical of that state in his physical appearance. He was one inch more than six feet in height, weighed 200 pounds, and had an impressive bearing which would account for the wide swathe he cut as the foremost Missouri promoter of his day.

Submergence of Marion City.

Marion City went under in the spring of 1836. That was the winter of "the big snow." The Mississippi was so deep on the site of the "city," that, in a measure, it justified a local artist who made a drawing of a boat with Muldrow and Rev. Dr. Ely on waterscape without a tree or house in sight. Both men had poles and were reaching down into the water as far as they could. Dr. Ely was represented as saying: "I declare, Muldrow, I believe I have found the top of one of the chimneys."

Marion City did not pass entirely out of existence with this visitation.

MISSOURI GEOGRAPHY

Many moved away but some held on. The promoters had taken notes from many investors.' They issued a proclamation to these people offering more time on the payment of the notes or even cancellation of them under certain condi- tions. They went ahead with the development. A Presbyterian church was built ; also a tavern, mercantile houses, a wharf. Marion City became quite a shipping point ; hack lines ran to interior places. A railroad was graded, the first west of the Mississippi. Marion City became the market for the hogs of that part of Missouri. A packing house was built.

"The Metropolis of the West."

On one of his visits east, with Dr. Ely, Muldrow had taken in $150,000 in money and notes for lots in Marion City, which was described on the plats as "The Metropolis of the West."

The railroad was begun in the fall of 1835. Its route was to be westward through "Railroad Street" in Marion City to the Missouri Philadelphia and thence on to the Pacific. The day after Christmas, 1835, Muldrow wrote to Moses D. Bates :

"Our plan is to strike the Pacific Ocean wtih our railroad, thereby tapping the East India Trade, the most important to us of any in the world. This will make a reduction of three-fourths of the present route, and more than half of the expense will be taken off. To complete this may require twenty years, though I believe it will be completed before that time; and all will admit that our connection with New York will be complete before that time expires. And if this be admitted, I ask you to say what the size of our town will be, and what the value of our own lots, when we have this extent of garden land drawing their products continually to us, together with the trade and products of the Indies. Couple with this the fact that the great Mississippi makes one part of the cross-road which passes through an extent of country, which, for length and fertility, is unparalleled by any on the globe. Now, sir, I ask you, what may we not expect our own city to come to? The man who could not see our just claims to a rivalship with any of our western cities, must be blind."

The efforts to regenerate Marion City after the first deluge were not per- manently successful. Subsequent floods, in 1844, and in 1851 disheartened those who tried to make their homes on the low land and the "city" dwindled. Some of the buildings fell into ruins, some were carried down the river. Marion, the most ambitious of the boom towns of Missouri, became a reminiscence.

Muldrow's Variety of Schemes.

Several ambitious real estate projects grew out of the booming of Marion City. A townsite called "Philadelphia" was laid out a few miles from Marion City, and in the same vicinity was "Ely." Another city on paper called "New York" was forty miles west in Shelby county. When Dr. Ely found himself separated from his money he reproached Muldrow.

"Do I understand you to say, Dr. Ely, that you are worth nothing now ;" asked the Missouri boomer.

"No, sir, nothing," said Dr. Ely, "I am financially ruined."

"Well, sir," said Muldrow, "then you may just exactly return to Philadel- phia as soon as you please, sir, for we have no further use for you at all, sir."

When Muldrow's attention was invited to the fact that Marion City was

CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF MISSOURI

situated on such low ground that in high water the river sent part of its sur- plus around under the bluff back of his city, he replied to the criticism: "Why, sir, that is one of the great advantages the city possesses. We will, just exactly, sir. deepen the channel of the slough by cutting a channel in it a few feet deep and then connect it with the river above and below, and then the city will, just exactly, sir, have first rate navigation for steamboats all around it, and the lots fronting the slough will be as valuable as those on the river itself! This canal, sir, will be spanned by drawbridges, as in time will the great river itself, · and there will be no impediments on account of the slough or the river to either steamboat navigation or wagon transportation."

Muldrow's Versatility.

Muldrow did not confine his big schemes to Marion county entirely. He en- listed the support of New York capital in a plan to enter two townships in Clark county. The plan was to establish seminaries which should be not only self supporting but profitable through the manual labor of the students. In the center of each township was to be reserved 4,000 acres to be held by Muldrow and the parties in the East who advanced the capital. The college was to be located in the center of the 4,000 acres. All income derived from the land was to be handled by Muldrow and the capitalists as trustees of the college and to be applied towards its support. Surrounding the campus, land to the amount of 1,063 acres was to be divided into town lots and sold, it being argued by Muldrow that the college would draw settlers and create a town. From the sale of the lots Muldrow was to take for his compensation a one-sixth part and ten per cent of the whole. The remainder was the profit to accrue to the eastern capitalists for their investment in the education of young Missourians. Three New Yorkers, who thought they saw a good thing in Muldrow's whole- sale educational plan, backed him to such an extent that one township was secured in Clark county on the edge of what is now Kahoka. Muldrow received $28,000, but before the plan could be carried out the New Yorkers got cold feet and sued him. The litigation was settled by arbitration, Muldrow obtain- ing title to the Clark county land. Success of the plan all depended on the students who would come to the institution and cultivate the surplus land, raising enough to pay their way in the college and something more toward the support of the faculty. After he had closed his litigation with the three New Yorkers, Muldrow put a trust deed on the Clark county land without having his wife join him. The land was sold under the deed, but Kahoka had to wait many years until the death of Mrs. Muldrow before the title to a considerable part of Kahoka was entirely cleared.

The Lost Towns.

In the northwestern part of what is now St. Louis county was a community called St. Andrews, which, tradition has it, was once larger than St. Louis. It was an agricultural community of Americans who had come from the states to St. Louis and had been given lands by the Spanish governors. The Missouri river encroached upon St. Andrews as it did upon several other once prom- ising communities. Many of the people who first settled there moved to St.

FIRST CATHOLIC CHURCH IN MISSOURI

This church erected in St. Louis in 1770 by the French settlers. The church, parochial house and consecrated graveyard occupied block on Walnut between Second and Third streets

A PIONEER MISSOURI HOME

The new comers one hundred years ago settled along the rivers and creeks, unable to break the prairie sod with their wooden mold-board plows

MISSOURI GEOGRAPHY

Louis after the American flag was raised. They established themselves in busi- ness and in professions.

Another of the lost towns of Missouri was St. Michael in Madison county. It was established in 1800 by the Spaniards. The government bestowed liberal grants upon the first settlers. The name of one of the townships is the only reminder of the once flourishing community.

Astoria was laid out in Livingston county in 1837 by a St. Louis promoter who predicted it would become the metropolis of the Grand river valley. A fine colored map showed the prospective locations of churches, banks and other buildings. Lots were sold at $100 each. Not a house was ever built.

The Townsite Harvest.

The politicians at St. Louis were not behind in reaping their share of the townsite harvest. Duff Green, one of the makers of Missouri in the legislative sense, who afterwards removed to the national capital and became a widely- known journalist, was the promoter of Bluffton which he located on the Mis- souri river forty miles above Chariton.

"From its local situation," said Mr. Green in his announcement, "it promises not only to become the seat of justice for the county soon to be formed of the rich lands lying on Crooked and Fishing rivers, but also offers great inducements to mechanics, manufacturers, merchants and all citizens who are disposed to live in a village. It is laid off on a liberal scale. Dr. B. F. Edwards, living on the premises, is authorized to dispose of lots, and mechanics and actual settlers who will put improvements to be agreed on shall have lots gratis. A word to the wise is sufficient. Call, see and judge for yourselves."

The townsite of Bluffton is now a wheatfield. Columbia was the name chosen in 1819 for a town which is not now in existence. The founders in announcing the sale of lots held out these alluring advantages in their pros- pectus :

"This is a pleasant and beautiful situation on the Missouri river, nearly opposite Missouriton, in the Sugar Tree Bottom, and about forty miles nearly west of Boonville. An order of court has been granted for a road to run from Boonville to Pinnacles, fifteen miles below this town, through the main street of which its continuance will have to pass. Consequently the great western communication will be through this town, which, combined with its navigable advantages, will render it one of the most public places on the Missouri. There are immense coal banks and a sufficiency of timber in its immediate vicinity. It is only four miles from the Salt Fork of Lamine river, and in a neighborhood rapidly populating."

Missouriton mentioned as a means of locating the proposed Columbia is unknown to this generation. The file of the Intelligencer preserved by the State Historical Society at Columbia, derived considerable advertising patronage from the townsite promoters of one hundred years ago. The proprietors of the townsite of Nashville announced, a week before Christmas, 1819, their philanthropic purpose to let their fellow Missourians in on the ground floor of a good thing. They said of Nashville :

"The town is laid off on a Spanish grant confirmed to the United States. The title to the property is indisputable. It is situated on the North bank of the Missouri river, near

CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF MISSOURI

the mouth of Little Bonne Femme creek, about thirty miles below the town of Franklin It promises to enjoy a large portion of the trade on the river, and from the convenience of its situation it will furnish many facilities to the transportation of the vast quantities of surplus produce of an extensive and salubrious soil. The landing at this town is at all seasons of the year superior to most other places and certainly inferior to none on the Missouri. We have concluded to give the public at large an opportunity of enjoying the profits arising from the increase of town property by offering at public sale a few lots in Nashville, at Franklin, on Saturday, the first of January."

The site of Nashville in the year 1919 contributed its full acreage to Mis- souri's great corn crop. Presenting the inducements to buy lots in the town of Missouri, Daniel M. Boone said :

"This town is in the heart of the Femme Osage settlement and is the most convenient point on the Missouri river for a great proportion of the inhabitants of St. Charles county to export their produce and to land and receive their importations."

"One Third Cash or Negroes."

The advertisement of lots to be sold in Cote sans Dessein, the promoters of which hoped to have it chosen as the location of the capital, said payments were "to be one-third cash or negroes."

Jamestown was laid out on the Missouri, six miles above the mouth. The promoter, "Phinehas" James, announced :

"Near the public square there is a cave through which passes a large body of cold, sweet, lucid water, which, I think, could without much expense be raised and conveyed to every part of the town.

"The situation of this town is so lofty and noble as never to offend by noxious fumes of putrid sickly air; and the eye has always presented to it a beautiful and grand variety."

The special attractions of the proposed town of Fenton on the Meramec were set forth in the Missouri Gazette of March 24, 1819:

"From every appearance this situation must have been of considerable magnitude and strength. The numerous mounds situated in different directions and a quantity of graves in which some of the human race has been so particularly and singularly interred renders it worthy of the attention of any traveler to examine. This place is situated within three miles of three most excellent salt springs, one of which is contemplated to be put in operation the present year, which will reduce the enormous price of salt."

Lots in Herculaneum were boomed with the announcement that, "The town of St. Louis is dependent on Herculaneum for some hundred barrels of flour and many thousand barrels of whiskey annually. It is estimated that the produce of wheat this season on the western bank of the Mississippi, and within thirty-five or forty miles of this town, will amount to 150,000 bushels, the most of which will concentrate at Herculaneum for exportation."

"Hannibal, at the Mouth of Bear Creek."

Not all of these townsite promoters were mistaken in their judgment on the locations selected. The six men who pinned their faith on Hannibal were Stephen Rector, Thompson Baird, Thomas Rector, William V. Rector, Richard

MISSOURI GEOGRAPHY

Gentry, M. D. Bates. Their announcement, lots for sale, March 19, 1819, was business-like :

"The undersigned have laid off a town, which they call Hannibal, at the mouth of Bear creek, about twenty-five miles above the mouth of Salt river and fifteen miles below the mouth of Two rivers.

"Hannibal, it is believed, occupies the best site for a town there is on the Mississippi (anywhere above St. Louis), and is secured by rocky shores; it is easy of access from every direction, commands an extensive view of the river and surrounding country. There are two springs of excellent water within the town, an excellent quarry of limestone, and is backed by one of the most extensive tracts of rich and productive land that there is in Missouri territory."

A Town with a Bad Name.

Kennonsville was one of the lost towns of Missouri. It was started under fine auspices by Rev. Joseph Anderson, given the name of an Ohio Congress- man of considerable fame in that day. One block of ground was reserved by the founders "for literary purposes." Holstein academy was chartered by the legislature and had a splendid array of trustees. But the academy was never built. Kennonsville got a bad name. One of the settlers there, a lady, who moved away said that during the few years of its existence, Kennonsville "was . so near Hell that if you stuck a mattock into the ground up to the eye, the blue smoke would come up and you could smell sulphur." The legislature, about the beginning of the Civil war, wiped out the legal status of the aban- € doned town.

Jerusalem was laid out in Lewis county and the streets were named after men of national fame, beginning with Perry, "for Commodore Perry of the Lake Erie battle." The founder of Jerusalem announced in the prospectus that it had a commodious and beautiful elevated situation, and it can be extended and enlarged as may suit the proprietor, or the inhabitants of the town, and the name may be changed to suit the majority of the citizens of the town." Jerusalem never got beyond the prospectus incubation.

Petersburg, which had its beginning in 1836, if it was now in existence, could point with pride to a distinguished Missourian abroad. Petersburg was the birthplace of Mary Cunningham who became famed internationally as Mrs. John A. Logan. Petersburg is one of the entirely lost towns of Missouri.

Some of the earliest French names were changed to suit the vernacular of newcomers. Thus an ambitious movement to establish a new town on the Perche river resulted in the naming of the site Persia. The location was on the trail from St. Charles to Franklin. The promoters of Persia announced their plans in a dignified prospectus :

"The proprietors of this town do not wish to exhibit on paper for purposes of specula- tion, as is too frequently the case, but wish purchasers to improve their lots and realize their value. Fifty lots will be given to merchants, mechanics, and persons wishing to improve the above town, on stipulated terms, viz., a lot out of each block, or in proportion to the number of blocks in said town a corner lot on which a building, frame, brick or stone, not less than two stories high, and eighteen by twenty-five feet, is enclosed by September 20 next."

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Centennial history of Missouri (the center state) one hundred years in the Union, 1820-1921, Volume I, Part 12

Author: Stevens, Walter Barlow, 1848-1939 Publication date: 1921 Publisher: St. Louis, Chicago, The S. J. Clarke publishing company Number of Pages: 1074

Author: Stevens, Walter Barlow, 1848-1939
Publication date: 1921
Publisher: St. Louis, Chicago, The S. J. Clarke publishing company
Number of Pages: 1074