Centennial history of Missouri (the center state) one hundred years in the Union, 1820-1921, Volume I, Part 15

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 15

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

Palmer on Parliamentary Practice.

There was a man who called himself "Ringtail Painter" in that first general assembly of Missouri. His name was Palmer and his cabin home was in the Grand river valley. This first legislature met in the hotel. Palmer insisted on occuping the same bed for one night with Governor McNair so that, as he said, he could go back and tell his friends of Fishing river that he had slept with the governor of Missouri.

This first meeting of the general assembly in that hotel was enlivened by one of the most remarkable parliamentary scenes in the history of Missouri law- making. During a session of the state senate Duff Green and Andrew McGirk became involved in a heated argument. McGirk threw a pewter inkstand at Green. The two men started a fist fight. . Governor McNair came forward and tried to stop the fight. He caught hold of Green and was in the act of pulling him away when Ringtail Painter Palmer grabbed the governor and pushed him to one side shouting. "Stand back, governor; you are no more in a fight than any other man. I know that much law. I am at home in this business. Give it to him, Duff, give it to him!"

In 1835, the Missouri was still a famous hotel. John F. Darby sold it to Isaac Walker who owned the property many years and tried to maintain the Missouri's reputation. He rented the hotel to a tavern keeper in whom he thought he could have confidence. The result was so disappointing that Walker said publicly this man "was not fit to keep tavern; that his butter was so strong he could hang his hat on it." The hotel man sued Walker for slander and em- ployed Uriel Wright, the foremost orator at the bar in those days, to push the

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case. The old Missouri hotel stood until 1873 and then gave way to a business structure.

When St. Charles was made the temporary capital, members of the general assembly were given the best that the taverns could afford and were charged only $2.50 a week. The landlords paid a cent and a half a pound for pork, twenty-five cents each for venison hams, five cents a dozen for eggs, twenty-five cents a gallon for honey, and one dollar a pound for coffee.

Some Historic Hosts.

Men who became prominent in public affairs and successful in business were among those who kept tavern in the early days. James H. Audrain,. whose family name is carried by one of the Central Missouri counties, adver- tised. in July, 1818, that he "had opened a house of entertainment, fourteen miles west of St. Charles, at Peruque, on the road from Boone's Lick to Salt river. He hopes from his unremitted attention to make travelers comfortable and to share a portion of the public patronage."

William Montgomery announced the opening of his tavern "at the sign of the spread eagle" in Jackson that same year; "He has furnished himself with all kinds of liquors of the best quality. He has provided good ostlers, and his stables well furnished with hay, corn and oats. From his long acquaintance with business in his line, and his wish to please, he is induced to believe that no person will leave his house unsatisfied."

The card of J. J. Dozier, of St. Charles, was a model. He told through the Missouri Gazette, in ISI8, that he had "commenced keeping a house of enter- tainment for travelers and all genteel and orderly company. He flatters himself from the accommodations his house will offer, with his strict attention and desire to please, to render all his guests general satisfaction. His charges will be as low as the country will afford; he tenders his thanks to his former cus- tomers in this line of business, and hopes a continuance of their favors with a share of public patronage." Another of these politely worded tavern cards read :

"Tavern. Sign of the Green Tree. The subscriber informs his friends and. the pub- lic that he has taken that noted stand of Mr. Daniel Freeman, in Church street, St. Louis, long occupied by Mr. Freeman as a house of public entertainment, when by his exertions he hopes to merit a share of the public patronage.

"Attached to the establishment is a livery stable kept by Mr. David Ogden, where Gentlemen traveling on horseback may be sure that their horses will receive the best attention.

"The subscriber intends that his house shall be noted, as it has been heretofore, for its moderate charges,-boarding by the week or month on moderate charges. "JOHN SIMONDS."

In the Gazette, of November 15, 1817, appeared this "Notice," over the name of Benjamin Emmons: "The subscriber gives information that he keeps public entertainment at the village of St. Charles, in the house lately occupied for that purpose by N. Simonds, Esq., where the hungry and thirsty can be accommodated and the weary find rest."

The popularity which Mr. Emmons achieved was well shown, later in 1820,

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when his fellow citizens elected him to the convention which framed the first constitution of the State of Missouri. The selection of Mr. Emmons was the more notable because he was the only delegate elected who was in favor of some degree of restriction on slavery in the new state.

At Fayette there was a tavern famous through two generations of Missou- rians. It was three stories high, a regular skyscraper for that day. Behind the hotel was an immense barn. In front of the hotel was a large block, pro- vided especially for ladies arriving on horseback. The block was a part of the equipment of most of the Missouri taverns. It had its place, as indispensable as the swinging sign and the bell on the top of a post. The rates at this Fay- ette tavern were fifty cents a day for man and the same for horse. Negro hostlers were on duty day and night to take the horses to the barn. It was customary for the departing guest to tip the hostler who brought round his horse, with, not a nickel, but a silver half-dime. The bell invariably rang when meals were ready. It is a rather curious fact that in the Missouri tavern adver- tisements of one hundred years ago, hostler was spelled without the "h." Dowling's tavern, kept by one of the pioneers at the north end of Main street in St. Louis, announced through the press:

"Every exertion will be made to furnish his table, so as to render comfortable those that stop at his house. É

"His Bar is well supplied with the best of Liquors and an attentive keeper. His Stable is well supplied with provender and attended by a careful ostler. In short he will spare no expense to please."

Bar, liquors and stable were printed in large type.

Nature's Tavern.

The oddest tavern in Missouri was a cave forty feet wide and twenty feet high, in St. Charles county. Boatmen ran their pirogues and longhorns to the bank and took shelter in that cave from driving storms. They called it "The Tavern." On the walls in the early days were to be seen the names of many who had found shelter there and who had registered. Drawings and carvings of birds and beasts said to have been done by the Indians were the mural decorations of this nature tavern. A creek of considerable size empties into the Missouri near this cave and at the present day is known as Tavern creek.

To Van Bibber's tavern came Colonel David Craig when he migrated to Missouri in 1817. He brought with him two suits of black clothes and on a Sunday morning not long after his arrival, following the Virginia custom, he put on the good clothes and went to breakfast. The women folks crowded around and with much interest examined the store clothes. One of the girls touched the cloth and admiringly exclaimed, "Oh! Ain't he nice!" The tavern keeper, who either didn't favor such style or wished to check further display of enthusiasm by his family, said, "Nice! He looks like a black snake that has just shed its skin."

Van Bibber's Philosophy.

Van Bibber was somewhat of a philosopher. He believed in transmigra- tion of souls and carried out his theory to definite details. Every six thousand

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years was a complete cycle, he argued, and everything started over again. Sev- eral Kentuckians were stopping at the tavern one night, and Van Bibber kept them up late while he expounded his belief at great length. Apparently the guests were impressed and encouraged their host to keep on talking. Van Bibber was so pleased with the attention given him that he told his wife he believed he had converted his guests to his theory. In the morning the spokes- man for the party of travelers said to the landlord :

"We were very much impressed with your argument last night. Believing there may be some truth in your doctrine and being short of cash just now we have decided to wait until we come around again at the end of 6,000 years and settle our bill."

"No," said Van Bibber, "you are the same blamed rascals who were here 6,000 years ago and went away without paying your bills, and now you have to pay before you leave."

When Long's expedition was on the way up the Missouri in 1819 to dis- cover that "Great American Desert" which appeared on United States maps for two generations, Van Bibber was prepared to furnish the scientific minds with something to think about. He told of marvelous occurrences in the vicinity of Loutre Lick. At the end of winter, or in unusually rainy seasons, according to Van Bibber, there appeared lights or balls of fire, apparently com- ing out of the ground. At other times vast volumes of smoke arose, coming out of the soil. A son of Daniel Boone was one of the witnesses of this phenom- enon. The tavern keeper told Long that two preachers were riding along late at night, about nine miles from Loutre Lick, when a ball of fire appeared at one end of the whip. Both preachers saw it. In a short time a small ball of fire appeared at the other end of the whip. Almost immediately the preach- ers, their horses and the objects around them seemed to be enveloped in "wreaths of flames." Van Bibber said the preachers were so overcome with the spectacle that they couldn't tell more than this. The scientists concluded that "com- bustion of a coal bed or decomposition of a mass of pyrites" must be the ex- planation of these strange things told by Van Bibber; they dismissed the tavern keeper's stories with so little interest that he was disgusted.

Van Bibber married a granddaughter of Daniel Boone. He. had two sprightly daughters, Fanny and Matilda. His first tavern was of logs and as business developed Van Bibber added other cabins. Loutre Lick became the first Missouri spa. The earliest settlers went there for bodily ailments which were benefited by the waters. Later Loutre Lick became a health resort. Ben- ton went there and told in Washington of the waters. He advertised Loutre Lick so enthusiastically that Henry Clay referred in a speech to the Missouri senator's "Bethesda." Washington Irving, with his traveling companions, the Swiss count, M. de Portales, and the Englishman, Latrobe, stopped at Loutre Lick. He was so pleased with the surroundings that he told Van Bibber "When I get rich I am coming to buy this place and build a nice residence here." But Irving got into diplomatic service abroad and spent so much time abroad that he never carried out his impulse to become a Missourian.

Van Bibber prospered to the degree which called for better than log cabins. A carpenter, Cyranus Cox, and a blacksmith, McFarland, stopped at Van Bib-

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ber's one day. The tavernkeeper persuaded them to stop and build him some- thing more pretentious than the cabins. Cox was charmed with Fanny Van Bibber. When the time approached for the wedding, the carpenter and the girl decided that his clothes were too badly worn for the ceremony. Cox walked to St. Louis and bought a wedding suit. Matilda Van Bibber married James Estill, a pioneer Missouri merchant. As late as 1912, a great gathering of people, about 2,000, assembled at Mineola, the modern name for Loutre Lick, and under the auspices of the Old Trails Association discussed the possibility of preserving the Van Bibber tavern. To feed the multitude, forty sheep, one hundred chickens and several beeves were barbecued. Mrs. Mary Sharp, born in the tavern, was the guest of honor. Champ Clark told of the Missouri poli- tics which had been associated with Van Bibber's tavern.

A La Carte on Boone's Lick Road.

William G. Rice who kept tavern on the Boone's Lick road in Montgomery county, had a scale of prices. He kept what might be called the first hotel in Missouri on the European plan. He told his guests that the price of dinner consisting of corn bread and "common fixins" was twenty-five cents. For wheat bread and "chicken fixins" the charge was thirty-seven and one-half cents. If the decision was to try both kinds of "fixins" the traveler was required to pay sixty-two and one-half cents. Rice was noted for his precision and ac- curacy in business. He was made assessor of the county when there was quite a debt. When he went out of office he had cleared off the debt and left a surplus in the county treasury. Tradition has it that in making his canvass of the county to collect the taxes, Rice rode an ox.

A combination of preaching and tavern keeping was not uncommon in Mis- scuri's pioneer days. Rev. Andrew Monroe, the Methodist preacher, kept the tavern near what is now Danville. This was the place where another minis- ter, a tenderfoot in Missouri, stopped for dinner one day and, there being no one else to take care of his horse, the minister went out to the stable. There he found a heap of gourds common in Missouri in that period. The minister supposed the gourds to be pumpkins and offered some of them to his horse. After that the minister was known as "Gourd Head Prescott." Rev. Andrew Monroe was one of the first prohibitionists of Missouri. At one time the gov- ernor of Missouri stopped at Preacher Monroe's tavern and called for a stimu- lant. Waiving his own scruples, the preacher sent to a store and got a bottle of whiskey for his distinguished guest. But thereby he created a precedent. Preacher Monroe was strict in enforcing church rules against liquor using. One day he met David Dryden, a steward of the Methodist church, who had recently settled in Montgomery county and built a mill, a horse mill, an indus- try much needed at that time. Dryden was carrying a suspicious looking pack- age. The preacher eyed it and asked, "Well, Brother Dryden, what is that you have in your jug?" To Dryden's memory came in a flash what he had heard of Tavernkeeper Monroe's experience with the governor. He replied, "It's some whiskey I have just purchased for the governor who is at my house." The preacher smiled and passed on.

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John Smith T's Tavern Incidents.

Two incidents in the career of John Smith T, Missouri's most famous gunman in the first decade of statehood, had their settings in taverns. In a lecture before the Missouri Historical Society, many years ago, General F. A. Rozier described these incidents which illustrated Colonel. Smith's grim sense of humor and also the nerve of a Missouri tavernkeeper's wife:

"In September, 1830, Smith went to Ste. Genevieve, and, while indulging in liquor with an old citizen named Samuel Ball at the tavern of William McArthur, they quar- reled, and Smith shot Ball through the head. They were alone in the barroom at the time. Mrs. McArthur, a brave woman, heard the shot, and, running into the room, saw Ball lying dead on the floor. She denounced the killing as a cowardly act, and demanded of Smith that he surrender his pistol. Producing the four weapons which he always carried, he handed them to her with a courteous bow, and said, 'Take them, my daughter.' He surrendered to the authorities, and a week later was tried and acquitted before the Circuit Court. Acquittal always followed his arrest and trial for murder. No jury would have the temerity to convict him.

"The killing of Ball, in 1830, was the last of Smith's homicides. While on bail await- ing trial for that offense he came to St. Louis. He was described then as having hair perfectly white. He wore a buckskin hunting-shirt and a pair of shoes with the tan on them. 'He seemed,' says John F. Darby, in his 'Personal Recollections,' 'from his venerable appearance, to have. a sort of Daniel Boone aspect about him, which attracted the gaze of every one.' When the guests of the Planters' House learned who he was, their dread of him was unbounded. He had the fire to himself, and when he walked on the streets he was hastily given the greatest possible amount of room.

"At about this time he went up to Jefferson City during a session of the legislature. The Hon. James S. Rollins, then a young man of 25, had just returned from a tour of the state, on which he had attracted general attention by his eloquence in the temperance cause. Old Smith was in the City Hotel barroom and office one night, considerably the worse for liquor, when young Rollins came in. Smith heard the name, and calling the young man up, said: 'You are the young man whose temperance speeches have earned for you the name of the silver tongue, aren't you?'

"'My name is Rollins,' modestly replied the gratified orator.

"Old Smith turned to the bar and filled a tumbler with whisky. Then whipping out his Bowie knife, he said: 'Well, Mr. Silver Tongue, I want you to join me in a drink.' "'I have never taken a drink in my life,' Rollins protested.

"'No, sir, you never will unless you take this one right now,' and the glistening blade was flourished. Rollins drank the liquor. It made him very sick, but it did not kill him, and Smith certainly would have done so if he had persisted in his refusal."

"Old Alexie."

More residents of St. Louis saw the sun rise the 29th of April, 1825, than had seen it on any previous morning since "the first thirty" arrived from Fort Chartres with Auguste Chouteau. The evening of the 28th, a man on a pony galloped up the road from Carondelet. He brought the news that Lafayette had just landed there and would remain over night, reaching St. Louis in the morn- ing. "Lafayette is coming!" The news spread through the community of five thousand. Couriers mounted and rode in haste up Bellefontaine road, out St. Charles road, toward Manchester, over the Gravois Creek hills. As they went they shouted "Lafayette is coming!" All night the candles burned in more than half of the houses of St. Louis. At the earliest dawn people were moving in the streets. When the sun came up across the American bottom it shone in expectant faces of thousands of people who lined the river edge, crowded dan-

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gerously near the limestone cliff, covered the Place d' Armes, and stood in clusters on the house roofs from Main to Fifth streets.

St. Louis had been preparing for the great day. Lafayette was entertained with a reception at Major Pierre Chouteau's mansion. He was given a ride about the city. He visited Governor Clark's Indian museum. Then followed the banquet and after that was given the ball.

In the course of the day Lafayette was amazed to see approaching an old man in the full uniform of the French at Yorktown. He was delighted when the old soldier saluted stiffly, but correctly. He was deeply moved when Alex- ander Bellissime identified himself as a native of Toulon who had come over with him to fight for American independence. Bellissime had become a St. Louisan. He was known to everybody as "Old Alexie." His tavern on Second street, near Myrtle, was the resort of the French boatmen. After Lafayette's departure the veteran who had been embraced by his commander, was more esteemed than ever before. He lived to be eighty-seven. On the great days of St. Louis "Old Alexie" appeared in that well preserved uniform and three- cornered, cockade hat. When "Old Alexie" died in 1833, Captain Easton turned out the crack military company, the St. Louis Grays, and gave the veteran what would have been his heart's desire-a military funeral.

When Mark Twain Needed a Friend.

On the stage route from the Mississippi to the Missouri river, passing through Florida, was one of the historic taverns of Northeast Missouri. It was kept by William Nelson Penn, a Kentuckian by birth, who became a man of no small consequence in that section of the state. Mrs. Penn was one of those good Missouri women whose motherly instinct went far beyond her own household. The Penns were landowners. They rented some acres to a family less well-to- do. When an interesting event occurred in the renter's family, Mrs. Penn gave the baby clothes which had been her little daughter's, and thus, when he came into the world, Mark Twain found a wardrobe awaiting him. Mr. Penn not only kept tavern, but was a merchant. He'served in the legislature and later was, for eighteen years, one of the officers of Monroe county.

John Graves' Tavern House.

No man criticised with impunity the management of those pioneer hotels. John Graves kept the first tavern in Chillicothe. He started the "tavern house," as he called it, so early in the history of that community that many consider him the founder of the city. Graves did the best he knew how, and he thought that was good enough. One day a traveler grumbled about the cooking. Graves caught the critic by the collar, jerked him out of his chair at the table and kicked him out the front door.

"The blamed skunk," he said, "insulted my boarders and I won't stand for it. My boarders eat my fare and like it, and when a man makes fun of my grub, it is the same as saying they haven't sense enough to know good grub from bad. I am bound to protect my boarders."

Duden, whose marvelous letters set Germany afire for emigration to Mis- souri, told that on the south bank of the Missouri, opposite St. Charles "there

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lives a jolly Frenchman who manages the ferry, is postmaster and an innkeeper. His name is Chauvin; he was born in Canada. He told me that Prince Paul of ' Wuertemberg had spent the night with him some time ago."

Charles Joseph Latrobe, who wrote the "Rambler in North America" told of stopping opposite St. Charles, "where we found shelter for the night in a little French inn. which, with its odd, diminutive bowling green, skittle ground, garden plots and arbors, reminded us more of the Old World'than anything we had seen."

When Zadock Woods built the first tavern in Lincoln county, one of the first houses in Troy, he surrounded not only the building but the spring with a high stockade, to afford protection for his guests, and for the neighboring settlers as well. from the Indians.

General Owens kept tavern in Fayette. He was a man of keen observa- tion and wit. At that time Randolph county was on the border line of settle- ment. The general said he could always tell his guests from Randolph by the color of their clothes. Randolph people wore jeans which were dyed with walnut bark.

Judge Quarles, an uncle of Mark Twain, kept tavern in Paris. A guest came to the landlord with the request for a clean towel in the common wash- room. "Sir," said the judge with some show of reproof, "two hundred men have wiped on that towel and you are the first to complain."

Audubon and Dickens in Missouri.

Audubon, the naturalist, in his travels about Missouri in 1843, was im- pressed with the abundance of natural food supplies and with the cheapness of everything eatable. He wrote to James Hall :

"The markets here abound with all the good things of the land and of nature's crea- tion. To give you an idea of this read the following items: grouse, two for a York shilling; three chickens for the same; turkeys, wild or tame, twenty-five cents; flour, two dollars a barrel; butter, six pence for the best-fresh and really good beef, three to four cents ; veal, the same; pork, two cents; venison hams, large and dried, fifteen cents each ; potatoes, ten cents a bushel; ducks, three for a shilling ; wild geese, ten cents each; canvas back ducks, a shilling a pair; vegetables, for the asking as it were."

In a land of such plenty, Audubon felt that the tavern rates were altogether too high. He complained :

"And only think, in the midst of this abundance and cheapness, we are paying at the rate of nine dollars a week at our hotel, the Glasgow; and at the Planters we were asked ten dollars. We are at the Glasgow hotel and will leave the day after tomorrow as it is too good for our purses."

In his "American Notes" and "Martin Chuzzlewit," Charles Dickens "played the dickens" and set this country by the ears after his visit in 1842. But Mr. Dickens was well pleased with his experience at a famous old Missouri hotel:

"On the fourth day after leaving Louisville, we reached St. Louis. We went to a large hotel called the Planters' House, built like an English hospital, with long passages and bare walls, and skylights above the doors for free circulation of air. There were a

A SORGHUM MILL

A thriving industry in Missouri twenty-five years ago

THE MISSOURI BLACKSMITH'S BUSY DAY

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Centennial history of Missouri (the center state) one hundred years in the Union, 1820-1921, Volume I, Part 15

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