USA > Missouri > Centennial history of Missouri (the center state) one hundred years in the Union, 1820-1921, Volume I > Part 16
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great many boarders in it and as many lights sparkled and glistened from the windows down into the street below, when we drove up, as if it had been illuminated on some occasion of rejoicing. It is an excellent house, and the proprietors have most bountiful notions of providing the creature comforts. Dining alone with my wife in her own room one day, I counted fourteen dishes on the table at once."
A power to be reckoned with along the debatable Missouri-Kansas border in the fifties was Uncle John who kept the Mimms hotel at Kansas City. Red Legs and Border Ruffians, Jayhawkers and slave drivers, stopped with Uncle John. They were entertained impartially, and, strange to tell, the peace was preserved among these warring elements so long as they remained the guests at the Mimms hotel. Uncle John was an ordained minister of the Missionary Baptist church. He was from Kentucky, a fearless man, a character of that peculiar reserve force which made other men feel peaceful in his presence.
"The Washington Lewis Place," in Saline county, served as a tavern fifteen or twenty years. The tradition that a considerable quantity of whiskey was buried there is still current. Washington Lewis was one of three brothers who came out from Virginia about 1830. The tavern is a brick structure with a crack in the walls said to have been caused by an earthquake in 1846. One of the first post offices of Central Missouri was in this tavern. In an upper room the pioneer, Doctor Yancey, had his office.
When Benton Was Shocked.
Realization of his waning hold came as a shock to Benton in a tavern during the campaign of 1849. Judge Fagg told the story in his own graphic way :
"Still clinging to the policy of driving everything by force and unconscious of the fact that hundreds and thousands of his old friends and supporters were gradually falling away from him-that the slavery agitators were constantly alarming the slaveholders more and more as to the security of their property-he still believed that he had the power to maintain himself in the state. He started out again 'solitary and alone' in his private carriage, and, crossing the Missouri river at St. Charles, he took what he had been in the habit of calling in the early days, 'The Salt River Trail.' He passed up through St. Charles and Lincoln counties, scarcely meeting a solitary man that he could call his friend. Late in the evening he found himself at the village of Auburn. He recognized the place and remembered that more than twenty years previously he had been in the habit of stopping with his old friend, Daniel Draper. There was the same old, hewed log house. The same old sign post from which was suspended an old sign with the letters so faded that he read with difficulty, 'Entertainment by D. Draper.' It was like an oasis in the desert. He had journeyed through an anti-Benton wilderness but he would now be cheered and refreshed by the hearty greeting and cordial entertainment of his old acquaintance and friend. Stepping out of his carriage and approaching the house he was met by the old landlord, tottering with age and looking at his visitor in a sort of listless indifferent way. He said, 'You will have Colonel Benton with you tonight, Mr. Draper.' Still looking at his distinguished visitor, the old man replied in a voice that betrayed no surprise or emotion, 'Yes, I reckon so; all sorts of people stop here.'"
James O. Broadhead had a version of the same incident to illustrate alike the independence of the tavern keeper of early days and the little respect the Whigs had for Benton. He said that on the state road which ran through Auburn, in Lincoln county, old Daniel Draper kept tavern. He was a Whig and made no concealment of his political sentiments. Benton stopped in front of Draper's one day toward night and as usual referring to himself in the
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third person said, "Senator Benton wishes to stay all night with you!" Draper was chopping wood. Without looking up he said, "Get down and hitch your horse. We are not particular about whom we entertain."
The Barnum Stew.
Barnum's hotel stew was a Missouri distinction in the forties and fifties. Every noted visitor, the Prince of Wales who was to become King Edward included, was made acquainted with this famous ragout. Theron Barnum was, in popular estimation, one of the most important citizens of St. Louis, ranking with the mayor on many occasions when guests were to be paid unusual honors. He was a Vermonter, coming to Missouri in 1840 with the reputation of being the nephew of the Barnum who had kept the best hotel in Baltimore about 1825. The wife of Theron Barnum was a Connecticut woman, Mary L. Chadwick, who helped her husband make their first hotel on Third and Vine streets so famous that St. Louis capitalists raised $200,000 and built the most imposing hotel west of the Alleghany mountains. George R. Taylor, George Collier, Joshua B. Brant and J. T. Swearingen were the men of means who headed the movement to build the hotel. Theron Barnum guarded jealously the recipe for that stew which made all visitors wonder.
The Missouri tavern keeper had his own way of classifying his guests of the pioneer days. The Missouri shibboleth was a matter not so much of dress and speech as it was of taste. The tavern keeper said to himself this man is a southerner and that man is a northerner after the first meal. If the guest said he would take a cup of sweet milk, that showed he was from north of the Ohio river-from a New England or Middle state. If the stranger called for sour milk he was at once set down as from a southern state. In St. Louis at that time sweet milk sold at twenty-five cents a gallon, and sour milk at eighteen and one-half cents a gallon.
Settled at the Bar.
Mann's Tavern, in Bowling Green, was the scene of an historic incident which merits place in the history of Missouri duels. Judge Thomas J. C. Fagg told the story in his reminiscences which were published by the Pike County News twenty years ago:
"Some time in the twenties, possibly after 1825, two squads of travelers dismounted in front of the hotel. There being no other house of entertainment in the town, they were necessarily compelled to stop at the same place. They came from the same direc- tion, all on horseback. They were well dressed, but absolute strangers in the town. The mystery deepened as the strangers hovered over the big log fire that blazed on the spacious hearth. It was a rainy, chilly day in November, and the two parties had evidently had a long ride from the west. Two separate groups of three gentlemen,-What could it mean? The first three to enter the house finally approached the bar and called for some- thing to drink. Then, in turn, the other three did the same thing. This was repeated before supper. The hot coffee and broiled venison, added to the whiskey, had a won- derfully softening influence upon the crowd.
"As they returned to the bar-room, one of the party felt called upon to make a brief speech. In substance, he said they were about to relapse into a state of barbarism. Ne true gentleman ever drank by himself when there was another man standing by, who could enjoy the exhilarating draught with him. No two parties, no matter how bitter
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their feelings might be to each other, could afford to go up to the bar in separate squads and gulp down their liquor in silence and without an invitation to all to join. 'Boys, I move we all drink together.' The entire crowd responded by going up to the bar in a body. As they stood with glasses in hand, the same speaker said: 'Gentlemen, I have another proposition to make. Let us forgive and forget all past differences and drink to the good health and perpetual friendship of each other.' They touched their glasses and drank most heartily to the sentiment. As they set their glasses upon the counter they grasped each other's hands with a pledge of undying friendship.
"The mystery came out at last. A bitter personal quarrel was amicably adjusted as they took the last drink. The two parties had traveled from Fayette and Boonville in order to cross the river at this point to fight a duel on Sny island the next day. The party consisted of the two principals, each with his second and surgeon. Their object was to fight in Illinois so as to avoid the penalties imposed by the laws of this state against dueling. Instead of crossing the river in the morning to meet in deadly combat, the two principals with their seconds and surgeons, journeyed back to their homes together, de- lighted with the outcome of the expedition. The parties consisted of Peyton R. Hayden, of Boonville, and Charles French, of Lexington, the two principals; and Abiel Leonard and Hamilton Gamble, the seconds. My impression is that neither Hayden nor French ever sought political honors but both were eminent lawyers and highly gifted. It is barely possible that I may be mistaken as to Hayden being one of the principals, but as to the rest of the story there is no doubt. I give it substantially as Judge Leonard told it to me. The conclusion of his narrative was that 'it was the only instance in all his life that he had known any good to result from a drunken frolic.'"
Lodgings at the State Capital.
Housing the members of the general assembly for the first session held in Jefferson City was a problem. The new capitol was ready before the taverns were. John R. Musick, in his "Stories of Missouri," says that one man swung out his sign to entertain when all that he had apparently, was a board structure with office in front and dining room and kitchen in the rear. There was no floor. A legislator applied for board and lodging. "Certainly," said the affable tavern keeper. "That is what I am here for. Plenty of good rooms and beds. I will give you number 15." After supper the legislator said he would go to bed. The landlord picked up a candle, led the way out doors and around back of the wooden building where there were several tents. In front of one of the tents was a piece of board stuck in the ground and painted "No. 15." Inside of the tent was a cot.
Morgan B. White was sent by Callaway county to the legislature in 1834. He found lodgings in the house of a widow, who assigned him a bed with four high posts and heavy damask curtains. When it came time to go to bed, Uncle Morgan said he could not imagine how he was to get in. He had never seen that kind of a bed and he didn't want to ask questions. So he pulled a table and chair to the side of the bed, climbed over the top of the curtains. Instead of stopping when he reached the feathers he went through and struck the floor.
A Social Center in Old Monroe.
What happened at the old Glenn house in Paris furnished the ground for a church trial which agitated a large section of Missouri when the church was divided on the question of dancing. David Peavy, known from the Mississippi to the Missouri, was the first landlord, the tavern then consisting of a combina- tion of log and frame. His sign announced the usual "entertainment for man
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and beast." There was a bell on a post in front of the tavern. When a stranger rode up on a horse, Uncle Davy went out to greet him, and rang the bell as if to call a stable boy. After the guest had gone inside, the landlord took the horse to the stable and attended to it. After Peavy, the tavern was kept bv Anderson Woods, a Baptist preacher, and his wife Betsy. The dining room back of the hotel had been for years used for dancing parties. Preacher Woods suspended these parties. Aunt Betsy did not have the same scruples as her husband. When Mr. Woods went away to fill a preaching appointment, Aunt Betsy readily yielded to the pleas of the young people and gave per- mission for a dance. The preacher found a creek too high to cross. He came back when the fun was fast and furious, stood for a few moments looking in at the door and said : "I can see no harm in that." But the church authorities disagreed with him, preferred charges and brought him to trial. For some years after that there was no more dancing in the tavern dining room. During more than sixty years the Glenn house was a social center of Monroe county.
Hinkson creek, originally called something else, derived its name, according to E. W. Stephens, the historian of Boone county, from what befell Robert Hinkson, a tavern keeper and one of the first settlers in that county. Hinkson had quite a herd of cattle. He started from home one morning in early winter to drive the cattle to the river bottom, intending to leave them there, as was the winter custom, to rough through till spring. When night came he stopped and camped on the bank of the creek. The next morning he drove out into the forest and kept the course as well as he could guess all day. At night he found himself on the identical spot where he had camped the previous night. The other settlers fastened the joke on Hinkson and made it living tradition by giving the creek his name.
Upon a Missouri tavern was built one of the largest of the lottery enter- prises which agitated the American people about the time of the Civil war. The Patee House was the name of the tavern. With two acres of ground adjoining it in the city of St. Joseph, this building, owned by John Patee, was disposed of by raffle in 1863. The property, which included all of the furniture and fixtures, was valued at $140,000. The tickets were two dollars. The tickets bore the stipulation that $25,000 of the receipts from the sale of tickets would "be apportioned between those cities and towns in proportion to the number of tickets sold therein, the amount to be placed in the hands of the authorities for any benevolent object they may deem proper.
McPherson's Historic Register.
In the collection of the State Historical Society of Missouri, at Columbia, is the register of the City hotel of Boonville, for 1843 and 1844. Guests not only wrote their names and homes and destinations but enough information about themselves to make the book interesting reading. There was room for remarks, and one man who must have arrived in a storm wrote after his Ken -. tucky address, "Blanked poor weather for fools who have left the sunny south." The landlord, Edward B. McPherson, was an ardent politician and a frequent contributor to the comments on his register. On Sundays he would enter, "Let us all go to church." After one name the landlord wrote, "Left without paying
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his bill." McPherson was for Clay .- aggressively so. He made many com- ments on the progress of the campaign and encouraged his guests to write after their names "Clay and Frelinghuysen" or "Polk and Dallas," as they preferred. In a number of cases the guests told why they were for their favored ticket or offered wagers on the result. When the returns finally showed the defeat of Clay, his political idol, Landlord McPherson wrote on the register :
"Snowstorm, Polk and Dallas, Oregon and Texas, free trade, war with Mexico and Great Britain, hard money, relapse into barbarism, but a division of property first."
The signature of Thomas H. Benton appears a number of times on this regis- ter, which might seem rather remarkable in view of his antagonism to the outspoken politics of the Whig landlord; but Secretary Shoemaker of the State Historical Society has dug up the fact that when "The Magisterial," as Benton was sometimes called, was questioned about the propriety of stopping with a Whig landlord, he replied: "Sir, do you think Benton takes his politics into his belly?" When it was suggested that guests double up in times of congestion, the reply was, "Benton sleeps in the same bed with no other man."
At the old tavern in Potosi, kept by Roberts, the charge was twenty-five cents a meal; or "dinner and whiskey, thirty-seven and one-half cents." An account book kept in 1824 shows that most of the charges included the whiskey. Sometimes the whiskey was sold by the pint and then it was twenty-five cents.
The first tavern built in Pacific, or Franklin as it was known for years, went by the name of "Buzzards' Roost."
"Gray's Summit" was given its name for the first tavern keeper, Daniel Gray.
"Big Woman's Tavern" was a popular stopping place in the early days of Kansas City.
Colonel W. B. Royal, a Virginian and a highly educated man, kept one of the early taverns in Columbia. He added to customary wording on his sign "Semper Paratus." Buck Lampton, of historic memory for his ready speech, said that "Semper Paratus" stood for "Sweet Milk and Potatoes."
There are towns of considerable population and even cities in Missouri, the beginnings of which were taverns. The first house built in what afterwards be- came Columbia was General Gentry's. It was of three rooms, two of which accommodated the young family. The third room was set apart for the traveling public. The next year General Gentry added a fourth room. His neighbors thought he was becoming extravagant. When General Gentry led his thousand mounted Missourians out of Columbia for the long journey to subdue the Semi- noles, the march began from in front of the Gentry tavern where the farewell ceremony took place. The command was drawn up and the flag made by the young ladies of Miss Wales' academy was presented with its stirring inscription :
Gird, gird for the conflict, Our banner wave high; For our country we live, For our country we die.
Vol. 1-9
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Tavern keepers, with foresight as to coming settlement and as to prospec- tive main traveled roads, located their houses of entertainment. When the patriotic women of the Daughters of the American Revolution entered upon their patriotic work of placing monuments to mark the Boone's Lick road from St. Louis, they found that most of the historic spots were the sites of the pioneer taverns. In St. Charles county, Kenner's tavern shared with Daniel Boone's judgment tree the honor of a monument. In Warren county Roger Taylor's tavern was one of the spots chosen. Saunders tavern was another. - In Mont- gomery county the monuments were placed where stood Cross Keys tavern, Devault tavern and Van Bibber's tavern. Callaway county's section of the Boone's Lick road was marked at Drover's inn and Grant's stagestand. Among the Boone county sites selected were Vivion's stagestand and Van Horn's tav- ern. In Howard county Arnold's inn was commemorated.
Zadock Martin, Baron at the Falls.
The Missouri tavern often was the outpost of civilization. When Zadock Martin built in 1828, on the bluff at the Falls of the Platte, his nearest neighbor was fifteen miles away. Landlord Martin used hewn logs for the main part of his tavern and attached shed rooms so that he had accommodations for a considerable number of guests. The Martin tavern was on the main route to Fort Leavenworth. Martin was not lonesome. He had half a dozen sons, and three handsome daughters. A retinue of slaves, well drilled, enabled him to enforce his rights. He was a man of commanding presence, wore a broad- brimmed hat, had flashing eyes, talked loud and carried a stout hickory cane. His word was law at the Falls whether with officers or soldiers passing to or from the Fort, and also with the fishing parties which came to the Falls to carry away wagon loads of catfish and buffalo weighing from ten to seventy pounds. Martin raised large crops, had hogs which ran wild and fattened on acorns and nuts while his herd of cattle wintered on the cane along the streams. He was the baron of the Falls.
One of Zadock Martin's boys attempted to play a joke on an Indian and got the worst of it. The Indian wanted some sugar. Martin agreed to furnish three pounds if the brave would agree to eat all of it. The sugar was weighed and the eating began. The Indian went on until he had swallowed about a pound. Then he wrapped up the rest in a fold of his blanket. "Hold on!" said Martin, you promised to eat all of it. Stand to your bargain." "All right!" said the Indian, "me eat him all,-maybe some today,-maybe some tomorrow, -maybe some one odder day,-Injun no lie,-me eat him all,-goodby."
Leonard Searcy's tavern in Liberty was famed for its dancing parties about 1834. Army officers came from Fort Leavenworth and Missourians from Rich- mond, Independence, and Lexington to participate in these border functions. To one of these parties General A. S. Hughes brought the old Indian chief, White Cloud and his daughter Sally. The father and daughter were so charmed with their introduction to Missouri society that they went next morning to the stores and outfitted themselves. Sally bought a leghorn bonnet, trimmed with a flam- ing red ribbon. The chief selected a fur hat fifteen inches high with narrow brim. With great pride, White Cloud and Sally put on their purchases and paraded up and down the streets of Liberty.
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On the old Boone's Lick road, where it ran through the northern part of Callaway county, a man named Watson kept tavern. He made a great deal of money for a few years. But travelers could not understand why their horses seemed to fail in appetite when they put up with Watson. After a long time it was discovered that Watson rubbed grease in between the rows of kernels on the corn cobs to such an extent that the horses left much of the corn untouched.
Stage Driver Ball's Recollections.
Hampton Ball, one of the best known of the Missouri stage drivers, recalled that James Huntington, a wealthy contractor, put $6,000 in an open drawer of the public room of a Northeast Missouri tavern and left it there until morning. "I told him," said Ball, "that it would be dangerous ; that there might be some stranger,-not a Missourian, of course,-who would steal the money."
"You don't think any of the guests of this hotel would be mean enough to steal, do you?" Huntington said, incredulously.
Stage stand keepers, the tavern men were called where the stages made their regular stops. Hampton Ball said that "Kenner, of Paudingville," was one of the greatest. He could play a fiddle that would almost make the trees dance. He was jovial and generous and one of the most profane men I ever knew. He did not mean to be profane but he swore almost as readily as some people whistle. Although he ran a public house there was never any meal served at his table on which he did not ask the blessing. The great pioneer Methodist, Rev. Andrew Monroe, stopped one day at his house. The stage coach driver suggested that Kenner ask Parson Monroe to say the blessing.
"No," said Kenner, "I ask my own blessing at my own table."
And he did. On another occasion, in a single breath, Kenner concluded the blessing thus: "And for all these blessings, we thank Thee, O Lord, Amen; kick that blamed dog out from under the table."
Court Day on Blacksnake Hills.
W. M. Paxton attended court in November, 1839, at what is now St. Joseph but which then was Robidoux, named for the first settler. He stopped with Robidoux, who kept tavern. He left this recollection of his entertainment :
"His house was perched on the hillside. It was of logs on a stone basement. I was shown to my bed on a plank frame in the basement, and was given two blankets. I spread one blanket on the boards and covered with the other. It was a cold, blustery night and I nearly froze. In the morning, before day, I heard Robidoux stirring in the room overhead, and I went up the rude ladder. He asked me in his broken English, French and Indian how I passed the night. I told him I had suffered from the cold. 'What,' he said, 'cold with two blankets?' I explained how I had used the blankets. He replied with contempt, 'You haven't got even Indian sense or you would have wrapped up in them.'
"The old man built a roaring fire, and two prairie chickens and a half dozen ears of old corn on the cob were boiling in the pot. I made a hearty breakfast on these viands. Before court met, I took a survey of the future site of St. Joseph. I saw but two houses; that where I had spent the night and the store above the mouth of the creek. The Blacksnake Hills were romantic. They seemed to be composed of red crumbling earth, with here and there tufts of grass. From the sides of the hills, at intervals, broke out oozing springs of pure water which gathered into a bold stream that coursed the
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prairie bottom to the river. In the rear of the house, on the hillside, stood four or five scaffolds, supported by poles. On these scaffolds lay the bodies of Robidoux's children. His wives were Indians, and he buried his dead in Indian fashion.
"Court was held in one room and the elevated porch. The docket was short. The most interesting cases were several indictments against Robidoux for gambling. All the bar, except W. T. Wood, the circuit attorney, entered our names on the margin of the docket as for Robidoux. We got the old man clear on some quibble and he was happy. We charged him nothing, but he made all of us pay our tavern bills."
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