Centennial history of Missouri (the center state) one hundred years in the Union, 1820-1921, Volume I, Part 20

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 20

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"I started one cold afternoon, when the sun was about an hour high, to go from Black Oak to the present site of Procterville. I had to face a dreadful wind storm all the way. There was but one house on the road, and that not a place where entertain- ment could be had. I soon found that it would be almost a miracle to avoid freezing to death. I was well wrapped, and exerted myself in every possible way, but suddenly a sense of drowsiness come over me, and I almost fell from my horse. I was alarmed at the sensation, and I instantly dismounted, and leaped and ran until the drowsiness left me. I reached the house of my good friend, Dr. Procter, with frozen toes, ears and fingers, but inexpressibly glad to have escaped such a shocking death.

"There was but one bridge in all this territory, and that was at Kingston. On one occasion, after having traveled all day, the last four miles across Shoal creek bottom I found to be almost impassable. I finally reached the stream, which was nearly bank full. I could not recross the bottom to find a shelter-the sun was almost down, and half a mile further was the place of my appointment, and I must reach it at all hazards. Vol. I-11

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I was in a 'strait betwixt two,' but was not long in deciding ,which one I would accept. The path of duty led me forward, not backward, and in a moment my faithful horse was breasting the waves, and in due time brought me to the shore in safety. I soon reached my objective point, and found a good fire, and a chance to change my frozen clothes for dry ones. The Hannibal and St. Joseph railroad was that year being graded. There was a group of shanties at one place called Breckenridge. One building stood at another place, which was called Hamilton. Kidder was a city of stakes. A family near this place said to me: 'Stop and see us.' There was nothing of Cameron then but stakes, but one month from that time I found a number of little box houses, in one of which lived the family referred to; that night I preached in their house, and organized the church in that city. That was the day of small things, and was in the year 1857."

The Missouri Meeting House.

"Meeting houses" was what the early Missourians called their churches. These houses had a form of architecture which differed materially from the homes of the settlers. It was an architecture adapted to meet the uses. Judge Fagg thought the form must have originated in the inventive mind of some Mis- souri pioneer, or that it might have been brought from Kentucky or Tennessee.

"When the location was agreed upon, the members of the congregation cut and hewed logs sufficient to construct a double house, one-story in height and forty feet or more in length. But, instead of constructing a middle wall or partition, a sufficient number of logs was prepared some ten or twelve feet in length, which were used in erecting three sides to two pens located at the center of the house and made part of the rear and front walls of the building. A recess was thus formed on each side of the house. The main entrance was through a door cut in the recess in front, whilst the one in the rear was used as a pulpit. There were two aisles in the building, one running from the front door to the pulpit and the other running the entire length of the house, crossing each other at right angles. The house thus divided into four equal parts was finished with a board roof, a plain rough floor and rudely constructed benches for seats. I have never seen any structures so simple and so utterly destitute of ornament as one of these country meeting houses."

Pioneer Theology.

Judge Fagg described in a graphic way the service in one of these Missouri houses of worship. He was in search of a stray horse, and knowing that almost everybody in the neighborhood would be there on Sunday, he went to a meet- ing house in a remote part of Pike county, to make inquiry :

"I was too late to get the benefit of the introductory services, but as I approached near the church, I found an immense number of saddle horses hitched in the surround- ing woods. Very soon my ear caught the ringing sound of the old familiar hymn :

" 'How firm a foundation ye saints of the Lord Is laid for your faith in his excellent word.'

"There was no hesitating, faltering voice, no discordant sounds or organ to mar the simple beauty and effect of that wonderful song. The house was crowded and a large number of people were standing about the windows and doors to get the benefit of the sermon which was to follow. I noticed that one-quarter of the house, near the pulpit, was given up to the colored brothers and sisters,-no white person being per- mitted to intrude upon them. The preacher was an old intimate friend of almost every man, woman and child in the audience. There was no speculation or inquiry in their minds as to his sincerity. He was of slender physique, sharp features and had a clear -

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ringing voice; and it was evident from his appearance that he had a will-power suf- ficient to hold his followers in due subordination and to run things generally to suit himself. His text I do not remember, but the subject was Noah's Ark as a type of Christ. The picture would be incomplete without mentioning the figure and deportment of an elderly colored lady who took her position at the side of the pulpit and remained standing to the end of the sermon. She went through a sort of pantomime performance, swaying her body backwards and forwards, clapping her hands and occasionally respond- ing audibly to the sentiments of the preacher. The Ark with all its appointments and equipments was described as the speaker was enabled to do from the Bible account of it. The flood with its terrible consequences to the inhabitants of the globe was pic- tured in all the exaggerated colors of which he was capable; but the climax was reached when he came to a delineation of the character of the faithful servant of God who had labored for more than a hundred years in executing the commands that had been given him, with a faith that never faltered and a courage equal to every emergency and every obstacle that lay in his pathway. There was an unmistakable thread of Calvinism that ran through the entire discourse, but the peroration pushed the principles of the great champion of the doctrine of election to its utmost limit. The preacher said that 'dur- ing all the long and weary years that Noah was building the Ark, he was faithfully at- tending to his own business. He wasn't like one of these Methodist preachers with his saddlebags on his arm going around the country inviting everybody to come into the Ark. There was a certain few to be saved and all the rest to be damned.' Bringing her hands together with great force, the old negro woman exclaimed, 'Thank God for dat !' "

Pike county settlers carried their guns with them to church. The ministers, according to Judge Fagg, would lean their guns in one corner and then ascend the pulpit. It was quite the usual thing to announce after the sermon the ren- dezvous for the next bear hunt.

Preachers of Northeast Missouri.

Holcombe, in his history of Marion county, tells of some of the pioneer preachers. On one occasion services were held in Marion when the preacher's hands and clothing were almost covered with blood from a deer he had killed and dressed that morning on his way to the meeting. "The circumstance did not tie his tongue or cause his hearers to abate one jot or tittle of their atten- tion." Another of these pioneer preachers of Northeast Missouri was long re- membered for his cotton clothes colored blue, his cowhide boots and his straw hat two sizes too large. He tied a coarse string around the hat and twisted a short stick in the string so as to reduce the size of the hat to his head. Early settlers told of this man's powerful sermons. "Nearly every pioneer preacher was as ex- pert in the use of the rifle as any of the laity." The first sermon preached in Marion county was in 1820 by the Rev. John Riddle, a Baptist. While a soldier in the war of 1812, Riddle had been taken prisoner by the Shawnees. The Indians cut his ears so that they hung down in strips, "giving him a singular appearance." On the occasion of this first sermon in Marion, Mr. Riddle took as his text, "For we must needs die and are as water spilt on the ground, which cannot be gathered up again."

Missouri's Past and Present in 1856.

Rev. Moses E. Lard was a tailor in Liberty when General Doniphan became interested in him and sent him to college to be trained for a minister. In Lard's

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Quarterly, published in 1856, this minister gave an account of "My First Meet- ing," which he held in Haynesville, Clinton county. In later years Mr. Lard preached in St. Joseph and became widely known. His father had been a Mis- souri pioneer and famed as a hunter :

"Most men in the neighborhood could read Chronicles by spelling half the words, while all had either read Bunyan and eighth Romans, or had heard them read. Bunyan supplied them with experiences, Romans with texts to prove predestination; the former enjoyed the favor and affection; the latter, the authority. On Sundays most of the country population flocked to the meeting, the wags to swap horses and whittle, and to bet on the coming races; the Christians, as was fitting, to hear. the sermon, and relate their experiences. The sermon was sure to be on foreknowledge or free-will, and to contain a definition of eternity; the experiences embraced reminiscences of headless ap- paritions, or voices of pulseless corpses wrapped in coffin sheets.

"The corit-shucking of those days 'lang syne' must not be forgotten in this brief sketch. This was an occasion which always brought the whole neighborhood together. The women met to brag on their babies, drink stew, knit, and discuss the best method of setting blue-dye; the men to shuck corn, take rye, recount battles with bruin, and tell of long shots at deer; the boys to spark and blush; the girls .to ogle and fall in love.

"Next to corn-shucking, the winter quilting and hoe-downs were the pride of this long past. These were my delight. In the quilting you sat close beside your bonnie lassie ; in the hoe-down you touched her hand and saw her ankle. This over, you made love to her in the corner, while she slapped your jaws and pouted. But to me the chief attraction at the quilting was the huge stacks of pumpkin pies which graced it, of which I am not conscious at this sitting that I ever had enough.

"The country pedagogue of those unregenerate days, also merits a paragraph. He was generally a chuffy man, five feet, six, with gray hair, and fine girth-a man who cracked off definite articles, copulative conjunction, Hoogley's bay, and ciphering; could tell the day of the month by the almanac; and brogue your moccasins; pulled teeth, bled and puked the neighbors; took grog with you when dry; wrote your will and prayed for you when dying. He was deacon in the church, justice of the peace, auctioneer and general counselor at law; prescribed for gout and cancer, and was a robust believer in witchcraft; he was always elected captain on muster day; gave advice in bad cases of rupture and hair-lip; was president of the debating club, judge at shooting matches, held children when christened, and gave lectures as to the best time in the moon to salt meat and plant snaps. In the schoolroom he was a philosopher and a tyrant, made but few impressions on the mind and left many on the back, taught the boys to make manners, and the girls to courtesy; at noon played bullpen, knucks and hull-gull; and at all other times was a gentleman and an astrologer."

The Advance of Civilization.

With these reminiscences of Missouri life as he had known it in his boyhood, Rev. Mr. Lard drew the picture of Missouri's advance in civilization at the time he held his first meeting.

"At the time of my meeting great advances had been made on these times. The men had ceased to wear buckskin; the women dressed in calico, and drank green tea; ghosts were more rare, and Doew had migrated. Tents covered with elm bark were now quite out of fashion; boots were occasionally seen. The men used handkerchiefs and the women side-combs. Soap was no longer a myth to children, though starched bosoms still attracted much attention. The boys had now begun to carry riding whips, to chew; and the girls to flirt. The more able families could afford tables and biscuit on Sun- day morning, while almost all had learned what sausage and spareribs mean. Buggies

---

ELDER ALLEN WRIGHT

MOSES E. LARD

Author of "Review of Campbellism Exam- ined " and champion of the Disciples

A TEMPLE OF THE PIONEERS Camp meeting architecture in the early days of Missouri

ـيه

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and steamships were still fabulous things; while cock-fighting and log-rolling had fallen into desuetude.

"A shingled roof and a brick stack were not now absolutely unknown, and men used chains instead of withes in plowing. The use of pins was altogether abandoned, and fish were caught with hooks as in other countries. Balls had taken the place of the hoe-down; the fiddle that of the juber; horns were all the fashion, and grog was never named. The Christians discussed the mode of baptism, the operation of the spirit, and infant church membership, as in other decent countries; they only denied the existence of Styx, and the revolution of the earth. The preachers kept on their coats while preach- ing, and took a little only when feeling bad. A young man no longer consulted a witch when he wanted a wife, but went directly to his sweetheart; invalids took henbane, bone- set, and composition for diseases of the spine and fits; weekly Dale cured warts by hocus- pocus."

Religious Influence on the Pioneers.

In his recollections given to the Missouri Historical Society. Thomas Shack- leford said :

"I cannot close these reflections without calling attention to the influence of the church of Christ, in moulding the character of the early pioneers of Missouri. The Baptist denomination was the first, then the Cumberland Presbyterian, and then the Methodist. I have intimated heretofore what a strong influence the writings of Vol- taire and Thomas Paine had upon the first residents of Missouri. It was a great con- flict. A. P. Williams of the Baptist church was a man of giant intellect, and I witnessed in an early day a great debate between him and Jesse Green, a great Methodist who had come to Missouri after the failure of Sevier to establish the State of Franklin west of the Allegheny Mountains-then a part of North Carolina, now Tennessee.

"I want to mention an incident connected with the indictment of A. P. Williams for preaching without taking the oath of allegiance under the Drake constitution. I mention it to show how much influence men of my profession exerted in behalf of civil liberty. When Williams was indicted, Horace B. Johnson was circuit attorney. He wrote the indictments at the behest of a Radical grand jury (let me premise that none but Radicals could sit on a jury), and when- the case was called for trial, Johnson came to me and said: 'I don't mean to prosecute 'a man like A. P. Williams for preaching. You get your client to come in and give bond and the case will be postponed until the excitement is over.' It is needless to say that the Rev. A. P. Williams was never tried under that indictment. The Methodist denomination, by reason of their self-sacrificing ministers in the traveling connection, exerted a great influence on society. Willis A. Dockery, the father of A. M. Dockery, the governor, was one of these pioneer min- isters. I remember once, in attending conference, sitting on the seat beside the mother of our governor, and that as we sped in the cars through the prairies, this mother said to me: 'Oh, Brother Shackleford, you don't know what a trial it is to be moving so often; to have no home. I sometimes feel that I can hate the yellow flowers of the prairie which are in bloom when moving time comes.' Ah, that noble mother little thought that while she had no 'cottage in the wilderness,' she was training a boy to be the future governor of the great State of Missouri.

"The Christian world was startled with the publications of Voltaire, and Paine's 'Age of Reason,' and the men in Saline county often got together to discuss the prob- lems of life as indicated by these infidel writers. I have often heard them in animated discussion as they read and commented on the wonderful productions. My mother never permitted me to read these works, and after my father's death destroyed them. With all these prominent men imbued with this spirit of infidelity, it is not strange that they should leave their opinion impressed upon the rising generation."

Marvin's First Sermon.

Bishop Marvin's first sermon was preached in old Bethlehem church, near Flint Hill in St. Charles county. His text was: "Say ye to the righteous, that

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it shall be well with him; for they shall eat the fruit of their doings. Woe unto the wicked ! It shall be ill with him; for the reward of his hands shall be given him." Rev. J. W. Cunningham, the historian of early Methodism in Missouri, gave this account of Marvin's maiden effort to the St. Charles News many years ago :

"It was young Marvin's first sermon. People who were present say his appearance was that of an awkward country boy, dressed in home-spun, home-cut, home-made, well- worn clothes. The bishop says his pantaloons were of blue cotton, when new, but many washings had largely relieved them of the original color. They were sadly faded and worn into holes at the knees, and to hide the openings, a tender mother's hand had placed patches over them, with pieces of the original blue. Said he, 'The pale was very pale and the blue was very blue.' With little or no thought of his parti-colored panta- loons and other faded and worn apparel, the young preacher entered the church and pulpit, and did as best he could. Mr. Ben Pierce remembers that he said: 'When man came from the plastic hand of his Creator.' That is all he recollects of that 'first ser- mon,' and it is probably the only relic that survives in the neighborhood in which he preached. The preacher was neither greatly embarrassed nor over confident. He was earnest and boisterous without much of the emotional. As the service closed, John P. Allen took John B. Allen by the arm, and gave it a severe grip by way of emphasizing his whispered words, as he said: 'That youth had better quit preaching and continue to work on the farm. He will never make a preacher.' John B. replied: 'He may be a bishop yet.'

"The service ended, the people retired and no one was thoughtful enough to invite the young preacher to dinner. He mounted his horse and started homeward. He had left home early in the morning, had eaten but little, 'was very hungry,' and was de- termined not to stand on formalities. If no one would invite him he would invite him- self. He soon rode up beside Warren Walker, who was traveling the same road, and said to him: 'Brother, how far do you live from here?' On being told the distance, he said: 'Well, I am going home with you to get my dinner.' 'Certainly,' said Mr. Walker, 'I will be glad to have you do so.' And to Mr. Walker's he went and was cor- dially entertained."

Bishop Marvin on the Pioneers.

A few years before his death Bishop Marvin wrote from his home in St. Louis to an old settlers' reunion in St. Joseph :

"In 1842 I passed the present site of St. Joseph on my way to a field of labor quite on the frontier. It embraced all the country west of Nodaway river. I shall never forget the uncalculating, unbounded hospitality of the 'old settlers.' Many of them were in their first rude cabins, but those cabins had the rarest capacity for entertaining both friend and stranger of any houses of their size I ever saw. I often saw them crowded, but to the best of my recollection I never saw one of them full; there was always room for a fresh comer. I recollect once in the Platte Purchase, I was wedging myself into a bed already occupied by five children, when one of them awakened suffi- ciently to exclaim, 'Mamma, mamma, he's a scrougin' me !'

"At that time I knew many men who did not know me for I was a mere youth. I knew they were great as compared with other men I knew, but I had a fancy that the great men were in the East. But after many years of extended observation I have come to the conclusion that I heard as fine a specimen of political speaking in Liberty, in 1844, by Colonel Doniphan, as I have ever heard since, and that the country would be happier if the balances were everywhere held by hands as intelligent and firm as those of the pioneer jurist, David R. Atchison. Among my own class there was the laborious Redman, the scholarly Tutt, the impetuous and saintly Roberts, and many others now dead. There was a man, a minister of Christ, a large portion of whose career belongs

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to the Platte Purchase, of whom I must say he was in some respects the most remark- able man I ever saw. I refer to W. G. Caples. Now I proceed to say that the people of the Platte Purchase have heard as great preaching as any other people on the Ameri- can continent, and from the lips of the man Caples."

Bishop Marvin was famous for saying much in few words. He once paid the highest possible tribute to a man in this way, "He is as good as he knows how to be and he knows how as well as any man God ever made."

A Missouri Associate of Peter Cartwright.

One of the chaplains of the Missouri state senate soon after the Civil war was Rev. Dr. R. H. Manier, who afterwards went to Spokane as a pioneer in the march of Wesleyanism into the Northwest. In his early years Dr. Manier had been associated with Peter Cartwright and liked to tell of him:

"Many miles have I traveled horseback with Peter Cartwright. There are no preachers living now who are at all like him. Perhaps they are not needed in this age, but they laid the foundation stones of Methodism well and strong in this country. In many back- woods settlements where he preached gangs of toughs organized themselves to break up Mr. Cartwright's meetings, and more than once this tall, sturdy defender of the faith stepped down out of the pulpit and routed the disturbers with his fists. He was abso- lutely fearless, and upon entering a community would in his first sermon scorch the people for their sins, particularizing the vices of that neighborhood. 'You are hair- hung and breeze-shaken over hell,' he would say, with indescribable force and emphasis, shaking his great fist at his congregation; 'and when you get there your ribs will only be a gridiron for the devil to roast your souls in.' He literally scared thousands of his hearers into salvation."

The Church Militant.

The division of the pioneer Baptists into the Primitive, or Hardshell as they were sometimes called in sarcasm, and Missionary Baptists did not come about peaceably in all parts of the state. In Pike county at Siloam church, Uncle Jimmie Moore took his station in the door of the meeting house, holding an axe. The other faction headed by Rev. Amos Beck arrived later and demanded pos- session of the building. Uncle Jimmie stood his ground. Rev. Amos Bech, a man of courage, rushed at Moore in the attempt to take the axe away from him. He was cut down and dangerously wounded. It took all of the eloquence of Uriel Wright to acquit Moore who was indicted for assault with intent to kill.

Rev. Jabez Ham, who founded New Providence church on Loutre creek, was a large stout man who could use his fists if occasion required. He was plain of speech. Charles B. Harper, coming back from Callaway county where he had been for a load of corn, stopped to hear Mr. Ham preach. The congrega- tion was called upon to kneel in prayer. Harper didn't get down. The preacher called upon the Lord to bless "that Virginia man who had on store clothes and was afraid or too proud to get down on his knees."

An eccentric preacher of Randolph county was Rev. Johnson Wright, who once justified the playing of euchre because the Bible mentioned the word "eucharist." As he grew old his eccentricities became so marked that people thought he was insane. At an election in Huntsville, Johnson offered a ballot which read, "Jesus Christ, for the office of Head of the Church." When some-

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body said that Christ had been elected to that position more than 1800 years ago, the preacher replied, "Well, if it has been that long it is time he was reelected."

Rev. Isaiah Spurgin, who served Baptist churches in Central Missouri many years previous to the war, was famed for his knowledge of the Bible which he read through once a year. Following the practice of the anti-missionary branch of the church, although he did not confine his work to that body, he never re- quired any compensation for his preaching.

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Centennial history of Missouri (the center state) one hundred years in the Union, 1820-1921, Volume I, Part 20

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