USA > Missouri > Centennial history of Missouri (the center state) one hundred years in the Union, 1820-1921, Volume I > Part 56
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"We want that you should take good care of the wounded prisoner, till we go down and see you. We and you have walked in the good road-it may be that we have both missed it; if we have we will try to find it, and both keep in it or out of it-but we hope in it. We want to say more, but we hope this is enough in behalf of the chief war- riors and head men of the Little Osage village.
WALK IN RAIN, Principal captain of the L. O. village.
N. B .- We thank you for the tobacco you sent us; it was not enough to give us all a smoke-we want that you should send more next time.
Conway, the Hero of the Boys of 1820.
Captain Joseph Conway was the hero of young Missourians of 1820. He had - been scalped three times. He had been tomahawked. He had been shot. He had been left for dead. The stories that were told of Captain Conway rivaled those about Daniel Boone and Simon Kenton. Boys got behind the captain and looked with admiring awe at the spots from which the Indians had cut the scalp locks. Captain Conway was a Virginian. He came west early in life and fought Vol. 1-33
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Indians. When the Spanish governor, Trudeau, was encouraging American settlers to come west of the Mississippi, he extended a special invitation to Captain Conway. About the time that Daniel Boone moved over from Ken- tucky Joseph Conway accepted a grant of land from Trudeau and became a resident of what is now St. Louis county. That was in 1798, six years before American authority was established in St. Louis. Conway was an Indian fighter from the time he could carry a gun. He accompanied Boone and Kenton on their campaigns against the Indians. Of Conway it was told that being hard pressed he ran from tree to tree, loading and firing until he had killed seven Indians. He fought with Harmer and with Wayne. In three different battles he sustained wounds. At one time, when he had been scalped, he was made a prisoner and with his undressed wounds was compelled to walk from the Ohio river to Detroit. He was barefooted. The blood ran down his back from the scalp wounds. A white woman, who was a prisoner, bound up Conway's head. On the Canadian border Conway was held in captivity four years. Those experiences preceded the settlement in the vicinity of St. Louis. For years after he came here Captain Conway held himself in readiness for service against the Indians whenever trouble threatened. The fame of the old borderer was worth a regiment of un- known men for restraining effect on a tribe that was inclined to be ugly. Captain Conway left descendants who held public offices in St. Louis. One of his sons became sheriff. A thoroughfare in the suburbs of St. Louis was named in honor of Captain Conway.
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A TYPICAL SCENE IN THE OZARKS OF MISSOURI
CHAPTER XV
THE OZARKS
Discovered by the Pioneers-Overlooked by the Railroads-Edmund Jennings-The Six Boils-A Family that Hated Andrew Jackson-The First Settler-Good Old Times- Diary of a Winter's Journey-The Spring House-Primitive Life and Death-The Switzerland of America-An Acquittal Face-Feuds that Were Not Fatal-Geology of the Ozark Uplift-Ridge Roads-A Journey over the Hog Backs-Thrift in the Osage Hills-Captain Owen's Narrative of the Hunt for Gold-Parson Keithley-A Secret Sub-Treasury-Nature's Burial Vault -- Jay Linn Torrey-From Rough Rider to Model Farmer-The Air Drainage of the Ozarks-Exit the Squatter-The "Horse" Apple- Fence Corner Peach Orchards-Seedlings and Elbertas-From Seven and One-half Cents to Four Dollars a Bushel-The Drying Season-Home Made Evaporators-Sep- tember Scenes at the Crop Centers-Dried Apples by Machinery-No Bottom Orchards -Rocks or No Rocks-No Demand for the Pick-me-up-The Theory of Heat and Moisture in Stones-Apples and Altitude-Where Fruit is Currency-Historian Has- well's Osark Stories-A Macadamised Bed of Strawberries-Flint for Mulch-A Yield of $500 on Three-quarters of an Acre-Peach Trees Planted with a Crowbar -Not a Crop Failure in Twenty-five Years-The Secret of the Soil.
The traveler in the interior is often surprised to behold, at one view, cliffs and prairies, bottoms and barrens, naked hills, heavy forests, streams and plains, all succeeding each other with rapidity, and mingled with pleasing harmony. I have contemplated such scenes, while standing upon some lofty bluff in the wilderness of Missouri, with unmixed delight; while deer, elk and buffalo were grazing quietly on the plains below .- Schoolcraft's Adventures in the Ozark Mountains.
"Ah!" said a Scotchman who came from Glasgow to examine a mining proposition in the Ozarks, "this reminds me of my ain Heelands." He delighted in the Ozark country. With the rolling ranges of green-clad hills, the preci- pices and rock-covered slopes along the clear streams he felt much at home.
In 1895 a thoughtful man stood before the great map of the United States in the lobby of the House of Representatives at Washington and said: "As it appears to me there are just three places left in this country where a man with a little can go and have an almost absolute certainty of making a great deal. That is, I mean we have three regions which seem to have been passed by while the rest of the country was being taken up and to which, in the immediate future, there is going to be a rush of capital and immigration. They are the sections in which he who locates early is going to reap the advantages of rapid development.
"One of these locations," he continued, "is that southwestern strip of the United States stretching down to the terra caliente, between the Rio Grande and the Gulf. I don't know much about it, was never there, but if there is enough moisture, and there ought to be so near the Gulf, I imagine that that almost wholly unoccupied strip is going to be a great place for tropical fruit culture
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some day. Another place is the Indian territory. Of course it is necessary to wait for the action of the government opening that to white settlement, which cannot be delayed much longer. The third and largest of these three places and the one which I would choose if I was going somewhere to 'grow up with the country' is right there."
He pointed to the Ozark country. This man had never been in South Mis- souri. But he looked on the map and he saw how the railroad builders, in the rush to the South and West, had gone by and left a great block of unoccupied territory. The twenty-five years that have passed have witnessed the transforma- tion of the Indian reservations into a state. They have developed the possi- bilities of Southwest Texas. They have focused attention upon the long over- looked Ozarks.
The Old and New of the Ozarks.
A strange combination of old and new the Ozark country presents. One meets a man who has just come down from the North, and is enthusiastic over the home he has just acquired. The next acquaintance may be a native whose family, back to his great-grandfather, has lived right here. The Ozark country was settled before the Missouri Valley was. The oldest town in Missouri, next to St. Louis, is in the Ozark country. Pioneers found their way into the region before Missouri was a state. They recognized the fertility of the valleys, the salubrity of the climate, and they made their homes on these slopes and plateaus when Iowa was Indian country. After the Louisiana purchase was made and the vast region west of the Mississippi was transferred to the United States, American citizens flocked to this Ozark country of South Missouri. The descendants of those old pioneers live there today. They scattered widely. They occupied first what were to them the choicest lands, the valleys. And now, a century after the early settlements, there are between the valleys occasional stretches of virgin forest in which the deer graze and the wild turkeys roost.
Country of the Six Bulls.
On the way from Springfield to the wonderful scenery of White river the traveler is in "The Country of the Six Bulls." Most of the residents have for- gotten, if they ever heard, the origin of this name for the section. A hundred years ago Edmund Jennings came out from Tennessee and lived fifteen years among the Indians of "Aus Arcs," as the French had named the region. Jen- nings was a mighty hunter. He carried back to Tennessee marvelous stories of the woods, the caves, the springs, the rivers and the game. He called the locality "The Country of the Six Bulls." That was Jennings' way of pro- nouncing "boils." This was the country of the six boils. The "boils" were six great springs. These springs boiling up from the enormous reservoirs under the limestone strata started six rivers on their courses. Indian, Shoal, Center, . James, Spring and North Fork, streams of considerable size, have their begin- ning in the six boils. Jennings' stories of hunting and fishing started a migra- tion of Tennesseans to "The Country of the Six Bulls." These settlers came in almost as soon as the United States was in possession of the Louisiana terri- tory. They crowded out the Osages and the Shawnees. They kept the country and the curious name that Jennings had given it.
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Some Ozark Pioneers.
The Ozark country had a historian in the person of A. C. Jeffrey. Accord- ing to his researches white settlement dated back to 1801. It is traditional that the Spanish explored the region very thoroughly for silver. It is also tradition that they found the white metal-so much of it that they couldn't carry it away. but left it in caves. Mr. Jeffrey said the first white man who brought his family and came to stay was a Frenchman named Jehu Falenash. This pioneer came up the White river by canoe in the first year of the century. One of these earliest settlers was an educated Virginia lawyer, John Carter by name. Car- ter's nearest neighbor was a man named Irons, with whom he had a disagree- ment. Carter accused him of stealing his hog meat. Irons retaliated with a story that Carter and his son Bill were making counterfeit money. One day Carter made his appearance at Irons' place. He had learned that only the women folks were at home.
"Good morning, ladies," he said. with much gallantry. "Cool day. I believe I'll come in and warm."
Without an invitation he pushed his way into the house, took a seat by the fire and began to peer about. He saw a piece of bacon hanging in the rafters above his head, the usual place for curing meat in those days. He began to hum as if to himself an improvised song. The words ran in this way:
"My Billy will come out of the kinks yet, If that silver mine goes on, he, he."
Looking up at the meat among the rafters he added :
"And there hangs some of my hog's bacon, he, he."
This was too much for the Irons women. They hadn't said a word before. but now they assailed the visitor with brooms and sticks and ran him off. Carter considered it a great joke.
Tennessee and Kentucky contributed some noted characters in the early set- tlement of the Ozark country. One of these was known far and wide as Big Bill Woods. Big Bill and his father came while the war of 1812 was in prog- ress, and as long as they lived they cursed Andrew Jackson. Old Man Woods and his two sons, Bill and John, so the story goes, enlisted under Andrew Jack- son and went south to fight the Indians and the British. They were good enough fighters, but had little idea of discipline. John Woods was on picket duty one night and left his post. The court-martial sat on him. There was no defense, and yet no great harm had been done. The usual sentence of death was passed, with a recommendation to mercy. But it happened to come just at a time when Jackson, having reversed many of these court-martial sentences. had declared that the next one should be carried out. When the case of John Woods was brought to him the general refused to reprieve him. Old Man Woods and Big Bill dressed the boy and saw him led away to his death. Then they deliberately left the army, crossed the Mississippi river and settled in the Ozark country. Jackson made no effort to have them brought back. As long as Big Bill lived the mention of Jackson would bring from him the bitterest oaths.
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Good Old Times in the Ozarks.
Of life in the Ozarks, of Southwest Missouri, J. A. Sturges, the local his- torian of Pineville, has given this description.
"The people who had located here were generally from the South, more being from Tennessee than any other one state, and had brought with them the manners and customs peculiar to those localities. They lived in primitive style, compared with the present, and were nearly self-sustaining. A cook stove was a rare exception, nearly every one cook- ing by the fire place and oven. This, by the way, was not so inconvenient as might be imagined. Many a delicious 'pone,' rare venison saddle and luscious gobbler has been cooked in this way, and the smell that ascended to heaven was enough to tempt the appetites of the gods.
"A sewing machine had never been heard of, while the clank of the loom humming wheel furnished music almost as sweet, and more homelike than our present organs and pianos. The old fashioned linchpin wagons, with the box shaped like a canoe, many with wooden spindles, could be heard for miles as they groaned and creaked over the rocky road. They raised their own cotton and wool, spun and wove it into cloth and made their own garments. The latter was the women's work. Of course every family cultivated enough tobacco for home consumption. Wheat and corn were produced and there were a number of mills to do the grinding. Distilleries were quite numerous and manufactured the pure and unadulterated corn juice at twenty-five cents a gallon. The good people, "both saints and sinners, could take their corn to the still and lay in a good supply of the great household panacea without a cent of cash. One didn't have to get 'sick' and tell - a lie and sign his name to it; then get a doctor to tell one and sign his name to it in order to get a drink of a decoction miscalled whiskey. No, he just followed the injunction of St. Paul, and took a little for his stomach's sake and his oft infirmities, and of a quality that would have met the approval of that learned apostle. In this new country subject to . chills and malaria, and with the scarcity of doctors and drugs, no doubt this pure liquor drove disease and death from many a home.
"Hogs and cattle could be raised with very little feed, the former being frequently butchered directly from the mast, while deer, turkey and other game were found in abundance. As to shoes, every neighborhood had a tannery and every man was a shoe- maker. One man told me that his father said his store bill before the war did not aver- age five dollars a year. His family was quite large, and they lived comfortably. Instead of doing without they simply produced what was required. It is by no means intended to convey the idea that the people were poor or lived so plainly. Many families were quite aristocratic, had well furnished houses, and gold watches and jewelry were worn exten- sively. People were hospitable, extremely so, partly because it was born and bred in them; partly because being isolated, it was regarded as a treat to have a neighbor or a stranger stop to dinner or over night. The familiar, 'Halloa, stranger, git down and hitch yer hoss and come 'n and stay all night; the ole woman '1 have supper d'rectly ; boys, take the critter and feed it,' has greeted many a weary traveler and he would rest as secure as tho' guarded by a regiment of soldiers."
The Diary of an Ozark Winter Journey.
The Rountree family migrated from Maury county, Tennessee, reaching Springfield in January, 1831. That was the year of the great snow storm. In the Ozarks the snow lay eighteen inches deep on a level and so continued for several weeks. What journeying to the new home in the Ozarks meant under such conditions is told in a diary which Joseph Rountree, the head of the family, kept. The trip was undertaken in November. That part of it after the family reached the Mississippi river is thus recorded in the diary : .
Thursday, December 23d, 1830 .- A cloudy day. The ice was very thick in the river ; we went to Kaskaskia; the ice nearly quit in the river in the evening; at night it rained and froze over. Our expence was 371/2c.
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Friday, 24th .- A wet morning. We prepared for crossing the river after breakfast; we had removed our family to Peter Robert Derousse's, at the lower ferry, on Sunday last,-a very respectable gentleman with a peaceable family; we found the ice so thick and wide on the other side that we could not land, and had to go down the river more than a mile, where got a landing, and it took until about an hour in the night before I got my wagon and family over; we had to make five trips; we went about three miles and camped, and had a merry night. Expence, $5.
Saturday, 25th .- We started early; proceeded to Ste. Genevieve town; Mr. Beard had to get a skein mended; my family stayed with a very friendly French family, Bovie by name; in the evening we went on eight miles and camped at Mr. Bell's. Expence, $1.621/2.
Sunday, 26th .- A cloudy cold day. We traveled on and about 2 o'clock Mr. Beard's hind axletree broke at Mr. Moreare's; we proceeded about four miles further ; we traveled 14 miles and camped at Mr. Barrington's. Expence, 621/2c.
Monday, 27th .- I went to Mr. Donaldson's, found them well, and our wagon waited for Mr. Beard's, and then went on; camped at Mr. Baker's; traveled nine miles today. Expence, $2.561/4.
Tuesday, 28th .- This day was clear and cold. We traveled on very well; found that the fore bolster of Mr. Beard's wagon was broken; we came through Mine à Burton and got a new bolster; encamped at Mr. Tucker's; it began to snow before day. Expence, 621/2c.
Wednesday, 29th .- This day was snowy, rainy and freezing; we started and broke the tongue out of Mr. Beard's wagon; made a new tongue, traveled seven miles, and encamped at Mr. Compton's. Expence, $1.
Thursday, 30th .- Started on and it was snowing and freezing; last night it snowed; we had got only one mile this day until Mr. Beard's wagon turned over in a branch and got the most of my goods wet; we had to take up camp and dry our things; it continued snowing. Expence, 621/2c.
Friday, 31st .- This day we packed up our wagon and started about 12; traveled 7 miles. Expence, $1.061/4.
Saturday, January 1, 1831 .- A clear cold morning ; it moderated a little; we proceeded and crossed the Cotway, Huzza, and Dry creeks; traveled about 13 miles and encamped on the ridge between Dry creek and the Merrimac. Expence, $2.75.
Sunday, 2d .- Cloudy; we started early; it rained very hard this day and thundered ; we crossed the Merrimac; traveled 16 miles; encamped at Massey's Iron Works. Ex- pence, 561/4c.
Monday, 3d .- Last night it rained, sleeted and froze all night; this morning it began to snow; we continued in a cabin that we had took up in; it snowed all night. Expence, 621/2c.
Tuesday, 4th .- A cold day; snow very deep; continued at the cabin all day. Expence, $1.19.
Wednesday, 5th .- A clear cold day; Mr. Beard took his load about four miles to Mr. St. Clair's, and we deposited it there and returned to the cabin. Expence, 66 2-3c.
Thursday, 6th .- Clear and cold; Mr. Beard took his departure for home, we continued in the cabin; in the evening Sidney (Ingram) and me went to look us out a place for to make a camp near St. Clair's; we concluded on a place, returned in the evening, and brought home Junius and Lucius, who had went to another cabin on the Dry fork of the Merrimac the day before. Expence, $5.
Friday, 7th .- We began to prepare for making our camps, but in the evening Joseph Phillabare (Philabert) came on and we concluded to go with him; so we left the cabin, came on to St. Clair's, and stayed all night. Expence, 621/2c.
Saturday, 8th .- We started about 10 o'clock and proceeded up the bad hill with some difficulty ; the day was cloudy and cold, the snow was deep and it snowed some more, but we traveled 18 miles. Expence, 1834c.
Sunday, 9th .- Quite cold; traveled 17 miles. Expence, $1.43.
Monday, 10th .- Cloudy and cold; we proceeded and crossed Rubidoo (Robidoux) ; traveled 15 miles. Expence, 371/2c.
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Tuesday, 11th .- This morning it was very snowy; we discovered that Mr. Phillabare had one of the skeins of his wagon to get mended, so we stayed in camp till nearly 12, and then traveled about 12 miles and encamped at Stark's. Expence, 811/4c.
Wednesday, 12th .- Cloudy and cold; we traveled on slowly on account of the snow ; crossed the Osage fork of the Gasconade, and traveled 14 miles. Expence, 1834c.
Thursday, 13th .- A cold day; but we traveled on pretty well; passed Eastwood and traveled 18 miles. Expence, 371/2c.
Friday, 14th .- Last night it snowed very hard; we encamped at the Indian Grave branch; the snow increased in depth four or five inches; we traveled with a great deal of difficulty; we passed Tygart's; traveled 20 miles. Expence, 50 cents.
Saturday, 15th .- It continues to snow; the day is almost intolerably cold; we pro- ceeded on our way, and after traveling six or eight miles we met Joseph H. Miller and Lemuel Blanton coming to meet us. Great joy! We went on to Robert Patterson's, twelve miles, and got lodging for the night in his house,-the first night's lodging in a house since we left the cabin at Massey's Iron Works. Expence, $1.25.
Sunday, 16th .- To-day was extremely cold; snowed a little; we proceeded and got to Joseph "H. Miller's between sunset and dark; found the people about the Prairie all well and glad to see us all arrive safe; traveled 23 miles.
The Spring House in the Ozarks.
The spring house is still an institution of the Ozarks, not quite so omnipresent as it was before the days of cities and ice plants, but still in frequent evidence as one of the charms of this section of Missouri in the pioneer days. When the settler looked around for the choicest site for his cabin home, he took into con- sideration the location of the spring. No Ozark farm was without at least one good spring. Some had half a dozen of these streams of pure cold water gushing from the limestone ledges in never failing volume no matter what the season. As civilization advanced, the spring water was piped to many Ozark homes. And in time came the installation of hydraulic rams which carried the water up grade when the spring was at a level lower than the house. - The next thing after the house was built in the early days of the Ozarks was the construction of the spring house. An old timer described what was standard architecture with the pioneers :
"The walls were made two to four feet thick, of any rough stone that happened to be handy. The door was of heavy oak boards and fastened with a stout padlock. Inside the house three sides were usually fitted out with shelves to hold the great crocks of milk, jars of cream and butter, and usually the spring bowl was excavated so as to form a pool, having a uniform depth of three to six inches. In this the choicest dairy products were placed in order that they might be coolest, while overhead stout nails or hooks were fastened to the rafters to support huge roasts, legs of mutton and veal, which, at the temperature of forty-five degrees or thereabouts, would keep fresh many days. Rats and mice were almost unknown about the spring house, but small snakes and half grown frogs were numerous, and when the country maid noticed an unusual commotion in the jar of milk she was handling she was not at all surprised, or frightened either, when a water snake slipped out of the jar and disappeared. Nor was the family alarmed when the head of a frog appeared in the milk pitcher at breakfast. The pitcher was promptly emptied into the pigs' trough, and the frog, if not devoured by the pigs, made a bee line for the spring branch. Nobody was blamed for every one knew that the covers of the jars did not fit and that frogs and snakes were to be expected in a spring house."
A household institution of pioneers in the Ozark country was the laundry. When Monday came the Ozark housewife did not put the boiler on the kitchen
LIFE IN THE OZARKS, 1870
LIFE IN THE OZARKS, 1920
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stove. She gathered up the clothes and followed the well beaten path from the back-door to the spring. Every Ozark farm has its spring. Many of the houses were built with direct reference to the spring and some towns are located where a volume of clear cold water wells up and flows from the rocks without any apparent relation to rainfall. The Ozark housekeeper of early days had a great iron pot swinging a foot and a half from the ground. The tubs stood on stones under the shade of thick foliage. The water was dipped with a gourd from the spring and the kettle was filled. A fire of pine or hickory was built underneath. There the week's washing was done and the clothes were spread on bushes to be gathered and carried back to the house when night came. The outfit of the laundry remained undisturbed until the day for the next washing.
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