Centennial history of Missouri (the center state) one hundred years in the Union, 1820-1921, Volume I, Part 57

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 57

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"The Switzerland of America."

"The Switzerland of America." is the descriptive title bestowed upon the Ozarks by the residents thereof. And the affection of these people for their Ozarks is akin to that passion which the Switzer has for his own Alps. The late Aaron D. States, of Dade county, writer, newspaperman and preacher, was a true Ozarkian.

In "The Cabin by the Winding Way," as he called his home, he wrote this graphic tribute, "Why I like my part of the country."

"Why do I like it? Listen! It is South Missouri where the Ozarks play with the gossamer clouds and the mellow sunbeams, that dance over meadow, woodland, tangled wildwood, and play hide-go-seek amid labyrinth and dell. Where the purest crystal water flows in classic rivers and streams and from never ceasing wells and springs that give health and life. Where talkative, babbling brooklets quench the thirst of the herds, on the mission to the father of waters, passing through bewitching nature gardens, tickling the roots of herb and fern, then spreading into a broader and deeper current to gladden the hearts of the husbandmen. Where the golden sunlight warms the earth the quickest after the snows and sleets. Where the earth responds to every honest touch of the soil tiller and assures him plenty with some to spare.

"Not so very far from thriving cities, near the trackage of the endless steel rails with the master city of the middle west hard by. Near a modern village of schools and churches and where everybody is hailed as brother, and should I forget to extend the day's benediction in passing it would be sufficient cause to create a desire in the afflicted to learn, 'What on earth has happened?' In a country where the countryman and the townsman sit in the same pew, attend the same social functions, whose children attend the same school. Where the modern car is found both in town and country, where the public highways are being made ideal and all modern improvements find a people ready to adopt every measure that strengthens industrial worth and broadens the sphere in making life worth while. Where are no strangers, and should one come within our gates he is soon made a brother. A country where boosters live, live not alone for self but are willing that others shall live. Where mutual interests are considered above par value-a country where the principles of a common brotherhood are practiced, at least in part.

"The Ozark range of mountains is distant kin to the Rockies. It extends 200 miles east and west and averages a little over 100 miles in width. This scope of country, the Switzerland of America, is fast becoming the resort for thousands of pleasure seekers each year. They find all kinds of nature wonderment, little cascades, bewitching grottoes, fruitful fields and gardens, with farm and town homes that are akin to the homes of city streets. Pleasure resorts abound everywhere. Community houses shelter the weary pil- grim, log and cobblestone bungalows with fertile gardens greet the visitor in all the mountain country. No visitor need be too far distant to hear the pealing of the high

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school and college bell in order to find pleasure and healthful zone. Mountain roads are being made ideal, their gentle slope and graceful winding, through nature's panoramas, give the visitor a touch of the sublime and beautiful. The artist, the literatus and the seeker of health climb the mountain peaks and with glass can see four states.

"I am a child of nature, I love my mother. She has fed and clothed me all these years. She adorns the walls of her home with master paintings; she seeks to soothe sorrow and strengthen hope and faith. After awhile she will clasp me into her bosom and there I will sweetly sleep."

Primitive Life and Death in the Ozarks.

Great and radical changes in the character of the population of the Ozarks has taken place since the Civil war. Then, it was the opportunity for easy living by the chase which attracted many. A cabin was home. Patches of corn and tobacco supplied necessity and luxury. The shot gun supplemented the larder. if. indeed, it did not insure more than half of the living. The streams swarmed with fish. Along the Piney and the Gasconade were secret stills, and the lookout for the "revenooer" was continuous. Not all of the Ozarks was thus peopled, but there were many localities where primitive life was the rule. Then came settlers to whom the wonderful climate, the sparkling waters, the scenic fascina- tion. the rich valleys, the fruit-raising possibilities of the slopes appealed. The Ozarks began to realize destiny as the incomparable summer sanitarium for the city dweller. Today the traveler would travel in vain to find such an incident as was described thirty years ago :

"While riding along the Springfield road. I approached a log cabin, and was attracted by the sight of half a dozen farm wagons and teams scattered about in the vicinity, and perhaps two dozen people, men, women and children, conversing and smoking under a big oak near the cabin door. It was near sunset in the early autumn. I rode up near the group and halted.

"'Howdy,' said a tall thin man, in a solemn voice.

· "I acknowledged the greeting and then ventured the query, 'What's going on, friend?'

"'Fun'ral,' said the man who first greeted me.

"'Funeral! Why who is dead?' I asked.

"'Joe Angus' little 'un. Bin waitin' all day fur the preacher. Won't yer hitch an' stay a hit?'

"I got off, fastened my horse to a scrub oak and walked to the cabin door, which was open. A slanting bar of sunshine pierced the foliage and penetrated an opening in the west side of the cabin, which by courtesy is called a window. It rested upon the bowed head of a man and the pale, tear-damp face of a woman. On a table, by the open- ing in the logs, I could see the outlined figure of a child. Something white was thrown over it. The mother rose at my entrance and drew back the covering from the face of the rigid figure.

"'Thet's my poor little Angy,' said the woman, with a hopeless wail in her voice.

"'Poor little Angy, indeed,' I thought as I looked at the frail bit of human clay awaiting everlasting consignment.

"A clatter of hoofs, the murmur of voices from the outside and the minister entered. . The women came after him, and the men gathered at the door.

"The ceremony was brief, fervent and impressive; and the shadows of night were in the corners of the cabin when I moved out into the air again. Every man that was stand- ing outside when I entered had disappeared, and from away back at the foot of a bluff, near the river, the sharp barking of dogs could be heard. No questions were asked as the minister followed the father, who bore the baby form now wrapped in an old patch quilt to a wagon and placed it gently in the straw. The parents, minister and some women got into the vehicle also. Then it jolted away up the road, just as the moon came over" the bluff in silent, silvery splendor.

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"'Where are all of the men gone?' I asked of two women who remained behind.

"'Do ye hear them dogs a-yelping down thar?'

"'Yes.'

" 'Thar's a coon treed. Reckon the men 's gone down to ketch the critter.'

"There was no surprise expressed and no comment from the two women on the propriety or impropriety of these men thus leaving the cabin of a friend, while the closing rites were being performed over his dead child, to join in the chase for a live coon."

He was an Ozark mountaineer whose philosophy brought home to John T. Crisp, Missouri's satirist, the futility of the Civil war:

"I was riding up through Arkansas with Price's army. We were on our way back to Missouri. The Yankees had let us alone so long we thought maybe they had quit fight- ing or had forgotten us. We were getting anxious about it. Along toward night I met a man who lived up there in the mountains. He had been fishing, and had his string of fish with him. He was going home. I was pretty full of patriotism and notions about duty. You see I had studied the relations of the states to the nation, and the relations of the states to the states, and the relations of the states to the territories, and the relations of the citizen to the states and to the nation. I thought I knew all about it. I said to this man away up in the Ozark mountains :

"'Why aren't you in the army?'

""What army?' he asked.

"'The Confederate army, of course, dern you,' said I.

"'Oh, yes,' he said. 'I did hear something about such an army.'

"'Yes,' said I, growing a little hot, 'I thought so. And why aren't you out with it fighting the battles of the country?'

"'What country ?' he asked.

" "This country,' I said.

He looked all around him at the mountains, and then said :

"'Stranger, suppose you lived in this country, and owned all you wanted of it, and had all of the use of it you wanted, and some other fellow was paying the taxes and the ex- pense of keeping up the Government, wouldn't you think you was a derned fool to go to fightin' about it with the other fellow?'"

Honor Among Whitecappers.

In the southern part of Phelps county lived a man who had the name of being the ugliest resident of the Ozarks. He had white hair, slant eyes like a Chinaman, no eye-brows, an enormous nose which bent to one side and almost touched the cheek bone. He was tall and lank. This ugly man of the Ozarks was arrested for cutting timber on government land in Pulaski county at a time when United States officers were vigorous in punishing offenses of that character. He was taken to Springfield. The district attorney got up and read the charges as set forth in the indictment. The district judge then presiding- he need not be named-looked in amazement upon the prisoner. As the dis- trict attorney concluded the reading of the indictment the judge, without waiting to ask the prisoner how he pleaded. said to the attorney. "You may enter nolle prosequi in the prisoner's case. After a careful scrutiny of his physiognomy I am convinced that any man who is compelled to carry that face is punished quite enough for the amount of lumber which he is charged with having unlaw- fully taken from government lands. You are discharged, Mr. Blank. Go as quickly as you can, and don't forget to take your face with you."

After the war there was some illicit distilling and some "whitecapping" along the Piney and Gasconade rivers, but neither the production of moonshine

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nor the punishment of local offenders with the hickory switch was very serious. These descendants of East Tennessee mountaineers brought their industries and their codes in only modified form to the Ozarks. In the locality mentioned there was only occasional night riding. The leader of the white caps was a man of fine presence, splendid physical proportions and educated as a physician. He was known far and wide along the creeks for his care of the sick and suffering. He was a fine sportsman.

One night "Doc" and his band called on a local offender near Spring creek. They took him out and applied the switches. The man recognized the white caps and reported them. Conviction followed and sentences of three months in the penitentiary for the whole party. One of the number was a man who had a small farm and a large family. After sentence had been pronounced "Doc" arose in court and, addressing the judge, made this plea for the one upon whom the sentence would work the greatest hardship:

"Your Honor, this man is the head of a large family, and his enforced absence means untold sufferings to his wife and children, and perhaps the loss of his home. Without doing violence to the official code can not I serve the three months my neighbor and friend has charged against him? I am bigger and stronger, and can do more work for the state while he is at home fighting the battle of life and the weeds that threaten to destroy his corn crop. Your Honor, I am serious, and I can best serve the state when I serve my friend at the same time."

The man with the large family was discharged. Subsequently all of the party implicated were pardoned. There was no more whipping by that band.

The Ozark Uplift.

Missouri is the oldest part of the continent. As the crust of the earth cooled and the shrinkage went on, convulsions shattered the strata and threw up the mountain ranges. One of these great convulsions reared the Rockies and piled sections on end and at every possible angle. Another created the confusion of the Alleghanies. But earlier, and between the two, there occurred an entirely different movement. A great, irregularly bounded section broke off from the crust around about and was raised to a higher level. This was the Ozark uplift. With everything in place, its strata in the horizontal positions where they had formed, the great section now known as the Ozarks was carried upward gently and made the beginning of North America.

The "ridge roads" of the Ozarks are not only the best of national thorough- fares. They afford fascinating entertainment. For many miles they can be followed without much change in grade. Every few rods are openings among the oaks and pines. These reveal vistas of valley farms and ranges of hills clothed in forest garb with occasional clearings where the newcomer is preparing for an orchard. Twenty miles of this varied landscape is nothing unusual in the views from these ridge roads.

To the average unscientific man one of the most satisfactory descriptions of the Ozarks, geologically speaking, was given by Professor W. Albert Chapman :

"Deep, narrow, tortuous valleys wind between long, oval ridges and domeshaped hills, the trend of which is northeasterly. Bluffs and precipices form the termini of many of the ridges. Others of the ridges drop by easy descent to the valleys. The summits of

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the ridges are often coutracted and narrow. Again they widen into parks of many thou- sand acres in extent. Here are seen basin-like depressions perhaps many feet in diameter. Into these the surface waters flow to find entrance into subterranean passages. Occasion- ally irregular pits, with precipitous sides, occur, showing where the upper strata have sunk into a hidden cavern. While the general position of the strata is nearly level, there may be seen, in the valleys and along the streams, strata in somewhat tilted positions, caused by the subsidence of a mass partially undermined. Fractures, separations and depressions all indicate where partial settling has taken place. These effects and other departures from the general rule of everything in place are the results of the erosive action of the water. Caverns and crevices are very common throughout this region. Some of the strata easily decompose, and the material goes to make up other formations which often fill in the caves, crevices, sinks and faults. In this way from decomposition and disintegration of the primitive strata have come soft, pulverent sandstones, quartz, quart- zite, calcite, satin spar, onyx, alabaster, clays, ochres, iron, lead and zinc ores, either in compact form or scattered in crystals.

"The alterations everywhere observable in the exposed strata are due to water or atmospheric agency. That can be seen easily by examination. In some places the process is still going on. Water is nearer being the universal solvent than anything else. Its erosive power becomes almost irresistible after it has filtered through soft, carbonaceous substances. The soluble parts of the rock are dissolved and leached out. The action of the air completes the disintegration. But between this dissolution of strata and the production of secondary formations I have mentioned there takes place an intricate and complex series of chemical actions. In one place the secondary product will be ore. In another there will be no such culmination of force. Carbonates and sulphides may be the first result from overcharged solution. Through a succeeding change the material may part with the carbonic acid and become impregnated with sulphuric acid. Solutions of potash enter into the subterranean alchemy, and gradually the deposits of ore in various forms come about."

Over the "Hog Backs" to an Ozark City.

Bonnot's Mill is a village with its business houses in a narrow defile and its homes clinging to the sides of the precipitous bluffs on either side. Out through this defile the road leads to Linn. And with the first climb to one of these Ozark "hog backs" the surprises begin. Talk about a good roads movement ! Here is a traction engine hauling a great scraper and turnpiking long stretches of road faster than fifty teams and 100 men could do it.

The road traverses the "hog back" from snout to tail and sidles down to a beautiful valley with a clear running stream bounded by fields, in which fifty bushels of corn to the acre is ripening. Then come another "hog back" and another valley, and so it goes. Every valley has its rich fields and comfortable farm buildings and contented-looking people, who

"Laugh and the crops laugh with them."

Thus you come to Linn, the county seat of Osage, one of the quaintest and prettiest towns of its size in Missouri, a municipal gem of the Ozarks. Linn's site is a ridge. Along the center of the ridge extends the Main and almost the only street of the little city. The pioneers did not skimp the street, if the ridge was narrow. They made it broad enough for future growth. The ridge spreads on either side a hundred feet or so from the street line, and then drops away rapidly 200 feet to the two valleys which bound it. The resident of Linn Vol. 1-34

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may look from his front window on the street, but when he goes out the back door it is all down hill to the barn.

A mile and more the town of Linn lies along this wide, single street, on the crest of the narrow ridge. At one end of the lofty perch for a town is the court house, an impressive structure of stone and brick, of solid and enduring look. An iron fence surrounds the yard. The old residents have not forgotten the controversy which arose when the court house having been completed, the matter of the proper fence was under discussion. The progressive element was for something which would befit the new court house. The more conservative taxpayers were still counting the cost of the big court house. One old farmer was appealed to by the progressives.

"Yes." he said, "I am in favor of public improvements. I believe in being liberal. We have got a fine court house. We certainly ought to have a good · fence. I would be in favor of a fence at least eight rails high and staked and ridered."

The court house and its surrounding square may be likened to the head of Linn. The body and the tail stretch far away down the long, wide street. Con- spicuous on the street is a Catholic church larger than many in St. Louis, of. almost cathedral proportions. And in this noble house of worship, miles away from the railroad, there are wall decorations each of which cost hundreds of dollars.

On this single street of Linn a 50-foot lot sold for $1,400. With bank and stores and newspapers and good schools, these people have no idea that there is a better place than Linn for home. And furthermore, "the best fishing in the world" is within half a dozen miles in several directions.

Thrift in the Ozarks.

Surprises await the traveler who leaves the railroad and rides away into the Ozarks. One of them is the county of Osage. The picturesque journey along the Missouri is a succession of magnificent curves, with great sweeps of the river from one car window and frowning, overhanging hills from the other. Now and then the train glides across a narrow valley, giving a glimpse of great fertility. But almost before the vision has taken note and the suggestion of possibilities beyond has formed, the limestone cliffs shut in again. And so one passes on with little more than the impression of mountain and river. Well toward the state capitol the road crosses a river and then another of still greater breadth, the clear blue water contrasting strangely with the always dense and silt-bearing Missouri. With the expanse of first the Gasconade and then the Osage comes the evidence that there is less of ruggedness behind than the river bluffs might indicate. Nevertheless it will awaken astonishment in those who have passed over this part of Missouri by rail to know that the people who live up the valleys and behind the far rolling hills pay more personal taxes than do the occupants of some of those prairies which charm the eye farther west. That is the practical and prosaic comparison. There are other ways of looking at the Ozark hills and valleys.

Before Linn had attained the dignity of a good bank, the cashiers at Jeffer- son City were not a little astonished at the run upon them by Osage farmers

NAVIGATION IN THE OZARKS

AN OZARK BUNGALOW LIVING ROOM

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desiring to make deposits and open accounts. These farmers came from fifteen to thirty miles and deposited sums raging from $500 to $5,000. The money was in gold, silver and paper, and bore various indications of having been in home-devised safe deposits. Inquiry showed that these Osage farmers had accumulated, in their careful, thrifty ways, snug fortunes. Lacking the accom- modation of a bank at the county seat, they had been keeping their money in hiding places at home. Smart rogues had discovered the rich field. They had learned that there was a great amount of "idle cash" in the Osage farm houses. They had been at work restoring it to circulation. A series of rich robberies had taken place. Farm house after farm house had been relieved of its hoard while the family was away. Thousands of dollars had been taken. The farmers, alarmed at the raid upon their savings, had turned to the banks at Jefferson City in the adjoining county. That was the explanation of the sudden rush to deposit the handsome accumulations.

Few counties in Missouri show heavier returns of personal property for taxation than Osage, population considered. These farmers who cultivate the - rich creek bottoms have money loaned in surrounding counties. Their places are well improved. A ride through the valley of the Maries shows fine houses and barns and well-kept fields. It reveals that improvement of agricultural conditions which one sees in parts of Pennsylvania. Westphalia is a revelation of an ideal farming community, at which the visitor may well rub his eyes and wonder if he has not been transported to some favored valley of the "vater- land."

The Story of a Hunt for Gold.

A gold hunters' expedition left Springfield in 1855. In the winter and spring months marvelous stories of discoveries were carried from settlement to settle- ment in the Ozarks. The new eldorado rivaled California. It was not so far away. Somewhere near the headwaters of the Arkansas, in the Rocky Range, as they then called the Rocky Mountains, was the location. The finder was a man named Poole from Newton county, Missouri. Poole, in his wanderings, had seen a tribe of Indians who used gold instead of lead for bullets. He had even visited the gulch where nuggets were scattered like pebbles. Not only had Poole seen, but he had handled. He was sure he could lead a party to the place.

Adventurous spirits in the Ozarks took up the suggestion. Companies were formed in several counties. One of the largest made rendezvous in Springfield. Among those who joined were young men afterwards to become prominent in Southwest Missouri affairs-C. B. Owen, Dr. E. T. Robberson, J. M. Forrester, James Johnson, Samuel Leak, Thomas Chambers, D. C. Smith, Eli Armstrong, Elisha Painter, R. A. M. Rose. Owen was afterward General Sigel's guide at the battle of Wilson's creek and an officer in Fyan's 24th Missouri.

These companies of Missouri argonauts elected captains and other officers. They divided into messes of five men each. They equipped with ox teams for hauling supplies, loading the wagons with flour, meal, bacon, sugar and coffee, with a ten-gallon keg of Ozark corn whiskey to each man. The wagons were drawn by six yokes of oxen. Most of the members had their own horses.

By the arrangement of the leaders with Poole, who was now called "Colonel,"

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the companies left Missouri by the most direct routes from their starting places to meet on the Verdigris river, a short distance southwest of Fort Scott. Colonel Poole found himself at the head of 400 men, with 800 oxen and nearly eighty wagons. Some of the Missourians had never seen Poole. They had joined on the stories. Not in the habit of taking things too much on faith, they pressed the leader for definite information. Poole couldn't give it, but he made a speech. He said he had seen the gold and believed he could lead them to it. Some of the Missourians talked doubtfully and resentfully. Poole ' then said he would not start until every man signed a promise to protect him from ill treatment whatever the result of the search. After much palaver the written pledge was given and Colonel Poole led the way westward from Cooley's Bluff in the Cherokee Nation. The Missourians followed the California Trail through the Indian country until they came to the Santa Fe Trail. Fourteen miles from Fort Mann Poole left the Santa Fe Trail and took a pathless route over the plains toward the Rocky Mountains. To H. Clay Neville, the historian of the Ozarks. Captain Owen, in 1894, told the adventures and what finally befell the expedition :

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Centennial history of Missouri (the center state) one hundred years in the Union, 1820-1921, Volume I, Part 57

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