Encyclopedia of the history of Missouri, a compendium of history and biography for ready reference, Vol. I, Part 34

Author: Conard, Howard Louis, ed. 1n
Publication date: 1901
Publisher: New York, Louisville [etc.] The Southern history company, Haldeman, Conard & co., proprietors
Number of Pages: 856

USA > Missouri > Encyclopedia of the history of Missouri, a compendium of history and biography for ready reference, Vol. I > Part 34

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

On the 17th of February, 1874, he was mar- ried to Miss Jeannie Gordon Morrison, of Troy, Missouri. He has two children, both sons. Cecil Morrison Baskett, born Decem- ber 25, 1874, is the editor and proprietor of the "Mexico Intelligencer," and Howard Gordon Baskett, born December 27, 1882, is at this time (1900) a student at the Missouri Military Academy.

Bassora .- See "Washington."

Bates County .- A county in the west- ern part of the State, sixty miles south of Kan- sas City, bounded on the north by Cass County, on the east by Henry and St. Clair Counties, on the south by Vernon County, and on the west by Kansas. Its area is 874 square miles, of which about eighty-five per cent is under cultivation. The tilled land is mostly undulating prairie, a large proportion

of which bears a rich loam ; in places the soil is thin and poor. The county is abundantly watered. The northeastern portion is drained by Deepwater Creek, Cove Creek, Peter Creek, Elk Fork, Mingo, the Deer Creeks and Mormon Creek, all flowing into Grand River, which in its meanderings forms the northern boundary of the eastern third of the county. In the central east Stewart's Creek and Deep- water Creek flow eastwardly into Henry and St. Clair Counties. A remarkably tortuous stream enters the county somewhat south of the center of the western boundary, flowing

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in a southeasterly course until it reaches a point near Papinsville, where it becomes the southern county boundary, and receives Camp Branch and Panther Creek. It rises in Kan- sas, where it is known as the Marais des Cyg- nes, meaning Marsh of the Swans, from the wild geese and ducks which habited its ponds. From midway in Bates County it is called Osage River, and with its affluents drains two- thirds of the county. From the north it re- ceives Mulberry Creek, five miles from the Kansas line, and Miami Creek, five miles northeast of Rich Hill, both having numerous feeders. Miami Creek, rising in the extreme northwest of the county, has a length of about twenty-five miles: the most important of its tributaries are Knob Creek. Limestone Branch, Bone Creek and Mound Creek. In the southwest, Walnut Creek and Burnett's Creek flow northwardly into the Marais des Cygnes, and in the southeast Double Creek, Camp Branch and Panther Creek reach it from the north. Osage River has been navigated at times by small steamboats. In 1844 Captain William Waldo sailed the "Maid of the Osage" from Jefferson City to Harmony Mission, three miles above Papinsville, and other boats made the same trip later that year. In 1847 Captain Waldo brought the "Wave," a side wheel steamboat. to Papinsville; and in 1868 or 1869 the "Tom Stevens," a stern wheel boat, reached the same place four times. In late years small boats have not been able to ascend higher than Osceola, in St. Clair County. Along the streams are large bodies of good timber, which yield a valuable market product ; the varieties include hickory, oak, elin, honey locust, ash, linden and sycamore. Coal of excellent quality underlies the county. cropping out in places ; considerable quanti- ties are mined at Rich Hill. Butler and else- where. A good quality of building sandstone and limestone for kiln use is found in the broken lands. Fire clay exists in quantity. Iron ore has been found, but of inferior qual- ity and small in quantity. Railways traversing the county are the Lexing- ton & Southern and the St. Louis & Emporia branches of the Missouri Pacific, the Missouri, Kansas & Texas, and the Kansas City, Pittsburg & Gulf. The principal towns are Butler the county seat ; Rich Hill, Rock- ville, Adrian and Hume. In 1898, accord- ing to the report of the Commissioner of Labor Statistics, the principal products of the

county were: Wheat, 41,778 bushels; corn, 122,285 bushels ; flax, 107,083 bushels ; flour, 9,969.895 pounds ; corn meal, 2,096.380 pounds : ship stuff, 15.766,000 pounds ; grass seed, 219,140 pounds ; poultry, 909,050 pounds ; eggs, 413.370 dozen; butter, 93,432 pounds ; cattle. 14,072 head; hogs, 67.463 head; sheep, 5.720 head; horses and mules, 1.596 head : coal, 364,254 tons; and large quantities of fruit, vegetables, farm produce and lumber.

Bates County was created January 29, 1841. Some annalists have asserted that it was named in honor of Edward Bates, of St. Louis, afterward Attorney General in the Cabinet of President Lincoln. This is an error. It was named for the elder brother of Edward Bates, Frederick Bates, who was territorial secretary in 1814, and Governor of the State of Mis- souri in 1824-5. As created, Bates County included all the territory constituting the pres- ent counties of Bates and Vernon. February 15. 1851, the county of Vernon was created, its territory being precisely that already con- stituting the county of Bates. What remained to be known as Bates County, was Vernon County as now constituted. It was provided, however, in the organic act, that the new county (Vernon) was not to organize until the people residing therein should ratify it at the polls in August following. It is asserted, but not of record, that the vote was adverse to the proposed organization. However, Governor King appointed officers for the new county. The act creating Vernon County was declared unconstitutional by Judge Russell Hicks, who fined Samuel Scott one cent for assuming to discharge the duties of sheriff in the new county. Upon this decision, Bates County re- mained as originally constituted until Febru- ary, 1855. when the present county of Vernon was legally created (February 27), the three southern tiers of townships in Cass County having previously (February 22) been added to Bates County, these two provisions giving to the latter its present dimensions. In 1841 Thomas B. Arnott of Van Buren County, Rob- ert M. White of Johnson County, and Corne- lius Davy of Jackson County, commissioners to locate a permanent seat of justice, reported in favor of Harmony Mission. The history of this period is exceedingly meager on ac- count of the destruction of records during the Civil War. No courthouse was built at Har- mony Mission, and court sessions were held

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in the mission house erected for church and school purposes. In 1847 Papinsville was made the seat of justice, and a temporary building was provided for court purposes. In 1852 the county court appropriated $2,500 for the erection of a courthouse, and appointed Freeman Barrows building superintendent. In February, 1853, the court increased the ap- propriation to $3.500, whereupon Barrows re- signed and was succeeded by Abraham Red- field. The courthouse was completed in 1855. and cost $4,200. In 1856, after the detach- ment of a portion of the county for the erection of the new county of Vernon, a more central point became necessary as a county seat, and W. L. Sutherland and Achilles Easley, as com- missioners, designated Butler, where fifty-five acres of land were donated by John S. Wil- kins, John W. Montgomery and John E. Mor- gan for public uses. The old courthouse prop- erty at Papinsville was sold to Philip Zeal. After removal to Butler, the court occupied a school building until 1857, when a brick court- honse was erected at a cost of $5,000. This was destroyed by fire in 1861. In 1865 tem- porary buildings were erected at a cost of $1.000. In 1868 an appropriation of $25,000 was made by popular vote, and a new building was erected, of brick, three stories, the upper rooms being under a ninety-nine years lease to the Masons and Odd Fellows. This was at the time the handsomest public edifice in southwest Missouri, and cost about $15,000 in excess of the county appropriation. A tempo- rary jail was replaced with a brick structure containing cells, and rooms for the resi- dence of the sheriff. The organic act desig- nated as the temporary seat of justice the house of Colonel Robert Allen, at Harmony Mission, where assembled in 1841 the first county court. Judges William Proffitt, George Douglass and George Manship. Freeman Barrows was county and circuit clerk ; Charles English, sheriff ; and Samuel A. Sawyer, pros- ecnting attorney. No record of early pro- ceedings exists. Under a general emergency act, the county and circuit courts held their sittings at Johnstown in 1864, and at Pleasant Gap in 1865. John F. Ryland was the first circuit judge, and was succeeded in later years by Judges Russell Hicks, David McGaughey, Foster P. Wright and James B. Gantt. D. A. W. Moorehouse and H. A. Thurman were early attorneys. In 1851, Judge Hicks being on the bench, Dr. Samuel Nottingham, living

on Clear Creek, now in Vernon County, was tried for uxoricide. He was defended by Waldo P. Johnson, and prosecuted by a mem- ber of the bar named Bryant. He was con- victed and hung in Papinsville. In 1869 Theophilus R. Freeman was convicted of the murder of James Westbrook, and sentenced to death, but made his escape from jail six days previous to the time set for the execu- tion. In 1869 William H. and David J. Sim- mons, living three miles south of Butler, were lung by a mob as horsethieves. Since that time law has been administered in a dignified and orderly manner. The county is now in the Twenty-ninth Judicial Circuit. The first representative from Bates County was John McHenry, a Kentuckian and a Democrat. Hc was defeated in election by Frederick Chotou -or Chouteau-a Whig, who received the votes of a number of unnaturalized French- men. Chotou consented to a new election, in which MeHenry was chosen. He was re- elected in 1849 and died during the session.

The first settlement of Bates County by the whites is notable as having been made by a religious society, upon invitation of the In- dians then occupying the land : in almost every other instance the original occupants were un- willingly dispossessed through sharp dealing or force. About 1820 a number of Osage chiefs in Washington to transact business ex- pressed a desire that missionaries should be sent to their people. whereupon a party of ministers and teachers, with their families, came from the East and settled at HIarmony Mission (which see) in 1821. There was little immigration until 1832, when settlements were made in various parts of the county. William R. Marshall and Barton Holderman came to Mormon Creek, so named from a Mormon colony located there for a short time after the expulsion of that people from north- western Missouri : Elisha Evans and Lindsey T. Burke located on Elk Creek ; James Stew- art on the creek known by his name, and about the same time Reuben Herrell settled on the Deepwater. In 1834 Mark West settled north- cast of the present Rich Hill ; his first wife was a daughter of Colonel James Allen, and his second a daughter of John Mc Henry. Samuel Scott located about the same time on the Deepwater. In 1837 William C. Requa, who had been a member of the Indian mission in Arkansas, settled north of Rich Hill, and served as physician and minister. About the

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same time Judge Joseph Wix, Abraham Tow- ner and Daniel Francis located on the Deep- water ; the latter two were Mormons, and ex- emplary people. The first school was that at Harmony Mission, where during their stay the missionaries taught and provided homes for about four hundredl Indian children. Most of these, on returning to their own people, soon forgot their teaching. The next school was on the Deepwater, taught by S. D. Cockrell. About 1840 James H. Requa taught in the Requa neighborhood. In 1842 there was a school on Elk Fork, and the next year Cyn- thia Tousley taught on Panther Creek. In 1844 school townships were organized ; A. II. Urie taught a school on Deer Creek, some of his pupils being from the north side of Grand River. In 1852 Edgar C. Kirkpatrick taught in West Point, then a thrifty town. In 1856 Mrs. John E. Morgan taught the first school in But- ler, in a building also used for church pur- poses. Schools were soon established in nearly all neighborhoods, but disappeared during war times. The county was practically depopulated under the operation of General Ewing's "Order No. 11," and most of the schoolhouses were destroyed. But five of the former teachers returned after peace was re- stored, to resume school duties ; these were William Requa, R. J. Reed, A. E. Page, Mrs. Sarah Requa and Miss Josephine Bartlett. In 1866 David McGaughey became superinten- dent of schools, and under his administration school districts were reorganized, new school- houses were erected, teachers' institutes werc organized, and the present educational system was substantially founded. In 1898 there were 136 public schools; 200 teachers ; 10,202 put- pils ; and the permanent school fund was $65,- 266.09. Church establishment, as well as that of schools, began with Harmony Mission, in 1821. There is no record of other religious effort until 1837, when the real immigration set in. About that time or soon afterward, "Unele Dicky" preached occasionally on the Deepwater ; he was a negro, a Presbyterian, and afterward went to Liberia under the au- spices of the Colonization Society. Among the carliest assemblages was that at the house of Dr. William C. Requa, in 1837, ministered to by the Rev. Amasa Jones, of Harmony Mis- sion ; out of this grew the Old School Presby- terian Church near Dr. Requa's residence, of which he was the minister. In 1840 or 1841 a Methodist preacher named Love formed a

class on the Deepwater. In 1843 the Rev. Israel Robards, a Missionary Baptist, settled in the Camp Branch neighborhood, and until 1850 held revival meetings, at intervals, in the southern and eastern parts of the county, with marked success. During the same years, ser- vices were held in schoolhouses and cabins by two Methodist itinerants named Towner and Morris. During the following ten years, all the leading denominations established churches in various parts of the county, but practically all disappeared in 1861-2, owing to the dispersion of the people and the destruc- tion of church buildings. The work of resto- ration began in 1866, and religious bodies are now numerous and prosperous. The material prosperity of the county dates from the same time. In 1866 effort was begun to secure rail- road facilities, and was continued through suc- ceeding years until 1870, when the Tebo & Neosho Railway was completed through the southeastern part of the county, and other roads followed, all liberally aided by the peo- plc. These enterprises led to the building of Rich Hill, and the development of its mining interests. In 1869 an Agricultural and Me- chanical Association was organized and gave a fair which attracted much attention, and led to a large immigration. The organization was afterward abandoned, but accomplished a good work, and from it has grown much of the present material prosperity of the county. In January, 1900, the county was entirely free from debt, and had $40,000 in the treasury. In March following was submitted to vote of the people a proposition to levy a special tax of $60,000, payable in three annual install- ments, this sum, in addition to the fund in the treasury, to be expended in the erection of a new courthouse, the old building having been condemned as insecure in December preced- ing. In 1900 the population of the county was 30,141.

Bates, Edward, lawyer and statesman, was born September 4, 1793, on the bank of the James River, in Goochland County, Vir- ginia, and died in St. Louis, March 25, 1869. He was the seventh son and twelfth child of Thomas F. and Caroline M. (Woodson) Bates, and both his parents belonged to plain old Quaker families, representatives of which had lived for several generations in the lower counties of the peninsula between the James and York Rivers. Ilis parents were married

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in the year. 1771 in the Quaker meeting, ac- cording to the forms of that simple-minded and virtuous people, but in 1781 Thomas F. Bates lost his membership in the Society of Friends by bearing arms at the siege of York- town as a volunteer private soldier under Lafayette. The father of Edward Bates died in 1805, leaving a small estate and a large family. Although left an orphan, Edward Bates suffered comparatively little from the embarrassments of poverty, as several of his brothers were prosperous men, who treated him with kindly consideration and aided him to prepare himself for the active duties of life. In his early childhood he was very well taught by his father, and afterward had the benefit of two years' instruction at the hands of his kins- man, Benjamin Bates, of Hanover, Virginia, an intelligent and scholarly man. Coming under the protection of his brother, Fleming, he was sent in the fall of 1806 to Charlotte Academy, of St. Mary's County, Maryland, where he remained three years, the intention of his brother being to fit him at that institu- tion for Princeton College. At the end of these three years of study he met with an acci- dent, which compelled him to return to his home, and kept him there for nearly two years. Disappointed in his hopes of obtaining a col- legiate education, he sought a midshipman's warrant in the navy, in the meantime serving as youngest apprentice in the office of his brother, who was a court clerk. In the win- ter of ISI1-12 his kinsman James Pleasants- afterward Governor of Virginia, but then a member of Congress-procured for him the mtich coveted appointment to the navy, but here again he met with disappointment, his mother refusing to consent to his entering the navy. She was willing that all her sons should march whenever needed to repel an invasion, but was still too good a Quaker to allow any child of hers to take up arms as a profession. Soon after renouncing his appointment to the navy his brother Frederick, who had been secretary of the Territory of Missouri from 1807 up to that time, invited him to come to St. Louis and fit himself for the profession of law, promising to see him safely through his course of study. He accepted the invitation, and was to have come west in the spring of ISI3, but was delayed by his participation in the second war with Great Britain. Early in the year 1813 he joined a company of voltin- eers formed in Goochland County for the

purpose of aiding to repel a threatened attack of the British fleet on Norfolk, Virginia, and served, first as a private, and later as corporal and sergeant successively, until October of that year. The following spring he came to St. Louis, reaching what was then a village bearing that name on the 29th of April, 1814. Here he studied law in the office of Rufus Easton, and in the winter of 1816-17 was ad- mitted to the bar. A couple of years later he was appointed prosecuting attorney for the Northern Circuit of Missouri, and held that office until the State government was organ- ized. He sat as a delegate in the convention which framed the first constitution of Mis- souri in 1820, and in the fall of that year, when the State government was organized, he was appointed first Attorney General. In 1822 he resigned the office of Attorney Gen- eral and was elected a member of the House of Representatives of Missouri, and served in that body until 1824, when he was appointed by President Monroe United States attorney for the Missouri District. In 1826 he was elected a member of the United States Ilottse of Representatives, and represented Missouri in that body during the sessions of the Twen- tieth Congress. He was again a candidate for Congress in 1828, but was defeated. Two years later he was elected to the State Senate, and served for four years as a member of that body, and from 1834 to 1836 he was a mem- ber of the State House of Representatives. Thereafter, until 1853, he devoted himself as- siduously to the practice of his profession, in which he gained great prominence, taking rank among the leading members of the West- ern bar. He was elected judge of the Land Court of St. Louis County in 1853. and served in that capacity for three years thereafter, re- turning then to the practice of law, in which he was engaged until appointed Attorney General of the United States in 1861. Mean- time he had been an active spirit in promot- ing movements designed to further the im- provement and development of the Western States, and in 1847 acted as president of the River and Harbor Improvement Convention, which sat in Chicago. He had also become a conspicuous figure in national politics, act- ing with the Whig party, and in 1850 he was appointed by President Fillmore and con- firmed by the Senate Secretary of War. This appointment he declined for personal and domestic reasons. Fillmore then offered hin

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any office within his gift, but for the same reasons he declined to enter public life in any capacity. He presided over the deliberations of the Whig National Convention, which sat in Baltimore in 1856, and in 1858 was compli- mented with the degree of doctor of laws by Harvard University, of Cambridge, Mas- sachusetts. One of the greatest services which he rendered to the State of Missouri, and particularly to the city of St. Louis, was that of securing legislative action which con- firmed to the city of St. Louis the title to certain real estate, which later became exceed- ingly valuable. He defended these titles as a lawyer, and thereby secured to the city for educational purposes property which for many years kept its public schools in better financial condition than any others in the country. When the question of the repeal of the "Missouri compromise" became one of the burning issues of American politics, Mr. Bates carnestly opposed the repeal, and thus became identified with the Free Labor Party in Missouri, opposing with them the admis- sion of Kansas under the Lecompton con- stitution. Although a slaveholder, he was a Free-Soiler, and gradually became more and more prominent as an anti-slavery man, until in 1859 he was looked upon by his friends in Missouri, and by many of the leading mem- bers of the Republican party throughout the country, as that party's most available candi- date for the presidency of the United States at the election to be held in 1860. When the convention met in Chicago to name the Re- publican candidate he was placed in nomina- tion for the highest office within the gift of the American people, and received forty-eight votes on the first ballot. Lincoln was, how- ever, nominated and afterward elected. but recognizing the distinguished Missourian who had been one of his chief competitors as a broad-minded statesman, he invited him to become a member of his cabinet, offering him the second choice of positions, the first choice going to Mr. Seward. Mr. Bates chose the attorney-generalship, and was ap- pointed to that office, discharging its duties with signal ability during the war period, and serving in that capacity until 1864, when he resigned. It was he who originated the idea of turning the Eads dredgeboats into gun- boats, and thus set on foot the movement which resulted in the formation of the inland fleet, without which the South could hardly

have been conquered. After his retirement from the attorney-generalship he lived in St. Louis until his death, and while suffering from a long and painful illness wrote several papers on the reconstruction of the Southern States, which constitute an able exposition of the opinions of conservative Republicans of that time. While, as above indicated, Mr. Bates attained incidentally to some national repute and prominence, he was nevertheless essen- tially a local, rather than a national figure ; and nine-tenths of his public work was for the people of Missouri and St. Louis. For fully fifty years he was prominent in Missouri poli- tics. He was one of the framers of the State constitution, and was afterward largely in- strumental in shaping its fundamental and permanent laws. He was for many years the leader of the Whig party in Missouri, receiv- ing its complimentary caucus nomination for United States Senator. The Whigs were al- ways in a minority in Missouri, but Mr. Bates' moderate opinions and conciliatory methods enabled him to attract support from moderate men of the other side, and to exert an influence over State affairs out of propor- tion to the strength of his party. He mar- ried, in 1823. Julia D. Coalter, one of the five daughters of David Coalter, of South Caro- lina. It is worthy of mention in this connec- tion that these five sisters all married men of marked distinction. One became the wife of Hamilton R. Gamble, afterward Governor of Missouri: another was the wife of United States Senator W. C. Preston, of South Caro- lina ; another was the wife of Chancellor Har- per, one of the most distinguished of South Carolina jurists, and another the wife of Dr. Means, of South Carolina, an able practitioner of medicine. The children of Edward Bates who attained maturity were: Barton, Nancy, Julian, Fleming, Richard, Matilda, John Coal- ter and Charles Woodson Bates. BARTON BATES, lawyer and jurist, eldest of the sons of Edward Bates, was born Feb- ruary 29, 1824, in St. Louis, and died on his farm in St. Charles County, December 29. 1891. After obtaining a classical education at St. Charles College he studied law in St. Louis under the preceptorship of Governor Ilamilton R. Gamble and his father, then practicing in partnership under the firm name of Gamble & Bates. AAfter his admission to the bar he practiced in St. Louis, and attained a high rank at the bar. He was also a finan-

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Encyclopedia of the history of Missouri, a compendium of history and biography for ready reference, Vol. I, Part 34

Author: Conard, Howard Louis, ed. 1n Publication date: 1901 Publisher: New York, Louisville [etc.] The Southern history company, Haldeman, Conard & co., proprietors Number of Pages: 856

Author: Conard, Howard Louis, ed. 1n
Publication date: 1901
Publisher: New York, Louisville [etc.] The Southern history company, Haldeman, Conard & co., proprietors
Number of Pages: 856