USA > Missouri > Encyclopedia of the history of Missouri, a compendium of history and biography for ready reference, Vol. I > Part 59
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).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65 | Part 66 | Part 67 | Part 68 | Part 69 | Part 70 | Part 71 | Part 72 | Part 73 | Part 74 | Part 75 | Part 76 | Part 77 | Part 78 | Part 79 | Part 80 | Part 81 | Part 82 | Part 83 | Part 84 | Part 85 | Part 86 | Part 87 | Part 88 | Part 89 | Part 90 | Part 91 | Part 92 | Part 93 | Part 94 | Part 95 | Part 96 | Part 97 | Part 98 | Part 99 | Part 100 | Part 101 | Part 102 | Part 103 | Part 104 | Part 105 | Part 106 | Part 107 | Part 108 | Part 109 | Part 110 | Part 111 | Part 112 | Part 113
Boone's Fort .- The home of Daniel M. Boone, in Darst's Bottom, near Femme Osage Creek, in St. Charles County. It was the strongest of the many forts crected in that region at the outbreak of the Indian troubles in 1812. All were built upon the same general plan, that of a parallelogram of sufficient dimensions to enclose domestic animals, heavy pallisades forming the sides and ends, with log blockhouses at the cor- ners. Within these gathered the settlers at night, during seasons of alarm.
Boone's Lick .- Sec "Howard County."
Boonville .- Since the organization of Cooper County, Boonville has been its county seat. It is situated on the south bank of the Missouri River and opposite the former site of the historic town of "Old Franklin," in Howard County. Boonville is among the older towns of Missouri west of St. Louis, and is one hundred and eighty- seven miles distant from that city by rail, and two hundred and thirty miles distant by river. It was named in honor of Daniel Boone and was founded August 1, 1817, four years before the State was admitted into the Union. The original town site was owned by Captain Asa Morgan, of the United States Army, and Charles Lucas, of St. Louis. Morgan lived in Old Franklin and died there September 21, 1821. One of the principal streets of the present city is named in honor of him. Charles Lucas was a young lawyer of St. Louis who was killed by Colonel Thomas H. Benton in a duel on Bloody Island, September 27, 1817, eight weeks after Boonville was established. Mrs, Hannah Cole, on whose land Cole's Fort was located, about two miles from the present business center of Boonville, made the first permanent settlement near the site of the town in ISI0. The first settler in Boonville proper was Gilliard Roupe, who established his home on the river at the mouth of what was then called and is still known, as "Roupe's Branch." This stream empties into the river a short distance below the present Missouri, Kansas & Texas Railroad bridge and near the ferry landing. In cabins built of poles, Mr. Robidoux, a Frenchman, opened the first store; Mr. Nolin, the first grocery or saloon; and William Bartlett, the first tavern. The first dwellings were built in the neighborhood of Roupe's Branch, in 1815, 1816 and 1817. The oldest house now stand- ing in Boonville was built in 1818 and is owned and occupied by Mrs. Melvina Wallace. It is a two-story log structure, weatherboarded, stands at the corner of Third and High Streets and is still a very comfortable dwelling. The first church build- ing was erected in 1831 by the Methodists on the site of their present church on Spring Street. The next church was erected by the Presbyterians on the lot on Main Street, now occupied by their present church. The first blacksmith was James Bruffee, who made a cannon for the Fourth of July celebration of
.
329
BOONVILLE, BATTLE OF.
1820. The early physicians were Dr. George C. Hart and Dr. N. Hutchison, the last named the father of Judge Horace A. Huteli- ison, once editor of the "Boonville Adver- tiser," and now probate judge of Cooper County. The first lawyers were Peyton R. Hayden, William S. Brickey, John B. Clark, afterward of Fayette, Howard County, and Littleberry Hendricks, the last named the Whig candidate for Lieutenant Governor in 1848. Clark was the Whig candidate for Governor in 1840. The first postmaster of Boonville was Robert P. Clark, who, in 1820, was one of the three delegates from Cooper County to the Barton Constitutional Con- vention. Boonville is located on high ground, overlooking the river, is well built and is a very beautiful little city. The residence streets are ornamented by shade trees and the residences are large, comfortable, and very sightly. No city of its population in the United States contains more taxable wealth. Before the era of railroads, the town enjoyed a very large and profitable trade and had a number of wholesale estab- lishments. With the advent of railroads many rival towns were established in various directions, resulting in the abridgement to some extent of its commerce. To remedy this drawback, it is proposed to build a wagon bridge across the river at the foot of Main Street, in order to command a share of the trade of the rich county of Howard. The city has substantial banking institutions and many flourishing dry goods and grocery stores and other commercial establishments of various kinds and is the seat of the Sahm steam shoe factory, Sombart steam flour- ing mill, and other industrial enterprises. It has a superior public school system with good buildings for both white and colored pupils. Kemper school, an old and well established private school for boys, with a military department, is located at Boonville, as is also Megquier Seminary, an excellent school for young ladies. The Missouri Re- form School for boys is also located at Boon- ville. The population of the city in 1900 was 4.377.
WILLIAM F. SWITZLER.
Boonville, Battle of .- The fact ex- cites very little interest now because it is almost forgotten, but the first gun of the Civil War in Missouri was fired in Cooper County, on June 17, 1861. On the 11th of
that month, Governor C. F. Jackson and General Sterling Price, left Jefferson City, the Legislature being in excited session, for St. Louis, to hokl a conference with Generals Nathaniel Lyon and Frank P. Blair, with the view, if possible, of making some compro- mise assuring a temporary, if not a per- manent peace between the Federal and State -or Confederate forces. Nothing was ac- complished at this conference and Jackson and Price returned to the capital that night, burning the railroad bridges behind them and cutting the telegraph wires. On their arrival at Jefferson City, Jackson issued a proclamation calling for 50,000 men. The Legislature adjourned and Jackson and Price, with such military forces as they had, abandoned the capital and went to Boonville. Lyon and Blair, regarding the proclamation as the signal for war in Missouri, at once prepared to march on Jefferson City, and the day after its issuance-June 13th-embarked their forces, regulars, volunteers and artil- lery on the steamers "Iatan" and "J. C. Swan" and left St. Louis for the State capi- tal. This place they reached on the afternoon of the 15th and took possession of the town, no resistance being made. Colonel Henry Boernstein was appointed to command and hold the place and on the next day, June 16th, Lyon and Blair re-embarked their troops on three steamers and started for Boonville, to which place Jackson and Price had gone and where they were collecting a force to resist the anticipated attack. General Price hav- ing been attacked by a serious illness, left Boonville on the 16th, on the steamer "White Cloud," for his home in Chariton County, leaving Governor Jackson and Colonel John S. Marmaduke in command of an untrained, unorganized, and badly armed force, if force it could be called. These troops were marshaled in batttle array, about six miles below Boonville, on the farm of William M. Adams, near the Missouri River. Learning of this, Lyon and Blair disembarked their troops and marched them to the conflict. They opened with Totten's Battery and their infantry on Marmaduke's forces, which soon scattered in every direction and in such haste that the engagement is to this day facetiously referred to by participants on both sides, as the "Boonville races." Lyon took peaceable possession of Boonville, most of the State troops returning to their homes
330
BOONVILLE, CAPTURE OF-BORDER TROUBLES, 1854-1860.
as rapidly as possible. Lyon's loss was two killed and nine wounded. Marmaduke's loss, three killed : number of wounded unknown. In this engagement, two cannon balls from Totten's battery passed through the east brick wall of Adams' residence and the evi- dence of the penetration can be seen to this day. Adams still lives there.
WILLIAM F. SWITZLER.
Boonville, Capture of .- On the 8th of October. 1864, while General Sterling Price was moving west from Jefferson City toward Independence, General Shelby, one of his trusted subordinates, was sent against Boonville. The garrison, 400 militia, was well fortified in the courthouse surrounded by a stockade and with the approaches bar- ricaded. A demand was sent in for sur- render and was acceded to, as close behind Shelby was Price's whole army and resistance was useless. Next day Price's army arrived and encamped in and around the town. Boonville was held by the Confederates for three days, and during the time Captain Shoemaker, Federal commander of the sur- rendered garrison, was treacherously taken from his house and killed by persons who were never discovered. General Shelby made an investigation of the case, but it ended without result.
Border Ruffians .- A name given to the pro-slavery chiefs and their followers on the western Missouri border, who were active, daring and ready for violence in the enterprise of making Kansas a slave State, in 1855-8. The name, which first appeared in the "New York Tribune" and was adopted generally by the anti-slavery press, applied originally to Missourians, who at the beginning of the struggle in Kansas, felt themselves called upon to take the lead in establishing pro-slavery supremacy in the new territory, but it came afterward to in- clide persons from the Southern States, who came to the Missouri towns to assist in irruptions over the border for the purpose of controlling elections in the territory.
Border Troubles, 1854-1860 .- In an article on the "Border Troubles" -the border between Missouri and Kansas-in the space allotted, names of persons, details as to dates, incidents and events are impossible.
Only causes, actions and policies are ad- missible. Who were the aggressors or who were the sufferers is impracticable of ex- tended recital or discussion. Then again. the "Border Troubles" can only be made to cover the period between the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act by Congress and the meeting of the Wyandotte Constitutional Convention, 1854-1859. This latter closed the question as to a free or slave State-the incident that incited the "troubles." The war that came in 1861 was national and under the war-making power of the govern- ment on one side, and the insurgent authority on the other. The events that took place on the border after the affair at Sumter in 1861 were actions in a state of war, and do not come under the head of mere troubles in- cident to the new State. These do not belong here but rather to the local history of the counties obtained through local persons and sources.
The attitude of Missouri and Missourians in the events from the passage of the Kansas- Nebraska Act has never been told from their side of the line. There never was any move- ment by the State government to take part in the matter in controversy-the inter- ference was by a portion of her citizens entirely on their own individual account and risk-the State had no part in it. While the people were practically a unit on the matter of slave property and its inviolability, which was the excuse for the active participation in the "troubles," yet it is not overstating the fact to say, that a majority of the people of even the border counties were averse to violent methods, and a large element pre- ferred to see' Kansas a free State. This feeling was latent rather than active because the violent classes construed such position as at enmity with the institution of slavery and friendly to "abolitionism." No one at this day, who was not old enough to realize the then opinion, can form any idea of the odium that attached to the term "black abolitionist" which was regarded as the sum of all infamies that could attach to personal character. The opposition to interference or rather the want of sympathy with the pro- slavery crusade is readily comprehended when the political situation, at that date, is understood. The most conspicnous and in- fluential public man in Missouri in his day was Thomas H. Benton. He was bitterly
331
BORDER TROUBLES, 1854-1860.
and actively opposed to the repeal of the Missouri Compromise Act by which 36 degrees 30 minutes was the northern limit of slavery in the United States. The Kansas- Nebraska Act wiped out that restriction and left the question to be decided by the people of the territory when they came to form a State Constitution. But it was held by the pro-slavery side that slaves could be in the interim imported by their owners into the territory and held under the authority of the Constitution of the United States. To secure possession with this construction was the purpose and policy of the immigration move- ment from the slave-holding States.
Kansas lands were not open to settlement by white men previous to the passage of this act, in May, 1854, and were not surveyed until much later. Squatter titles came before survey and pre-emption, and he who got there first, got the first "claim." The contest began in the effort to "make claims." The Northern or free State immigrants, as a rule, lived east of Missouri, and had to pass through her territory or go around by Iowa and Nebraska-for there were no people west, of either sort, to come from that direction.
This fact will account for the free State settlements being as a rule in the interior of the territory-at Lawrence, Topeka, Ottawa, Emporia and other places, while Atchison, Leavenworth, Platte, Fort Scott and the border was taken by the Missouri people who could rush over and back at their leisure.
This was at the beginning of the contest for the possession of the new land of promise, and for a time it was an apparent if not friendly rivalry. To show that this was so, it need only be stated that as late as the close of navigation in the Missouri River in 1855, Kansas City was the port of shipment for the goods and merchandise of the free State men, the material used in the publication of the free State papers being landed at its whart in care of slave-holding commission mer- chants. The old "Gilliss House" was first built and owned by the Emigrant Aid Com- pany of New England and kept by a free State man.
This was the case until the close of the river in that year, and even during the bitter and lawless events of 1856 did not entirely cease. So far as the steamboat officers, the
merchants and business men of Missouri were concerned, this rule of equality and safety as to the trade and property of free State men and pro-slavery men was never suspended or violated. Where it was done, it was the result of mob violence, and free and slave State men lived neighbors in amity and mutual respect and confidence. That these conditions were often violated and wrong and outrage committed is too true- and this violation constituted the "Border Troubles." But they resulted from the action of a lawless element that was largely foreign to the State. True, there were Missourians participating with the men known as "col- onists" from the cotton States, who came to offset emigrant aid colonists from New En- gland, and unfortunately for the position of Missouri in the controversy, they were more on the Missouri than on the Kansas side of the line. Their lawless acts were committed in the territory, but their rendezvous there- after was too often on the Missouri side of the line.
On the part of the leaders on the pro- slavery side, as well as those on the free State side, the effort was to do all public acts under the color of law. The national administration being on the pro-slavery side made this comparatively easy. Thus the "borrowing" of the arms, cannon, etc., from the Liberty Arsenal, was to aid as a posse comitatus to "Sheriff Jones." But Jones was not a Missourian, and the commander of his posse was from Florida and most of his men were from other States, though Mis- souri furnished her share, and as to public character, her contingent ontranked all others. As a rule these prominent Mis- sourians were politicians of the "Claib Jack- son" faction, as the element in the State hostile to Benton was called. But to repre- sent it as a special Missouri movement is to mistake the facts of history.
It was so when free State men retaliated. Their action was without the cover of law. but when Osawatomie was burned, it was under color of enforcing judicial process. All this by a comparatively small number of Missourians, in concert with organized in- migrants from other States, who were abetted by the policy of the Washington ad- ministration, through the Territorial authori- ties, the United States judges on the bench, and even by the military from Fort Leaven-
332
BORDER TROUBLES, 1854-1860.
worth. It is submitted that the charge that the "border troubles" were caused by "Mis- souri border ruffians," residents of the State, is not sustained by the facts as they occurred.
This is not a vindication or an apology for Missouri or Missourians, but simply a recital of facts as they existed at the time. Mis- sourians did commit lawless and inde- fensible acts-they went into the Territory armed, destroyed, or assisted in destroying, life and property without justification or color of law ; they went over in numbers and voted at elections where they had no right to vote, but they did not perpetrate the frauds at Oxford and other places, and they did not conceal returns or ballots in candle- boxes and woodpiles. Again, acts of ag- gression and retaliation by free-State men usually spent their force on Missouri by removal of slaves and mules, because they were near and could be got at, and this provoked retaliation in turn. But it would be as unjust to charge the "Pottawatomie massacre" by a few individuals to the free- State people of Kansas as to ascribe the "Marais des Cygnes massacre," led by one Hamilton, who was not a Missourian, to the people of Missouri.
That what is here stated was the true con- dition as to the attitude of Missouri as a whole is shown by the fact that the State authorities never interfered, and that the "troubles" ceased as soon as it was seen that the votes legitimately cast were for a free State, when the normal relations of the people were resumed at once.
The "troubles" may be said to have begun on March 30, 1855, when Governor Reeder, after a census had been taken, ordered an election for the first Territorial Legislature. The elections were controlled by votes from Missouri very largely. These voters claimed as legal color for their action that while still at their homes in Missouri they had made claims in the Territory and intended to move to them as soon as the season would allow. The extent to which this was true is shown by the fact that by the census taken in Feb- ruary, the population of the Territory was 8,501, and the qualified voters 2,905, yet at this election the following month the votes polled and counted were 6.318.
This open evidence of fraud, behind which was the menace of force, may be said to be the beginning of the conflict between the
two elements-the free and the slave-State parties. As the free-State immigration had 110 base of activity nearer than Iowa, and Missouri was just over the line, the slave- State partisans made it the supply ground for their crusade. It is impracticable in what is a notice of the condition of affairs, then, to write a history ; it is only needed to note the events that from time to time re- sulted from this state of feeling and purpose.
This election resulted, as was intended by these proceedings, in choosing a Territorial Legislature overwhelmingly in favor of a slave State. With this vantage ground, the subsequent action of Governor Reeder, in setting aside some returns and ordering special elections for the vacancies, was ignored by the Legislature when convened, while all members chosen at the first election were seated. It then adjourned from Pawnee, the place designated by Governor Reeder for its meeting, to the Shawnee Manual Labor School, or Mission, two miles from the Missouri line, near Westport, to which place Governor Reeder had previously removed the Governor's office. The execu- tive and Legislature both being thus prac- tically on the border, made it the center or objective point of the contending forces, and from its nearness intensified the feeling in Missouri, while, from the mere absence of settlement and houses to shelter people on either side of the contest, the pro-slavery men occupied the Missouri side of the line and the free-State men the interior settle- ments, of which Lawrence was the nearest available. Thus the immigration parties from the North made Lawrence the center of activity, while those from the South fixed their base of operations in the border coun- ties of Missouri, where alone were settle- ments and places for support and shelter.
Hence it was that while immigrations from Georgia. Alabama, South Carolina, Missis- sippi and other localities were the nucleus around which gathered the pro-slavery settlers, and whose leaders were the active men as a rule, they were in the popular mind credited to Missouri from the conditions de- scribed-and all went under the general designation of "Missouri border ruffians."
It has been stated that both sides tried to keep within legal forms and to cover their action by color of law, and that the pro-slavery men had the advantage in this regard by hav-
333
BORDER TROUBLES, 1854-1860.
ing the national government on their side. All these now recognized acts of violence and fraud were condoned by the removal of Governor Reeder, on the memorial of this first Legislature, July 31, 1855. Daniel Woodson, Territorial Secretary, succeeding as Acting Governor, all the legislation needed to make Kansas a slave State was enacted, being almost in a body the statutes of Missouri, and in addition a series of laws for the punishment of offenses against slave property, which to-day are matters of wonder even to the men responsible for their enactment. Nothing more clearly shows the almost insane excitement and passion of the time than these so-called "black laws" of the first Territorial Legislature of Kansas. Did they not exist, their provisions would be in- credible at this day.
The free State men, repudiating all this action as illegal and the Legislature as "bogus," proceeded to organize a State gov- ernment by primary movement on the part of the people. Delegates to a proposed con- stitutional convention were chosen October I, 1855, which, on meeting at Topeka, framed a constitution which provided that "there shall be no slavery in this State, or involun- tary servitude, except for crime." This Con- stitution was ratified by a vote on the 11th of December, 1855. A mob destroyed the poll- books at Leavenworth, though the act was not charged to Missourians exclusively.
The Constitution on the part of the free- State people drew the line between the two parties on a legal, formal and organized basis. It was no longer a mere contest, competition or rivalry as to who should get the "claims" or control the first movements for Territorial organization, but which repre- sented the people in the formation of a State government. This contest for the legal position and advantage was further intensi- fied by the election of John W. Whitfield as delegate to Congress by the pro-slavery voters on the ist of October. 1855, and of Andrew H. Reeder by the free-State electors, October 9. 1855. Meanwhile per- sonal collisions, mobs and reprisals were incident to the time, along with the more im- portant strategical political movements of the two parties.
It may not be out of place here to refer to the animus of the contending elements. The desire to enter and possess the new lands by
pre-emption claims was common to both, but the spirit of the two crusades was entirely different. The free-State people were ap- pealed to as being missionaries of "freedom" and pioneers in the dedication of the soil to "free labor." This inspiration made men feel as enlisted in the cause of liberty, and their sufferings and hardships took on the flavor of martyrdom. The pro-slavery men regarded these inducements as simply cloaks to cover an attack on their property rights and on their property itself, and their in- spiring idea was resentment at this purpose of interference. This feeling engendered passion and hostility, while on the part of the other, the feeling was that of zeal and en- thusiasm for a sentiment or principle-on the part of some a fanaticism as violent as the passions of the opposing side. The one felt resentful and vindictive, the other ap- pealed to conscience as against a wrong. This was the situation then as it has been in all human history where property and freedom have been in issue-in this instance the more intense because it was an issue between man and property in men.
Another element entered into the contest on the part of Missourians that has been overlooked, but had much to do with the conditions of personal action and violence. The population of western Missouri was composed of a border or frontier people, by birth, training and the necessities of their location. Beyond them and at their doors were the wild Indians, whom they had met from the settlement of Daniel Boone. They had law and its forms for the regulation of their relations with one another, but to this mass of often hostile aborigines, their own courage, vigilance and fighting force was after all their best and ultimate protection. It is so to-day on our frontiers, and from the nature of things must ever be to a border people. This was shown in a previous border trouble known as the "Mormon War." and was the instinctive recourse of the border Missourian, as it has been from Plymouth Rock and Jamestown to the settlement of Kansas, Nebraska, the Dakotas, Montana and the Pacific Coast States. It is readily comprehensible how such a population would be excited when appealed to against "nigger thieves," when Judge Lynch had always had primary jurisdiction where horse titles had been disregarded.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.