USA > Missouri > Encyclopedia of the history of Missouri, a compendium of history and biography for ready reference, Vol. II > Part 51
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remainder of the drive was made through mud, which Dickens declared "had no vari- ety but in depth." He, however, reached and viewed.the prairie at sunset, and returned to St. Louis the following day. This trip and Dickens' visit to St. Louis, as a whole, were events long remembered by those who were brought into contact with the gifted Englishman at that time.
Dickey, Samuel May, conspicuous among the founders of the present excel- lent public school system of Carthage, was born June 14, 1830, in Crawford County, Pennsylvania. His parents were Joseph and Margaret (Meigs) Dickey, both natives of Pennsylvania, the former of Scotch-Irish and the latter of Scotch ancestry. The father served in the War of 1812, and was engaged in the siege of Fort Meigs, under General Harrison. In 1851 the family removed to Stephenson County, Illinois. The son, Sam- uel M., was reared upon a farm. He received primary instruction in the district schools, and subsequently took liberal courses in Kingsville (Ohio) Academy, Allegheny Col- lege, at Meadville, Pennsylvania, and Rock River Seminary, at Mount Morris, Illinois. In the latter named school he also was a teacher of mathematics and English litera- ture. For four years he taught country schools in Rock Island County, Illinois. In 1861 his health failed, and he was retired until 1866. Beginning with that year, he taught in Cordova, Port Byron and Fulton, Illinois, each change of location being to engage in a higher grade of work, with in- creased compensation. In 1871 he removed to Carthage, Missouri, and entered upon an engagement as principal of the public schools. He at once began an arduous task. He took charge of what is now the Central School building, then just completed, the first school building erected after the war. But five of the eight rooms could be hurriedly furnished, and these were overcrowded with pupils. There was no semblance of system, and Mr. Dickey evolved the best method of grada- tion at all practicable, and by 1874 had a class of thirty students who were prepared for the high-school course. In 1875 Mr. Dickey retired from the schools to represent a text-book publishing house. He was so engaged for a year, and in 1876-7 he was in charge of the school in Neoslio. For
some years afterward he gave his attention to mining, but has latterly relinquished this to his sons, not being sufficiently robust to give it his personal attention. In politics he is a Republican. In religion he is a Uni- tarian. He was married, in 1854, to Miss Mary Hoverland, at Mount Morris, Illi- nois. She was born in Springfield, New York, and died in 1895. Four children were born of this marriage, one of whom died in in- fancy. Those surviving are Ernest M., a graduate of the Carthage schools, now presi- dent of the Iowa Iron Works, Dubuque, Iowa, and Charles J. and Frank Lyle Dickey, both engaged in mining in the Joplin district. Mr. Dickey is an interesting observer of current events, and excellent authority upon past history. The history of education in Jasper County, in the "Encyclopedia of the History of Missouri," is from his pen.
Dickinson, Clement Cabell, law- yer and legislator, is descended from two of the most distinguished early families of Vir- ginia. His father, Asa Dupuy Dickinson, a native of Virginia, was a son of Robert Dick- inson, who was descended from French Huguenots, who settled in Virginia in the early days of the Colony. Robert Dickinson married Mary Purnell Dupuy, a daughter of Captain James Dupuy, an officer in the Continental Army during the Revolu- tion, and a prominent citizen of Nottoway County, Virginia, which he represented in the State Legislature during a period of twenty years. His son, Asa Dupuy Dickin- son, was twice married, first to Jane Michaux, who died within a few years after her marriage. His second wife, Sarah Cabell Irvine, our subject's mother, was also a na- tive of Virginia, where her death occurred in 1899. Asa D. Dickinson was born in Not- toway County, Virginia, March 1, 1816, and when twenty years of age was graduated from Hampden-Sidney College. In 1837 and 1838 he attended law lectures in William and Mary College, under Beverly Tucker and President Thomas R. Dew, obtaining his de- gree in the latter year, and at once entering upon his professional career at Prince Ed- ward Courthouse, Virginia. In 1844 he became a trustee of Hampden-Sidney Col- lege; in 1857 was elected, as a Democrat, to the Virginia House of Delegates from the Whig county of Prince Edward, receiv-
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ing every vote cast but six; in 1859 was re-elected to the House of Delegates, and in 1860, and again in 1863, was sent to the State Senate. While serving in the latter body, during the thrilling days of secession, he became the author of the famous "Address of the Virginia Assembly to the Virginia Soldiers." Congress removed his political disabilities in 1870, and in the same year he was elected to the bench in the Third Virginia Circuit, being re-elected upon the expiration of his term, in 1878. While still on the bench, in 1882, death ended his ca- reer. The subject of this sketch was born in Prince Edward County, Virginia, Decem- ber 6, 1849, where he resided until his grad- uation from Hampden-Sidney College, in 1869. In September of that year he removed to Kentucky, and for six years was engaged in teaching in Kentucky, Virginia and Mis- souri. He removed to the latter State in September, 1872, and at once established a private school in Clinton, which he con- ducted for two terms. A number of the students in the latter institution have since risen to positions of prominence in the busi- ness and professional world. While teach- ing he read law, and in 1875 was admitted to the bar, before Judge Foster P. Wright, at once engaging in practice in Clinton, in partnership with Honorable William T. Thornton, who afterward became Governor of New Mexico. This association continued a year, or until Mr. Thornton removed to New Mexico. In 1876 Mr. Dickinson be- came the Democratic nominee for prosecut- ing attorney of Henry County, and was elected, serving three consecutive terms of two years each. During the first year of this time he and Honorable James B. Gantt, later chief justice of Missouri, "officed" to- gether. Since 1877 he has practiced alone. When Clinton became a city of the third class he was elected city attorney, serving two years. In the fall of 1900 he was elected, as the nominee of the Democratic party, as Henry County's representative in the State Legislature. He was married, in December, 1882, to Mattie E. Parks, daughter of Judge James Parks, of Clinton. They are the parents of six children, viz .: Clement Parks, Mary Cabell, Emily Peyton, Mattie Eliza, Lelia Irvine and Thomas Seddon Dickin- son. Mr. Dickinson ranks as one of the foremost members of the bar of southwest
Missouri. He is thoroughly grounded in the principles of the law, and is possessed of the happy faculty of applying those principles correctly to the case in hand. He is logical in his arguments, a skillful debater, and con- vincing in his style. Broad-minded and public- spirited, dignified and thoughtful, his pol- ished manner reflects the personality of his distinguished ancestry.
Dickson, Charles K., merchant and financier, was born September 17, 1816, in the hamlet of Haddonfield, New Jersey, not far from the city of Philadelphia, and died in St. Louis, January 26, 1871. Charles K. Dick- son left the city of Philadelphia when he was about twenty years of age to come west, and in 1837 he settled in St. Louis. Soon after his coming to that city, he formed a partner- ship with John J. Murdock, and established the auction and commission house of Mur- dock & Dickson. Prospering in this busi- ness and becoming a man of means, his enter- prise extended in many other directions, and he became known as a leader in movements designed to promote Western development and the upbuilding of St. Louis, and as a financier of very superior capacity. He was identified with almost every new and promi- nent enterprise of a public character during the earlier years of his residence in St. Louis, and when enterprises of this character multiplied in later years, he continued to be conspicuous in many of those which contrib- uted most to the prosperity of the city. He was a leading stockholder in one of the great wrecking companies which operated on the Mississippi River, contributed to the success of almost every railroad enterprise which laid its tracks out of St. Louis during his lifetime, was vice president of the old Atlantic & Pa- cific Railroad Company, and officially con- nected also with the North Missouri Railroad Company from 1867 until his death. He was interested in all the branch roads which the North Missouri Railroad Company absorbed and was director of that corporation when it ran its first train to Kansas City and to the Western terminus of the Iowa line. He was a member of the syndicate that purchased the old State Bank of Missouri, and converted it into the National Bank of the State of Mis- souri under the national banking laws. From the time of its organization until his death, he was vice president of that bank, and was one
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of the directors of the old Southern Bank, and later of its successor, the Third National Bank of St. Louis.
Diehlstadt .- An incorporated village in Twappity Township, Scott County, on the Belmont branch of the St. Louis, Iron Mountain & Southern Railway, sixteen miles southeast of Benton. It has a saw- mill and five stores. Population, 1899 (esti- mated), 250.
Digges, Thomas H., banker, was born June 13, 1841, in Culpeper County, Vir- ginia, son of Charles W. and Elizabeth (Mc- Clannahan) Digges. His mother was a native of New York State, and his father was born in Fauquier County, Virginia. After his marriage the elder Digges established his home in Culpeper County, but afterward re- turned to Fauquier County, where he became prominent in public life, and where he died in 1869. He was twice elected sheriff of his native county. Thomas H. Digges obtained a good education in Virginia schools, and remained there until 1867, when he came to New Madrid, Missouri. His first employ- ment at New Madrid was on a Mississippi wharfboat, and he filled a position in this connection for five years, familiarizing him- self in the meantime with all the phases of river traffic. In 1872 he went to Moberly, Missouri, and was engaged in the grocery . business there for three years. At the end of that time he returned to New Madrid and became proprietor of a grain warehouse at that place. In this connection he was agent for all the transportation lines on the Mis- sissippi River south of Cairo, and also for lines on the Ohio, Tennessee and Cumber- land Rivers. He did a prosperous business in this field of enterprise, and later became a large stockholder in the New Madrid Mill- ing Company, one of the largest manufactur- ing concerns in southeast Missouri. In 1890 he organized the New Madrid Banking Com- pany, of which he became president, and to the conduct and management of which he has since given a large share of his atten- tion. Early in the year 1900 he severed his connection with the warehouse business in order that he might be able to give his en- tire time to his banking interests. As a man of affairs he has long occupied a conspicu- ous position in the community with which
he is identified, and has done much to pro- mote the development of the city of New Madrid, and the country tributary thereto. Mr. Digges served in the Confederate Army throughout the entire period of the Civil War. He enlisted, in 1861, in the Fourth Virginia Cavalry Regiment, which became a part of the command of the famous Con- federate cavalry leader, General J. E. B. Stuart. For a year and a half he was on detached duty as a courier for his command- ing general, but saw much active regular service. Among other battles in which he participated, were the first and second en- gagements at Manassas, the battle of Chan- cellorsville, the seven days' fight before Richmond, and Stuart's raid in the rear of McClellan's army. His military services ended only with the surrender of General Lee at Appomattox. In politics Mr. Digges is a Democrat, and his religious leanings are toward the Catholic Church, to which his wife belongs. His only connection with fra- ternal societies is with the Ancient Order of United Workmen. In 1872 Mr. Digges married Miss Lizzie La Forge, a daughter of one of the pioneers of southeast Missouri. Their children are William L., Agnes and Lemuel Digges.
Dillon, Daniel, lawyer and jurist, was born September 26, 1841, in St. Louis, son of Philip and Margaret (Kelly) Dillon, both of whom were born in Ireland. In the early boyhood of Judge Dillon his parents removed from St. Louis to a farm in Jefferson County, Missouri, and the son grew up on this farm, remaining at home until he was nineteen years of age, when he entered the Union Army to serve through the Civil War. He was educated in the common schools of Jef- ferson County and at the Christian Brothers' College of St. Louis, and had taught school six months before the course of his life was changed by the events of the war. In August of 1862 he enlisted as a private soldier in Company A of the Thirteenth Missouri Vol- unteer Infantry Regiment, and continued in the Federal military service until May of 1866. He was a participant in many of the most notable battles of the war fought in the Mississippi Valley, and was mustered out of the service with the rank of captain, attained by successive promotions and as the reward of meritorious services. Upon leaving the
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army he came to St. Louis and began the study of law under the preceptorship of Messrs. Coonley & Madill, then practicing in partnership, and in 1867 also became a member of the first class of the St. Louis Law School, opened in that year. He was ad- mitted to the bar in 1868, but continued his course at the Law School, and was graduated with his class in 1869. Meantime, after his admission to the bar, he had begun practic- ing in the courts, and a year after his gradua- tion he entered the office of George A. Madill -afterward judge of the circuit court-then one of the recognized leaders of the St. Louis bar. In this connection he quickly demon- strated the fact that he was a lawyer of broad capabilities, and when Mr. Madill was elected to the circuit bench he succeeded to a large share of that distinguished lawyer's practice. He was in active general practice thereafter until 1884, when he himself was invited to go before the people as a candidate for the cir- cnit judgeship on the Democratic ticket, he having always affiliated with that party, of which he is still an honored and influential member. At the ensuing election the public belief in his eminent fitness for the exercise of judicial functions was attested by the grati- fying indorsement of a large popular major- ity. He was re-elected to the judgeship in 1890, and served in all twelve years on the bench, wininng the commendation of the bar and the general public by his conscientious and faithful discharge of the duties incident to his office. Renominated for a third term in 1896, he suffered defeat as the result of a large popular majority given in the circuit against his party on national political issues, but retired from the bench with the record of having been for twelve years one of the ablest members of the State judiciary. Early in the year 1897 he returned to the practice of his profession, broadened by his experience as an administrator and expounder of the law, and has since occupied a commanding position at the bar both as counselor and trial lawyer. Outside of professional life he rep- resents the best type of citizenship, contribut- ing by his influence and his public and private acts to the advancement of all that makes for the betterment of mankind. He married in 1873 Miss Mary J. Fox, who previous to that time had been a teacher in the public schools of St. Louis. Their children are John, Paul, William, Helen, Daniel and Marie Dillon.
Dimmock, Thomas, journalist and critic, was born in Barnstable, Massachusetts, in 1830. With his parents he removed to Cin- cinnati, Ohio, in 1836, and to Alton, Illinois, in 1838, where he was educated in the schools of the latter place, and for about two years was a student at Shurtliff College. After leav- ing school he was engaged in mercantile busi- ness until 1861-2, when he drifted into jour- nalism and edited the Alton "Democrat" during the Civil War and after. In March, 1869, he was invited to become attached to the editorial department of the "Missouri Re- publican"-now the "St. Louis Republic"- and took the city editorship. In the autumn of the same year he was made one of the edi- torial writers on that paper, which place he retained until his resignation in 1882. Since then he has not been regularly connected with any paper, but has done very consider- able journalistic and literary work. Mr. Dim- mock possesses a fluent and elegant rhetorical style and is known as one of the most capti- vating writers in the country. Some of his contributions to the literature of the day are preserved as in the highest order of "belles lettres." Among these are reviews of the sen- sational "disclosures" by Harriet Beecher Stowe of the domestic life of Lord Byron ; the romantic career of Aaron Burr and his daughter, Theodosia, and the life and genius of Edgar Allen Poe. The stirring incidents connected with the course of Lovejoy, the anti-slavery agitator, and his tragic end made a lasting impression upon Mr. Dimmock, who at length was instrumental in the erection of the Lovejoy monument at Alton, and who was the speaker of the day at the impressive ceremonies when that testimonial was dedi- cated, November 8, 1897. On numerous oc- casions he has been called upon to deliver lectures before refined and select audiences on literary and historical subjects. He has been president of the Unitarian Club and of the New England Society of St. Louis, and is now-1898-president of the board of direc- tors of the Free Public Library.
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Discovery .- Under this caption it is proposed to give a condensed history of the Spanish and French explorations prior and subsequent to the discovery of the Mississippi River, as leading up to the founding of St, Louis. This is made the task of the faithful chronicler who would point out the condi-
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tions attending the early settlement of the place and show the objects of the adventurous spirits by whose hazards and hardships the pathway of empire was opened. Nearly at the same period, namely, about the year 1540, Ferdinand de Soto and Francisco Vasquez de Coronado began their explorations into the. interior, DeSoto from the coast of Florida and Vasquez from the Gulf of California. De Soto and Juan Ponce de Leon, the dis- coverer of Florida, were sea-rovers of the Spanish main. De Soto was an associate of Pizarro in the conquest of Peru. De Leon went in search of the fabled fountain of per- petual youth. De Soto was in pursuit of fur- ther additions to the store of treasure he ac- quired in South America. Gold, too, was the yellow thread in the thoughts of Vasquez, who, passing by the hidden hoards of the California ranges, marched through Sonora and New Mexico up the Colorado Canons, crossed the Arkansas, and halted half way between where Leavenworth and Omaha now stand, a journey that occupied two years. De Soto, taking a northeast course, reached the Mississippi River at the point of the lowest Chickasaw Bluff, 35th parallel of latitude, in 1540, whence, after constructing barges, he crossed to the west side and pushed north- west as far as where New Madrid stands, thence diverging west to White River and south near the mouth of Red River, where he died of fever. Luis de Moscoso succeeded De Soto in command of the expedition and soon after explored the region of the Red River to the Pecos, a distance of 700 miles. Finding nothing in the country of the Co- manches to satisfy his cupidity, Moscoso, with his following of 322 men, returned to the Mississippi, and transforming everything available into nails and other hardware, con- structed barges and embarked, July 2, 1543, for the Gulf of Mexico, which was reached eighteen days later. Great privations were endured all this time, and the hostility of the Indians rendered the situation one of con- tinual peril.
Not until May, 1673. did the French, with Joliet and Marquette, start on their explora- tions from Quebec. They proceeded through the Northern Lakes, reached the Mississippi at the 42d degree of north latitude, June 17th, and began the descent of that stream, passing on down to within two or three days' journey of the Gulf, where, remaining one day (July
16th), they turned back, ascending the river to the mouth of the Illinois, thence by Lake Michigan to Green Bay, at the close of Sep- tember. Joliet was an agent of the French government, and Marquette a Catholic mis- sionary. The expedition consisted of seven men in all, in two canoes built of birch-bark. Traces of the Illinois tribe of Indians were found on June 25th, and of the Chickasaws at a point below the mouth of the Ohio River. Joliet and Marquette are said to have believed that the Mississippi flowed into the Pacific · Ocean, and that it would thus furnish an out- let whereby China could be reached from Quebec, thus foreshadowing the poetic thought of Benton: "Yonder is the East; there is India."
Seven years later, 1680, Robert Cavelier de LaSalle, with Father Louis Hennepin, made an expedition to the head waters of the Mis- sissippi, or as far as what is known as St. Anthony's Falls. Two years after, LaSalle explored the valley of the Mississippi as far down as Natchez, and subsequently to the three mouths of the river. LaSalle had re- ceived from Louis XV., King of France, two grants of Canadian lands, with instructions to explore the country bordering the Mis- sissippi. He returned to France in 1683, coming back the next year with a fleet of four vessels and 184 persons, but through ignor- ance of the coast, landed 360 miles west of the Mississippi, one of the vessels being ship- wrecked. The idea of establishing a colony was now abandoned and the colonists scat- tered. LaSalle, on his way back to Canada, was assassinated by one of his company, which numbered seventeen persons.
There is evidence that long before DeSoto traversed the country from the west Flori la coast through Alabama and Mississippi to the lowest Chickasaw Bluff, where he discovered the Mississippi River, the mouth of that stream was known to the Spanish sailors navigating the Gulf of Mexico. But France, by reason of the discoveries of LaSalle and Marquette and the explorations of Hennepin, claimed the right to navigate the Mississippi and its confluents, together with the right of settlement and occupation of the adjacent country. Great Britain laid claim to the whole continent by right of discovery.
France, becoming involved with the Brit- ish-American colonies and Canadian Indians, gave little attention to matters in Lower Lou-
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isiana. But in June, 1698, Pierre Le Moyne D'Iberville was detailed to perfect the settle- ment of that region, sailing in the following October and reaching Pensacola January 26, 1699, where, however, he met such resistance from the Spanish that he proceeded to Mobile Bay and landed his colony on Ship Island. He afterward ascended the Mississippi to the mouth of the Red River, returning by way of Lake Ponchartrain. Mobile then became the principal French post. Explorations of the Southern rivers were made, and in 1705 the Missouri was ascended as far as where Kan-' sas City now stands. D'Iberville was ac- companied by his two brothers and fifty-three other people. On taking possession of Louis- iana, one of the brothers, Sauvolle, was ap- pointed Governor General by the King, which office he filled for two years, or until his death. Captain D'Iberville made several voyages to France, returning with ship loads of colonists. He died in 1706, a victim of fever. This was the beginning of a series of ill fortunes. During the first thirteen years about 2,500 colonists came over from France, yet in 1717 the colony, says Stoddard, "contained only 400 whites, twenty-two slaves and 300 cattle." The government, which had expended 689,000 livres in their support, wearied of the drain, especially in view of its expenditures in the war with England. In 1712 the commerce of the entire province was leased to Anthony Crozat, merchant, for a term of fifteen years, during the first nine of which he was to have 50,000 livres for public expenses, after which he was to bear them all himself. Five years, however, was a suffi- cient time in which to demonstrate the failure of the plan, when Crozat surrendered his charter. This was followed by a far wider scheme by which a visionary speculator, John Law, at the head of the "Western Company," agreed to colonize Louisiana with 6,000 whites and half as many negro slaves, in re- turn for the monopoly of the commerce. Space does not admit of a full narrative of what is known in history as the "Mississippi Bubble." Two hundred whites of Law's colonists, including assayers, accompanied 500 slaves to the lead mines near Ste. Gene- vieve, under the direction of Francis Renault ; and it was in this way that slavery became a Missouri institution.
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