Encyclopedia of the history of Missouri, a compendium of history and biography for ready reference, Vol. II, Part 59

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: 800


USA > Missouri > Encyclopedia of the history of Missouri, a compendium of history and biography for ready reference, Vol. II > Part 59


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DRURY COLLEGE.


and most imposing school buildings in the State. The auditorium has a seating capacity of 1,200; the lower floor contains recitation rooms, the office of the treasurer, and the college library, the largest in southwestern Missouri, containing some 25,000 volumes. McCullagh Cottage, erected in 1894, at an expense of $25,000, accommodates forty-five girls and a number of their teachers. In this is contained the department of music. The museum building was purchased from the Springfield Board of Education; its equip- ments include the museum of the college, the biological, mineralogical and physical labora- tories, and class rooms. The museum is one of the most comprehensive west of the Mis- sissippi River. In mineralogy there are about 3,000 specimens of the principal ores and minerals of the country, and those of Missouri are especially well represented. The cabinet of palaeontology contains sev- eral thousand specimens, representing each period of geological history; it is especially rich in Missouri forms, and has attracted the personal attention of some of the most dis- tinguished scientists in America. The exten- sive herbarium includes a nearly complete collection of the flora of Greene County, classified and labeled by a Drury College graduate. Two frame buildings are used as dormitories for young men, and a third con- tains the gymnasium and cadet drill room. A residence for the president of the college was erected in 1895. The aggregate value of the college property, including equipment, is $150,000. In 1900 preparation was made for the erection of three new buildings-for sci- ence, recitation and literary departments-to cost, $50,000. The college possesses a pro- ductive endowment of about $250,000, and in 1900, $12,600 had been provided toward the endowment of the lady principal's chair, by the Woman's Home Missionary Society of the State of Missouri. The students main- tain various religious and literary societies. The "American Mathematical Monthly" and the "Drury Mirror" are published from the college, the latter being edited under the di- rection of the Students' Association of the college. A number of beneficiary scholar- ships, provided by the friends of the college, are at the disposition of the faculty. Janu- ary 1, 1900, the faculty consisted of seven- teen professors and instructors; there were eighty-five students in the college depart-


ment, one hundred and eighty-five in the academy, and twenty-five in music and elocu- tion. Since its founding the college has given instruction to more than 2,700 pupils, for longer or shorter periods. Beginning in 1875, with a class of five, the college has graduated in all one hundred and eighty students, not including a number from the Conservatory of Music. Of the graduates, one is president of the college, six are pro- fessors in colleges, ten are principals of schools, thirty-three are otherwise employed as teachers, seventeen are lawyers, twenty- six are ministers or students in theological schools, ten are physicians, and four are journalists. More than two hundred have taught in public schools, and many are filling important positions in commercial and indus- trial pursuits. Drury College grew out of the determination of the Springfield Associa- tion of Congregational Churches of South- west Missouri to found within its territory a school of higher education, specially adapted to the training of ministers and teachers, to meet the wants of a rapidly in- creasing population. Such utterance found expression at a session at North Springfield, March 21, 1871. September 14, 1872, three towns, which had offered financial aid to- ward the founding of a college, were dis- cussed, and Neosho was most favorably regarded. The movement attracted the at- tention of N. J. Morrison, D. D., formerly president of Olivet College, Michigan,. who came to Springfield to urge the founding of the proposed institution. Led by the Rev. J. H. Harwood and his brother, C. E. Har- wood, of Springfield, several residents of that city provided the necessary means, and se- cured the location of the college. In August, 1873, it was incorporated as Springfield Col- lege. December 10th following, the present name was substituted. The college opened September 23, 1873, with Dr. Morrison as president of the board of trustees, and presi- dent of the college faculty. The articles con- tained in the charter, and the courses of study for the various departments, were drafted by him; the former have not been materially altered since that time. The char- ter requires that seven of the twelve trustees shall be Congregationalists, but no church body is permitted to interfere in the college management ; children of ministers, of what- ever denomination, are exempt from tuition


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charges except in the fine art course, and as- sistance is extended to indigent students without reference to their religious predilec- tions. The original college building was of modest proportions, costing about $7,000. This sum was provided by residents of Springfield, and their subsequent gifts aggregated about $50,000. The college land was donated in large part by the Ozark Land Company, through the effort of Charles E. Harwood, who was the largest personal contributor at the outset. At a critical time Samuel F. Drury, of Olivet, Michigan, contributed $25,- 000, and out of gratitude the college was named for him. The donations of Mrs. Vale- ria G. Stone amounted in the aggregate to $80,000. Another liberal donor is Dr. D. K. Piersons, of Chicago, whose contributions have amounted to $25,000.


F. Y. HEDLEY.


Dryden, John D. S., lawyer and ju- rist, was born March 27, 1814, in Washing- ton County, Virginia, and died in St. Louis in 1886. His father was Nathaniel Dryden, who served as captain of a company of Vir- ginia troops in the War of 18:2. His mother's maiden name was Margaret Craig, and she was a woman of amiable disposition and great strength of character. After ob- taining a common school education, supple- mented by a short attendance at an old-time academy, he studied law and was admitted to the bar in Missouri, to which State he had come as a boy in 1829. In 1845 he formed a partnership with Thomas L. Anderson, of Palmyra, Missouri, which continued in exist- ence until 1848. He practiced thereafter in northeast Missouri until 1862, and became recognized as one of the leaders of the bar in that portion of the State. In the year last named he was appointed judge of the Su- preme Court of Missouri by Governor Ham- ilton R. Gamble, and in 1864 was elected to the supreme judgeship. In the fall of 1865 he removed his residence from Palmyra to St. Louis, and retiring from the Supreme bench, engaged in the practice of his profession in that city as head of the firm of Dryden & Lindsley. This partnership was dissolved in 1871 by reason of Judge Lindsley's election as judge of the circuit court. Thereafter he practiced in connection with his son, John W. Dryden, under the firm name of Dryden & Dryden, until his death. From 1867 he


was general attorney for the St. Louis & Iron Mountain Railroad Company, and con- ducted many important cases as the legal representative of that corporation. The only public office which he held after his retire- ment from the Supreme bench was that of representative in the State Legislature as a member of the Thirtieth General Assembly. He was known throughout his life as a Ben- ton Democrat, and during the Civil War was a firm supporter of the national government. He married, in 1842, Miss Sarah M. Win- chell, of Palmyra, who died there in 18.45. John W. Dryden was the only child born of this marriage. In 1847 he married for his second wife Miss Sarah F. Barr, and the children born of this marriage were Nathan- iel C. Dryden and Mary C. Dryden.


Dubach, David, manufacturer, was born January 15, 1826, in Vevay, Switzer- land County, Indiana, and died December 10, 1897, in Hannibal, Missouri. His parents were John Aaron and Maria Catherine (Von Gunten) Dubach, both of whom were natives of Switzerland. His parents were early Swiss emigrants to this country, and the story of the trials and hardships which they endured in early life is one of thrilling inter- est. In 1878 Mrs. Dubach, the mother of David, penned for her family an account of these experiences, which contains much in- teresting general history, and which is well worthy of publication in this connection. Mrs. Dubach began at the beginning and told her story as follows :


"I, Maria Catherine Von Gunten, was born in the Canton of Neuchatel, Switzerland, Au- gust 5, 1800. My husband, John Aaron Du- bach, was born in the Canton of Berne, Switzerland, February 29, 1794. We were married at Neuchatel, 1819, and emigrated to America in May, 1821, with our little son, less than one year old, and my husband's father and mother. We joined a colony of Swiss, numbering one hundred and seventy- four, who were induced by a book sent out by Lord Selkirk, of England, describing the Red River country as a land flowing with milk and honey. We, ignorant of the coun- try, in looking at the map supposed it was the Red River of the South to which we were coming, but instead, after a voyage of three months on the sea, we were landed in Hud- son Bay, in July. From there we proceeded


David Dubach,


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in open boats up the River Nelson, across Lake Winnepeg, to the Red River of the North, up the river to Fort Douglass. This was the place of our destination, represented to us to be a land fertile and beautiful, where we could raise grain and fruits of every kind, and where we could soon have homes abounding in wealth and prosperity. We stopped here in September, but it was found there was not enough provisions at the fort to sustain all through the winter, and it was determined to send some seventy-five of the younger and stronger to Pembina, sixty miles up the Red River, where game and fisii were said to be more abundant. With this number went our little family of five in dog sleds. We arrived at Pembina just as the winter closed in, built a log hut, with stick chimney and a window of oiled deerskin to let in a ray of light. I spent the winter card- ing and spinning buffalo hair and knitting garments and hunters' mitts, the price of the latter being twenty pounds of buffalo meat. My husband spent the time catching fish through holes cut in the ice or hunting game. Thus we managed to live through the winter. After the spring thaw, the river rose so they could catch no fish, and for over one week we subsisted on roots dug from the ground. During the whole of the first year we had not a morsel of bread. As soon as the ground was sufficiently thawed, I assisted my father- in-law in spading up the ground and putting in crops, while my husband fished to support the family. Do you wonder that I have never since cared to eat fish? While spading the ground here, my father-in-law unearthed what he believed to be an edible root called by the natives austebon-probably an arti- choke --- but it proved to be a poisonous wild parsnip. He offered me part of it, I tasted it, but it did not seem natural so I spat it out. My father-in-law ate his portion and it proved fatal. He was soon taken sick, and, as there was no medical aid at hand, was soon beyond earthly help. This was the severest trial of all. Death in such a barren country as this, away from friends and every comfort. His coffin was of the rudest kind, being strips hewed from logs with a hatchet and nailed together. Oh, the deep sorrow of that hour as we stood around the lonely grave and gave our father to the ground in that desolate country, without friend or sym- pathy, save that shown us by the Canadians


living there. They were Catholics, and as soon as the body was laid out in linen (of which we still had some left from the meager supply we were allowed to bring with us from Hudson Bay) thicy placed candles at the head and foot of the body, and as we had need of their kind sympathy, we did not wish to offend them by removing the candles, knowing that it could not hurt him whose spirit was already in the light of God's pres- ence. To go back from our landing here, we were told that it would be impossible to con- vey our household goods to Fort Douglass until spring, except what we actually needed for the winter, and that in spring they would be sent to us; but alas, that was the last we saw of the good things our ample chests con- tained. Many dozens of linen clothes and bedding my dead mother had given me, be- side that my father and mother-in-law liad possessed, were waited for in vain, but they were never sent to us. We remained at Pembina during the summer following my father-in-law's death, and raised crops suffi- cient to sustain us comfortably, having raised some wheat, which was ground by a hand- mill. Being dissatisfied with the country, however, we determined in the spring of 1823 to move to the State of Missouri. Accord- ingly, in June, as soon as the grass on the prairie was sufficient to maintain cattle, we started in company with some thirteen other families in about six carts, all that could be hired in the settlement to convey our effects to the head waters of the St. Peter's-now Minnesota-River, about two hundred miles from Fort Anthony, now Fort Snelling. On this journey of over four hundred miles the women had often to walk twenty miles a day, with their babes in their arms, the men bear- ing arms and serving as guards, the sur- rounding country being infested by hostile Indians. On arriving at Lake Traverse, the head waters of St. Peter's River, the men set about making canoes out of cottonwood trees. There we spent three weeks, during which time the able-bodied men had to make a trip to a fort, some thirty or forty miles dis- tant, to replenish the exhausted stock of food. This consumed four days of the time, and some of the women stood guard at our tents, like sentinels at a military camp. Our own tent was made of four sheets sewed to- gether. One can imagine our fears, while waiting these four days, and our joy at the


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sound of their footsteps, as we lay there that last night under our tents. I seem yet to hear the voice of my husband as he called out : 'Are you alive ?' We then loaded our canoes for Fort Snelling. The water was so shallow we had to draw these boats with ropes along the shore, and at times were compelled to unload and carry our goods and boats for some distance. At times there would be just a little water, and at such places my husband would pull the boat and I would push, while my mother sat in the boat, holding our little boy. We were about three weeks making this trip, rowing our canoes or drawing them along the shore in day time, and at night camping on the shore. Three days before we reached the fort one of the canoes ran against ours, upsetting us in the water. Here we lost what provisions we had and part of our clothing. All of our goods were wet, and we had to stop one day to dry them. The day after we started again we met some Indians, from whom we pro- cured green corn, and this was our food until we reached Fort Snelling. We were kindly received at the fort and were permitted each morning to draw soldiers' rations, which, after our disappointments and privations, seemed sumptuous fare. We were at the fort about one week, when a keelboat came to bring government supplies from St. Louis. Free passage was supplied us and provisions for the journey in this boat, and thus we came down the river to St. Louis, the trip consuming about three weeks. At this day such a trip would seem very tedious and hard, but to us, who had endured such hard- ships, it seemed very comfortable. At Fort Snelling we learned that Mr. and Mrs. Simon and their daughter Zellie had been there be- fore us. They had remained seven months in the fort, but had left for the States some time before we arrived. The contrast be- tween this trip, taken fifty-five years ago, and one taken now over the same route, on one of our palatial steamers, is hard to de- scribe. Then no town was visible from Fort Snelling to St. Louis, except Alton, Illinois ; no signs of life, except here and there a farmhouse. Now city after city meets the gaze of the traveler, and here and there the river banks are joined by handsome bridges that afford safe crossing for the flying trains and add beauty to the landscape. Soon after we arrived in St. Louis my husband was


taken sick with bilious fever and was ill for three months. After his recovery we rented a farm on an island five miles above the city. In the spring we planted this farm of forty acres, and by June we had a fine prospect for harvest. Here, too, had been born, in Jan- uary, a little daughter. We began to be en- couraged and looked hopefully to the future. But alas, our hopes were in vain; we were again doomed to disappointment. The river began to rise, and my husband being sick with the measles, I had to help the man we hired to work the farm in heaping up the ground on the low part of the farm, to keep out the water. We worked about a week at this place, hoping every day that the water would recede, until we had a levee about four feet high on the upper side of the cornfield; but, after all our toil, one night the water broke through and in a few hours all our hopes had fled. I had a nice lot of young poultry, but. these fowls, with our growing crops, were all washed away, we barely es- caping with our lives. My husband had to be carried from his bed to a boat and taken to our neighbors, who lived on the other end of the island, which was higher ground. We remained with them for about ten days, till my husband and little son recovered, and then went to St. Louis. There we rented a dairy farm at $100 per month, and would have prospered but for both being taken sick. This farm was located in what is now the heart of the great city of St. Louis. The pro- prietor took advantage of our ignorance of the language, the laws of trade and customs of the country and cheated us shamefully. He took the farm from us, with our crops all garnered, allowing us nothing for our sum- mer's work. We remained in St. Louis four months and then started for Indiana, heart- sick and discouraged. We were anxious to find some of our people, and hearing of the Swiss settlement at Vevay, Switzerland County, Indiana, we determined to go there. We started across the country in an oxcart, and were three weeks making the journey that now takes twelve hours by rail. We arrived at Vevay in November, 1824, glad to meet some of our own countrymen. There we met the Simon family, who were of our col- ony. They were the only persons there whom we had ever met before, but we soon made friends among them, and from this time on my life was one of less adventure.


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Sunshine and shadow, joy and sorrow have succeeded each other; a family of seven children were born to us. When the young- est was but eight months old my husband was taken from me by death. Since then his mother and four of our children have joined him on the other shore. Through all these trials and vicissitudes the Lord has sus- tained me, and now, having passed my 'three score and ten,' I am enjoying a green old age, and can look over all and say, God's watchful providence has been over me."


David Dubach spent his boyhood and early manhood in Madison, Indiana, and obtained his education in the village school at that place. When he was fifteen years old he was apprenticed to the carpenter's trade, and in 1852 he went to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and studied architecture. In 1853 he built the courthouse at Madison, Indiana, and in 1856 went to Davenport, Iowa, where, for a year and a half, he was engaged in the opera- tion of a flouring mill. In 1858 he came to Hannibal, Missouri, and built there a planing mill, and also conducted a lumber business and brick yard. In 1862 he closed his mill on account of the disturbance of business growing out of the Civil War, but at a later date he opened it again and engaged in the manufacture of tobacco boxes. He was in partnership at this time with Robert Coff- man and Richard Pindell, both of whom he afterward bought out, carrying on the busi- ness thereafter alone. In 1866, in company with his brother,. Frederick L. Dubach, he erected the Magnolia Flour Mill, which he sold two years later. In 1875 he and S. M. Carter erected the Empire Flour Mill, after- ward operated by the Hannibal Milling Com- pany. . After being closed for some years this mill was reopened, in 1891, with Mr. Dubach as president of the company, and he contin- ued to hold that position until his death. He and his brother, Frederick L. Dubach, and J. B. Price, built the Park Hotel, at Hanni- bal, since destroyed by fire. In 1881 he be- came a large stockholder and president of the Dells Lumber Company of Eau Claire, Wisconsin, and he was interested in this en- terprise until his death. This corporation owned large tracts of pine land, from which all the timber has been cut, and its business will be finally closed in September, 1900. Mr. Dubach sold his lumber yard and planing


mill in Hannibal, and closed his business there in 1890. At that time he was known as one of the oldest white pine lumber manufac- turers on the Mississippi River. During the Civil War he was captain of Company "E" of the Fifty-third Regiment of East Missouri Militia. His political affiliations were with the Republican party. Although not a mem- ber of any church, he usually attended Pres- byterian services, his wife being a member of that denomination. The Golden Rule was the rule of his life, and he was known as a free-hearted, kindly and charitable man. De- cember 12, 1855, he married Miss Emmaline Wells Bennett, a descendant of Captain Jon- athan Salisbury, of Swansea, Massachusetts, who commanded the sloop "Industry," car- rying two guns and fourteen men, during the Revolutionary War. Mrs. Dubach's father, Albert Bennett, and her mother, Mary Salis- bury Bennett, were natives of Vermont. She was one of seven children. Four of her brothers served in the Civil War as Union soldiers. Albert was taken prisoner and shot by Quantrell's band of guerrillas at Baxter Springs, Missouri. John was taken ill in the trenches at Vicksburg, and was sent home to die. James, who was a prisoner on Bell Is- land for ninety days, contracted consumption and died after the close of the war. Simeon served throughout the war and lived until 1895. Two children were born to Mr. and Mrs. Dubach. The elder of these, Frederic. Bennett Dubach, was born March 30, 1857, in Davenport, Iowa, graduated from Yale College in the class of 1878, and married Emma Temple Chandler, of St. Louis, in 1897. The children of Frederic Bennett Dubach and Emma Temple Chandler are Anna Reubenia Dubach, born in 1898, and David Chandler Dubach, born in 1900. Mr. Frederic B. Dubach is president of the Dells Lumber Company of Eau Claire, Wisconsin, and also of the F. B. Du- bach Lumber Company of Dubach, Louisi- ana; secretary of the Barr-Dubach Lumber Company of Kansas City, and is interested in lumber yards at Chanute, Kansas, and St. Charles, Missouri. The younger of the chil- dren of Mr. and Mrs. David Dubach, Jeannie May Dubach, was born March 14, 1861, and married Carolus Frederic von Mollenkott Fette in 1897. Their children are David Victor Fette, born in 1898, and Marian Catherine Dubach Fette, born in 1899.


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Dubourg, Louis Guillaume Valen- tine, Roman Catholic bishop, was born in Santo Domingo in 1776, and died in Besan- con, France, December 12, 1833. He went to the Seminary of St. Sulpice, Paris, and was attending lectures at the Sorbonne when the Revolution began, and he had to take shelter with his family at Bordeaux. Thence he es- caped to Spain, and from there came to America in 1794. He was ordained at Balti- more in 1795 and appointed president of Georgetown College in 1796. Later he founded St. Mary's College, in Maryland, and in 1806 succeeded in having it raised to the rank of a university by the Maryland Legis- lature. He had much to do with the estab- lishment of the order of Sisters of Charity in this country, and was in a sense its founder. In 1812 he was appointed adminstrator apos- tolic of the diocese of New Orleans, and in 1815 was consecrated bishop. In France he persuaded several priests and students to volunteer for the American mission, and upon his return to the United States in 1817 he came to St. Louis, which was for a time his episcopal residence. He founded the col- lege and ecclesiastical seminary at the Barrens, in Missouri, and St. Louis Univer- sity was also established under his super- vision. Various educational institutions were erected in the diocese through his ef- forts, and he also built the first cathedral in St. Louis. In 1824 he transferred his resi- dence to New Orleans, but in 1826 went to Europe and never returned, being trans- ferred to the diocese of Montauban, France. In 1833 he was elevated to the archbishopric of Besancon, France. While bishop of the diocese of which St. Louis formed a part he devoted much time and labor to the Chris- tianizing of the Indians of the Southwest, and manifested at all times the true spirit of tlie zealous missionary.




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