USA > Missouri > Macon County > General history of Macon County, Missouri > Part 25
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238
HISTORY OF MACON COUNTY
To fund bonded indebtedness-yes, 2,397.
To fund indebtedness-no, 2,729.
Following the defeat of the compromise proposition, the Macon Republican printed this editorial :
"The men who favored the defeated proposition have had their inning. It is now the turn at the bat of the men who opposed the com- promise. If they do not wish to be set down as irresponsible leaders and as men unsafe to follow, they will proceed at once to secure for the people a better proposition under which we can get rid of the debt. They told the people of this county if they would vote down the 18 cents compromise they could get rid of the debt much cheaper. We assume they were sincere. We therefore urge that they now go to work and secure this better proposition. They owe it to themselves- they owe it to the people."
Immediately upon the failure to settle, the bondholders put their attorneys to work and suits of various characters were instituted against the county and pressed with vigor. These suits are now pending in the Federal Courts.
The following table of the M. & M. indebtedness was prepared by Tatlow & Mitchell, Springfield, Missouri, attorneys for the judg- ment creditors :
STATEMENT SHOWING TOTAL AMOUNT OF THE INDEBTED- NESS OF MACON COUNTY, MISSOURI, EXCLUSIVE OF COSTS, JANUARY 1, 1910; THE AMOUNT DRAWING INTER- EST AND THE RATES OF SAME; THE AMOUNT NOT DRAWING INTEREST AND THE AMOUNT OF INTEREST THE SAME WOULD DRAW IF IT WERE COMPOUNDED. Total debt, January 1, 1910. $2,034,484.36
Total amount drawing interest 1,489,692.27
Total amount not drawing interest.
$544,792.19
Debt Bears Interest as Follows :
Principal.
Rate.
Int. 1 Day. $191.01
Int. 1 Mo. $5,719.14
Int. 1 Yr. $68,692.62
$1,143,826.68
6
56,337.95
7
10.94
328.62
3,943.66
123,354.99
8
27.39
822.41
9,868.40
166,172.65
10
46.20
1,384.72
16,617.30
-
$1,489,692.27
$275.54
$8,254.89
$99,058.98
239
HISTORY OF MACON COUNTY
Interest bearing debt. $1,489,692.27
Interest rate per day.
275.54
Interest rate per month
8,254.89
Interest rate per year
99,058.98
Debt not drawing interest
$544,792.09
Average rate of interest
.0665
Principal. $544,792.09
Int. 1 Day.
Int. 1 Mo.
Int. 1 Yr.
$100.64
$3,019.05
$36,228.65
If Interest 'on Total Debt Were Compounded on January 1, 1910, the Interest From That Time Would Be:
Principal.
Int. 1 Day.
Int. 1 Mo.
Int. 1 Yr.
$1,489,692.27
$275.54
$8,254.89
$99,058.98
544,792.09
100.64
3,019.05
36,228.65
$2,034,484.36
$376.18
$11,273.94
$135,287.63
Legal Phases. (By Ben Eli Guthrie.) The Legislature of Mis- souri, in February, 1865, passed an aet incorporating the Missouri and Mississippi Railroad Company and authorizing the counties by their county courts to subscribe to the capital stock thereof, and to levy a tax of one-twentieth of 1 per cent to pay the same. At that time the County Court levied for its ordinary running expenses 50 cents. It was generally understood that this included road purposes. But, oddly enough, in 1868 the Legislature passed a road law, which, it is claimed, authorized the County Court to levy an additional tax of 40 eents as a special road fund. The fact is, however, that after the pas- sage of that act Maeon County did levy 40 cents for road purposes up to and ineluding the year 1871, or at least under this aet or some other act it levied a special road tax in addition to the common fund of the county.
In April, 1867, the County Court of Macon County, under the act above named, did subseribe for $175,000 of the capital stoek of said rail- road company and thereafter refused to issue its bonds to pay for the same under the terms of the act. The railroad company applied to the Supreme Court of Missouri for a mandamus compelling the court to issue the bonds in accordance with its order. This case appears in the
240
HISTORY OF MACON COUNTY
41 Mo., 453, and resulted in an order from the Supreme Court that the bonds should be issued.
It is well to remark that at the time these bonds were issued, in 1867, the assessed value of the taxable property of the county was $5,145,810 and that in 1872 the assessed value was only $5,466,434. In 1870 it was only $4,874,467.
Another curious thing connected with the legal history of these bonds is that, early in 1870, the Legislature passed an act to amend this act, incorporating the Missouri & Mississippi Railroad Company and increased the rate of taxation from one-twentieth of 1 per cent to one-half of 1 per cent. This act was enrolled and properly certified to the governor. The governor has a recollection of the bill being before him and of an intention to sign it, but he could never recollect signing it, and the signed bill never got to the Secretary of State's office, and consequently never became a law. It has, therefore, cut no figure in the litigation. It does show that the Legislature interpreted the act of 1865 as confining the bondholder to the fund arising from the levy of one- twentieth of 1 per cent, and finding later that that was not enough, they undertook to amend the act and increase the rate 50 cents to the one hundred dollars.
"On the 2d of May, 1870, the County Court of Macon county took an additional $175,000 of the capital stock of the railroad and, without mandamus, issued its bonds to pay for the same. This is the subserip- tion over which the popular indignation was aroused. In 1872 a new County Court was elected, which, for the year 1873, levied only 50 cents on the hundred dollars for the common fund, and 5 cents for the M. & M. fund. And so the coupons on the bonds went to protest because of want of funds to pay them.
In 1873 action was brought by mandamus against the County Court to compel them to levy a special tax to pay the coupons on bond No. 1 of the first issue. The trial court held that they could only levy a special tax of one-twentieth of 1 per cent and no more. This opinion was affirmed by the Supreme Court and is reported in the 56 Mo., 126. This is one of the leading cases connected with the litigation.
Other counties besides Macon subscribed to this stock, among them being Clark and Knox. Default was made in these counties about the same time, and one Jolinson obtained judgment against Clark county and went to the County Court of that county with his judgment and demanded a warrant on the common fund to pay the same. This was refused. He then sued out his mandamus in the Federal Circuit Court,
211
HISTORY OF MACON COUNTY
which followed the Supreme Court of Missouri in the 56 Mo. and held that he was confined to the proceeds of one-twentieth of 1 per cent. The bond holder then appealed the case to the Supreme Court of the United States and the ease is reported in the 96 U. S., 211, in which the court holds that the bonds were a general debt on the county, and that the judgment creditor was entitled to a warrant on the common fund to pay his judgment.
In the meantime Alfred Huidekoper had obtained a judgment in the Federal Circuit Court against Macon county and he brought two separate mandamns proceedings against the county to secure the pay- ment of his judgment, to-wit: one to levy a special tax and the other to issue him a warrant on the common fund. The first of these cases was decided in favor of the county. Mr. Huidekoper appealed. The second was decided in favor of Mr. Huidekoper and the county appealed. The first case is reported in the 99 U. S., 582, and the opinion therein follows the Shortridge case, and the levy of the special tax was denied. The second case, however, followed the Clark county case in the 96 U. S. and held that Mr. Huidekoper was entitled to a common fund warrant. Upon the return of this case the County Court refused to obey the summons and made a further and additional return as a reason why it should not issue its warrant. This return the trial court overruled and the county appealed again to the Supreme Court. The case was heard in that court in connection with four cases from Knox county and the opinion affirms the Clark county case in the 96 U. S., and says that the warrant must be issued. Judge Waits uses this significant language :
"This, we all agree, means that the payment of this balance is demandable ont of funds raised by taxation for ordinary county purposes."
The mandate in this case got baek to the court in April, 1884. and quite a number of other mandates of like character were also brought to bear at that time, and on the 29th of that month the court issued thir- teen warrants under such mandates and they were presented to the treasurer at the same time and registered as the law requires.
In 1885 Mr. Hidekoper, by supplemental information in said cause, had a further writ issued against the court showing that they had not levied the full 50 cents on the hundred dollars, and demanding an additional levy of 20 cents, and also certain other motions, bringing up all the proceedings of the county court, the collector and the treas- urer during the years 1884 and 1885. The result of this was that the
242
HISTORY OF MACON COUNTY
Federal Circuit Court ordered a levy of the extra 20 cents and also that the surplus money in the treasury on the 29th day of March, 1884, be pro-rated to the thirteen warrants. This ease was appealed by the county, and is reported in 134 U. S. 332, in which the judgment was affirmed and in obedience to that in 1890 the $14,000 remaining in the treasury was disbursed and the extra levy was made and pro-rated among the several warrants.
The opinion of Judge Brewer in the trial court in this case is found in the 75 Fed. Rep., 259, which is very pertinent in showing the views of the Federal Court on the question.
During the time the proceedings reported in the 134 U. S. were in progress Mr. Hudson, a citizen of Macon county had a $10 warrant against the contingent fund of the county and he undertook to mandamus the treasurer, Mr. Trammel, and the trial court decided in Mr. Hudson's favor and Trammel appealed the ease. This judgment was affirmed in the Supreme Court of Missouri and Trammel filed motion for rehearing, which was granted, and the original opinion was withdrawn and the opinion reported in the 106 Mo., 510, substituted, by which the action of the lower court was reversed. This case is one of the strongest eases against the county and is much relied upon by Mr. Huidekoper's counsel.
It is necessary to state here that, in addition to the thirteen war- rants on the common fund, there were special warrants issued on the M. & M. special fund, among which were warrants in favor of Alfred Huidekoper, Fred Huidekoper and Charles Stratton. These parties, in 1891, sued out additional mandamuses on their judgments, complain- ing that the warrants were not paid and that the M. & M. fund was col- lected in small warrants drawn against said fund and that no money came into it and that the County Court had no right to issue small war- rants. These matters were heard in the Circuit Court before Judge Thayer, who rendered an opinion holding that the collector had a right to receive these special warrants in payment of special taxes and that the County Court had a right to issue small warrants under the Aet of 1873, and that that act was not unconstitutional as against the relators, although it was passed after their bonds were issued. He held, further, that a warrant could be assigned to more than one person and that, though the assignments not be in the form, yet it was sufficient after it had been received by the collector and treasurer and settlement had been made with the County Court. This opinion was not appealed from and is the law today as between the parties to that proceeding and the property covered by said proceeding.
243
HISTORY OF MACON COUNTY
The county officers have been acting more or less under that inter- pretation of the revenue law and the interpretation given in the case of Winterbottom, 123 U. S. 215, which went up from Knox county and was an action on the collector's bond for having received warrants with- out their being properly assigned. The practices arising under the interpretation of these two cases have given rise to the present litigation.
From March, 1891, when the Thayer opinion was rendered, up to April, 1909, litigation ceased and the county practiced the methods indicated in the Thayer and Winterbottom cases, but no money went into the treasury.
In 1909 two proceedings were started. The one was a mandamus against the state and county boards to raise the assessments and to compel those Boards to assess the property of the state and county of Macon at its full cash value. In the Federal Circuit Court, Judge Dyer held that the courts had no jurisdiction in such matters; that the revenue system in Missouri granting appeals to persons who thought they were injured by the assessor to the Boards of Equalization and from the Boards of Equalization to the Court of Appeals was a complete system in itself and did not brook the interference of the courts. Mr. Hnidekoper appealed his case, and in March, 1910, the Federal Cirenit Court of Appeals reversed the judgment and sent the case back for answer and trial on its merits.
What may be the outcome of this litigation is for the prophets of the present and the chroniclers of the future.
The second proceeding was a Bill in Equity, filed in April, against the County Court, County of Macon, collector, treasurer and the clerk, charging conspiracy and fraud and raising all the questions covered by the various preceding litigation and some new ones. The bill was answered and reference had to the Hon. Walter M. Boulware, who filed a long and able report in March, in which he gave the county certain running expenses, such as for the poor, the indigent, salaries of officers, judicial expenses, but forbade the use of any money for roads and bridges and other improvements of a permanent character, and enjoined the county from doing many things and ordered them to do many other things.
This matter is now pending in the Federal Circuit Court at Han- nibal, Missouri, on exceptions filed by both Mr. Huidekoper and the defendants, and the sons of the prophets will have to have a meeting to divine the future of this litigation.
244
HISTORY OF MACON COUNTY
These are the facts in regard to the litigation. It is put in the most general way, because any particular account of them would cover many pages. It is idle now to speculate about what will be the result, save it is always safe to say that the hazard of carrying this debt increases with the years. The Legislature of Missouri has done us more harm than anybody else, because every member of the Legislature must have something to do with the fiscal system of the state, and every time that is touched Macon county is injured, so far as this debt is concerned.
CHAPTER XIV.
THE GEOLOGY OF MACON COUNTY-TOBACCO-AGRICULTURE-THE DAIRY -STOCK RAISING-A TOWN LOT AUCTION AT HUDSON-"THIE CITY OF MAPLES"-MODERN MUNICIPAL IMPROVEMENTS-LADIES' CIVIC LEAGUE-MACON CHARITY SOCIETY-DRAINAGE WORK IN THE CHAR- ITON VALLEY-WEALTH OF THE COUNTY-SOME NOTED CHARACTERS -PIONEER COAL OPERATOR-JOHN JONES AND HIS CAVE HOUSE- WHY MR. BEACH WOULDN'T WEAR A HAT-PATRIOT WHO WOULDN'T CUT HIS HAIR UNTIL A DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENT WAS ELECTED-JOHN HENRY GRIFFIN-"DEPOT" SMITH-TWO LIVELY RIVAL TOWNS- THE POSTAL SERVICE-VOTE FOR PRESIDENT.
During its early years, farming and stock-raising were the main pursuits of Macon county. Then occurred the coal strike and it imme- diately became prominent as the center of the coal-prodneing region of the state. Year after year Macon county has headed the list for this valuable deposit of the underworld. Until within the past few years, however, but little attempt has been made at underground exploi- tation, save for coal. Now there is a large body of land under lease in the coal distriet and adjacent by an oil concern, which promises to begin development work at an early date. Another interesting proj- ect of the underground is a gold and silver mine at New Cambria. These various enterprises are treated under the chapter on mining. Those who have studied the character of the country west of the Wabash railroad have predicted that within a few years it will be the center of a great oil and mining district, perhaps exeelling that of any other state in the Mississippi valley.
In a diseussion of these important industrial features, so close to active development, a paper read by Colonel A. L. Gilstrap before the Macon Geological Society, in May, 1875, becomes ahnost prophetic.
Colonel Gilstrap's paper was as follows :
Mr. President : By request of this society, I proceed to deliver a dissertation upon the geology of Macon county.
The word "geology" is derived from the Greek words, geo, earth, and logos, a discourse, and means a discourse about the earth.
This term is more comprehensive than mineralogy. It may include
245
246
HISTORY OF MACON COUNTY
not only all minerals, earths and soils, but the several uses to which these are applied in the evolutions of the laws of nature in the forma- tion of the mineral and vegetable kingdoms. That in the formation of the mineral kingdom, vegetable and animal life perform a conspicuous part in the incipient process, are facts so well established that they are no longer seriously disputed. But it is not my purpose now to enter upon the mode and manner of geological evolutions. Macon county contains an area of thirty miles square, less seventy-two square miles, of which eighteen are taken from the east side of the northeast- ern congressional township, and fifty-four from the two townships in the southwest, and lies upon the Chariton and Salt rivers, including the dividing ridge between the waters of the Mississippi and Missouri rivers, upon which divide the city of Macon stands. Thus it will be seen that the county of Macon contains an area of 828 square miles. Within this area vast mineral wealth is known to exist. And, while it is true that the drift period succeeded elose upon the carboniferous, and in some cases appears to be intermingled, yet we find an extensive marl bed lying upon the upper carboniferous formation, forty feet thick, upon the general average, and in some places, especially the hills, coming up very near to the surface.
This vast marl formation, rich in lime and clay, is far more produc- tive in vegetable matter than the common soil, and can be added thereto, by comparatively little labor, which will double the products of the farm, especially in that great staple, wheat. On the west side of the Chariton river there is a chain of hills running nearly north and south called the Elk Knobs. This formation, in some respects, differs from all other parts of the country. The drift seems to be less in depth, so, also, is the marl bed-besides coal veins running up four feet in thickness in some places, especially from the H. & St. Joe R. R. south, until you strike the loess formation, there is kidney iron ore, which will yield 60 per cent of iron, and some indications of anthracite coal. It is stated upon pretty good authority that there are hills so com- pletely filled with iron ore as to constitute fully one-half of them.
Information has existed for many years that lead existed in these hills, near the county line between Macon and Adair, and continues northward into Putnam county. In one case this ore has been melted out, and found to contain about 30 per cent of silver. But explorations have not been made in such a manner as to determine whether these ores exist in sufficient quantities to justify working them.
East of the Chariton river, along the East Fork, and between that stream and the Middle Fork of the Chariton, three workable coal veins
247
HISTORY OF MACON COUNTY
are known to exist. The first one runs from four to five and one-half feet, and is being worked at the Summit and Bevier mines; and near the Summit, and on Brushy Creek, in the Elk Knobs, by Thomas Jobson, Esq. Below this vein about thirty-five feet is another vein thirty-two inches thick, superior coal. About forty feet further down is another vein, which measures eight feet, in the valley of the East Fork, on the H. & St. Joe R. R. This vein is superior to any yet found for gas and the forge, making coke, and generating steam, because of its free- dom from sulphur, and the immense amount of gas which it contains.
These existenees of this lower vein has been demonstrated by boring into it in the East Fork valley, two miles west of Macon, on the. H. & St. Joe R. R. and by sinking a shaft into it by Col. A. R. Pope, on the same railroad, one mile nearer Macon, where several tons of this coal have been taken out, from which the tests were obtained. In the valley of the East Fork, near the railroad, where the boring has been done, the fact was demonstrated that, at a distance of about 100 feet below the railroad track, lying immediately under a Plazoic rock, there exists a spongy compact bed of black material nine feet thick, very heavy, of a glistening metallic luster, apparently greasy and incapable of reduction by heat.
Further investigation has shown that it only exists under and near the valley, and that it must be graphite, or the black oxide of manganese, the latter of which its character, as so far determined, does not support. There is reason to believe that this supposed graphite bed extends some distance up and down the valley.
Continuing southward, between the East and Middle Forks, the coal lands increase in thickness, and the country, falling off as it does, while the coal veins run on a level with a small dip to the southwest, exposes these beds, and they crop out above the valleys so as to be worked by drift openings, self-draining. Such is the case in township 56 of range 15, where these veins run from five to seven feet in thickness; and on the west side of townships 56 and 57 these beds run from three to four feet. Such veins are to be found throughout the whole extent of the southern part of the county, and contain vast deposits of mineral wealth, to utilize which railroads are indispensable.
In the drift formation of this county some few pieces of native copper have been found; but no deposit of any valne is believed to exist.
The great mass of the rocks of this county is a bituminous lime- stone, with occasional beds of argillicions sandstone intervening. A number of conglomerate deposits of the sulphate of lime-pure lime-
248
HISTORY OF MACON COUNTY
stone exist in the county, which, by trial, burns into a fine, white lime of the best quality. This white limestone belongs to the drift period.
Of valuable earths, this county possesses two varieties in abun- dance, and all found below the several coal veins-fireclay and pipe or potters' clay, of the best varieties. The beds of fireclay are from four to fifteen feet thick, and the potters' clay formations are about the same thickness, while the pipe-clay beds are not over thirteen inches, as a general rule. It is believed that one bed of Koaline has been discovered under the graphite formation, supposed to be three feet thick. A bed of pure white clay is found there, but that it is Koaline remains to be determined. The inexhaustible marl beds everywhere in reach of the farmer, the immense deposits of valuable coal beds and clay formations, if properly utilized. will make Macon one of the rich- est counties in the state. But it remains to be seen whether this genera- tion is capable of casting off old prepossessions and customs, and of coming up to the work necessary to develop her resources.
Mr. President, this discourse is quite short of all that can be truth- fully said upon this subject, but I hope that I have given satisfaction so far as I have gone. A. L. GILSTRAP.
Prior to 1860 the growing of tobacco was the important pursnit of the Missoni agriculturist. Every man owning an acre of land put it in tobacco, and thereby established credit with his storekeeper. Tobacco was a staple erop, commanding a steady market, and the pos- . session of it was as good as money in the bank.
Callao was an important center of the tobacco-growing region of Macon county. Seven hundred thousand pounds were shipped from there one season. The factories there were operated by John Henry Matthis, Kerry Perrin, Judge George Turner and Lovern & Wright, George and Minor Towner had a big factory at Bloomington. At Macon R. M. J. Sharp, P. M. Wright, George B. Turner, George Towner and Shortridge & Benedict were the leading tobacco men.
In all the factories slaves worked in preparing the leaves for shipment.
J. H. Wright, one of the tobacco men mentioned above, thus described the industry as it existed before the freedom of the slaves:
"The tobacco industry of Missouri grew to enormous proportions up to and during the Civil war. It was the only profitable crop for the farmers in the interior of the state before the railroads came, for there was practically no market for country produce and grain. But the tobacco shipper stood with his cash in hand, ready to pay the
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