USA > Missouri > Macon County > General history of Macon County, Missouri > Part 27
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Owing to its tortuous course the Chariton river was utterly inade- quate to carry off any great volume of water. It was evident that if the lowlands should be saved it would be necessary to construct a practi- cally straight channel or canal running directly to the Missonri river.
Among thie early movers in the campaign to save the bottom lands were Judge Gran Goodson, John M. London, Judge Robert H. Kern, Jacob Grove, Charles O., Albert and Thomas B. Dunham, and others. W. G. Walker of Macon was appointed Chief Engineer and has had charge of that work from the very start. A drainage ditch association was organized and the land owners went into the County Court with their petition to build a ditch and to issue bonds for the payment. The petitioners were not successful in the County Court, and they next filed the papers with the Circuit Court, which gave them authority to proceed. A canal was constructed from the northern part of Valley township running through Macon county and a mile and a half into Chariton county, where it connects with a ditch there leading on to the Missouri river.
The excavation was made by a steam dredge, which was run con- tinnously day and night. The dredge consumed 1,200 gallons of water daily, and a ton of coal. It excavated daily a body of earth 250 feet in length, 12 feet in width and 6 feet in depth. A crew of four men operated the dredge-an engineer, fireman, craneman and a helper. For night work a dynamo on the dredge supplied electric light.
The ditch as constructed is from eight to fifteen feet in depth and has a twenty-foot bottom, with a slope of one to one. These dimen- sions have been considerably increased by the flow of water. The ditch
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is now lower than the bed of the river and whenever there is water in the river, water is also going through the ditch.
In addition to the big canal from Valley township southward there is also a ditch on the west side of the river, in Valley township. This ditch connects the lower end of Painter Creek with what is known as the Willow Slough, and is about five and a half miles long. It is built in the same manner as the main canal, only it is somewhat smaller. The total number of acres affected by the ditch enterprise is 17,242. The aggregate expenditure for both ditches mentioned was about $60,000. To meet this cost necessitates an assessment of about $9 per acre, which is paid at the rate of fifty cents per acre annually. As the land was quoted at $25 an acre when the ditching commenced in the early part of this century, and was easily worth $65 an acre in 1909, with prospects of steadily increasing, the expenditure for canal enter- prise is considered a highly satisfactory investment.
During the big flood in the summer of 1909 the canal was blocked at the Burlington railroad by the embankment, which had not been cut through. By reason of this the water on the lands north of the track was held back some days and the destruction to property was great. But that was said to be the heaviest flood known since the high waters of 1875. Since then the canal has found an adequate outlet under the railroad, a space of 140 feet, and there is no obstruction from end to end.
It is the opinion of competent engineers who have examined the canal since the opening was made at the railroad embankment that it will be entirely adequate to carry off in a comparatively short time as large a volume of water as is likely to come down the valley, judging the extent of floods by past history.
Landowners north of Valley township are now preparing to organ- ize a drainage association for the purpose of constructing a ditch from the north line of the county southward to connect with the completed ditch in Valley township. This will give Macon county a continuous drainage system through the valley. It is almost certain that this will result in the continuation of the enterprise to the northward, and in the course of a few years it is very likely that the whole Chariton valley will be saved by a canal extending from the Iowa line on down to the Missouri river.
D. L. Hummer, president of the Hummer Construction Company of Marion, Ohio, had the contract for the construction of the Macon county ditch. He is well acquainted with bottom country and he remarked while here that he had never seen more fertile lands than those in the
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Chariton valley. He suggested that when the ditch was completed through the entire length of the valley that the farmers would derive an immense revenue from raising fine vegetables, as well as wheat and grain, and that a trolley line would be construeted along the banks of the canal to bring the produets to the railroad lines crossing it.
Mr. Walker, the engineer, says that these bottom lands will produee from thirty-five to forty bushels of wheat to the acre, and from sixty to eighty bushels of corn.
The length of the main ditch as now constructed from North Valley township to the connection with the Chariton county ditch is fourteen miles. This with the five and one-half miles from Painter Creek to Willow Slough gives nineteen and one-half miles of association ditch work in Macon county.
Following are the property values of Macon county as shown by an abstract of the Assessment List for taxes for the year 1910: No. of acres, 515,268; value of town lots, $1,355,750; total value of real estate, $6,188,780 ; horses, $499,100; jennets, $9,795; mules, $130,240; meat cat- tle, $422,660; sheep, $25,660; hogs, $43,160; money, notes and bonds, $965,774; farm machinery, household goods, ete., $383,415; personal, $2,479,804.
Prairie Oil and Gas Co., pumping lines and station at La Plata, $82,940.
Railroads, telegraph lines and telephones, $1,916,672.
Merchants and manufacturers, $306,745.
Banks, (capital stock, reserve funds and undivided profits) $460,- 057.30. There are sixteen banks in the county.
A few miles north of New Cambria, in a pieturesque ravine, resides John Jones in a little thatched house partly above and partly below the soil. Mr. Jones adopted his peculiar domicile about the close of the Civil war and has clung to it tenaciously ever since. It is a cozy little place, with just about enough room for a man to turn around. The center of his little home is dug out and propped like the entry of a coal mine. Lying cross-ways of the entry, up near the roof, is sort of an upper compartment like in a sleeping car. This is Mr. Jones's bed. The roof is safe and snug, and there is no danger of it leaking; it would take a tremendous wind storm to blow it away. On shelves bor- ding the little passageway are articles of every description which Mr. Jones has picked up in town and had given to him by friends, and which he has preserved. It is said that he never throws anything away. When he wears ont a pair of shoes he places them on one of his shelves and saves them. An inventory of those heavily loaded shelves includes old
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knives, parts of locks, belts, hairpins, railroad spikes, nails of all kinds, coils of wire, almanacs, circulars, lamp shades, broken shears, funnels, bottles of various colors and kinds, ancient magazines, hooks, buttons, and here and there things to eat. Mr. Jones is not a poor man by any means. When he took up his land many years ago he was a little hard r'ın, because he brought nothing with him from Wales. He was industri- ous, however; raised strawberries, potatoes, and other vegetables and marketed them in New Cambria. When he got any money he saved it, and kept adding to it until he had quite a little pile. This he would loan to friends occasionally at the legal rate of interest. While he cannot read English, and talks that language but slightly, yet he has become an expert at figuring interest in his head. You can't fool him on the amount you owe him. It is estimated that the queer old hermit is now worth from $12,000 to $15,000.
Mr. Jones has sold off the larger part of his land, retaining only five acres for a little yard and garden about his cave house. This he has carefully fenced with hedges and everything about the premises is as neat and clean as a city park attended to by a landscape gardener. Across the drains, are mossy bridges, sparkling with violets. On the upper part of the little tract is a tall, round stack of poles, which at a. distance looks like it might be an Indian wigwam. At the base of these poles are rusty stove pipes and pieces of iron; bolts and sticks, cooking utensils, dish-pans and crocks, all neatly arranged-nothing is scat- tered abont in confusion. The hiermit is his own housekeeper, landlord and farmer. He has lived on the little estate so long that he never feels at home when away from it. Once or twice, during the rigors of mid-winter, his New Cambria friends have tried to get him to come to town and await the passing of the severe season. On such occasions he has tried it in town for a few days, but invariably gets homesick and walks back to his little thacked structure. When the story of Mr. Jones's life was printed in some of the papers a while back, a few women, possibly as much interested in his money as his kindly disposition, offered to share his lot, but Mr. Jones shook his head and said he pre- ferred to enjoy a condition where he would be the boss.
William P. Beach, a lawyer and real estate agent of Macon, attracted a good deal of interest to himself by the peculiarity of going without his hat. It was not a matter of economy because he always carried in his hand an up-to-date serviceable headpiece. In summer time he carried a straw hat and in winter time the ordinary dark felt or stiff hat, but never were one of these hats allowed to rest on his head even for a moment. Most people supposed that Mr. Beach's eccen-
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tricity was caused by a desire to strengthen his hair, but he gave another reason for it.
"I am not a crank, and I have a pecliar aversion to notoriety," said Mr. Beach, "but as I have nothing to be ashamed of I will say this; I have a brother who has always been a devoted patron of all manner of men's headwear. He has a full assortment of everyday hats, Sunday hats, smoking caps and sleeping caps; but indignant nature protested against these intrusions upon her beneficence by removing from his scalp every vestige of its original covering, except a ragged fringe at the base of the skull. The assumption, however, that my hat was discarded as a head ornament through an apprehen- sion of baldness is a mistake. In the years when I wore a felt hat I discovered that catarrh was developing, and feared that it might become chronic, offensive and perhaps dangerous. It was to get rid of that incipient nuisance, that I abandoned the felt and the wool hat, and for a year or two wore a light straw hat winter and summer. I soon decided that I was better off without any hat at all. I am happy to state that the catarrh departed soon after its chief promoter, my hat, was discarded and now I can enjoy heaven's breezes and sunlight with a healthy, safely covered head."
Mr. Beach died March 12, 1904, after a very short illness with pneumonia. Some thought the latter was occasioned by his going with- out a hat. Mr. Beach's practice of going without a hat covered the last twenty-five years of his life. In bad weather he carried an umbrella to protect his head from rain and snow, but no matter how severe the weather or how far away he was from an umbrella, he never even thought of putting his hat on his head.
Mr. Beach was born in Newark, New Jersey, April 19, 1840, and at his death was nearly sixty-four years of age. The Newark News shortly before his death wrote to Macon and secured a picture of Mr. Beach and a full story of his life. At fifteen he started westward afoot, carrying a small square valise containing notions of various kinds, which he sold for a small sum here and there, making expenses and continuing his tramp. Once he walked all night long on his way to the West. He did this in preference to jumping on freight trains, which he regarded as illegal. Six hundred miles west of New Jersey, Mr. Beach obtained a position as teacher in a district school. After having made a little money, he went to Iowa and then moved to Missouri, where he married a good woman who survives him.
Another peculiarity of Mr. Beach was his exact honesty. In set- tling up an estate or business of any sort he was scrupulous to the last
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cent. He had been known to hunt all day for a man to whom a two-cent balance was due on a large settlement.
Mr. Beach was a Republican and was always very much interested in politics. At one time, while living at Macon, he announced himself as a candiate for governor, as a "stand-patter, old line Republican," opposed to a movement of the Republicans to affiliate with the Third Party people, and the newspapers of the city treated the matter rather extensively. They spoke of Mr. Beach and the two or three other members of his party who met here as "Beach's Convention."
Thomas Benton Robertson, better known perhaps as "Saw-mill Robertson," made a pledge to a cousin, Charles Winfield of Quiney, Illinois, for 1896, directly after William J. Bryan had been nominated for President by the Democrats, that he would never cut his hair or allow a razor to touch his face until Mr. Bryan or some other good Democrat had been elected President of these United States. As the Republicans have been uniformly victorious since that time the hair about Mr. Robertson's head and face has grown to rather extensive proportions. But the old gentleman is keeping the faith and living in hopes that he will some day get to cut that wonderful head of hair. Dur- ing the last Presidential campaign, when the Democrats began to feel hopeful, quite a number of barbers of Macon and in other places urged Mr. Robertson to give them the privilege of trimming him up, which they offered to do free of charge for the sake of the advertisement. But the election went by and no barber has been ordered to take the job. In addition to the satisfaction of having kept his pledge until victory came Mr. Robertson will draw $100 from the Quincy Bank in the event of the election of a Democratic president. This money was deposited there in 1896 by Mr. Winfield, and is to be paid to Mr. Robertson if he sticks loyally to his curious vow. Mr. Robertson was born near Quincy, Illinois, in 1840. During his active years he operated sawmills in various parts of northern Missouri, and from that employment came the name, "Sawmill Robertson." He was married in Knox county, in 1862. His wife died in 1901, leaving three children. Mr. Robertson is a familiar figure on the streets of Macon and he says he will be a con- spicuous one some of these days because he has the idea that the Lord will lengthen out his years until the Democrats put up a man who proves to be a winner.
John Henry Griffin, for many years a successful real estate, loan and insurance agent of Macon, and for years county recorder, was born in Ten Mile township, October 31, 1840. He died at his residence in Macon, March 29, 1910. Mr. Griffin had never walked a step in his
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life. In his infaney he was attacked by a malady which left him with both of his lower limbs paralyzed from the hips down. Above the limbs, however, his body was strong and his mind vigorous. Mr. Griffin deter- mined that his handieap should not cause him to be an object of sympathy. He was somewhat sensitive about it, however, and would indignantly refuse any favor or consideration on account of the faet that he was unable to walk. Early in life he learned to ride a horse and to handle a gun. He was said to have been one of the most accurate shots with the rifle and the pistol in Ten Mile township, and was a great squirrel hunter. He went to school and at the age of fifteen began teaching. From that day on down to his death, save for the time he was in the Confederate Army and in a Federal prison at Macon, he worked steadily. His first teaching was at the Moody school house. He did his work satisfactorily, winning the approval of the school board, and the patrons. When the war eame on Mr. Griffin was among the first to enroll his name with soldiers of the South. To the Confederacy he brought his fine black horse, Ceilim, a carbine and two revolvers pur- chased with his own money. Mr. Griffin joined Price's army in time for the fight at Lexington; took part in that engagement; went on to Lone Jack, fought and was slightly wounded there, and continued with the army to Wilson's Creek; took part in that great battle, riding out on the firing line, discharging his earbine at the enemy and proving him- self as good a soldier as any man in the command. After Wilson's Creek, Price's army was reorganized, and the officer refused to accept Mr. Griffin as a soldier because of his physical handicap. Mr. Griffin protested that he was as good a soldier as anybody and that he wanted to continue with the army. They told him it would never do, because there was lots of hard work ahead and the soldiers would have to walk as well as to ride. Mr. Griffin was taken siek at Spring- field and laid up in an old mill, used as a hospital there. The report got ont that the Jayhawkers from Kansas were coming to raise trouble and Mr. Griffin got out of his bed and took to the woods, riding his faithful horse, Ceilim. Ceilim was trained so that when his master wished to alight he would lay down gently; when he approached him to mount the big horse would understand by a tap on the foreleg and prostrate himself so that Mr. Griffin could climb into the deep saddle. Jack Richardson accompanied the young soldier in his long ride from Ozark region to Macon county. They arrived home safely bnt Mr. Griffin had hardly been welcomed by his parents when some militiamen from Macon went out there and arrested the returned soldier on the charge of being a "Rebel."
THOMAS B. ROBERTSON
WHO, AFTER READING BRYAN'S "CROSS OF GOLD" SPEECH IN 1896, SWORE HE WOULD NEVER CUT
HIS HAIR OR SHAVE UNTIL BRYAN OR SOME OTHER DEMOCRAT WAS ELECTED PRESIDENT
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Mr. Griffin was taken to Macon, where Major Foster was in com- mand, and held in prison three or four weeks; his offense being that he had borne arms against the Federal government. Of course the young man's father made frequent efforts to have him released, on the grounds that he was not a very dangerous enemy, but the authorities evidently considered him so. Finally Mr. Griffin took an oath that he would never bear arms against the Union cause again and his father gave a bond of $10,000 that liis son would keep the oath. Mr. Griffin was then released and went to teaching school. He followed that occupation until 1872. It is said that he was a very strong disciplinarian, frequently whipping the big boys and girls for infractions of the rules. One of the girls he had occasion to chastise was Miss Mary A. Coiner, who afterwards became Mrs. John Henry Griffin.
In addition to teaching school Mr. Griffin learned to be a first-elass farmer. He drove the plow, gathered corn, planted and even ehopped wood. He was married in 1862 to the young lady referred to. In 1880 Mr. and Mrs. Griffin came to Macon, where they located. For two years following Mr. Griffin operated a farm near town. Then he was elected county recorder, served four years and afterwards went into the real estate, loan and insurance business. He proved himself a most capable business man. No man in the county was a better judge of land and property values than John Henry Griffin. Sometimes he made mistakes in men. At one time he was pretty heavily involved because of the failure of a party he had baeked in business, and the defalcation of a county officer whose bond he had signed. Mr. Griffin paid these debts, manfully, without a complaint against anybody. He was regarded as a straight-forward, honest, business man and his eredit was good in Macon to almost any amount. Of course in getting about he rode horseback or in a buggy. An interesting friend that he had was a blaek shepherd dog, Robert by name, who seemed to realize his master's misfortune and to take a brotherly interest in protecting him from harm. He would never permit the horse to start up in the buggy until he saw that Mr. Griffin had his hands on the lines and was ready to go. No man dare lay his hands on his master while the shepherd dog was abont. The day of Mr. Griffin's death he had written a large number of letters on his typewriter and had just been assisted into his buggy, preparatory to going down town and mailing the letters. He had hardly picked up the lines when he fell over dead. Mrs. Griffin called some neighbors and they undertook to remove the body from the buggy. but the shepherd dog flew at the men and would not suffer any one to touch his master. Then one of the men went to the horse and sought
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to lead it to the barn, but the shepherd dog leaped out of the buggy, ran around to the front of the horse and would not let it move. Finally they unhitched the horse. By that act the dog understood that the journey had been abandoned and ceased to make objections.
Mr. Griffin was survived by his faithful wife. There were no children.
It ought to be interesting to Andrew Carnegie to know that one of his war-time comrades of the telegraph key is living in Macon, and doing well. Mr. Carnegie, sometime ago, announced that he was going to remember all these faithful friends of the government. During the Civil war the names of 1200 persons appeared on the rolls of the tele- graph corps. Some newspaper writer estimated that in 1909 there were less than 200 of the military telegraphers living. One of these is Tom Smith, an energetic old gentleman who harvests a big ice crop in Macon every winter and drives a wagon around town delivering it in summer. They used to call him "Depot Smith" to distinguish lim from several other Tom Smiths who lived in and about Macon, For many years following the Civil war Mr. Smith run a restaurant at the Hannibal & St. Joseph depot.
Mr. Smith first took hold of a telegraph key for the goverment in 1861, soon after the Conscript Act, and was assigned to Bardstown, Kentucky, a place which for the next few years was full of incident and danger. There was a soldier's hospital at Bardstown and for a while a strong government force maintained there. Later on the government withdrew its soldiers and left Smith the operator to play a lone hand in a country infested with guerrillas. Captain of one of the bands was Sue Monday, said to be merciless and unsparing. Sue's outfit swooped down on Bardstown one day, cut the wires, carried away the telegraph instruments, and set on fire the depot and the cars in the railway yards. Mr. Smith hid ont; he didn't think his duty to the government required him to fight the redoubtable Sne Monday and her crowd singlehanded.
"When Sue and her people left town it was up to me to get a mes- sage over to headquarters at Louisville," said Mr. Smith. "There wasn't an instrument left in town. It had been raining during the early part of the night and I knew that the ground would make a good con- ductor. I picked up the two ends of the severed wire, and, striking them together, managed to get the news of the raid in to the Federal authorities at Louisville. Then I held Louisville end of the wire to my tongue, receiving a reply from the operator there, announcing that my improvised method had worked satisfactorily and the message had been received.
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"Late in the war I was on duty at Louisville, working at night. There was a feeling of approaching momentons events in the air. Some- thing was going to happen. Everybody seemed to understand that, but no one could guess just where, nor what was going to break loose. Sherman and Grant were planning some great thing to crush the Con- federacy. There were politicians in Washington who feared the grow- ing influence on the voters of these great generals. They were seeking to handicap them by various orders and red tape. At two o'clock one morning the operator called me and repeated this confidential message from Sherman to Grant.
"""'Go on with the plans as we have arranged them. Don't mind the damn fellows over at Washington.'
"I understood the significance of the dispatch. It meant that the march to the sea was under way, and that General Grant would immedi- ately begin on the last act in the great war tragedy around Richmond. How wonderfully excited would the people of Louisville have been that night had they only known ! Brokers and syndicates would have paid big money for the information known only to the telegraph corps of the government. But there was not a leak anywhere. The boys of the service were as loyal and patriotic about their duties as were the soldiers at the front."
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