USA > Missouri > Bates County > History of Bates County, Missouri > Part 23
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addition; Glasgow's addition and Connoly's addition, laid off in con- formity with the original townsite, had been added. Four blocks on either side east and west of the Missouri Pacific railroad had been reserved as parks which early were set in forest trees and otherwise improved, made play and picnic grounds-breathing places for the present and future generations. School sites and lots for churches were reserved and generously donated for use when required. The original Town Company was incorporated with the following citizens as offi- cers: Ed H. Brown, president: Sam B. Lashbrooke, secretary; F. J. Tygard, treasurer ; and large dividends from the sale of lots were fre- quently made to the stockholders.
A village organization was soon had and Governor Marmaduke appointed Dr. W. H. Allen president and George Reif, Dr. W. L. Heymun, and Nat Powell the other trustee. George P. Huckleby, a Butler attorney, was first to start a newspaper-"The Rich Hill Gazette" -Republican in politics, with the promise of being made postmaster to secure a. living. It was not, however, until the "Mining Review" with a power press and a five-thousand-dollar plant started, that Rich Hill was placed "on the map" and became known as the "Leadville of Missouri." The "Review" was at first an eight column folio, home print. The first issue, October 21. 1880 of five thousand copies, with a second edition of the same issue of three thousand, was easily disposed of, and was followed from week to week by large issues, containing the advantages and future prospects of Rich Hill and great resources of Bates county and the opportunities offered in farming, stock raising, horticulture, mining, milling, manufacturing, and indeed all lines of business as well as a good, healthy, temperate climate to live in.
It is needless to relate that the town grew and grew apace, little imagined by the promoters, or the staid old settlers of the county. A correspondent of the "Chicago Industrial World." who visited the town a year after its birth, gave the following report to the "Trade Journal":
"At a single bound the bantling sprang into vigorous life, defying all opposition, and transcending the hopes of its most ardent friends who looked and wondered, until the fair young city now looms up as the most remarkable and rapidly built movement of Western pluck and Western energy outside the mining regions of the Rocky Moun- tains. So rapidly had the town passed from its chrysalis period into a full fledged city that one is reminded, when viewing its astonishing proportions, of the creation and transformatory powers which oriental
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story ascribes to the lamp of Aladdin, and asks whether some ancient Eastern Magi has not here given to the world the most wonderful exhibition of his occult skill."
Nine months after its original organization as a village, it was organized as a city of the fourth class, not, however, without some legal technicalities to overcome ; as the state law required before organ- izing as a city, there must be the requisite number of inhabitants "accord- ing to the last National census." Even the new village was not in existence when the 1880 census was taken. The growth of the town had caught the state napping, or lacking in statutory method to over- come such a progressive emergency.
The village trustees and its officers, marshal, attorney, clerk and treasurer, were loth to step down and out of office and give place to elective officers under a city charter. So when "Tom" Irish, editor of the "Review," had created a sentiment for city organization, he met with decided opposition, but nevertheless persisted in his demand, as an aid to the development and to make the necessary public improvements requisite to meet the demands of the so rapidly increasing population and commercial growth. He contended that having the requisite bona fide number of citizens, a National census showing was unnecessary and arranged to go to Jefferson City and get the opinion of Attorney- General McIntyre. Hearing of this, the opposition employed Mr. Lashbrooke, a prominent attorney of Butler, to follow him to Jefferson City. There they met and Mr. McIntyre being out of the city, they agreed to file their separate briefs and leave them for his examination, requesting his opinion to be forwarded upon his return. It was not long before authority came to go ahead and organize as a city.
On February 21, 1881, Rich Hill, by almost a unanimous vote, was so organized with Dr. T. B. Hewit, formerly of Norborne, a close friend, and family physician of Colonel Irish, elected as first mayor to hold office until the following spring election when Clinton R. Wolfe who recently died in Wyoming, was elected mayor. Doctor Hewit, by the way, was the nephew of Abram S. Hewit, one time mayor of New York City. He now lives at Galena, Missouri. A little over three years had passed when the city was re-organized as a city of the third class. with a population of over five thousand souls.
In 1883, completed in November of that year, Garrison Brothers of St. Louis constructed a system of waterworks with ample water mains throughout the city and fifty-five hydrants, at a cost of over
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ninety thousand dollars. The water was forced a distance of three miles from the Marais des Cygnes river, east of the city, after having been pumped into a large cemented settling basin on the western bank of the river. Not a great while after the water works a private electric light plant was installed and furnished the streets and business houses with arc lights and later on incandescent lights were added.
The development and utilization of natural gas had been made a success, temporarily, at least. at Ft. Scott, and Colonel Irish con- ceived the idea of prospecting for natural gas in the interest of Rich Hill as it was known to exist in many of the deeper wells in Howard and New Home townships and had been troublesome in the entries in the different mining shafts west of the city : and he set about to secure a franchise for furnishing Rich Hill with natural gas and ultimately secured a very liberal franchise, with the privilege of putting in an artificial gas plant ; and failed to find, after prospecting, a sufficient amount and requisite pressure of the natural gas to be successfully utilized. He did the prospecting west of the city and penetrated the gas strata but the pressure was not sufficiently strong to be of use for the purposes required. Thereupon hie installed an artificial gas plant. costing thirty thousand dollars and operated the same for several years, purchasing in the meantime the electric light plant. A few years later when on a business trip to St. Louis he met the Garrisons and learned they desired to sell their water plant at Rich Hill and figuring out that the three plants could be operated together to advan- tage and with economy, he negotiated for the purchase of the water works plant at a cost of seventy-five thousand dollars, and consolidated the three companies under the name of the Rich Hill Water, Light and Fuel Company and as president and general manager of the com- pany, operated them successfully for three or four years when he had a vision of Rich Hill's decline and sold and transferred all but a few shares of the stock to a St. Louis syndicate of capitalists and resigned as president and general manager. Several years after this the city of. Rich Hill acquired all the interests of the company.
Throughout the "Great West" where instances of the rapid growth of civilizing influences and development of nature's great wealth are of common occurrence, both in the rapid transformation of the wild prairie into well cultivated farms and comfortable homes. and the almost miraculous building of cities, towns and villages there is perhaps not a single illustration, at least upon the wild prairies. more
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striking than the founding of the city of Rich Hill, and its consequent effect in the founding and growth of other towns and villages and in the growth and development of the county seat, Bates county and the surrounding country, generally revolutionizing, as it were, and putting new life into the older citizenship and bringing in new families from the eastern, southern and northern states to engage in the vari- ous industries of life and make permanent homes among us.
The author has often heard it remarked that "Tom Irish and his paper made Rich Hill" and it would be like acting the play. of Shake- speare's "Hamlet" with Hamlet left out to write anything like a com- plete history of Rich Hill and Bates county and the influence his news- paper had in the development and political influence in the county and state and leave Colonel Irish out. The independent character and broad view of its usefulness, taken by the "Review," brought about and instilled new life into the entire local press of the state, taking them out of the rut of only local interests and the advocating of mere party politics, or boosting professional politicians to places of honor and trust. The liberal spirit and high minded character exemplified in its editorials and general makeup was something to aspire to, and its wide circulation, caused it to be more quoted from by the metropolitan press and the trade journals of the entire country than, perhaps, all the other local papers of the state. The "Mining Review's" "dead head" and exchange list was for several years equal to the entire edition of many local publications. Every leading paper in all the towns of the state, including all the dailies at the time published in Missouri and Kansas, also the "New York Sun" and "Tribune," "Chicago Inter-Ocean" and "Tribune," "Toledo Blade," "Cleveland Plain Dealer," "Oil City Der- rick," and "Boston Transcript"; also all the trade journals and railroad journals and most of the magazines of the day were received regularly at the "Review" office. It was a pleasure as well as instructive to drop into Irish's sanctum sanctorium and look over these exchanges, which the author often did. The "Review" was also found, each week, on the desk of all the leading hotels of the towns and cities of the state and of many in other states and in the libraries and reading rooms, and it was largely by this means that Rich Hill was "placed on the map" and brought together in so short a time a cosmopolitan citizenship of six thousand people ; unequaled outside the mining towns of the gold, silver, and copper bearing states of the Rocky Mountain country .. (17)
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As an illustration of the "power of the press" will relate a joke on one of our citizens, told at the time only to close friends. Crit Fulkerson, lately a prominent and wealthy citizen of Butler, who, by the way, was somewhat jealous of the "Infant Wonder," usually spent a few weeks every summer at the fashionable resorts in Colorado and as is the custom when strangers meet at these Western resorts, the first greeting is: "Well, stranger, where do you hail from?" Crit said for many times he answered as he registered: "Butler, Missouri." "Where is Butler?" "The county seat of Bates county." "Oh! It's near that miraculous Missouri town, Rich Hill, eh? I've heard all about that burg and its wonderful growth and mining industry." This happened so often that it got on Mr. Fulkerson's nerves; so he decided when questioned in the future, to save embarrassment, to reply: "I'm from Rich Hill, Missouri." "I soon discovered," he related, "how it was that Rich Hill so suddenly had become so well known by appar- ently everyone everywhere: I found the 'Mining Review' in the hotels, reading rooms and club rooms, wherever I went."
Colonel Irish once related to the author his first visit to Butler before locating at Rich Hill, and his calling upon his brother editor, Col. N. A. Wade, of the "Democrat," whom he had previously met, as a delegate from Carroll county and Wade a delegate from Bates, at a railroad convention at Lexington. Colonel Wade had been receiving Irish's "Norborne Independent" as an exchange and probably did not fancy having his kind of modern democracy preached to the good people of Bates county and so when asked as to the feasibility of starting a Democratic newspaper at Rich Hill. Wade was very free to give him to understand that Rich Hill had been started by a lot of Republicans and never would be more than a mere mining camp; that Mr. George B. Huckeby, a Butler lawyer, had already started a Republican paper there, the "Gazette," with a patronage of the Town Company and a guarantee of being appointed postmaster to insure a living. et cetera. Irish, how- ever, investigated further and once the "Review" was in running order Wade sure got dose after dose of Tom's kind of democracy but "took his medicine" with remarkable equanimity.
Colonel Irish was well equipped for the making of a successful journalist. The son of a country doctor: raised on a farm of 240 acres fronting on Lake Ontario, Canada: educated at the Brighton Grammar School and Victoria University, Cobourg. Ontario; two years clerk in a village store near his birthplace; one year salesman in a wholesale
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and retail store, I. N. Hatch & Co., Boston, Massachusetts; teacher of a country school one term in Kane county, Illinois; one year salesman in charge of the carpet and rug department with Duncan & Christman, wholesale and retail merchants, Dubuque, Iowa; two years reading law in Joliet, Illinois, in the office of Judge Sherman W. Bowen, attor- ney of the Chicago & Alton railroad; followed by two years reading law clerk with Hon. Kenneth Mckenzie, Q. C. (Queen's Counsel), Toronto, Canada; admitted a member of the Law Society of Ontario at Osgood Hall, Toronto, upon examination at Hilary (February) term of the Courts of Queen's Bench and Common Pleas, 1868; admit- ted to the Illinois bar in May, 1869, by the Supreme Court upon exami- nation; admitted to the Kansas bar; improved two quarter sections of raw prairie land in Labette county, Kansas, while a partner in the law practice with J. S. Waters, prosecuting attorney of that county; secretary of the Labette City Town Company and editor for a year of the "Labette County Sentinel," Kansas; admitted to the Carroll county bar March term, 1877, practiced law at Norborne while living upon and cultivating his 120-acre farm half a mile out of town and editing and publishing the "Norborne Independent" three years, 1877-1880, when in October of that year he located in Rich Hill and for many years while attending to his other business looked after a farm of 145 acres which he owned adjoining the city. He was an amateur horticulturist, an active member of the Bates County Horticultural Society; for years an active member of the State Press Association : the organizer of the South- west Missouri Press Association and in 1900 wrote the call for the organization of the Missouri Democratic Press Association, while spend- ing a few days at Warrensburg, the call being published in the "Demo- crat" of that city and he attended the first meeting at Pertle Springs though at that time he had quit the newspaper business. Colonel Irish was also one of the Missouri Press Association's delegates to the National Press Association when it was organized at Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1881 and was a charter member thereof. For many years he was local reporter for the American Press Association and correspondent of sev- eral trade journals and occasionally of the metropolitan press, and is now, at the age of seventy-six years, practicing law in Kansas City, chiefly in equity cases and consulting counsel for the younger men of the pro- fession, and yet still interested in horticulture "Hooverizing," cultivat- ing a "back-lot" garden, raising enough fresh vegetables and small fruit for family use and has pears, quinces, crabapples, cherries, plums and
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peaches from trees of his own planting quite sufficient for his family use the year around. One session he reported to the "Kansas City Star" of his picking 455 quart boxes of strawberries from a plat of ground 25 × 30 feet, "intensive gardening" to be sure, but anyone in Bates county could do quite as well by proper effort. Through the kindness of Colonel Irish the author has had the privilege of the bound volumes of the "Review" for perusal, but should an attempt be made to go into detail regarding the business growth of this remarkable town, or quote to any extent from the many generous "write-ups" of Rich Hill, from many trade journals, magazines and the metropolitan press, copied in the "Review" with due credit, this volume would be doubled in size.
The city of Rich Hill was surveyed by Civil Engineer B. B. Sing- leton for the Rich Hill Town Company in June, 1880. The corporation was composed of the following: President, E. H. Brown; secretary, S. B. Lashbrooke; assistant secretary, J. N. Hardin; treasurer, F. J. Tygard ; trustees, W. H. Allen, president ; George Reif. W. L. Huylman and N. R. Powell. The city is located in the south-central part of the township, and the Missouri Pacific railway divides it nearly in the center running north and south; and the "Frisco" railway comes in from the west. The city developed rapidly and at one time had nearly 5,000 people. Its marvelous growth was largely the result of the great coal industry developed; and besides it is located in the midst of a fine farming and stock country. The large mining population has gone elsewhere and the city is more stable and prosperous now with a dimin- ished population than it was a few years back. Further data will be found in our chapter on cities and towns.
BATES COUNTY HOME.
CHAPTER XIX.
TOWNSHIPS, TOWNS AND VILLAGES.
INTRODUCTION-MINGO TOWNSHIP-SETTLE FORD-COVE CITY-MAYESBURG- GRAND RIVER TOWNSHIP-ALTONA-DEER CREEK TOWNSHIP-ADRIAN- CRESCENT HILL-EAST BOONE TOWNSHIP-BURDETT-PARKERVILLE- WEST BOONE TOWNSHIP-ROSIER-WEST POINT TOWNSHIP-WEST POINT VILLAGE-VINTON-AMSTERDAM-ELKHART TOWNSHIP-ELKHART POST- OFFICE-MOUND TOWNSHIP-PASSAIC-SHAWNEE TOWNSHIP-CULVER.
In this chapter we give briefly such data as seems to be of historical value touching the early settlement of the several townships, beginning with Mingo township in the northeast corner of the county, and fol- lowing west and east back and forth, ending with Howard township in the southwest corner of the county. This seems preferable to an alphabetical basis, as the townships are more familiar in that order.
Mingo Township.
Bounded on the north by Grand river, which separates it from Cass county, on the east by Henry county, on the south by Spruce township, and on the west by Grand River township. It is not quite a full congressional township of thirty-six sections, all of sections 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 lying north of Grand river in Cass county, and also parts of sections 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, and 12, all in township 42, range 29 west.
The land is rich and rolling, and more or less rugged, and is drained by Grand river on the north, and by Cove and Peter creeks, with Elk Fork touching the northwest corner of the township.
H. M. White came from Wayne county, Kentucky and settled on Elk Fork creek in this township in 1844, and died there in 1872. His son, J. M. White, was born there in 1846. Austin and Joseph Reeder settled between Elk Fork and Peter creeks in 1832. Alexander Earhart a native of West Virginia, opened a farm on Elk Fork in 1851, and his brother, Stronger, came at the same time. Among other early set- tlers were Robert Davis, Jefferson Lake, Morgan Settle, Nicholas Poage, Martin Hackler, Hamilton Burris, Joel Sparks, Jonathan Starks, Reece
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Hackler, Fred Hackler. James Settle, John C. Gragg, George Earhart, A. M. Gragg, Stephen Williams, the Ashcrafts, Shatleys, and Chad- wells.
The first mill was erected at Settle Ford by Nicholas Poage. Cove City, in the north-central part of the township, back in the seventies, was a business point, but has practically taken its place with the forgotten cities. Mayesburg in the southeastern part of the township was founded in 1878, and Mayes & Carlton, merchants, built the first house and con- ducted a mercantile business there for many years. L. O. Carlton was the first postmaster, R. D. Gerdon the first blacksmith, and Dr. M. Duttler the first physician. G. A. Poage and G. W. West conducted a drug store there in the early days. The building of the Kansas City, Clinton & Springfield railroad through Urich a few miles distant in Henry county affected the development of Mayesburg, and the establishment of the rural mail delivery eliminated the post office at that village. It is still a trading point, but little more.
Grand River Township.
This township lies directly west of Mingo, and is also bounded on the north by Grand river, which is the line at this point between Bates and Cass. It is a rolling prairie, broken more or less by the following principal streams which flow in a general northerly direction into Grand river: Elk Fork, Mingo and Little Deer creek.
Among the early settlers may be mentioned Louis C. Haggard. Joseph Hilly. George Sears, Richard DeJarnett, John Sigler. Jake Lef- ler, Kimsey Coats, William Crawford, William Edwards, John and Joseph Pardee, Hiram and D. C. Edwards, Martin Owens, Martin Owens, Jr., Crayton Owens, Sarah White, M. M. Tucker, James Will- iams, Hardway Harrison, James and S. E. Harrison, and William France. Many of these names are still familiar in the township, being children or grandchildren of the pioneers.
The village of Altona is situate in the south-central part. and it was laid out in January, 1860, by William Crawford, the owner of the land. A man by the name of Scoggin erected the first business house in the village. In 1868. Harrison and Shoube erected a grist and saw- mill, which was afterward removed to Cass county. In 1878, the Mis- sionary Baptists built a church edifice there. J. D. Wright and wife, George Moles and wife, August Warford and Mitchell Warford and family were among its early members.
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Deer Creek Township.
Deer Creek township .. lies directly west of Grand River township. The Missouri Pacific railroad runs nearly directly through the township, north and south. This township is principally an undulating prairie, with very little rough or waste land, and is principally drained by Mormon Fork into Grand river, which forms for a short distance the northern boundary, and Deer creek, after which the township takes its name.
Among the prominent and known pioneers of this township may be mentioned the following: Joseph J. McCraw, a native of Halifax county, Virginia, came from Jackson county, Missouri, and settled in Deer Creek township in 1849. There were eight children in the family. He died in 1853. Other than the McCraws in 1850 may be mentioned : Richard Barker, Moses Barker. Matt Hill, William Mitchell, Bhuford, Stephen and Alfred Haynes, Brown C. Seagraves and a Mr. Adams; John Moudy came in 1856: Henry and John Rogers came the same year ; John P. Wells came in 1855: John Murphy came in 1856: John Blunt, in 1861; James Howerton, in 1855; W. S. Hughes, in 1854. Other old settlers, the exact date of whose coming is not known by the writer, are : Oliver Mitchell, Eli T. Sullins, M. C. Hiser, Emanuel Lemon, L. F. Kiser, L. C. Oder, Henry Hughes, Samuel Sligar, Isaiah Prebbel, . Daniel Goodin, Jonathan Adams and Allen, Ingle.
Adrian is situate in the extreme south-central part of Deer Creek township on the Missouri Pacific railroad, and is a town of such con- siderable importance that it should be treated separately in another part of this book.
Crescent Hill was located near the center of the township, and before the coming of the Missouri Pacific railroad in 1880, was a thrifty village but the railroad did not come through the village and when Adrian was surveyed and platted the business formerly done at Crescent Hill naturally drifted to the new and rapidly developing town ; and Crescent Hill may fairly be said to have taken its place among other extinct and almost forgotten cities.
East Boone Township.
This township is situate in the north tier and its northern boundary is the county line between Bates and Cass. The land is generally prairie of good quality, but high and somewhat broken up by Mormon
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Fork and its tributaries. Mormon Fork runs in an easterly direction nearly through the center of the township. There are timber and build- ing stone and water.
William R. Marshall, who came from Kentucky, settled on Mor- mon Fork in an early day. Mormon Fork gets its name from the fact that some Mormons driven out of Jackson county in 1833 made a set- tlement on the creek in this township. Barton Holderman was a pioneer, coming from Illinois. Gaugh L. Smith, Enoch Bolling, John M. Gal- loway, Joseph Cook, Samuel Stewart, David Hufft, John Puffer and Elias Baldwin were early settlers.
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