USA > Missouri > Bates County > History of Bates County, Missouri > Part 7
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On the afternoon of September 2, the Lord's Day, Brother Fuller and Sister Howell were married, Brother Dodge officiating, presumably in the presence of the whole Missionary family able to be up on that
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occasion ; and on September 11, accompanied by Brother Chapman, they departed a-horseback on a honeymoon trip to their future home at Union, some hundred and fifty miles away, over a treeless and trackless prairie. It must have all been very romantic, and a little wild and weird for the accomplished bride so lately from the cultured circles of beautiful Baltimore. Her name was Eliza but it does not appear what was the Christian name of Brother Fuller. She was one of the five "adult" Misses in this interesting family composed of "ten adult males, fifteen adult females, and sixteen children." Having left Bates county after so short a sojourn we cannot follow her and her mate to other fields of labor for the Lord; but it is assumed they lived "happily ever since."
The historic fact of this first wedding of the then great and unex- plored West is important and worthy of record, if for no other reason, because it was solemnized and celebrated within the confines of Bates county, according to Christian customs, in this, the then heathen land; and Brother Dodge, superintendent of the Great Osage Mission, in a letter announcing the marriage of the brethren at Union, among other things says: "The circumstances of the connection formed between Brother Fuller and Sister Howell, may at the first moment surprise you, on account of their short acquaintance : but on a second reflection you may view it as one of the features of Missionary enterprise which marks the present day. Under all circumstances we all consider it the plain dictate of Providence." The "Journal" of the Union Mission says: "We would view the hand of Providence in forming this connec- tion, and be thankful for some additional female assistance, not doubting that the board will approve what has taken place," and we presume it did, as we did not find any investigation of the matter recorded in the minutes of the next annual meeting of the board.
The Last of His Line.
There was a tradition among the Great Osages of a long and ancient line of chiefs which was lost by an incident which occurred at Halley's Bluff in the remote past. Old Chief No-Horse was the reigning chief of all the Grand Osages, and the last of his line, which had come to be regarded as a sort of royalty, and the family No-Horse as a sort of ruling dynasty. He was a worthy son of his line of Great Chiefs, but was getting old and decrepit. He had an only child, a beautiful daughter ; many had wooed but none had won her heart. But at last there came a-wooing of her the bold and handsome son of a minor chief of the tribe.
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The line of succession must continue through No-wa-tah, this only daughter. The old men of the tribe urged her to wife with the hand- some He-ta-hah; but No-wa-tah resisted all his Indian blandishments for many moons. Finally old No-Horse sickened and was about to die. He called No-wa-tah and He-ta-hah into his lodge. He made them kneel side by side near him and then with his palsied hands put the hand of No-wa-tah in the strong right hand of He-ta-hah in token of his desire for their union. No-wa-tah resisted no more. She became the squaw of He-ta-hah, according to the customs and ceremonials of the tribe. In a few days old No-Horse died, and then she became, so to speak, queen of the Grand Osages until such time as an heir to the tribe's chiefship should be born unto her. She was happy with her handsome warrior-hunter, and they dwelt in the lodge of her father which was situate in the midst of the big hickory and pecan timber belt lying on the opposite side of the Osage river, and a little northwest of Halley's Bluff. They fished and hunted together up the Marais des Cygnes and down the Osage, and out upon the beautiful prairies. By and by, in the course of nature, surrounded in their lodge by all the trappings of royalty an old aunt could command, one early spring morning a little pappoose came to snuggle at No-wa-tah's breast and bring joy to her heart, and to the heart of He-ta-hah; for it was a warrior pappoose, heir to the chiefship of all the Grand Osages. The event was duly celebrated accord- ing to the customs and traditions of the tribe and Little No-Horse took his rightful place in the life of the tribe as its future Big Chief.
The time for the summer hunt was soon at hand, and when the warriors and hunters were ready, with such squaws and youngsters as desired to go, they were off to the prairies and streams of the limitless West, not to return till early autumn. A few days after He-ta-hah had gone with the rest of the hunters, No-wa-tah and her old aunt, in whose care she and the tiny pappoose were left, on a bright warm May morning, strolled down to the Osage to fish in the deep waters opposite the Bluff. Snugly wrapped in his royal furs they took Little No-horse along and laid him gently on the grass beneath a wide-spreading elm on the margin of the river directly west of the forbidding and frowning Bluff. It was only a few yards from the sleeping pappoose to the edge of the river, down a short but rather abrupt bank. Mother and aunt became interested in the fine sport. They did not notice that Little No-Horse, as the sun came over the Bluff and warmed him, had kicked off his furs and lay there cooing to the waving branches and twittering birds above
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him. Nor had their attention been attracted by a large hole near the top of the sheer stone front of Halley's Bluff, where a golden eagle had her eyrie full of well-grown, hungry eaglets. Looking out from her lofty nest in the solid stone front of the Bluff, possibly annoyed and vexed by the cries of her hungry brood, she saw tiny Little No-Horse lying almost naked on the other shore. With a suddenness and swift- ness for which this wonderful conqueror of the air is famous, the mother eagle swooped down and struck her talons into the tender baby flesh of Little No-Horse and carried him to her eyrie as food for her hungry eaglets. The cries of the pappoose attracted the attention of No-wa-tah instantly ; but she was helpless; and wild with fright, she saw him dis- appearing in the unapproachable hole in the outstanding stone wall in front of her. Realizing her powerlessness, and that the mother eagle was that very moment rending by hooked beak and tearing talons her baby's tender flesh from its bones for food for the eaglets, No-wa-tah plunged headlong into the deep waters in frantic agony. She was a good swimmer, but for some mysterious reason when the waters closed over her head she was lost forever. Her body was never seen after- ward. It was the pathetic and tragic ending of the dynasty of Old No- Horse, whose ancestors had so long reigned and ruled over the Grand Osages.
The eyrie or hole is still there to be seen by all curious visitors to this remarkable Bluff; and it is just as unapproachable now, from above or from below, as it was in that remote day when tradition says the line of Old No-Horse became extinct on the day when Little No- Horse was immolated therein to feed hungry eaglets. A view of the cavity from the opposite or west side of the river can but stir the emotions of any one who has heard the sad story. It is so plausible and so in line with other stories we have all heard or read that we are almost ready to accept a mere tradition for an historical fact.
CHAPTER V.
MARCHIONESS DEGNINON OF THE OSAGE. A ROMANCE OF HARMONY MISSION AND HALLEY'S BLUFF.
In the spring of 1821 a devoted band of men and women, and some children, assembled at Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, thence to take a long and perilous journey into the West-to the very limit of civilization at that time. They were missionaries from Boston, and the New England states going out under the auspices of the "American Board of Com- missioners for Foreign Missions." Some time prior to this a delegate from the Osage Indians of western Missouri had visited Washington, D. C., and it was learned that his people desired the missionaries to come among them : and as the spirit of missionary work was intense at that time in the New England states volunteers were soon found ready to go; and under the direction of the "board" the little band had assembled at Pittsburgh. A more heroic, self-sacrificing and devoted congrega- tion of fathers, mothers and children than these devout Congregation- alists never met in communion.
They prepared for a long, slow, and laborious journey. They pur- chased common keel-boats. stored them with provisions, and when all was ready shoved out into the beautiful Ohio river. Friends on shore waved them goodbye in tears, and more than one of the occupants of those queer old keel-boats wept at what they realized would be a long separation from friends and home if indeed, they should be spared to return. Down the Ohio, past the villages, towns and cities-to Cairo; pleasant enough in the main, but before they reached the mouth of the Ohio one of the party, a brave-souled mother, sickened and died; and her body was laid to rest on a pretty mound near the shore, there to sleep until the last great call. Thence up the Mississippi to the mouth of the Missouri-the "Big Muddy," the flood way of the rivulets trick- ling down from the snow-capped Rockies on their way to the peaceful Gulf of Mexico; thence up to the mouth of the Osage river, the most tortuous stream known to the geography of the nation; thence up the Osage, by slow and laborious man power, the keel-boats with their precious cargo of human life and provisions were pushed with long
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poles day after day, and week after week. But it was a brave band. Not a heart grew faint. They had work to do; and not more resolute than they, were the Pilgrim fathers from whose loins they had sprung.
The journey occupied about six months, and on the 9th day of August, 1822, they lashed their boats, side by side, to an over-hanging water-birch a few yards from the village of the Osage tribe. This was about three miles up the Marais des Cygnes river from its junction with the Osage in the extreme western part of Missouri.
Here these devoted missionaries established "Harmony Mission," and began teaching and preaching; and here they patiently labored for the Master until the Mission was abandoned fifteen years later, when the Osages, Delawares and Kaws moved out into the limitless prairies of the further West. The teachers met with much apparent success and the little Indians learned English readily, and many of the older ones were converted by the simple preaching of the Word.
About the time the missionaries left Pittsburgh a young French- man left France for New Orleans, United States of America. He was a scion of the old nobility-in the prime of life, vigorous, handsome, cultured and proud. His splendid physique was remarked by all who knew him. He was from southern France, with hair and beard intensely black, sharp, penetrating eyes which were a compromise between a lus- trous brown and a piercing gray.
His father had been compelled to flee for his life during the Reign of Terror in 1793, when the young man above described was an infant in his mother's arms. He had no recollection of a father's face, or a father's smile; nor had the faithful mother ever heard from the father. For years she had been persuaded that he was dead-perhaps upon the shores of France: else somewhere in the New World. All she knew was that he had told her he would try to make his way to America, there to remain until the unhappy reign of blood should cease in his beloved France.
Oh, how long that beautiful young wife and mother cherished the memory of his last fond embrace, and the tender caresses of the dimpled baby boy in her arms, their only child. . There was no time for planning; flight, immediate escape, was the only course possible to avoid certain execution. The fury of the Revolution was at its height, and the soil of fair France was drinking up the noblest blood of the Kingdom.
*
The young Frenchman, whose name was Auguste Letier, had exhausted himself trying to get some trace of his father, and had almost
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come to the conclusion that he must be dead, as his patient mother long since had done. But one day while strolling along the wharf in an idle sort of way at Marseilles, he chanced to meet an old "tar." and soon learned that he had made repeated voyages to America and always touched at New Orleans. Upon inquiry the old tar said he knew one of their countrymen in New Orleans by the name of Letier, and that he was a fur dealer, and wealthy; but he could not recall his Christian name.
This passing incident reawakened the young man's hopes of find- ing his father, and after relating the story of the old tar to his mother and getting her approval, he set sail at the first opportunity for America.
On his arrival in New Orleans he found the establishment just as the old tar had told him, but no one answered to the description given him by his mother. The place was in charge of his countrymen, and without disclosing his own identity he learned that the proprietor, Igna- tius Letier, was in truth his father. He learned, also, that he had gone up the Mississippi only a few weeks before on one of his annual trips to the fur dealers at the settlements along the river, and that he was sometimes absent on these trips for months. He usually went as far north as St. Genevieve, Missouri, and sometimes as far as St. Louis.
The method of transportation upon the Mississippi in those days was unpleasant ; but in autumn the weather is fine and Auguste set out at the earliest moment for St. Genevieve, and upon his arrival there learned that his father had gone on to St. Louis. So, after a day of rest and real enjoyment in the pretty French village, he started for St. Louis with a light heart and pleasing reflections. But at St. Louis, to his chagrin, he learned that his father had gone into the interior to visit some French fur dealers, and no one could tell just where. Auguste went to Jefferson City, and there learned that a man answering the description in his inquiries, in company with two others, had gone up the Osage river to buy furs at Harmony Mission.
It was, by this time, late in the season; the Osage was swollen. and progress was slow, and on the evening of the first day of January, 1822 the boat was lashed to a convenient root for the night, and the party prepared to camp on shore. For days they had rowed against the rapid current through a rough and unbroken wilderness; not a human being visible in the endless forests along their solitary journey. As they were preparing supper to the great surprise and joy of Auguste Letier, a gentleman of his own country visited their camp. After the ordinary French civilities mutual inquiries were indulged, and Auguste
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learned that his visitor's name was Melicourt Papin, formerly of St. Louis, and a settler of several years of that vicinity. Further inquiry revealed the fact that Monsieur Ignatius Letier of New Orleans, a fur dealer, had arrived upon that very spot-known on the river as "Rapid de Kaw"-two weeks before a very sick man; that Monsieur Papin had taken him home with him, where he, his good wife, and the Mission doctor, had cared for him the best they could. But the fever raged without abatement, and on the 25th day of December-Christmas day -his spirit returned to Him who gave it. As Monsieur Papin paused in his sad recital Auguste, though brave hearted and strong burst into tears and wept like a child, for some moments no one disturbed him; then he said, "Monsieur Letier was my father. He was compelled to fly front France when I was a babe in my mother's arms. I came here in search of him."
Auguste spent a restless night. The blow was so sudden that it was a shock. It came at a moment when his brightest anticipations were about to be realized as he had dreamed and dreamed. Early the next morning he went to the little log cabin of Melicourt Papin, a rude hut in exterior, contrived from trees felled in the immediate forest, but within was comfort and happiness; for the deft hands of a cultured housewife made amends for the shortage of things usually found in the homes of the civilized parts of the country. It was an ideal pioneer home, in a forest so dense and magnificent that the Dryads might have envied a residence there. After a wholesome breakfast on corn-bread and wild meat, and rare rich milk, Melicourt and Auguste visited the grave of Ignatius Letier. It was situated on a beautiful knoll some dis- tance from the fretful Osage and above its wildest floods. Here in the solemn and voiceless woods, beside his father's grave, Auguste told Melicourt the story of his long and fruitless journey to recover a lost father; and somewhat of his history.
The two men were ever after friends, and Auguste was an honored guest at the comfortable home of Monsieur Papin.
The companions of Auguste returned in a few days to St. Louis. It was now mid-winter in that western country, and the hope and life had gone out of the young man. But he concluded to await the coming of spring to start on his return voyage to France, via New Orleans, and at the earnest solicitations of Monsieur Papin made his home with him. For days and weeks he sorrowed for his father, becoming more and more despondent. But one fine winter day Monsieur Papin prevailed upon him to go with him on some business with the good missionaries to Harmony Mission, only two or three miles up the Marais des Cygnes river, near the mouth of "Mission branch." The Marais des Cygnes
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and Little Osage rivers form a junction about a mile from the home of Melicourt Papin and here is the head of the Osage river proper. From its junction with the Little Osage the Marais des Cygnes marks a tortuous route to the northwest, and has its origin away out in the prairies of the then uncivilized Territory of Kansas.
They spent a pleasant day with the missionaries and their families in and about their rude pioneer homes; and on their way and while in the Osage village Auguste had his first introduction to the red men of the forests and of the plains; for while the Osage tribe had for ages made their homes in the forests along the rivers, there were in this village quite a number of Kaws and Pottawatomies who had come down from treeless and trackless Kansas. He, also, met here French fur traders who had trafficked with the Indians for years, making sev- eral trips up and down the Osage and Missouri to and from St. Louis, which was then, as now, the great metropolis of the Mississippi valley. Some of them had homes among the peaceful Osages, and history fails to tell just when the first French fur dealers settled among the Osage tribe.
Game abounded in the splendid forests along the rivers. Deer, antelope, coons, squirrels, turkeys and prairie chickens were all within easy reach on the land, and on the waters wild geese and ducks of every variety known to the hunter. Monsieur Papin had two faithful, intelli- gent dogs, and was provided with guns and ammunition in abundance, a regular frontier outfit for that day and generation; and in order to divert Auguste's mind from his great sorrow they spent much of the pleasant winter weather hunting.
Under this sort of wild and exhilerating sport Auguste soon became himself again and enjoyed life to its utmost; but in the midst of his new experiences he never forgot his father, and that his solitary resting place might not be forgotten, nor obliterated, he found time to quarry, cut and erect, as best he could with the rude tools at his command, a stone monument at his grave. The inscriptions were few but they were cut so deep and plain they can be easily read today. On the front and smoother side of the stone, which stands about six feet high, may be read-
"Ignatius Letier, Marquis. Born in Marseilles, France, 1770. Died on the head-waters of the Osage river, near Harmony Mission, State of Missouri, U. S. A. December 25, 1821. Erected by his son, Auguste Letier."
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The winter passed. The early spring work of Melicourt Papin, who was engaged in a sort of agricultural life, demanded more and more of his time and attention: so that Auguste was left more and more on his own resources for amusement. Time began to hang a little heavy, and he began to talk of his departure; but the cheerful wife of Monsieur Papin urged him not to hurry, assuring him that the voyage would be much pleasanter later. The picturesque scenery on the journey down the Osage would then be really delightful; the full leafed forests, and the warm, soothing sun-rays in May or June this latitude would, she urged, make an otherwise forbidding voyage a real pleasure.
No word had reached him from his mother, nor could he tell whether any of his letters had reached her. That, when he thought of it, worried him a great deal. But he hesitated and lingered. The wild fowls had abandoned their haunts on the lakes and rivers and the sea- son for game was over. But he had learned from Monsieur Papin that the Osage and Marais des Cygnes abounded in game and fish. So on a beautiful warm day in May he took his gun and rod and strolled down to the river, thence up its shaded shore a mile or two to a point opposite some immense and picturesque cliffs which rose from the water's edge, nearly perpendicular, about two hundred feet. It was an inspiring scene and he wondered why Melicourt had never spoken of it, nor taken him to see it. The Osage at this point was and is very narrow and deep, apparently having cut its way into the very roots of this gigantic stone barricade on its short and fretful sweep around this unex- pected obstacle. Nothing but the chirping of birds and the solemn hush of the forest disturbed his meditations as he sat for some time on an old pecan log, waiting for some member of the finny tribe to excite his attention by a "nibble." He studied the scene before him in a pleased and lazy sort of manner, and became more and more anxious to cross the river and explore some of the cave-like places and recesses he could see from his position ; when suddenly, quietly, there appeared around the cliff and beneath its awful over-hanging stones, a striking female figure-a young Osage "squaw," as he finally concluded; but at the moment he was distracted by an ugly pull on his rod, and by the time he had successfully landed a ten pound "Buffalo," and got his breath, the "squaw" had disappeared.
Auguste returned to the Papin home, having enjoyed a pleasant day and with much talk for Madame Papin. The momentary glimpse
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of the beautiful "squaw" had photographed her face and figure on his mind and these would not be put away. That night he saw her in his dreams. He talked a great deal to Madame Papin about the Indians, recurring again and again to the "squaws" as they were called. He visited the village day after day for some time, and he liked to hear Madame Papin tell of the young "squaws," and dilate upon their brav- ery, strength, and social habits, if indeed they could, in a state of nature, be said to have any "social" quality.
But Auguste never told Madame Papin of the fleeting vision up at "Halley's Bluffs," nor of the form and figure that haunted his slum- bers night after night.
Auguste, Melicourt and Madame Papin often sat, in the warm spring evenings on rude benches contrived beneath the stately pecans and wide spreading elms, whose dense foliage was a real comfort in summer and a protection to their humble home when the rude blasts of winter swept down upon them from the treeless prairies of the North- west. These great kings of the primeval forests were from four to five feet in diameter, and stood more than one hundred feet high. They struck their roots deep into the richest soil to be found in the world. Plenty of moisture from below and rain and sun light from above, dur- ing years and ages past, had developed along these rivers a race of majestic pecans, elms, walnuts, sycamores, hickories, hackberries, and birches. All these varieties stood in stately grandeur about the home of the Papins. These trees spoke their own language to these children of France and they were loved and enjoyed by those who had made their home beneath their protecting branches. Here they enjoyed to the uttermost the undisturbed expression of Nature as she towered above them, reflecting the lights and shadows of the setting sun in May, or as she lay spread out before them along the Osage and the Marais des Cygnes, and on the limitless prairies to the northwest. Here they talked of France-of the cruel days of '93, of Robespierre, Danton. Mirabeau, and the great Napoleon Bonaparte; and here they talked of the missionaries and the children of the Osages, whom the good missionaries had left comfortable New England homes to rescue from ignorance and sin. Melicourt Papin was a student of the Indian chiar- acter and habits. From him, in these delightful evening chats, Auguste learned that chastity and social virtue were not among the striking and admirable characteristics of the females or "squaws." But the squaws of the Osage tribe were industrious, patient, heroic, of splendid
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