History of Bates County, Missouri, Part 71

Author: Atkeson, William Oscar, 1854-
Publication date: 1918
Publisher: Topeka, Cleveland, Historical publishing company
Number of Pages: 1174

USA > Missouri > Bates County > History of Bates County, Missouri > Part 71

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stations where the horses were changed were located at Mulberry, east of La Cygne, then another station at Butler and on the Appleton City route there was a station at Lahi, on the farm now owned by Clark Wix and at that time known as the John Brown farm. The next station was located at Appleton City, and the last one was situated at Osceola. Mr. Lindsay recalls that Messrs. Barlow, Sanderson and Com- pany had the contract for carrying the mails from Pleasant Hill, Mis- souri to Fort Scott, Kansas, and at the time Mr. Lindsay came here this firm was running a big stage coach via Harrisonville and Butler in 1870. Mr. Lindsay disposed of his mail routes in 1880 and a few years later they were discontinued as star routes. He also operated a tri-weekly route to Pleasant Gap, and another route to West Point which was tri-weekly. After leaving the mail carrying business, Mr. Lindsay and his brother engaged in livestock buying and his brother moved on the family farm in Linn county. He died in 1901 in Indian- .apolis, Indiana. Mr. Lindsay then settled up their business affairs and moved to Fort Scott where he resided until 1906. In that year he came to Butler, where he has a fine residence property in connection with a tract of four acres within the city limits.

Mr. Lindsay was married on January 21, 1880 to Alice Wyatt, a daughter of F. M. and Emeline (Sever) Wyatt, of Butler, Missouri. The Wyatts located in Butler in April of 1870, where Mrs. Wyatt died February 8, 1886, Mr. Wyatt dying on October 7, 1917 at the age of eighty-four years. In October, 1902, Mr. Wyatt was stricken with paralysis and for fifteen years he was helpless and neither spoke nor walked. Two other children born to Mr. and Mrs. Wyatt besides Mrs. Lindsay are living: James O. Wyatt, Maroa, Illinois; and Mrs. Anna T. Johnson, Portland, Oregon. To Mr. and Mrs. A. Lindsay the fol- lowing children have been born: Harry W., and Edith. . Harry W. Lindsay is now engaged in the loan business at Kenton, Ohio. Prior . to locating in Kenton, he was in the employ of a bank at Pasadena, California, for seven years and was also cashier of a bank at Central Point, Oregon before his removal to Kenton, Ohio. He married Ruth Andrews, a daughter of J. F. Andrews, a well known capitalist of Ken- ton. Edith is the wife of Wesley Denton, president of the Peoples Bank of Butler, to whose biography the reader is referred in another part of this volume. Mr. and Mrs. Lindsay have a beautiful, modern home on West Fort Scott street, all buildings being kept in a good state of repair and painted. He is well informed concerning every

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day matters and recalls the pioneer times in Bates county when he carried the mails for the government, his memory of the conditions of things in those early days being excellent.

William Benjamin Tyler, retired farmer, Butler, Missouri, was born on September 7, 1844 in Kentucky, the son of Charles (born March 10, 1818, died September 2, 1912) and Susan (Brown) Tyler (born 1825), died September 3, 1879). Charles and Susan Tyler were both natives of Kentucky, Henry county. They came to Missouri in 1853 and set- tled in Johnson county, near Knob Noster, where Mr. Tyler entered government land, his first quarter section costing him twelve and one- half cents per acre and he also secured another tract of one hundred and sixty acres southeast of Knob Noster at a cost of one dollar and twenty-five cents an acre. He sold his Johnson county land in 1860 and bought land in Pettis county, where he resided until the close of the Civil War. He then came to Bates county on March 1, 1866 and settled in Spruce township, south of Ballard. He bought a farm here and sold it after some years, and then bought a farm in Deepwater township which he later sold. He died at West Plains, Howell county, Missouri.

In 1864, W. B. Tyler enlisted in Johnson county, Missouri for ser- vice with the Confederate forces under Capt. Palm Smith and his com- pany was attached to Fighting Joe Shelby's brigade. He served for one year and was with General Price's army when the general made his last raid into Kansas. Mr. Tyler was stationed at Corsicana, Texas when the war closed. He went to Shreveport and there sur- rendered with Shelby's forces on June 14, 1865. He returned home and on March 1, 1866 he came to Bates county. He rented land for ten years in Spruce and Deepwater townships and resided in Spruce township until 1892. He then moved to Summit township and bought . the Winsett farm which he sold to the Scully interests in 1894. He next bought the farm now owned by B. P. Powell and later sold it to Mr. Powell. His next venture was the improvement of a forty-acre farm located three miles east of Butler which he sold in the fall of 1915. Mr. Tyler now resides in a modern bungalow in North Water street just outside of the city limits of Butler and one of the most attrac- tive suburban places in the vicinity of Butler. During his residence in Summit township he served four years as township trustee and treasurer.

On December 31, 1868, W. B. Tyler was married to Rachel Moore of Pettis county, Missouri, a daughter of Jefferson and Elizabeth

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(Coates) Moore. Mr. and Mrs. Tyler have the following children : Fannie, wife of W. R. Hall, Nevada, Missouri; Mrs. Alice Hoskins, who has a daughter, Mildred; Jessie, wife of Quintus Kaune, Everett, Washington ; Susan, married Everett Grant, and lives near Butler, Mis- souri; Percy E., Parsons, Kansas, in the employ of the Missouri, Kansas & Texas railway, married Mary Frye and has one son, William Benjamin; three children died in infancy. Mr. Tyler has been a director of the Missouri State Bank for the past ten years.

When W. B. Tyler first came to Spruce township he leased a farm of forty acres and made his home in a little cabin on the place. He was poor but industrious, and his neighbors were all in like condition. In 1870, a stranger came along accompanied by his wife and inquired if there were any vacant houses in the country. He desired shelter for the winter. Mr. Tyler did not know of any house that was vacant at the time, as there were very few houses of any kind on the prairie at that time. They talked further about the matter and the stranger then asked Mr. Tyler if he did not wish to sell his place. Upon learn- · ing that Mr. Tyler had only a lease on the farm he offered to buy it and a deal was made. The stranger referred to was Thomas Cudde- back, who became well known among the early settlers of the county. Cuddeback eventually bought the forty acres of land and added one hundred twenty acres a few years later. He created one of the best farms in Spruce township which he later sold and removed to Johnson county, Kansas, where he died in 1914. He sold his Spruce township farm for the high price of thirty-five dollars an acre. He and Mr. Tyler were very close friends for many years and had a brotherly affection for each other. During the hard times of the seventies when dollars were scarce and seemed to be as big as cart wheels, with farm products very low in price, they frequently assisted one another, by going on each other's notes at the banks and when buying goods at public sales. When they had to pay their taxes each followed the custom of "Henry Clay and Daniel Webster," who frequently indorsed the other's notes when in need of money. Thomas Cuddeback was vice-president of the Spring Hill, Kansas, Banking Company for many years and stood high as a citizen. His brother, Frank Cuddeback, bought a farm in Spruce township in 1873 and later sold it and made his home in John- son county, Kansas, where he died in 1917.

During the winter of '66 and '67. W. B. Tyler hauled corn from Spruce township to Butler with two yoke of oxen and sold the corn

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for one dollar and one dollar and twenty-five cents per bushel to a Cap- tain Wally, a liveryman, who charged seventy-five cents for a feed of hay or corn to one horse. One -evening, after he had unloaded his corn, a storm of snow and sleet came on and Mr. Tyler decided it would be impossible to drive home, a distance of sixteen miles at night as he had no lantern and the roads were not good. A squatter lived on the land now occupied by the Butler cemetery. Mr. Tyler drove out there and ask for lodging for the night. The man told him that he was shy of bed covers and could not accommodate him. Tyler told him he would be willing to put up with any inconvenience rather than to brave the storm, and the man told him to come in and stay. . He sat up in a chair all night long and left his oxen tied to the wheels of his lynch-pin wagon. The lynch-pin wagon of that day would be a curi- osity now. The tongue of the wagon was morticed solidly to the front axle and the wheels with their long hubs were held in place by lynch- pins which were dropped through slots cut in the hubs and axles. Mr. Tyler talks interestingly of the old times, and is well satisfied with conditions as they are at the present day, when he and his wife can enjoy the many comforts of modern civilization.

Decatur Smith, M. D., a retired pioneer physician of Bates county, Missouri, is one of Butler's most honored and valued citizens. Doctor Smith is a native son of Missouri. He was born June 29, 1841, in St. Louis county, a son of Henry and Mary J. (Watson) Smith. Henry Smith was one of the earliest settlers of St. Louis county, Missouri, a resident of that section of the state when the red men of the forest still claimed the land and resided there on their hunting grounds.

Doctor Smith received his higher education at McDowell College at St. Louis, Missouri. He was a young college student at the time of the outbreak of the Civil War and in February, 1862 he eulisted as a private and served as assistant surgeon in Company D, Sixth Missouri Cavalry, three years and two months, receiving his honorable discharge at Baton Rouge, Louisiana in 1865. After the war had closed, Doctor Smith returned to his home in St. Louis county, Missouri, and remained there one year, coming thence to Bates county in May, 1866. He intended at that time to locate at Butler, but the war had so devastated the town and the prairie surrounding the townsite was not yet settled and there were so few people left in the little village that the young physician changed his mind and decided to open his office at Pleasant Gap. a larger, more populous and prosperous town at that time. Doctor Smith

DR. DECATUR SMITH.

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was offered eighty acres of land located near Prairie City, Missouri, for two dollars an acre and he had the money in his possession with which he might have purchased the land, but he refused the offer. In September of the same year, the eighty acres of land were sold for twenty dollars an acre. Doctor Smith opened a drug store at Pleasant Gap in con- nection with his office, but this proved to be an unsatisfactory venture, as his practice interfered with the proper care of his business interests and it was impossible to obtain competent assistants. Doctor Smith disposed of his store after a short time. He relates how he was want to travel in the early days on horseback across the prairies and how he would sometimes be gone four days and nights before he could return to his office. The settlers would follow after him and he would answer a call direct from one sickbed to another, oftentimes traveling seventy- five miles on horseback in a single day. He made it a rule to carry medicines and all things needed in an emergency case in his old-style saddlebags. The doctor closed his office at Pleasant Gap in 1870 and moved to Rockville, where he was engaged in the practice of his pro- fession until the spring of 1871, but as Mrs. Smith was unhappy and dissatisfied in the new home they moved on a farm lying four miles south of the city and then Doctor Smith retired from the active prac- tice of medicine. The Smiths moved from their farm to Butler in 1876 and have since been residents of this city, where he practiced medi- cine for seven years and freighted goods from Kansas City, Pleasanton and Appleton City for some years. Their home is located at 200 South Mechanic street in Butler.

October 18, 1866, Dr. Decatur Smith and Mary Jane Atkison were united in marriage at Pleasant Gap, Missouri. To this union were born two children: Alice Elizabeth, who died at the age of fourteen years ; and Edgar D., who has been a mail carrier on a rural route out of Butler for the past fifteen years. Their mother, and the doctor's faithful companion and helpmeet for fifty years, died August 1, 1916.

Doctor Smith recalls Doctor Tousey, who was located on Round Prairie near Hudson in the early days. Doctor Tousey had been engaged in the medical practice in this vicinity before the Civil War and was quite an aged man at the time young Doctor Smith located in Bates county, a man of probably eighty years of age. He and his young col- league frequently held consultations. Doctor Patten located at Butler at about the same time as did Doctor Smith at Pleasant Gap and he is now deceased. Dr. William Requa, who was located at Harmony

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Mission, was well known by Doctor Smith and he has often heard him relate how he journeyed up the river and established the Mission.

Endowed by nature with a remarkable sturdy physique and a splen- did intellect, Doctor Smith has been able to withstand the wear and tear of time and fatiguing labor remarkably well and is now well past the three score years and ten allotted to man. He is a gentleman of such traits of character that in all his years of practice and activity in Bates county, he could not but leave the impress of his personality wherever he was known. While Bates county has to its credit many men of prominence in all spheres of endeavor, and while its historical annals teem with the records of hundreds of unselfish lives and deeds, the name of Dr. Decatur Smith will always occupy a high place among the county's respected and representative citizens, not alone because of his useful career as physician but also on account of his broad human sympa- thies and sterling honor.

Rev. Lewis McComb .- The late Rev. Lewis McComb, of Bates county, will long be remembered as the pioneer Baptist minister of this county, who was universally loved and esteemed by all who knew him. He was born in Knox county, Tennessee, May 27, 1821, and was a son of William McComb, who removed from Tennessee to Sangamon county, Illinois in 1827. William McComb was father of ten children. He died in Illinois in 1835. Two years later, his widow removed with her family of children to Miller county, Missouri. Lewis McComb was there married to Sarah Vann in 1840. In 1845 he located in John- son county and in 1848 made a settlement in Van Buren (now Bates county ). Soon after his arrival in this county in August, 1848, he entered government land and also bought adjoining land which he developed and became owner of several hundred acres. As a farmer and stockman he was quite successful. He resided in Spruce town- ship for many years and became well-to-do. His dwelling house was erected upon land which practically stood in three counties, but was never moved. When the McComb residence was built, the land was located in Van Buren county. After the territory was re-districted. it was called Cass and Vernon counties, and later, Bates county was formed and thus remained through the Civil War period. The McComb residence was built in 1853 and it was occupied by its builders and the members of his family until 1905, with the exception of two years of the Civil War when Order Number Eleven was issued. In 1905 a new dwelling was erected upon the McComb farm.

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When Lewis McComb settled in Spruce township, his nearest neighbor was Mr. Embree on Elk Fork, almost five miles away. Deer and wild turkey were plentiful and he killed them in large numbers in his own dooryard when in need of fresh meat for the family larder. Reverend McComb lived to see a wilderness developed into a thickly populated and prosperous country and took a very active part in its up-building.

Soon after Lewis McComb came to Bates county, he was joined by his three brothers, Jacob, John, and James, and a sister, Elizabeth. Jacob McComb bought a farm adjoining that of his brother Lewis and lived thereon until the outbreak of the Civil War, when he enlisted in the Confederate army and was wounded at the battle of Wilson's Creek, dying three days later from the effect of his wounds. John McComb opened a store at Papinsville, and afterward moved to Butler, where he opened the first store in the town, in 1855, the store being operated under the firm name of McComb & Robinson. This store was conducted until the outbreak of the Civil War, when John McComb joined the Southern army and was elected captain of a company of men recruited in Bates county. Capt. John McComb led the charge upon the Federal stronghold at Lone Jack. While making the charge at the head of his men, just as he had climbed atop the fence sur- rounding the Federal stronghold, he was shot in the left breast, the bullet passing through the lung and body. He fell into the arms of one of his own men and told him to lay him down and to go on with the charge. When the battle was over his brother, Lewis, was noti- fied and immediately went to his brother's assistance at the risk of his own life, remaining with the wounded soldier until his death on the following Sunday night. The wounded captain was taken to a room occupied by nineteen other sufferers and his brother, Lewis, was the only attendant. The room was poorly lighted by a grease lamp and about all that could be done for the wounded men, was to change their uncomfortable positions occasionally and give them water to drink, while all the time one was compelled to listen to their shrieks of pain and dying moans. Three men died on that night. The battle of Lone Jack was fought on Friday morning and John McComb died the Sun- day following his mortal wound. His brother Lewis remained with him until he died and was buried and then made his way home, suc- cessfully evading several Union scouting parties on his homeward way. James McComb came to Bates county in 1853, and taught two

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terms of school. In the spring of 1854 he farmed with Lewis McComb, and taught school in Henry county. In 1855 he and his brother, John, opened a store in Butler, and in November of 1856, he left Butler to become a student at the State University in Columbia. In the fall of 1857 he entered the St. Louis Medical College, and in 1858, he began the practice of medicine near Lebanon in La Clede county. Dr. McComb graduated from the Jefferson Medical College, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and then located permanently in Lebanon, where he has ever since been engaged in the practice of his profession. He is the only surviving member of his father's family at this date.

Elizabeth McComb became the wife of Bowen Coleman, a men- ber of a prominent pioneer family of Bates county. She died soon after her marriage, leaving one child, Ella, now the wife of S. B. Kash of Deepwater township.

The marriage of Rev. Lewis McComb and Sarah Vann was con- summated in 1845. Five children were born to this marriage, namely : J. D., Porum, Oklahoma; Dr. Lewis L., Norman, Oklahoma; William, died at the age of twenty-four, Lawrence, Kansas; Mary J .; and one other, deceased. Mrs. Mary (Vann) McComb died in 1855. Some time after the death of his first wife he married in 1857 Annie E. Cooper, who died six months later. In 1859, he married Mary J. Radford, who bore him children as follow: John L., Norman, Oklahoma; Mrs. Amy E. Malsbee, deceased; Mrs. Sarah L. Rogers, Spruce, Missouri; Finis, deceased; Charles A. McComb, Butler, Missouri; Walter Q., Spruce, Missouri; Mrs. Mary J. McElwain, Nevada, Missouri. Mrs. Mary J. McComb died October 6, 1882.

At the age of thirty-five years, Lewis McComb entered the Baptist ministry and from that time on his life was unselfishly given to others as a servant of Christ. He became pastor of many churches in Bates and adjoining counties and served as pastor of the home church located on his farm for seventeen consecutive years. He resigned his position and the congregation then passed resolutions asking him to continue his pastorate. After a lapse of two years he again became the pastor of the church and continued to preach the gospel until advancing age compelled him to relinquish his duties as pastor. He preached the Gospel until he attained the age of eighty-six years and even after attain- ing that great age he would respond to calls. Until his later years he remained active and in possession of his mental powers, able to hitch his horse to the carriage and journey anywhere he was called to minster

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to an ailing body or soul. Reverend McComb possessed a fair knowl- edge of the healing art and frequently took care of the sick and ailing on the country side. In this, he was the typical pioneer minister who combined the two professions in caring for the members of his flock.

He was widely known as the "Marrying Parson," the "St. Louis Republic" at one time referring to him in this sense, and stating that he had married more couples than any man in the state of Missouri during the course of his ministerial career.

Rev. Lewis McComb sold his farm to his son, Charles A. McComb, in 1897 but continued to make his home on the place until his death, February 26, 1907. His death marked the passing of one of the best loved and most useful personages of the pioneer era of Bates county. He endured many hardships in the pioneer days of the settlement and development of western Missouri, but maintained a cheerful disposi- tion through adversity and sorrow and lived to see peace and plenty mingled with happiness and contentment take the place of the old, trou- blesome days on the plains of Bates and adjoining counties. He spent the major part of his long life as a pioneer Baptist missionary in western Missouri and eastern Kansas and assisted in establishing many Baptist churches in this section. He resided upon his farm in Bates county continually until his death with the exception of two years spent in Morgan and Miller counties from 1863 to the close of the Civil War in accordance with the requirements of General Ewing's Order Number Eleven. Reverend McComb donated the land for the church and ceme- tery located in Spruce township upon his farm and was a large factor in the building of the church edifice thereon. Both he and his wife are sleeping the long sleep of the just and godly in the plat of ground which he set aside for the community burial place many years ago. Alongside with them are sleeping children and relatives who have departed from this earthly realm. History will give Rev. Lewis McComb an enviable place in the annals of Bates county and western Missouri for the great work which he accomplished and the unselfish and whole hearted devo- tion with which he ministered to the souls and bodies of the people of Bates county. No task was ever too great for him if by doing it he could benefit some one of his fellow men; no sacrifice was too great for him to make if he could save a soul and win a convert to Christianity and his converts numbered into the hundreds and thousands during his long and devoted ministerial career.

James E. Nickell, owner of a splendid farm of two hundred and (47)

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eighty acres in Deepwater township, was born in Tazewell county, Vir- ginia, August 20, 1855, a son of Thomas (born 1827-died February 18, 1911). and Sarah (Harman) Nickell, the former of whom was a native of Kentucky and the latter a native of Virginia. Thomas Nickell was a veteran of the Civil War, having served in the Confederate army in Virginia. During the war in 1863 he located in Omaha, where he became one of the originators of the Omaha Stock Yards. Mrs. Sarah Nickell died in 1863. Thomas and Sarah Nickell were parents of the following children: James E .; Howard; and Rosa, who died at the age of thirteen years. James E. Nickell came to Bates county in 1868 with an uncle, James H. Harman, who located on a farm in the northeast part of Deepwater township which he improved and later sold and bought a farm situated five miles northeast of Butler. After some years of residence on this place, Mr. Harman sold it and moved to Warrens- burg, where he died. Mr. Nickell made his home with his uncle during his boyhood days and attended the Elm Grove school. He took up farming as a life vocation and has prospered from a small beginning, now owning a large place of two hundred and eighty acres, one quarter section of which is the old Nicholas Choate farm. He has a handsome farm residence and a splendid barn erected in 1897. The Nickell farm presents a well kept appearance and its productive capacity is kept at the maximum.

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History of Bates County, Missouri, Part 71

Author: Atkeson, William Oscar, 1854- Publication date: 1918 Publisher: Topeka, Cleveland, Historical publishing company Number of Pages: 1174

Author: Atkeson, William Oscar, 1854-
Publication date: 1918
Publisher: Topeka, Cleveland, Historical publishing company
Number of Pages: 1174