USA > Missouri > Carroll County > History of Carroll County, Missouri : carefully written and compiled from the most authentic official and private sources, including a history of its townships, cities, towns and villages, together with a condensed history of Missouri ; the Constitution of the United States, and State of Missouri ; a military record of its volunteers in either army of the Great Civil War ; general and local statistics ; miscellany ; reminiscences, grave, tragic and humorous ; biographical sketches of prominent men and citizens identified with the interests of the country > Part 32
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On the return of the soldiers to Santa Fe a number of priests were arrested and confined on a charge of inciting the rebellion. None of them were ever severely punished. They took their imprisonment good naturedly, played cards and cracked jokes with their guards, and made the best of everything. On the 9th of August the regiment took up the march for Ft. Leavenworth, where they soon arrived and were mus- tered out. The 100 men that served with Doniphan came home via New Orleans. It was but a short time after Company K was mustered out until the men were at their Carroll county homes, receiving a joyous and cordial welcome from their friends and families, and receiving congratula- tions on every hand for the excellent record they had made for them- selves and for the honors they had bestowed on the county.
Not long after they had gotton back home the men were given a formal reception at Carrollton. A barbecue was held in a grove where the Baptist church now stands, and a large concourse of people attended. Speeches were made, and Captain White returned the flag of the com- pany to the ladies who had made and presented it to them. Miss Sarah Prosser, on behalf of the ladies, received the banner, but very gracefully handed it back to the captain, saying, " We return this banner to the
*Switzler.
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HISTORY OF CARROLL COUNTY.
brave hands which so nobly upheld it and sustained it in the day of battle." The flag was then taken to the court house and placed in one of the offices for safe keeping. Miss Prosser, it will be remembered was the lady who presented the flag to the company in the first instance. She was afterward married to the gallant Capt. White, the company's com- mander. She is now a resident of St. Louis, a widow for the second time.
THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION OF 1848.
In the presidential canvass of 1848, General Zachary Taylor, of Louis- iana, was the whig candidate for president, with Millard Fillmore, of New York, for vice-president. The democrats nominated Gen. Lewis Cass, of Michigan, for president, and Gen. Wm. O. Butler, of Kentucky, for vice-president. There was no very unusual excitement .in this year, in Carroll county. The democrats carried the county, but by a reduced majority. Gen. Taylor's prominent connection with the Mexican war, just closed, caused many democratic votes to be thrown for him. The vote stood :.
Townships.
Cass and Taylor and
Butler.
Fillmore.
Sugar Tree Bottom
4
8 190
Wakanda
216
45
Morris .
16
14
Total
276
257
Majority for the democrats, 19.
The whigs made strenuous efforts to carry the state of Missouri for "Old Rough and Ready," as they called Gen. Taylor; but they failed to do so, although they were successful in the general result. The vote in Missouri was, for the democratic electors, 40,077; for the whig electors, 32,671; majority for the democrats, 7,406.
THE JACKSON RESOLUTIONS.
Early in the year 1849 there began a series of discussions in the Mis- souri Legislature concerning the slavery question, or rather the power of congress over slavery in the territories. On the 15th of January Hon. C. F. Jackson, senator from Howard, afterward governor of the state, intro- duced into the legislature a series of resolutions as follows:
Resolved by the General Assembly of the State of Missouri: That the Federal constitution was the result of a compromise between the conflict- ing interests of the states which formed it, and in no part of that instru- ment is to be found any delegation of power. to congress to legislate on the subject of slavery,"excepting some special provisions, having in view the prospective abolition of the African slave trade, made for securing the recovery of fugitive slaves; any attempt, therefore, on the part of con-
Grand River
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HISTORY OF CARROLL COUNTY.
gress, to legislate on the subject, so as to affect the institution of slavery in the states, in the District of Columbia, or in the territories, is, to say the least, a violation of the principles upon which that instrument was founded.
2. That the territories, acquired by the blood and treasure of the whole nation, ought to be governed for the common benefit of the people of all the states, and any organization of the territorial governments, excluding the citizens of any part of the Union from removing to such territories, with their property, would be an exercise of power by con- gress inconsistent with the spirit upon which our federal compact was based, insulting to the sovereignty and dignity of the states thus affected, calculated to alienate one portion of the Union from another, and tending ultimately to disunion.
3. That this general assembly regard the conduct of the northern states on the subject of slavery as releasing the slave-holding states from all further adherence to the basis of compromise fixed on by the act of congress of March 6, 1820; even if such act ever did impose any obliga- tion upon the slave-holding states, and authorizes them to insist upon their rights under the constitution; but, for the sake of harmony, and for the preservation of our Federal Union, they will still sanction the applica- tion of the principles of the Missouri Compromise to the recent territorial acquisitions, if by such concession future aggressions upon the equal rights of the states may be arrested and the spirit of anti-slavery fanaticism be extinguished.
4. The right to prohibit slavery in any territory belongs exclusively to the people thereof, and can only be exercised by them in forming their constitution for a state government or in their sovereign capacity as an independent state.
5. That in the event of the passage of any act of congress conflicting with the principles herein expressed, Missouri will be found in hearty co-operation. with the slave-holding states, in such measure as may be deemed necessary for our mutual protection against the encroachments of northern fanaticism.
6. That our senators in congress be instructed and our representatives be requested to act in conformity to the foregoing resolutions.
The foregoing resolutions were known as the "Jackson Resolutions," from the name of their mover, but their real author was Hon. W. B. Napton, of Saline county, latterly a judge of the supreme court, who admitted the fact to the writer.
Space is given to an account of the Jackson resolutions in this volume from the fact that, at the time, they engaged a large share of the atten- tion of the leading politicians and. prominent men of the county. The representative of the county voted for them, but the sentiment of his con- stituents was not unanimous in their favor. There were many who thought their passage untimely, unwise, and that they foreboded eventu- ally a dissolution of the union.
Col. Thomas H. Benton, Missouri's distinguished senator, was especi- ally opposed to the resolutions. He thought (and probably correctly, too)
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HISTORY OF CARROLL COUNTY.
that they were aimed at him, and designed to deprive him of his seat in the United States senate, which he had held for nearly thirty consecutive years. The last section commanded him to act in accordance with the resolutions, the spirit of which he had often vigorously opposed.
COL. BENTON AT CARROLLTON.
Col Benton appealed from the action of the legislature to the people of Missouri, and canvassed the state against the Jackson resolutions. He made one speech at Carrollton at the court house. . The meeting was well attended, the fame of " Old Bullion " alone being sufficient to secure a large audience in that day. Col. Benton's speech in Carrollton was long remembered by those who heard it. He maintained that the spirit of nul- lification and treason lurked in the Jackson resolutions, especially in the fifth; that they were a mere copy of the Calhoun resolutions offered in the United States senate February 19, 1847, and denounced by him (Ben- ton) at the time as fire-brands, and intended for disunion and election- eering purposes. He said he could see no difference between them, except as to the time contemplated for dissolving the union, as he claimed, that Mr. Calhoun's tended directly and the Jackson resolutions ultimately to that point. Col. Benton further argued that the Jackson resolutions were in conflict with the Missouri Compromise of 1820, and with the res- olutions passed by the Missouri legislature, February 15, 1847, wherein it was declared that " the peace, permanency and welfare of our national union depend upon a strict adherence to the letter and spirit " of that com- promise, and which instructed the Missouri senators and representatives to vote in accordance with its provisions. In conclusion, Col. Benton warned his hearers that the Jackson resolutions were intended to mislead them into aiding the scheme of ultimately disrupting the national union, and entreated them, to remain aloof from them.
Notwithstanding Col. Benton's powerful efforts, and the prestige he possessed, the anti-Benton democrats in the county were in the majority, and at the ensuing election 'an anti-Benton man was chosen to the legisla- ture, which body, however, although democratic, chose a whig, Hon. H. S. Geyer, of St. Louis, as Benton's successor.
HISTORY OF THE COUNTY FROM 1850 TO 1860.
THE FLOODS OF 1851.
In 1851 there was a general season of floods and high waters through- out the county and country. The June rise in the Missouri was some- what extensive, although not destructive. Crops were badly injured in many localities. After the flood subsided there was considerable sickness in the bottom lands.
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HISTORY OF CARROLL COUNTY.
PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION OF 1852.
The leading event of the year 1852 was the Presidential election. The two political parties in the county were the democrac and whig parties, the latter being slightly in the majority. Gen. Winfield Scott was the nominee of the whigs, and Gen. Franklin Pierce the democratic candi- date. The freesoilers had a ticket in the field headed by John P. Hale, of New Hampshire, but it cut only an insignificant figure in the campaign. This campaign will ever be regarded as a memorable one, since it was the last one in which the old whig party, as a party, presented a presidential candidate. Gen. Scott was quite well and favorably known throughout the country. He was a hero of three wars and commander-in-chief of the U. S. army during the war with Mexico. He had been a brave and gal- lant soldier, who had shed his blood for his country. British lead was in his body, which he carried with him to his grave. But however great Gen. Scott was as a soldier, he was an utter failure as a politician and as a candidate. His first speech in the campaign, to a deputation of foreigners, in which he declared that he "loved the rich Irish brogue and the sweet German accent," made him the butt of his opponents, and a subject of gen- eral ridicule, while his position on both sides of the Missouri compromise question, the tariff question, and other measures regarded as of moment, effectually killed his case before the American people, and he was over- whelmingly defeated by his opponent, a comparatively obscure New Eng- land senator and a brigadier general of volunteers in the Mexican war. Twenty-eight years thereafter Gen. Scott's namesake, Maj. Gen. Win- field Scott Hancock, was as decidedly, although not so overwhelmingly defeated in a contest for the presidency.
The vote in Carroll county this year was as follows:
Townships.
Pierce and King.
Scott and Graham.
Sugar Tree Bottom
20
25
Grand River
45
45
Morris .
13
8
Hurricane.
32
11
Wakanda
176
150 .
Total
286
239
Very soon after the election of this year the whig party fell to. pieces. From its ruins sprang the American, or "know-nothing" party, of which most of the old line whigs became members, and for whose candidates most of them voted. But for many years there were those -and some of them were in Carroll county, who called themselves whigs, swore by Henry Clay and Daniel Webster, and believed in free banks, and a pro- tective tariff.
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HISTORY OF CARROLL COUNTY.
THE DROUTH OF 1853.
In 1853 there was a universal and very harmful drouth in this portion of Missouri. No rain fell for some weeks. . Streams and wells were dried up; stock suffered greatly, for pastures were poor or worthless, and water was scarce; fields of crops were rendered actually worthless. A drouth in that day bore harder upon the people than one does now. Then there were no railroads to bring in provisions and supplies, and unless their neighbors' barns and cribs were filled, they had to suffer or go to some far away Egypt for corn.
THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION. OF 1856.
In the presidential election of 1856, when Buchanan and Breckenridge were the democratic candidates, and Fillmore and Donelson, the nomi- nees of the American or know nothing party, Carroll county went dem- ocratic as usual, and by an increased majority. When the whig party went down very many of its members joined the democratic party, in preference to uniting with the know nothings, whose cardinal principles were opposition to the holding of office by foreigners and Roman Catho- lics. "Americans must rule America," was their watchword. The party was a secret political one, had stated secret meetings, signs, grips, pass- words, etc. Long afterward many politicians found it convenient to deny that they had ever belonged to the "Know Nothings." The result of the election in Carroll county was:
Townships.
Buchanan and Fillmore and Breckenridge. 15 Donelson.
Wakanda, Beatty's district.
13
Wakanda, Carrollton district.
305
138
Hurricane .
50
17
Sugar Tree Bottom, Hill's Landing district
37
29
Sugar Tree Bottom, Miles' Point district.
98
60
Grand River, Windsor district.
58
82
Grand River, Western district.
23
18
Morris, Smith's mill district.
52
33
Morris, Nance's district
' 21
9
Total
659
399
The democrats had increased their majority from 47, in 1852, to 260 in 1856.
DURING THE TROUBLES IN KANSAS.
From the first of the troubles in the territory of Kansas, until the last, as to whether or not there should be slavery in the state upon its admis- sion into the Union, the people of Carroll took a part therein upon the pro-slavery side. For some time many of those interested in the institu- tion of slavery, believing their interests to be in danger, and that the end
282
HISTORY OF CARROLL COUNTY.
would jnstify the means, had been members of a secret political order looking to the preservation, perpetuation, and extension of the "peculiar institution." This organization had many members in this county, and three or four lodges or "camps." These were in communication with other "camps" in other states, and performed an important part of one division of the work for which the order was created.
This organization had its hailing signs, its grips, its passwords, and was near to kin and auxiliary to the famous Knights of the Golden Circle. It did what it could to make Kansas a slave state. Many of its members, as well as some other citizens of the county who were not members, went regularly to Kanaas and voted every time a territorial legislature was to be chosen or a constitution adopted, and as regularly returned to their Missouri homes after the election! But the free-soilers of the north were pursuing the same tactics, and there was that sort of excuse, if it be lawful to call it an excuse. Sharpe's rifles and brass cannon were bought with the proceeds of northern church collections, and sent in charge of men who would use them "to consecrate the soil of Kansas to freedom," as the northern abolition sentimentalists expressed it, and there was a great deal of fraud and other wrong perpetrated by both the pro-slavery and free- soil factions.
In the fall of 1855, Col. Stephen Stafford left the county, at the head of 30 or 40 men, to take part in the "settlement(?) of Kansas." The mem- bers were well armed -- probably to protect themselves from the wild beasts of the forest(!)-and well equiped. They marched directly to the Wakarusa, a small stream east of the town of Lawrence, where they found a large body of pro-slavery men encamped to the number of about 3,000.
Many prominent men of Missouri were also at the Wakarusa. Hon. C. F. Jackson, B. F. Stringfellow, Col. John W. Reid, and other gentlemen of equal notoriety and prominence from this state were there and in con- sultation. Greeley's "American Conflict" says a conference which dic- tated the action of the pro-slavery men when the Lecompton constitution was planned and determined upon, was held in Jackson's tent, the night before the election of delegates to the constitutional convention.
It is presumed that the Carroll county men in Kansas did their duty by their side, while they were there, and voted as early and as often as occa- sion required and necessity demanded. They were in no fights or other collisions with the free state forces, and soon the most of them returned to their homes, and to the bosoms of their families, to rest on the laurels they won when doing duty for old Missouri in "bleeding Kansas."
Gen. Stringfellow, who was then one of the most prominent pro-slavery men in Kansas and in the west, was from Chariton county, and had been pro- secuting attorney for this judicial circuit. He is now, strange to say, a repub-
283
HISTORY OF CARROLL COUNTY.
lican, and a believer, with very many of that party, in the "fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man." His conversion, if it be a conversion, was as sudden and almost as miraculous as that of Saul of Tarsus from Pharisaism to Christianity.
THE DROUTH OF 1857.
The season of 1857 was remarkable for the long drouth that prevailed throughout the country. It was even more severe than in 1853. On the uplands there was great distress. Big Creek was dry, Hurricane was dry, Tater Hill was dry, and Wakanda was very low indeed. Water was hauled for miles for household uses. The bottoms fared only tolerably. In some parts there were good crops raised, notwithstanding the dryness of the season, and the fortunate possessors were wont to boast over their good fortune when talking to their neighbors on the uplands. The latter, in a good-humored way, had chaffed the "bottomites" when they were washed out by the floods, and now it was the turn of the aforesaid men of the river lands to exult.
The comet of this year was unusually large and brilliant, and to many presaged the dry season, and even the civil war that began in 1861. There were those who gazed upon the blazing celestial wanderer with fear and trembling, almost, as it swept athwart the heavens,
"Shaking from its horrid head famine, pestilence, and war,"
and feeling sure that it caused not only the drouth, but portended other dire evils to the country as well. This was the largest and most brilliant comet ever seen in Carroll county.
FROM 1860 TO THE BEGINNING OF THE CIVIL WAR.
In very many respects the presidential campaign of 1860 was the most remarkable in the history of the United States. Its character was influ- enced not only by preceding but succeeding events. Among the preced- ing events were the excited and exciting debates in congress over the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, and the Kansas-Nebraska controversy; the passage by the legislatures of various northern states of the Personal Liberty Bills, which rendered inoperative in those states the Fugitive Slave Law; the John Brown raid on Harper's Ferry, Va., in the fall of 1859, and various inflammatory speeches of prominent leaders of the Republican and Democratic parties in the north and in the south.
There was the greatest excitement throughout the country, and when it was in full tide the presidential canvass opened. The slavery question was the all-absorbing one among the people. The republican party, which had carried a large majority of the northern states in the canvass of 1856, had received large accessions, and under the circumstance of
284
HISTORY OF CARROLL COUNTY.
there being great dissension in the democratic party, prognosticating a split, bade fair to elect its candidates. The democratic convention at Charleston, S. C., April 23, after a stormy and inharmonious session of some days, divided, and the result was the nomination of two sets of can- didates-Stephen A. Douglas and Hershel V. Johnson for president and vice-president, by the "regulars," and John C. Breckenridge and Joseph Lane, by the southern or states rights wing of the party.
The " constitutional union " party, made up of old whigs, know noth- ings, and some conservative men of all parties, nominated John Bell, of Tennessee, and Edward Everett, of Massachusetts, on a platform com- posed of a single line-" The union, the constitution and the enforcement of the laws."
The republican party was the last to bring out its candidates. It pre- sented Abraham Lincoln and Hannibal, Hamblin, on a platform declaring, among other things, that each state had the absolute right to control and manage its own domestic institutions; denying that the constitution, of its own force, carried slavery into the territories, whose normal condition was said to be that of freedom. Epitomized, the platfrom meant hostility toward the extension of slavery, non-interference where it already existed.
It was to be expected that Missouri, being the only border slave state lying contiguous to the territories of Kansas and Nebraska, should be deeply concerned in the settlement of the slavery question. Her people or their ancestors were very largely from Kentucky, Virginia and other slave holding states, and many of them owned slaves or were otherwise Interested in the preservation of slavery, to which institution the success of the republican party, it was believed, would be destructive. There were many of this class in Carroll county. Hemp was beginning to be the great staple of the county, and its cultivation depended for profit upon slave labor. There was not only a selfish motive for the friendliness toward the " peculiar institution," but a sentimental one. It was thought that it would be unmanly to yield to northern sentiment of a threatening shape or coercive character. If slavery were wrong (which was denied), it must not be assailed at the dictation of northern abolitionists.
The convass in the state was very spirited. The division in the demo- cratic party extended into Missouri. The democratic state convention nominated Claiborne F. Jackson, of Saline county for governor. The Bell and Everett party nominated at first Robert Wilson, of Andrew, and on his withdrawal Hon. Sample Orr. Very soon the politicians began a series of maneuvers designed to develop Jackson's views on the main questions before the country, and especially as to which of the two dem- ocratic presidential candidates he favored. For a long time the wily Sa- line county statesman succeeded in evading the question and in defining his position; but at last the Missouri Republican and other Douglas or-
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GEN. JAS. SHIELDS
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HISTORY OF CARROLL COUNTY.
gans "smoked him out." He announced in a well-written communica- tion that he was for Douglas, because he believed him to be the regular' and fairly chosen nominee of the party; but at the same time he an- nounced himself in favor of many of the principles of the Breckenridge party. He was called by many who disliked him "a Douglas man with Breckenrige tendencies," "a squatter sovereign on an anti-squatter sover- eignty platform," etc.
When Jackson's letter appeared, soon thereafter the Breckenridge men called a state convention and put in nomination Hancock Jackson, of Howard, for governor, and Monroe M. Parsons, of Cole, for lieutenant Governor.
Being encouraged by the feuds in the democratic party, the Bell and Everett men had high hopes of electing their gubernatorial candidate at the August election, and of carrying the state for "Bell of Tennessee" the ensuing November. To this end they did everything possible to foment additional discord and widen the breach between the two wings of their opponents; but they over-did the business. The democrats saw through their tactics, and, agreeing to disagree as to presidential candidates, prac- tically united in the support of C. F. Jackson and Thos. C. Reynolds, at the August election, and triumphantly elected them by a plurality of about 10,000. C. F. Jackson, Douglas Democrat, 74,446; Sample Orr, Bell and Everett, 64,583; Hancock Jackson, Breckenridge democrat 11,415; J. B. Gardenhire, republican, 6,135. Nothing daunted by their defeat in Aug- ust, the Bell and Everett men kept up the fight for their presidential can- didates, and came within a few hundred votes of carrying the state for them in November, the vote standing:
For the Douglas electors . . 58,801
For the Bell electors.
. 58,372
For the Breckenridge electors
For the Lincoln electors. . 31,317
17,028 Douglas' majority over Bell. 429
Douglas' majority over Breckenridge. .27,484
It is said that many Democrats voted for Bell because they thought he was the only candidate that could defeat Lincoln. In the October election the republicans had carried Pennsylvania, Ohio and Indiana, and Lincoln's election was almost inevitable. Fusion tickets against the republicans had been formed in New York, New Jersy, and other states, and many thought the Tennessee statesman might be elected after all.
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