USA > Missouri > Dunklin County > History of Dunklin County, Mo., 1845-1895 Embracing an historical account of the towns and post-villages of Clarkton, Cotton Plant, Cardwell, Caruth [etc.] Including a department devoted to the description of the early appearance, settlement, development, resources With an album of its people and homes, profusely illustrated > Part 5
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HISTORY OF DUNKLIN COUNTY, MO.
five strong, have a pastor most of the time and a very good Sunday-school.
CHRISTIAN CHURCH.
The first Christian Church was organized in this county at Malden in 1885, by Rev. John Sewell, from near Poplar Bluff, and Rev. Martin. The organiza-
CHRISTIAN CHURCH, KENNETT.
tion, as first effected, had twenty-two members. Prominent among these first members was Dr. F. M. Wilkins and wife, R. C. Vincent and wife, and other leading citizens of Malden. The church grew rapidly until it numbered about the greatest in the town.
In June, 1889, a Christian Church was organized at Kennett by Elder S. M. Martin, with 168 members. This congregation now has one of the prettiest church buildings in the county, of which its members are justly proud. Besides the two just mentioned above
76
HISTORY OF DUNKLIN COUNTY, MO.
they have organizations at the following places : Campbell, Halcomb, Bethel Church, Bark Camp, Lulu Church, and Bible Grove. They own four houses of worship and one-fourth in a union house, which they value at $5,900. Their houses are among the neatest and best churches in the county. They have a mem- bership in the county of 550, and four Sunday-schools with an enrollment of 200 scholars, and about ten officers and teachers.
In 1876, a Christian minister held a series of meet- ings in Kennett, but nothing definite can be learned of the organization. But little can be learned of the ministers of this denomination who first visited this county, although there have been quite a number from time to time. Elder H. C. West of Kennett (recently deceased ) has for several years looked after and preached to most of the Christian churches in the southern part of this county. He was not considered a brilliant talker, but was earnest, zealous and uni- versally respected. Other elders in the county are R. H. Stanley, Malden ; and M. Marcum, Wrightville.
CATHOLIC CHURCH.
St. Patrick Catholic Church was dedicated by Father Furlong, July 15, 1894. This church is situ- ated in the town of Malden, and is a neat little house of worship worth about $1,000. It is the only Catho- lic Church in the county, and as the Catholics who reside in the county do not, perhaps, exceed fifty in number, they are pardonably proud of their first home within its borders. Among its first members were
77
HISTORY OF DUNKLIN COUNTY, MO.
Mrs. Crawshaw, Mr. and Mrs. Albert Davis, Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Casey, Mrs. Keene and Mr. and Mrs. Joe Arnes of Kennett. Father Furlong, who resides at New Madrid, administers to their spiritual needs on the fourth Sabbath of each month.
CHAPTER VII.
RESOURCES.
This section is unsurpassed in its agricultural resources ; all the products of the field, dairy, orchard, garden and vineyard, may be produced from our soil with ease. This is the banner county of the State for cotton, and is a very large corn producer.
The character of the soil is of such a nature that it is susceptible of the highest state of cultivation and productiveness. It yields promptly and bountifully to every intelligent touch of labor. Its resources only need development to make it one of the richest counties in the State.
The timbers of Dunklin County are abundant, the county being literally covered with a very fine grade of timber where the land is not in cultivation, and consists of sycamore, sweet, black and tupelo-gum, cypress, white, burr, cow and black-oak, locust, red- elm, hickory, ash, cotton-wood, maple and some beech, walnut and poplar. There are also mulberry
78
HISTORY OF DUNKLIN COUNTY, MO.
and many other less valuable timbers in large quan- tities.
This county sent to the World's Columbian Exposi- tion an ash block two feet long, five feet, eight inches in diameter, which not only excelled any ash on ex- hibition from any State in the Union, but also from any other country in the world. There was also a walnut block three feet, eight inches, and a hickory block three feet, nine inches in diameter. The only specimens of iron wood from this State were sent from Dunklin County. Cork wood, which is found to be plentiful in this county and not found elsewhere in the State, made a very valuable acquisition to the exhibit.
The products of our fields sent were a cucumber weighing forty-six pounds, and very fine samples of pumpkins, sweet and Irish potatoes, corn and the finest cotton of any county in Missouri. It may be stated here that this county produces annually more cotton than the entire remainder of the State of Missouri.
Nearly all kinds of fruit, tame and wild grasses, yonkepins, mosses, etc., went along with the exhibit, and showed Dunklin County's resources and products to be equal to, and in some instances better, than any county in a State made up of good counties.
There are about 317,242-2% acres of land in this county.
From personal knowledge and from such informa- tion as can be gained from the Map of Topographical Survey of the Swamp Lands in Southeast Missouri, made under the direction of N. C. Frissell, chief
79
HISTORY OF DUNKLIN COUNTY, MO.
engineer, by J. R. Van Frank, assistant engineer, the writer judges the following to be a very close estimate of the lands now in cultivation in the county.
Acres.
In Township 16, R. 9. 3,000
16, R. 8. 2,000
.. 16, R. 7 1,000
17, R. 9. 9,000
17, R. 8. 4,200
17, R. 7 500
7,700
18, R. 8.
1,500
19, R. 10.
3,000
19, R. 9.
3,500
20, R. 10.
5,190
20, R. 9.
1,000
..
21, R. 10.
11,140
21, R. 9. 5,130
21, R. 8. 900
22, R. 10.
10,400
22, R. 9. 6,940
22, R. 8. 480
. .
23, R. 10. 3,940
23, R. 9. 1,920
23, R, 8. 200
Total acres.
82,640
Of the remaining 234, 602,2% acres there are probably at least 100,000 acres that might be practically put in cultivation. There are approximately 100,000 acres
18, R. 9.
80
HISTORY OF DUNKLIN COUNTY, MO.
within the limits of the county which are subject to overflow in spring, and this includes some of the lands in cultivation. Thirty-five thousand acres of this overflow lands lie west of Little River, and the remaining 65,000 acres in the swamp of that river.
Taking the estimate of high land, which is and might easily be put in cultivation, at 182,640 acres, then there is left 134,602-2% acres of swamp lands in Dunklin County, that may not be cultivated now. Still it is reasonably certain that the levee along the Mississippi River will protect Dunklin County from the periodical overflows, and give it a much larger tillable area. On this swamp land the timbers are abundant and valuable.
The value of lands in this county varies from $3.00 to $25.00 per acre. The timbered land is worth from $3.00 to $7.00, and the improved land from $15.00 to $25.00 per acre, according to the amount of improve- ments, proximity to towns, etc.
Certainly there is land in our county that cannot be bought for $50.00 an acre, simply because its owners do not wish to sell at any price, knowing that their land is every year increasing in value, and that it pro- duces more than plenty of lands in other places which have been bragged up and sold for $75.00 to $100.00 per acre.
That the lands in Dunklin County may be made to produce good crops with less labor than almost any other place is a fact worthy of note. Where, as in many places, farmers are obliged to use from two to four horses to break their land, the Dunklin
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HISTORY OF DUNKLIN COUNTY, MO.
County farmer uses only one and two horses for the same purpose. It is a rare thing for one to see a farmer plowing four horses in this county. This is owing to the fact that the soil does not bake and get hard, but is easily penetrated by the plow and turns readily. Where the stumps are off the cultivator may be used with the greatest advantage.
Our lands produce, on an average, from thirty to fifty bushels of corn per acre; from 800 to 2,000 pounds of cotton per acre. This year, 1895, the acreage of cotton is about a three-fifth crop, but having better cotton than usual brings the crop up to about a three-fourth crop. Wheat average twelve bushels per acre on the sand and along on Halcomb; this wheat averages fifty-nine pounds per measured bushel.
Wheat grown on the clay land of the ridge and on clovered land averages twenty-five bushels per acre, and in weight averages sixty-one pounds per measured bushel. This is on the crop of 1894, in this county.
J. I. Caneer of Horse Island states that off of fif- teen acres of clover he gathered four to seven bushels of clover seed per acre, which brought him $4.00 to $5.00 per bushel. Sold $50.00 worth of hay and put up 47,000 pounds of hay in the bale. He says further that the pasture was worth $50.00 to him, he having kept about thirteen head of horses and twenty-five of cattle on it for six weeks. These facts show that our land will not only produce good corn and cotton but good wheat and clover when properly and intelligently cultivated.
Now that we have a good, flourishing mill, the
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HISTORY OF DUNKLIN COUNTY, MO.
farmers of Dunklin County should certainly study the above statistics and give more attention to wheat and clover. To give here a list of our exports will show our principal products perhaps better than any other way.
For 1892 our exports were as follows :-
Cattle, heads. .
740
$40.00
per head $29,600
Hogs, heads ... .
1,020
8.00
per head
8.160
Mixed stock cars.
3
500.00
per car .. 1,500
Wheat, bushels .. .
6,220
.80
per bu .. 4,976
Corn, bushels ....
18,560
.35
per bu ..
6,496
Mixed grain cars ..
164
343.00
per car.
56,252
Flour, barrels .. ..
300
3.50
per bbl. 1,050
Cotton, bales .
15,433
35.00
per bale 540,155
Cotton seed, cars.
557
150.00
per car.
58,485
Lumber, cars. . .
959
185.00
per car. 177,415
Staves, cars. . . ..
614
125.00
per car. 76,750
Watermelons, cars
8
75.00
per car.
600
Bacon, pounds ... .
2,640
.06₺ per lb. .
172
Fish, pounds.
72,000
.05
per lb. .
3,600
Poultry, pounds. .
9,000
.10
900
Eggs, dozens ...
10,620
.10
per doz.
1,062
Peaches, baskets ..
60
.40
24
Other shipments.
80
250.00
per car ..
20,000
Total
$987,197
The census reports of 1890 gave us 15,085 in population, which would make us receive on our exports in 1893, $65.44 per capita.
83
HISTORY OF DUNKLIN COUNTY, MO.
The water of Dunklin County is pure and healthful, and there is no such thing as a scarcity at any time of the year, unless it might be up on the ridge where the people use a few cisterns. But there are good springs, from which clear branches trickle down through the valleys during all times of the year, affording plenty of water for people and stock. There are also a num- ber of sulphur springs on the ridge, which, if opened up and properly cared for, would no doubt be equal in healthfulness and medical properties to many of
the so-called great springs. All over the remainder of the county the " driven well," or Pitcher Pump with galvanized iron pipes, is in use. One of these pumps may be driven to the depth of twenty feet, and made ready to send forth a bountiful supply of pure, clear water in two hours' time. The water is strained through fine gauze at the lower end, and there is no possibility of anything impure getting into the water, as it is pumped fresh from the interior of the earth just as you want it, and that too, with ease ; any child six years of age can pump the water for the family. There is no such thing as drinking musty water full of " wiggle tails " in Dunklin County.
HEALTH RATE.
Since the doing away of the dug well, caused by the introduction into the county of the iron pump, the health rate has increased a hundred per cent.
Malarial diseases, such as chills and fever, are far less prevalent. Malarial fever, which usually runs about two or three weeks, is the most serious malarial
84
HISTORY OF DUNKLIN COUNTY, MO.
trouble we have. This disease is not dangerous unless it runs into typhoid fever, which it does not one time in a thousand. A prominent and popular physician says he has not seen but two cases of typhoid fever during his residence of eight years in the county. Many other prominent physicians say they have never treated a single case of this disease in the county. Diphtheria is also nearly unknown here. There has perhaps not been exceeding three dozen cases of this disease within its limits, since the settle- ment of the county. Scarlet fever is another much dreaded disease that is seldom seen here. When you realize that our children are free from diphtheria and scarlet fever you can readily understand how it is that the death rate is lower, instead of higher, as many uninformed people imagine, than it is in many so-called healthy localities.
It has been estimated that one death out of every seven in the United States of America is caused by consumption, and as yet it has laid its terrible grasp on very few citizens of this county. It may be con- fidently stated that two-thirds of the deaths caused by this disease occur among the late emigration and not among the early settlers, showing decisively that the disease is not contracted here, but brought from other localities.
Indeed, it is a matter of remark that diseases of the throat and lungs are so seldom seen and so mild as compared to other localities. A person with an ordi- dinarily good constitution may have pneumonia or " winter fever" for two or three consecutive winters
85
HISTORY OF DUNKLIN COUNTY, MO.
and yet be a fairly strong person, living for years afterward.
As to epidemics of various other diseases they do not occur here as often as in many localities which are termed healthy. I believe these facts will be sub- stantiated by any well informed physician in the county.
It is not the purpose of this writer to pretend that this locality is exempt from all diseases, for it is not, but to show that, while we have malaria here, we are exempt, or nearly so, from many dread diseases that are prevalent in other localities. The malarial season in Dunklin County is from the middle of July to the middle of October; this is presumably caused by the decaying of the rank vegetation grown in the spring and early summer. During dry seasons malarial dis- eases are much less prevalent than during wet ones.
At the present time malarial diseases are not so prevalent as formerly, occasioned from the fact that as the timber is cut out and the land allowed to dry, it is put in cultivation ; thus the causes of malaria cease to be so numerous.
After all that has been said about the unhealthful- ness of Dunklin County, our people have better health during the winter, and as good, taking the year around, and can show a lower death rate than many counties in the various States of our great Republic, which are considered healthy. It is an erroneous idea that people can not live long here. Our list of old citi- zens disproves this. Among the biographies of Dun- klin County people, will be found the names of plenty
86
HISTORY OF DUNKLIN COUNTY, MO.
of citizens, yet hale and hearty, who have lived in this county from forty to sixty-five years.
CLIMATE.
The climate is mild, the thermometer seldom falling much below zero. The winters, though variable, are short and mild, and while the summers are warm they are not excessively oppressive. February, April, May, June, October, November and December are usually exceedingly pleasant months.
It is hard to say which of the two seasons, spring or fall, is the most pleasant, or at which time one sees Dunklin County at its best.
CHAPTER IX.
COURTS, OFFICIALS, ETC.
The first County Court was organized in the spring of 1845, and was held about 140 rods from the site of the present courthouse.
The first Circuit Court met in 1846. The place of its sitting was under a large oak tree and a small hut made of round poles. It stood near one corner of the court square and was about 10x12 feet. This small hut was scarcely high enough for the honorable judge, lawyers and jurors to stand in, and was floored and lined with a coarse cotton domestic by these same dig- nitaries after they assembled.
87
HISTORY OF DUNKLIN COUNTY, MO.
A. D. Bridges and Holtzhouser were two of the jurors who helped to lay the " puncheon floor." Maj. H. H. Bedford was one of the lawyers in at- tendance and assisted to line the wall to protect the lawyers' papers from the wind which whistled through the openings between the poles or logs. Puncheons or slabs with peg legs were the only seats except a few chairs borrowed from one of the citizens.
Among the lawyers who attended these first courts, besides Samuel A. Hill, the district attorney, were Col. Soloman G. Kitchens (deceased ) and Maj. H. H. Bedford of Bloomfield. It may be stated incidentally that Maj. Bedford has never failed to attend but one regular term of Circuit Court, and but two call terms since the organization of the county, sitting in our courts, from the first one that met in the little pole house down to the last session in 1895, which sat in a $15,000 brick courthouse.
The first courthouse built in the county was erected on the public square in 1847. It was forty feet square, one and a half stories high, and composed of hewn gum logs from twelve to eighteen inches broad.
One large door in the center of the south side had a window on each side of it. The seats were two rows of long benches arranged so that the aisle ran through the center of the room to the judge's stand on the north side ; back of the stand was another window. The lower room was the court room, which was also used for church and other public meetings. The stairway leading to the jurors' and officials' rooms on the second floor was on the outside. The windows,
88
HISTORY OF DUNKLIN COUNTY, MO.
both upstairs and down, were of the 8x10 inch, twelve pane size ; these and the " upstairs " gave the court- house what was considered in those pioneer days quite
TATUM BLOCK
rrr
rrr
SANDERENGEL
TATUM BLOCK, KENNETT.
a grand appearance - and it was a good building for so new a country, for it must be remembered that there was not a saw mill within a radius of a hun-
89
HISTORY OF DUNKLIN COUNTY, MO.
dred miles, and railroads were thirty years in the future.
All the lumber used for flooring and finishing was sawed by hand with a rip saw. Hiram Langdon, father of Judge E. J. Langdon, was the contractor and chief workman on this first courthouse. It was destroyed by fire during the war.
A large frame building was commenced in 1870, and completed in 1872. It had been occupied but a short time when it was also burned to the ground on April 9, 1872. From that time until 1892, the county had no courthouse, but held its courts in an old frame building on what is known as the Tatum block. In 1892, the present courthouse was erected. A log jail was built at about the same time as the first court- house. It was a square structure with a stairway on the outside, leading up to the door in the gable end. On entering you stood on a log floor, in the center of which was a trap-door ; from here ran another stair- way to the floor of the prison room below ; small square holes in the wall, made safe by iron bars, afforded light and ventilation.
This building was subsequently replaced by a second of the same character, and in 1882 the present jail, with Pauly Bros. cells, was erected.
The amount of crime committed in this county has not been greater than that of other counties of Southeast Missouri, and yet there have been some crimes committed here the remembrance of which causes deep regret to every good citizen. The fail- ure in the administration of justice by the court in a
90
HISTORY OF DUNKLIN COUNTY, MO.
few cases, made our people indignant and led to the administration of Lynch law, by which three persons met their deaths.
In September, 1874, George Koons was taken from the jail and hung for the murder of Barton Reynolds. Koons was a worthless character and had killed Rey- nolds while lying in a drunken stupor in front of Shelton's store in Kennett. About six months later a stranger was hung on the charge of horse-stealing, and on September 10, 1886, Bowman Paxton was taken from the sheriff, while on his way with him from Kennett to Malden, about three miles south of the former place, and hanged to a tree by the road side. For a trivial offense he had shot and killed John Mc- Gilvery, a blacksmith of Malden.
Several other murders have occurred in the county, and the perpetrators of some of them have gone with- out punishment. These facts have caused us to re- ceive considerable censure, and not altogether un- justly.
But it is a fact that is well known that our officials and citizens have for a number of years done all in their power to enforce the laws and punish criminals, and it is safe to say that no county in Southeast Missouri has, for the past decade, had less crime com- mitted or had better enforced laws than has Dunklin. As the records of this county were entirely destroyed by fire in 1872, it has been impossible to ascertain much concerning the actions of the courts prior to that date.
The Charles P. Chouteau land case has been one of
91
HISTORY OF DUNKLIN COUNTY, MO.
the most notable cases in the history of the county. A history of the case cannot be given here, but it may be stated that it started from the fact that "on the 18th day of December, 1855, the District County Court of. Dunklin County made an order of record appointing and directing George W. Mott as commis- sioner of Dunklin County to subscribe for the said county to $100,000 of the stock of the Cairo & Fulton Railroad Company of Missouri, to be paid for by conveyance of 100,000 acres of low swamps or overflowed lands within the limits of the aforesaid county." The county in the case against Charles P. Chouteau - he having bought the claims of the Cairo & Fulton Railroad Company - claimed that no petition of a majority of the legal voters of Dunklin County had been presented to the District Court as the law required in such cases, and that the order was there- fore, " without warrant or authority in law, and was null and void."
The lands were for years a matter of controversy, being claimed by both Charles P. Chouteau and the county. The county from time to time sold portions of this land to citizens of the county, making war- ranty deeds for same.
An agreement was finally made as follows: " Where- as, there being a large portion of the lands of this county claimed by Charles P. Chouteau, esquire, of the city of St. Louis, and the same lands are claimed by Dunklin County, and the county having made patents to some of the lands, and it appearing to the court, that it would be to the best interest of the
92
HISTORY OF DUNKLIN COUNTY, MO.
county to compromise the dispute as to the ownership of said lands ; it is therefore agreed by the court that if said Charles P. Chouteau will make a quit-claim deed to parties who have purchased or hold under persons who have purchased any of said lands known as the Cairo and Fulton Railroad lands, and hold patents therefor, the court will have executed in due form of law a conveyance of all of said lands not heretofore sold, and release from any lien for taxes which may have accrued on said land up to the present time."
A deed to this effect was made and signed by Charles P. Chouteau and E. J. Langdon, Presiding Justice of the County Court of Dunklin County, on Jan. 1, 1884. This land was afterwards brought into dispute again, and suit brought by the county against Mr. Chouteau to gain possession of these lands and to have set aside " and to have decreed to be null and void, certain patents, commissioners' deeds and orders of compromise," made and ordered to be made by the County Court concerning these lands.
The action was begun in the Circuit Court of Dunklin County, Missouri, and was sent by change of venue to the Circuit Court of Madison County, where it was tried, the court giving evidence to the effect that the actions of the court of 1884, commissioners' deeds, etc., were good, and relinquished the county's right to such land as was claimed by Charles P. Chou- teau except such as had been sold by the county and quit-claimed by said Charles P. Chouteau.
A new trial was afterward brought in the Supreme
93
HISTORY OF DUNKLIN COUNTY, MO.
Court of the State of Missouri, which court sustained the decision of the Circuit Court of Madison County.
Thus settling the controversy.
The list of officials following - back of 1882 - has been gathered with much difficulty from old citi- zens and more especially from Judge T. E. Baldwin and W. G. Bragg, of Kennett, and also from Maj. H. H. Bedford, of Bloomfield, and is as correct and complete a record as it seems possible to obtain now.
CIRCUIT JUDGES.
John D. Cook of Jackson, was presiding judge of the Tenth Judicial Circuit when Dunklin County was organized in 1845. He retired from the bench in 1849. The next judge was Harrison Hough of Mis- sissippi County, who presided until the Fifteenth Judi- cial Circuit was organized.
The first judge of the Fifteenth Circuit was Albert Jackson of Jackson, who was made judge in 1854. He filled the office until the suspension of the courts in 1862. John W. Emerson of Iron County was appointed judge in 1863, but resigned in 1864, and James H. Vail, also of Iron County, was appointed as his successor. Judge Vail was a Republican and was not popular and there was considerable trouble about his holding the office.
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