USA > Missouri > Henry County > History of Henry County, Missouri > Part 20
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At one time we thought it best to send some discreet person to Ken- tucky, where a large number of our bonds are held, and we selected for this purpose Mr. W. D. Tyler, cashier of the First National Bank of
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Clinton, and while he did not succeed in making the purchase, he obtained much valuable information, and his expenses, $125.00, I have paid as was agreed beforehand. In conclusion I desire, both in behalf of Major Sal- mon and myself, to thank this court and its individual members for the uniform courtesy and confidence reposed in us in the management of this matter, coming as it did unsought by us. And I will only add, in my own behalf, that every act and move I have made in the premises has been to subserve the best interests of Henry County. All of which is respectfully submitted for your approval.
JAMES B. GANTT."
The following are the papers referred to:
"Exhibit C."
Statement of bonds, interest coupons and judgments purchased for Henry County with funds arising from sale of Tebo and Neosho stock, showing the date of each purchase, from whom purchased and the amount paid therefor:
November 1, 1879. Lot No. 1 .- Bought of Donaldson and Fraley twenty-two bonds Clinton and Memphis Branch Tebo and Neosho rail- road, Nos. 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96 and 97, with coupons of 1872 and subsequent. Paid $11,000.
January 28, 1880. Lot No. 2 .- Bought of Alfred Ennis, attorney for Portsmouth Savings Bank, forty bonds, tens of 1870 issue, Nos. 113, 114, 115, 116, 117, 119, 133, 134, 135, 136, 137, 138, 139, 140, 141, 142, 143, 144, 145, 148, 149, 150, 152, 156, 157, 158, 166, 167, 168, 169, 182, 184, 214, 215, 216, 217, 218, 219 and 220, with July, 1879 coupons and those subsequent. Also three coupons of July, 1878, from bonds 142, 143 and 144. Also two judgments in favor of the Portsmouth Sav- ings Bank vs. Henry County, in the United States Circuit, Western Dis- trict of Missouri, Nos. 1035 and 1300, as per statement accompanying said bonds. Paid $28,368.90.
March 20, 1880. Lot No. 3 .- Bought of the Farmers and Merchants', Hannibal, Missouri, one bond, No. 24, Clinton and Kansas City Branch of Tebo and Neosho railroad, with July, 1878, and subsequent coupons attached. Paid $410.
March 20, 1880. Lot No. 4 .- Bought of W. J. McNight, four Janu-
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ary, 1876, coupons, from bonds Nos. 139, 145, 149 and 150, of issue of 1867. Paid $52.
May 5, 1880. Lot No. 5 .- Bought of Donnell, Lawson and Simpson, twenty-one bonds, Nos. 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 18, 49, 50, 56 and 57 of Clinton and Memphis Branch, and Nos. 12, 13, 14, 17, 19, 20, 27, 28, 29, 30 and 49 of Clinton and Kansas City Branch of Tebo and Neosho railroad, with coupons of 1879 and subsequent attached, also judgment No. 1297 of E. C. Lewis vs. County, June 30, 1879, for $8,852, in United States Court. Paid $16,832.67.
August 29, 1880. Lot No. 6 .- Bought of Donalson and Fraley, ten bonds, Nos. 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 44, 45, 46 and 47, Clinton and Memphis Branch, Tebo and Neosho Railroad, with coupons of July, 1876, , and subsequent. Paid $7,775.
September 1, 1880. Lot No. 7 .- Bought of Donnell, Lawson and Simpson ten bonds, Nos. 101, 102, 103, 104, 105, 106, 107, 108, 109 and 110 Clinton and Memphis Branch, Tebo and Neosho railroad, with coupons of July 1875, and subsequent. Paid $7,850.
November 10, 1880. Lot No. 8 .- Bought of Donalson and Fraley one bond, No. 64, Chicago and Memphis Branch of the Tebo and Neosho rail- road with coupons of 1875 and subsequent. Paid $860.
December 1, 1880. Lot No. 9 .- Bought of Donnell, Lawson and Simp- son "Patty B. Lex bonds," nine bonds, 10s of 1870, Nos. 226, 227, 228, 229, 230, 231, 232, 233 and 234 with coupons January, 1879, and subsequent, together with judgment of W. R. and Patty B. Lex vs. Henry County in the United States Circuit Court, Western District of Missouri, No. 1274, November 21, 1879, for $2,570.50. Paid $8,542.50.
December 1, 1880. Lot No. 10 .- Bought of Donnell, Lawson and Simp- son one bond, No. 4, 10s of 1870, with coupons of July, 1876 and subse- quent. This bond is now held by Donnell, Lawson and Simpson, of New York, for H. W. Salmon. Paid $885.
December 6, 1880. Lot No. 11 .- Bought of Donnell, Lawson and Simpson, one bond, No. 109, 10s of 1870, with coupons of July, 1876, and subsequent. This bond is also in the hands of Donnell, Lawson and Simp- son, of New York, held for H. W. Salmon. Paid $915.
December 6, 1880. Lot No. 12 .- Bought of James M. Avery, one bond, No. 120, Clinton and Memphis Branch of the Tebo and Neosho railroad, 10s of 1871, with coupons of January, 1875, attached, and sub-
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sequent, and six extra coupons, Nos. 153 and 154, July, 1874, 10s, 1871, and July, 1876, January, 1877, July, 1877, and January, 1878; coupons from bond 24, Clinton and Memphis Branch of the Tebo and Neosho railroad. Paid $1,050.
Lot No. 13, W. D. Tyler's expenses to Kentucky, $125.
Total amount expended, $84,666.57.
"Which said report, being seen and duly considered by the court, is ordered filed. And now comes James B. Gantt and turns over to the court all the bonds, coupons and judgments as per statement in his report, including bonds Nos. 4 and 109, mentioned in lots 10 and 11, also the treasurer's receipt for balance not expended of $1,319.14. It is thereupon ordered by the court that James B. Gantt be fully released from further responsibility as agent of Henry County in the matter aforesaid. It is further ordered by the court that the bonds, coupons, and judg- ments, aforesaid, and all other papers in the matter be filed in the office of the clerk of this court, and that said bonds and coupons be and are hereby cancelled in the presence of the court, by writing the word "can- celled," date, etc., across the face or the signature on the bonds with red ink.
"It is ordered by the court that a warrant be drawn on the sinking fund for the sum of $400, payable to James B. Gantt for legal services on behalf of county per account, this day allowed and filed."
This report was made to the county court and entered of record December 8, 1880.
There was also in the county treasury subject to levy by the bond- holders at one time, $18,000. Again on the advice and with the assistance of Judge Gantt and Major Salmon, this sum was used to buy in bonds at from thirty to forty cents on the dollar. At another time something over $11,000 was used with the assistance of Charles B. Wilson to buy in bonds at a little over forty-one cents on the dollar. Charles B. Wilson expended $11,946.80 in cash in the purchase of coupons and bonds. He gave the number of the coupons and bonds and his account was correct, but there were so many of them and of different dates, that it was a good job to figure them up. Again an entry was made that two bonds were purchased for $700 and five were purchased for $2,050. These were $1,000 bonds but how many coupons were attached, if any, was not stated. The purchases showed a pretty good bargain, one being at about 30 per
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cent and the five at a trifle over 40 per cent, the over-plus, probably, being commission on purchase. However, the reduction of the debt can be got at pretty close. It is given below:
Forty-five bonds, of $1,000 each, bought for __ $18,058.10
Two bonds, of $1,000 each, bought for 700.00 Five bonds, of $1,000 each, bought for 2,050.00
Twenty-nine bonds, C. B. Wilson at a little
over forty-one cents on the dollar 11,754.90
Making eighty-one bonds, costing $32,754.90
Sale of Missouri, Kansas & Texas stock invested $84,666.57, reduced the debt $183,301.77, but of this $117,000 only were bonds, the re- mainder being coupons, judgments and costs. So from these purchases we have a reduction of the principal, that is in bonds of $169,000 be- sides the bonds purchased by Mr. Wilson, say a full reduction of $180,000 of the principal; the balance being paid in coupons or interest. The County Court have in new six per cent bonds $525,000.
The speaker may be pardoned for a brief statement that during all this period Judge James Parks was one of those whose advice and as- sistance was sought by and given without fee or recompense to the County Court. The result of this timely and efficient management was to greatly reduce the debt when the era of adjustment and compromise came.
Era of Compromise and Refunding, 1882-1902.
In 1881, in obedience to the mandamus of the Federal Court, the County Court of this county made the levy of one dollar and forty cents on the $100 as "railroad taxes," but in order to defeat its collec- tion, such taxes were extended in a special tax book for that purpose separate from the tax book containing the general taxes, and it was tacitly understood that such railroad taxes would not be paid and that no effort would be made to collect, with the result that these taxes were not paid. In 1882 a compromise of 75 cents on the dollar was submitted to a vote of the people, and the compromise was' authorized by a very strong vote in its favor; the majority in favor of the proposition being 880.
The debt thus remaining was thus originally refunded at 75 cents on
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the dollar in six per cent bonds for approximately $525,000. In a few instances the bondholders refused to accept and were paid 90 cents on the dollar, and perhaps as much as par in the windup. The bonds could none of them be paid under five years. Private interest rates were high, many of the farms were encumbered by eastern loans bearing a higher rate of interest than the new bonds. During this period we built our new court house with a $50,000 issue, and paid that court house bond issue in full by 1902, so that during the period from 1882 to 1912 the County Court contented itself with refunding the bonds at lower rates of interest ranging from five per cent down to four per cent, and with building and paying for court house, county jail and bridges.
End of Payment, 1902-1915.
For the adoption of the policy which has resulted in the final extinc- tion of this railroad debt, the people of this county are indebted to Judge Joe Boyd, who was presiding judge of the County Court from 1899 to 1907. Judge Boyd came to my office within the first year he was on the bench. He said that he made it his rule not to get into debt if he could help it, and to pay out as quick as he could, and he wanted to "start to paying off the bonds;" that he wanted the county to pay off its court house bonds which would fall due in 1902 and then to commence to pay off the railroad bonds and to pay them as fast as could be done without hardship to the taxpayers, and that he hoped to live long enough to see them paid.
The last court house bond was paid on July 31, 1902, and the first railroad refunding bond was paid July 2, 1902, at which date railroad bonds were paid amounting to $20,000. This policy thus organized by Judge Boyd was continued through his administration with the help of Associate Judges Wilson and McCann, and under the administrations of Judges Ogg, Amick and McKnolly, aided by Associate Judges Sullivan, John Harrison, Frank Boyd and W. B. Collins.
As the debt was cut down, the interest was reduced and the pay- ents of the principal increased under the same levy without any sub- stantial increase in taxation.
At times others have claimed credit for this policy but to Judge Joe Boyd, the rugged, honest, old-fashioned farmer, the credit belongs and I take benefit of this occasion to help to see that he gets it. He did not live to see the bonds burned, but this memorable event, made the
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more so by the attendance of so many eminent Missourians, is a testimonial to him and the policy he caused to be commenced and followed. Peace to his ashes and honor to his memory !
This address would lack in justice if it did not take time enough to say that the refunding and payment of the bonds was honestly and faithfully attended to during the years from 1882 to 1915 by the judges of the County Court comprising a splendid type of citizenship in the names of Judges Mark Stewart, E. Allison, Lewis P. Beaty, James M. Harrison, C. H. Hartsock, O. M. Bush, George H. Hackney, William M. Allen, John S. Kelly, M. F. Finks, William Moore, S. A. Marks, Joe Boyd, J. H. McCann, William M. Wilson, T. W. Ogg, Alfred Slack, M. R. Amick, John Harrison, P. H. Sullivan, Frank Boyd, J. M. McKnolly and W. B. Collins, nine dead and fourteen living.
After paying all the bonds in full there remains a surplus and your present County Court has deemed it but just to join with the other citi- zens of this county in this jubilee of rejoicing and commemoration, and to that court on behalf of the executive committee and of the people thanks and credit is given.
In conclusion, many have asked how much has been paid in all from inception to finish in this period spanning practically half a century on ac- count of this debt. It is difficult to obtain and give exact figures, be- cause at the time we were in litigation the County Court and its clerk had to keep a private index to the records to keep the bondholders from learning through their local agents and attorneys what the County Court was doing, in selling the stock of the county, and in buying county bonds at a discount. A laborious search through the records no doubt would show. However, the total amount paid since the compromise in 1882, principal and interest, is one million, two hundred and twenty-eight thousand, three hundred and ten dollars and ninety-four cents ($1,228,- 310.94). So that it is safe to say that this experience has cost the tax- payers in all something like one and one-half million of dollars.
However, it should not be forgotten that during this period of forty- five years the railroads have paid to Henry County and its citizen towns from $350,000 to $400,000 in taxes and will continue in the future to thus contribute in taxes. A further tribute should be and is paid to the people of this county, those of the splendid old and the splendid new, to the pioneers as well as the good people who of choice and with wis- dom have made this county their home, all of. whom through years of
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toil have contributed their share to the extinction of this debt. And now, without regard to party, with our faces to the future, in the presence of so many distinguished guests who honor us with their presence and contribute to the success of the occasion, we are met to rejoice that Henry County's bonds are all paid. And we now return our thanks to our guests, our neighboring citizen towns, and to the great newspapers of the State for the help extended and we welcome one and all to our good county and our fair city.
The chief speaker at the celebration was Judge John F. Phillips of Kansas City. Probably nowhere has his connection with the bond matters been so closely set forth as in his speech which, with the intro- duction by Mr. Peyton A. Parks, follows:
Introduction by Hon. Peyton Parks.
"I deem it one of the greatest pleasures of my life to take part in this demonstration. Not only because of my father, who fought these bonds' issue, and afterwards helped to pay the debt; but there is another reason and that is because I have the privilege of presenting to this magnificent audience the life-long friend of my father and the able law- yer who presented the side of this county in the controversy that culmi- nated in the defeat of the county in the Supreme Court of the United States. As a boy, in the old court house, my esteem and admiration for the speaker of the afternoon commenced. In all the years that have passed, about fifty-a half a century-it has grown both in esteem and admi- ration and love, and I take pleasure now in introducing to this audience one of Missouri's most distinguished orators, one of her greatest citizens and one of her ablest jurists, Judge John F. Philips."
Address by Judge Philips.
"Ladies and Fellow-citizens: The remarks of your distinguished chairman call to my mind the fact that fifty-eight summers and winters have passed over my head since I first came to Clinton, and I came on horseback and through the mud. I was then in the lustihood of young manhood. Today I stand before you an old man, over eighty years of age. I have seen three generations of lawyers come upon the stage and pass behind the curtain. The faces that greeted me with gladness when I first came among this people have turned to ashes, and today if I were to look for their names I would find them engraved on the tablets and monuments in your beautiful City of the Dead.
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"I am too old to flatter-to flatter anybody or to be flattered. I was drawn to the people of this county by reason of their broad hospitality, their rugged honesty and possession of that rare faculty of common sense which is the first to defense and the last to surrender in the battle of life.
"I have no language to express to you, my fellow citizens, how it rejoices this old heart of mine today to be here with these people to share in the celebration of a civic event that proclaims to the people of the world the commercial integrity and high sense of honor of the peo- ple of the best county in the State of Missouri. Conservative in action, broad in its policy and progressive in its spirit, this was one of the first counties in southwest Missouri to recognize the importance of railroad communication with the outer world and the march of trade and commerce.
"In 1859 your representative in the Legislature of Missouri procured the adoption of the charter of the old Tebo and Neosho Railroad Company at a time when there was not a railroad south of the Missouri River, west of the Osage and extending to the southwest border of the State. The purpose of that chartered road was to get a connection with the Pacific railroad then projected from the city of St. Louis westward toward the border of the State. It was intended to bisect this county from the north to the southwest. Today I can appreciate the fact of the prescient wisdom of the men who then lived here and projected that enterprise. Kansas was a new State, Texas was far away, but the far-seeing, wise men of this community looked down the vista of time and they foresaw that on the west would spring up a great State and that farther to the South lay the empire of the State of Texas and there was the Gulf look- ing out on the march of commerce in the old world.
"The charter of that railroad authorized the judge of the County Court of their own initiative to subscribe to the capital stock of that railroad. When the Legislature of the State, both by private charter and public statutes conferred this great and dangerous power upon the judges they assumed that they were worthy depositories of such a trust and that it would be conservatively and honestly exercised. The character of men the people of this county elected to the office of county judge was well known for honesty-they were known for their integrity and for their solid judgment and for their high sense of responsibility. There was no such thing in those days of judges on the bench bartering judg- ment for pay or becoming the immediate beneficiaries of their own judi-
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cial action, and so you can very well understand how it was and why it is that with an honesty constantly discovered that such trusted agents invested with such power should betray their trust and deceive or sell out the people how they would be filled with indignation.
"But the people of this county then wanted this Tebo and Neosho railroad built, but when the war came on all efforts to build it were suspended. When it ended your public spirited men betook themselves to the consideration of the question as to how it might be revived and reinstated. It was discovered that its charter had lapsed by nonusal. Such men as Robert Allen, James Parks, Doctor Thornton, A. C. Marvin and others came to Sedalia to see me to see how this enterprise could be revived and the charter resuscitated. They had no money to pay me for a fee and I didn't expect any. I had so much of public spirit and so much love and admiration for the people of this county that it was a labor of love to me to do what I could to promote it. I drew the act of 1865-6 which revived this charter and the Legislature adopted, and as a mere compliment to me and one that has never borne any revenue, and one that has never brought me any honor that I know of but a great deal of criticism and abuse-but I am one of those people that believes that the less a man is being abused and criticized the less he is doing right. And I was named one of the directors of that road in connec- tion with some of the business men in this and Bates County, and I don't expect there ever was a cruder, rawer set than were got together in that board of directors. There wasn't any of us knew anything about railroads and we had access to one hundred and fifty thousand dollars subscribed for that enterprise and we were actually afraid to have it con- verted into money because we couldn't trust ourselves with so much money.
"There was an old fellow came up here from Ft. Scott by the name of Wilson. He was a tall, raw-boned, sandy-haired, cadaverous old fel- low, and I think he just elected himself general manager of that enter- prise. He surveyed the whole route of this road from Sedalia to Ft. Scott on a mule, without assistance. We had what was known as the Striker law, which authorized the people living within an area of ten miles of the road to subscribe to the stock of the road by conceding them land. That old fellow rode up and down this country on that roan mule, making speeches at every cross-road, school house, or wherever he could get three or four farmers together, until the old mule himself got tired of
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waiting on him and the farmers knew when he was coming by that mule's braying. He never failed to call the board of directors together to make ·his report, and that got to be so often that it got tiresome. One day he met a peddler down here with a pack, the mule got frightened at the pack and ran off across the road and down to the river, swam the river and Wilson lost his saddle-bags with his survey, his copy of the script law, and his bill for services to the road, which has never been paid so far as I know to this day. So the loss of his notes and maps of the survey and without that mule to carry on the survey, the board of directors found themselves up against it. And, like the fellow from Indiana who moved out into the arid regions of western Kansas who said that he fooled the man to whom he sold his cow and calf by slipping into the bill of sale a conveyance to his one hundred and sixty acres of land, we said we would fool the Missouri, Kansas & Texas corporation-a corpo- ration organized to build a road to Texas-by getting them to take the Tebo & Neosho off our hands.
"I drew the act of 1870-71 which authorized the Tebo & Neosho railroad to transfer by consolidation lease or sale to the Missouri, Kan- sas & Texas Company. That was done and the subscription of this county of $250,000 was turned over to the Missouri, Kansas & Texas Railroad Company and the railroad was built and made good, and you got exactly what you contracted for and what you needed. There was never any question raised by the people of Henry County about the subscription to that road. The whole trouble originated with the subscription made by the County Court to what was known as the Clinton branch of the Tebo & Neosho road. As you will recall, the Constitution of 1865 prohibited any county from subscribing to the railroad stock of any railroad without the concurrence of two-thirds of the voters of the county. Now, I have always tried to make it a part of my public life never to say anything unkind or ungenerous. I would rather exhibit that sort of gentle Chris- tian charity as the old hard-shell Baptist preacher down in Tennessee showed when called upon to preach the funeral sermon of a pretty hard case who died. He said: "Gentlemen, this onery cuss is dead and I come to preach his funeral sermon. He had horses and he run'em, he had pups and he fit 'em, he had cards and he played 'em, but let us forget his vices if we can and remember his virtues if he had any, for of such is the kingdom of heaven." There were some smart, sharp, shrewd pro- moters and adventurers in this country who conceived the project of avoid-
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ing the Constitution of this State, and they got up the act of 1868 known as the act for building branches to railroads.
"Now that board of directors of the Tebo & Neosho railroad, of which I was one, didn't know anything about that. We never asked to build any branch road. We couldn't build a main road, but those fellows took it upon themselves to undertake to build this branch railroad and tried to hitch it onto the charter of the old roads, and they persuaded the County Court of this county then in office, elected when all people couldn't vote, and persuaded them to subscribe a hundred and fifty thousand dol- lars to this road, two or three hundred had subscribed from St. Clair County, three or four hundred from Cass County and some more from Jackson County, making in the aggregate over eight hundred thousand dollars, and I have never been able from that day to this-nor anybody else-to ascertain whatever became of all that money. It went where the woodbine twineth with the result that only a part of it was applied to obtain the right of way over this route from Kansas City to Osceola and making some embankments and some grading.
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