USA > Missouri > Howard County > History of Howard and Chariton Counties, Missouri : written and compiled from the most official authentic and private sources, including a history of its townships, towns, and villages, together with a condensed history of Missouri > Part 43
USA > Missouri > Chariton County > History of Howard and Chariton Counties, Missouri : written and compiled from the most official authentic and private sources, including a history of its townships, towns, and villages, together with a condensed history of Missouri > Part 43
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Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54
CRIMES AND CASUALTIES.
Among the crimes and casualties that have happened in Salisbury since the war of 1861, we mention the following :-
July 4th, 1867. Thomas H. Allen killed W. F. Maupin on the corner of Third and Broadway streets. The parties lived about six miles south of the town, and were neighbors; they had, however, had a difficulty some time previously, which arose from an altercation between the fathers of the two men. Maupin was shot in the breast with a pistol and instantly killed. Allen had a trial before a justice of the peace and was acquitted on the ground of self-defence.
July 5th, 1871. Amos Lewis killed James Morrissey. Lewis was a policeman, and was doing special duty - it being circus-day in the town, Morrissey is said to have been drinking at the time, and at- tempted to resist Lewis, who tried to arrest him. Morrissey was in- stantly killed and Lewis was eleared before a justice.
John Straub, who was in business, shot and killed John Rouse be- tween one and two o'clock at night. Rouse was shot at Stranh's money-drawer. Straub was examined before a justice and dis- charged.
A man by the name of Loper, who was slightly demented, and out on the street on a Sunday night, was killed by some one of a crowd of boys and men, who were following him. It was not known who committed the erime.
S. R. Robinson was shot by accident. Marshall Jones was trying to arrest J. H. Hunt whom he shot and mortally wounded. Robin- son was present during the time of the arrest, and there being several shots fired, it was never known who killed him.
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HISTORY OF HOWARD AND CHARITON COUNTIES.
BUSINESS HOUSES AND PROFESSIONS.
3 dry goods and clothing stores, 1 tailor,
4 groceries,
6 general stores,
4 hardware stores,
1 boot and shoe store,
2 furniture stores,
4 millinery stores,
4 saloons,
3 farming implement stores,
3 restaurants and bakeries,
3 shoemakers,
1 jewelry store,
2 lumber yards,
1 gents' furnishing store,
2 dentists,
2 harness shops,
3 blacksmith's shops,
2 livery stables,
3 carpenter's shops,
1 barber,
1 sewing machine agent,
1 bank,
1 photographer,
1 news stand,
4 lawyers,
10 physicians,
2 flouring mills,
1 elevator,
1 marble works,
1 hay-stacker manufactory,
2 tobacco warehouses,
1 hotel,
1 boarding-house,
5 Protestant church edifices, two of which are colored,
1 Catholic church.
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CHAPTER IX.
BOWLING GREEN TOWNSHIP.
Boundary - Physical Features - Old Settlers - First School Taught in the Town- ship-The First Mill Erected -- The First Church - Dalton - Its History - Gen- eral Sterling Price's Farm - Business Houses of Dalton -1. O. U. W. - Keytesville Landing- Its History - Large Farmers and Stockmen - A Coon Story -- General Sterling Price.
BOUNDARY.
This is one of the smallest townships in the county and has been recently formed. It is bounded on the north by Brunswick and Keytesville townships, on the east by Keytesville township, on the south by Missouri township, and on the west by the Missouri river and Brunswick township.
PHYSICAL FEATURES.
The southwest corner of this township touches the Missouri river. Much of the township is bottom land and remarkably productive. The upland is also very fertile and constitutes fine farming land. One-fourth the area of the township is timbered. There are several Indian mouuds along the line of the bluffs, and many relics of a pre- historic race have been found in them. The streams are Pahner ereek, Lake and Lost creeks. There are a number of sloughs and lakelets. Coal has been mined to some extent at Dalton. Sandstone has been quarried in the township and is very hard in its character.
OLD SETTLERS.
Some of the old settlers of Dalton township were among the first to locate in Chariton county.
Samuel Williams, who was from Jefferson county, Virginia, came to the county in 1818, for the purpose of attending the land sales which occurred that year, and after purchasing land in what is now
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HISTORY OF HOWARD AND CHARITON COUNTIES.
known as Bowling Green township, he went to Kentucky, where he left his family, and returned in the fall of 1819, and settled on the edge of Bowling Green prairie, where he continued to reside until his death, which took place in 1822. He left a wife and four children. The names of his children, were John P. Williams, Thomas Williams, Eliza Williams and Harriet Williams. John P. Williams, who came with his father in 1819, was born in Jefferson county, Virginia, in 1810; he is now and has been continuously a resident of Bowling Green township - a period of sixty-four years. He is the oldest living pioneer in Chariton county, and has resided in the county longer than any man now living in the same, except Captain William Heryford, who was born here April 14, 1818. Mr. Williams, although seventy-three years of age, is strong in mind and body and possesses a remarkably clear and accurate memory of the events which tran- spired more than three seore years ago.
Among the pioneers in the township were also Henry Lewis, from Virginia ; Jaines and Perry Earickson, from Kentucky ; John M. Bell. from Georgia ; Archibald Hix and Alexander Trent, from Virginia; William Monroe and James Leeper, from Kentucky ; John W. Price, James Price, John Coulson, Champion Turpin, old man Fleetwood, John Harris, Abraham Sportsman, John Ellison, John Riley and John Sportsinan.
The first school teacher to exercise his calling in the township was Rev. Ebenezer Rodgers, whom we have mentioned in our chapter on Chariton township. The school building was located on section 32, township 53, range 19, in 1821.
Among the pupils who attended this first school were John P. Thomas, Eliza and Harriett Williams, Benjamin Monroe, Martha and Eliza Bell, Nancy Stueky, John Stucky, Richard and Gustavus Earick- son, John Ish, who now resides in Saline county, Missouri, and Charles J. Cabell.
William Monroe built the first mill in the township on the edge of Bowling Green prairie, in 1819, on section 32, township 53, range 19. This was a band mill.
The Methodists built the first house of worship, near John W. Price's ; the church was called the " Bluff Church," and was erected about the year 1836. It was a frame building, and was afterwards moved into Brunswick township, and is now known as " Prairie Chapel."
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HISTORY OF HOWARD AND CHARITON COUNTIES.
Doctor John Bull was the pioneer Methodist preacher in the town- ship, holding services there as early as 1812, at the house of Samuel Williams. The doctor was a man of many sterling traits of char- acter, was an earnest and eloquent preacher, and was afterwards a Representative in the United States Congress from Missouri. Among the constituent members of this original organization were : William Dalton and family, Jane Browder, Betsy Hudnell, and Tabitha Ewing.
DALTON
was laid out by William Dalton, on the southwest corner, north- east quarter, northwest corner, southeast quarter, and northeast corner, southwest quarter, section 13, township 53, range 19, in 1867. The town site was the home of William Dalton, after whom the village was named, many years before it was laid out. It is located at the base of the bluffs, overlooking a broad and fertile bottom towards the south - the Missouri river being some three miles distant. To the south of Dalton, and a little to the west, may now be seen some of the out-buildings, which still stand upon the farm which was for many years the home of General Sterling Price. Travellers upon the railroad, when passing Dalton, ask to have the farm of General Priee pointed out to them. The few remaining old citizens who reside in this vicinity, and who knew the General and loved him, always brighten up, with a glow upon the cheek and in the eye, when talking of him as a man, a citizen and as a neighbor. One of his'old neighbors, while in conversation with the author in reference to the General, said : " Mr., he was the politest man I ever saw -- would even touch his hat to a colored man."
The first business house in Dalton was erected by Veach & Myers. The Wabash, St. Louis and Pacific Railroad Company put up a good and commodious depot ; the ground upon which it stands, including about forty acres in the town, was donated to the railroad company by Mr. Dalton.
The business interests of the town are divided as follows: Three & general stores, one grocery, one drug store, one tobacco factory, one harness and saddler's shop, two blacksmiths, one hotel, one elevator, and livery stable. There are two church buildings, one white and one colored. The white is a union church, where several different de- nominations worship.
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HISTORY OF HOWARD AND CHARITON COUNTIES. ยท
LODGE.
List of charter members of Dalton Lodge, No. 258, A. O. U. W., instituted September 29, 1882: T. R. Johnson, J. R. Redman, Jos- eph Miles, C. C. Webb, W. H. Grotjan, S. T. Harper, J. D. Bayne, Win. Bitter, J. R. Minnick, Alvin Cox, L. J. Grotjan, J. F. White- sides, W. J. Gravely. R. L. Lloyd, Geo. R. Stuart, D. W. Bayne, Jas. J. Moore, Jas. L. Phelps, Doctor T. A. Martin, Elisha Durbin.
List of present officers- C. C. Webb, master workman ; Geo. R. Stuart, past master workman ; J. J. Moore, foreman ; T. H. Carska- don, overseer; J. R. Minnick, recorder: Wm. Bitter, financier ; J. R. Redman, receiver : J. D. Bayne, guide ; T. R. Johnson, inside watchman ; Wm. Gravely, outside watchman ; Doctor T. A. Martin, medical examiner.
KEYTESVILLE LANDING.
This was located on section -, township -- , range -, on the Mis- souri river. It was never laid out as a town, but was a business point from about 1832 to 1869, when it was finally abandoned on account of the Missouri changing its bed, leaving the place a long distance from its banks.
The river now ( 1883) is about two miles from the landing. When the town of Keytesville was established, in 1832, Keytesville landing came into existence as a place of some prominence, because the goods which were shipped to the merchants of the former place were brought up the Missouri river by boats and put off at this point, whence they were transported to Keytesville by wagons, it being about six miles away. This place was for many years an elegant steamboat landing, and was the highest point of land on Bowling Green prairie, and was the only portion of that prairie bordering upon the river that was not overflowed by the high water of 1844.
General Sterling Price owned and operated a large tobacco ware- house here before the war. A store of general merchandise was run for several years. In 1864, Clinton Basey had a store at the landing ; he sold the same to C. S. Forqueran, who sold in 1868 to General Edward Price. No business is done now at this point. In 1866, a steamboat struck a snag near the landing and sank, but no lives were lost. The cabin was taken off and much of the lumber was used in
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HISTORY OF HOWARD AND CHARITON COUNTIES.
the construction of some of the houses at Dalton - the hotel, espe- cially, being built nearly entire out of this lumher.
In the section of country lying nearly contiguous to Keytesville landing are a number of good stoek farms.
Prominent among the farmers is General E. W. Price, the proprie- tor of the celebrated Green Valley farm, located on Bowling Green prairie, four miles south of Dalton. ten miles east of Brunswick, and eight miles from Keytesville, the county seat. This, the home farm, embraces an area of 800 acres of the finest agricultural land in the State. The soil is a rich, dark loam, from eight to fifteen feet deep, and is simply inexhaustible. Of the entire area of this splendid do- main it is not exaggeration to say that there is scarcely a foot not sus- ceptible of tillage. The ordinary yield of wheat here is twenty-five bushels to the acre. and corn produces from seventy-five to one hun- dred bushels per acre. General Price grew, in 1880, on his farm 500 acres of wheat, which gave a magnificent yield, besides a large area of corn. His extensive pastures and meadows of blue grass, clover and timothy are among the finest in the State. He also operates a saw mill located on a 200 acre tract of timber land, which turns out from 5,000 to 7,000 feet per day of lumber. His tobacco factory is one of the finest in the State. It is a building three stories high, and 200x120 feet area. The drying capacity of this factory is 200,000 pounds. His stud includes twelve thoroughbred Kentucky racers, among which are the celebrated Bill Bass, Rustiens, and Adelade : Irene, a gray filly out of Adelade, Don and others of wide reputation, making up one of the most valuable collections of thoroughbreds in the State. The General's spacious and elegant mansion is in correspondence with the character of its splendid surroundings. General E. W. Price at- tained the rank of brigadier-general in the Confederate service. He is a son of the distinguished General Price, formerly Governor of the State of Missouri, and whose name is intimately interwoven with our national history. As a polished gentleman and a popular citizen, no man is better or more favorably known throughout the State than General E. W. Price.
Adjacent to the estate of the General, in Bowling Green prairie, lies the splendid 426 acre farm of Geo. Chapman. The character of its soil is identical with that of the farm just referred to. Mr. Chap- man has 325 aeres in cultivation, and gives his attention especially to the culture of corn, tobacco, wheat and live stock. He raised. last year, from an eighty acre tract, 5,000 bushels of corn. His tobacco
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HISTORY OF HOWARD AND CHARITON COUNTIES.
turned out 1,500 pounds to the acre, and his wheat farm twenty to twenty-five bushels per acre. To the former crop he devotes special attention, and is provided with a spacious and substantial warehouse for the accommodation of the same. In addition to the above, Mr. C. is interested in the cattle business, and feeds annually 200 head. He i- a native of Virginia, a popular citizen and a thoroughly practi- eal man.
A COON STORY.
During the winter of 1819-20, Samuel Williams, who had just emi- grated to the county from Virginia, was needing some stock troughs, and ordered his servant Eli, a negro who was then about twenty years of age, to go to the woods and get them. Eli was accompanied to the woods by John P. Williams, who now resides in Bowling Green township, and who was then a lad of fifteen years, and two dogs named respectively, Ruler and Joler, which were the property of Eli. Before the parties arrived in the locality where they were to cut and make the troughs, the dogs had tracked in the snow a coon, which had gone up a tree near by. Guided by the bark of the dogs, Eli and his companion were soon upon the ground. and while looking into the top of the tree around which the dogs were standing, Eli beheld, what ap- peared to be to him an extraordinary large coon. The tree was large, and Eli thinking that he did not have the time to spare to ent it down, sent John to the house after the gun ( an old flint-lock rifle ), intend- ing to shoot the coon. John soon returned with the gun and handed it to Eli, who laid down behind a cotton-wood log, and after taking a long and deliberate aim, fired. The coon, however, failed to show any signs of being hit, or even frightened. Eli had never shot a gun before and this may account for the fact of his missing. John having forgotten to bring the shot-pouch with him, Eli's chance for another shot was cut off ; being determined, however, to secure the coon, he coneluded to cut the tree down and went to work with his axe in good earnest. Ile had been chopping some little time, when the animal came down the tree, and after approaching within ten feet of the par- ties below suddenly sprang away out over the heads of all and ran up a leaning tree near by, pursued by the dogs. The dogs were brave little fellows (both being small ), Ruler being especially courageons and tenacious, and greatly esteemed by Eli for his many virtues. Joler was good and true, or at least had been so heretofore, and both dogs seemed to be ready and anxious to prove their courage and fidelity.
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HISTORY OF HOWARD AND CHARITON COUNTIES.
Joler happened to be in advance of Ruler as they approached the coon on the leaning tree (the tree inelining to such an extent that the dogs could ascend and descend without any difficulty ), and when he got near enough to take hold of the animal, the coon struck the dog on the top of his head with one of his tore paws, which sent him reeling and whirling to the ground. It was noticed that the scalp of the dog's head was off, as he struck the ground and as soon as he regained his feet, he beat a rapid retreat for the house, where he was afterwards found under Eli's bed in one of the cabins. Joler at- tempted to engage with the coon and bring him down, but every time he got near enough the animal would apparently slap him in the face and on the head, and send him turning over and over to the ground. The dog was finally worried so he could do nothing more and Eli was left to the resource of striking the animal with his axe, provided he could get in striking distance. While attempting to climb the tree with his axe, and before he had reached the coon, it sprang out of the tree to the ground and made its escape. Eli and John after finishing their work returned to the house and related their coon story to Mr. Williams, who after hearing it, told them that the animal they saw and attempted to capture was a panther. The next day the panther was seen again, and finally killed in the spring of 1820. It measured ten feet in length and was the largest one ever seen in the country.
Eli has been dead but a few years. He took great delight in telling the coon story. Ile had never seen a panther, and believed the one he saw first to be a coon. He said, however, whenever he related the circumstances connected therewith, that he thought all the time he was trying to kill it that it was the biggest coon he ever saw, and had never seen any as big in Virginia or Kentucky.
Bowling Green township, having been the home of General Ster- ling Price for many years before the war of 1861, we deein it proper to given in this connection a brief biographical sketch of the Gen- eral's life, believing that every man in Charitou county will peruse the same with peculiar interest.
GENERAL STERLING PRICE
was born in Prince Edward county, Virginia, September 14, 1809. His family were, as their names indicate, Welch. but they had spread into various parts of England and France, as well as into Virginia. They were evidently old settlers in Prince Edward
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HISTORY OF HOWARD AND CHARITON COUNTIES.
county, for the father of the subject of this sketch, Pugh W. Price, was the youngest of a family of twenty-five children, and child of the second wife of his father.
General Price was the third of four sons and a daughter who lived to maturity. The eldest brother was Doctor Edwin Price, who died in Brunswick, Missouri, in 1858. The next eldest was Major Robert Ilugh Price, who died in Galveston, Texas, in 1873.
The only sister is Mrs. Pamelia Royal, widow of Captain John Royal, formerly of Virginia, and mother of Colonel William Roval, of the United States army. Mrs. Royal resides in Columbia, Mis- souri. John R. Price, late of California, but now of Texas, is the only surviving brother of the family. At a suitable age Sterling was sent to Hampden-Sydney College where, after completing his educa- tion, he, at the age of twenty years, entered the elerk's office at Prince Edwards court-house, with a view of being bred to the bar. Here, however, he did not remain long, for in the fall of the year 1831 his father move to Missouri taking with him his sons Sterling and John. They spent the winter in Fayette, in Howard county, and in the spring following settled in Chariton county, near Keytesville, in which neighborhood the subject of this sketch remained for a number of years, engaged in keeping a hotel, in merchandising and in agricul- tural pursuits, after which he removed some tive or six miles south " and settled on a farm in Bowling Green prairie, on which he remained until the breaking out of the war in 1861. In 1840, General Price was first elected to the lower house of the Missouri Legislature, at which session he was elected speaker of the same. In 1842 he was re-elected to both positions. In 1846 he was elected to a seat in the Congress of the United States from the State of Missouri, on the general ticket system. War with Mexico having broken out soon after he took his seat in Congress, he resigned and was commissioned by President Polk to raise a regiment of Missouri volunteers. Upon this service he returned to Missouri, and in due time organized his command of which he was elected and commissioned colonel, and with which he marched into northern Mexico and the State of Chihuahua. In 1847 he was promoted for gallant and meritorious conduct to the rank of brigadier-general, and assigned to command in New Mexico, where he remained until the close of the war. He fought the battle of Santa Cruz which, like the battle of New Orleans, occurred after a treaty of peace had been made. In that battle the Americans captured General Augel Trias, the Mexican commander
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HISTORY OF HOWARD AND CHARITON COUNTIES.
and Governor of Chihuahua, and several thousand of his troops and twenty-four pieces of artillery, although the Mexican forces nearly quadrupled that of the Americans. The artillery and arms, were promptly returned to the Mexicans as soon as knowledge of the treaty of peace reached the general commanding. Yet it was ever with him a matter of regret that he could not bring to Missouri the artil- lery as trophies of the war. After the Mexican war, General Price returned to his farm in Chariton county which, during his absence, had been managed with great prudence and skill by his excellent wite. Here he devoted himself to agriculture and the genial and elegant hospitalities of that time - a conspicuous trait of all the people of that section, or wherever Virginians had immigrated. He was surrounded by a large colony of farmers, many of them of his own name and kindred, and by neighbors who held him in great respeet, not only for his eivie and military services, but who esteemed and admired him as a good neighbor and honest man. From this beautiful retreat at Bowling Green prairie he was called again, in 1852, into public life. He was nominated by the Democratie party and elected by a large ma- jority as Governor of the State. He entered upon the duties of the office at a time when the great corporations of the State, especially the railroad companies, were beginning to become formidable.
Sufficient encouragement had been given them during the adminis- tration of Governor Ring, his immediate predecessor, to embolden them in the most extravagant demands, and so plausible did the elo- quence of their supporters in the Legislature make these demauds appear, that large extravagant appropriations were voted them by the assistance of the " lobby " and " omnibus " bills, and when opposed by the veto of the Governor, accompanied by the strong logic of his mastermind, and the prophetie warnings that have since been so fearfully fulfilled, these bills were passed against his earnest protesta- tions. Finding the salary of the Governor inadequate to the support of that officer in a manner suitable to the dignity of the office, in a message to the Legislature, he called their attention to the fact ; re- commending an increase for the benefit of his successor. Two years before the expiration of his term, a law was passed in accordance with the recommendation, but to take etfeet from and after its pass- age, and notwithstanding the opinion of the attorney-general and several members of the Supreme Court in favor of the constitution- ality of its application to the incumbent, yet he persistently refused to receive a dollar more salary than he took under the law in force at
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HISTORY OF HOWARD AND CHARITON COUNTIES.
the time of his inauguration. Consequently there is a large balance still due him from the State. In 1856, General Price returned to his farin, devoting himself to agriculture and breeding of fine stock, where he remained with his family till the nomination of Claiborne F. Jackson for Governor, when upon his resignation of the office of bank commissioner, General Price was induced to accept the office. In 1857. he interested himself in the canvass for a county subscrip- tion of $250,000, to secure a railroad through this county, which is now a part of the St. Louis, Kansas City and Northern Railroad, and by his efforts, mainly, the project was carried by a vote of 341 major- ity. In the triangular contest for the Presidency in 1860, General Price esponsed the cause of Stephen A. Douglas, as a conservative between the extreme views represented by Abraham Lincoln of the North, and JJohn C. Breckenridge, of the South. When the results of the election were known and the tremendous excitement consequent thereupon caused the State Legislature, upon its assembling in January following, to call a convention of ninety-nine members or of three from each of the thirty-three senatorial districts, to consider the relations of Missouri to the Federal Government. Governor Priee, with Thomas Shackelford, of Howard, and William Hall, of Randolph county, were elected by a large majority, as Union members to repre- sent their district, and upon the assembling of the convention in February, Governor Price was elected president of the body. It was the design of the people of Missouri, if possible, to avoid the war that ensued, and for that purpose determined to occupy a position of "armed neutrality." For this they were denounced as traitors and as such treated by the federal authorities and their armies. Governor Jackson tendered to General Price the command of the State forces, with the rank of major-general, which he accepted and henceforth, after all hopes of averting a conflict were crushed by the capture of " Camp Jackson," where General Price's eldest son was with the company, which he had raised under the laws of the State, and of which he had been elected captain. his energies were expended in the interest of the South. This is not the time or place to enter into a detailed history of his military career while the sanguinary con- fliet lasted, for to do so would extend the sketch beyond our limits and involve a history of the war, which is not designed. Suffice it to say, that either from ignorance of his merits ( which is the most char- itable if not the most complimentary reason ), or from jealousy of his great popularity ( which is the most probable ), by the Richmond
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