History of Jackson County, Missouri, Part 21

Author: Hickman, W. Z
Publication date: 1920
Publisher: Topeka : Historical Publishing Company
Number of Pages: 976

USA > Missouri > Jackson County > History of Jackson County, Missouri > Part 21

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"Our old slow going modes of locomotion and travel, of cultivation of soil, of harvesting and handling its products, in the diffusion of knowl- edge, in the mechanic arts, in the contrivances and labor saving inventions to help carry on the various industries and the necessary household duties, and in all the departments of trade, commerce and manufacturing, everything has been changed. The world now moves by machinery and steam and electricity-and its inhabitants now live, move, work, think, preach and pray by machinery-for one can now hold familiar converse with friends many miles distant, or listen to a sermon delivered in a dis- tant city while comfortably seated at his own fireside. What think you would have been the emotions of good old Joab Powell, who emigrated from the Sni country to Oregon in 1843, and who was credited with selecting his text on one occasion from the "two-eyed chapter of the one- eyed John," or of old uncle Jimmy Savage had they been assured that this mode of preaching the gospel could, and would be practiced during his lifetime. Little doubt we have but that in the extremity of their disgust and in behalf of outraged common sense they would have ex- claimed: "Now, Gabriel, blow your horn, and take us out of this pestilent atmosphere, to where we can get a good breath of God's own fresh, wholesome air." We need only to open our eyes and look around us to realize something of the triumphs of ambitious man over nature's obstacles. The rough unsightly hills and deep gorges of primitive times, once scattered all around where we now meet have melted away, and in a great measure been leveled down before the pick and shovel of the stal- wart omnipresent Irishman.

"The floor of the county court room where we meet is forty feet below

BAPTIST CHURCH GRAVE M

BAPTIST CHURCH, OAK GROVE, MO.

CHRISTIAN CHURCH OAKGROVE MC

CHRISTIAN CHURCH, OAK GROVE. MO.

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the original surface of the surrounding ground; and if the earth were again restored to its original level, nothing of the proportions of the large and costly court house would be visible except its dome. All around us is the great and growing city. When we came fifty years ago the nearest newspaper office was 130 miles east of this (the Boonelick Monitor, pub- lished at Fayette, Howard County, by James H. Birch).

"I need not tell you or attempt to enumerate the number of those luminaries now shedding abroad their bright rays around us and away off toward the setting sun. Their name is legion and the State of Kan- sas alone, that old American desert, now rejoice in the light of nearly three hundred periodicals and publications. Leaving out of the estimate the military cantonment, Leavenworth, the entire white population of the State of Kansas fifty years ago numbered less than sixty souls. It now numbers nearly 1,000,000, and the old mythical desert has become the banner wheat producing state in the Union. The wild denizens and countless herds that once roamed over those plains from time immemorial, have all taken their flight before the shrill scream of the locomotive and the steam thresher. The long straggling line of the yearly outgoing and incoming caravans of white-topped prairie schooners with its herds and boisterous, jovial happy crowds of American and Mexican greasers, no longer winds its slow length across those plains. I doubt whether there was then a stationary steam engine west of St. Charles. We were then destitute of a thousand things, that people nowadays consider indispens- able, and yet I can't see but people were just as happy and contented then as now. I think the average man was gifted with an allowance of brains fully equal to the man of the present day, and I am very sure they were better and came nearer the Divine standard; were more honest, more given to practice of hospitality and the virtues that 'ennoble and adorn mankind. It is true that knowledge has greatly increased, but we may · have grave doubts whether the true wisdom that looks beyond to the higher sphere of excellence has had any increase.

"Will some tell us this is the bliss of ignorance? One can now make the journey around the earth with more safety and more expeditiously than he could then travel from the mouth of Kaw River to the Pacific. It required two years of great privation, danger and fatigue for Lewis and Clark in 1804-5 to make the journey from St. Louis to the Columbia and back with all the needful aid of the government in men and money. The world is now moved by steam, machinery, electricity and the thousand subtile and incomprehensible agencies provided by an all-seeing, wise and

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beneficent Creator for the well-being of his creatures. Where is the limit, the height and depth, the boundless scope that has not been reached or attempted by the daring ambition and irrepressible intellect and genius of the human race? Truly, it would seem that in this evening of the nineteenth century of the Christian era the time had arrived predicted in the last chapter of the book Daniel, 'when many shall run to and fro in the earth and knowledge be increased.' And yet, there are a few trans- cendently wise men and scientists, who tell us this world and the human race has existed many millions of years, and will continue to exist many more. I won't dispute it. I am only too thankful that they allow us to have a beginning and ending at all. But more than that, they tell us that all the stupendous results just spoken of have been accomplished by being descended from baboons. Ah! what a fall is this, my countrymen, from the sublime to the ridiculous.

"They tell us We must

Give up our origin Divine; We came by methods we define- Development-from toads and swine. The man is but a brute complete, The maiden, laughing, loving, sweet, Should with a cousin's welcome, greet Each kindred thing With beak and wing,

And ne'er with pride of former shape,

Forget she's but a lovely ape, Bound down to earth beyond escape. Must we accept this pedigree? This stunted, scrubby family tree ! This beauty, genealogy !'

"Never, is my unfaltering and emphatic answer in behalf of the Old Settlers, although I am sorry to confess that I have in my long experience, known a few men who did have very strongly marked characteristics of the hog. But, enough of this. When an old backwoodsman, who couldn't tell the difference between a thoroughbred Pegasus and a spavined cart- horse, takes to quoting poetry, its time to put on the brakes. I said that it was a great pleasure to me to recall the faces, the incidents and pleasant memories of by-gone years, to draw comparisons between the past and present. In doing this, the question naturally arises, whether with all

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the wonderful discoveries and inventions, wrought out and set in motion by scientific knowledge and the genius of man, the sum of human happi- ness has been increased.

"Whether the average man comes nearer the divine standard today than he did fifty years ago? With the increase of knowledge and wealth has there been a corresponding increase in the virtues that alone make man god-like? These are questions profoundly impressive and full of interest to the old timer-and which we fear are fully answered "not so." We have listened to speeches and discourses as grandly eloquent and logical, in the unpretentious court house and the humble meeting house of the backwoods, as we ever heard in the halls of legislation or under the tall church spire. There is a very large amount of knowledge, so called, of the present day, that it would be a great blessing to the human race were it unlearned and obliterated altogether. It would greatly thin out our over crowded penitentiaries, jails and alms houses. No my friends, we need have no fears to institute a comparison from a moral or a social stand point between the people with whom we mingled in the days of our youth, and those who now occupy their places. As for me it is a source of unalloyed pleasure and profound interest to recall the faces and scenes of my boyhood, my youth and early manhood, of the boy, the careless, joyous, happy boy, plodding along to the small log school house, embowered in the shade of the grand old forest near the cool sparkling spring, to listen again to the sonorous cow bell, to reconstruct the almost forgotten picture of the unpretentious but comfortable log house with its surroundings of out houses and fields of waving grain, to listen again to the hum of the spinning wheel and cast shy, furtive glances toward the red-cheeked maiden who so daintily trips back and forth as she deftly whiris around the big wheel and gathers her woof on the spindle. Talk of your modern dancing schools! was there ever a school teaching the poetry of motion and posture like unto or equal to this. Then the ceaseless clatter of the everlasting loom, without which no con- siderable housewife could consent to live a day ; and the old familiar tread- mill or pull-round horse mill, and the gossipy miller and the old log meet- ing house where we all went on Sundays to show our Sunday clothes and take no notice of the girls dressed out in their brilliant ginghams, calicoes and linseys. Ah! well! no need to proceed further with this topic. Every one of you old veterans know how it is yourself. It is very true that "distance lends enchantment to the view"-and perhaps the distance of time (not place) leads us to view with undue partiality and favor the per-

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sons and faces familiar to us in our early life; but we have reason to rejoice and thank God that we can do so conscientiously. We do not say that all men in our early days were good men and true, but we do say that the proportion of the bad to the good was much smaller than now; that the vast increase of population, wealth and knowledge has also brought with these elements of civil progress a vastly disproportioned increase of crime in a thousand new and varied forms then unknown, per- meating our whole land and yielding a rich and perennial harvest of rogues and criminals of high and low degree. We need then have no fear to institute a comparison between the social, moral, physical or mental standing of the men of our early days and those who swarm around us. "Nearer my God to thee." And now my old friends do we fully realize the vast changes that have been wrought all around us, for better or worse? All, all is changed, and we old pioneers, too, are changed. Our once vigorous, buoyant, elastic step is changed to the slow, cautious plod- ding of the weary as we pick our way along the down grade of life. Our dark locks are changed to iron-gray and white. Our early dreams, our aspirations and our hopes are changed, a few to full fruition many to ashes of disappointment and sorrow, and the bright air castles of our youth are vanished to the baseless fabric of a vision. Our home circles and our familiar friends who have passed on before us are changed, we fully hope, in their new sphere of existence, "where the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary be at rest." That we, too, who still linger on the way may with our loins girded, and our lamps burning, in God's own good time have with them one other happy, unending reunion, is the fervent wish of one of the Old Settlers."

The meeting of Old Settlers, May 22, 1880, was a gala day for the Old Settlers of Jackson County. Their meeting was at the fair grounds in Kansas City. The plain, old, substantial farmer, arrayed in the primitive homespun was there with his bright, happy and healthful family. The old and the young mingled together in a gay and joyous holiday. Here and there beneath the great forest trees, were noted groups of Old Set- tlers, who recounted to each other the scenes of bygone days. The gray- haired pioneer recounted his battle with life, and the listeners drank deep of the historic lore of half a century ago.

The silver locks of the lordly old man blended in the scene with the auburn curls of youth and beauty. Friends who had not seen each other for years shook hands in a warm and friendly grasp, and the deep, cheery tones, "How are you ?" and "God bless you my old and true friend," rend-

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ered the picture a pleasing and happy one. Relatives met after a lapse of many years and greeted each other with warm demonstrations of joy. The day itself was beautiful and of the right temperature for a picnic. The forenoon was spent entirely in hunting up old friends and relatives and in pleasant converse. At twelve o'clock preparations were com- menced for the picnic dinner. Baskets loaded to the fullest capacity, were brought from the wagons and buggies. The tablecloths were spread on the grass and work of unburdening the baskets began. All over the southern portion of the grounds, groups of five to twenty, were soon engaged in the pleasant pastime of devouring the good things prepared by the thrifty house wife. There were no formalities about the meal; everybody, stranger or friend, was invited to join and dine with one of the many groups-there was enough and to spare. The generous hos- pitality tendered by the honest yeomanry of Missouri, permitted no one to go away hungry. Chicken, ham, mutton chops, pies, cakes, pickles, jellies, ice-cream and all other edibles found in the house of the old settler, were on the bill of fare.

The preparations by the executive committee had been ample and complete, except the arrangement made for speakers. Generals Doni- phan and Atkinson did not arrive and there were no orators of the day. The other arrangements, including chairs and seats provided in the grand stand, were most ample and satisfactory. Here was stationed the splendid band that discoursed excellent music all day long.

OLD SETTLERS' POEM. (By Martin Rice.)

'Tis almost half a hundred years, Since you and I, old pioneer, With aspirations free A home within this region sought;

But who of us then dreamed or thought

To see the many changes wrought, That we have lived to see?

From different counties then we came ; Our object and our aim the same- A home in this far West. A cabin here and there was found,

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Perhaps a little spot of ground Inclosed and cleared, while all around In nature's garb was dressed.

Here then we saw the groves of green Where woodman's ax had never been- The spreading prairies too. Within these groves so dense and dark Was heard the squirrel's saucy bark; The bounding stag was but the mark To prove the rifle true.

But all is changed and cabin's gone ; The clapboard roof with weight poles on, The rough hewn puncheon floor : The chimney's made of stick and clay Are seen no more; gone to decay ; The men that built them, where are they? I need not ask you more.

They're gone, but they're remembered yet, Those cabin homes we can't forget Although we're growing old : Fond memory still the spot reveres, The cabin homes of youthful years Where with compatriot pioneers We pleasure had untold.

The dense and tangled woodland too, The groves we often wandered through No longer now are there ; The prairie with its sward of green With flowers wild no more are seen, But farms with dusty lanes between Are seen where once they were.

Large towns and villages arise And steeples point toward the skies, Where all was desert then ;

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And nature's scenes have given place To those of art; the hunter's chase Has yielded to the exciting race Of speculating men.

The very spot on which we stand- This city, so superb and grand- How did we see it then ? How wild was that forbidden scene, The hills, with gorges thrown between, As if by nature it had been Made for a panther's den.

Those hills have since been leveled down, The gorges filled, the streets of town In all directions range; The labors of ten thousand hands, The workingman from thousand lands, The energy that wealth commands, Have made the wondrous change.

Ah, what a change the pioneer In forty years has witnessed here; (And things are changing still;) And streets and alleys then were not; Its greatest thoroughfare was-what? A ground-hog walk or a possum trot Which led from hill to hill.

Ah, yes, my friends, old pioneers, Full many a change within those years The country's undergone ; How many changes it's passed through- And we old friends are changing to- There's been a change in me and you And still that change goes on.

And when we think upon the past, Those friends whose lots with us were cast On this one wild frontier,

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And pass them all in our review, As oftentimes in thought we do- Alas! how very few Are there remaining here.

A few more years will come and go, As other years have done, you know ; And then-ah, yes, what then? The world will still be moving on ; But we, whose cheeks are growing wan, Will not be here: we'll all be gone From out the ranks of man.

Our places will be vacant here, And of the last old pioneer The land will be bereft. The places which we here have filled, The fields which we have cleared and tilled,

Our barns, though empty or though filled, To others will be left.

But ere we pass to that far bourn, From whence no traveler can return, We meet old pioneers. The few of us who yet remain, And we who here have met, would fain Now clasp those friendly hands again, We clasped in by-gone years.

In glad reunion now we meet, Each other once again to greet, And conversation hold ; And while we socially today A few brief hours may while away, Let us, although our heads are gray, Forget that we are old.

Let us go back-in memory, go Back to the scenes of long ago, When we were blithe and young;

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When hope and expectation bright Were buoyant, and our hearts were light; And fancy that delusive sprite Her siren sonnets sung.

And as we join in friendly chat, We'll speak of this and talk of that, And of the many things That have occurred within the land, Since first the little squatter band Came to this country, now so grand, Before 'twas ruled by rings.

'Tis natural that we should think, While standing on the river's brink, How wide the stream has grown. We saw it when 'twas but a rill, Just bursting from the sunny hill ; And now its surging waters fill A channel broad, unknown.

'Tis natural and proper, too, That we compare the old and new- The present and past, -- And speak of those old fogy ways In which we passed our younger days, Then of the many new displays That crowd upon us fast.

We little knew of railroads then, Nor dreamed of that near period when We'd drive the iron horse ; And 'twould have made the gravest laugh, Had he been told but one-half The wonders of the telegraph- Then in the brain of Morse.

We did not have machinery then, To sow and reap and thresh the grain, But all was done by hand;

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And those old-fashioned implements Have long ago been banished hence, Or rusting, lie beside the fence- No longer in demand.

Yes, there are grown up men I know, Who never saw a bull-tongue plow, A flail or reaping hook ; And who could not describe, you know, A swingling board or knife, although Their grandmas used them long ago, And lessons on them took.

The young man now would be amused To see some things his grandsire used, Some things he ne'er has seen. The way in which we clean our wheat, When two strong men with blanket sheet Would winnow out the chaff and cheat, And twice or thrice the thing repeat, Until the grain will clean.

The single shovel plow and hoe, To clean out weeds was all the show- We knew no better ways; And now our sons would laugh to scorn Such poky ways of making corn, And bless their stars that they were born In more enlightened days.

They say the world is wiser grown, They've got the speaking telephone- Talks twenty miles or more. And preachers now may preach and pray To congregations miles away ; And thousand other things they say We never had before.

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And yet I do not know but what The pioneer enjoyed his lot, And lived as much at ease, As men in those enlightened days With all their strange, new-fangled ways, Which wealth and fashion now displays, The mind of man to please.

'Tis true we did not live so fast, But socially our time was passed, Although our homes were mean. Our neighbors then were neighbors true, And every man his neighbor knew, Although those neighbors might be few And sometimes far between.

Ah, yes, old pioneers, I trow, The world was brighter then than now To us gray-headed ones. Hope pointed us beyond the vale, And whispered us a fairy tale Of coming pleasures, ne'er to fail Through all the shining suns.

Ambition, too, with smile so soft, Was pointing us to seats aloft, Where fame and honor last. We had not learned what now we know, The higher up the mount we go, The storms of life still fiercer blow, And colder is the blast.

That though we reach the mountain top; Fruition find of every hope, Or wear the victor's crown; Though far above the clouds we tread, There's other clouds still overhead, And on the mind there is the dread, The dread of coming down.

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Ah, yes, Old Settlers, one and all, Whatever may us yet befall, We will not, can't forget, The simple, old fashioned plan, The routes in which our father's ran Before the age of steam began To run the world in debt.

And while we talk upon the past, Of friends who are dropping off so fast, And those already gone, It may not be, my friends, amiss For each of us to this- The curtain of forgetfulness Will soon be o'er us drawn.

And though in glad reunion we Have met today, perhaps 'twill be A day of taking leave. And we who oft have met before, And parted in the days of yore, We'll part, perhaps, to meet no more When we shall part this eve.

The mind goes back through all the years- We call to mind the pioneers, Those bold and hardy men ; We pass them in the mind's review, The many dead, the living few, Those unpretending settlers who Were our compatriots then.

Men who of toil were not afraid, Men who the early history made Of this now famous land ; The men who ere the Mormons came This heritage so fair to claim, Were here prepared through flood and flame, Those claimants to withstand.

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Sam, Lucas, Boggs and Swearingen, The Nolands and the Fristoes, then The Greggs, with Owens, two; The Davises and the Flournoys, The Kings and Staytons and McCoys, And Dailey with his twenty boys- All these and more we know.

The Wilsons and the Adamses, The Irvings and the Lewises. The Webbs and the Fitzhughs, The Powells and the Harrises, The Walkers and the Barrises, The Bakers and the Savages, The Hickmans, Woods and Pughs.

Yes, some of these were noted men, Well known, and much respected then, Although their coats were plain ; And when in office they were placed, They proved themselves not double-faced- The people's trust was not misplaced, We need such men again.

We had our courts of justice then, A terror to dishonest men Who feared the halter's drop. Judge Rayland then the courts could hold In full a dozen counties told, Decide the cases manifold, And keep with business up.

We had our lawyers too, but they, Or nearly all, have passed away, We expected one of them to-day- A brave and goodly man ; But we are disappointed sore, That man of fame and legal lore, Now we may never see here more- Brave Colonel Doniphan.

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But where are all his old compeers ? The lawyers 'mongst the pioneers, Old French and Hicks and Young? Where now are both the Reeces gone, And where is Hovey, noisy one, And where is David Atchison, That man of fiery tongue ?

They're gone, you say, 'tis ever thus, The men of note are leaving us, The men of greatest heft; But when we pause and look around, A few whose heads are 'bove the ground, A few, perhaps, may still be found : Sawyer and Woodson left.

And then we had our preachers too, And one of them I think you knew, And knew their christian worth; And who of you that ever heard Good Joab Powell preach the word, But had his better feelings stirred By plain and simple talk.

Mckinney, Ferrell, Nelson too, Slayton, Warder and Fritzhugh, Tilley, Rice and Hill, And there was Elder Kavanaugh, And those of yore who ever saw Old Jimmy Savage, sure to draw 1 A picture of him still. -

Ah, yes, the preachers of those days Were noted for their simple ways, And some for style uncouth. But they are gone, they all are dead, Another class are in their stead, . Much better paid and better read, But have they more of truth ? -

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But time would fail to speak of all Those changes that our minds recall ; The world is shifting strange, And soon its shifting scenes will bear The last old pioneer to where His lost and loved companions are, Low in the silent grave.

But ere, my friends, we hence embark, We fain would place some lasting mark, Upon this mountain shore A mark the traveler may see In coming years and know that we Have lived and passed the road that he May then be passing o'er.

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History of Jackson County, Missouri, Part 21

Author: Hickman, W. Z Publication date: 1920 Publisher: Topeka : Historical Publishing Company Number of Pages: 976

Author: Hickman, W. Z
Publication date: 1920
Publisher: Topeka : Historical Publishing Company
Number of Pages: 976