USA > Missouri > Lafayette County > History of Lafayette county, Mo. , carefully written and compiled from the most authentic official and private sources, including a history of its townships, cities, towns, and villages > Part 24
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To Adam Lightner, for furnishing the circuit court with houses two terms, 3 days each term, at $1.50 per day . $ 9.00
To Adam Lightner, for furnishing county court with houses two terms, at $1.25 per day, 3 days in all . 3.75
Markham Fristoe, deputy sheriff, as per account filed 5.50
Markham Fristoe, deputy sheriff, as per account filed. 1.00
Wm. R. Cole, as per account filed
5.00
Abner Graham, 66
1.00
George W. Parkerson, 66 66
1.00
Wm. F. Simmons, 66
2.00
John Stapp, county court justice, 43 days
9.00
James Lillard,
9.00
John Whitsett,
9.00
Total
$55.25
210
HISTORY OF LAFAYETTE COUNTY.
October 23, 1821, Braxton Small was appointed deputy clerk of the county court. The first report of the tax collector was made on this same day, when there appeared to be due the county, from Markham Fristoe, the collector, the sum of $83.70. The court ordered him to pay $50 of it to the county treasurer within fifteen days, and the balance at the next term of court.
March 12, 1822, John Duston, James Bounds, and James Lillard were bonded in the penal sum of $2,000, as commissioners to select the most suitable place whereon to erect a court house and jail, and to let contracts for the buildings.
The first record, in regard to an election in the county, occurs under date of July 9, 1822. At this time, Solomon Cox, Legard Fine, and James Lillard, Jr., were appointed judges of an election to be held at Mount Vernon, in Tabbo township; and Julius Emmons, David Ward, Thomas Swift were appointed judges of an election to be held in Sniabar township, "at the place of preaching near Henry Renick's."
At this election, which occurred in August, Jesse Hitchcock was elected constable for Sniabar township, and James Bounds, Jr., for Tabbo town- ship.
It is noticeable, that in the earliest official county records Tabo is some- times spelled Ta Beau; and Sniabar is nearly always spelled Sny E. Bairre. [See Township History of Dover and Sniabar township, for origin of the names Tabo and Sniabar.]
March 12, 1822, James Bounds, John Duston, and James Lillard were appointed commissioners to select a town site for the county seat, and let contracts for suitable buildings. They selected the site, and laid out the town of Lexington (old town). The contract to erect public buildings was let to Henry Renick, and on June 27, 1825, appears an account of $875.15 paid him on the job. There are small items of payments, for jail and court house, scattered along in the county records, for two or three years, so that it was never known just how much this building did cost. It was a poor job, anyway, as the facilities for obtaining suitable materials for such a structure were then very meagre.
November 23, 1825, appears another entry of $467.41}, paid Renick on construction of court house; and the same day the building was accepted, and commissioners discharged. This building was occupied for county purposes a few years, but proved to be unfit and unsafe, and on July 24, 1832, the county court "Ordered that James Fletcher be appointed com- missioner to sell the court-house of this county, except the rock founda- tion, as follows: The brick, in four parcels, and the shingles, planks, and timbers, in one lot, etc. The sale took place August 1.
The county then rented accommodations for some years. The August term of court was held in Benedict Thomas' house. In 1835 Messrs.
211
HISTORY OF LAFAYETTE COUNTY.
two
Rollins & Thomas, completed a new three-story building for the county. This was used until 1845, when the present classic and stately court house was erected in the new town of Lexington, by Hunter & Alford, contractors. The old building in old Lexington was eventually sold to the Baptist Female College, and used by that institution until the war of the rebellion. During the turmoil it was used by the United States troops as a hospital, and finally as a pest-house for small-pox cases; hence after the war it was not used again for a school house, or any other public purpose, but was torn down and sold as old brick.
The transition from Lillard to Lafayette county is a little curious. The session of county court June 27, 1825, called it Lillard county. The session on July 11, makes its entry, " Lillard or Lafayette county." This occurs twice. Then the August term again uses Lillard county only. The November term does not once in any way name the county. The next term, February 6, 1826, says, " county of Lafayette, and so it has stood ever since.
August 6, 1822, the court examined and adopted a county seal. It bore the figure of a plow, and words, "Missouri, Lillard county."
FIRST ROADS, FERRIES, LICENSES, ETC.
The first mention of a road in the county occurs under date of April 24, 1821. Abner Graham was appointed overseer of the road leading from Fort Osage through Sniabar township, from opposite where James Connor then lived, to Fort Osage. He was required to keep the road in good repair, clear and smooth, twenty feet wide. At the same time James Young was appointed overseer of the road from Little Snia- bar to James Connor's. Wm. F. Simmons was appointed overseer of the road from the Tabbo Creek crossing near Mount Vernon, to the range line between ranges 26 and 27; and from this latter point Thos. Fristoe was appointed overseer westward to Little Sniabar Creek. George Parkerson was appointed for the road from Tabo Creek eastward through Mount Vernon to east end of Tabo township.
On the same day Gilead Rupe, Markham Fristoe, Wm. Robertson, and Reuben Riggs were appointed commissioners to view the best and nearest route for a road leading from Jack's ferry to intersect the road lead- ing from Fort Osage to Mount Vernon. Fort Osage was near where the town of Sibley now stands, in Jackson county, and was the nearest post of U. S. soldiers, in case of an attack upon the settlement by Indians.
At the same time also a license was issued to Adam Lightner to keep a ferry across Tabo Creek, for which he paid a tax of two dollars. The ferriage rates fixed by the court were: For one passenger, three cents; horse, three cents; cattle, three cents each; hogs or sheep, two cents
212
HISTORY OF LAFAYETTE COUNTY.
each; carriage or cart, twenty-five cents; wagon and team, thirty-seven and a half cents.
July 9 a license was granted to Robert Castles to retail merchandise in this county, for which privilege he paid $30 per year. This is the first license of the kind on record, and it is presumed he was the first mer- chant in the county. The location of his store is not named.
July 23, 1821, license was granted to Thomas Stokely to keep a ferry across the Missouri River about three miles below Fort Osage, for which he had to give bonds to the amount of $2,000. Abel Owen was his bondsman. The rates fixed by court for this ferry were: Passenger, twelve and a half cents; man and horse, twenty-five cents; neat cattle, ten cents each; hogs or sheep, three cents each; carriages, thirty-seven and a half cents; carts, fifty cents; wagons, one dollar; lumber or goods not in vehicle, six cents per hundred weight. Mr. Stokely also procured the appointment of Abner Graham, James Hicklin, William Y. C. Ewing and Wm. Renick as commissioners to lay out " a road from the bridge on Fire Prairie creek to said Stokely's ferry on the Missouri river."
There does not appear any record as to how or when or where Jack's ferry was established, but we learn from General Graham that it was at the original steamboat landing which afterwards became the foot of Com- mercial street of the city of Lexington, although now (1881) there is solid land for half a mile out from this old landing.
July 23, Ira Bidwell, Benjamin Gooch, Jesse Demaster and Pink Hud- son were appointed to lay out a road, giving Jack's ferry a shorter connec- tion with the Ft. Osage road. Also Gilead Rupe, Richard Fristoe, John Allison, and John Young were appointed to lay out a road from Jack's ferry to the county line toward Revis salt works.
July 24, Abel Owen and Henry Renick were appointed to lay off Snia- bar township into suituble and convenient road districts. And the same day a license was granted to Adam Lightner, to keep a tavern; for this license he paid $12 per year. The same day also Michael Ely was licensed to sell merchandise; this license cost $30 per year.
August6, 1822, Alfred K. Stevens was granted a permit to build a ware- house on the Missouri river, on the northwest fractional quarter of section 24, fractional township 51. This was for the storage and inspection of tobacco, and appears to have been the first commercial enterprise in the county.
November 5, record is made of license issued to Abner Graham to retail wines and spirituous liquors; also to James Rathwell for the same purpose-each paying $5 for six months' license. In August, 1823, a renewal of Rathwell's license to sell liquors is recorded as " J. Rathwell's
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HISTORY OF LAFAYETTE COUNTY.
ferry license," which seems to have been one of the popular jokes of that early day. Rathwell, it seems, had bought Stokeley's ferry.
FIRST MARRIAGE.
The first marriage record in the county is a curiosity, and we copy it " verbatim et spellatim," etc:
Missouri State
Lillard county no ye to home it may concern that this 8 day of Febru- ary 1821 was joined together in the holy estate of marimony James Kee- ney and Anney Ramsey by me
JONATHAN KEENEY, G. M.
[" G. M." stands for gospel minister.]
During the same year, 1821, the following additional marriages occurred: February 23, George Shelby to Margaret Tunage, by Rev. Martin Trapp; March 15, Wm. Cox to Sary Cantrel, by Rev. Martin Trapp; March 28, Wm. Furgusson to Polly Heard, by Samuel Weston, J. P .; March 15, Robert McAffee to Mary Gladden, by John Heard, J. P .; March 15, Wallace McAffee to Susanna Givens, by John J. Heard, J. P .; April 26, Walter Burril to Lydia Cox, by J. J. Heard, J. P. This was all in that year.
A total of sixty-one marriages occurred in Lillard county, from the first one, February 8, 1821, till August 5, 1825. But the first marriage recorded as occurring in Lafayette county, after the change from Lillard to Lafayette, was that of Nicholas Turner to Keziah McClure, by Abel Owens, J. P., July 19, 1825. There is some confusion in the records during the period of the change of name from Liliard to Lafayette county. The last marriage, as above noted, is given as occurring in Lafayette county, and yet on November 2, 1825, nearly four months later, Young Ewing signs his name on the record as Clerk of Lillard circuit court. The July term of the circuit court was recorded as in Lillard county, but the November term is recorded as in Lafayette county. No record was made to explain this change of name.
The actual first marriage within the present bounds of the county, was that of John Lovelady and Mary Cox, in 1818, before the county was organized, and hence does not appear on the record. [See article headed " History of Dover township."
PREHISTORIC MAN IN LAFAYETTE COUNTY.
Commencing on page 20 of this volume will be found a chapter on the general subject of the prehistoric or Moundbuilder race in Missouri. That chapter rambles all over the state for its data. This article is con- fined to such relics of those ancient people as we have been able to get knowledge of in Lafayette county.
The writer hereof has identified the site of an ancient or Moundbuilder village near Lexington. It is on the north half of southeast quarter of.
214
HISTORY OF LAFAYETTE COUNTY.
section 27, township 51, range 27; the land is known as the old Cromwell place, and is just across a ravine north from Judge A. S. Tutt's place. It was formerly cultivated as a corn field, but has lain fallow for three years past, the old house upon it being decayed and uninhabitable. There is a small orchard near the old house ruins. The ground here for five or six acres is dotted over with flint chips, bits of ancient pottery, and other relics of the Moundbuilder folks. The Lexington Intelligencer of June 25, 1881, contained the following local item:
Relics of the prehistoric people or Moundbuilders, who inhabited Mis- souri before our modern Indians occupied it as their hunting grounds, have been found and published in about twenty different counties of Mis- souri, but Lafyette county has not received her share of celebrity in this line.
Two of the Intelligencer office boys, Frank Lamborn and Ethan Allen, Jr., have specimens of flint arrow-heads and other curious things which they showed to Prof. Reid, of the Missouri historical company, and he listed and named them thus:
Ethan's list: 1 flint drill, 32 inches long-was used by the ancient peo- ple to drill their soapstone and pipestone pipes; also to make holes in other trinkets so as to string them; 4 flint arrow-heads of different sizes, shapes and colors; 1 flesher-an implement made of green-stone, and which was used as a hand wedge or peeler in the process of skinning animals, then as a flesher and rubber in preparing the skins so they would be soft and pliable. This tool weighs just a pound. It was also used to peel bark from trees.
Frank's list consists of 25 arrow and javelin heads, varying from 1} to 5 inches in length. Five implements which archæologists call shovels; these range from 32 to 62 inches long; 1 flesher; 1 stone ax-a very beau- tiful specimen, made of a kind of rock called syenite, a species of granite.
Last Monday evening the boys went with Prof. Reid out to a place they called "Indian Hill," east of the old Masonic college, and there they found great quantities of flint chips, broken arrow heads, fragments of ancient pottery with different styles of ornamentation represented on difter- ent pieces; and lastly a part of a tiny copper ax. * This last is supposed to have been the emblem of authority, kept or worn by the chief. The
boys say they used to find pocketsfull of arrow-heads and such things there. The abundance of flint chips, broken pottery, etc., on the ground is said to show that a village was located there, and a manufactory of arrow-heads, flint knives, shovels, stone axes and pottery must have been kept there for some time.
* On page 20 of this volume it is stated that "they had no knowledge of iron, or any art of smelting copper," etc. But in Switzler's history of Missouri, page 108, we find this pas- sage: "It has been stated, and often repeated, that they had no knowledge of smelting or casting metals, yet the recent discoveries in Wisconsin of implements of copper cast in molds -as well as the molds themselves, of various patterns, and wrought with much skill-prove that the age of metallurgical arts had dawned in that region, at least." This was written by A. J. Conant, of the St. Louis Academy of Sciences. The copper specimen found by Prof. Reid at Lexington looks as if it may have been molded, instead of hammered out from the virgin ore.
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HISTORY OF LAFAYETTE COUNTY.
Col. John Reid also submitted for examination and name a round stone weighing one pound and seven and one-fourth ounces, which looked more like a petrified osage orange than anything else. But the professor says. it is not a petrifaction at all, but is made from a flinty kind of rock called hornstone, and was used by the Mound builder people as a sort of pestle to work in a saucerlike cavity in another piece of hard stone which served as a mortar. With this rude apparatus they ground or mashed their parched corn and roasted acorns; they also used it to pulverize red and yellow ochre to make war-paint.
Prof. Reid made several subsequent visits to the place in company with Prof. S. M. Sellers of the Wentworth male academy, Mr. Charles Teub- ner, George Wilson, and others, and each time found some additional relics, until he had fragments of pottery showing over thirty different styles of ornamentation, besides many plain pieces, and much variety in the quality and admixture of the clay in degrees of hardness, toughness, etc., and in shades of color.
The following ancient mounds have been reported to this historian: Mr. George Wilson says that when the house was built where Prof. Quarles now lives, (a part of the Elizabeth Aull seminary property), two mounds were dug away in digging the cellar and foundation, and some human bones and unimportant relics were found. And there is one mound still remaining in the back yard at this place, just on the edge of the bluff, commanding a fine view of the river.
Wm. H. Chiles, Esq., reports a group of five mounds on Brush creek bottom, where the old Lexington and Warrensburg road crossed the creek on Robert H. Smith's land in section 36, township 50, range 27.
Ethan Allen, Esq., reports a mound in Wm. T. Hay's front yard, on southeast quarter of section 24, township 51, range 27; also, two mounds on Dr. Wilmot's place, northwest quarter of section 23.
Charles Teubner reports two mounds on T. R. E. Harvey's land, south- east quarter of section 22, about a quarter of a mile northwesterly from the negro burying-ground, which is on the Robert Aull estate. These two mounds are perhaps twenty rods apart, and near the brow of the bluff, giving a grand outlook over the Missouri river and country beyond. One of the mounds is still six feet high, and has a modern grave on top, with a rude board fence around it.
Dr. Sandford Smith reported a mound on section 5, township 50, range 27; and in company with Dr. Smith and Mr. Charles Teubner, we visited it. The mound is on the Odell place. Old Mr. George Odell dug into it, from top to bottom, more than twenty years ago (it was before the war, anyway). Its extreme height was about six and a half or seven feet. A layer of loose stones had been laid on the ground and then the earth piled up over them. No wall or chamber was found, nor any relics except a few crumbly human bones. This mound is on the highest point of land
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HISTORY OF LAFAYETTE COUNTY.
in that vicinity, and from its top objects can be seen which are known to be twenty-five miles distant; hence, it is concluded that this was used by the ancient people as a signal tower, to guide their distant friends up or down the river by night, or give warning of approaching danger. It si on the brow of the river bluff.
MOUND-BUILDER RELICS.
Mr. Charles Teubner of Lexington has a collection of Moundbuilder relics, numbering about 2,300 specimens in flint, comprising arrow-heads, spear-heads, javelins, daggers, bird darts, drills, reamers, fish spears, shov- els, hoes, scrapers, knives or lances, and some forms the use of which is still undetermined. The materials represented in these specimens are flint, hornstone, agate, chert, chalcedony, slate, hematite, milky quartz, and vitreous or glassy quartz crystal. Among these are over 100 specimens known as bird darts, being perfectly wrought and finished arrow heads less than an inch long. These are supposed to have been designed especially for shooting small birds of brilliant plumage, the feathers of which were used by some tribes in making a very rich and gaudy kind of cloth. Specimens of this kind of cloth were found by the conquering Spaniards in Mexico which excelled iu princely gorgeousness the most costly silks, satins, velvets or laces ever seen in European courts. It was made in the same way that some good housewifes now-a-days make most elegant rugs, by knitting common store-twine and looping a small shred of silk fabric into each stitch, and when finished, shearing the silk ends all to even length.
About 900 specimens of Mr. Teubner's collection are arranged on black oil cloth so as to form five life size figures as follows:
No. 1 Indian with battle axe, in the act of striking a savage blow. This figure or chart is composed of 181 flint arrow and spear heads, so arranged as to depict the Indian physiognomy, costume, and action with great vigor and lifelikeness.
No. 2. Indian with drawn bow and arrow, full life size, and the Indian's redness of face, even, is artistically represented by using red or coppery tinged flints for that part. This design is composed of 192 pieces.
No. 3. A deer running. This is a companion-piece to No. 2, and con- tains 93 flints besides a small pair of deer horns.
No. 4. Indian smoking the peace-pipe. This chart contains 147 flint specimens.
No. 5. Indian squaw and pappoose. This is the masterpiece of all; it contains 296 flints, so exquisitely arranged that the woman's moccasins, frilled skirt, flowing hair, and nursing breast are perfectly represented; the child's figure is perfect, even every finger and toe being shown, and by a skillful use of the different shapes and colors of the arrow-heads, an
-
217
HISTORY OF LAFAYETTE COUNTY.
expression of glee or laughter shows in the features of both mother and child as she stands tossing the little sucker as high as she can reach.
The specimins of which these figures are composed were all collected in Gasconade and Franklin counties, Missouri, during the years 1873-74- 75, by George H. King, Esq., now of Kansas City, who was then school commissioner of Gasconade county. He made the charts and had them displayed in the Missouri building at the Centennial Exhibition in Phila- delphia in 1876. Mr. Teubner afterwards bought them and added them to his Lexington collection, where, in addition to the above, he has speci- mens from Lafayette, Pettis, Montgomery, Warren, Boone, and Jackson counties in Missouri; and also from the States of Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana, Virginia, Maryland, and New York. Besides the flint specimens of Moundbuilder work, are grooved stone hammers and axes weighing from twelve ounces to over five pounds. Two of these are of hematite, a kind of brown iron ore almost as heavy and hard as real iron. Also stone bark peelers, skin dressers, corn pestles, paint cups, game discs, and various other tools or trinkets. There are supposed to be two or three other larger collections in the United States than this, but there is probably not another one equal to it in the variety of forms and material and the great number of exquisitely finished specimens of the flint work. Mr. Teubner has been over twenty years making his collection and still pursues it. He is determined to give Lexington the honor of having both the largest and most varied collection in the United States except that of the Smithsonian Institution. Of course no private collection can compete with that.
Mr. Jackson Cox, in his field in south half of section 2, township 48, range 28, Sniabar township, plowed up an ancient pipe of flattened ovoid form, with a groove and two creases worked around from the stem hole. The material is a heavy, compact, dirty-blue tinged variety of pipe-stone, and an excellent specimen. Mr. Geo. F. Maitland furnishes a fine speci- men of flint drill, 5§ inches long and half-inch bore, such as the ancient people used to work with thumb and finger, for drilling into softer kinds of stone. He found it on Gen. Vaughan's farm.
In connection with Mr. Teubner's specimens that were collected in Gasconade county, we ought to mention the fact that a stone about eight- een inches square, with a human footprint on each side, was found in his field by Mr. Wm. Miller, of Bay post-office, Gasconade county. [See page 14, of this work, for the St. Louis footprints in stone.] Mr. Miller sold this stone, together with other relics, to John P. Jones, Esq., of Keytesville, Chariton county, a well known writer on the early explora- tions of Missouri by the Spanish and French. [See Kansas City Review of Science, Nos. for May, June, July, August, 1881.] Mr. Jones thinks the footprints which he had were sculptures and not plastic moulds. He sent the stone to the Smithsonian Institution at Washington City. Mr.
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HISTORY OF LAFAYETTE COUNTY.
Jones says this stone was reddish quartzite. He further writes: "Geo. S. Mepham, of St. Louis, had a footprint stone a few years sgo, its material being limestone. I saw one at Washington with two footprints on the same side. I also knew of one in Kansas."
PHYSICAL FEATURES.
COMPRISING GEOGRAPHY, TOPOGRAPHY, HYDROGRAPHY, METEOROLOGY GEOLOGY AND NATURAL HISTORY .- GEOGRAPHICAL POSITION.
Lafayette is the second county east from the state line between Mis- souri and Kansas; has seven counties between it and the south line of the state, six east of it, and four north. Its area is 395,000 acres, one author- ity says; another says 393,000; and a third says 403,671 acres. The last man gives exact figures, as if he had measured it himself, so we conclude the other fellows were only "guessing at it." The 39th parallel of latitude crosses about midway of the county-almost through Higginsville; and its longitude is from 16₺ to 17 degrees west from Washington. Saline county adjoins on the east, Johnson county on the south, Jackson on the west, and Ray and Carroll across the Missouri river on the north. Its latitude is the same as Kansas City, Cincinnati, and Dover the capital of Delaware; its longitude corresponds with the boundary between Louisana and Texas, and with the cities of Des Moines, Iowa, and Mankato, Min- nesota.
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