USA > Missouri > Scotland County > History of Lewis, Clark, Knox, and Scotland counties, Missouri. From the earliest time to the present, together with sundry personal, business and professional sketches and mumerous family records > Part 65
USA > Missouri > Lewis County > History of Lewis, Clark, Knox, and Scotland counties, Missouri. From the earliest time to the present, together with sundry personal, business and professional sketches and mumerous family records > Part 65
USA > Missouri > Clark County > History of Lewis, Clark, Knox, and Scotland counties, Missouri. From the earliest time to the present, together with sundry personal, business and professional sketches and mumerous family records > Part 65
USA > Missouri > Knox County > History of Lewis, Clark, Knox, and Scotland counties, Missouri. From the earliest time to the present, together with sundry personal, business and professional sketches and mumerous family records > Part 65
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Mr. Linville was required to give his receipt and a bond of $200,000 for the faithful performance of the trust. [Record 3, page 636. ]
February 4, 1873, Mr. Linville came before the court, and made his report. The time for completing the railroad had been extended to January 1, 1873, but the road was unfinished. Ac- cordingly Mr. Linville " canceled the bonds, and the same were by him burned under the direction and in presence of the court." [Record 4, page 120.]
Thus it is shown that these bonds for the $100,000 were never sold, as some people of the county think, but were actually destroyed-put out of existence-so that they can never come up to annoy the tax payers. Had the county court taken the same precaution in making conditions for the issue of the other bonds as were made for the foregoing $100,000, that is, that the road should be completed and the cars actually running thereon, etc., the great bulk of the bonds would never have been issued.
Certain bonds, the property of the county, had been placed in Judge Thomas O. Wamsley's possession for payment to the railroad company, and, on the 5th day of February, 1873, he ap- peared before the court, and tendered bonds to the amount of $7,000, in response to an order to "turn over said bonds."
An examining committee, consisting of Casper Fetters, Benja- min Botts and Andrew Mccullough, was appointed to see that all the bonds were accounted for. The committee reported that they
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had "received of Judge Thomas O. Wamsley $2,000 in bonds," and an estimate of the chief engineer of the Missouri & Missis- sippi Railroad, with the receipt of the president of said road for $5,000 in bonds, from which the interest coupons for three years had been detached before delivering. The detached coupons were turned over to the court and burned. An order was issued that the bonds, amounting to $2,000, be deposited in the Knox County Savings Bank, and also that Judge Thomas O. Wamsley be released from all further obligation as to the matter of the custody of the Missouri & Mississippi Railroad bonds, which were in his possession. [Record 4, page 125.]
March 13, 1873, the same court issued the following:
Ordered by the court that notice be given by publication, notifying all whom it may concern, that the Knox County Court will not pay any of the coupons for interest on Knox County railroad bonds, Nos. 97, 98, 99, 100, 101, 102, 103, 104, 105, 106, bearing date of February 1, 1870, and made payable at the Bank of Commerce, in the city of New York; and that said notice be published in one of the county papers, and that a copy of said notice be sent to said bank, being the same bonds paid out by Judge Thomas O. Wamsley. [Record 4, page 152.]
It may be inferred from this action that the court doubted the legality of the delivery of the $5,000 in bonds by Judge Wamsley.
Subsequently, on the 6th of May, 1873, the $2,000 in bonds that had been deposited in the Knox County Savings Bank were withdrawn, and burned by order of the court. [Record 4, p. 162. ]
To recapitulate we deduce the following statement pertaining to the amount of bonds issued, or authorized to be issued. The bonds for the $100,000, authorized to be issued under the order of the court made April 6, 1869, and which were burned in the presence of the court on the 4th day of February, 1873, as has been stated, will be dropped out of the account, and no further notice taken of them.
Amount as per order of March 5, 1867. $100,000
Amount as per order of September 6, 1869. 30,000
Amount as per order of May 2, 1870. 55,000
Total amount of bonds authorized. $185,000 Deduct amount burned May 6, 1873. 2,000
Leaves amount authorized to be issued by the forgoing
orders
.$183,000
The following is a statement of the principal of the debt of
.
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HISTORY OF KNOX COUNTY.
Knox County, on the Missouri & Mississippi Railroad bonds for January 1, 1874, as found recorded on page 280 of Record No. 4: Total amount of bonds issued to Missouri & Mississippi Railroad $184,600
Total amount of bonds retired by payment.
15,500
Total amount of bonds outstanding Missouri & Mississippi Railroad. $169,100
Outstanding bonds, January 1, 1874, due as follows:
Due October 1, 1877. $ 14,750
Due February 1, 1878. 101,350
Due 66 1, 1880. 53,000
Total. $169,100
This statement being spread upon the record of the proceed- ings of the county is therefore official, and clearly shows the amount of the principal of the Missouri & Mississippi Railroad bonds due at the dates specified, but does not include the accrued interest thereon. Of the first subscription, according to certain evidences of record, there was issued in bonds $112,500, or $12,500 in excess of the $100,000 subscription; of the second subscription, $30,000, there was issued $19,100; of the $55,000 subscription only $53,000 was issued.
To show how unguarded the county court has heretofore been in protecting the interests of the people, reference should be had to the order of November 8, 1859, ordering an election to be held to decide the question of subscribing $100,000 to the stock of the Alexandria & Bloomington Railroad Company, where it will be seen that no condition for the completion of a railroad farther than that of the road-bed "ready to receive the iron" was made. That, however, never resulted in an injury to the people, for the reason that no bonds were ever issued under that order. But passing to the order of March 5, 1867, ordering an election to be held preparatory to issuing the $100,000 in bonds to the Mis- souri & Mississippi Railroad Company, and the subsequent or- ders pertaining to the same matter, no conditions or guarantee to secure the completion of a railroad were required of the company. And in this instance, inasmuch as the bonds were authorized to be issued at the first term of court, after the election returns had been canvassed, it would seem that the court intended to issue the bonds by virtue of the authority given it by a two-thirds
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STATE OF MISSOURI.
majority vote of the people. But, strangely enough, the bonds themselves recite on their face that they were issued by virtue of the authority conferred upon the court by Section 13 of the act of the Legislature incorporating the Missouri & Mississippi Railroad Company, which allowed the court upon its own motion, and without the delegated authority of the people, to make the subscription and to issue bonds for the payment of the same. "
It is claimed, and complained of by many citizens, that when the election on the railroad question was held on the second Monday of March, 1867, they were disfranchised on account of their aid to and sympathy with the Rebellion, and, therefore, not allowed to express their preferences at the election, and that the making of the subscription and the issue of bonds was a polit- ical matter. But it should be remembered that before the war, when the question of taking stock in the Alexandria & Bloom- ington Railroad Company was submitted to the people, at a time when none were disfranchised, and when it certainly could not have been a political matter, they were overwhelmingly in favor of the subscription; and that a vote in favor of subscribing to the stock of the Missouri & Mississippi Railroad Company was substantially for the same road, inasmuch as all the work that has ever been done on it has been done on the original line of the Alexandria & Bloomington Railroad Company.
Passing to the order for the issue of the $30,000 in bonds, made September 6, 1869, it is found that this amount was "to be applied to the completion of the road-bed, ties, bridging, etc., of the first division of said road, viz. : so much of said road as lies in Knox County, between Edina and Macon City." And by the order of May 2, 1870, authorizing the issue of the $55,000 in bonds to said Missouri & Mississippi Railroad Company, no bonds were to be issued "except for work actually done on said railroad, in said Knox County," but no conditions for a completed rail- road, with trains of cars running daily thereon, was made. Thus, it seems, from all the foregoing orders of the county court, that, with the exception of the one authorizing the issue of the $100,000 in bonds, which were burned, and which have been dropped out of the account, they never bargained or negotiated for a finished railroad, but only for a "road-bed ready for the
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HISTORY OF KNOX COUNTY.
iron," and this they got. But the people wanted a railroad- not a road-bed, and hence they have just cause to complain of their public servants, who so unguardedly transacted their busi- ness.
It is here proper to state that at the railroad election, in March, 1867, there were only 608 votes polled, while the total number of men in the county, twenty-one years of age and over, was about 1,800; of this number probably 300-certainly not many more-were disfranchised by the Drake constitution, and negroes were not then permitted to vote. At the election the preceding year the whole number of votes cast was but 984; at the presidential election of 1868 the number was 1,101. The voters, therefore, did not turn out to the railroad election. At least half of them, duly qualified under the law, remained at home, as is the common practice at special elections. Had there been a full vote, however, had even the "rebels " been permitted to vote, it is not probable that the result would have been differ- ent. Everybody wanted a railroad, rebels and all, and the senti- ment in favor of the first subscription was well nigh universal.
When it was too late, in 1869, the people awoke to a sense of their danger, to a knowledge of the recklessness, ignorance, and criminal carelessness with which the railroad business had been transacted, and threatened to hang the county court if any more bonds were ever issued.
After the railroad bonds were all issued, and the company failed to complete its road, the county claimed that the bonds had been issued without authority, and that the company had not performed its part of the contract, and that the bonds were illegal and void, and, therefore, not a lien upon the property of the county and the property holders thereof; hence payment of the interest thereon, and also of the principal when it became due, was suspended.
Subsequently a suit was brought in the circuit court of the United States for the eastern district of Missouri against the county of Knox, by the Wells & French Company, to enforce payment of certain past due bonds dated February 1, 1868, and coupons issued by said county to the M. & M. Railroad Company, and on the 25th day of September, 1879, the plaintiffs obtained a
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STATE OF MISSOURI
judgment on said suit against the county for the sum of $24,627.24. An appeal from this decision was taken by the county to the supreme court of the United States, which tribunal, at its October term, 1883, sustained the judgment of the lower court. After- ward, on the 17th day of July, 1884, the county court of Knox County, in obedience to a peremptory writ of mandamus issued by the circuit court of the United States for the eastern district of Missouri, issued a warrant (No. 189) on the general fund of the county in favor of the said Wells & French Company, for the sum of $31,788.80, it being the amount of aforesaid judgment obtained by said company, together with the costs and accumulated interest thereon. This warrant was presented for payment to the county treasurer on the same day of its issue, and there being no funds with which to pay it, it immediately went to protest. This much then of the bonded indebtedness of the county, on account of the M. & M. Railroad bonds, has reached its final adjudication, so that its legality can never be questioned. But it remains un- paid, is drawing interest, and does not reduce the original debt.
Another suit was brought in the circuit court of the United States for the eastern district of Missouri, by George W. Harsh- man against Knox County to enforce payment of certain bonds and coupons issued to the M. & M. Railroad Company, and on the 28th day of March, 1881, judgment by default was rendered in favor of said plaintiff for the sum of $77,374.46. Afterward an appeal was taken to the supreme court of the United States, which tribunal, at its October term, 1886, sustained the judgment of the lower court. Subsequently, on the 21st day of June, 1887, the circuit court of the United States for the eastern district of Missouri issued a peremptory writ of mandamus in the county court of Knox County to levy a special tax upon all taxable prop- erty in Knox County, and to cause the same to be collected in money, and when collected to be applied in payment and discharge of said judgment, interest and costs. Since receiving this writ of mandamus, the county court has delayed compliance with it, and made application for a stay of their action until a rehearing or a review of the judgment can, if possible, be obtained, and thus the matter is pending at the present writing.
There are many legal questions involved in connection with
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HISTORY OF KNOX COUNTY.
the issue and collection of the M. & M. Railroad bonds, the full discussion of which would fill a volume, and consequently can not be inserted here. They may, however, be summarized so as to be sufficiently well understood.
The county claims that all of the bonds were issued under the charter of the Missouri & Mississippi Railroad Company. The bonds themselves seem to substantiate the claim. Every bond bears upon its face the following recital:
This bond being issued under and pursuant to order of the county court of Knox County for subscription to the stock of the Missouri & Mississippi Railroad Company, as authorized by an act of the General Assembly of the State of Missouri, entitled "An Act to Incorporate the Missouri & Mississippi Railroad Company," approved February 20, 1865.
The first order of subscription (for $100,000) does not state by what authority it is made, whether under the charter or under the general law of the State then in force. A subscription under the general law, to be valid, had to be made with the assent of two-thirds of the voters of the county. A subscription under the charter might be made without a vote of the people, but to pay the same no tax could be levied " to exceed one-twentieth of one per cent upon the assessed value of taxable property for each year." The incongruous nature of a subscription of $100,000 under the charter is apparent when it is known that the assessed value of Knox County has always been less than $6,000,000, and generally about $3,000,000. A tax of one-twentieth of one per cent, therefore, would raise but $500 for every $1,000,000 of value, and it never would be possible to pay the debt at that rate.
On the side of the bondholders it was claimed that the first subscription of $100,000 was made under the general law of the State, pursuant to the vote of the people. In support of this claim the facts that the March election was properly held, and that the subscription was made very soon thereafter, are shown. Furthermore, on the trial of the Harshman case, W. F. Plumer testified that he was one of the justices of the county court when the subscription was made and the bonds issued; that it was the intention to make the subscription under the vote; that he knew there were two laws-the one the general statutes of the State, and the other the charter of the Missouri & Mississippi Railroad
725
STATE OF MISSOURI.
Company-under which the county court could make the sub- scription and issue bonds in payment; that the former law re- quired an election to be held and the assent of two-thirds of the ' qualified voters of the county before the subscription could be made and bonds issued; and that the latter did not require any election at all to be held to authorize the county to subscribe and issue bonds in payment of the subscription; that he signed the bonds issued in payment of the subscription of $100,000 as presiding justice of the county court; that he had read the bonds before he signed them, and he knew that they contained the recital that they were "issued under and pursuant to the order of the county court of Knox County for subscription to the stock of the Missouri and Mississippi Railroad Co., as authorized by an act of the General Assembly of the State of Missouri, entitled, 'An Act to Incorporate the Missouri and Mis- sissippi Railroad Co.,' approved February 20, 1865."
The claim of the bondholders as to the intent of the court to make the first subscription under the vote is doubtless correct. The fact that neither the order of subscription so states, and that the bonds themselves declare that they were issued under the charter, can be accounted for on the score of oversight on the part of the county authorities. Those who knew these gentle- men will readily believe this. But it was clearly the intent of the court to issue the additional subscriptions of $30,000 and $55,000 under the charter, since no vote of the people was ever taken on these propositions.
From the first the action of the county authorities in the matter of the Missouri & Mississippi Railroad subscription has been characterized by want of care, caution and ordinary pru- dence, and in some instances can only be accounted for on the grounds of ignorance and stupidity. Accusations of criminality and corruption cannot be established, since they would indicate a degree of intelligence and shrewdness which the transactions never sustained.
The judgment by default in the Harshman case, by which the county was adjudged by the court of last resort to be indebted in the sum of $77,000, is an instance in point. That considerable sum was decreed to be due from the county by default of any
726
HISTORY OF KNOX COUNTY.
appearance or representation in court. Suit had been properly begun, and the return of the United States marshal showed that notice thereof had been duly served on the clerk of the county court; but the county clerk did not notify the county judges or any one else, and so when the case was called in the United States court at St. Louis there was no one to answer for Knox County, and judgment was rendered accordingly; the real merits of the case were not inquired into. The county clerk, when taken to task, denied any recollection of such an incident as the service upon him of notice of the suit! But he never made affi- davit to that statement, and, as he is now dead, the return of the marshal must stand.
Until after the decision of the supreme court in the case of the State ex. rel. vs. Shortridge (56 Mo., p. 126), which was ren- dered in 1874, the county court levied every year after making the subscription an annual tax, ranging from 25 cents to 75 cents on $100 valuation, to pay the interest on the Missouri & Mississippi Railroad bonds. Since that period it has annually levied only the "one-twentieth of one per cent."
Besides the county warrant issued in July, 1884, to the Wells & French Company, amounting to $31,788.80, there was issued March 15, 1879, another warrant on the county revenue fund to George W. Harshman, in payment of judgments obtained for accrued interest on the bonds.
The total amount of cash expended by the county on account of the railroad bonds, chiefly in payment of the interest coupons, from 1867 to the 1st of November, 1887, is $101,310.55.
The total amount of the bonded debt outstanding can be ap- proximated very nearly. Up to the 1st of November, 1887, it amounted, principal and interest, as nearly as may be calculated from the data obtainable, to about $312,000. This estimate does not, of course, include the Wells-French warrant of $31,788.80, the payment of which, it is understood, will be resisted.
What will be the ultimate conclusion of the whole matter can not at this time be conjectured. The debt-if it be established that it is a debt-falls with crushing weight upon the people. It is now one-tenth of the valuation, and is growing year by year. It is all the harder to be borne from the fact that the road in
727
STATE OF MISSOURI.
whose aid it was created was never completed. It is true indeed that the people got what they bargained for-some ramparts of earth and huge ditches-but this fact does not render the situa -. tion any more tolerable. A " dead horse" is seldom paid for without reluctance.
The uncertainty of the condition of the indebtedness is per- haps the worst feature. If the exact liability of the county was known, preparations could be made for its discharge with reason- able certainty of its extinction in the future. For this condition of affairs the people themselves are very largely responsible. Their want of care in the selection of their public servants, their inattention to their public interests, their indifference toward public affairs generally have contributed in great proportion to bring about their infelicitous situation.
RAILROADS.
The Quincy, Missouri & Pacific .- In 1870 the project of building the Quincy, Missouri & Pacific Railroad was broached among the people of Lewis, Knox, Adair and other counties in earnest, and with a reasonable certainty of its completion. The county had enough of bonds of its own in the defunct " Missouri & Mississippi," and was indisposed to grant the new enterprise a single dollar. The townships through which the road had been surveyed were authorized to hold elections and have bonds issued upon themselves, and straightway Fabius, Jeddo, Center, Lyon and Salt River took action. The result was the issue of bonds to the amount of $75,000 by Jeddo, Center and a part of Lyon. The bonds were to run twenty years from the date of issue, and the interest is now payable semi-annually, at the rate of seven per cent. They were issued at the dates and in the amounts as here given: Jeddo Township issued December 1, 1870, $20,000; Center Township issued January 1, 1872, $50,000; Lyon, sub- district, issued September 2, 1872, $5,000; total amount issued, $75,000. At that date Jeddo Township comprised a great deal of territory now a part of adjoining townships, and the people of this territory are compelled to pay their proportion of the debt. Center Township is virtually merely the town of Edina, so that its bonds are in effect the obligations of the municipality. The
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HISTORY OF KNOX COUNTY.
interest on all of these bonds has always been promptly paid, and it is expected that the principal, or the greater part of it, will be paid at maturity, or soon thereafter.
The road was completed through the county in the spring of 1872. The first train reached Edina at 3 o'clock P. M., on the 25th of April. It had received a considerable subsidy from three townships, but there had been expended in its construction through the county a sum largely in excess of this.
The substantial benefits received by the people of the county from the construction of this road can not be over-estimated. For years the county was without an outlet to the markets and business centers of the world, and the Quincy, Missouri & Pacific Railroad not only supplied a long-felt want in this particular, but it added a vast amount to the material wealth of the county. It virtually created the towns of Knox City and Hurdland, and it has added a cash value to every acre of land tributary to its line. It has paid, every year since its construction, a hand- some sum in taxes, and its value is constantly increasing. It has improved the mail facilities of the people to an incalculable extent. Letters mailed, and daily papers printed in Chicago and St. Louis, reach all the stations in this county the same day.
The present management of the road is all that can be desired. Its rates are reasonable, and its policy toward the public most liberal. On every occasion warranted by the circumstances it gives special terms when it might insist on full rates, and its employes and operatives are at all times courteous, accommodat- ing and obliging to patrons.
The Quincy, Missouri & Pacific Railroad now extends from Quincy, Ill., to Trenton, Mo. At its initial point it connects with trains for Chicago and all points east; at West Quincy, with the St. Louis, Keokuk & Northwestern; at Kirksville, with the Wabash system; at Milan, with the Chicago, Burlington & Kansas City; at Gault, with the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul, and at Trenton, with the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific.
The Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe .- In the early spring of 1887 the great corporation known as the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad Company began the construction of a division of its road from Kansas City to Chicago, through Knox County.
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STATE OF MISSOURI.
Its line, as located, runs diagonally through the northwestern portion of the county, from southwest to northeast.
The company came into the county asking no subsidies, no . subscriptions to its stock, no bonds, and few favors of any sort. When the right of way could be obtained by donation, without much trouble, it was accepted, but generally it was liberally paid for. Citizens of Edina made strenuous efforts to secure a deflec- tion of the line, so that the county seat should become a point thereon. The old grade of the Missouri & Mississippi Railroad, was offered for the use of the new road gratis, and when this offer was declined, a subscription was proposed to meet the ex- pense of the desired curve. The offer, however, was not accepted.
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