USA > Missouri > Ray County > History of Ray county, Mo. > Part 25
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On these occasions everybody was gleeful; the very dogs were blithesome, and leaped for joy; the prancing horse, with beaming eye and distended nostril, seemed eager for the fun. Peace prevailed and good fellowship reigned supreme. As the cold, gray dawn of a November morning flooded the frost-crowned trees, with a sea of silver the merry hunter would
" Sound! ' Sound the horn! To the hunter good What's the gully deep, or the roaring flood? Right over he bounds, as the wild deer bounds, At the heels of his swift, sure, silent hounds. Oh, what delights can a mortal lack, When he once is firm on his horse's back,
With his stirrups short and his snaffle strong, And the blast of the horn for his morning song?"
But the sound of the hunter's horn is no longer heard in the land. Where it once reverberated the iron horse rends the air from his lungs of fire; and the zephyr's wing wafts the din of industry over the felled forest, where the jackal screamed and the night-bird piped his plaintive strain.
For several years after the first settlement within the present bounda-
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ries of the county, the Indian, steadily driven before the advancing front of civilization, found a safe asylum in the wilds of the west. The first families, therefore, who planted themselves here permanently to remain, were subjected to a close intimacy with the savages. Happily, however, they were not seriously molested, as the tribes noted for fell barbarities failed to visit this immediate region.
Pioneer life had its pleasures, but also, its hardships and dangers; and the latter far more than counterbalanced the former. To leave home and kindred and friends, the attachments of early associations, the scenes of childhood, the influences of education and refinement, and every fond endearment that binds one to the place of his birth, or to the subjects of his parental esteem; to venture far out on the western border, where ani- mated and inanimated nature are alike unreclaimed, to face the perils and endure the hardships of frontier life, required a high order of courage- a resolution not easily baffled-an iron will. This is quite as it should be; those who stock a country with inhabitants should be of the very best character, morally, intellectually and physically. So were the men and women who came to people the then remote northwestern frontier of Missouri territory-all of which subsequently became, and the richest portion of which is now Ray county.
In writing of the pioneers of this county, the reader will understand that our meaning is broad enough to include those who settled within its original limits, from the Missouri river to the Iowa line.
They may have been, as a rule, illiterate, because school advantages were extremely meager; some of them-many of them-were wild and wayward, for they lived on the "outskirts of civilization," and had to battle with the hardships of frontier life. The ruffian anon stole into their midst, but he was not of them -yet among them and of them were Christians; and if there were no church buildings, the groves-" God's first temples"-in summer, and the primitive dwelling of some pious neighbor in winter, afforded them a sacred fane for the worship of the Infinite One. They wore "hodden gray"-cloth woven by the frugal house-wife from nettles, gathered by the boys from the woods and river bottoms; aye, they wore even the tanned skins of wild animals; and dined on " homely fare." But what of that, they were honest men.
They occasionally fought, it is true, but fought like men-forgave each other, and were friends. Prejudice, jealousy or suspicion found no lodg- ment in their hearts; neither was there room there for treachery or decep- tion. They spurned all littleness, scorned bickering and smothered the flames of rankling revenge. They worshipped no god but God, and looked with contempt on the fawning sycophant, the sharker and the charlatan. Of their number, the modern "politician " was not one. While their independence of thought gave each an opinion of his own,
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the one respected the views of every other. Individuality asserted itself in their adherence to different political parties, but they were wedded to no organization, and in reality, their test of merit for public official position, was the Jeffersonian test. The pioneer is not a time-server; he loves independence.
Among the females, the "common scold" was unknown. A venial fault was not expanded to a crime. A neighbor's misfortune caused them genuine sorrow. They were frugal, but not sordid; liberal, not lavish; cheerful and diligent. Vanity failed to entice them. They were happy in their homespun garb. They were content to work: The hus- band, home at night, " free from care, from labor free," was lulled to rest by the steady whir of the spinning-wheel. Their ready hands shaped fells into garments, drove the shuttle, swayed the batten, whirled the dis- taff-and their owners were never peevish, because never idle.
Such was the character, with rare exceptions, of the men and women, who left their homes in Tennessee, Virginia, Kentucky, and other southern states, to participate in the settlement, ultimately in the organization, and to contribute to the growth and prosperity of Ray county; from among whom her first officers were chosen, and of whom many of her best citizens of to-day are descendants. But they are gone, let us hope, to dwell with "just men made perfect." We know that, on earth, theirs were the homes of peace and contentment; that they dwelt together in harmony, in love.
" Dwelt in the love of God and of man. Alike were they free from Fear, that reigns with the tyrant, and envy, the vice of republics. Neither locks had they to their doors, nor bars to their windows;
But their dwellings were open as day and the hearts of their owners."
EARLY SETTLEMENTS AND SETTLERS.
The first settlers within the boundaries afterwards embracing Ray county, came in the summer of 1815. Y
The country was not a wilderness, not a dreary waste; it was a broad expanse of diversified area, rich, productive, beautiful; but undeveloped, unpolished by the hand of art, undisturbed in the embrace of nature's God.
The pioneers' old fashioned Virginia wagons, covered with white . canvas, drawn by three horses, forming a "spike team," guided by a single line attached to the rein of the leader's bridle, and in the hands of a driver seated on the rear horse at the left wheel, halted on the east bank of Crooked river, not far above its mouth. It was August. The trees were crowned with luxuriant foliage. The forest was resonant with its own music, and redolent of summer's perfume. Spread out before.
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the travel-worn immigrant in all its pristine beauty, nature's handiwork presented a scene too inviting to pass. The opposite was the more attract- ive shore, but the stream was swollen, and how to cross was a problem to solve. It was quickly done. Trees were felled, a raft made, and the party swimming their horses, passed safe to the other shore, and went into camp. Thus, though its privations continued for a time, a long and toilsome journey, all the way from the sterile hills of East Tennessee, was brought to a welcome ending; and the first white families, who paused to remain. west of Grand river from the Missouri to the Iowa line, passed the first night within what afterwards became the limits of Ray county.
Their tents and canvased wagons afforded them sufficient shelter for the summer and early fall, but not from the rigors of winter. Quarters more substantial and capacious had to be built of logs, and ere this work could be completed, autumn's golden glamour was fading in the " sear and yellow leaf." Winter was coming on apace, and soon
" The embattled forests, erewhile armed with gold,
Their banners bright with every martial hue, Stood like some sad, beaten host of old, Withdrawn afar in Time's remotest blue."
But their hovels were finished in time to shield them from the severity of winter, and that season was doubtless passed with little suffering and in comparative comfort, considering the proximity of savages and fero- cious wild animals.
The place of the first settlements was called Buffalo, probably because frequented by that animal, and was not far from the present site of Har- din, in what is now Crooked River township, in the southeastern part of the county.
The settlement at Buffalo, or the Buffalo settlement, more properly, perhaps, was made by immigants from Tennessee, Kentucky and Vir- ginia. The very first settler was John Vanderpool, a Tennessean. He located, as above stated, on the west side of Crooked river, in August, 1815. With him was his wife, Ellen Vanderpool, and the following chil- dren: Winant, Meaddors, Kinman, Mary, Delilah, Holland, and John. Lydia and James were born in Ray county. The latter, at the age of seven years, was drowned in the Missouri river. Winant, Kinman and Delilah, are dead; the rest still living. Meaddors is living in Oregon, and although ninety years of age, continues to survey land. He, in 1819, taught the first school ever taught in Ray county. He also surveyed this county, and afterwards Chariton, Clay, Carroll, and Caldwell. His life has been one of many hardships, of continued labor, yet he is still active and energetic. Mary and John also reside in Oregon. Holland, to whom the writer is indebted for much interesting information con- cerning the early history of the county, is still a resident of Ray, making
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his home with a friend near Richmond. Ray county has been his home from early childhood, and he is now in his seventy-sixth year. No man knows any harm of Holland Vanderpool; he is a true Christian, inno- cent, emotional and warm-hearted. The entire family is remarkable for longevity. John Vanderpool lived to be quite old, and his father died at the advanced age of one hundred and nine.
Isaac Martin, who came from Kentucky, Lewis Richards, and Stephen and Joseph Field, from Tennessee, settled in the Buffalo neighborhood the same year. Isaac Martin became prominent as a local politician; was among the first representatives of the county in the general assembly, and held other county offices. He was unlettered, but of strong natural sense, and was a good neighbor, and a true gentleman. In one of his races for the legislature, Martin's competitor was Dr. W. P. Thompson, a Virginian, an educated, as well as a most worthy gentleman. A public meeting was held at old Bluffton. Dr. Thompson made a speech of some length, in which he mentioned with an air of pride, that he was from Virginia, and modestly referred to his scholarship and the school from which he graduated. Martin' replied in the following words:
" Gentlemen and fellow-citizens : I was born in Kentucky. I never went to school but three days in my life; the third day I whipped the teacher and left. What little I got was in the field, and it's right in here;" (pointing to his head).
Martin was a democrat, and was elected. Living in the county at that time was a poor old man, named Wallace, a revolutionary soldier, who had never received a pension. Approaching Martin, he told him of this neglect, whereupon Martin replied: "Old man, I appreciate your serv- ices in the cause of independence; rest assured that I'll see that you get the pension you justly deserve." The pension was secured through Mar- tin's efforts, and the old soldier lived to the end of his few remaining years in comparative comfort.
The following year, 1816, Abraham Linville, Aaron Linville, John Proffitt, and a man named Wood, with their families, joined the first set- tlers. They were all from Tennessee.
From this first settlement are derived, of course, the first incidents of early history. We mention some of them, as follows:
The first marriage solemnized between persons living within the pres- ent boundaries of Ray county, was that of Winant Vanderpool to Miss Nancy Linville, about Christmas, 1815. There being no minister in the neighborhood, they were compelled to go many miles eastward to find one to perform the ceremony.
A son born to Katie, wife of John Proffitt, in the year 1816, was the first white male child born in the county; but it died in infancy.
Missouri, daughter of Winant and Nancy Vanderpool, born in 1816,
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HISTORY OF RAY COUNTY.
was the first female child born in what subsequently became Ray county The father, an Old School Baptist preacher, is now dead. The mother as well as the daughter, are still living, the former in Mercer county.
The first death was that of an infant son, mentioned above, of John Proffitt and wife, occurring in 1816, followed soon after by the death of Peggy, daughter of W. and Nancy Vanderpool. Both decedents were buried on Crooked river, in the Buffalo settlement.
Dr. William P. Thompson, from Virginia, an educated, genial, and obliging gentleman, was the first practicing physician. He died in Grundy county, Missouri.
Reverend Finis Clark, of the Baptist denomination, Old School, was the first preacher. He was a good man; one among many others, who wore and wears religion not as a cloak to conceal the designs of a wicked heart. The first religious services were held at the house of Isaac Martin. In the winter season preaching was held in the neighbors dwellings. In the summer time
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"In the darkling wood,
Amidst the cool and silence, they knelt down, And offered to the Mightiest solemn thanks And supplication." * *
Men carried their guns to church, not to shoot their fellow-man, but to defend themselves against the attacks of wild animals. They also wore leather breeches, hunting-shirts, moccasins, and coon-skin caps. The ladies were attired in dresses of cloth, made from nettles, gathered from the bottoms, after partially decaying, and " broken," as flax. They also wore leathern aprons.
The first school house was built by the settlers on Ogg's branch, in section four, township fifty-one, range twenty-eight. The thing built was but a rude, unsightly hut. The logs were unhewn; the roof was of rough boards, weighted to the rafters with heavy poles; the chimney was made of sticks, and the floor was the naked ground. The seats were puncheons, set on pegs, inserted into holes near either end. The writing desk was of the same material, but larger, and placed on longer pegs. A log, taken from either side of the house, and the apertures closed with greased paper, formed the windows. A hobby-horse stood in the corner, for the accommodation of refractory pupils.
In this house, in the spring and summer of IS19, was taught the first school ever taught in the county, and Meaddors Vanderpool was the teacher. It was a subscription school, and the master was paid in calves, buck-skins, and wild honey.
All the first settlers did their own domestic labor. The weaving of cloth was done at home by mothers and daughters, and, in many cases, as
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HISTORY OF RAY COUNTY.
already stated, the cloth was the product of nettles or thistles, with which, at that day, the country abounded.
Corn meal was made by putting the grain into a mortar, and pulver- izing it by pounding with a pestle. The meal was sifted through home- made sieves, formed of buckskin and wire.
In 1817 the settlers, anticipating an attack from the Indians, and for their general safety and protection, built, on the Missouri, southeast of where Camden now stands, what they called a fort. A circular enclosure, made by setting cottonwood posts in the earth, formed the stockade. In the center of this was a block-house, made of heavy timber, and provided with loop-holes. The fort was called North Bluffton, and was the first village founded in Missouri territory west of Grand, and north of the Missouri river. It stood close to the river bank, but the stream has long since changed its channel, and the site of North Bluffton is overgrown with trees and herbage.
All the settlers entered the fort and lived therein for some time, but really to no purpose, as it was never necessary to use it as a barrier of defense. The Indians were friendly, and seemed influenced more by a desire to pilfer, than by motives of hostility.
The first settlement was a nucleus around which others were rapidly formed. In March, 1818, John, Richard, Samuel, Zachariah, William, and Jesse Cleavenger, Isaac Allen, John Hutchings, Lewis, Samuel, and Jacob Tarwater, James Wells, and William R. Blythe (a trapper), settled in Fishing river bottom, in the southwestern part of the county. They, too, were all from middle and east Tennessee.
The next year R. Lewis McCoskrie, a native of Bourbon county, Ken- tucky, settled in the same locality: Captain Jacob Riffe, from Casey county, Kentucky, a little further to the east, in township fifty-one, range twenty-eight, and Dorcdle Rowland and David Fletcher, on sections three and ten, township fifty-one, range twenty-nine, respectively. They came from Indiana directly; originally from North Carolina.
The above settlers all came to stay, and were sober, industrious, hon- est men. Several of them held county and township offices at different times.
John Cleavenger was the first settler between his house and the Iowa line. He afterwards became a justice o fthe peace; served two years as sheriff, and from 1856 to 1858, represented the county in the state general assem- bly. He was a worthy and useful citizen, and many of his descendants are yet living in the county.
Jesse Cleavenger lost his life by falling from a second story window of a farm house, in which religious services were being held when the acci- dent occurred.
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R. Lewis McCoskrie still lives where he settled sixty-two years ago. His name is untarnished.
Jas. Wells was appointed, by the first state legislature, one of the com- missioners to locate the permanent seat of justice of Ray county.
Capt. Jacob Riffe was widely known and esteemed. His name is yet familiar in every part of the county. His marriage to Miss Rutha Mar- tin, February 15, 1821, by B. D. Bowmer, a justice of the peace, was among the first solemnized in the county; and his son, William C., was the first white child born in what is now Richmond township.
Samuel Cleavenger served several terms as justice of the county court. William R. Blythe was twice elected to represent Ray in the general assembly, and was her first state senator.
Isaac Allen became a judge of the county court. The settlement was called " the Tarwater settlement," in honor of Jacob Tarwater.
The physicians who practiced in the neighborhood in 1818, and thereaf- ter, were: Dr. W. P. Thompson, Dr. A. B. Ralph, who is now (April, 1881,) living at Albany, this county, and Dr. John Sappington, an emi- nent physician, who died at his home, near Arrow Rock, in Saline county, September 7, 1856. (Dr. Sappington was the originator and proprietor of "Sappington's Anti Fever Pills," which attained immense popularity and were extensively sold-in some places passing as a medium of exchange-throughout the eastern, middle, western, and southern states.)
The first ministers were Rev. William Turnage and Rev. Finis Clark, Baptists. Services were held at the house of Jacob Tarwater, a pious, pure-minded man, in section 10, township 51, 29.
The school house was a mean little cabin, similar to the one already described, situated near the Tarwater place. The teacher was one Mun- holland; the number of pupils twenty, and the tuition $2.50 per quarter per pupil, a slight improvement, surely, on the Vanderpool school in the matter of compensation. If, in point of fact, less remunerative, it showed progression in method, at least.
The early settlers were, of course, compelled to endure many hardships and privations. To detail all these would require greater space than the plan of this work will allow. Suffice it to say that mills, markets, etc., were from forty to seventy miles distant, and, as there were no roads, or at best very inferior ones, the mills and markets were accessable only with difficulty.
For a long time the nearest horse-mill was forty miles distant, and sugar and coffee (tea being a luxury in pioneer life rarely indulged in,) were to be obtained only at Fort Osage, on the south bank of the Missouri, in Jackson county.
In 1818 Isaac Martin built a horse-mill near his residence on Crooked
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river, and shortly afterward John C. Bates erected a similar mill in Bluff- ton.
These mills had each a capacity of about twenty-five bushels per day. The roads leading to them were poor and lonely, but necessity forced persons living from twenty-five to thirty miles away to patronize them. Having reached the mill, the applicant was compelled to remain from three to five days, waiting for his grain to be ground, meanwhile subsist- ing on game and wild honey, using parched corn in lieu of bread.
Trade in live-stock, other than "swapping" horses, was almost unknown. There were few cattle; and they could be bought, when found, at from three to twenty dollars, according to age, size or quality.
The average price of pork, which was exceedingly scarce, was about one dollar and fifty cents per hundred weight, and a market for that com- modity was not easily found. In fact, the first settlers had no hogs. Much time in the early fall was spent in laying in a supply of meat for the winter, and venison hams, nicely cured, formed a considerable portion of the pioneer's food.
The wild hog was in the woods, and the pioneer, being an unerring marksman, never failed to bring him down, save when his usually faithful flintlock "hung fire."
The streams abounded with fish, and " gigging" was a favorite recrea- tion of the early settler. But this pastime could be enjoyed only at night and when the streams were clear and shallow. Near the front end of a canoe, five or six boards were laid crosswise, thus forming a small plat- form, which was covered with mud or mortar. On this a fire was built of dry wood, a supply of which for the night was prepared and placed in the canoe. One man sat at the rear, and with a paddle noiselessly pro- pelled the canoe, while another stood near the front and thrust his long- handled gig into the fish as he saw it by the light of the fire.
But little money was in circulation, and happily little was required. The scalps of wolves and foxes, for which the law provided a pecuniary reward, were often used to pay taxes; and furs, buckskins, beeswax and wild honey were bartered in the stores. Many of the settlers being with- out gold or silver, the only medium receivable by the government in pay- ment of lands entered, actually deposited with the land agent, at his office in Franklin, doe-skins and beeswax in payment of their indebtedness for land. From this fact the skins so deposited acquired the appellation of "land office money." !
Bank notes of all the states were in circulation, and were received at par as a medium of exchange between the settlers, but were not "land office money." A United States bill was very seldom met with, and gold and silver were extremely scarce, being used only in entering land and in the payment of expenses incident to the land office.
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HISTORY OF RAY COUNTY.
Of course none of the vast multitude of labor and time-saving inven- tions, wrought out by the ingenuity of man, were in the hands of the early settlers, on the wild western borders. All domestic and mechanical labor was performed by the settlers. There were few carpenters among them; skilled artisans were scarce; hence, every man was his own mechanic. Many agricultural implements; all wearing apparel, and nearly all house- hold articles were made at home. Rude and unshapely as they were, they answered every purpose, and nobody complained because they were no better.
The idler was not tolerated; the housewife was untiring; the husband provident; the children dutiful.
Thus lived the FIRST SETTLERS.
"Nor you, ye proud, impute to them the fault, If memory o'er their tomb no trophies raise,
Where thro' the long-drawn aisle and fretted vault,
The pealing anthem swells the note of praise."
INDIANS.
The Indians inhabiting this section when first visited by white settlers, and for several years afterwards, were the Sacs and Iowas. They claimed the country as their own, and, of course, regarded the whites as intruders; yet they were friendly, and, though perhaps regretfully, with- out resistance yielded dominion to the superior, incoming Caucasian.
A few deeds of blood and plunder were committed by savages who occasionally stole into the country from more war-like tribes, but tradition has no graver charge to prefer against the Sacs and Iowas than begging, pilfering and the like. They were not given to such dastardly deeds of despoliation and murder as the ancient Iroquois; nor were they so barbar- ous as the neighboring Osage.
The white men, women and children soon became thoroughly familiar with the "poor Indian," and the latter's appearance excited no alarm.
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