USA > Missouri > Vernon County > History of Vernon County, Missouri : past and present, including an account of the cities, towns and villages of the county Vol. I > Part 12
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Asking pardon for this degression, I now return to Missouri and Vernon county.
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HISTORY OF VERNON COUNTY
In 1866 the first year after the war was closed, Thomas Wil- son, a brother of Jno. L. Wilson, who was the first clerk of Vernon county (by appointment) after the war and who lived, on a farm in Osage township north of the Osage river, on the Balltown and Pappinsville road, the farm belonging to Dr. Jesse F. Stone, who was killed in the war on the Confederate side and an uncle of my wife's, which farm I afterwards bought and in 1873 traded it for a hotel property in Topeka, Kan., realizing about $20 per acre for it, and which proved to be very valuable coal lands . worth $125 per acre. After the building of the L. & S. Railway, commenced the agitation of building a railroad from Sedalia, Mo., to Ft. Scott, Kan. He traveled incessantly up and down the road in a buckboard between Sedalia and Ft. Scott, via Clinton, Pap- pinsville and Balltown, but never came near Nevada; preaching the necessities of a railroad through that country.
. His pleadings becoming so persistent and vociferous, he was nicknamed "Old Salt Barrel" by those living along the line; for the reason he always elucidated his arguments of the importance of building the road by comparing the price of a barrel of salt, which it cost them at that time when they had to haul it by wagon either from Sedalia or Pleasant Hill and the price they would get it at had they the railroads. His argument was crude, but good and it finally won out; but, alas for Wilson, he was so disap- pointed because the road was not built on the road chosen by him that he retired in disgust to a farm in Kansas and left the building of railroads to others. But not until he had seen the commencement of the building of it at Sedalia and the company had let him the contract to build the grade to Windsor in Henry county, which he did and on which I hope and believe he made some money. For he deserved it.
In 1867 Peter A. Ladue of St. Louis, A. C. Marvin and John Barrett, of Sedalia; Harvey Bunce, father of the late Mortimer Bunce, of Vernon county; Major Elliott, of Howard county, Missouri, and D. C. Stone, of Clinton, Mo., revived the old charter of the "Tebo and Neosho" railroad, chartered by the legislature of Missouri prior to the war, secured local subscrip- tions from Cooper, Pettis and Henry counties and in 1868 com- menced the grading of the road southwest from Sedalia toward Clinton, Mo. Charles Roberts, of Bates county, was chosen a director for Bates county ; Gen. C. W. Blair and Dr. B. F. Hepler,
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of Fort Scott, for Bourbon county, Kansas, and I for Vernon county, Missouri. In June, 1870, we secured a subscription of $300,000 from Vernon county to the road. For this act Judge Sylvester Fuller and Judge E. S. Weyand, of the County Court of Vernon county, received severe censure from the people of Vernon county for making the subscription. Judge H. P. Mobley, of the County Court, opposed and protested against the subscrip- tion. I for my activity in the matter and for being a member of the board of directors of the railroad company received the long, lasting execration and condemnation of the good people of Ver- non county, the effects of which I very sensibly felt and was polit- ically reminded of on more than one occasion for twenty-five years thereafter. But I have and have had the satisfaction of knowing that that act of the County Court of Vernon county on the 28th day of June, 1870, and my activity in the matter saved Nevada from losing out as the county seat of Vernon county and the formation of a new county out of the northern portion of Vernon and southern portion of Bates counties. For had the road been built on a straight line from Appleton City to Fort Scott, as the people of Fort Scott and those in the southern portion of Bates and our own citizens of the northern portion of Vernon county desired so much and strived so hard to accomplish, Nevada, the "Gem City" of the southwest, would have relapsed into that silence which I saw settle upon her on the morning of the 26th day of May, 1863, when the torch had done its work and she lay a desolate, disconsolate and ungainly ash heap and smoldering debris, at the feet of Mrs. Henry Morris, Mrs. Rea Cummins and myself the only living witnesses of that conflagration and Ne- vada's spoliation. I believed then, I know now, what I did then was for the best interest, future welfare and prosperity of Ne- vada and of Vernon county at large. It certainly made it easier for securing of the Lexington and southern division of the Mis- souri Pacific railway ten years later. But even then I and my dear departed friend and colaborer, Col. E. H. Brown, of Car- thage, Mo., working together for a common interest -- the interest of our home towns and counties respectively; for if either Car- thage or Nevada won the other would not lose, but if either lost both would lose; had to meet again the ancient enemy of Ne- vada, to-wit, Fort Scott, who worked so indefatigably to have this road built from Rich Hill to Fort Scott.
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During his life only he and I and since his death only I know or ever will know the struggles we had to endure the opposi- tion and objections to overcome and to frustrate that project. How he as projector and I as contractor on one occasion disobeyed, at the risk and 'peril of losing our good standing and influence with the backers of the road, orders emanating from the high- est authority. which action on our part threw Fort Scott off her guard; and on another occasion lost another written order, thereby securing two days' time. Result: Nevada and Car- thage got the road and Fort Scott lost it. I do not claim that our action on the above occasions was in strictest compliance with that business etiquette which should govern gentlemen in their dealings with their fellow man, but our view of it at the time was; the case is desperate, the ends to be gained justify the means we employ to gain it; in a word, Nevada and Car- thage should have the road; Fort Scott should not. Fort Scott in those days, when she was striving to establish her commer- cial supremacy as the emporium of the southwest, had men of foresight, judgment and business acumen worthy of the steel of the best of those who opposed them.
With untiring energy and unfaltering zeal she kept up the struggle for a northeastern outlet, after she had lost the L. & S. road, for she, like Auticlus, "Unable to control, spoke loud the language of her yearning soul," for the flesh pots of -northwest- ern Vernon county, and finally, in later years, secured the cov- eted object by getting a branch line built from Rich Hill to Fort Scott.
Begging pardon for this digression, I return to the build- ing of the M., K. & T. road.
Soon after the subscription of $300,000 was made to this road by the County Court of Vernon county, the directory of the old "Tebo and Neosho road" sold it, with all its rights and franchises, to the M., K. & T. Co., Levi Parsons, of New York City, president. At this time we had the road graded to Clin- ton and track laid to Green Ridge in Pettis county. The M., K. & T. Co. took immediate charge of the building of the road ; but we did not make legal transfer of the Tebo & Neosho fran- chises until the track had been laid to where Harwood is now.
Mr. Robert Stevens, general manager of construction of the M., K. & T. Co., who, as previously stated, had won out in his
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contest with Mr. Joy in Kansas, at once withdrew his force from Kansas to Missouri and energetically pushed the construction of the M., K. & T. to Nevada, thence to Fort Scott and on to a junction with their Neosho valley or Junction City division, where now is Parsons, Kan., where the company had secured a large tract of land for townsite, which they laid out and named it "Parsons" in honor of the president of the road. This ac- complished, Mr. Stevens took up the work where he had left off in the Indian Territory and with his usual vim pushed it through the territory and to Dennison, Tex.
Soon thereafter, his health failing, he ceased an active busi- ness life and returned to his home in Elmira, N. Y. For years he represented his district in the New York state senate. He died several years ago. And this reminds me that all those active men-I might say of some of them great men, close friends and genial spirits I had the pleasure of coming in contact with in the building of the M., K. & T., the L. & S. division of the Missouri Pacific railway and the St. Louis, Kansas City and Colorado railway, now the Rock Island, St. Louis & Kansas City line, have all passed to the unknown and I alone am left. Peace to their ashes! To me their memory is dear. Of the hundreds of thousands, aye, may I not say of the millions, of humanity who in the past forty years have ridden over these great arteries of travel and of commerce, many reclining in the magnificent "Pullman sleeper" and dining in the elegant cafe and viewing God's own country from the swift but easy gliding observation coach, think of or for a moment give a passing thought of the men who in the childhood of this country, as it were, planned, schemed, labored and wrought, through heat and cold, sunshine and gloom, day and night, in prosperity and in adversity; at times receiving the encomiums of the few, at all times the execrations of the many; these men who made pos- sible the advantages, the facilities of trade and travel, the deep halcyon repose enjoyed by the present generations. I ask how many? Few, if any! As to the Nevada & Minden railroad, that was my conception. I first suggested it to Col. E. H. Brown and he and I took out the charter for it in Kansas. I had the first survey made to Pittsburg, Kan., by Col. S. T. Emerson, of Chicago, at my own expense of $900. The maps, profile, note- books, estimate of construction and instruments were in my of-
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fice, northeast corner, second floor, Moore's Opera House, Ne- vada, when it first burned, and were all destroyed. I had Mr. Emerson to come from Chicago and remake the survey, etc., at about the same expense as the former, but later I was reim- bursed for the outlay by the Missouri Pacific Railway Company when they agreed with me to finance my project. At the same time I was promised by the then management of the Missouri Pacific Railway Company the building of the road from Nevada to Chetopa, Kan., at the same prices I had built the L. & S. from Rich Hill to Joplin, which was entirely satisfactory to me.
This agreement would have been faithfully carried out, but unfortunately for me I got in disrepute with the company before they got ready to commence the building of the road and the general management of the Missouri Pacific changed hands and Mr. H. M. Hoxie, of the Texas Pacific, was made general man- ager of the Missouri Pacific. He let the building of the Nevada & Minden to the Bagnell Brothers, of St. Louis, his friends. For Bagnell Brothers I graded the road from "Nassau Junction" to the crossing of Little Dry Wood creek, the only sub-railroad work I ever did. This scheme was a good one for my friend Colonel Brown and I had our plans not been frustrated unwit- tingly and unintentionally by as honorable a man, as upright a gentleman and as true a friend as we ever had the pleasure of knowing and of being associated with in a social or business capacity. I refer to my departed friend, Robert M. Tucker, of Lamar, Mo. Our business association with Mr. Tucker does not particularly apply to a history of Vernon county, as the stage of our association with him was laid in Barton county at the townsite of "Minden." Mr. Tucker owned a tract of coal lands in the western part of Barton county on which was located the town of Minden, a station on a branch of the Missouri River, Fort Scott & Gulf road. John M. Richardson or his estate of Springfield, Mo., owned adjoining coal lands, and D. S. Swartz, of Vernon county, owned 320 acres adjoining, these three ownerships totaling about 1,400 acres of very valuable coal lands. I had Mr. Emerson to make his survey and locate the route of the road through practically the center of this body of land. Mr. Tucker was managing the estate of John M. Richardson, deceased in Barton county.
Soon after I had located the Nevada & Minden road through
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this tract of land Mr. Tucker came to me and Colonel Brown and informed us that the Richardson land was for sale. He proposed to us that he would come in with us and organize a coal company, also a townsite company, buy the Richardson and Swartz land and he would put in his on which was located the town of Minden. We would enlarge the townsite, open up the coal lands and build up a second Rich Hill. The scheme was a good one and struck our fancy, without the necessity of argu- ment. We said we would do it. As it was likely to prove a pretty big proposition, we advised taking in another party, mak- ing four, and suggested M. S. Cowles, of Rich Hill. This Mr. Tucker agreed to. We met in the Talmage House, Rich Hill, and mapped out a plan of campaign. He was the agent of the Richardson estate and had for sale the lands of the estate in Barton county. He told us what the Richardson land could be bought for and what he would put in his lands for, including the Minden townsite. I had seen Swartz, who was a citizen liv- ing in Harrison township, Vernon county. Mr. Swartz demanded $50 per acre, or $16,000 for his 320 acres. Here I will say this land lay on the high prairie dividing the watershed, where the water falling on the north portion flowed into the Big Dry wood, thence into the Mormation and Osage rivers, thence into the Mis- souri river. The water falling on the south portion flowed into the North fork spring river, thence into Neosho river, Grand river, Arkansas river, into the Mississippi river; in fact, it lay on the extreme western spur of the Ozark mountains, but not withstanding this, it was selected by the commissioners away back in the fifties to locate the swamp and overflowed lands in each county in the state and given to the counties for a perma- nent school fund. D. S. Swartz bought his 320 acres of Barton county in about 1866 or 1867 for $1.25 per acre, or $400 for the tract. It was so poor he would not improve it, but came on to Dry Wood and bought a tract of very fine land and improved a farm and reared a family.
We paid Swartz the $16.000 for his 320 acres. He told me he bought it as an investment. No one will deny but that he made a good investment, $16,000 for $400 in less than sixteen years. The entire investment for the 1,400 acres cost us about $70,000.
We organized our coal and townsite company and capitalized
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it for $150,000, putting in our land at this price, and the stock subscription was fully paid up. Only a moderate amount of water, you will observe.
Several years prior to this time Jay Gould, through Colonel Brown, had purchased 1,000 acres of coal lands adjoining ours on the north. After our organization and after we had bought the lands we had not gone far on our road to prosperity as we thought till who should we meet in the road but Jay Gould by proxy. He said, "Hello, boys; where are you going? What are you doing?" Brown and I, who had met the gentleman be- fore, knew from that time on we would have company in our little game. We made a clean breast of it and explained our scheme to him. "All right," he said, "and I endorse it. By the way, Brown, where is that 1,000 acres of land you bought for me several years ago in Missouri?" Brown replied, "It is still there." "Well, is it not in Barton county ?" "Yes!" "Does it not join this land you boys have bought?" "Yes!" "It is all good coal lands, yours and mine ?" "Yes!" "Well, that is good! Why not join forces, I putting in my 1,000 acres and as you have 1,400 acres, I'll pay you boys the difference in cash so we will be equal, not four against one. We will increase the capital stock to $300,000, you boys taking 49 per cent of it and I 51 per cent, and I will build the road." Brown replied there will be no objection to you coming in. We will put our land in at cost and you put in yours at cost, paying us the difference in cash, and you order the building of the Nevada & Minden road at once; but as to having 51 per cent of the stock, leaving us 49 per cent of the coal and townsite company I am afraid the boys will object. If you will agree to an equal division of the stock we will be glad to have you in. "Well, Brown, you see the boys and if they will not agree to me having 51 per cent of the stock I guess I will have to start in with 50 per cent, but I look to you, Brown, to get me that other 1 per cent some day. In the meantime we had perfected our organization and elected our officers. We then let Mr. Gould in the company, taking over his 1,000 acres, he paying us the difference, and transferred to him one-half of the capital stock and gave him a representa- tive in the board of directors. At this meeting it was asked of us that certain of the officers of the corporation we had chosen resign and be filled by those selected by the Gould interest and
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the treasurer's office be located in St. Louis. To this we four objected. We held one-half of the stock, a majority of the board. and all the officers. This noncompliance on our part to the de- mands of the Gould interest occasioned a war of words and the meeting adjourned incontinently. Previous to this Robert M. Tucker, E. H. Brown, M. S. Cowles and myself had entered into a solemn, binding verbal covenant, each to the other and to all, that neither or none of us would ever part with a share or any fractional part thereof to any one, without first offering it to the other three or to sell to any one without the full and free consent of the others. This covenant was never broken to my knowledge. At the adjournment of the above meeting Brown and I saw we were on the verge of an eruption with the Gould- interest.
Brown had been a right-hand man of Gould for years and was the president of the Rich Hill Coal Company on a salary of $5,000 per year and a large stockholder in that company at that time. Mr. Gould owned at that time a majority of the stock of that company. Gould was treating and had always treated Brown fairly. Brown had no complaint against him, nor any cause to suspicion his design or future conduct as related to our Min- den Coal Company. Brown was not afraid to risk Mr. Gould.
I had done about $400,000 worth of construction work for the Missouri Pacific in the past. I had the promise from the gen- eral manager I should have the building of the Nevada & Min- den from Nevada to Chetopa, Kan., at the L. & S. prices. That contract would easily be worth $50,000 to me. The investment of each of us four in the Minden Coal Mining & Townsite Com- pany was $17,500 each. Here was the dilemma : We four held a consultation, Brown and I advocating letting Mr. Gould have an extra share of the Minden stock. Cowles and Tucker objected, Cowles not strenuously. Would if Tucker would. Tucker op- posed it violently and with much venom. Unfortunately for Mr. Tucker and ruinous to us he had never had any business connection with Mr. Gould, knew nothing about him except news- paper articles, which not always did Mr. Gould justice. He would fight Gould to the death and would never yield a point and reminded us of our covenant. We accepted of this uncalled- for allusion to our compact and informed him we would ever hold it sacred, although it wrought our financial ruin. We
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pointed out how the break with Mr. Gould would effect us; that the amount we had in the Minden company was a mere bagatelle compared with our interest actual and in expectancy. Tucker was immovable. Brown and I realized the hopelessness of the case. Soon there was to be a meeting of the Rich Hill Coal Company; also the Minden company at Rich Hill. Brown was president of both companies. When the day arrived Brown was sick in bed. Both meetings were postponed until the following week. I had notes falling due and had to raise quite a lot of money. For some time I had pleaded with Tucker and Cowles to take over my stock in the Minden company. They said they were not able to carry it. I then requested them to find a pur- ยท chaser for it who would be agreeable to them and Brown. They set to work to do so and finally induced Mr. James A. Hill, a large stockholder in the Rich Hill Coal Company, but was at daggers' points with Mr. Gould and then engaged in a law suit with Gould over some Rich Hill Coal Company stock. Hill was a rich man. worth three-quarters of a million. The day the meet- ings should have been held in Rich Hill the Gould interest had a representative there as proxy for Mr. Gould. In the course of a conversation with him that day he asked me what I considered the Minden coal stock worth. I told him I thought it worth par. He replied he should judge it was as he thought there was a great future for the company. He asked me if I would take par for mine (which would amount to $37,500, it having cost me $17,500). I told him not that day. Well, if you will take it next week at the adjourned meeting in St. Louis I will undertake to find a purchaser. "You will surely be down then," said he. I told him yes. Hill was in Rich Hill also that day and that after- noon he agreed to take my stock at $20,000 at the request of Tucker and Cowles and consent of Brown and pay for it when I came to St. Louis the following week. When we went to St. Louis, all four of us at the appointed time, the following week, we went to the Laclede Hotel and went up to the dining room for breakfast. When I came out of the dining room in the hall before going down the stairway I met the representative of Mr. Gould, with whom I had had the talk in Rich Hill. After meeting me he said, "Well, have you your Minden coal stock with you?" I said yes. "Well," says he, "I have found the buyer for it and let us go over to the Equitable building (the
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headquarters of the Missouri Pacific Railway Company) and you can transfer the certificates of stock and receive a check for $37,500." I then told him I had sold the stock and to whom. He turned from me in disgust and I have never seen him since.
Mr. Hill gave me his check for $20,000. I transferred him all my stock in the Minden Coal Mining Company and the Min- den Townsite Company and by that act saw $17,500 go glim- mering, which I could have had by walking four blocks in the city of St. Louis. But I kept inviolable my covenant with Brown, Tucker and Cowles, which I have never regretted and never shall. It has come to me recently on the wings of the winds that at this late date it is being said that I was the cause of my friend Bob Tucker's financial ruin. I am bold to assert that I do not believe Bob Tucker ever made such an assertion. It is my understand- ing that later on James A. Hill bought Brown's, Cowles' and Tucker's stock at the same price paid me and assumed the fight with Mr. Gould himself, which I understand terminated in an equal division of the property between Hill and Gould. The day I delivered my stock to Hill in St. Louis at the Laclede Hotel in Col. E. H. Brown's room, M. S. Cowles and Robert M. Tucker were present. Tucker held the note for collection I had given to the Richardson estate in part payment for my portion of the purchase price. He figured up the interest on the note and Mr. Hill gave Mr. Tucker his check covering the amount and then gave me a check for the remainder of the $20,000. The board of directors of the Minden Coal Company then went into session in that room, Colonel Brown presiding as president, although flat on his back in bed. I resigned as a director and James A. Hill was substituted in my place on motion of Robert M. Tucker. At that meeting the Gould interest endeavored again to get con- trol of the stock; failing in that, they again tried to get two or three of the most important offices and failed at that. Mr. Tucker had now a strong ally in Mr. Hill, who was at outs with Mr. Gould already. Colonel Brown advocated moderation, pointing out the disastrous effects of opposing the Gould interest, but still standing faithfully by his covenant and voting with Tucker, Cowles and Hill when the Gould interest expected he would vote with them. But he did not. Noble man! That day he met his financial ruin, but he did not violate the covenant. In the after- noon of that day in the same room and Colonel Brown presiding
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as president of the board of directors of the Rich Hill Coal Com- pany, he was by the Gould interest deposed as president of the Rich Hill Coal Company, which position carried a salary of $5,000 per annum and which position he had held since the first organ- ization of the company and was succeeded by Major McDowell. I lost the contract for building the N. & M. road and we both from that day to this had no dealings and no interest in common with that company.
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