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 13
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Gould, to punish Tucker, Hill, Cowles and Brown, changed the location of the road through Barton county, throwing it two miles west of my location; the coal mines were not opened, the townsite was killed and all was lost. I understood in after years that Brown, Cowles and Tucker sold their interest to Mr. Hill, receiving about what I did. Therefore Mr. Hill kept up the unequal contest for years until they finally divided the land and my understanding is Hill's heir, William, still owns his portion.
Such was the disastrous finale of a worthy and meritorious scheme, equal in point of merit to that of the Rich Hill enter- prise, brought about by the obstinacy and mistaken ideas of an honest and upright friend of mine, who meant well and believed he was acting for our best interest ; whose conduct in this matter I forgave at the time and whose memory I cherish still with the fondest recollections. I will not attempt to write of my efforts to build the Lexington, Lake and Gulf railroad into Nevada from Lexington, Mo., in an early day, in which I lost money, but the loss was of my own choosing, as I chose to lose myself rather than to see a bonded indebtedness saddled upon Center and Osage townships for a road I believed would never be completed. For the truthfulness of this assertion I have a living witness in the person of S. A. Wight, of Nevada; also the County Court records of Vernon county. Nor will I write of my endeavor to build in the interest of Nevada the "Nevada and Eldorado" railroad or of the "West Eldorado Townsite Company," which enterprises proved to be my financial Waterloo.
1
Nevada finally got this road, but in my endeavor to build it I lost my all. Nor will I speak of the building of the State Lunatic Asylum No. 3 or rather the raising of the money by donations to purchase the land on which it is located except to say that to S. A. Wight, of Nevada, aided by myself to a small
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extent, is due the credit of getting the Missouri Pacific Railway Company to donate $5,000 to that fund.
In bidding on railroad work I never made a false figure or a mistake. I always made money. When I received my pay for work done and money invested in one year as much as $42,000, I am free to admit that in my efforts to build up Nevada and Vernon counties my first aim was to make money, but that the interest, prosperity and future greatness of the town and county was a strong secondary consideration with me. This much I hope will be conceded me. I have held office in Vernon county in a judicial capacity. The records of Vernon county of my steward- ship show I never betrayed a trust imposed on me by the people of Vernon county. I would not refer to my past life in Vernon county, where I lived for thirty-eight years, from 1859 to 1897, had not my motives been so wrongfully construed on account of my activity in assisting to build the railroads Nevada and Ver- non county are enjoying the benefits of today. Nevada is no longer my abiding place, but I feel she is still my home. And when the cares, the trials and the disappointments of this life is over with me, my only request is that I be laid to rest beneath her sod in beautiful Deep Wood cemetery.
I recently visited Nevada after an absence of fourteen years since first leaving there and more recently passed and repassed through Vernon county by rail. During my visit to Nevada and Vernon county I took pleasure in observing the many improve- ments in both city and county. When my gaze extended over the broad acres of well tilled and highly improved farms in the county, with the appearance of peace, plenty and pleasure the happy lot of their owners, and this the land I once knew as a vast unbroken prairie wilderness, I indulged in a retrospect of the past. I contemplated that in the past I had taken a small part in the affairs of Vernon county which made possible this great change and I consoled myself with the hope that the pres- ent generation and future posterity would do me justice and treat my memory kindly.
My visit to Nevada was one of pleasure, but, alas, alloyed by sadness. It was a pleasure to notice the many improvements in the town and to note the seeming prosperity of her people and most of all to meet many of my old-time friends. But, alas, the
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many vacant seats, the many absent friends. It was sad indeed and I felt as though,
"I fain would weep, but what of tears ; No tears like mine could e'er recall them ; Nor should I wish that groveling cares, Cares like mine should e'er befall them."
May peace, prosperity and happiness be the portion and abide with the people of Nevada and Vernon county, Missouri.
Joplin, Mo., August, 1911. FRANK P. ANDERSON.
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CHAPTER XIII.
HISTORY OF VERNON COUNTY.
Vernon county, Missouri, as we know it today, is bordered on the north by Bates county, on the east by St. Clair and Cedar counties, on the south by Barton county, and on the west by the east line of the state of Kansas. It has an area of eight hundred and forty square miles, being thirty miles from east to west and twenty-eight miles from north to south, and is situated one hun- dred miles south of Kansas City and eighty miles north of the south line of the state. The earliest occupants of this section of our country of whom we have authentic knowledge were the Osage Indians, called "Ouachage" by early historians, and so designated on the map of this region made by Father Marquette after his historie trip down the Mississippi river in the year 1673.
As to whether or not that people who for want of a better name are known as the Mound Builders, ever inhabited this re- gion, there has been much speculation and remains considerable doubt, some writers going so far as to deny that such a people ever existed. It is true, however, that in some parts of Vernon county are elevations resembling burial mounds, but nothing has been disclosed to show they are not natural formations. Few, if any, archaeological specimens, such as pottery, flint arrowheads, stone axes, etc., have been discovered in this section. But while we have no record of scientific discoveries of this character in the county, Dr. Brand tells of finding the bones of a man fourteen feet below the surface while digging a well, and also of finding in the bank of the Osage river an animal's tusk, eleven feet four inches in length, fourteen inches in circumference and which weighed 144 pounds. These were sent to a Mr. Prichard, at Glasgow, Mo., about 1872, but nothing further was ever heard of them.
EARLY EXPLORERS.
Interesting as it might be to speculate on these matters of which there is little or no definite knowledge, no good could come
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of it, and it were better to follow, as far as possible, in the line of known facts. In this connection in discussing the question as to who were the first of the Caucasian race to traverse this region there have been those who have sought to show that this section of country was visited by Ferdinand de Soto and Fran- cisco de Coronado, in their expeditions to the country west of the Mississippi river in search of a land of fabulous wealth, abounding in rich minerals and precious stones and filled with all the accompaniments of luxurious riches. But it has been shown to the satisfaction of the most reliable historians that the expedition of De Soto, which left Tampa Bay, Fla., in the summer of 1538, reaching the Mississippi near the site of the present city of Memphis, Tenn., in the spring of 1541, while it traversed the southeastern part of territory included in the present state of Missouri, it never explored any portion of that territory west or north of what is now Greene county. At the command of Don Antonio de Mendoza, who was the Spanish viceroy of Mexico, Francisco de Coronado, then Spanish governor of New Galicia, as northern Mexico was then called, about the time that De Soto discovered the Mississippi, in May, 1541, started with a force of 300 Spaniards in search of the land of fabled riches. Traveling in a northeasterly direction, he halted after a tortuous journey of forty-eight days near the bank of the Missouri river in which is now southeastern Nebraska or northeastern Kansas, and after « stay of twenty-five days. exploring the country round about, he reared a cross bearing the inscription, "Thus far came Fran- cisco de Coronado, general of an expedition," after which he re- turned whence he came. Taken in all its details, it has been established as reasonably certain that Coronado came no nearer to the western line of Missouri than what is now Brown county, Kansas, or Richardson county, Nebraska. Other expeditions were sent out at later dates, on the same or similar missions as those of De Soto and Coronado, but all the evidences are against the supposition that any of them ever visited the region in which we are at present interested.
To whom, then, may we attribute the honor of being the first white man to visit this region ? From a very early period a vast expanse of country west of the Mississippi was claimed by the king of France by reason of the discoveries of Marquette. Joliet and La Salle. Similar claims were made to certain territory bor-
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dering the great river on the east, where French settlements had existed many years. As early as the year 1705 a French expedi- tion explored the Missouri river as far as the mouth of the Kaw, the present site of Kansas City, and seven years later M. Antoine Crozat secured from the French king a lease of the vast terri- tory of what was then called Louisiana, and plans were subse- quently set on foot for the settlement of the territory embraced in the limits of the present state of Missouri. It was near the end of the year 1714 that M. Du Tissenet, a French-Canadian, well connected by birth, educated, talented, and ambitious withal, left his home in Canada and went to Kaskaskia, Ill., and thence to Mobile, to enter the service of M. Crozat, bringing with him specimens from lead mines near Kaskaskia, in which small quan- tities of silver were found. Several years later, in the autumn of 1818, the company of the west, under the proprietorship of one Jolın Law, a Scotch adventurer, succeeded to the rights, formerly held by M. Crozat, and Du Tissenet returned to Kaskaskia, whence he was sent by the governor of Louisiana, M. De Bien- ville, on an exploring expedition into the region west of the Mis- sissippi, being specially commissioned to investigate the natural resources of the country, and cultivate the friendship of the peo- ples he found. The choice of Du Tissenet for this important mis- sion, requiring courage, endurance, tact and good judgment, was a happy one. Leaving Kaskaskia in the spring of 1719, traveling on foot and alone, he reached north central Kansas, the country of the Padoncas, in September following and on the 27th of that month claimed the country for France by erecting a cross and engraving thereon the arms of the French king, a full account of the expedition being given in his report to Governor Bienville dated November 22, 1719, after his return to Kaskaskia. To this clear-headed young explorer are we indebted for the first intelli- gent information of this country and the Osage Indians who occupied it. He speaks of their "great village" "near the Ou- schage river" in a bottom prairie, "near a smaller stream" with abundant timber and meadow, or prairie land in the vicinity. They were stout, well-built men, great warriors and never so happy as when fighting their enemies. He found the Osages kindly disposed and ready to render him all the help they could in furnishing him the information he desired and learned from them there was lead in their country. From his detailed account
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it may be stated with almost positive certainty that the village referred to was in the western part of Blue Mound township in Vernon county in the angle formed by the juncture of the Osage and Marmaton rivers, where the descendants of the Indians whom Du Tissenet visited had their home a century later. And that the lead in their country spoken of had reference to the vast de- posits of that metal in Newton and Jasper counties since the coun- try of the Osages reached to the Arkansas river on the south.
EXPLORING COMPANY OF THE WEST.
Reverting to the Company of the West, or the Mississippi Com- pany, as sometimes called, it may be stated that on acquiring from the king of France its patent, the company established it- self at Fort Chartres, near Kaskaskia, on the Mississippi, and large numbers of French settlers were drawn thither, attracted by the alluring inducements held out by the company. The chief purpose of this company and also of the Company of St. Philips, which was subsidiary to it, was to explore the country west of the Mississippi and the upper country of Louisiana in search of silver and gold. The company last named, organized in Paris, was under the direct charge of Philip Francis Renault, a skilled metallurgist. With some 200 men, chemists, assayists, mechanics, machinists, etc., each an expert in his special line, Renault sailed from France via St. Domingo, where he procured 500 slaves, to New Orleans and thence up the Mississippi, reaching Fort Char- tres in the early fall of 1719. From this point as his headquarters prospecting parties were sent out in search of the coveted treas- ures, and mines opened by these gold hunters in the southeastern part of Missouri were to be seen more than a century and a half later and are probably in existence today. Failing to find gold or silver, lead mining was carried on extensively, and the prod- ucts of the smelters, which were constructed in various places, were carried on pack horses and on the backs of slaves to Fort Chartres, where ready market was found. This company under the leadership of Renault continued its work with unabated zeal till 1742, when, the main purpose of the expedition having failed of accomplishment, further effort was abandoned and Renault, with many of his faithful followers, returned to France.
Did any of these treasure hunters in their prospecting expedi- tions penetrate into the interior as far as Vernon county ? On
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this question there is a wide difference of opinion, and after much discussion pro and con it remains, for lack of positive proof, shrouded in somewhat of mystery and doubt. In treating of this matter Dr. E. R. Morerod, in his sketches which appeared in the "Nevada Ledger" nearly thirty years ago, says :
"We have evidences that our immediate section was traversed by Europeans in search of the precious metals by reason of the diggings and excavations at Halley's Bluff, on the Osage and vicinity ; at the head of Lady's branch; on the Westfall place (Sec. 36-38-30) ; at Howard's Mound; in the southeast corner of Bacon township; on the MeLain place, in St. Clair county, three miles east of the Vernon county line ; and lastly at Golden Grove, in the southeastern portion of Barton county. In the first place it was claimed that these excavations were made by De Soto's party. Of this claim he is skeptical for the reason as he says the nature of the sandstones in which the pick marks are plainly visible today are of too crumbling a nature to have retained the impressions for 340 years. After investiga- tion and an examination of the trees on the site, judging from their size and the number of annual rings of growth. I conclude they cannot be much more than 140 or 150 years old. It is also a fact that a great number of excavations that were plainly to be seen when the early settlers came to the country are now. oblit- erated by the action of heat, frost, rain and the ravages of time.
"Dr. Dodson and others have informed me that when they came to the county (in 1850 or perhaps sooner) there were plainly to be seen the marks of diggings on the prairie, on the old West- fall place, in a systematic way. There were some five or six rows of excavations, half a mile in length ; each excavation was perhaps eight feet deep and sixteen feet long, and there was an interval of four feet between the excavations and also between the rows. The place is now being cultivated and there is scarcely to be seen today any evidence of the former existence of these depressions. A large deep opening in the ground, as if of an abandoned mine shaft, was visible at one time a short distance southeast of Bel- voir, but some of the settlers, fearing that their cattle might fall in, threw some timber and logs in it and today it is completely filled up. * I am forced to doubt that De Soto ever had anything to do with these excavations, but I believe that they were done by Renault and La Motte and their party.
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One reason is the finding of picks worn down to the eye, and chisels improvised out of gun barrels of very small caliber at Mine La Motte, and similar picks and chisels thus made have been found embedded in the soil in and around the excava- tions at Halley's Bluff and Westfall's place, the head of Lady's branch, the junction of Little Osage, and on the Howard Mound. Some of the marks made on the rocks at Halley's Bluff, it is plain to be seen, were made by chisels made out of those gun barrels. Those found at the Indian villages were doubtless found by the Indians at the Bluffs and taken by them to their village."
On the other hand, it is asserted that there is little probability that any of Renault's party ever set foot on the soil of Vernon county. And in support of this view it is argued that at the most Dr. Morerod bases his claim on possibly unreliable proofs and himself expresses but a faint belief in their correctness; that the finding of picks and chisels made from gun barrels is, at the best, doubtful, and since Renault's party was well equipped with min- ing facilities, there would be no need of resorting to any such ex- treme measures; that the action of the elements that obliterated the markings in the sandstone would also corrode and destroy bits of picks and chisels in the same time; that some of the localities where there were evidences of excavations were on open prairies where expert miners, as Renault's men were, would never think of searching for metals; that it is not likely they would prosecute their search in a locality so far removed from their base of sup- plies with no means of transporting their products except on pack horses or the backs of slaves, when the southeastern portion of the territory abounded in minerals more than they could handle; and it is improbable they would make more than a score of these exca- vations, when a single digging would have disclosed the utter lack in this region of the metals they sought. The conclusion is reached that these evidences of excavations in the northern part of Vernon county at some remote period, instead of being the depressions of shafts sunk are the remains of ancient caches, constructed, prob- ably, during the troublesome times of the War of 1812 and used for storing or secreting provisions, furs, goods, etc., of French traders and trappers or possibly the Missouri Fur Company, which was organized in 1808. In support of this it is shown that Lieu- tenant Pike and General Wilkinson, who visited this region in 1806, make no mention of these apparent excavations, which they
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would have been likely to do had such depressions then existed ; that there was not a vestige remaining of the trading post of Pierre Chouteau, Sr., which had stood on the south bank of the Osage river some time prior to 1806; that Chouteau and De Lisa, who were licensed traders, were then planning another post near the Osage towns, regarding which General Wilkinson on August 6, 1806, wrote Lieutenant Pike from St. Louis :
"I am informed that the ensuing autumn and winter will be employed in reconnoitering and opening a connection with the Tetans, Panis and others; that this fall or next winter a grand magazine is to be established at the Osage towns, where these operations will commence," etc.
That some kind of defensive works existed about this time is evidenced by the statements of early settlers who saw among other proofs the remnants of a wall and earthworks, which ap- parently had enclosed many of these cavities, and that the weight of authority evidently favors the theory that these excavations and cavities, for whatever purpose made, were of a date later than the time when Pike and Wilkinson were here in 1806.
MASSACRE OF CAPTAIN VILLAZUR.
What is known as the massacre of Captain Villazur and his party in 1720 has been thought by some to have occurred in Vernon county or its immediate vicinity. It was during the war between France and Spain at this time that an expedition of Spaniards, commanded by Captain Villazur, set out from Santa Fe, N. M., with the ultimate purpose of forcing the Missouri Indians, who were loyal allies of the French, to leave the Louisi- ana territory and confine their settlements to the east of the Mississippi. While. Villazur and his well-equipped command were encamped near the Missouri river the Indians attacked and killed the entire body. According to the details of this massacre, as given by the Spanish writer, Du Pratz, whose account is most generally accepted, the Spaniards mistook the Missouris for the Osages, whose co-operation they intended to secure to expel the Missouris, and the Missouris, taking advantage of this, led the Spaniards to believe they would help them, and after being pro- vided with arms, slaughtered every Spaniard except one of two priests who accompanied the expedition and who escaped.
From the fact that the scene of this tragedy was near the
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Missouri river the claim that it might have occurred in Vernon county is untenable. It was to guard against such invasions on the part of the Spanish and to protect Renault's miners and other French interests that the French in 1721 sent an armed body under command of M. de Bourgmont to Fort Chartres. whence it ascended the Missouri and established itself with forti- fications on an island a few miles below where the Grand river joins the Missouri and which was known as Fort Orleans. Three years after this De Bourgmont went up the Missouri to the pres- ent site of Kansas City and on July 3, 1824, assembled in council at a place on the Missouri, where Sibley, in Jackson county, now is, the chief men of the warring tribes which he found, the re- sult of which council was pledges of peace and good will among the tribes represented, which were further strengthened by a visit of certain of the chiefs and warriors, under the guidance of Bourgmont, to France, whence they returned, after being roy- ally treated, with a high appreciation of the honors bestowed and an exalted opinion of the French people.
But another tragedy was enacted in the fall of 1725. when oc- curred the massacre of all the inmates of Fort Orleans and the destruction of the fort, besides the slaughter of several hundred men and women of the Missouris, in an Indian village opposite the fort on the north, and the expulsion of all who were not killed, who fled to safety, to the Osages south of the river.
Who were the perpetrators of this brutal deed is a matter of conjecture; but it has been attributed to the Missouris' im- placable enemies, the Sacs, the Foxes, the Iowas, and other savage tribes from the upper Mississippi regions. Renault's men, as already stated, continued their mining operations till 1742, when he returned to France. The French occupation of the territory continued twenty-one years thereafter, till 1763, when France ceded Louisiana to Spain, though possession was not taken till seven years later. During the Spanish occupation, between the years 1785 and 1787, a Spanish military or trading post, called Fort Carondolet, was established by M. Pierre Chouteau, Sr., on the south bank of the Osage river in the vicinity of Halley's Bluff, where extensive trading and trafficing was carried on with the French and other traders and trappers and the Osages, whose villages were nearby. Chouteau, for some reason, pre- sumably having accomplished his purpose, returned to St. Louis
FARM AND LOAN BUILDING.
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and the trading post was destroyed and fell into decay, being most likely burned.
REMAINS OF CHOUTEAU'S FORT.
In his notes of his journey up the Osage river in 1806, Lieu- tenant Pike says: "We passed the position where Mr. Chou- teau formerly had his fort, not a vestige of which was remaining, just below which is a very shoal and rapid ripple, from whence to the village of the Grand Osage is nine miles, across a large prairie." The garrison or fort, as it has been called, was undoubtedly of rude construction and comprised, most likely, a trading house built of logs and other cabins, all surrounded by a palisade of sharpened stakes, and where necessary a wall of earth and stone, the material for all of which was near at hand. It is at least reasonable to conclude from the descriptions given and from the best information obtainable that this trading post was in the territory now embraced in Blue Mound township, in Vernon county, and that its story furnishes the most prob- able solution of the mystery involved in the cavities, depressions, excavations, diggings, markings, etc., about Halley's Bluff and in that vicinity that have been the cause and subject of so much vain speculation.
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