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. II > Part 3
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The prairie portions of the township were not occupied until after the close of the Civil War. The general objection to that character of soil was coupled with the scarcity of timber on its
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surface, but the latter difficulty was in great part overcome by the discovery of coal in such large quantities so near the surface. The building of the railroad was of great advantage to the thor- ough settlement of Coal township.
The first settlers cultivated the borders of the prairies next the timber and did not clear off much timber. They raised good crops, too, without much difficulty. The greatest trouble encoun- tered was the prairie fires. Every farmer surrounded his fields with a belt of plowed ground in the fall of the year, but often the fire was so large and fierce that men, women and children all turned out to fight it and to burn against it.
Trading was done at Bugg & Wilson's store, at Fort Scott, at first. Milling was done at Balltown, and on Sac and Spring rivers.
It was in the northeast corner of this township, on the Mar- maton, where the storehouse of Edward and Charley Chouteau was located in early days. Old Henry Heriford, too, had a store in the western part of this township, near the line, in pioneer times, and was a well-known citizen of the county for many years.
Although the first settlements in this township were made along Moore's branch, it is impossible to state how that stream derived its name. Presumably, in the long ago a man named Moore settled on its banks, but doubtless not in Missouri; no settler of that name is remembered as having ever lived in this quarter. The stream was called Moore's branch when the first settlers came, and, perhaps, he for whom it was named lived on its head waters over in Kansas.
A tragedy of early days in this quarter was the assassination of Samuel Lambert, who lived on Drywood, near the ford that yet bears his name. Mr. Lambert was returning to his house and was shot as he was entering the dooryard. The ball struck him in the back, at the crossing of his suspenders, and was evi- dently fired by an expert marksman in ambush. So mysterious was the affair that one of his sons was at last thought by some to be the guilty party, but nothing could be proven against him. and he was doubtless unjustly accused. The real perpetrator was never discovered. The assassination occurred about the year 1850.
During the Civil War the few citizens living in Coal town-
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ship had a memorable experience. The battle of Drywood or Hogan's Crossing was concluded on section 13 in this township, and from that time until peace was made the prairies were hoof- beaten by the continued trampling of Federal and Confederate raiders.
October 27, 1864, the day when General Price's defeated legions retreated through this county, hundreds of the Confed- erates passed through the eastern portion of the township in the greatest distress and demoralization. Hungry and fatigued and half delirious from loss of sleep and expecting every mo- ment that the Federals would fall upon them, the poor fugitives were scarcely conscious of what they did. The prairie for two miles west of the Drywood was strewn with guns, pistols, broken down wagons, sore-backed and wornout horses and mules, and other debris of the wrecked and shattered army.
In their bewilderment some of the men, in trying to find the Lambert ford over Drywood, went two or three miles south of Moore's branch, then turned and coming north, by painful and harassing marches, made up the distance they had lost. In pass- ing where the Logan schoolhouse stands, these men abandoned much plunder. Passing the house of Mrs. Mary Logan, as that lady related, the famished soldiers begged from her almost the last morsel of food she possessed.
One old soldier, from Benton county, Arkansas, sank down in Mrs. Logan's dooryard, sick, starving and exhausted. In a few hours he died on her doorstep. His body was buried, uncoffined, by two old men and a few women of the neighborhood in the old Profitt graveyard. Months afterward the skeleton of a young man, with a rusty pistol belted about the waist, and clad in gray, was found in the Drywood timber. The fleshless fingers of one hand were still grasping a dry and withered bunch of wild grapes. It was not certain, but it was believed that this man, too, died of fatigue and starvation.
THE VILLAGE OF EVE.
The village of Eve, formerly Clayton station, at the junction of the M., K. & T. R. R. and the Kansas Southern railroad, has a population of about 100, some shipping and merchandising, and is a thrifty and progressive community.
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CHURCHES.
The Christian Church. The organization of this church was effected February 28, 1877, with the following among the original members : M. E. Cox, J. N. Bridges, Maggie Bridges, S. S. Dunn, Lerrilda Dunn, J. P. Hale, Mary Hale, Amos Huddleton, A. J. Emerson, S. P. Simms and Mrs. M. E. Simms. A church build- ing, a frame structure, was erected in 1884 at a cost of about $1,501.29. The first officers were J. P. Hale, John Nanson, H. J. Emerson and J. Bridges. The church enjoys a fair degree of prosperity.
Bethel M. E. Church. In 1876 a church edifice was erected on section 20 at a cost of $2,200, and dedicated the Bethel M. E. church. Through the kindness and active help of some of its members the actual cost was greatly reduced. Among the origi- nal members of this organization may be mentioned B. Bradley and wife, John C. Bradley and wife, Theophilus Rimbey and wife, H. T. Woods and wife, Frank Couch and wife, Philip Hud- son and wife, J. G. Witt and wife, Susan Mosher, - Thompson, Mary Rimbey, Mary E. Fairchild, H. H. Sanson, Mrs. Sarah True and Minta Woods.
DEERFIELD TOWNSHIP.
Deerfield township comprises all of township 35, range 32. It lies between the two Drywoods and immediately south of the Marmaton, and is therefore bordered with timber on three sides. A central portion of the township is gently rolling prairie, abound- ing in fine fertile farms.
The Big Drywood empties into the Marmaton in the north- western part of this township; along the banks of the former stream, a mile or so from the mouth, are considerable bluffs, where the sandstone is freely exposed. Hackberry creek is in the southwestern part and flows northwest into Drywood. The Little Drywood empties into the Marmaton half a mile from the northeast corner of the township. McCoy's branch, so named from an early settler who located near its mouth, rises in the northern part of the township and empties into the Marmaton.
In the southern part of the township, near Moundville, coal is mined very successfully ; and so also in other parts of the town- ship this mineral is found. There is more or less "grease rock" in
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the southwest part, and in the southeast corner of section 20, be- tween Tucker's branch and the Hackberry is an "oil well." Recent discoveries of oil or gas have been made on the property of Parson Henry Hogan, of this township, and also at other places noted below :
W. W. Armstrong in Drywood.
George Eaton, Moundville township. Williams Borders in Coal township, Rich.
Old Shively place (Rybers), Deerfield township. Thomas place, three miles east of Nevada in Center township. Dr. Churchell and W. L. Dalton, Nevada.
Parson Henry Hogan, Deerfield township.
Oil or gas has been struck on above named persons' farms in the townships as indicated. These as a matter of course are in addition to Dover, Richland and Henry townships. In the northern part and especially in the northwestern portion there is considerable elevation of the land with occasional mounds.
EARLY HISTORY.
The first settlers in this township were Col. George Douglass, who came to the north side of the Marmaton (northeast quarter section 6), a mile northeast of Deerfield, in May, 1834; Abram Redfield and Capt. Alexander Woodruff, who settled near Deer- field in 1836; ( ?) John Chorn, who located near Big Drywood on section 19, two and a half miles south of Deerfield, and Gabriel M. Stratton, who bought out Chorn's claim in about 1837 or 1838. Ebenezer C. Howe came in 1839 and settled at Deerfield, having previously come to the Union Mission in 1838.
Woodruff's house was three-fourths of a mile north and east of Deerfield, across the river from Colonel Douglass'; Redfield's was a quarter of a mile south of the village; Howe's was half a mile west of north, nearly in Coal township. Ebenezer C. Howe was a native of Livingston county, New York. He died December 5, 1850. He was the father of thirteen children.
Old John Chorn (pronounced Corn) was a singular character. His cabin was a wretched affair, hardly as comfortable as an Indian wigwam, and he lived in it in a condition of squalor and filth. His companions were his dogs, and he hunted, ate and slept
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with them on terms of perfect freedom and familiarity. He was quite a successful hunter, and, aided by his dogs, caught many a deer. His claim was the land on which afterward, in Septem- ber, 1861, the principal portion of the Drywood skirmish was fought. Where he came from and what became of him cannot now be learned.
In 1856 Judge J. H. Requa came over from Bates county and settled on section 5 in the northwestern part of the township, nearly two miles northeast of Deerfield. The quarter section upon . which he settled he purchased from Abram Redfield, Esq., for $120. Although Esquire Redfield had entered the land, he had forgotten it and sent Requa on a wild goose chase to the land office at Clinton to enter it for himself. He was astonished when Requa returned in a little ill-humor and said: "Why, squire, you already own that land you sent me to enter. Colonel Marvin, the register, says you have owned it for five years." The honest and well-meaning Esquire Redfield then agreed to sell the land to Requa for $80 less than even the entry price-a very cheap tract indeed.
When Judge Requa came Esquire Redfield lived at Deerfield ; William Modrel lived half a mile west; Capt. H. C. Cogswell lived on the old Douglass farm; ex-Sheriff G. M. Stratton was on the old Chorn claim, at Hogan's crossing of Drywood, and Thomas Puckett was on the west side of section 4, a mile east of the iron bridge. There were absolutely no settlements on the prairies in the central and southern portions of the township. Puckett's farm was the only one between Requa's and Nevada, or the two or three buildings at "Haletown." Mr. Puckett died on his farm after the war. Chouteau's store on the Marmaton, two miles northwest from Deerfield, was just breaking up.
In the year 1857 W. W. Prewitt and his father-in-law, Smiley H. Sample, came from the Missouri river to the north central part of the township, a mile northwest of the village of Prewitt (or Ellis). Major Prewitt had entered several hundred acres of land and sold a farm to Sample. The main portion of the Prew- itt farm was the northeast quarter of section 9. These were the first settlements in that quarter.
But soon after 1857 nearly all the land in the township was entered and some tracts settled. The tracts along the Nevada and Fort Scott road were in favor, but the land along Hack-
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berry and the Drywoods was eagerly sought after. Not, how- ever, until after the war were the fine prairie lands of the town- ship settled generally in all parts.
DURING THE CIVIL WAR.
The skirmish on Big Drywood came off in this township on section 19 at Hogan's crossing of the Big Drywood, September 7, 1861. No other hostile encounters are remembered to have occurred in the township during the war.
In the early part of the year 1863 the two companies of the third Wisconsin cavalry which were stationed on the borders of the township made their appearance. Company D, Captain Shaw, was at the Lambert ford on Big Drywood, three and a half miles south of Deerfield, and Company F, Captain Vittum, afterward lieutenant-colonel, was near the Shively ford on the Marmaton.
General Price's army made its appearance twice in this town- ship. The first time, in September, 1861, it entered determined and confident, and left victorious and exultant. Three years later, in October, 1864, it came again, this time crushed and de- moralized, and left crippled and despondent. The defeated army camped at Deerfield on the night of October 26, and the soldiers got a few hours of much-needed rest. Next morning before day- light the retreat was resumed, and the poor, dispirited raiders, weary, hungry and apprehensive, departed by the light of burn- ing wagons and to the sound of exploding ammunition. For years afterwards pieces of the debris of the wrecked army were picked up at Deerfield and on the prairie to the southward- guns of all kinds, cannon balls, shells, etc. The army crossed Drywood at the Hogan and Lambert fords, where three years before many of the same men had passed when they had driven Montgomery and Moonlight back into Kansas. The night the army lay at Deerfield General Price made his headquarters at the house of Esquire William Modrel, who then lived half a mile west of the village.
From first to last three citizens of alleged Confederate sympa- thies were killed in this township and one Federal soldier. It is asserted, however, that two of the three citizens were really Union men, while it is certain that the third was harmless, no matter what his sympathies may have been.
On the night of March 31, 1863, a band of "red legs" came
SCHELL CITY PUBLIC SCHOOL.
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down into Vernon county on a marauding expedition. They first visited the residence of Col. Smiley H. Sample, who lived on the Fort Scott and Nevada road, a mile northwest of Prewitt. He had a considerable sum of money which his wife secured and hid away when she first heard the robbers. Colonel Sample was called out and shot down while standing on his cellar door. The ball passed through his heart, killing him instantly. The robbers failed to secure the money they were after and rode on to Deer- field. Here they came upon and killed Marcus Woodruff, a young . man, a son of the pioneer settler, Capt. Alexander Woodruff. The killing was wholly unprovoked and unextenuated. Marcus Woodruff was a cripple, unable for military service, and not in- clined to take an active part on either side. He was, perhaps, a Confederate sympathizer, but he was not killed on account of his politics, but in recklessness and wantonness.
Colonel Sample was a quiet, unobtrusive gentleman, a good citizen and universally esteemed. He was really a a conserva- tive Union man. Of Northern birth and lineage, he was never a secessionist and had done nothing against his government. He had been given "protection papers" by the military authorities at Fort Scott, in whose confidence and esteem he was. At the time of his death Colonel Sample was about sixty years of age.
The Federal commander at Fort Scott made an effort to cap- ture this murderous band of "red legs." They committed depre- dations on Unionists and Confederates alike, and a detachment of Federal cavalry hunted them through eastern Kansas and finally, after killing three or four of them, broke them up.
In the summer of 1863 a scouting party of Kansas troops shot and mortally wounded a man named Fitzwater, who lived near Deerfield. His murderers called him a rebel, but he was really in the employ of the government, under John Lambert, at the time. He was in humble circumstances, and hearing that he was badly wounded, General Blair sent an ambulance for him and conveyed him to Fort Scott, where he died in spite of all the surgeons could do for him.
In November, 1862, the Mayfield boys and others raided the Union men along Drywood, taking horses and other property, and chasing the owners into the woods. There were fifteen men in the band when they took breakfast one morning near Deerfield. Esquire Redfield went to Fort Scott on the 11th and asked Major
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Henning, the then commandant, that troops might be sent over. Some families left the country, deserting their homes.
A Federal soldier, who, it is claimed, was either a lieutenant or a sergeant and on recruiting service, was caught by a squad of bushwhackers and hung on the Drywood. The details of this affair cannot be learned, but it is said that the killing was simply an atrocious murder of an unarmed and defenseless prisoner.
No houses were burned in the neighborhood of Deerfield by the Federal soldiers, and but little property destroyed, although thousands of them passed through the country. The citizens at- tributed their immunity from molestation and injury to that stanch old Unionist, Esquire Abram Redfield. Known from the first, and at all times, and under all circumstances, to be an un- conditional Union man, Esquire Redfield was regarded with great favor by the Federal soldiers everywhere, and his influence over them was very great. At Fort Scott he was in especial esteem, and it was said of him that he could get anything he wanted from the officers there.
Esquire Redfield used his influence for good. His generous, manly nature led him to do good at all times, and during the war he had abundant opportunities for pursuing his inclination. His neighbors came to him in their distress as children run to a father. Some of them were openly avowed disunionists, others were pro-Confederates at heart; but when one of them lost a horse or had a son taken prisoner, or had gotten into trouble with the Federals in any way, he went straightway to Esquire Redfield for relief, and always got it. Many a horse was recovered, many a prisoner released, many a house saved, and many a life spared through the kindly offices of this good man. Abating not one jot or tittle of his Unionism, wishing eternal confusion and de- struction to the Confederacy, he yet sympathized with those of his Confederate neighbors when they were mistreated, as he did with all others who were in distress, and did what he could for their relief.
In the beginning of the troubles at one time some Vernon county secessionists set out from southwest Missouri with the avowed object of "cleaning out" Esquire Redfield and some other Union men, in retaliation for what the Kansas troops were said to have done, but on arriving here they were easily persuaded to forego their intentions.
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An honest man before the war, upright in everything, Abram Redfield was an honest man during the war, faithful in all things and abounding in good works. When he died December 8, 1862, he died the death of the righteous, mourned by all that knew him. He was a member-elect of the legislature, but had not taken his seat. Conversing with his friend, Judge Requa, only a few hours before his death, he remarked: "I don't believe I will go to Jefferson this winter; what's the use?" Judge Requa re- minded him that if he went he might be able to do something for the scheme of compensated emancipation, in which the slave- holding Union men of the state were interested. "Ho!" (his peculiar expression) exclaimed Mr. Redfield; "well, then, I'll go; if I can do any good for the Union men I'll go; just as soon as I am well, I will go."
He (as was afterwards his wife) was buried in the Deerfield cemetery, and his memory is blessed by the many who recall his good deeds and his pure and noble life.
A melancholy incident in the history of this township was the drowning of George G. Weber, a young man, twenty-one years of age, who was the son of Henry Weber, a resident of the Hack- berry neighborhood. The incident occurred about 5 p. m. of Wednesday, July 27, 1886. Mr. Weber, his three brothers, their father and a man named Wolf were seining near the Lambert ford when young Weber attempted to swim across the stream, just below the sein. He soon lost breath and sank. Mr. Wolf plunged in to the rescue, but returned to the shore to remove his boots, and in the delay Weber rose and sank again and was drowned. The body was drawn to the shore with the sein, which in the excitement was not used to save the young man's life.
Singularly enough, exactly three years prior to young Weber's drowning, or on July 27, 1884, at about the same hour in the day, and near the same spot, Prof. A. L. Gibbs was drowned in Dry- wood. He was from New York and was a noted teacher of penmanship.
A few years after the war a man and his son traveling through the country attempted to ford Drywood farther down the stream, near Deerfield, and both were drowned.
The number of bridges now across the stream obviates the necessity of fording the stream.
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DEERFIELD.
The village of Deerfield stands on lot 2, of the northwest quarter of section 7, in Deerfield township, running up the town- ship line on the west, and to within a mile of the line on the north, making its location in the northwest corner of the town- ship. It is a station on the M., K. & T. railroad, and is a thrifty little burg of something over two hundred inhabitants, with churches and good schools, and well-stocked stores and shops of various kinds.
The town was regularly laid out December 19, 1871, by David Redfield; J. E. Harding, surveyor. A school house was built here before the war and was known far and near as one of the first in the county.
The Deerfield pottery was established by David Redfield in 1871. Ten years later it was burned, and in 1882 was rebuilt.
Prewitt, or Ellis, as it is now called, is located on the M., K. & T. railroad, east of Deerfield. The town was laid out July 5, 1876, by W. A. Still, and named in honor of Maj. W. W. Prewitt. In naming their station the railroad company changed the name to that of Ellis. Though a small place, it has a good general store conducted by John J. Hall.
DOVER TOWNSHIP.
Dover township comprises congressional township 34, range 30. About one-third of the township was originally prairie land ; the remainder being timber land, much of which is now in cultiva- tion. Clear Creek, including Little Clear creek-or Little Peshaw -flows from southwest to northeast through the township, and receives also the Walnut branch, which, rising a little west of Bellamy, flows north through the eastern part of the township.
It is a long clear creek and its tributaries where lie the tim- bered tracts of coarse, scraggy "jack-oaks," for the most part. The soil here is generally thin and unproductive; the sandstone lies on the ground or near the surface, and the land is with dif- ficulty reduced to cultivation. Much of the timbered area, too, is rough and broken.
The prairie lies in the extreme western, the northwestern, the southwestern, the southeastern and a portion of the eastern sec- tions of the township. In the southeast corner of the township,
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on section 25, is the famous Dunnagin's grove. A little north- west of this grove, and between it and Bellamy, are scattered on the prairie some tumuli, which may be artificial mounds.
The sandstone in this township is very abundant, very promi- nent, and very fine. On the Walnut branch, west of Bellamy, on northwest section 23, is some very excellent gritstone, as fine, and even finer, than the famed Berean sandstone of northern Ohio, so renowned for grindstones. In other parts of the town- ship the same variety doubtless exists.
West and southwest of Bellamy are flowing wells of bitumen, called by the people "tar springs." The asphalt is of fine quality, as good as any. How far this flow may be increased by the aid of exploration and introduction of machinery and other appli- ances cannot be said.
The presence of bitumen or petroleum in the southern portion of this township is well established, and the "oil springs," as they are termed, were known to the first settlers. Stones satu- rated with bitumen, called ".grease rocks, " were collected by the pioneers and used for illuminating purposes, as substitutes for the old pine knots of old Tennessee. Near the center of section 27, a mile and a half southwest of Bellamy, a flow of oil was obtained which caused some excitement. Certain parties in Nevada were prepared to purchase the property and develop its resources, but satisfactory negotiations could not be conducted with the owner.
Good mineral paint is found in the southwest part of the township in considerable quantities. A deposit of bright red ochre on the upper Clear creek is remarkable.
There is a good "tar spring" on section 24, half a mile south and the same distance east of Bellamy. Another is on section 27, a mile and a half southwest of Bellamy, near the oil well before mentioned; and another is south of the last named, on section 34. "Grease rock" has been found in various quarters of the township. On the east side of section 16 is a fine sulphur spring ; there is also a good one on section 23; two or three others are said to be along Clear creek, while on section 27, near the oil well, is one mingled with tar. The "tar spring" on section 27, and also the sulphur spring near by, are noted by Prof. Nor- wood in his report published in Broadhead's Report of the Geological Survey of the County, page 154.
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