USA > Missouri > McDonald County > Illustrated history of McDonald County, Missouri: from the earliest settlement to the present time > Part 11
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The one who stood guard at the horses proved to be Cora Hubbard, a woman in men's attire. She was taken at her father's house in Weir City a few hours after her return. The other one, John Scheets, came in a couple of days later. They were all fully identified and freely acknowledged their guilt. About $355 of the money was recovered.
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Tennyson is a widower 30 years old, Scheets is a young man about twenty-two, and Cora Hubbard is a grass widow twenty-five. Their case is now pending in our circuit court, and it is probable that for this one rash act they will spend a good portion of their livesin the pen- itentiary.
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KILLING OF JACK TILLOTSON.
ON Sunday night, August 30, 1896, a desperate fight took place at the Lumis school house in White Rock township, between Jack Tillotson and Tom Hopper, in which the former was in- stantly killed and the latter stabbed in several places. The occurrence was especially deplor- able from the fact that both were young men, or rather boys, about nineteen years old, and were strangers. They had never spoken to each other except on one occasion they chanced to meet in the road and spoke as they passed.
Rev. James Holloway was holding a series of meetings at the place above named and the two boys were at meeting on the fatal Sunday night. It appears that young Tillotson had taken a girl to church the night before, and on the way home some of the boys hooted at and made fun of them. Among them was one of the Hopper boys, a brother to Tom. On Sunday night the school house was full and perhaps as many out- side. Young Hopper was sitting on a rick of wood which was corded up a few yards from the house with a couple of other men. Tillotson approached and in a rude manner asked if he was the fellow that halload at him the night be- fore. Hopper replied that he was not. Tillot-
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son said he could whip (applying a very foul name) that halload at him. Hopper said he was in the crowd but did not halloa. Tillotson twice more repeated the epithet, when Hopper said "You can't whip me, " and struck Tillotson in the face, In the fight Hopper was stabbed in the breast, on both wrists, and had a cut in the the thigh some four inches deep. He threw himself back on the wood and while getting up was struck once or twice with a stick of wood. As he was getting up he drew a 44-caliber revol- ver and fired, the ball passed through Tillotson's body near the heart, killing him instantly.
Hopper was indicted for murder in the second degree the following January, and tried at the August term, 1897. He was convicted of man- slaughter in the fourth degree and his punish- ment fixed at two years in the penitentiary. The case was appealed to the supreme court where it is still pending (September 1897.)
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MURDER OF GEORGE SMITH.
Pineville Democrat, March 19, 1897.
Last Sunday night, March 14, 1897, just as divine services were closed and the congregation dismissed at what is known as Old Bethpage Baptist church, on North Elkhorn creek, and as he was in the act of putting on his overcoat, George W. Smith was coolly and deliberately shot down without warning by one John Arnold, a boy about 19 years old. The shot was fired from the outside the, ball passing through a pane of glass in one of the middle windows on the east side of the church striking its victim in the right temple, passing slightly upward through the right lobe and into the left lobe of the brain, there deflecting and passing into the back of the head where it was found lying in the brain when the autopsy was made after death.
From the time the shot was fired at twenty minutes to nine o'clock Sunday night he lay in a comatose state until death came at twenty minutes past twelve o'clock on Monday. In his critical condition it was impossible to move him to his home, only about one hundred and twenty- five yards from the church, so that he died with- in a few feet of where he was shot and was buried from the church at two o'clock on Tuesday, the
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whole population of the country turning out to pay its last tribute of respect to one whom all honored and loved.
Young Arnold had been seen at the window and talked with by some of the young men out- side and had refused to enter the church with them. The excitement in the church at the time was intense, and after a few minutes parties started out to search for the assassin and Arn- old having been seen at the window and then suddenly disappearing suspicion pointed to him. An hour or such a matter after the shooting parties went to the home of Ol Mosier, about a mile north of the church, after castor oil and found that Arnold was there and in bed. The Constable and Squire Mosier were notified, a warrant issued, and he was taken into custody by constable Hines about midnight.
Sheriff Jarrett and Prosecutor Clay were notified as quickly as possible Monday morning, and Mr. Clay being unable to go on account of trying a criminal case here that morning, Sher- iff Jarrett and Judge W. E. Smith went as quickly as possible to the scene, arriving there about noon. Arnold was arraigned before Squire Mosier and waived examination and was commit- ted to jail the Sheriff taking charge of and bringing him to Pineville, himself, prisoner and Judge Smith leaving there about four o'clock
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and arriving here a little after dark, and the Sheriff landed him in the Neosho jail the next day. Excitement ran quite high in the country where the assassination occured, and had the people been positive that the right party had been caught it is believed by many that he would have been lynched.
He seemed to take every thing very coolly, and that night while being guarded here made a confession, deliberately acknowledging that he did it, telling all about how he did it, and implicating other parties, saying that he was to have, or had got $25.00 for it. He said he had nothing in the world against Mr. Smith personally. His confession was reduced to writing and he swore to it. Arnold has lived in that locallity most of the time for six or seven years past, and is anorphan. In some ways he may not be over bright, but at the same time he is a cunning, shrewd fellow and by no means unaccountable. He used a 38 caliber five chamber revolver, and the same day had shown it to some of the boys, showing them that he had five cartridges in the revolver and six in his pocket. The shell of the eleventh was picked up about seventy-five yards from the church near a tree the next morning. This shell and the bullet extracted from the brain of Mr. Smith exactly fitted Arnold's revolver.
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TIFF CITY.
THIS enterprising little town was platted by S. L. Hopkins, August 6, 1881. Hopkins platted an addition in 1883, and E. W. DePue laid out another addition in 1886.
The town is situated on Buffalo creek where it crosses the State line. It has a population of about 200 people, and contains several enter- prising and well conducted business establish- ments. Is has a good portion of Buffalo and Patterson creek valleys, besides some prarie and extensive flat woods from which to draw its custom in the State, and is adjacent to a fertile tract of country in the Indian Territory.
The name was suggested by the mineral substance of that name which abounds in the vicinity of the spring. The town was incor- porated several years ago, but after an experi- ment of several months the city government was abandoned. During this time a number of men got on a spree and undertook to run the town. They bluffed off two or three of the offi- cers, sending some of them home for repairs. Ed Hopkins, one of the deputies, commanded the peace and was assaulted by the rioters. He drew his pistol and shot John Caulk, one of them dead. It was in Tiff City that Minnie DePue, a girl in her teens, shot and instantly killed John Lewis, a man of family, in defense of her honor. They used to scrap a little down there, but in recent years the place has become quite peaceable and the moral element prevails.
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HISTORY OF MCDONALD COUNTY.
THE TEMPERANCE WORK IN MCDONALD COUNTY.
BY MRS. LORA S. LaMANCE.
THE rise and growth of temperance sentiment in McDonald county has been somewhat out of the ordinary, To fully understand it, we must go back to the early days of its settlement. At the first, the county was largely settled by peo- ple from the Southern and Western states. The most genial, hospitable people.on earth, their very qualities of BON HOMIE and good fellow- ship inclined them to conviviality. There had been no temperance agitation, and none were troubled with scruples as to dram drinking or social treating. Most of the stores sold whisky, and sold it with as little concealment as they did their calicoes; every farmer brought his jug with him when he came to town to trade; every horse swapping or sale of land was con- firmed by treats all around; every house and barn raising was dedicated by the passing. of the whisky jug from hand to hand; the guests at every wedding grew hilarious with exhilara- ting corn-juice, while all too often the mourners of the funeral, drowned their sorrows the same day in the oblivion of drunkenness. Picnics, elections, and holidays were days of "a general
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good time," which expression covered every- thing from being gentlemanly foxy to lying dead- drunk in the fence corner. Thus were sown the seeds for a bitter harvest of dissipation.
Following this came the terrible period of thecivil war. McDonald County was on debata- ble ground, and was over-ran again and again, by the contending Federal and Confederate forc- es. She was mercilessly pillaged and sacked, her court house destroyed, and her records burned. For years there was no restraint of either church or court. Anarchy reigned, and the inevitable demoralization that followed, could not be over come in a day nor year. The days of reconstruc- tion, of the setting in motion of the machinery of law and order, was a time of turbulence. The war had engendered countless feuds between neighbors. The Governor had to appoint the first officers, and rival ambitions and jealousies fanned this animosity. As an instance of the unsettled state of affairs, the records show that no less than three different men were appointed in three months time to the same county office. Moralrestraint, that would have alleviated much of this angry feeling, unfortunately was in abeyance. The war had been over two years before the first church was organized in the county, and it consisted of a class of but six persons, five women and one man.
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All this turbulent time two and three saloons were doing a flourishing business at the county seat, then a hamlet of less than two hundred in- habitants, but from its position the center of all this turmoil. Undoubtedly much of the incite- ment to strife came from the same iniquitous sa- loons, the breeders of mischief everywhere. Then again, there came back from the war a loose, wreckless class of persons, who drift as naturally to places where the law is weak and moral force at a low ebb, as the waters run down hill. The period of 1865-70 was a shameful one that all of McDonald's Citizens would be glad to forget. It was a current saying that Pineville was the worst drinking hole in the state, and this fact furnishes the only reasonable explanation of how such an appalling list of crimes and misdemeanors could be committed in the midst of what had been before, and is at the present time, a most peaceful people. There were days of general uproariousness, led by the wreckless characters before spoken of who drank and caroused, and held high carnival, bullying quiet, respectable citizens, defying the law, and over-riding the peace officers. On such days bullets would fly upon the streets until sober men would leap upon their horses and flee for their lives.
It is not for us to record the murder and crimes
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of those dark days, but one tragedy stands out so black even on that dark page, that we can not pass it by. One of the carpenters employed in building the court-house, was a man originally of fine impulse; he gave way however to the dissipation all around him and became a perfect sot. In a moment of remorse, realizing the chains of drink were too strong for him to ever be his own master again, he took his own life. His wife, who left behind her this little message, "Death is better than to live the wife of a drunk- ard," took poison with him, and died also. This terrible deed shocked a community fastgrowing accustomed to crime, and sober men began to ask, "How much longer shall these things continue?" Then began one of the most effect- ive temperance awakenings that our county has ever known. No temperance advocate has ever delivered such touching and effective pleas for sobriety, as did the shootings, stabbing and murders, that could be traced to the saloons. What men have to know and see, they feel, and the peaceful, law-abiding element began to do some serious thinking on the liquor problem. Men who had been moderate dram drinkers all their lives, began to see the dangers of indulg- ence, and more and more, the substantial men who are the back bone and sinew of every community, swore off from drinking themselves,
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and gave their influence against it. An improve- ment of conditions followed at once upon this change of public opinion. Drinking there was yet, and to excess, but the shameless orgies of the "60's" could not be repeated, for public sentiment would no longer tolerate them.
In 1874 a lodge of I. O. G. T. was organized at Pineville, but soon came to an end. The time was not yet ripe for public revolution. The leaven was working, however, and in Feb- ruary, 1878, when Mrs. S. A. Williams came to Pineville in the interest of the Murphy and Blue Ribbon movement, the hour was ripe. The awakening was something phenomenal. The interest that was taken baffles description. The community became at a white heat of enthusi- asm. Night after night for weeks the old Meth- odist church was packed to the very walls; farmers with their families drove over rough roads on the darkest nights, and stood patient- ly the jam and push of the crowd, a third of whom could not be seated. Blue ribbon by the bolt was cut into badges. Tipplers and teeto- talers, drunkards and church members, fell into line waiting their turn to have their names re- corded, and the bit of blue ribbon pinned on. Whenever some particularly hard case would fall into line the enthusiastic audience would burst into song. The ringing chorus of "Throw
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out the life-line," "Pull for the shore," or "Hold the fort, would resound until the very walls echoed back the refrain. When this protracted temperance love-feast closed, there was scarcely an adult for miles around but what had taken the pledge, "With malice toward none, and charity toward all." "The Murphies" of Pineville had even gone with song and exhorta- tion to White Rock and other townships, carrying the gospel of total abstinence. The better to hold the large number of reformed men who joined them, the Murphies resolved to hold a regular meeting every Thursday night, and for five years they did so.
But it was not all smooth sailing. Far from it, indeed. The power proved unresistable, and one unfortunate after another broke his pledge, until the number of defections was an open scandal. Many societies would have given up the ghost at once, but our McDonald County Murphies were not of that kind of stuff. The matter was taken up. It was decided for the children and young men's sakes to continue the meetings. Then came the question of purging
the rolls. Some of those who had violated their pledge were most honored citizens, and their wives and children were in the audience. Men sat and looked at each other, each unwilling to do this obvious but unpleasant duty. Then
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uprose old Harmon Kenney, an officer in the church, and his hair white with the snow of three-score and ten winters. With tears falling like rain down his cheeks, he said, "What no one else will do, Harmon Kenney must do. I move that so and so, be expelled from our rolls." This one man's brave Christian act saved the Murphies. The remnant that was left, deter- mined to not yield, and for those five years, line upon line they, gave instruction in temperance doctrine until public sentiment in Pineville township became, as it remains to-day, overwhelmingly on the right side. The Murphies as an organization, have died out everywhere, but the work they did for Pineville township and through it an influence extending through- out the county, can scarcely be over-estimated.
For five years after the Murphies disbanded, we find no record of any temperance society in the county . Early in 1888, temperance again be- came a burning question, for in February of that year a special election was held upon the Wood Local Option Law. The results showed the folly of attempting to pass a reform measure without an active organization working for it, for the antis or "wets," carried the measure overwhelmingly, one township indeed, giving but one dry vote. At the eleventh hour, Feb- ruary, the month of the election, the W. C. T.
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U. sent an organizer, C. J. Holt, into the county to rally the temperance forces, and do the little that could be done in that short time. He at once established a W. C. T. U. at Pineville, the most central point in the county, and the now aroused workers succeeded in getting some earnest work done in some other townships.
In Pineville township the ladies served hot coffee and refreshments close to the voting place, and pinned ribbon badges on the "dry" adherents. Without exception, in every voting precinct where the temperance people made a stand, the "drys" won: where they let it go by default, the "wets" carried the day as surely. There is a lesson in this for future remembrance.
In Elk River Township, (where the town of Noel now stands,) the sentiment against saloons was supposed to be decisive, and the temperance people made no attempt to rally their forces. The liquor men, wiser in their day and generation organized a still hunt along every by-path and up every cross-hollow. At 3 o'clock, to their astonishment, the "drys" found themselves out numbered. Thomas Marshall, Elk River's lead- ing citizen, roundly vowed that that record should not stand. He brought out every horse and vehickle that he had, pressed drivers into service and sent them after the stay-at home temperance vote. In one part of the Township
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was a little body of Adventists. They were staunch temperance men, but as the election came on Saturday, which was their Sabbath, they stayed at home rather than desecrate the Sabbath day. To them Mr. Marshall sent this terse message, "This is a case of helping the ox out of the pit, " and every man responded. They got there just before the poles closed, and Elk River went "dry" by exactly five majority.
The W. C. T. U. that was organized by C. J. Holt, at Pineville, consisted of 21 active and 2 honorary members. Mrs. America Chenoweth was the first President, and much interest was manifested. In March Mr. Holt organized a W. C. T. U. at Southwest City with 33 members the most prominent ladies of the town connecting themselves with it. Somewhere about this time, but whether organized by Mr. Holt we do not know, a W. C. T. U. was also established at Rocky Comfort. These are the three stragetic points, center south, and north, that any or- ganization that intends to hold the county must first capture. These unions all contained much excellent material, and gave at first much prom- ise; but our ladies were unsued to public work of any kind, the leaders one by one became sick or moved away, and the move came to a stand- still everywhere for lack of a head.
After this came a spasmodic revival of the I.
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O. G. T. atone or two points, but this also, soon came to naught. In August 1893, Mrs. May L. Woods, President of the 23rd District W. C. T. U., and Mrs. Rebecca Hall, the saintly head of the State Evangelical Department of the W. C. T. U., organized a W. C. T. U. at Southwest City. This was a smaller Union than the first, and was organized under more discouraging influences, for the liquor sentiment at that time was unfortunately strong at Southwest City. Mrs. Lucy A. Struthers, a most estimable woman, was elected President, and Mrs. E. P. Quarles was appointed the County President.
January 11 1894, Mrs. Woods, our beloved District President, and Mrs. Clara C. Hoffman, the State President of the Missouri W. C. T. U., organized a Union at Pineville. Mrs. Lora S. LaMance was the first President, and served as such until September 1895, when Mrs. C. S. Manning, our present leader, took her place. In May 1894, Mrs Quarles resigned as County President, and Mrs. LaMance was appointed to her position, and still holds it. In May 1894 a Union was organized at Anderson, another good central point. Of this Mrs. Octavia Elliff was President until 1896, when Mrs. P. A. T. Yocum took her place. In December 1896, Mrs. Nellie G. Burger organized a W. C. T. U. at Rocky Comfort, Mrs. Fannie Kelly, President, and
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this list completes the number of W. C. T. U. 's at present in the county.
The W. C. T. U. have held it as their special mission to form and crystalize public sentiment in favor of prohibition. While we work among the adults, and especially try to awaken the churches as to their duty upon this question, we pay special attention to the children. Adopting the language of one of our leaders we hold that "The star of hope for the temperance reform hangs over the school house." We have held in our three and a half year's existence three special meetings with the teachers at the Normal, and have pledged them to teach scientific tem- perance instruction in the school room, that our boys and girls may understand why alcohol and tobacco hurt the human body. We have
had about twenty-five Demorest Oratorical Contests, for young people between the ages of fourteen and twenty-five. Two of these Contests were for the gold medal, all the com- petitors for which had already won a silver medal. Beside this there have been four or five L. T. L. Contests held for children under fourteen. Fully one third of these Contests, that have awakened great interest everywhere, and incidently taught our young people more about elocution than they had ever known before have been held by our friends the teachers, in
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District schools. By that means the prohibition gospel has been carried where no temperance lecturer has ever gone, and no temperance soci- ety ever organized.
We have held four very successful county con- ventions, at which many able addresses and pa- pers were presented. We have enjoyed at stat- ed periods hearing such well known lecturers as Mrs. Hoffman, Mrs. Bosworth and Mrs. Bur- ger. We have held many public meetings that have done much to hold public sentiment to the right. We have scattered thousands of pages of temperance literature, and the most of the time for the last two years, the Unions at An- derson and Pineville have maintained a Tem- perance column in the Pineville Democrat and Anderson Messenger respectively. By all these things we know we have not been idlers in the Master's vineyard, and yet there is so much more that ought to be done, and that we might have accomplished, that we feel that we have no room for self praise. God granting, the W. C. T. U. of McDonald county in spite of special discouragements at this and that point, will still press on, and labor for the "good, the true and the right," until there is no need for a tem- perance society in the county.
In the fall of 1894, E. H. Benham organized a chain of I. O. G. T. lodges in our county.
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There is the best of feeling between fraternal temperance societies, so he advanced to no point where the W. C. T. U. was already established, but at Erie, Bethpage, Tiff City, Noel, and three or four other points he organized lodges. Some of these proved short lived, but it is thought that they at least prepared the way for some fu- ture organization. Erie and Bethpage I. O. G. T. lasted for two years each, but from lack of leaders, the common cause of failure, went down. The lodge at Donohue, however, remains in a flourishing condition, and is exerting a wide- spread influence. It is the George Washington Lodge, and one of its officers says it is its good name that keeps it alive and growing, but we think there is more in the stick-to-it-iveness of its officers.
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