USA > Missouri > Greene County > Past and present of Greene County Missouri, early and recent history and genealogical records of many of the representative citizens, Volume I > Part 14
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Here they remained some two years or more. Meanwhile the restless frontier blood of their old leader, Pettijohn, drove him on long hunting and exploring expeditions to the Northwest. Returning from one of these trips, he informed the little settlement on White river that he had discovered the land mentioned in Scripture, which "floweth with milk and honey."
He had reached the plateaus of the Ozarks; his fabled land was none other than what we now call Greene county. The "milk and honey" of which. the stalwart old man told, he explained, to be none other than "buffalo mar- row" and "bear's grease," two pioneer delicacies par excellence !
Either on this trip or one soon after, Pettijohn erected a log cabin close to a fine spring upon the north bank of the James river, the spot which was afterward to become the permanent home of the first white settler in Greene county. This spot, which is certainly entitled to be marked with a permanent monument, is located some eight miles southwest of Springfield, in section 27, of township 28, of range 22.
Here stout old John Pettijohn came with his family, with some others of his Arkansas friends, in the spring and summer of 1822. Among those who followed at practically the same time from the Arkansas settlements was Thomas Patterson. He was by birth a native of North Carolina, but had, by a series of those successive migrations so characteristic of the Ameri- can pioneer, crossed the Cumberland mountains, traversed the entire length of Tennessee, and finally forced his way up the White river into the Ozark country. When he reached the Pettijohn cabin upon the James river he was pleased with the location, and soon succeeded in buying the "claim" from Pettijohn. The actual opening of Patterson's farm was in 1822.
About the same time a brother of Thomas Patterson, named Alexander, settled upon what was afterward for many years known as the David Wallace place. Another Thomas Patterson, a cousin of those just mentioned, settled farther up the James, probably at a point south of the present town of North- view. A man named Ingle also moved into the country at this time and set- tled at a point about where the Ozark road crosses the James river. Here he built a mill. Some claim that this was actually the first mill in southwest Mis- souri, and it is probable that such is the case, although two or three others: were erected at about the same period.
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THE DELAWARES OBJECTED.
But all these settlements proved premature, and great disappointment and loss was to come to the pioneers. It was in the autumn of that year, 1822, when everything seemed prosperous for the little colony in the wilderness, that the settlement was thrown into terror and dismay by the arrival of an army of no less than five hundred Delaware Indians! Fortunate, indeed, was it for those isolated white men that these were Delawares, the tribe that from the day when they entered into treaty with William Penn have always re- mained the white man's friend. If these unexpected visitors had been mem- bers of almost any other tribe in all the continent, the history of Greene county would have been ended then and there so far as these pioneers were con- cerned. The log cabins would have been given to the flames, the men and boys massacred and scalped, and the women and girls led away into cap- tivity.
However, these were the gentle Delawares, and no violence or threats were used by them. But, with all their gentleness, they were firm, and told the white men that these were their hunting grounds, their reservation, given to them by the word of the Great Father in Washington, and that the white men must move off at once !
One can imagine the terror and dismay of those pioneer families on re- ceipt of this message. All their plans for the future, all the fruits of their hard work, the little homes gained after coming so far through the perils of the wilderness to win them, all swept away in a moment, as it were, far more effectively destroyed, indeed, than if the flames had consumed them. How- ever, these were not men to yield without taking every possible means short of violence to save their homes, so some sort of an agreement was made with the Indians, and then Thomas Patterson, the elder, was sent to St. Louis to submit the case of the settlers to the government authorities there, and learn definitely the rights of the Indians and themselves.
That was no holiday trip that the old pioneer was sent upon by his neigh- bors. It was two hundred and fifty miles to St. Louis. The roads were mere bridle paths; the country for almost the entire distance was of the roughest in Missouri. Instead of the palace car, gliding over steel rails at fifty miles an hour, the old man made his way on foot, or, at best, on horseback. He camped where night found him, in the woods, or, if unusually fortunate, in the cabin of some hospitable pioneer like himself. The journey was far and away more of an undertaking than it would be now to start for San Francisco or New York.
All these things were so much matters of course that we find no mention made of them in the scanty records of the time. All that we do know is that Patterson made that journey, and that when he returned to the pleasant valley
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of the James, lie did so with a heavy heart. For the decision of the land of- fice authorities had been against the settlers. The Indian rights were affirmed, and the white men were ordered to move out of the reservation.
Then there was a flitting of those families. Some of them made their way to Illinois and never returned. Some found a stopping place upon the Meramec river in Crawford county, and much nearer St. Louis than the homes which they were abandoning. Some of them, including old Patterson himself, stopped upon the Osage Fork of the Gasconade, probably in the east- ern part of what is now Laclede county.
Some few of the settlers rented land from the Delawares, but most of those who did this had come into the country with the Indian invasion, and were probably traders or members of their families. Among these was a man named James Wilson. He was what later on came to be called a "squaw man." In fact, if tradition is to be trusted, he had acquired a three-fold right to that title. Three times, we are told, had he chosen a copper-colored "af- finity," and as many times did he discard his choice for another. Finally he journeyed to St. Louis, from whence he returned to the wilderness with a French bride. With her he lived several years prior to his death. This couple had a farm near the mouth of the creek that bears his name to this day. The banks of this stream were the scene of one of the bloodiest battles of the Civil war. This is the stream, by the way, the headwaters of which flow through the city of Springfield and bear the local nickname of "Jordan."
There is a story that during the Indian regime, this man Wilson had been intrusted by some of them with a considerable sum of money. The tempta- tion was too great for his honesty, and he buried the money, probably intend- ing to quietly slip away with it after the loss had been forgotten by the own- ers. But the unsophisticated red men did not propose to quietly submit to being robbed. They took the shrewd Mr. Wilson and, putting a rope around his neck, hung him in midair, a treatment that in short order unloosened his tongue so that he revealed the hiding place of the cash.
But in 1830 Congress, in response to frequent and urgent petitions, finally ordered the Indians to give up this part of Missouri and move to other regions farther west, and the submissive Delawares at once proceeded to obey and moved on, as they ever have, all the way across the continent.
This Indian occupancy had greatly retarded the settlement of southwest Missouri. Although it was fully ten years since the state had been admitted to the Union, and the other parts had been rapidly settled, there were very few white people in this region. and the territory covering thirty or forty of our modern counties was still included in Wayne county as before the admission of the state.
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MANY SETTLERS CAME.
But now the doors were swung wide open, and at once immigration be- gan to flow in. Most of those who had been driven out eight years before now led the procession of the inflowing tide of settlers, and hastened to resume possession of the places which they had been forced to abandon. Pettijohn, who has been mentioned, returned from Ohio, but did not locate within the present bounds of Greene county, but settled near the mouth of the James on White river.
Here the old frontiersman lived out his days, and his family retained possession of the land for many years. This tract is in the present limits of Stone county, although when Pettijohn settled upon it, it was, of course, still included in Greene county.
Joseph Porter was another of those who came in immediately after the Indians were removed. He made his home at or near Delaware Town, upon the James, and in the present limits of Christian county, a short distance south of the Greene county line.
Thomas Patterson, Sr., had retreated with his family no further than to the Osage Fork of the Gasconade, probably in the eastern limits of what is now Laclede county. There he waited with what patience he might, during the eight years, and he was among the first to return to the abandoned claims in Greene county. He took possession in that year, 1830, of the claim which had been located nearly ten years before by Pettijohn, and purchased by Pat- terson from him in 1821 or the year following. Here this first citizen of Greene county lived to the end of life, and here, in the old family burial ground, he sleeps beside the faithful wife who had followed him into the wilderness.
The "Patterson spring" still flows into the James, and over and around it is a grove of fine black walnut trees. Beneath their shade is an acre or so of as beautiful blue grass sod as any city lawn can boast. Here have gath- ered, in the past, hundreds of happy picnic parties, very few of the members of which, probably, knew that they were upon the first land occupied by a white man's home in Greene county.
Another early arrival in Greene county was Samuel Martin, who settled in Taylor, or what is now Taylor township, in the eastern part of the county, near the James river. When the county was organized in 1833 Mr. Martin was elected one of the County Court, and when, on the IIth of March of that year, the court met for its first term, he was chosen by his two colleagues to be the presiding justice. John B. Mooney and his brother Edward rented land from the Indians somewhere about 1827. This was located upon Davis creek, a small stream that falls into the James in Taylor township. The Mooneys remained in that neighborhood permanently. John B. Mooney was
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an active and prominent man in the early history of the region. He was a pioneer preacher, one of those strong and sturdy men whose influence for good so largely helped to mold the better forces of the new countries of the West. Mooney township, one of the first organized by the County Court at its first session, was named for this man. Mooney township in Polk county is a part of that original division of Greene county.
But the man who probably did more toward building up and advancing Greene county than any other was John P. Campbell, a native of Maury county, Tennessee. Later on I propose to give in detail the story of Camp- bell's journey to Greene county, as written by one who shared its trials and perils with him. But just at this point I will only quote the words left on record by one of those who knew and honored him in life :
"John P. Campbell was an organizer of men, a stranger to reverses. The touch of his hand was success to any enterprise. Kind, prompt, generous and benevolent, his word was as sovereign as a state statute. He amassed a large property, and extended his field of operations over an empire. He built up schools, raised churches and gave freely to the poor. He died leaving a name honored and respected by everybody." Surely no man could ask for a nobler panegyric !
Andrew Bass came from Tennessee late in 1829 and located close to the present site of Strafford, in the southern part of Jackson township. Later he moved some miles farther north in the same township, near the little trading point now called, after his family, Bassville. His descendants compose one of the prominent families of Greene county, and they are largely settled around the original location of their ancestor.
Alpheus Huff came from Franklin county, Missouri, with the tide of immigration that flowed into the southwest after the Indians were expelled in 1830. He settled near Andrew Bass. Alexander Chadwick also came from Tennessee about 1831 and settled near Mr. Bass.
Major Joseph Weaver arrived in March, 1830, and bought out a settler near Delaware Town, where he lived three or four years. He then came to Springfield and purchased the farm of Joseph Miller, the brother-in-law of J. P. Campbell, just southwest of the town. Mr. Miller had come in with his brother-in-law some four years before selling to Weaver. Mr. Weaver lived on this place some years, when he moved to a farm two and a half miles west, where he died in 1852. His numerous descendants have always held a prom- inent place in the history of both the city of Springfield and of Greene county.
In 1831 Daniel B. Miller, a brother of Joseph Miller, settled in the north- west part of what is now Springfield, at a great spring, still called for him, "The Miller Spring." After serving as a water supply for the first Spring- field woolen mill, which enterprise soon died and remained with the brick building standing vacant for twenty years, this spring and a fine tract of land
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of twenty acres is now being turned into a city park, with a beautiful lake of several acres. Mr. Daniel B. Miller only survived some nine years, dying in 1839. Samuel Lasley came to Greene county with Daniel B. Miller and settled on Little Sac at the crossing of the Bolivar road. Spencer O'Neil, who had been one of the first men to take up claims in the Indian country, and had been forced to move away with the others in 1822, now returned and settled in the southwestern part of the county. Many of his descendants are citizens of Pond Creek, Republic and Brookline townships to the present day.
Joseph Rountree, born in North Carolina in 1782, first emigrated to Ten- nessee in 1819, and afterward to this county, in 1831. He brought with him to his new home a family of seven sons and three daughters. From that day to this the name Rountree appears with great frequency and honor in the rec- ords of Greene county. Probably no one name shows to any better advantage than this. This large family, it is recorded, made the latter part of their ard- uous journey to Greene county through a deposit of snow of the remarkable depth, for this latitude, of eighteen inches.
A PIONEER'S JOURNAL.
Among the treasures of the Rountree family there existed for many years, and probably exists today, a journal kept by Joseph Rountree of his journey from the east into Greene county. It is given here, as printed some thirty years ago, and is a priceless record of the strenuous life of pioneer days. Beginning with the arrival upon the eastern shore of the Mississippi at Green's ferry in Illinois, this journal reads as follows :
"Thursday, December 23, 1830-A cloudy day. The ice was very thick in the river; we went to Kaskaskia ; the ice nearly quit in the river in the even- ing ; at night it rained and froze over. Our expense was 371/2c.
"Friday, 24th-A wet morning. We prepared for crossing the river after breakfast; we removed our family to Peter Robert Derousse's, at the lower ferry on Sunday last-a very respectable gentleman with a peaceable family ; we found the ice so thick and wide on the other side that we could not land, and had to go down the river more than a mile, where we got a landing, and it took till about an hour in the night before I got my wagon and family over; we had to make five trips; we went about three miles and camped, and had a merry night. Expense $5." -
That touch, "had a merry night," is exceedingly suggestive. One would think that a long and dangerous day's work, ferrying the turbulent Mississippi five times, would have been but a poor prelude for a night of merriment. But these pioneer folk were not of the stuff that deplores and whines over the dif- ficulties in their way. They had at last crossed the Mississippi; they were in Missouri, if only at its farthest bounds, and they proceeded to make merry
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over dangers past and to rejoice over their arrival in the hither edge of their promised land.
"Saturday, 25th-We started early; proceeded to Ste. Genevieve Town; Mr. Beard had to get a skein mended; my family stayed with a very friendly French family, Bovie by name; in the evening we went on eight miles and camped at Mr. Bell's. Expense $1.621/2.
"Sunday, 26th-A cloudy, cold day. We traveled on and about two o'clock Mr. Beard's hind axletree broke at Mr. Moreare's. We traveled 14 miles, and camped at Mr. Barrington's. Expense, 621/2C.
"Monday, 27th-I went to Mr. Donaldson's; found them well, and our wagon waited for Mr. Beard's and then went on; camped at Mr. Baker's; traveled nine miles today. Expense $2.561/4.
"Tuesday, 28th-The day was clear and cold. We traveled on very well; found that the fore bolster of Mr. Beard's wagon was broken. We came through Mine a' Burton and got a new bolster ; encamped at Mr. Tucker's; it began to snow before day. Expense 621/2C.
"Wednesday, 29th-This day was snowy, rainy and freezing ; we started and broke the tongue out of Mr. Beard's wagon; made a new tongue and traveled 7 miles and encamped at Mr. Compton's. Expense $1.
"Thursday, 30th-Started on and it was snowy and freezing; last night it snowed; we had only got one mile this day when Mr. Beard's wagon turned over in a branch and got the most of my goods wet ; we had to take up camp and dry our things; it continued snowing. Expense 621/2c.
"Friday, 31st-This day we packed up our wagon and started about twelve ; traveled 7 miles. Expense $1.961/4.
"Saturday, January Ist, 1831-A clear, cold morning; it moderated a little; we proceeded and crossed the Cotway (doubtless this is meant for the "Fourche a' Courtois"), Huzza and Dry creeks ; traveled about 13 miles and encamped on the ridge between Dry creek and the Merrimack. Expense $2.75.
"Sunday, 2d-Cloudy ; we started early ; it rained very hard this day and thundered; we crossed the Merrimac ; traveled 16 miles ; encamped at Massey's iron works. Expense 561/4c.
"Monday, 3d-Last night it rained, sleeted and froze all night; this morning it began to snow; we continued in a cabin we had took up in; it snowed all night. Expense 621/2C.
"Tuesday, 4th-A cold day; snow very deep; continued at the cabin all day. Expense $1. 19.
"Wednesday, 5th-A clear, cold day ; Mr. Beard took his load about 4 miles to Mr. St. Clair's, and we deposited it there and returned to the cabin. Expense 66 2/3c.
"Thursday, 6th-Clear and cold; Mr. Beard took his departure for home; we continued in the cabin ; in the evening Sidney (Ingram) and me went for
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to look us out a place for to make a camp near St. Clair's ; we concluded on a place, returned in the evening and brought home Junius and Lucius, who had went to another cabin on the Dry Fork of the Merrimac the day before. Ex- pense $5.
"Friday, 7th-We began to prepare for making our camps; but in the evening Joseph Phillabare (Philabert) came on and we concluded to go on with him; so we left the cabin and came on to St. Clair's and stayed all night. Expense 621/2c.
"Saturday, 8th-We started about 10 o'clock and proceeded up the bad hill with some difficulty ; the day was cloudy and cold, the snow was deep and it snowed some more, but we traveled 18 miles. Expense 1834c.
"Sunday, 9th-Quite cold; traveled 17 miles. Expense $1.43.
"Monday, Ioth-Cloudy and cold; we proceeded and crossed Rubidoo. (Robidoux) ; traveled 15 miles. Expense 371/2C.
"Tuesday, IIth-This morning it was very snowy; we discovered that Mr. Philabare had one of the skeins of his wagon to get mended ; so we stayed in camp until nearly 12, and then traveled about 12 miles and encamped at Stark's. Expense 8114c.
"Wednesday, 12th-Cloudy and cold; we traveled on slowly on account. of the snow; crossed the Osage fork of the Gasconade and traveled 14 miles. Expense 183/4c.
"Thursday, 13th-A cold day, but we traveled on pretty well; passed Eastwood and traveled 18 miles. Expense 371/2c.
"Friday, 14th-Last night it snowed very hard; we encamped at the In- dian Grave branch; the snow increased in depth four or five inches; we trav- eled with a good deal of difficulty ; we passed Tygart's. Traveled 20 miles. Expense 50c.
"Saturday, 15th-It continues to snow ; the day is most intolerably cold; we proceeded on our way and after traveling six or eight miles we met Joseph. H. Miller and Lemuel Blanton coming to meet us. Great joy! We went on to Robert Patterson's, twelve miles, and got lodging for the night in his house, the first night's lodging in a house since we left the cabin at Massey's Iron Works. Expense $1.25.
"Sunday, 16th-Today was extremely cold ; snowed a little ; we proceeded and got to Joseph A. Miller's between sunset and dark; found the people- about the prairie all well, and glad to see us all arrive safe. Traveled 23 miles."
Compare that journey with one over practically the same route, from St. Louis to Springfield. Instead of more than three weeks, over rough, hilly roads, in cold, and flood, and snow, the traveler now lies down in his com- fortable berth in a palace sleeping car, goes to sleep at 10 o'clock at night in St. Louis and awakes next morning in Springfield !
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BUILT INGRAM'S MILL ..
In company with Mr. Rountree and his family on their journey from their Tennessee home to Springfield, was Sidney Ingram, whose name we have seen once mentioned in one of Mr. Rountree's entries. This is the first mention of another name that has ever since been held in honor in Greene county. Sidney Ingram at first settled in Springfield, or where Springfield was to be. He here built a cabinet and wagon building shop. In a few years he moved to a farm a short distance south of town, and afterward to the lo- cation on the James, where, in company with F. C. Howard, he built a grist mill, which, with its successors, have continued to the present day, and always as "Ingram's Mill." At this mill Mr. Ingram died in 1847.
Mr. Ingram served the county in an official capacity with credit to him- self and satisfaction to the community. His son, Arch F. Ingram, was treas- urer of the county for so many years that it grew to be a standing joke that he was elected for life. Others of the name have served this county in the Leg- islature, as editors of our papers, and in many other capacities, and always with honor and uprightness.
In 1831, too, came Kindred Rose, ancestor of a large family, many of whom are still citizens of this county. Mr. Rose settled on a farm about a mile and a half southwest of Springfield, and there passed a long life. An- drew Taylor and his brother-in-law, D. D. Berry, located in 1831 on the prairie about a mile south of Springfield. Here they built a little log build- ing and put into it a stock of goods brought all the way from Tennessee. This was probably the first store in the county as now located. Taylor soon re- turned to Tennessee, and when Springfield began to take on the promise of being a town. Berry moved his store into the place and became a noted and wealthy merchant.
In 1831 came Peter Epperson and his family from Tennessee and took possession of a farm near Joseph Rountree's, to which an overseer and some score of slaves had come the previous spring, to prepare it for the master's residence. Then there were Radford Cannefax and his sons Benjamin and Chesley, coming in 1831, and settling on what has for sixty years at least been known as "The old Cannefax place," four miles southwest of Springfield, on the Wire road. The Cannefaxes were originally from Virginia, but came to Greene county from Kentucky.
Samuel Painter arrived here in the winter of 1831. He was a Tennessean, but had lived in southern Illinois about five years prior to coming to Missouri. Soon after reaching Springfield this family moved to a prairie farm near Ebenezer, and in about a year after that to what went by the name of "The Mill Bottom," on the James, where Ingle had erected a mill in 1822. When Springfield was laid out as a town, the old gentleman moved into town, as did
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his son Jacob. The latter, of whom more will be said in another chapter, was for long years the busy gunsmith of the little town.
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