The History of Jackson county, Missouri, containing a history of the county, its cities, towns, etc., biographical sketches of its citizens, Jackson county in the late warhistory of Missouri, map of Jackson county, Part 13

Author: Union Historical Company
Publication date: 1881
Publisher: Kansas City, Mo. : Union historical company
Number of Pages: 1068

USA > Missouri > Jackson County > The History of Jackson county, Missouri, containing a history of the county, its cities, towns, etc., biographical sketches of its citizens, Jackson county in the late warhistory of Missouri, map of Jackson county > Part 13

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In speaking of topography of Jackson county it should be observed that in the vicinity of all the streams are strips of woodland more or less extensive, and that along the Missouri River the timber land extends from three to ten miles in width from the river, and in many places the timber is large and of excellent quality, and in others the growth is smaller, forming dense thickets in many places, showing clearly that the timber has encroached on the prairie, and it is interesting to note the gradual change which takes place from almost impenetrable thickets to open woods. As the trees grow and overshadow the undergrowth, such as hazel, sumach, etc., this dies out and the more thrifty and larger trees continue to grow, while the more feeble and delicate die out one after another and give place to their more stately neighbors; and thus in a few years thickets become open woodlands, and as this process goes on the sun has freer access to the earth and it is consequently drier and more healthy. Many thickets in this county during the period of thirty years have undergone these changes, and are now beautiful open woodlands of trees of considerable size and height. Another very interest- ing fact going to show that the country is becoming more healthy, is that the wet lands in the bottoms are being filled up by the alluvial deposits brought down to them from the roads and cultivated fields, and are being covered by a thick sward of blue grass as fast as they become dry enough, and at the same time the chan- nels of the branches which run through them are being deepened and compressed into narrow space. There are quite a number of bottoms along the Blue which thirty years ago were quite wet and swampy, which have become dry tillable land, and which will, in all probability, continue in the future to improve more rapidly than in the past. This holds good with the broader ravines and valleys in the upland prairies, many of which are quite wet and in many places marshy. Now as these slopes of the hills are cultivated, these marshy spots are filled up and the

HISTORY OF JACKSON COUNTY.

land rendered more compact by the trampling of stock, the blue grass takes hold readily and a firm sward covers them so that they are less likely to generate "miasm" and consequently the country around will become healthier. Those settling in the prairies should be advised to observe the same rules in building homes as in the timber, that is, to avoid heads of ravines, as mentioned heretofore, and even more carefully on account of the want of protection by trees. It may seem strange, but I believe the statement is fully attested by experience, that in very rainy and consequently sickly seasons, persons living on the prairies suffer more than those in the timber; the cause of this may I think, be found to be the protec- tion afforded by the timber in absorbing and warding off "miasm." Such persons, as soon as possible, should make for themselves a protection by planting groves of timber and orchards near their dwellings, which will be a source of safety from disease and at the same time of pecuniary profit, to say nothing of the agree- able shades in the summer and protection from cold in the winter-both important objects for the preservation of health, and particularly in a climate as variable as ours.

In considering the causes tending to influence the health of any locality, we should take into account the effect of temperature and the particular season in which we have the greatest amount of rain and highest temperature. As a rule, our rainy season commences about the 20th of May and extends to the roth of July ; when we say season, we do not mean that it is only in that season that we have rains, but that rains are more abundant then than at other times. Yet, there occur seasons that are exceptions to the rule, as we shall see hereafter. The months of June and July, and the early part of August, are marked by the high- est range of temperature.

We will now endeavor to give a brief account of many of the seasons since 1844. The year A. D. 1844 is known in Missouri as the great flood. In the month of May there was considerably more rain than in any other year, especially in the valleys of the Kansas and Platte rivers, so as to cause a partial overflow of the bottoms of those rivers and of the Missouri River.

About the 15th of June the rains abated, and the rivers receded from the bottoms, but in a short time recommenced exceedingly copious rains of almost daily occurrence to about the Ioth of July, and the Missouri River and its tribu- taries overflowed their banks to the depth of twenty feet, and in many places to the depth of thirty feet-the temperature at this time being high. It is remarka- ble that during this season the Missouri River, above the mouths of the Kaw and Platte rivers, continued low. The latter part of July and the month of August were very dry and hot, and sickness was general throughout the State, the dis- eases being mostly of a mild character, and yielding readily to the influence of medicines. The winter of 1844 and 1845 was very mild, little snow or rain fell during the winter or spring, so that the rivers were quite low to the latter part of May, when the rains commenced and continued to the beginning of July. Some of the heaviest rains ever know in the State were witnessed this season, but west and north in the valleys of the Kaw and Platte rivers there was but little rain, and the Missouri overflowed its banks but little at the mouths of the Osage and North Grand rivers. This season was also very warm, and about the first of Au- gust sickness commenced and was more general, and of a more malignant type, than in the preceding year, but still quite managable. The succeeding winter was cold, with considerable snow, and the spring pleasant.

The season of 1846 had no excess of rains, and had not a great many cases of fever, but some of those we had were more violent and difficult to manage. During the early part of the summer there was an epidemic of scarlet fever, and in the fall a great many cases of jaundice.

The winter following was mild, and the spring and summer not remarkable

HISTORY OF JACKSON COUNTY.

. for rain and but little sickness. The following year, 1847, partook very much of the same character, and was also a tolerably healthy year.

The winter of 1847 and 1848 was very mild, so much so that very little ice formed sufficiently thick to keep. The spring and summer of 1848 was dry and healthy.

The winter of 1848 and 1849 was remarkably cold, with a great deal of snow, which melted partially in the month of January and froze suddenly, leaving the ground covered with a very firm coat of ice from three to five inches in thickness, which remained the greater part of February, and then melted off, accompanied by rain, and broke up the ice in the rivers, which had formed to a thickness of fifteen to eighteen inches. The spring of 1849 was wet and cold till sometime in April, when commenced a succession of hot weather with frequent rains, alter- nated with sudden changes of cold, which continued through May, June and most of July. Such was the peculiar condition of the atmosphere that a feeling of debility and exhaustion was very generally experienced, and those who have been exposed to its influence will thereafter recognize it as a cholera atmosphere ; the wind during the greater part of this time, and especially during the damp days, was from the east and southeast. In the month of April there occurred a number of cases of small-pox among immigrants, which, however, did not spread. to any extent among citizens ; diarrhoea, and other diseases of the digestive or- gans were of frequent occurrence, and on the 17th of April occurred the first case of genuine Asiatic cholera in a vigorous and previously healthy negro man, the property of Jabez Smith. From this time forward occasional cases occurred, not, however, very malignant until the 6th of May, on which day it broke out with great malignancy in various parts of Independence which was crowded to over- flowing with California immigrants; the hotels were excessively crowded, and at the Independence House there occurred seven deaths in the first twenty-four hours ; in four or five days afterward ten persons died at the Noland House within twenty-four hours. From this time the disease continued to prevail, with occasional remissions, until sometime in July, and was succeeded by fevers in August, September and October.

The year 1850 was not remarkable for heavy rains or any great vicissitudes of temperature, and was comparatively healthy ; but the following year, 1851, this region was again visited by hot and rainy weather and eastern winds, and cholera again made its appearance and was excessively malignant, continuing from the latter part of May to almost the first of August, which was again fol- lowed by fever ; during this year a greater number of citizens fell victims to cholera than in 1849. The year 1852 was again a very equable season ; there was not a great amount of sickness until late in the fall and beginning of winter, when the vicissitudes of temperature were great and sudden, and there occurred a large number of cases of pneumonia of a typhoid character and a general prev- alence of typhoid diseases. About the middle of December epidemic erysipelas -also assuming a typhoid character-made its appearance, and continued to pre- vail in some neighborhoods until the following April.

The year 1853 was a mild and pleasant season, unmarked by great rains or changes of temperature, and although there were occasional cases of cholera, it was, in the main, a healthy season. The spring of 1854 was pleasant, and vege- tation came forward very early. About the last of May it began to rain very frequently and heavily, and continued till the 19th of June, from which time scarcely any rain fell until the 18th of November. The crops of small grain were heavy, but in consequence of the long continued drouth after heavy rains the crop of corn was very small, not being more than one-third the usual yield. On the 18th of June, when we had had several days of hot showery weather, with an easterly wind, the cholera again made its appearance with great violence, and ex- tended generally over the country more than any previous year, the reasons of

HISTORY OF JACKSON COUNTY.

which were, that there were on the 17th and 18th an unusual number of persons living in the county who were in town attending a meeting at the Christian Church, which was then in progress, and who sickened in a day or two after their return home. The disease continued about two weeks, gradually declining after the first few days. We had considerable fever in August and September ; early in October it became quite healthy, and continued so during the fall and winter.

The spring and beginning of the year 1855 were pleasant until the latter part of July, when there set in a succession of heavy rains which lasted until about the 20th of August. Crops of all kinds were good, wheat and oats were far better than usual, both as to quality and quantity; but the farmers having adopted the use of threshers, and being busy with the corn and hay crops, failed to house or stack them in season, and at least three-fourths of the crop of small grains was spoiled, and rotted in the fields. This year was quite healthy, except a short time in September and October. The year 1855 was not remarkable as to health, there being no unusual sickness until late in the fall, when typhoid fever prevailed to a considerable extent for some three months. Sometime in November, when the epidemic of very malignant scarlet fever made its appearance in the northeast part of the county, and spread over a large portion of the county and towns, and continuing through the winter. The winter of 1856 and 1857 was unusuatly cold, with but little snow, and we had an unusual number of cases of rheumatism, and in the spring considerable pneumonia and other inflammatory affections. The season during most of the year 1857 was not unusual. The fol- lowing winter was not marked by any unusual extremes, and the spring of 1858 was rather dry and pleasant, until the month of June, when we had again excessive and long continued rains, extending to the early part of July; during this month and Angust the weather was hot and dry. Early in August fever commenced, and we had more sickness than in any year since 1845.

The ensuing year of 1859 was very similar in regard to temperature and rains, and we again had a considerable amount of sickness through the fall and winter months. The winter and spring of 1860 was unusually dry and windy, there being no rain sufficient to wet the ground until the 25th of May, at which time and also some time in June, there was a good shower in the northeast part of the county, particularly on the Little Blue, near its mouth. This drouth con- tinued through the summer, and consequently the crops were exceedingly short ; and west of us, in the State of Kansas, almost an entire failure. About the roth of July we had for two or three days a south wind, as hot as if coming from a furnace, which was very oppressive to man and beast, and wilted the vegetation considerably. There was also on the 4th of July a severe storm of wind, amount- ing almost to a tornado, with very little rain. In this year, as well as r854, we had incontestible evidence of the superiority of the bottom lands along the Mis- souri .River, which are bedded on sand as subsoil, in dry seasons, for reason that the water from the river percolates this sand, and a sufficient quantity of moisture arises to sustain the growth of grain. This is also true to some extent in uplands, in which there is a considerable amount of sand mixed with the sub-soil. The year 1861, which will be long remembered for the inauguration of the civil war, which cursed our country and desolated the finest portions of our land, among which Jackson county is one of the most beautiful and fertile, was a season of unusual health and productiveness-full crops and fruits of all kinds, rewarded the labors of the husbandman; and had we been blessed with peace, would have been one of abundance and comfort. There was but little sickness during this and the two following years.

The winter of 1863 and 1864 was exceedingly cold with considerable snow, the spring was pleasant but too cold to bring forward vegetation This dry weather extending through the greater part of summer there was great drouth and vegetation became scarce. The crops of all kinds were light and the little prod-

HISTORY OF JACKSON COUNTY.

uce was mostly destroyed by the two contending armies during Price's raid, which passed through in the latter part of October. During the latter part of summer and beginning of fall there was a severe form of dysentery, followed later in the season by typhoid fever. The year 1865 may be properly called a rainy season for frequent and exceedingly heavy rains set in early in June and continued till the latter part of August. Dysentery again made its appearance in July and prevailed during that month and August. In September, October and the fore part of November there were many cases of fever which were very violent, being mostly of a congestive type, and complicated with diseases of the bowels. Later in the season we had some cases of typhoid fever, also attended with disease of the bowels and in some cases of the lungs. During the year 1866-7 all the diseases were of a mild character and easily managed. There were no cases of epidemic diseases. In the year 1868 there were more cases of sickness, and some were typhoid fever, but not of a very malignant type. Since the war, even to the present time, there have been no severe cases of cholera since 1854. In 1869 the cases of sickness were less frequent than in 1868, all diseases easily managed. There have been no cases of small-pox since the year 1865, and it might be remarked that as the county grows older it becomes more healthy. The summers which are wet and excessively warm are followed in the fall months by more or less fevers. In 1870 there were several cases of " Rothlene," a form of scarlet fever, in the spring, some cases of intermittent fevers in the fall and taken altogether it was more sickly than 1869. During the years 1871 and 1872 there was some pneumonia in the spring, with mild cases of fever in the fall of 1871. There were very few deaths. Several severe accidents occurred in the year 1871; one was the falling from a wagon of Mr. A. G. Robinson, of which injuries he died soon after, and another a son of Mr. Oldham receiving so severe a fracture of his leg, from a kick by a horse, that he died. The year 1873 was healthy and all the cases requiring the attention of a physician were easily managed. The summer of 1874 was very dry and hot, several persons required treatment for sunstroke, the mercury ranging for considerable time from 95° to 100° in. the shade. There were some cases of diphtherietic croup, several of which were fatal. There was also epidemic whooping cough. The spring of 1875 was very wet, and there were cases of capillary bronchitis among children and sore throat and catarrh among adults. There were some fatal cases of consumption. The summer of 1876 was healthy and also the year 1877. In 1877 there were some cases of scarlet fever, but of mild type and easily managed. The year 1878 was quite healthy. The year 1879 chronicled some scarlet fever in the spring. Mr. John Wilson, one of the prominent citizens of Jackson county, died July 23d, of what is termed chronic cystitis. Mr. Wilson was for many years a resident Independ- ence and a highly respected man.

Considerable sickness of a typho-malarial character existed during the spring of 1880, but the remainder of the year it was exceedingly healthy. There were sufficient rains to produce the growth of abundant crops, and probably never in the history of the county has there been a better average yield to the labors of the husbandman. Great quantities of fruit and cereals matured and have been gathered for the market. General prosperity and abundance have crowned the year. Men who were in debt are paying up the mortgages on their farms and houses and becoming independent.

Independence is the highest point of land in the Missouri Valley in the State. and admitted by all as being situated in the most healthy locality in this whole region. There are few deaths here, nearly all the old persons who die, die of nervous exhaustion or old age. J. N. Wallace died January 19, 1880, and Thomas Stayton June 14, 1879, the latter's death was caused by softening of the brain. In the city of Independence there are at present eight regular practicing physicians. The city physician and marshal are constituted a health board and

HISTORY OF JACKSON COUNTY.

through their vigilance all nuisances injurious to the health of the people are promptly abated.

We have now given a condensed history of the seasons for the past thirty- seven years, and by it a tolerably correct idea may be formed of the healthfulness of this county.

It will be found that seasons in which there has been an excess of rains, and of floods in the streams, have produced a large amount of sickness, and this is also true with other portions of this great valley. It will also be remarked, that in our seasons rains are later and more immediately followed by dry and hot weather than in the Eastern States and as a necessary result we would expect in those seasons a considerable amount of fever, but the comparative frequency of such seasons are not greater than in other localities. We find also that we have had several visitations of cholera during its last appearance in the West, but this being then a great thoroughfare of travel across the plains and being greatly crowded this was rationally expected, and such was the case on all the great lines of travel, moreover some places of undisputed reputation for health, have been. similarly afflicted during the prevalence of cholera at different times, for instance, Lexing- ton, Versailles and Louisville, Kentucky, in the epidemic of r832-3 and various other points in 1849 and the following seasons, to say nothing of the larger cities and their surroundings. As to the prevalence of scarlet fever, measles, erysip- elas and other diseases of similar character, it may be asserted that our county has not suffered more than other parts of the Western, and perhaps less than many of the Eastern States. Of typhoid fever it may be said that the disease is milder and less frequent than in many of the Northern or Eastern States. In the course of thirty-seven years there have been five, or less than one seventh, in which there were heavy and long continued rains in early summer and general prevalence of fevers, the remainder being comparatively healthy. There has been no year when there has been an entire loss of crops and nearly every year great abund- ance has been produced.

The greater portion of the county-leaving out the bottom of the Missouri River and larger streams-is posed upon a bed of limestone at various depths; yet such is the formation of the country that the stone very little, if at all, inter- fere with the cultivation of the soil, for the reason that it does not crop out, ex- cept in the immediate vicinity of streams, on the slopes of hills, or at their base. So abundant is the rock throughout the county that it is said that there can scarcely be found four contiguous sections of land on some one of which there is not rock enough for all building purposes; furthermore, very few spots, and those small, in which the stone is so near the surface as to interfere with the growth of vegetation in dry seasons. Those sections in which the limestone is wanting are based on sand of very considerable depth. There is also in the greater part of the county a large admixture of sand both with the soil and the sub-soil, and consequently, as may be inferred, the land is light and easily culti- vated, much more so than in many fertile regions elsewhere, as, for instance, the rich blue grass lands of Kentucky. No amount of tramping can make it so hard that, if broken up in large clods, it will not shake and fall to pieces, like lime, in the first considerable shower; and moreover, it has the additional advantage of becoming sufficiently dry in a short time after rains for plowing, and does not break and become hard so easily if worked a little wet. This enables the farmer to cultivate his crops in wet seasons to better advantage than if the sand was want- ing. In addition to this, as mentioned in the last article, drouth does not so greatly affect the crops, because a considerable amount of moisture arises from below, which goes to support vegetation. Indeed, our farmers say that crops will grow here with less rain than in almost any other country. We have in this county but little poor land; yet the quality of the soil and the growth of the tim- ber indicating those qualities vary a great deal, and the changes are frequently

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HISTORY OF JACKSON COUNTY.

abrupt. We have, for example, strips of land covered by walnut, hickory, elm, box elder, honey locust, coffee bean, lima, etc, of some miles in extent, and changing in many instances abruptly, to oakland, of inferior quality. Again, we have strips on which the growth is white hickory, different species of oak, wild cherry, slippery elm, etc., and the undergrowths are in oak lands, hazel, sumach, and a species of dogwood. The papaw abounds in the walnut and hackberry lands, and on river bottoms and hills contiguous to them. There are also some spots of rather sponty lands, with stiff clay sub-soil, the growth on which is almost exclusively a species of pin-oak, of a dwarfish character, with the limbs extending almost to the ground. There is some diversity of opinion in regard to the fertil- ity of the different characters of soil, but the statement is fully borne out by ex- perience that the walnut and hackberry lands are strongest, and in favorable sea- sons will produce the largest crops of hemp and corn, and are better adapted to the domestic grasses, especially the blue grass, while the brush lands, in which the white hickory abounds, with the undergrowth of hazel and sumach, will on an average of all seasons, and all kinds of crops, surpass them, and are greatly supe- rior for wheat and other small grains. This county is well adapted to the produc- tion of various kinds of fruits, as the apple, pear, apricot and peach, all of which grow rapidly and yield abundantly, fruits of excellent quality. The common mo- rello cherry also yields well, but the finer qualities of cherries and damson plums do not seem to do as well. The gooseberry, black raspberry, dewberry, black- berry and strawberry are indigenous to the soil, growing in large quantities in the woodland and prairies. Grasses have not yet been extensively cultivated, but so far as their cultivation has been tried the result has been very satisfactory.

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The History of Jackson county, Missouri, containing a history of the county, its cities, towns, etc., biographical sketches of its citizens, Jackson county in the late warhistory of Missouri, map of Jackson county, Part 13

Author: Union Historical Company Publication date: 1881 Publisher: Kansas City, Mo. : Union historical company Number of Pages: 1068

Author: Union Historical Company
Publication date: 1881
Publisher: Kansas City, Mo. : Union historical company
Number of Pages: 1068