USA > Missouri > Pettis County > Sedalia > The History of Pettis County, Missouri, History of Sedalia > Part 46
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65 | Part 66 | Part 67 | Part 68 | Part 69 | Part 70 | Part 71 | Part 72 | Part 73 | Part 74 | Part 75 | Part 76 | Part 77 | Part 78 | Part 79 | Part 80 | Part 81 | Part 82 | Part 83 | Part 84 | Part 85 | Part 86 | Part 87 | Part 88 | Part 89 | Part 90 | Part 91 | Part 92 | Part 93 | Part 94 | Part 95 | Part 96 | Part 97 | Part 98 | Part 99 | Part 100 | Part 101 | Part 102 | Part 103 | Part 104 | Part 105 | Part 106 | Part 107 | Part 108 | Part 109 | Part 110 | Part 111 | Part 112 | Part 113 | Part 114 | Part 115 | Part 116 | Part 117 | Part 118
In 1849 the Legislature of Missouri granted the charter to the Pacific Railroad. This was the first railroad west of the Mississippi River. It was a great epoch in the history of America, as well as in the history of the West, of Missouri, and of George R. Smith. He saw a vision as bright and grand as that which Thomas H. Benton saw when he pro- nounced those memorable and prophetic words: "There is the East; there is India." A great man is like a fine oil painting-the gazer must get a good ways off from it to see and recognize its beauties. The peo- ple of the present day can look back thirty years and see the figure
421
HISTORY OF SEDALIA.
of George R. Smith. From his actions then, and the results now, we know that he then saw and knew what is now.
To the aiding of the Pacific Railroad he lent all the wealth of his wis- dom, his influence, his time, and his determination. He became the lead- ing spirit in the effort to locate the line on what was known as the Inland Route, in contradistinction from that along the Missouri River. He was elected one of the board of directors of the company. Day and night he labored to bring about the location of the line, almost as it is to-day. He rode all over the district, holding public meetings, which he addressed; he saw hundreds of farmers and extensive land owners, per- sonally; he argued with men of prominence, who had influence and could influence others. It was almost as hard a task as that of the missionary who goes among the cannibals of the South Sea Islands to show them the beauties of holiness and teach them the religion of Christ. The people were wrapped in the mental indolence and blindness born of a pastoral life, and the intellect and energy-benumbing influences of slavery. Every- body laughed at him; their range of vision was bound by the county lines; they thought he was as much in advance of the age of common sense as Gallileo; the people were like the crowd of savants who sat around the table with Christopher Columbus and waited for him to show them how to make an egg stand on its small end. And he finally succeeded in doing it. No one can understand the labor done by him; how much patience he exercised, how much of the vitality of his soul and body he expended in the fostering and explanation of the scheme, but the states- man and the reformer who has gone through a similar experience. Any man of ordinary intelligence can learn to make the separate parts of a reaper, a sewing machine, a locomotive, but it requires a man of genius to conceive the principle and father the grand idea. Thus it was with Geo. R. Smith.
" He, through long days of labor, and nights devoid of ease, still heard in his soul the sound of wonderful melodies." He heard the song of the reaper as it glides over flower decked meadows; the trumpet notes of the locomotive as it whirls amidst the land, laughing with a golden harvest; the boom of the trip-hammer beneath clouds of smoke that overhang the foundries; the rumble of the press as it rolls forth its light and truth, on the winged white messengers; he heard all these, combined in one grand melody, the Song of Modern Progress.
In January, 1852, Gen. Smith called a meeting of the citizens of Pettis County to consider the matter of subscribing to the stock of the railroad. A proposition to vote $10,000 in the county was defeated. Gen. Smith was called on to make a speech. The best description that can be given of his speech, is to say that after he had delivered it, the same assembly car- ried a resolution to subscribe $100,000 to the stock of the road. . He can-
422
HISTORY OF SEDALIA.
vassed the county, and in August, 1852, the question was submitted to the people and carried. The other counties along the Inland Route raised $300,000. In December, 1852, the Legislature passed an act selecting the Inland Route, provided the counties along the line would subscribe $400,- 000 more. It must be subscribed before December, 1853. In March, 1853, Gen. Smith, by previous arrangement, met thirty delegates from the counties along the line at Georgetown. A committee of two from each county was chosen, and these formed a grand committee, which arranged the assessment of the counties, towns and individuals in them, to the amount of $400,000. This proposition was submitted to the people of each county at the fall election. It was defeated in every county except Pettis, which voted to subscribe $70,000. The people in the other counties who were opposed to the railroad scheme turned all their wrath on Gen. Smith. Some rash and prejudiced persons said that Smith was bent on ruining the county; that he ought to be burned at the stake for his reckless plans, and that they would carry wood six miles on their shoulders to pile on to the flames. Like that other blind rabble who stoned St. Stephen, their ignor- ance made them savage. Right here Gen. Smith showed the metal of which he was made; he showed heroism; he showed his hard practical sense, which is the next thing to genius.
He went to work and worked all over this district to induce the people to reconsider the very thing they had voted down. He set the other mem- bers of the first railroad convention at work in their respective districts. He worked three months to change the views of the people. The news- papers in the district who favored the river route. denounced and slan- dered him. He let them talk while he put all his strength into work. That fall the question was again submitted to the people and the county courts. In November, Gen. Smith called the railroad convention to meet again at Georgetown to see what the result was. The committee appointed to examine the amount subscribed, reported that $+12,000 was the sum!
Here was triumph and victory; here was one stalwart man against thousands, one giant against a thousand pigmies, and he not only con- quered them, but made them rich and happy in spite of themselves.
This made the building of the Pacific Railroad through Central Missouri a fixed fact. All honor to him, the leader, and the brave and faithful men who followed their leader through the thick of the fight to a blessed victory. In 1854 Gen. Smith was elected Representative to the Legislature At this session a bill was introduced to lend the credit of the State to the various railroads of the State to the amount of $7,000,000; the share of the . Pacific Railroad was fixed at $3,000,000. The fight to force the bill through was almost as hard as that among the people to get the second $400,000 subscription. The same man, Geo. R. Smith, was there to
423
HISTORY OF SEDALIA.
stand forth as its champion. The bill was passed by a close vote. The Governor vetoed it, but it was finally passed over his veto.
In 1855 the slavery and anti-slavery question in Kansas was agitating the people. This was the beginning of that period when the Kansas opponents of slavery were known as "Jayhawkers, " and the Missouri pro- slavery men, who often engaged in the pleasant past-time ot shooting settlers on the border, were known as "Border Ruffians." Gen. Smith was a Virginian by birth, a Kentuckian by education, socially and morally, a Missourian in his manhood. But the mind and character of the man were supreme over all circumstances of birth, breeding and education. He was a slave owner, but an abolitionist. There were many such men; there were Jackson and Jefferson Democrats, who did not believe in the social, physical or mental equality of the slave, who believed slavery was a curse to the master and a wrong to the slave.
WHOLESALE
J. M. OFFIELD'S BLOCK, SEDALIA, MO.
When Gen. Smith got back to Pettis County in 1855, at the close of the session of the Legislature, he found the influential men banded together working with might and main to form a band of men to go over the Kansas border, "colonize" the State (temporarily) and aid the pro-slavery men to make Kansas a slave State by voting at the election.
The leading men of the county called on the General and told what the public sentiment was. They tried their strongest arguments to induce him to fall in with the prevailing public sentiment, and to permit expe- diency to rule him instead of principle. It was plausibly represented to him that if he opposed this base scheme it would kill his chances for Congress, a position it was then proposed to give him by the suffrages of the people. But it is under just such circumstances as these that a man
424
HISTORY OF SEDALIA.
shows the superiority of his nature, of his intellect, courage and manhood, to that of inferior men.
He would have thrust his good right hand into a fiery furnace before he would have aided such a scheme. He said to his advisers: "I am a representative of the people; they have a right to know my purposes and my opinions on all subjects that effect them. They shall hear them." A meeting was called to take action on this matter. In the Legislature Gen. Frank P. Blair had already attacked Gen. Smith for his position on the Kansas question. Gen: Smith had answered. Both the attack and answer were printed and had been freely circulated in Pettis County. On the day of the meeting in Pettis County, Gen. Smith was attacked by one of the speakers, who took for his text the speech Gen. S. had made in answer to Blair. He did not hesitate to answer. He acted like a man who would rather have his own self-respect than win the esteem of others by hypocrisy and cowardice. He made a speech, replete with sarcasm, denunciation, and a clearness of logic that convinced men, though they did not have the manhood to acknowledge it.
A biographer relates the following concerning the subject of this sketch:
Shortly after making this speech the General was visiting a neighbor- ing town, and was invited to spend the evening with an old personal and political friend. After tea his friend invited him to go out with him and attend the meeting of a newly organized secret society, which he thought would meet with the General's approval. 'The gentleman was the leader of his party in the district, and a man of character and intelligence. When Gen. Smith and a number of gentlemen had been ushered into the room where the secret meeting was held, the party were requested to join the society. It was a cabal of pro-slavery men. A Bible was pro- duced, and as a preliminary, Gen. Smith was asked to solemnly swear that he would keep inviolable the secrets of the society, and do all in his power to make Kansas a slave State. It was evidently a cunningly arranged plan to get him face to face with the organization, and see its influence, on the supposition that he would not have the moral and phys- ical courage to "back out," when he was brought face to face with the question. "But he was a man you could always count on," to use the forcible and perspicuous vernacular of the present day. He told the assemblage, that no power on earth would make him take that oath. They attempted to argue the matter with him, but he told them with dignity and indignation that he was not a fit subject for initiation, and bowing to them with a determined manner and stately courtesy, he with- drew. When he said "yes," he meant it; when he said "no," he could thunder it forth without hesitation.
This position, clung to so tenaciously, gave the coup de grace to his
425
HISTORY OF SEDALIA.
candidacy as Representative to Congress. He stood in front of the tide of public sentiment, and its angry waves rolled against him, but he stood erect and unbending like a light house on the rock. He was like Henry Clay, " he would rather be right than be President." The next year, in 1856, he bought 1,145 acres of land south of Georgtown, the very land upon which Sedalia now stands. He paid $13 an acre for it. That was an enormous price at that time, for improved farms have sold in Pettis County in the last five years for that price per acre. But he knew what he was about. ·When he talked then of laying out a town on an unbroken prairie, the fat-witted people of that era, with a few honorable exceptions, thought that he had capped the climax of his lunacy, which began in his advocacy of the inland route for the Pacific Railroad, and ended in his getting a public subscription to the bonds in Central Missouri, of $800,000! He paid about as much attention to the croaking of noodles, the braying of asses, and the fluttering of the wasps and gad flies, as a rhinoceros does to a mosquito.
In 1858 he was put up as the Whig candidate for Congress, but he was nominated without definite plans for a campaign and only three weeks before the time of the election. He was too honest, blunt and smart to be immensely popular, but in spite of all these facts his Democratic opponent, who was in accord with the popular sentiment, beat him by only a small majority.
In 1861, when the war broke out, as might have been expected from his previous record, Gen. Smith was a stalwart, as positively and bitterly opposed to secession, as he had always been to slavery. Governor Gam- ble appointed him Adjutant General of the State, and it was thus he gained his title of "General," though practically he had been a "general," that is "a leader," for years. He aided in the organization of the first troops and then resigned. He was appointed Paymaster-General of Missouri, and held the position for a short time, but owing to the fact that he did not agree with the policy of the Governor, resigned this position also, and returned to his home in Sedalia.
In 1863, when the straight Republican State Convention was held Gen. Smith was elected vice president. He made a speech on the occa- sion which was regarded by those on the opposite side as one full of bit- terness and vindictiveness. It may have been, but its tone can be explained from the fact that he had lived and labored for years among a people whom he regarded as engaged in an effort to destroy that which he held most dear and most sacred-the Union of States. He also presented a motion, which was passed, that one Union man from every county in the State be selected to form a delegation to wait upon President Lincoln and urge him to adopt a more stringent policy towards the South. The same resolution was passed in the Kansas Convention, and the result was
426
HISTORY OF SEDALIA.
that a delegation of one hundred Union men from the two States went to Washington, D. C., and presented this view to the President.
He has been condemned for the harshness of his views and feelings, but it must be borne in mind that at that time the land was aflame with civil war; he was derided and threatened by the very people among whom he had dwelt for years, and many a time his life was in peril from his, and the enemies of his cause.
In 1864 he was one of the presidential electors on the Lincoln ticket.
In the Republican Convention of 1864, he was one of the prominent men for Governor, when Gen. Thos. C. Fletcher carried off the nomina- tion. In this year he was also chosen to represent this county in the State Senate, and was elected president pro tem of the Senate. In 1865 he resigned for personal reasons. Immediately after his resignation, and without any solicitation on his part, he was appoined by President Johnson United States Assessor of the fourth and fifth districts of Missouri. He was bitterly opposed to the policy of the President, and shortly after his appointment, so expressed himself. Of course, under such circumstances, there was a change made in the office, and Gen. Smith retired.
In 1870, when the State was divided as to the course which should be pursued towards those who were disfranchised, because of their engage- ment in the rebellion, he was again a candidate on the Liberal Republi- can ticket. But as on a previous occasion, he was put up hastily -- only two weeks before election, and had no time or fitting opportunity to con- duct a canvass, and was defeated by Hon. S. S. Burdett.
This was his last appearance as a candidate for office. For the next ten years he devoted himself almost exclusively to the management of his large estate in Sedalia and Pettis County. He was sixty-six years old, but his mind was as clear, active and vigorous as it was when he was forty-five, and his bodily strength seemed unimpaired, as he gave his per- sonal attention to all the details of his business, rode and walked round the city, traveled on the cars, and was just as busy and as much inter- ested in the affairs of life as he ever was up to within one month of his death, in June, 1879. He was from early manhood a member of the Christian Church. It was observed by those who knew him best that in the last five years of his life he seemed to become mellowed and softened in many respects. He was more fatherly and condescending to young men, his manners had more of that grave and genial courtesy than one would expect from a man of his appearance, age and station. He
became less vehement in feeling on political questions and never, during his long life, was he regarded with more kindliness of feeling, more deep respect and sincere and affectionate admiration, than during the last two or three years just previous to his demise. He was taken sick in the latter part of June, and was ill for about three weeks with an abcess of
427
HISTORY OF SEDALIA.
the bowels. He died on the afternoon of July 11, 1879, and was at the time of his death in his seventy-fifth year. It was eminently proper that his funeral should be the most imposing one ever witnessed in the city. It was attended by all the city officials and ex-officials then living, and by a large concourse of citizens.
Gen. Smith left two daughters, Mrs. M. E. Smith and Mrs. S. E. Cotton. He leaves an estate worth a half million dollars, to which these two ladies are the sole heirs. His daughters have recently placed a magnifi- cent shaft over his last resting place, but the best monument in honor of his memory is the one he erected himself, during his life time, the Queen City of the Prairies-Sedalia.
Now that a fitting tribute has been paid to the founder of the city, and the man who opened up Central Missouri, the history of the city will be resumed at the beginning of the year 1862.
In 1862, Capt. A. C. Marvin was provost marshal. The First Missouri State Battery and several home guard companies were also here. In June, 1862, Col. Catherwood's regiment of militia were stationed here also, and remained all summer. In August, a detachment from this regi- ment went to Lone Jack, in Jackson County, and engaged in one of the most desperate small battles of the war. The late Capt. S. W. Ritchey, County Recorder, was seriously wounded, taking a dashing part in this fight. In 1862, Col. Philips took a portion of his regiment, the 7th Cavalry, which was recruited partly in this city and Georgetown, to the relief of Lexington, Mo. Gen. G. R. Smith was adjutant-general then.
For a full list of the Sedalia soldiers, and an account of their services in the county, outside the city, the reader is referred to Chapter XV, on "Martial History," published in the History of Pettis county. During the entire year 1862, there was a considerable force in Sedalia, doing service in the vicinity, cutting off supplies and recruits from the rebel army, and breaking up the bands of bushwhackers that organized every now and then. Being the terminus of the railroad it was an important post and a headquarters for supplies. Some few people by chance or force of circumstances, "stuck" to the town, and eventually became a part of its permanent population.
Life in the city during the next year, 1863, was very much like that of the previous year; a few houses were built, or the old ones improved, and a few more inhabitants added to the town. In this year W. P. Baker made an effort to run a newspaper, but it lasted only for a short time.
In 1863, there was an enormous frame warehouse on the north side of Main street, between Ohio and Lamine streets. It contained $20,000 worth of government supplies. Capt. Ed. Ward, who was after-
·
428
HISTORY OF SEDALIA.
wards a citizen of this city, and committed suicide on the fair grounds, was the commissary clerk. The building was overrun with rats, and was surrounded with thick prairie grass. Where the water fell from the eaves there was a long ditch devoid of grass. Between this ditch and the building-there was a strip of very thick prairie grass, about eighteen inches wide. It was a regular fire trap, and ran the whole length of the building on the east side. The porter of the building had two large rat traps, in each of which were three large, living rats. He took the trap out on the prairie grass, about fifty feet from the building. It was just dusk. He then called Capt. Ward and the writer out. Previously, the porter had poured about a gallon of coal oil over the rats in the traps. He dropped a match into each of the traps, set the rats aflame, and let them loose. Two of them, like great balls of fire, struck out on the open prairie, and soon had it aflame. The other four made straight for the narrow strip of grass, which grew right next to, and against the store- room. They ran up and down the strip about one minute until each found an opening and disappeared-a ball of flame-beneath the house. In two minutes there was a solid sheet of flame the full length of the building, about 175 feet, and the light upright strips and boards were burning. There was no water near. It looked for a moment as if this cruel joke of the porter must result in the destruction of the building and the $20,000 worth of stores. It was a moment of intense excitement. The three persons present rushed into the building and seized a pile of army blankets. By the most desperate effort and rapid work these were cast upon the burning grass and the flames extinguished. The boards were on fire in half a dozen places, and they were extinguished in a simi- lar manner. The building was away out in the suburbs, so that it might be away from the camp fires and no one else was near at that time. The - open prairie grass was easily extinguished.
Almost everything in the building was light and inflammable, and if the fire had once got a start, thirty minutes would have found it a heap of feathery ashes. The porter told the commander of the fort, or quarter- master, a beautiful and talented lie about the origin of the flames, and was so deeply penitent and so badly frightened that the other two wit- nesses of the incident never betrayed him.
It was during the year 1863, that Gen. Joe O. Shelby and his dashing raiders made their raid through this section, and passed near Sedalia, but fortunately did not enter it. A number of the parties who were with Shelby at that time, are now residents of this city and quiet citizens. Maj. J. C. Wood, late circuit clerk, had command of a squad of sixty men, and he burned the Lamine bridge, at Otterville, eighteen miles east of Sedalia. He passed near the suburbs of the town, but had no intention of stopping here to engage the militia.
429
HISTORY OF SEDALIA.
In considering the events of 1864, it is proper here to mention a curious, and at the same time an interesting fact with regard to the history of Sedalia from the time it was laid out, until February 15, 1864, when it received its charter as a city. There was no such thing as civil govern- ment, no corporate body in Sedalia from the breaking out of the war, early in 1861, until the granting of the charter in 1864, and the installation of the first officers in the same year. From the early part of 1861 to the latter part of 1864, the State of Missouri was under martial law; Pettis County was a part of a militia district, and during the war, until 1864, Sedalia was a military post, and the head official was the commander of the post .. There was no mayor, no council, no city ordinances, no court or other legislative or executive body outside of the military power.
As soon as Sedalia was really founded it became evident at once that it must ultimately become the county seat, instead of Georgetown. The question of the removal of the county seat was agitated and talked about, but the war came on and all such questions were swallowed up in the excitement and turmoil attendant upon it. No definite action was taken in the matter until 1864, when by an act of the Legislature, passed February 15th, the county seat was removed to Sedalia. The actual removal did not take place until a year later. The act says:
Sec. 1. The seat of justice of the county of Pettis is hereby removed from Georgetown, the present county seat, to the town of Sedalia, on the' Pacific Railroad.
Sec. 2. The commissioners hereafter appointed shall, immediately after the taking effect of this act, proceed to select a site for the location of the county buildings, and shall obtain by purchase, gift or donation, the conveyance to the county of Pettis in fee simple, such tracts of land and town lots as they may deem best for the interest of the county, and such purchase, grant, gift or donation, when approved by the county court, shall be binding upon all parties concerned, and said commissioners shall regulate their own time of meeting.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.