USA > Missouri > Nodaway County > The history of Nodaway county, Missouri, containing a history of the county, its cities, towns, etc., biographical sketches of its citizens > Part 44
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HISTORY OF NODAWAY COUNTY.
November, 1848. During the gold excitement he went to the Pacific Coast, and at last accounts was living in Oregon, where he had served in the Legislature several terms.
The County Court met again in May, at the White Cloud school house, and laid out Polk and Dallas Townships. Polk included her present territory and Jackson also, extending to the Gentry County line on the east. Dallas covered the present townships of Union, Hopkins and Independence, also extending some twelve miles to the northward of the present state line. The same term Stephen Jones, of Andrew County, was appointed commissioner to locate the seat of justice of Nodaway County in place of Amos Graham, the latter having become a resident of this county, which forbade his serving in that capacity. The commissioners met in June, 1845, as required by the act of organization, and after mature deliberation decided upon the southwest quarter of section 17, township 64, range 35, as the best location for the seat of justice, and at the July term of the Courty Court the following entry was made :
"It is hereby ordered and declared that the seat of justice of Nod- away County, Missouri, shall be called and known by the name of Maryville."
This name was given in honor of Mrs. Mary Graham, wife of Amos Graham, then, and for fourteen years, the efficient county clerk of Nod- away County, and the first white woman who lived within the limits of the county seat.
Mrs. Graham still resides in Maryville, loved and respected by all. She has witnessed the manifold changes our county has undergone in the past, and it is the sincere wish of all her acquaintances that she may be spared to witness still greater changes in the distant future.
At the same July term Elhanan Reinhart was appointed assessor, in place of Daniel McCarty, and John Jackson treasurer. Mr. Jackson held this responsible office for ten years, after which he clung to private life, living on his farm, just north of Maryville, until his death, which occurred a little over a year ago.
During the summer of 1845, Green McCafferty, county surveyor, laid out the original town of Maryville, assisted by John Jackson, and Thomas Baker was appointed commissioner for the sale of the lots.
In September, the county court met at "Thomas Adams' house by the well," said house being the one afterwards owned and lived in by William Saunders, and still standing, about one-half mile northwest of our court house. During this summer there was considerable emigration to Nodaway County and Maryville
Thomas Adams had a small stock of goods for sale, and James L. Ray also kept a little store in a log cabin on the lots now occupied by J. E. Alexander.
436
HISTORY OF NODAWAY COUNTY.
All the early settlers in Nodaway County seemed to have chosen timbered lands for their homes. They were mostly Kentuckians, with a sprinkling of Virginians and Tennesseeans, and they passed by the beau- tiful prairie lands of the Platte Purchase to find the timbered country. They preferred lands that they must open for culture by the old familiar process of clearing and grubbing, to those already cleared and grubbed to their hands by a bountiful Providence. Then, also, the prairie was under the ban of unhealthiness. Ague, that great scourge of the South and West, was supposed to be snuffed in every breeze that bowed the tall grass of summer. All countries of great fertility of soil, where the vegetable products are unconsumed by stock and allowed to rot where they grow, are liable to miasmatic diseases. The chills and fever, which overcame Julius Cæsar when he was conquering Gaul, were as certain to come to the first settlers as their corn ; and Sappington's pills and qui- nine were as much daily necessities as bread and meat or whisky bitters. All these things conspired to keep the prairie land unsettled, and it was not until most of the desirable timber farms had been occupied that the open country began to receive the attention of the immigrant.
At the February (1846) term of the Nodaway County Court, an order was made appropriating two hundred and fifty dollars for the pur- pose of building a court house in Maryville, and the contract for its erection was let on the 7th day of March to Benjamin Sims, and James Vaughn was appointed to superintend the work. The following copy of the specifications well illustrates the modest ideas of our first settlers :
"Thirty-two feet long and twenty feet wide, with a partition wall, so as to make one room twenty feet long, and the other twelve feet long, and each twenty feet wide, all to be of good logs and durable timber. Rooms each to be nine feet between floors, and all covered with good shingles. Lower floor to be of good oak plank, well seasoned and jointed, to be sealed or plastered overhead nine feet from the lower floor. One door and window in the small room, and one door and three windows in the large room. Windows to be of twelve lights, glass ten by eight, and good sash. Doors to be good, strong, plain doors. There shall be six good, stone pillars under the sills, one foot above the surface of the ground. The whole building to be well chinked and pointed with good lime mortar. A good stack chimney in the middle of the partition, so as to make a fireplace in each room, to be of good bricks, all to be finished in workmanlike style by the first day of September, 1846."
Lot seventeen, western boundary, was appropriated for this court house, being the lot on the southwest corner of Main and Second Streets. Although the work of building this court house would not seem possible to have been very great, yet it was not completed until October, 1847, over one year and a-half after its commencement. The small room was then set apart for the clerk's office.
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HISTORY OF NODAWAY COUNTY.
Some dissatisfaction existed from the first with the choice of loca- tion for the seat of justice of Nodaway County, as the southern part of the county was first settled, and continued for several years ahead of other parts of the county in population. This dissatisfaction led to the circulation of a petition, which was presented to the county court in December, 1850, praying for the removal of the county seat to a point about seven miles south of Maryville. The court, which at this time was composed of Joel Hedgpeth, W. J. W. Bickett and Adam Terhune, rejected the petition on the ground that it did not contain three-fifths of the names on the tax list. This was the last effort of any account towards removing the county seat from its present location, and we doubt not the last that ever will be made.
The prosperity of Nodaway County and of Maryville was now a firmly fixed fact. The population of the county had increased in the five years of its existence from about 1200 to 2118, notwithstanding the gold excitement of 1849 had drawn off hundreds of her citizens. The fame of her fertile soil began to spread abroad, and scarcely a day passed but the voice of the new-comer was heard in the land. These, of course, brought more or less money with them, and all combined to make times lively and business brisk. Everybody was happy and con- tented, whisky was cheap, and fun and frolic prevailed on every side. Fiddlers were in great demand, and we have heard that Uncle Mose Stingley and Doc. Ford would lose half their rest rather than disappoint any who called upon them to play.
In the fall of 1852, a small brick office was built in the court house square, a little south of the present site of the jail, for the use of the county clerk. This remained there until 1868, when it was torn down.
In July, 1853, an appropriation was made to build the present court house, and the plan drawn by James L. Ray was accepted, and he was appointed to superintend its erection. In June, 1855, it was accepted by the county court, at that time composed of Hiram Elliott, William V. Smith and Williams Emerson.
The total cost of the building was $4,461.32, which presents a strong contrast to the little $250 house, thought amply sufficient only about eight years before. But the population of the county had increased to over 4,000 souls, and the taxable wealth from $22,256, in 1845, to $394,- 662, in 1855, an increase almost unparalleled in a purely agricultural community, and well calculated to lead its beholders to almost imagine the millenium was at hand.
We have now reviewed some of the more important events con- nected with the early history of Nodaway County, coming down to the year 1855. As this period covers what may be called the " Era of Old Settlers," and more time has already been consumed in its recital than was aimed, we will close for this time.
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HISTORY OF NODAWAY COUNTY.
There is one feature, however, which to neglect would be unpar- donable, which Nodawy County has always possessed in a superlative degree even from its first settlement, and that is its never failing crop of babies. And as I look around upon this vast audience, assembled to celebrate the hundredth anniversary of the birth of this glorious repub- lic, I see that this peculiar feature still prevails and hundreds of little ones laugh and crow at the gathering to-day, who will, we hope, cele- brate in like manner long after we, their elders, have passed away. Let us resolve from this time forward that our teachings and example shall be such that they may look back with pride and say, "Our fathers and mothers lent a helping hand in making Nodaway County the banner county in the banner state of these grand and powerful United States of America."
OLD SETTLERS TO WHOM PRIZES WERE AWARDED.
There have never been any distinctive reunions of the old settlers of Nodaway County. There have been occasions, however, when these old veterans have met in common with others, at the celebration of our national holidays, and quite often a day has been set apart during fair time, when prizes were awarded to a few of the oldest settlers. These have always been occasions redolent of pleasant memories and sacred recollections to the gray haired sires who were present.
Presentation of Prises at Burlington Function, 1880: In pioneer life there are many dark days, and pioneers suffer privations and endure many hardships. But there are always "rifts in the clouds," and many a cloud has a "silver lining." Pioneer life often has an abundant fruit- age, and the sons of the pioneer often become the "lords of the realm."
In the year 1880, the citizens of Burlington Junction bethought them- selves of the pioneers of the Platte Purchase, and determined to offer to the oldest pioneers some slight token of their regard. The awards were to be made at the Fourth of July celebration at that place, and were to consist of the following :
First. Silver tea set, to the oldest couple of the pioneer settlers of the Platte Purchase, present.
Second. Silver castor, to the oldest female settler.
Third. Silver-headed cane, to the oldest male settler.
We clip the following account of the exercises of the gathering on that day of the citizens of Burlington Junction and vicinity from the Burlington Juncton Post, of July 10, 1880. After some preliminary remarks, the Post says : "The Pioneers of the Platte Purchase found a spokesman in Rev. Sunderland, who filled the bill exactly. and gave us one of the best short speeches of the occasion. The old settlers prizes next came in order, and were presented by Prof. B. A. Dunn. The Pro-
4
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HISTORY OF NODAWAY COUNTY.
fessor stated that it was a mark of American patriotism to pay homage to the gray headed fathers and mothers, and cited the fact that the pil- grim fathers, and our nation's fathers, whose names were signed to that sacred Declaration of Independence, were shown more respect and spoken of with more profound reverence than any of the leading men of our day. Imbued with this spirit, the people of Burlington Junc- tion had tendered a reception to the gray headed sires of Northwest Missouri, and had procured some beautiful presents as mementoes of the occasion.
In compliance with the report of the committee on presents, the silver tea set to the oldest couple of the pioneer settlers of the Platte Purchase was awarded to Mr. and Mrs. Joel Albright, of Nodaway County, who came here in 1837-forty-three years ago.
The committee reported two ladies, Mrs. Samuel T. Kennedy and Mrs. Mary Jackson, who had come to this purchase the same year, 1837, and both were awarded a silver castor.
Two gentlemen, Mr. Benj. R. Holt, of Andrew County, and Mr. John Grooms, of Nodaway County, came here in 1835, and both were awarded a silver-headed cane.
The committee on presents reported the following list of pioneers present at the celebration and reunion. There were quite a number present who did not compete for the presents :
Joel Albright was born in Gilpen County, North Carolina, July 10, 1813, and moved to the Platte Purchase in the winter of 1837. His wife, Carolina A. Holt, was born in Orange County, North Carolina, in the year 1815. They were married in 1832, and moved to the Platte Pur- chase in 1837. They have raised seven sons and five daughters, all of whom are still living.
Anderson Cameron was born in West Tennessee in 1813. Martha E. Cameron, his wife, was born in the same state in 1828. They came to the Purchase in 1837, and have lived in it ever since.
Solomon Shell and his wife, Sarah J. Shell, have resided in the Pur- chase since 1841.
E. W. Johnson was born in the territory of Indiana March 20, 1808, and was married to Margaret Allen in 1830. She was born in North Carolina in 1810. They moved to the Platte Purchase in 1841, settling on the farm where they now live, in Lincoln Township, October 14.
Levi Martin was born in Marion County, Ohio, July 8, 1805. Nancy A. Martin, his wife, was born in Pennsylvania March 24, 1809. They were married January 16, 1825, and came to the Platte Purchase January 30, 1840, entering the land where Burlington Junction is located.
G. B. Cooper was born in Virginia May 4, 1815. Elizabeth A. Cooper, his wife, was born in Indiana in 1812. They settled in the . Platte Purchase in 1839, and are now residents of Maryville,
440
HISTORY OF NODAWAY COUNTY.
Mrs. Samuel Kennedy was born in Clinton County, Missouri, Novem- ber 14, 1835, and came with her parents to the Purchase soon after.
Mrs. Mary Jackson was born in Portage County, Ohio, in 1812, and came to the Purchase in 1833, three years before it was a purchase.
Sophia Calvin came here in 1838.
Charity Davis was born in Wood County, Ohio, May 6, 1818, and came to the Platte Purchase in 1841.
Benj. R. Holt was born in Orange County, North Carolina, on the IIth day of February, 1813 ; was married in 1840 ; came to Missouri in 1832 ; moved to the Platte Purchase in the fall of 1835, making a resi- dence of forty-five years. Was at the treaty of eight days ; saw it made ; saw it signed by General Clark, and saw the Indians sign it, and furnished the provisions for General Clark.
John Grooms was born in Clark County, Kentucky, in 1817, and came to the Purchase in 1835.
J. G. Campbell was born in Joslin County, Kentucky, in 1817, and came here in 1836, just before the treaty was made.
William V. Smith was born in Bedford County, Tennessee, in 1819, and came here in February or March of 1836.
W. H. Guthrie was born in Boone County, Missouri, in 1819, and came here in 1837.
J. W. Owens came here in 1837.
Jacob Bowman, of Platte County, was born in East Tennessee in 1822, and came to the Purchase in 1839.
. C. B. Wilson is a native of North Carolina, and came here in 1838. R. Broyles was born in Tennessee in 1811, and came here in 1840.
William Dillen was born in Johnston County, Missouri, and came to the Purchase in 1838, and to Nodaway County in 1840.
IV. H. Griffith was born in Bourbon County, Kentucky, in 1821, and came to the Purchase in 1838.
Presentation of Prises at the Fair, 1881: On Tuesday, the second day of the fair, 1881, at Maryville, a silver-headed cane was awarded to the pioneer who had resided the greatest length of time, within a radius of fifty miles of Maryville, and a china tea set to the pioneer lady who had resided the greatest length of time within the same radius of the city.
The cane was given to Mr. Irwin, of Andrew County, who had lived continuously for forty-nine years at one place, and the set of china ware to Mrs. John Riggin, who had lived three and a-half miles from Savan- nah, Andrew County, for forty-three years. The presentation address was made by Hon. Lafayette Dawson, who spoke as follows :
Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen : The task has been assigned to me by the association, to present this beautiful set of china ware to
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HISTORY OF NODAWAY COUNTY.
the lady whom the committee selected for that purpose, should be entitled to receive it. This committee has reported that Mrs. Riggin, of Andrew County, has resided continuously within a radius of fifty miles of this place for a period of forty-three years, and that this period of time exceeds in its duration the length of residence of any other lady, who has laid her claim before the committee. This fact, ladies and gentle- men, is suggestive, and furnishes food for reflection. For y-three years is a long time, and many, very many now before me, had not been born at the time Mrs. Riggin took upon herself the duties of a housewife. The Platte Purchase was at that time a howling wilderness. Very few traces of civilization were to be found. Yet nature had been lavish in beauti- fying the country. I have had a conversation with Mrs. Riggin about her early days in Andrew County, and she assures me that forty-three years ago, everything then around her early home, assumed a radiance and splendor that she had never before seen. When, said she, the spring time came, the scenery was absolutely indescribable. Flowers, as full and perfect as if they had had the attention of a skilled florist, with all their sweet and captivating odors, and with all the variegated charms which color and nature could produce, were here in the lap of elegance and beauty decorating the smiling groves. The sweet songsters of the forest appeared to feel the influence of the genial clime, and in more soft and modulated tones warbled their tender notes in unison with love and nature.
This description represents Andrew County as it was when Mrs. Rig- gin first looked upon it, robed in primeval beauty. But mighty changes have come over the scene. The hand of man has been laid upon the forest, and the wild, romantic grandeur of nature succeeded by the arts of a civilized people. Mrs. Riggin has for more than forty years shared the joys and sorrows of the noble husband who stands by her side. He began the world with quite a start. His team consisted of a blind ox and muley cow, together with a rickety lynchpin wagon and a wooden mouldboard plow, made up his outfit for farming. This outfit he valued at five thousand dollars, and his wife, who is now to become the recipi- ent of this elegant set of chinaware, at twenty thousand dollars. With the outfit alluded to, he and Mrs. Riggin began the great battle of man- hood life, and it affords me pleasure to be able to state to you that suc- cess has attended them-an ample competency, a beautiful home, a happy family of well to do children and unsullied characters are the results of their married life. Mrs. Riggin, you will now please accept this present as a token of friendship on the part of our people, and as an evidence of the gratitude we bear those who battled with the obstacles of nature forty years ago and converted a wilderness into a garden."
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HISTORY OF NODAWAY COUNTY.
The early pioneers of the county, like the aborigines of the soil, are rapidly disappearing. Each succeeding year they are passing to the land of shadows-
"Unblamed through life, lamented in the end."
A few, however, still abide with us, as the oldest landmarks of Nodaway County. Brave hearted men and women ! Golden be the evening twi- light of their lives. A few more years of watching and waiting, and they, too, will have joined-
"The innumerable caravan, that moves To that mysterious realm where each shall take ' His chamber in the silent halls of death."
CHAPTER XXX.
AGRICULTURAL INTERESTS.
GRAIN-STOCK-FRUIT AND GRAPES-NODAWAY COUNTY AGRICULTURAL AND MECHAN- ICAL SOCIETY-WHEN ORGANIZED - ITS OFFICERS AND DIRECTORS - LAST FAIR- PREMIUM LIST
The progress of agricultural enterprise in the past quarter of a cen- tuary, evident all over our land, in no section has developed more marked advancement than that displayed in the present condition of Northwest Missouri.
Nodaway County, in common with others of the earlier settled por- tions of the state, enjoyed the advantage of numbering among her orig- inal settlers a few men of means, intelligence and enterprise. This fact is fully illustrated in the character of some of the earliest attempts at improvement to-day extant within her limits.
Naturally, the first settlements were made in the timbered districts of the county, and it was not until a very large proportion of this part of the same was settled that the pioneers from the older states, many of whom had never seen a prairie till their arrival in Missouri, began to venture settlement in that, in those days, doubtful region of treeless expanse. Indeed, there are to-day living in the county, on well improved farms, men who at the period of their first arrival in the county, forty years ago, declared the opinion that the timberless prairies would never be settled. These now include some of the best improved and most desirable sections of the county.
The cultivation of cleared timber land, with the necessary presence of stumps, precluded the application of machinery long after the use of the same had become comparatively common in the older settled dis- tricts. Slave labor was to some extent employed, and the hoe, an imple- ment almost obsolete in this advanced age, was the indispensable means of cultivating every crop which required tillage after planting.
Notwithstanding the comparatively careless character of farming, which soon succeeded the first efforts of the pioneers, even in that early day, the returns from the agricultural labor were considerable. The very fact of the generous soil, so readily responding to the efforts of the husbandman, induced this lack of diligence and laborious care in farming, which was indeed unnecessary. Men from the older states,
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HISTORY OF NODAWAY COUNTY.
who were accustomed in their former homes to manuring and preparing for seed, with much scrupulous care, the soil, which they afterwards hoed and plowed repeatedly to secure a scanty yield of corn or of some other product, soon learned that prairie sod corn, planted in simply upturned glebe, without any special subsequent attention, produced crops which, in their former homes, would have been regarded as enormous. Many of the early settlers of the county, who brought their slaves with them, came from districts of Kentucky and Virginia, where hemp was a staple pro- duct. The first attempt to introduce the culture of this crop, which was soon to become the great staple of Platte, Buchanan, Andrew and other counties, proved an unqualified success.
This success soon induced others to the culture of hemp, and in a few years this was recognized as the great staple, and so continued to be until the breaking out of the civil war, when in default of slave labor, the raising of this product was gradually discontinued. Other commod- ities were imported as substitutes, and in a few years the amount raised in the Platte Purchase became so insignificant as to be entirely omitted in commercial quotations.
In the palmiest days of hemp-raising but a comparatively small amount of wheat was produced in at least one-half of the Platte Pur- chase. The rich alluvial soil, fathomless in the depths of its exhaustless fecundity, was not so well adapted as the early pioneers thought to the yielding of wheat, which at best, commanded no such return as did hemp. So insignificant was the quantity raised (excepting in Platte County) that a considerable amount of the flour consumed in those days was imported.
Enterprise in the business of farming, in all its varied expressions, has, from time to time, been manifested in Nodaway County. All the latest appliances of art in the way of machinery for lightening and expediting labor are tested, and rejected or adopted on the basis of their respective merits, as soon as presented. The spirit of old fogyism on the part of the community is found to exist only in rare and isolated cases.
The county, like all sections, has, to some extent, suffered from drouth, but this has, perhaps, been less frequent here than in the con- tiguous counties. The soil is of such a character that it retains moist- ure with a remarkable tenacity, and the natural drainage is so admirable that no portion of the cultivated lands are ever damaged by standing water.
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