CHAPTER XVIII
Peaceful Valley is an appropriate appellation for Henry County in the early eighties.
The assassination of President Garfield spread a pall over the whole people of this county in common with all sections of the United States. The feeling was entirely different from that following the assassination of President Lincoln. When the fatal shot from the pistol of Wilkes Booth startled a civilized world and struck down one of the greatest friends of mankind, the country was sorely divided and there might have been some unrepentant and unreconstructed who rejoiced even at such a frightful tragedy. But time had been a great healer of hurts, and there were none who did not sincerely mourn the untimely taking of the gentle and wise Garfield.
In districts where the people were overwhelmingly Southern, schools were dismissed on the day of the funeral, and in most of the churches memorial services were held.
Prejudices and hatreds engendered during the Civil War gave place to a feeling of fellowship, and the bitterness following the execution of Order No. 11 in a measure gave place to a realization that this is really an indivisible country with one flag, one destiny and one purpose; and such a country is made of individuals with only one hope - that of for getting the past, looking to the future with only one ambition, and that to make conditions just as desirable as possible for the citizens.
At the time this change of attitude of the people toward each other could hardly have been discerned, but a brief reminiscence clearly shows that about that time an era of good feeling hitherto lacking began, and, bless God, has continued to increase to this day.
The average mind has turned to the business pursuits at hand. The soil was new and yielded well. The husbandman had bounteous harvests as hire for his labor. Contentment was abroad in the land. One railroad, the Missouri, Kansas & Texas, had diagonated the country, affording rapid communication with the markets of the world. The Star Route brought the mail to the inland post offices, at first weekly, when "mail day" was almost a gala day at the country post office.
Men. women and children often came for miles to get the letter that seldom arrived. All would come early, and when Uncle Sam's Pegasus with his freight of mail would appear as a speck on the distant horizon, the people would jam into the little store post office and often the mail would have to be taken in through a window, or like Peter's revelation from heaven, let down through the roof, with much show of almost reverence for the mail bags and the locks securing the contents, the postmaster would receive and open the pouches. No one dared touch the sacred sacks but the postmaster. When emptied of their contents and the first class mail would be stamped with the date of arrival, a custom now abandoned, a stillness would fall upon the crowd and in stentorian tones the postmaster would call the names of those to whom mail was addressed, and the recipient of the first letter would become as chesty as a peacock and often push his way to the fringe of the crowd and proceed to read his communication, and if it happened that his name were called more than once he became the observed if not the envy of the rest of the eagerly expectant throng, and often jests and stale jokes were directed toward him.
The person who came from "way up the creek" and took the mail for his neighbors showed that he felt himself an important personage and in a measure a public benefactor.
With the lapse of years the arrivals of the mail would be increased to semi-and then tri-weekly and daily.
At every quadrennium, in villages of more than one store, a great contest for the appointment as postmaster would be staged and would often bring bitterness. Not that the salary of the incumbent of the office paid much, but the country merchant, like the city merchant, wants to bring all of the possible customers into close proximity to his wares. It was his method of advertising, and the man who would look a newspaper advertising agent out of countenance and refuse to invest a penny in printer's ink would spend dollars in affording free space for the crowds that gathered on mail day.
A decade and a half later when free rural delivery began to be introduced in many communities the people stuck to the post office as one of their bulwarks, almost as religiously as lawyers stick to precedent and technicality. The country post office was an institution hallowed by recollections of Benjamin Franklin, and the town post office afforded many a man an excuse to go to town to satisfy his gregarious instinct, and frequently gratify a thirst for something less elevating.
A great many good citizens bitterly opposed the introduction of the greatest unbought blessing that our country ever bestowed upon the people. Some tried to justify their opposition to rural mail delivery on economic grounds. Some on the theory that it would kill all the inland villages, and some on the ground that it could not be done. And really all opposition was founded upon the reluctance of the human rival to surrender the things to which it once has become accustomed and take on new and to them untried conditions.
This instinct of "letting well enough alone" has hindered progress from the day Mother Eve tearfully bade farewell to her original costumes of smiles and sunshine and donned the cumbersome fig leaf. It is common to all races and peoples, and Henry County folk should not be censured too severely when the universal human propensity dominates their mode of life and action.
After years of successful working of rural free mail delivery we say "farewell" to the long departed love of our youth and "hail" to the accommodating earner who brings our daily paper to the door, though we may live many miles from the noisy mail train. We now impatiently wait to have our mail dropped in our front yards by the aerial mail clerk whose ten hours run is from New York to Kansas City. This may be some years in the future, but few of us can rise from terra firma to oppose it. Another great institution of the early eighties in Henry County was the religious tent meeting. The tent was often only an arbor to keep out the too direct rays of the sun. While families frequently had tents on the ground fitted with furniture and cooking outfits, and the home on the farm was almost deserted, and trips were made from the meeting place to home rather than to the place of religious favor.
These meetings were a great moral uplift to the communities in which they were held, and in addition brought the people together, and when folks get in neighborly touch with each other they almost invariably feel better one toward the other.
Some preachers of more than local fame are among the fruits of these spiritual gatherings. Enoch Hunt, a product of the Hunt camp ground in Walker township, made his mark and was sometimes spoken of as a possible bishop in the M. E. Church. The Lawlers and the Briggses of the eastern part of the county and Uncle Frank Williams of Clinton and many others were always active in the good work, and left honorable names dear to the hearts of many of their converts.
They were ably seconded in this work by such sturdy laymen as the Longs, the Wilsons, the Bronaughs, William Adair, the Goodwins, J. P. Craig, the Halls, William Davis, the Gutridges and very many others of God's noblemen, all of whom have gone to their reward, but their good deeds follow them in the better lives and nobler ambitions of the younger generation with whom they came in contact and for whom their lives were a model, even as the Nazarene was their exemplar.
The debating society and the spelling school afforded diversion and means of culture. The Grange was on the wane but its social side left its impress and gave its members the advantage of exchange of ideas. The Grange would not have died so young if the members had stuck to its original purpose and had steered clear of party politics. But it came in a day when men were permeated with the idea that to hold office was the highest goal to be attained. Many were almost mad with the mania to gain some prominence in their respective communities. Folks had not seemed to grasp the idea that the highest ideal to possess was to be an American citizen worthy of the name in all its aspects. The community goal was abandoned for personal ambitions. The broad altruistic principles of the order were sacrificed to the narrow aspirations and the petty desires of individuals, and decline followed.
The public school grew more and more in favor, the teachers were an enthusiastic bunch, so well respected that the goal of many of the youth was to become a teacher. The teachers' institute became a popular institution, and the sessions were held in the largest churches, which were usually filled to capacity by patrons and pupils to hear the discussions of the teachers. It became a means of weeding out the inefficient and of promoting those best fitted for the duties.
The winter of 1882 and 1883 was a severe one. Snow came early and remained on the ground many weeks. Sleighing parties were numerous, and afforded great sport and a means of broadening acquaintances.
The season of 1883 was another year of bountiful crops. Business was good and people were prosperous, but prices were low. Apples sold at ten to twenty cents a bushel. St. Louis received 4,500 hogs one day which sold for $4.25 to $5.50, and 1,100 cattle were received at the same market and brought $3.25 to $6.50; 1,800 sheep sold at $1.75 to $4.00 a head. One bunch of cattle sold at $5.55 and had a big write-up in the "Globe Democrat." Calico was five cents a yard, gingham four cents, men's suits $7.50, bran $14 a ton, corn thirty cents a bushel, eggs seven cents a dozen and chickens $1.25 a dozen. Some fields of wheat yielded forty-two and one-half bushels an acre.
The salary of the superintendent of Clinton schools was "high" at $1,000 a year.
There was an agitation on for the establishment of a permanent county fair.
A movement was on foot to adopt stock law. Brownington had a disastrous fire.
On July 17, the mercury is said to have reached 102 in the shade. In May of 1884, Anheuser-Busch built a warehouse near the Missouri, Kansas & Texas depot to handle an average of six carloads of beer a month.
Rev. Ben Deering was denounced for having made a prohibition speech in the court yard, linking the Gemians up with the business. The newspaper referred to his utterances as a species of fanaticism of extremists. But the prohibition convention which was held in Sedalia August 21 demanded the submission of an amendment to the State Constitution, and the W.C.T.U. advertised a free reading room in Clinton.
Mr. S. Goodin wrote an article urging county supervision for the schools. Prof. E. P. Lamkin was conducting Clinton Academy. Late in the year the county was startled by the murder of a man named Wells near Windsor. At the September term of court, 1884, Judge R. E. Lewis, now of the United States Court of Denver, assisted by George P. J. Jackson, prosecuted Brownfield and Hopkink for the murder. They were defended by M. A. Fyke, C. A. Calvird, W. S. Shirk, B. G. Boone, Judge Foster P. Wright, C. C. Dikinson, T. M. Casey and N. K. Chapman. The report of the trial occupies several pages of the weekly paper and is reported by sessions. Defendants were found guilty, but afterwards pardoned by the Governor.
Horse stealing was annoyingly prevalent, resulting in the organization of the Anti-Horse Thief Association, one lodge of which is still intact in the county.
The Democratic "organ" of the county boastfully announced that one local speaker, still living in Clinton, made a speech at Huntingdale, occupying one hour and forty minutes. For obvious reasons his name is not mentioned here.
One firm in Clinton advertised "Pure white corn juice for sale." That man is in business in Clinton now.
A creamery for Clinton was talked of.
L. J. Terrell, near Brownington, was killed by a son, who escaped and was captured at Garden City, Kansas.
Besides the agricultural products of the county, which assumed large importance, deposits of coal were being worked for local consumption, and different kinds of clay began to attract attention and people began to take notice.
Some people began to talk about mining operations and the "Peaceful Valley" feeling began to give way to a feeling of healthy unrest. This county was naturally tributary to Kansas City, but there was no direct means of access or communication. Col. John I. Blair of New Jersey and George H. Nettleton of Kansas City, Ft. Scott & Memphis railroad, seemed to have heard about Henry County about the same time, and conceived the idea of connecting this territory, with such vast producing possibilities, with the markets of the coming metropolis of the west. Scouting parties of strange men drove through the county, whose peace, contentment and quietude were transformed into commotion, discontent and turmoil.
Soon these strange men made confidants of a few to the effect that if favorable inducements were offered a railroad might be built. A hint was enough. The somnolence that had gripped the county vanished like a morning fog. The spirit of 1849 was abroad in the land. A new found placer deposit in Grand River, or the striking of a gusher oil well, would hardly have created a greater stir. Meetings were held in churches, school houses, and on the street comers. Men who hitherto were content to sit on the fence and squirt tobacco juice at a grasshopper clamored to be put on committees to farther arouse their neighbors. Even the "Nail Keg Clubs" were decimated, and only a few chronic cranks were left to say: "It can't be did. Only another trick to get something for nothing."
But the headquarters of the Kansas City, Osceola and Southern were established in Clinton. Col. William Bailey took charge and the construction gang closely followed the surveying party. Colonel Nettleton directed his forces from Kansas City, building the Kansas City, Clinton and Springfield. It was a race as to which road should run the first trains.
On September 3, 1885, Col. William Bailey invited a party of Clinton people to go with him on his first trip to East Lynne. The road was then extended to Brownington and later to Osceola, which was the terminus for some years, and was later built to connect with spur of the Frisco at Bolivar.
Colonel Nettleton soon completed his line from Olathe, Kansas, to Ash Grove, Missouri, intersecting the main line at the two points, and Clinton had high hopes that this would become the main line, but their hopes long since vanished.
The Clinton Eye is a weekly paper established in November, 1885, by T. O. Smith. The paper grew from the first and has continued under the same ownership and management to the present. It is rightfully classed among the newsiest county weeklies in the State. New equipment has been added until now it is one of the most modern offices in this section of the country. The latest acquisition was a new Linotype in 1918. Miss Ella Smith, the oldest daughter of the proprietor, has learned every detail of the business even to operating the Linotype and is qualified to take over the management of the business.
Along with the railroads came numerous booms.
What is now the Dickey Clay Works asked for a small bonus to locate at Clinton. The bonus was refused, and the owner of the land where Deepwater now stands saw the opportunity. The tile factory was located at Deepwater. It is now the parent plant of the Tile Trust of America, and said to be the largest factory of its kind in the United States. It is the life of Deepwater, a beautiful little city of 1,500 people.
Hartwell was laid out west of Clinton with the intention of making it the shipping point for that section, but the people would not have it that way. November 13, 1884, a petition raimerously signed was presented to the officials asking the location of a depot on sections 15 or 16, where Urich now stands. The depot was not located at once, but the town was on land belonging to T. J. McClung and J. L. Wright. The inland village of Urich crowned a beautiful eminence about two miles north of the site for the new town. The scramble was on between building houses and moving those already built. Soon the town on the prairie that had been fathered by Jonathan Miller, Mr. Wells and Capt. William Porter was a real deserted village, the name even going to its new rival on the railroad and river, but the recollections of the happy bygone days and the magnificent, generous people of the former village will linger.
The Urich of the upland prairie was a delightful village, surrounded by a fertile country. The Urich of the woods and railroad is a delightful bustling town of a thousand fine folk. If not the identical persons, the descendants of the other village, Henry, Jake, Will and Rhote Miller are four brothers now living in Urich, who were citizens of the deserted village. Other good men were attracted to the new town, among the most progressive being Doctor Noble, who established a bank which has had a continuous period of prosperity and is serving the public now. This year Montrose erected $50,000 worth of buildings, Windsor $75,000, and Clinton $123,000. Among the substantial improvements in Clinton was the Britts Block and the Salmon Bank.
J. West Goodwin, the veteran newspaper man of Sedalia, visited Clinton, and telling of his trip in his "Bazoo" he suggested an immigration boom, which in 1888 resulted in an enthusiastic gathering in Clinton, where an unknown school teacher, J. K. Gwynn, of Versailles, in one brief speech lifted himself out of obscurity by naming Clinton the "Artesian Princess of the Prairies," and became commissioner of Missouri at the Columbian Exposition in Chicago and is now a leading officer in the American Tobacco Trust in New York. Another man whose prospects for the nomination for Governor were fine, committed political hari kari by referring to this section of the country as an area of rocky, hilly woodland which might become a dairy country if proper attention were given to the growth of certain species of clover.
The year closed with much merrymaking even if hogs were selling at four cents. B. G. Boone, attorney general elect, left Clinton with his family for a four years' residence in Jefferson City.
The first honor that came to Henry County in 1885 was the election of E. R. Vance as the official reporter of the Senate and House of the General Assembly.
More excitement was brought to the confines of the county by a topographical engineer of the Missouri, Kansas & Texas railway investigating the coal deposits.
At the beginning of the year wheat was quoted at sixty cents, corn twenty cents, butter sixteen cents, dressed chickens $2.00 per dozen, dressed turkeys eight cents per pound on the St. Louis market. Sweet cider was plentiful at fifteen cents per gallon.
Judge F. E. Savage represented the county in the House and introduced a bill requiring all persons selling intoxicants in less than five gallon quantities to take out dram shop license. This was considered a radical temperance measure.
Among the toll of the grim reaper early in the year was William B. Means, Aunt Betsy Godwin and Benjamin Barker. The Home Dramatic Company of Montrose presented "East Lynne" at the City Hall in Clinton. Some of the citizens of Montrose who took minor parts in the play now play second fiddle to no one. Clinton was visited in February by Dr. John A. Brooks, who lectured on temperance, and by Hon. Belva Lockwood, the woman candidate for President on the suffrage ticket. Of course they both drew a fusilade of ridicule.
Attorney General Boone gets a headliner in the St. Louis Republican as "Boone's Bold Move" by filing quo warranto proceedings against Jay Gould for operating parallel lines of railroad in Missouri. Brownington gets in the limelight claiming to have shipped more livestock than any other town of its size in the county, and Osage designates itself "The Banner Live Stock Township."
March 5 was not a very summery day but the Clinton Cornet Band paraded in honor of President Cleveland and the first Democratic President in twenty-four years.
At this term of the Circuit Court Mr. McDowell, a petit juror from Montrose, found that he had met Judge Gantt before at the battle of Cedar Creek, Virginia, October 19, 1864. McDowell's company met an advance of Judge Gantt's in that engagement and the judge received a minnie ball in his knee which permanently stiffened his leg.
Professor Lamkin's Academy had met with such success that other educational institutions began to look toward Clinton.
H. T. Baird, of Hardin College, proposed to start a female college. A bonus and scholarships amounting to $40,000 were subscribed. The site was selected April 16 and a contract let to Harry Kemp on June 8 at $33,462 to be completed September 20 following. The work was done and the building stands today without a crack in any of its walls, mute but eloquent testimony to the quality of material and work.
Baird College came into immediate popularity. Its first opening had more than 100 boarding pupils. Many from Texas, Colorado, Indian Territory and other far away States. And the young women who came for instruction returned to their homes to be moulders of thought and leaders in all good works.
Clinton Academy, directed by Prof. E. P. Lamkin, took on new life, was incorporated, and its attendance a little later reached 150. Among its alumni are found ministers, lawyers, teachers and business men of prominence. One of these, Ralph H. McKee, a consulting chemical engineer of New York City, has recently attracted wide attention by announcing that he has developed a method of dehydrating fish, meats, vegetables and fruits to such a point that the cost of transportation would be reduced to a negligible figure. When this process is perfected the aeroplane may supersede the expensive food products trains.
In May of this year Clinton and Osceola were connected by rail, but the new town of Deepwater had only a stage line leaving Clinton every morning at 8 o'clock.
The towns of Garland and Maurine were laid out on the Kansas City & Southern, and active building continued at Urich.
Clinton citizens agitate the building of water warks, and locate some of the hydrants, but the mains are not laid, the water supply is not secured, nor are any offers made for bids on the contract for building the plant.
Ruffin & Putnam buy the Tebo Mill and Elevator in Clinton and begin the manufacture of fine flour and foodstuff.
Professor Price made a successful ascension in his balloon named "Belle of Clinton." A precursor of the aeroplane.
Storms visited the county doing damage at Calhoun, in Bronaugh neighborhood and elsewhere. William Walters, of Fields Creek township, was killed by lightning.
T. W. Hall, son of David Hall, of Urich, is pressed into Canadian military service, which threatened international complications.
In June the farmers had troubles aplenty. The season had been so wet that the corn acreage was decreased, and the army worm and Hessian fly are reported as attacking the crops and the peach crop was a failure. Dawson B. Anderson, of Leesville township, visited McDonald county and was killed while he slept. Irvin Grubb was suspected as the murderer. On June 24 the cornerstone of the Christian Church at the corner of Third and Green was laid with impressive Masonic ceremonies. This building was abandoned in 1913 for the beautiful commodious building at Second and Jefferson.
It was mentioned in the local press that the oldest brick house in the county is well preserved, standing on section 7 in Tebo township, and built by Dr. Richard Wade, the first practicing physician of Henry County.
The commissioners to locate a State asylum visited Clinton and asked for a bonus of $200,000. Clinton preferred to make some improvements of her own and proceeded to improve a tract of land on Colonel Colt's farm for a Fair Grounds.
Blairstown was located on July 9 and active building begun at once. It is now a thriving little city of 1,000 of the best people on earth. The spirit of progress had a strong hold on the people. Agitation for a pottery in Clinton began. But in the materialistic hubbub the artistic is not neglected, and Miss Griffin put on an exhibition of the products of her brush at the home of Col. J. B. Colt.
August 12, 1885, marked an epoch in the anti-booze fight. The prosecuting attorney on that date filed numerous suits against the saloon keepers for selling intoxicants to minors.
The Clinton Band reached such proficiency that it put on a successful concert, and the Lilly Division of the Knights of Pythias gave numerous exhibition drills.
Squire R. L. Avery of Tebo township, who taught school in Missouri in 1840 at $10 per month, and who remembered a visit from Gen. Andrew Jackson to his father's home in Sparta, Tennessee, moved to Clinton. His son, H. F., later became mayor of Clinton, and after that mayor of Colorado Springs, Colorado. Dr. W. H. Gibbins located in Clinton in September of this year. In subsequent years, he gave the city splendid service as alderman, president of the board of education and president of Clinton National Bank. He died full of good works May 16, 1916.
Nine good and true Democrats announced their candidacy for the Montrose post office.
A dearth of houses in Clinton was announced and the Lingle and Avery addition was surveyed and a lot sale was put on.
In the race for supremacy in other lines of effort, Henry County was not neglectful in the improvement of the grade of its live stock. Foremost among those who entered this laudable enterprise was George M. Casey. He had added to his famous herd of Shorthorn cattle until, with choice goods at its head, he captured first premiums at all the State fairs. This herd became a terror to all fancy cattle exhibitors. The manager of the great herd belonging to the Taft Brothers, of whom ex-President Taft was one, once remarked that they did not expect many blue ribbons when competing with the Choice Goods Herd.
It may be of interest to note some retail quotations of commodities. Good table linen thirty cents per yard, bleached muslin five cents, twenty-four pounds choice white fish fifty cents, twenty-four pound pail mackerel fifty-five cents, seventeen pounds sugar $1.00, thirteen pounds good coffee $1.00.
The County Fair, which opened October 7, is largely attended and 120 children gave the fairy opera, "The Naiad Queen," at the Opera House. T. G. Cheesman, of Windsor, shipped a lot of cattle to Chicago that averaged between 1,900 and 2,000 pounds in weight.
The agitation for a new court house continued, also the building of a $30,000 hotel.
John Shobe and George Jackson returned from a hunting trip near White Sulphur Springs, bringing venison, and reported they killed a doe and a buck eight years old.
The Brownington Milling Company announced that it was turning out fifty barrels of fancy grade of flour per day. Adler and Gebhardt shipped a car load of hickory nuts.
On November 15, the Kansas City, Clinton & Springfield railroad advertised its through train service to Ash Grove.
The United Brethren built Brushy Church in Bogard township, it stands about midway between Urich and Blairstown and is an important spiritual center.
While other parts of the county were busy with affairs pertaining to the several localities, Keith and Perry were working overtime developing the natural resources at Deepwater and building the town. It is claimed that $50,000 had been spent in opening up the coal. Large amounts of money had been spent on the clays and shales. A reservoir cost $15,000. A saw mill had done a capacity business for months, about sixty houses were built or under course of construction. Two lumber yards were doing a rushing business, and numerous brick yards supplied bricks for the more ornate and substantial buildings.
If there had been a fuel administrator in the early winter of 1885 he would have had an easy time as oak and hickory wood is advertised at $1.50 to $2.00 per cord of four foot wood.
A great union Thanksgiving service was held in the Cumberland Presbyterian Church.
The apple crop was pronounced a bumper one, bringing the orchardists handsome returns. The amount of the crop was indicated by the fact that three cars of cooperage were received from November 1 to November 20, and four cars of apples were shipped at one time and eight cars at another.
In November, a franchise was granted for the installation of an electric light system in Clinton. This franchise probably lapsed as the light plant was not built.
Windsor had become so important that a hand fire engine was bought and a fire company organized for the protection of the city. This seems to have been the beginning of fire protection in the county.
On December 10 S. D. Garth received the appointment as postmaster at Clinton and James R. Bush, now of the "Montrose Tidings," was the deputy.
About the tenth of December R. B. Casey started for the cattle ranches in Texas and New Mexico, owned by Henry County people, with four carloads of Hereford and Shorthorn bulls that had been raised in Henry County. Many of the stockholders in these cattle ranches of the southern plains had all their savings of many years invested in these enterprises, which at first promised returns more than satisfactory, but the final results were disastrous. The full effects were not felt until the failure of the Salmon and Salmon bank many years later.
The Christian Church of Clinton had a great revival, closing in December with fifty-two additions. At the close of this meeting the pastor, Elder N. M. Ragland, accepted a call to the pastorate of the church in Fayetteville, Arkansas, where he removed his family and for almost a quarter of a century stayed in one place as pastor. He is living now in that famous educational center, full of years and good deeds and is truly loved by all the people.
The grim reaper had among his toll the present year Col. E. C. McCarty, who died in August; Rev. William Birge, of La Due, of whom the paragrapher said at "the ripe old age of sixty," in September; William Blizzard also died in September, and James R. Rivers in November.
