MISSOURI HISTORICAL REVIEW

THE STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF MISSOURI, COLUMBIA THE STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF MISSOURI The State Historical Society of Missouri, heretofore organized under the laws of the State, shall be the trustee of this State-Laws of Missouri, 1899, R.S. of Mo., 1969, chapter 183, as revised 1978. OFFICERS, 1992-1995 Avis G. TUCKER, Warrensburg, President JAMES C. OLSON, Kansas City, First Vice President SHERIDAN A. LOGAN, St. Joseph, Second Vice President VIRGINIA G. YOUNG, Columbia, Third Vice President NOBLE E. CUNNINGHAM, Columbia, Fourth Vice President R. KENNETH ELLIOTT, Liberty, Fifth Vice President ROBERT G. J. HOESTER, Kirkwood, Sixth Vice President ALBERT M. PRICE, Columbia, Treasurer JAMES W. GOODRICH, Columbia, Executive Director, Secretary, and Librarian

PERMANENT TRUSTEES FORMER PRESIDENTS OF THE SOCIETY WILLIAM AULL III, Lexington LEO J. ROZIER, Perryville FRANCIS M. BARNES III, Kirkwood ROBERT C. SMITH, Columbia RUSH H. LIMBAUGH, Cape Girardeau

TRUSTEES, 1992-1995 WALTER ALLEN, Brookfield W. ROGERS HEWITT, Shelbyville JAMES A. BARNES, Raytown EMORY MELTON, Cassville VERA H. BURK, Kirksville DOYLE PATTERSON, Kansas City RICHARD DECOSTER, Canton STUART SYMINGTON, JR., St. Louis

TRUSTEES, 1993-1996 HENRIETTA AMBROSE, Webster Groves FREDERICK W. LEHMANN IV, H. RILEY BOCK, New Madrid Webster Groves LAWRENCE O. CHRISTENSEN, Rolla GEORGE MCCUE, St. Louis ROBERT S. DALE, Carthage WALLACE B. SMITH, Independence

TRUSTEES, 1994-1997 ILUS W. DAVIS, Kansas City DALE REESMAN, Boonville JOHN K. HULSTON, Springfield ARVARH E. STRICKLAND, Columbia JAMES B. NUTTER, Kansas City BLANCHE M. TOUHILL, St. Louis BOB PRIDDY, Jefferson City HENRY J. WATERS III, Columbia

EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE Eight trustees elected by the board of trustees, together with the president of the Society, consti­ tute the executive committee. The executive director of the Society serves as an ex officio member. WILLIAM AULL III, Lexington, Chairman ROBERT C. SMITH, Columbia FRANCIS M. BARNES III, Kirkwood BLANCHE M. TOUHILL, St. Louis H. RILEY BOCK, New Madrid AVIS G. TUCKER, Warrensburg LAWRENCE O. CHRISTENSEN, Rolla VIRGINIA G. YOUNG, Columbia JAMES C. OLSON, Kansas City MISSOURI HISTORICAL REVIEW

VOLUME XC, NUMBER 1 OCTOBER 1995

JAMES W. GOODRICH LYNN WOLF GENTZLER Editor Associate Editor

CHRISTINE MONTGOMERY ANN L. ROGERS Research Assistant Research Assistant

The MISSOURI HISTORICAL REVIEW (ISSN 0026-6582) is published quarterly by the State Historical Society of Missouri, 1020 Lowry Street, Columbia, MO 65201-7298. Second- class postage is paid at Columbia, Missouri. POSTMASTERS: Send address changes to MISSOURI HISTORICAL REVIEW, 1020 Lowry Street, Columbia, MO 65201-7298. Copyright © 1995 by The State Historical Society of Missouri

COVER DESCRIPTION: The elegant Auguste Chouteau mansion, which faced Main Street between Market and Walnut Streets, was the focus of business, political, and social gatherings in early St. Louis. David Holmes Conrad, a young Virginia lawyer, arrived in the city at the close of the ter­ ritorial period. His reminiscences about persons, customs, and events during the early statehood years, edited by James Goodrich and Lynn Wolf Gentzler, begin on page 1. EDITORIAL POLICY The editors of the Missouri Historical Review welcome submission of articles and documents relating to the history of Missouri. Any aspect of Missouri history will be con­ sidered for publication in the Review. Genealogical studies, however, are not accepted because of limited appeal to general readers. Manuscripts pertaining to all fields of American history will be considered if the subject matter has significant relevance to the history of Missouri or the West.

Authors should submit two double-spaced copies of their manuscripts. The foot­ notes, prepared according to The Chicago Manual of Style, also should be double-spaced and placed at the end of the text. Authors may submit manuscripts on disk. The disk must be IBM compatible, preferably in WordPerfect. Two hard copies still are required, and the print must be letter or near-letter quality. Dot matrix submissions will not be accept­ ed. Originality of subject, general interest of the article, sources used, interpretation, and style are criteria for acceptance and publication. Manuscripts should not exceed 7,500 words. Articles that are accepted for publication become the property of the State Historical Society of Missouri and may not be published elsewhere without permission. The Society does not accept responsibility for statements of fact or opinion made by the authors.

Articles published in the Review are abstracted and indexed in Historical Abstracts, America: History and Life, Recently Published Articles, Writings on American History, The Western Historical Quarterly, and The Journal of American History.

Manuscripts submitted for the Review should be addressed to Dr. James W. Goodrich, Editor, Missouri Historical Review, State Historical Society of Missouri, 1020 Lowry Street, Columbia, Missouri 65201-7298.

BOARD OF EDITORS

LAWRENCE O. CHRISTENSEN SUSAN M. HARTMANN University of Missouri-Rolla Ohio State University Columbus

WILLIAM E. FOLEY ALAN R. HAVIG Central Missouri State University Stephens College Warrensburg Columbia

JEAN TYREE HAMILTON DAVID D. MARCH Marshall Kirksville

ARVARH E. STRICKLAND University of Missouri-Columbia CONTENTS

"I WELL REMEMBER": DAVID HOLMES CONRAD'S RECOLLECTIONS OF ST. LOUIS, 1819-1823. PART 1. Edited by James W Goodrich and Lynn Wolf Gentzler 1

DR. JOHN SAPPINGTON: SOUTHERN PATRIARCH IN THE NEW WEST. By Lynn Morrow 38

"THE LAST TREE CUT DOWN": THE END OF THE BOOTHEEL FRONTIER, 1880-1930. By Bonnie Stepenoff 61

WITH LIBERTY AND JUSTICE FOR ALL?: THE SUPPRESSION OF THE GERMAN-AMERICAN CULTURE DURING WORLD WAR I. By Chris Richardson 79

HISTORICAL NOTES AND COMMENTS

Society Libraries: Reference Library 90

News in Brief 92

Local Historical Societies 95

Gifts 105

Missouri History in Newspapers 109

Missouri History in Magazines 114

In Memoriam 120

BOOK REVIEWS 121

Morris, Ann, and Henrietta Ambrose. North Webster: A Photographic History of a Black Community. Reviewed by Lynn Wolf Gentzler. Tucker, Phillip T. The South's Finest: The First Missouri Confederate Brigade from Pea Ridge to Vicksburg. Reviewed by Charles R. Mink.

Jackson, John C. Shadow on the Tetons: David E. Jackson and the Claiming of the American West. Reviewed by Harmon Mothershead.

Keefe, James F., and Lynn Morrow, eds. The White River Chronicles of S. C. Turnbo: Man and Wildlife on the Ozarks Frontier. Reviewed by Duane Meyer.

BOOK NOTES 126

Mobley, Jane. Home Place: A Celebration of Life in Bridgeton, Missouri.

McConnell, Curt. Great Cars of the Great Plains.

Reynolds County, Missouri l(Sesquicentennial Year" 1845-1995.

Schroeder, Roxana. A History of One Hundred Fifty Years at Smith Creek, 1842-1992.

Winter, William C. The Civil War in St. Louis: A Guided Tour.

Neth, Mary. Preserving the Family Farm: Women, Community, and the Foundations of Agribusiness in the Midwest, 1900-1940.

Auchly, W. J., David Barker, and Peggy Oliver Rodgers. A Pictorial History of Montgomery County: 175 Years, 1818-1993.

CONTRIBUTORS TO MISSOURI CULTURE: VINNIE REAM HOXIE Inside back cover Courtesy Barbara Harrison Browder

"I Well Remember": David Holmes Conrad's Recollections of St. Louis, 1819-1823 Part 1

EDITED BY JAMES W. GOODRICH AND LYNN WOLF GENTZLER*

On December 29, 1819, a subzero-degree day, David Holmes Conrad, a young lawyer from Winchester, Virginia, stepped out of a small boat onto land near St. Louis, the capital of the Missouri Territory. Conrad, who went by "Holmes" throughout his life, had traveled by horseback with Joshua Newbrough, a retired Winchester cabinetmaker who came to Missouri to settle upon land he had purchased. Before reaching the Missouri Territory, the twosome spent a few days in Wheeling, Virginia (present-day West

* James W. Goodrich is the executive director of the State Historical Society of Missouri. He received the Ph.D. degree from the University of Missouri-Columbia. Lynn Wolf Gentzler is the associate director of the State Historical Society of Missouri; she received the M.A. degree from the University of Missouri-Columbia.

1 2 Missouri Historical Review

Virginia), a month in Zanesville, Ohio, and several days in Louisville, Kentucky, before crossing into Illinois.1 When he finally reached St. Louis, Conrad easily gained acceptance in the city's social and political scene. His lineage and family connections pro­ vided him excellent entrees and references, as his reminiscences attest. Conrad had been born in Winchester on January 15, 1800. His father, Daniel Conrad, was a prominent physician who had graduated from the University of Pennsylvania's school of medicine in 1791. He continued his medical studies at the University of Edinburgh and in London before return­ ing to Winchester in 1793 or 1794 to practice medicine.2 The doctor married Rebecca Holmes, the daughter of Colonel Joseph Holmes, who had been in charge of the British and Hessian prisoners housed in Winchester during the American Revolution. She bore him two sons, the oldest being Holmes. His brother, Robert Young Conrad, was born on December 5, 1805. The family resided in a large brick house on Market Street in Winchester, where the doctor nurtured a successful practice. In September 1806, Doctor Conrad died from undulant fever, the result of an epidemic that swept through Winchester and the Virginia countryside. Despite his large practice, many of his patient accounts had gone uncollect­ ed. Consequently, his wife was forced to rent out the Conrad home and, with her sons, board at a Winchester hotel owned by an in-law. These frugal cir­ cumstances did not cause the Conrad boys' educations to be neglected. Holmes attended private schools, and both he and his brother studied at the Winchester Academy. In January 1812, Holmes Conrad went to Washington, D.C, to visit an uncle, David Holmes, who at the time was governor of the Mississippi Territory. Prior to that, Governor Holmes had served as a Virginia member of the U.S. House of Representatives for six terms, 1797-1809. Conrad witnessed many of the nation's early political leaders at work as he sat in the galleries of Congress. Whenever the governor was unavailable, Robert Fulton, the inven­ tor of the steamboat, served as Conrad's chaperon. Governor Holmes wanted his nephew to attend the College of William and Mary, but young Holmes desired to practice law. Consequently, Conrad's cousin Henry St. George Tucker offered to let Holmes study law with him and also serve as copying clerk for the court of chancery. Conrad read law in Winchester with Tucker for three years, and in October 1819 he applied for a license to practice in Virginia. Three weeks after his license

1 Unless so noted, information in the introduction is derived from David Holmes Conrad's "Recollections," Virginia Historical Society, Richmond. 2 J. E. Norris, ed., History of the Lower Shenandoah Valley Counties of Frederick, Berkeley, Jefferson and Clarke (Chicago: A. Warner and Company, 1890), 571; Garland R. Quarles, Some Worthy Lives (Stephens City, Va.: Winchester-Frederick County Historical Society, 1988), 69. "/ Well Remember'

I \\U » iii {in 4 Missouri Historical Review was signed, he left for St. Louis. He became licensed to practice law in the Missouri Territory on February 29, 1820.3 David Holmes Conrad's "Recollections," which include his reminis­ cences about his time in Missouri, were not the only writings by the Virginian. After he returned to the Virginia area in 1823, besides becoming a prominent lawyer, he found time to author historical and religious tracts. On February 22, 1851, Conrad delivered an address in the Martinsburg, Virginia, Methodist Episcopal Church, which was published. Four years later, Stanley and McCalls, printers in Philadelphia, produced his Thoughts on the Immaculate Conception, a twelve-page pamphlet. The next year Conrad's Memoir of Rev. James Chisholm . . . Late Rector of St. John's Church, Portsmouth, Va., a book of some two hundred pages was printed. In 1859 he wrote a description of his Uncle David Holmes, which later appeared in volume four of the Publications of the Mississippi Historical Society (1921). His early history of Winchester was printed in the 1876 Winchester newspaper and republished in the first volume of the Winchester-Frederick County Historical Society's Papers in 1931. After Conrad returned to Winchester, suffering from ill health and fail­ ing to realize any significant financial gain from his years in Missouri, he resumed the practice of law. A year later he moved to Martinsburg, some twenty miles north of Winchester, although he also continued to practice law in the latter community. Even though he became a noted lawyer, Conrad recalled that he never earned more than $2,500 a year from his practice. On December 12, 1828, Conrad married Nancy Addison Carr, the daughter of Virginia Supreme Court Judge Dabney Carr.4 Conrad had known his bride since 1812 when her father served as chancellor of the Winchester and Clarksburg courts. The Conrad-Carr marriage took place at Judge Carr's home, known as Elba, in Richmond. Conrad and his wife moved to Martinsburg in February 1829. The cou­ ple became the parents of eleven children, but only six lived into adulthood.5

3 Conrad's license to practice law in the Missouri Territory is located in the Holmes Conrad Papers, collection on deposit at the Virginia Historical Society. 4 Norris, Histoiy of the Lower Shenandoah Valley, 571; Quarles, Some Worthy Lives, 70. Carr was chancellor of the court of chancery in Winchester prior to his being named to the state supreme court in 1824. He served on the supreme court until his death in January 1837. Dictionary of American Biography, s.v. "Carr, Dabney." 5 The Conrad children were Elizabeth (October 8, 1829-October 21, 1857); Rebecca (July 26, 1831-August 18, 1863); Dabney (June 10, 1833-November 13, 1834); Jane (November 27, 1835-May 25, 1876); Holmes (September 30, 1837-July 21, 1861); Tucker (December 17, 1839- July 21, 1861); Frances (January 5, 1842-September 13, 1842); Nancy (April 2, 1844-June 24, 1864); and Robert (February 1844-February 1844). Unnamed twins were born March 5, 1849, and died at birth. See Conrad Bible in possession of Leta May (Tucker) Hodge, Mexico, Missouri. "/ Well Remember" 5

Despite the deaths of six of their children before the Civil War, the Conrads were noted by a friend as "one of the brightest and happiest families."6 Holmes and Nancy had owned Judge Carr's residence after his death. To provide for the education of their sons, Holmes Addison Conrad and Henry Tucker Conrad, the couple sold the Richmond property. Holmes Conrad attended the University of Virginia for two years and then became principal at the Martinsburg Academy. Tucker studied at the Episcopal Theological Seminary in Alexandria, where his father served as a trustee. As ideological and sectional differences moved the nation toward civil war, Conrad, even though a states rightist, spoke out against secession. Garland A. Quarles, who published a brief biographical sketch of Conrad, wrote that "he was vigorously opposed to secession and may have alienated himself to some extent from his Virginia friends." One of his speeches given in the Berkeley County Courthouse was published in the Washington National Intelligencer.1 When Virginia seceded from the Union, Conrad's son Holmes resided in Fauquier County, Virginia, while Tucker still studied at the seminary. Both young men returned to Martinsburg and joined the Border Guards of the Second Regiment of the Virginia army, which was attached to Thomas J. Jackson's brigade. Holmes Conrad had joined the Confederate army first; his brother quickly followed suit as the Civil War began in earnest. When Union and Confederate armies faced off at the first Battle of Bull Run (First Manassas) on July 21, 1861, Holmes held the rank of sergeant in the "Stonewall" brigade; his brother, Tucker, was a private. Ordered to retreat, Holmes refused and called Tucker to join him and their cousin, Lieutenant Peyton R. Harrison. Both Conrads died from the same Union volley.8 Their bodies were taken to Martinsburg and buried in a tomb locat­ ed in the Old Norborne Cemetery. Lieutenant Harrison, who died during the same battle, also was interred at Old Norborne.9

6 Mary Montague Harrison, "David Holmes Conrad," c. 1980 (photocopy in possession of editors), 4. 7 Quarles, Some Worthy Lives, 70; F. Vernon Aler, Aler's History of Martinsburg and Berkeley County, West Virginia (Hagerstown, Md.: Mail Publishing Company, 1888), 915. 8 John Lipscomb Johnson, The University [of Virginia] Memorial Biographical Sketches (Baltimore: Turnbull Brothers, 1871), 36-37. During the July 21, 1861, action at Bull Run (Manassas), the Second Virginia sustained three officers and fifteen enlisted men killed; three officers and sixty-nine enlisted men were wounded. U.S. War Department, The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies (Washington, D.C: Government Printing Office, 1880-1901), ser. 1, vol. 2, 570. 9 E. Holmes Bond, "The Conrad Boys in the Confederate Service," in R. A. Burch, ed., Southern Historical Society Papers (Richmond, Va.: Southern Historical Society, 1908), 36: 225; Johnson, Memorial Biographical Sketches, 37. Bond implies that the Conrad boys were buried during the evening after the battle. Johnson states that the burials took place on July 23. Barbara Harrison Browder, letter to James W. Goodrich, 10 July 1995. 6 Missouri Historical Review

In his "Recollections" Conrad wrote of the Civil War years: "My home was desolated and my family dying around me. I could not communicate with my brethren in Virginia, for here [Martinsburg] we were generally under the command of the Federal forces." Also, Conrad did not want to be separated from the remainder of his family. Over sixty, he considered him­ self too old to fight, even if he had wanted to take up arms. Conrad wrote that he never believed that the Confederacy would be vic­ torious; rather, he viewed the South's "course from the first as eminently imprudent, and one that would end sooner or later in subjugation." He "lamented" the South's "entanglement" with slavery, and he sincerely felt that the Civil War was inevitable. The Union occupation and the loss of his sons certainly affected the Conrad household. Despite these problems, Conrad's religious convictions gave him strength, and he made himself useful by working in hospitals, help­ ing surgeons with their gruesome tasks, or caring for the wounded. Even more personal tragedy befell him in 1863 and 1864 when two of his daughters died. When the war ended Conrad refused to take an oath of allegiance, which disenfranchised him. He no longer could practice law. He could not participate in the work of the Episcopal Diocese, as he had prior to the war when he attended the 1853, 1856, and 1859 sessions of the General Convention as a lay deputy from Virginia. In 1868, after some three years of paralysis, Nancy Conrad died, the same year her husband began to write his "Recollections" for his seven grandchildren by his daughter Rebecca, who had married George F. Harrison. Then, on January 30, 1869, Holmes was forced to commit his daughter Jane to an insane asylum operated by the Sisters of Charity near Baltimore. After that, he lived in his seventeen-room Martinsburg house with a granddaughter, probably Sally Browne Harrison, who did not marry until 1894.10 Conrad also owned a farm but seldom visited it. Daughter Jane was buried in Martinsburg following her death on May 25, 1876." Conrad died on April 21, 1877. He was remembered as having "attained great prominence at the bar, was an ornament to his profession, a leading member of the Episcopal Church in the Diocese of Virginia . . . kind and gentle in his manner, fluent in conversation, of great personal popularity." F Vernon Aler, in his history of Martinsburg and Berkeley County, wrote that Holmes Conrad had been known as an "esteemed citizen—a lawyer of rare ability."12 For years David Holmes Conrad's reminiscences remained in the pos­ session of descendants, including his grandson Holmes Conrad Harrison and

10 Browder, letter to Goodrich, 29 July 1995. 11 Ibid., 10 July 1995. 12 Samuel Bassett French Collection of Biographical Sketches, Archives, Library of Virginia, Richmond; Aler, Aler's History, 251. "I Well Remember" 7 his great-great-grandson Holmes Conrad Harrison III. In 1991 the original manuscript and a 161-page typescript were donated to the Virginia Historical Society. Through the efforts of family members, in particular Mary Montague Harrison (the wife of Holmes Conrad Harrison, Jr.) and Barbara Harrison Browder, the David Holmes Conrad "Recollections" became known to the editors. The Virginia Historical Society has granted the editors permission to edit and annotate the portions of the "Recollections" that pertain to Missouri. Conrad, for the most part, wrote a legible hand. The editors, in order to make his narrative read smoothly, have spelled out abbreviations, corrected the few misspellings, and imposed a punctuation system. Conrad seldom used any punctuation except dashes. Since Conrad wrote about people and events that occurred more than forty years previous, the editors have attempted to correct any errors or misstatements that he may have made. The first part of the remembrances of his years in St. Louis follow.

... in three weeks I was on my road to Missouri, in company with a worthy old retired cabinetmaker, [Joshua] Newbrough, who had vested his life's earnings in Missouri lands and would have been almost a millionaire if he had not sold them too soon.13 I traveled from Winchester [Virginia] to St. Louis on horseback. I was detained several days in Wheeling [present-day West Virginia], a month at Zanesville, Ohio, four days at Louisville, Kentucky, and did not arrive at my destination until the 29th of December 1819 in the coldest weather that I had ever experienced. The ice was run­ ning in the Mississippi, the cakes of it almost touching, and they did close up, and bridge the rapid river on the night after my transit, which was made in a small boat at no little peril.

13 The census taken for Frederick County, Virginia, in 1810, listed Joshua Newbrough between the ages of twenty-six and forty-five. He may have already moved to Missouri's Howard County prior to his accompanying Conrad to St. Louis. In 1818 he was one of the own­ ers of the land upon which Columbia, Missouri, the county seat of Boone was established. He purchased 160 acres from the St. Louis land office on May 15, 1819. That land is located in present-day Callaway County, and a portion of it is included in the eastern part of New Bloomfield. Newbrough bought 480 acres of Howard County land from Taylor Berry in 1821. His name occasionally appears in the Fayette Missouri Intelligencer in the early 1820s. He probably remained in Howard County at least until the mid-1830s, when he may have returned to Frederick County. Newbrough's last will and testament was recorded there on March 17, 1846. It was pro­ bated on November 1, 1847. Ronald Vern Jackson, et al., Virginia 1810 Census Index (Bountiful, Utah: Accelerated Indexing System, 1976), 231; Conley-Miller Family Papers, Western Historical Manuscript Collection, University of Missouri-Columbia; Abstract of U.S. Land Sales, vol. 1, St. Louis Office, 13 July 1818-31 December 1827; Howard County Deed Book H, 129-130; Howard County Deed Book C, 20-21, all in Missouri State Archives, Jefferson City. 8 Missouri Historical Review

Such was my introduction to my new home under a degree of cold below zero. I noticed in passing through Illinois, especially the American bottom (the flat land opposite St. Louis) that my eyelashes froze together, as I faced the northwest wind.14 But I was young, and hopeful, and hardy, and adven­ turous, and though the mail carrier refused to cross, old Joshua Newbrough and I did, though we were carried down two miles before we touched shore on the Missouri side. The old fellow wanted to remain in the tavern on the Illinois side till the river was blocked, but I shamed him out of it and being a plucky old fellow, he agreed to risk it, though our horses did not get over until the ice was hard enough to bear not only horses but teams of them with wag­ ons and carts. I think the degree of cold is greater in the interior of the conti­ nent, than in the same latitude on the seaboard. A traveler now would, from what I understand, see a very different state of things, and a very different prospect and population. He would be ferried over in a steam ferryboat, but then the best ferryboat was made of two large canoes, with a platform across their gunwales, which might carry four horses. He would see a city of from 150 thousand to 200 thousand inhabitants—someone has told me 260 thou­ sand—with all the elegance of architectural finish, courthouses, churches, and hundreds of steamboats of the largest size.15 Then, there was no church built but the Catholic church, no courthouse, no steamboats, though they began to run the next spring, for I well remember when a whole company of people, at Colonel [Elias] Rector's,16 leaving the parlor, went to the river in the spring, after I got there, to see a steamboat come up to the town.17

14 The area known as the American Bottom lay on the Illinois side of the Mississippi River "from opposite the mouth of the Missouri River to the Kaskaskia, a distance of over eighty miles, and [had] an average width of eight miles." It was named the American Bottom after a group of Americans settled in the region near present-day Harrisonville, Illinois, in 1780. William Hyde and Howard L. Conard, eds., Encyclopedia of the History of St. Louis (New York: Southern History Company, 1899), s.v. "American Bottom." 15 The 1860 census placed the population of St. Louis at 160,773; by 1870 it had reached 310,864. Population of the United States in 1860 . . . Eighth Census (Washington, D.C: Government Printing Office, 1864), 297; The Statistics of the Population of the United States . . . Ninth Census (Washington, D.C: Government Printing Office, 1872), 194. 16 Elias Rector (c. 1785-1822), a native of Fauquier County, Virginia, moved to St. Louis from Illinois in 1816. While in Illinois between 1806 and 1816, Rector and an older brother, William, had served as deputy surveyors of the Kaskaskia district. Elias also had acted as adjutant general of the Illinois territorial militia from 1810 to 1813, receiving a commission as a colonel in 1812. Already a landowner in St. Louis, Elias moved to the city after William was appointed surveyor general of the Illinois, Missouri, and Arkansas Territories. Elias became the city postmaster in 1819 and was a passenger on the Independence, the first steam­ boat to ascend the Missouri River, in the same year. He was elected to the state senate in 1821 but died before the end of his term. Joseph H. Shinn, Pioneers and Makers of Arkansas (n.p.: Genealogical and Historical Publishing Company, 1908), 380-398; Franklin Missouri Intelligencer, 3 September 1822. 17 Conrad is mistaken in remembering that the first steamboat reached St. Louis in 1820. The Zebulon M. Pike, the first steamboat on the Mississippi River above the mouth of the "I Well Remember'

Appointed in 1819, Elias Rector served as the fourth postmaster of St. Louis.

Missouri Historical Society, St. Louis

The language spoken was chiefly French, and so were the settled inhab­ itants. The population was not quite 5000, including every person that could be counted;18 indeed less, I suppose, for I have the first directory ever made, by John A. Paxton in May 1821, one year and four months after I arrived, and he thinks there were about 5500 inhabitants then.19 So, as there were only 3500 about a year and a half before I arrived there, viz. in 1818, I should suppose that when I came, there were hardly more than 4000 as the town was filling up at the rate of 1000 per annum. The lower part of the town was almost exclusively French, with some of the old Spanish settlers, most of the American population being men and unmarried. The women and children were mostly French. The appearance of the town struck me as for­ eign, and different from the new towns of Ohio and Indiana. The houses were of logs chiefly, but built stockade fashion, upright, and not like our log

Ohio, reached St. Louis on August 2, 1817. By 1819 steamboats at the city's levee were a common sight. William E. Foley, A History of Missouri, Volume 1, 1673 to 1820 (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1971), 167, 168. 18 On December 6, 1820, the St. Louis Missouri Gazette and Public Advertiser reported that the census had placed the population of St. Louis at 4,598. Twenty-three of the residents were attorneys and counselors-at-law. 19 John Paxton, in his 1821 city directory, listed Conrad as an attorney-at-law and clerk of the chancery court for the third district, whose office was located on the north side of the pub­ lic square above Fourth Street. John Paxton, The [1821] St. Louis Directory and Register in The St. Louis Directory for the Years 1854-5 (St. Louis: Chambers and Knapp. 1854), 266. 10 Missouri Historical Review houses. All of the best of them, with porticos or porches going around the main building, sometimes plastered, but generally whitewashed only, [were] along the main street, which by the way, bent about with the river, and was by no means straight, therefore. The mansions of the old proprietors and founders of the town were built in large lots, taking in whole squares, or acres of land walled around and their houses off the street some distance inside of these lots. Such were the houses of Colonel Auguste Chouteau and his brother Pierre, called Cadet Chouteau though he was an elderly man then, but the younger of the two.20 General William Clark,21 the companion of Meriwether Lewis22 in the exploration of the Missouri, was the governor

20 Conrad's preceding sentence about the proprietors and founders of St. Louis implies that he refers to Auguste Chouteau (1749-1829) and (Jean) Pierre Chouteau (1758-1849). The Chouteau known as "Cadet" (1789-1868) was (Jean) Pierre's son. Auguste Chouteau was born in New Orleans. At the age of fourteen, Auguste assisted his stepfather and employer, Pierre de Laclede Liguest, with the founding of St. Louis. Auguste became one of the most important and powerful men in the city. He served in the local militia during the American Revolution and commanded the first militia regiment in the Upper Louisiana Territory, becoming a lieutenant colonel in 1806. Personifying the merchant capital­ ist, at some point during his life he operated a water mill, engaged in merchandising and bank­ ing, owned a distillery, and accumulated large landholdings. Auguste became the most promi­ nent fur trader in St. Louis. He also 'spent time helping form peace treaties with the Indians. Politically, he held a number of offices, including justice of the peace, judge of the court of com­ mon pleas, member of the territorial legislative council, and member and chairman of the St. Louis board of trustees. When he died he left a large fortune and thousands of acres of land. (Jean) Pierre also served in the militia during the American Revolution. Commissioned a lieutenant, he commanded Fort Carondelet in the mid-1790s. He was a cap­ tain in the militia cavalry in 1806 and rose to the rank of major before the War of 1812. Like his older brother, he also built a water mill, owned land, and engaged in the lead mining busi­ ness. (Jean) Pierre traded with the Osage in the early 1800s, served for a time as an Indian agent, and became a partner in the St. Louis Missouri Fur Company. Politically, he served as a justice of the peace and as a member and chairman of the St. Louis board of trustees. He was an unsuccessful candidate for mayor of St. Louis but did win election to the state senate in 1821. When he died, (Jean) Pierre had accumulated an estate in excess of $75,000. Pierre, known as "Cadet," served in the militia and began his business career by working for his father, including overseeing his father's trade with the Osage. He also proved successful in his economic exploits. In 1813 he became a partner in one of the fur trade companies. A suc­ cessful merchant capitalist, Cadet was selected as a delegate to the Missouri constitutional con­ vention. He was a member of the partnership that purchased the fur trade interests of John Jacob Astor in 1834. Cadet invested in a number of enterprises, including land and railroads. His business acumen allowed him to become a millionaire and a patron of the arts and sciences. See William E. Foley and C. David Rice, The First Chouteaus: River Barons of Early St. Louis (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1983); Howard R. Lamar, ed., The Reader's Encyclopedia of the American West (New York: Harper and Row, 1977), s.v. "Chouteau Family." 21 William Clark (1770-1838) gained fame as a soldier, an explorer, and a statesman. Perhaps best known for his part in the Lewis and Clark expedition to the Pacific in 1804-1806, in 1807 he became the superintendent of Indian affairs for the Louisiana Territory. When he was appointed governor of the Missouri Territory in 1813, he continued to carry out the duties of the superintendent. Clark had been responsible for the construction of Fort Osage, near present- day Kansas City, in 1808. As territorial governor he sought to improve the area's defenses against potential Indian attacks, while at the same time attempting to create friendlier relations with the tribes. When Missouri became a state, Clark continued to be in charge of Indian affairs. "/ Well Remember" 11 of the territory, and Indian agent for all the Indians west of the river. I well remember him, for I had the honor to dine with him on New Year's day 1821, and found him though a grave, a very sociable, hospitable, and com­ municative man. He invited me to visit his council room afterwards, when he held a council with some Indian tribes. The room of itself was a museum of Indian curiosities, superior to any of that sort that ever I saw, and the dis­ cussion and the oratory of the Indian speakers was very striking, especially as it had to pass through two interpreters, both ways. One interpreter could speak Indian and French, so he rendered the Indian speeches into French, which was rendered into English by one who spoke French and English, and

From 1822 until his death, he was the federal superintendent of Indian affairs. He also served as acting surveyor general for Illinois, Missouri, and the Arkansas Territory, 1824-1825. See William E. Foley, The Genesis of Missouri: From Wilderness Outpost to Statehood (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1989); Jerome O. Steffen, William Clark: Jeffersonian Man on the Frontier (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1977); Floyd C. Shoemaker, ed., Missouri Day by Day (Columbia: State Historical Society of Missouri, 1942-1943), 2: 64-65; Lamar, The Reader's Encyclopedia of the American West, s.v. "Clark, William." 22 Meriwether Lewis (1774-1809) was born near Charlottesville, Virginia; his education came primarily through private tutors. At the age of eighteen he volunteered to help put an end to the Whiskey Rebellion. He joined the United States army in 1795 and gained a captaincy in 1800. He served as President Thomas Jefferson's private secretary from 1801 to 1803. Jefferson made Lewis commander of the 1804 expedition to the Northwest, with Captain William Clark serving as Lewis's assistant. The Lewis and Clark expedition left St. Louis in May 1804, headed for the sources of the Missouri and Columbia Rivers, and returned to St. Louis in the autumn of 1806. On March 3, 1807, Lewis was appointed governor of the Louisiana Territory, although he did not assume the office until a year later. As governor he proved unpopular with many in the territory. In September 1809, Lewis departed St. Louis for Washington, D.C., to explain some of his actions as governor to members of the government. He also wanted to obtain funding for printing the expedition's journals. He died a violent death in a tavern on the Natchez Trace. Whether he was murdered or committed suicide remains unknown. Lamar, The Reader's Encyclopedia of the American West, s.v. "Lewis, Meriwether"; Shoemaker, Missouri Day by Day, 2: 112-113.

State Historical Society of Missouri

One of the founders of St. Louis, Auguste Chouteau continued to play a prominent role in the city's political and economic scenes. 12 Missouri Historical Review so vice versa with Governor Clark's replies. These were very brief as Clark did not affect the orator. The Indian chiefs sat along a table, on both sides, Governor Clark at the head of it. The Indian orator sat next [to] him, rose up when he spoke, used much gesticulation, and his tones were impassioned and his speech really oratorical. The subject which was discussed was con­ cerning the killing of an Indian trader, as a serious offense which might bring the military power of the U.S. against the offending nation, and per­ haps affect the payment of some money due the Indian nation (the Sacs I think) under an existing treaty.23 The purpose of the speaker was to show the agent (Clark) that the act was not one to implicate the whole tribe but a private act unauthorized and disavowed by the tribe, that they had deputed him to say so, to explain how young men would do rash things to show their spirit, and the chiefs and old men could not prevent it. But to prove this, they had brought down the chief actor, and actual manslayer, with them to render him up to justice, that he might be tried and if guilty be put to death by the U.S. courts. Clark asked why so many of their young warriors were implicated in this transaction, as he understood was the case, if it were the result of a mere private grudge. The orator replied, ingeniously, that the best of their young men tried to prevent it. "There is one," said the orator, "who endangered his own life to prevent it," and detailed the manner in which he remonstrated and interposed at the risk of his life. "Where is he," said the governor, "I should like to know him and show him that the Great Father (the President [James Monroe]) will not forget to reward such young braves as he must be, to act so promptly and courageously." "He sits behind there," said the Indian speaker, pointing to a young man, modest looking and not so painted up and bedrizzened with feathers and beads and colored locks of hair, as most of them were. "That's the young man who tried to save the life of the trader, and did stop further bloodshed." I observed that this young man blushed, and looked confused, and smiled bashfully while the orator was speaking, and when what he said came to be rendered into English, I never saw more modesty shown then he did. Clark called him to shake hands with him, and promised him a present. He had not a word to say, and only showed what I have heard called "the silly grin," but which I admired as the bashfulness of ingenuous youth. The council passed off amicably. But I must tell of the victim, who had to expiate the rash deed, (and I daresay the well-earned) death of the trader,

23 The 1804 treaty between the United States and the Sac and Fox called for annuities of $600 to be paid to the Sac and $400 to be paid to the Fox. In the treaty the Indians ceded all their lands on the east side of the Mississippi River and a portion of their hunting grounds on the west side of the river, which included land in present-day Illinois and Wisconsin, as well as a small tract in present-day Missouri. William T. Hagan, The Sac and Fox Indians (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1958), 24. "/ Well Remember" 13 for they were often a sad sept of mischief-makers, with their love of gain and bribes of whiskey. But be that as it may, subsequent circumstances made me acquainted with this poor fellow, who was thus made the scapegoat of the tribe, and his history is remarkable or it seemed so to me, at least. In the month of December 1820, I was appointed by the Honorable William Harper, chancellor of Missouri,24 clerk of the court [of chancery] for the third judicial district comprising St. Louis County and the adjoining counties of Franklin, Washington and Jefferson.25 I kept my office on the public square near the jail, and boarded there with the sheriff, Joseph C. Brown,26 and had for my fellow boarders the secretary of state, Mr. [Joshua] Barton;27 Edward Bates, the attorney general;28 the clerk of the circuit court,

24 Born in the West Indies, William Harper (1790-1847) became a South Carolina lawyer and state representative. He settled in St. Louis in 1816 and formed a law partnership with William Carr Lane in 1819. Harper served as chancellor of the State of Missouri from 1820 until 1822 when the office was abolished. He returned to South Carolina in 1823. Biographical Directory of the American Congress 1774-1971 (Washington, D.C: Government Printing Office, 1971), 1072; Shoemaker, Missouri Day by Day, 1: 140; David D. March, The History of Missouri (New York: Lewis Historical Publishing Company, 1967), 1:432. 25 The court of chancery "was established to handle cases in equity and to exercize [sic] control over executors, administrators, guardians, etc." March, History of Missouri, 1: 427. See also Henry Campbell Black, Black's Law Dictionary (St. Paul, Minn.: West Publishing Company, 1979), 321. 26 The jail and apartments of Joseph C. Brown were located at Sixth and Chestnut. According to Brown's obituary, he was a native of Virginia who had lived in the St. Louis area since about 1814. Brown not only served as sheriff at the time of Conrad's years in St. Louis, but he had been sheriff during the last few years of the territory. He had come to Missouri from Virginia to be a deputy surveyor for the Missouri district. Besides serving as sheriff, he was the St. Louis County collector in the early 1820s. In 1823 Brown supervised the surveying of the Missouri-Arkansas line. He also located the line between Missouri and Kentucky. Brown was appointed to the commission to establish the Santa Fe Trail in 1824 and surveyed a portion of the trail from Independence to Council Grove. A Whig, Brown served as a state senator for two terms (1824-1825, 1826-1827). In 1829 he was the St. Louis County surveyer. At the time of his death, February 21, 1846, Brown was St. Louis city engi­ neer and also involved as Missouri's commissioner in the survey of the Missouri-Iowa bound­ ary. J. Thomas Scharf, A History of Saint Louis City and County (Philadelphia: Louis H. Everts and Company, 1883), 1: 138; Paxton, St. Louis Directory, 266; St. Louis Missouri Republican, 26 July 1824; 23 February 1846; St. Louis Missouri Gazette, 6, 20 November, 1 December 1820; 22 August 1821; 9 January, 13 August 1823; 16 May, 26 July 1824; Surname Index, State Historical Society of Missouri, Columbia. 27 Joshua Barton (1788-1823) was born in North Carolina. The brother of David Barton, Missouri's first U.S. senator, Joshua served as the first secretary of state of Missouri, 1820- 1821. Edward Bates, Joshua Barton's friend and law partner, considered Barton the "most accomplished" lawyer he ever knew. Barton died in a duel with Thomas Rector. At the time of the duel, Barton served as the U.S. district attorney for Missouri. John F. Darby, Personal Recollections (St. Louis: G. I. Jones and Company, 1880), 20-21. 28 Born in Virginia, Edward Bates (1793-1869) saw service during the War of 1812 before he arrived in St. Louis in 1814, where he read law with Rufus Easton. Admitted to the bar in 1816, two years later he received the appointment of district attorney for the Missouri Territory. In 1820, as a delegate to the state constitutional convention, he helped frame 14 Missouri Historical Review

Archibald Gamble;29 and his deputies, my special friends; and others belong­ ing to the sheriff's office. We went by the name of the Hill boys, and were regarded by some as a party of some influence in the affairs of the new state of Missouri.30 I know we were a very fastbound party of friends. The sheriff had his apartments on the south side of the large house, the prisoners' rooms in the north end. We had nothing to do with them, nor did we often know

Missouri's first constitution. Bates was elected to the state legislature in 1822, and in 1824 he became the U.S. district attorney for Missouri. He continued to carve out a distinguished legal and political career, capped by President Abraham Lincoln's selection of Bates as his attorney general. Ibid., 248-254. 29 Archibald Gamble (c. 1791-1866) was born in Winchester, Virginia, and immigrated to Missouri in 1816. Although licensed to practice law, Gamble served one year as clerk of the Bank of St. Louis. In 1818 he was appointed clerk of the northern circuit court and recorder of deeds for St. Louis County; he held these posts for eighteen years. Gamble acted as legal agent for the St. Louis public schools and in the 1830s was an active promoter of railroads. He died in St. Louis in 1866. Hyde and Conard, Encyclopedia of the History of St. Louis, s.v. "Gamble, Archibald"; Scharf, Saint Louis City and County, 2: 1469. 30 In the St. Louis Missouri Argus on June 19, 1835, the editor published an article attack­ ing his rival journal, the Missouri Republican. He indicated that the proprietors of the Republican, when it began publishing in 1822 under the leadership of Edward Charless, had been "Joshua Barton, Edward Bates, Beverly [sic] Tucker, Archibald Gamble, James H. Peck and Joseph C. Brown; in a word the chiefs of the 'Hill Faction,' or, as it was sometimes called, the 'Jail Faction.'"

Conrad had rooms in the St. Louis jail building, which was constructed between 1817 and 1819 on the southeast corner of Sixth and Chestnut Streets. State Historical Society of Missouri 7 Well Remember" 15

Joseph C. Brown held a number of public positions in St. Louis during the late territorial period and the early years of statehood.

Missouri Historical Society. St. Louis who were in those rooms. But this poor Indian, brought down by the Sac tribe, I knew had been placed there by Colonel [Henry] Leavenworth, the then commander of the U.S. troops west of the Mississippi, at least of that part of the country, including St. Louis.31 The reason of this was that no U.S. court had yet been established in Missouri. The constitution had only been formed in the summer of 1820, and because of some delay in the admission of the state, no judge was yet resident under the general government. As clerk, I had acted under my excellent friend Judge Harper at the February term. I qualified on the 15th of January 1821, though my commission was dated on the 22nd of December 1820, signed by the first governor of

31 Conrad refers to Henry Leavenworth (1783-1834). Born in New Haven, Connecticut, Leavenworth's father took him to Delhi, New York, where he studied law and became a mem­ ber of the bar in 1804. During the War of 1812, Leavenworth rose from the rank of captain to colonel. In late 1815 he took leave to serve in the New York legislature. Becoming a lieutenant colonel of the Fifth Infantry in February 1818, Leavenworth took part of his regiment to the junc­ tion of the Mississippi and Minnesota Rivers in August 1819 and supervised the construction of a cantonment eventually named Fort Snelling. Transferred to the Sixth Infantry on October 1, 1821, Leavenworth became commandant of Fort Atkinson in present-day Nebraska. His mili­ tary career subsequently took him to Wisconsin and St. Louis, and he oversaw the construction of Fort Leavenworth in 1827. Two years later he commanded Jefferson Barracks in St. Louis. In 1834 Leavenworth was given command of the southwestern frontier, and while carrying out his duties, he became sick with bilious fever and died at Camp Smith near the junction of the Washita and Red Rivers. Dictionary of American Biography, s.v. "Leavenworth, Henry." 16 Missouri Historical Review

Missouri [Alexander McNair] under the state government and countersigned by the secretary of state.32 But I knew that my bond as clerk would be irregu­ lar if executed before I was of age, and I did not qualify until the day on which I was 21. But a court was held in February and one in August and during all this time the poor Indian was held in jail. At the August term 1821 Alexander Gray, Esq.,33 an eminent lawyer (afterwards a judge), was induced for some reason to volunteer to deliver this Indian, and moved in court for a writ of habeas corpus, which I as clerk issued on the order of the judge to bring him before him in court. The Indian was brought down by Mr. Brown, the sheriff, to the court, who returned that he held him on the commitment (of someone) as a murderer of an Indian trader in the upper country. Gray insisted that the commitment was illegal, as he was not subject to the juris­ diction of any court in Missouri for an alleged crime, and one out of her lim­ its, and that he must be discharged. The chancellor decided that such was the law; that he had no criminal jurisdiction; though he supposed that he ought to stand committed by some U.S. authority, but did not decide how far he was subject to military custody, etc. Colonel Leavenworth was present. The marshall of the court declared that he was at liberty. The Indian walked out; the court adjourned, and as I got to the door, I saw Leavenworth take hold of him and say, "I have the custody of him as commandant of U.S. forces here, and I'll take him." Again no resistance was made, and Leavenworth, the Sheriff Brown, and our Hill boys walked together with the Indian, and the colonel to the jail again. The poor Indian said nothing, looked very unwell,

32 Born in Mifflin County, Pennsylvania, Alexander McNair (1775-1826) commanded a company during the Whiskey Rebellion and served in the U.S. provisional army in 1799 and 1800. He immigrated to St. Louis in 1804. McNair engaged in a variety of mercantile ven­ tures and held several public offices during his first two decades in Missouri. In 1805 he was appointed an associate justice of the court of common pleas, and in 1808 he was one of the first trustees elected after the town of St. Louis was incorporated. He also held the offices of sheriff of St. Louis County, U.S. marshall of the Missouri Territory, and register of lands in St. Louis. In June 1820, McNair served in the state constitutional convention; two months later he defeated the popular territorial governor, William Clark, for election as the state's first gov­ ernor. Following his term as governor, McNair became a federal agent to the Osage Indians. Walter B. Stevens, "Alexander McNair," in Buel Leopard and Floyd C Shoemaker, comps. and eds., The Messages and Proclamations of the Governors of the State of Missouri (Columbia: State Historical Society of Missouri, 1922-1965), 1: 3-14; Frederic L. Billon, Annals of St. Louis in its Territorial Days From 1804 to 1821 (St. Louis: privately printed, 1888), 18,20,32, 124, 127,208. 33 Very little is known about Alexander Gray's early life. He attained the rank of captain during the War of 1812 and arrived in Missouri in 1816. He first settled in Cape Girardeau but then migrated to St. Louis, where he opened a law practice. Described as vain, Gray was noted particularly for his success at criminal law, which helped him gain appointment as a judge of the St. Louis circuit court. He later served as a judge of the circuit comprising St. Charles, Montgomery, and Howard Counties. Developing "intemperate and dissolute" habits, Gray died sometime in 1826. Scharf, Saint Louis City and Count}1, 2: 1476; W. V N. Bay, Reminiscences of the Bench and Bar of Missouri (St. Louis: F H. Thomas and Company, 1878), 55-56. "/ Well Remember' 17

A native of Connecticut, Henry Leavenworth spent the bulk of his mili­ tary career on the western frontier.

Frontier Army Museum, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas

but perfectly tranquil. And as I knew Colonel Leavenworth, I asked him as a matter of interest that I felt in the poor creature, that I might be allowed to ask him a few questions. He assented. I asked him "if he was sick?" He said, "Yes." "Where he was sick?" He laid his hand on his stomach. I asked him "if he was ready to die," for I thought he regarded this preliminary talk in the courthouse as his trial for life. He looked at the colonel, whom he knew and who had cared for him, and said he was ready, as calmly as if he was talking of his supper. The colonel admitted that he was "game." I told him he was not to die yet; he was not yet tried. I then found that the brutes who brought him from the Indian country had drawn his arms back and had run a stick, sharpened at both ends, through and through the fleshy parts of his arms, above his elbows, and had tied a string or thong in the middle of it, and thus delivered him to the authorities. I looked at his arms, and they were still sore. Well, he was cured and attended to, and was, to save all trouble, carried over to Illinois, and tried for his life at Vandalia, before the U.S. judge there. He made no complaint or defense, though as a matter of right had counsel assigned him. He was condemned and executed there.34 I heard

34 The ninth volume of the Missouri Historical Society's Glimpses of the Past (January- June 1942) includes "Reports of the Fur Trade and Inland Trade to Mexico, 1831." Included in these reports is a record of persons killed by Indians while engaged in the fur trade from 1815 to 1831 (p. 35). Compiled from reports by William H. Ashley, Indian agents John Dougherty, 18 Missouri Historical Revievs of his bearing from bystanders at his execution. They said he was passive, and apparently stupid, until he was brought to the gallows, the rope around his neck, and the certainty of his death thus assured to him. He then asked leave to sing his death song, which he did. He recounted his former deeds of daring against the whites; he said they were his enemies, the enemies of his race, that he gloried in the scalps of a certain number (I don't recollect how many) that were hanging up yet in his lodge—all white men's scalps—wished there were more of them, as there would have been, if he had lived. He said he had done nothing that he was ashamed of, or sorry for, and closed his recitative by expressing his joy that he was now going to the land of the good spirit, and brave Indians, and that he was ready to die. Those who heard him were astonished at the bold joyous strain of his Death Song, and the striking change in his appearance and manner. This last part was hearsay, of course, as I was not there, but the circumstances of his death were public, notorious, and much commented on. He made, I think, some explanation of the provocation which produced the death of the trader, but said it was his lot to be the sacrifice for his nation, and he was content. There were various relics of the former governments French and Spanish left, and somewhat curious, when I first arrived in St. Louis. On the upper range or terrace of land west of the town, there were at various points, round towers of stone or martello towers, one of which had been used as a prison. These were known to have been erected by the Spanish government as defenses or forts. They were marked features in the view of the town, and at the northern extremity of the range was a large stone fort, or bastion, in pretty good preservation.35 The town had already come up to

Joshua Pilcher, and others, plus the letterbook of the superintendent of Indian affairs, only one trader's death is listed during 1820, the time that Conrad recalls the trial of the Sac Indian. In 1820, Louis Lecompte, an employee of Silvestre Pratte, was killed by the Sac and Fox near the Omaha village on the Missouri River. Two Sac warriors were tried and acquitted of the trader's death. No record has been located of the first trial in which the Indian that Conrad refers to was released. The record of the trial held at Vandalia, Illinois, was destroyed by a fire in the Chicago branch of the National Archives. A listing of the "Complete Record, 1819-1824" for the U.S. District Court, Southern Division (Springfield), which included Vandalia, does not mention the case. William T. Hagan, in his study of the Sac and Fox, reports an 1821 incident where a Sac delegation brought two murderers of a Frenchman and four Oto prisoners to St. Louis for trial. Because of insufficient evidence, the two alleged murderers were released. LeRoy R. Hafen, ed., French Fur Traders and Voyageurs in the American West (Spokane, Wash.: Arthur H. Clark Company, 1995), 310; General Records, U.S. District Court, Southern District of Illinois, Southern Division (Springfield), Complete Record, 1819-1824, Record Group 21, National Archives-Great Lakes Region, Chicago; Hagan, The Sac and Fox Indians, 88. 35 Martello towers were small circular forts used in Europe for coastal defense. Conrad's recollection of the placement and number of towers is faulty. During the American Revolution, in 1780, to protect St. Louis from the British and their Indian allies, four towers were planned for construction, one at each corner of the village. The western tower, with the exception of the parapet and the roof, was built. The tower on the north side was only partial­ ly constructed before the defense fund was depleted. March, History of Missouri, 1: 51; Charles van Ravenswaay, Saint Louis: An Informal History of the City and its People, 1764- 1865, ed. Candace O'Connor (St. Louis: Missouri Historical Society Press, 1991), 43. "/ Well Remember" 19

The stone tower that Conrad men­ tions was constructed by the Spanish during the American Revolution. It later served as a jail.

State Historical Society of Missouri these old landmarks, and has now long since, I am told, gone beyond them. On the north, and some distance then from the town, was a great mound of earth, perhaps thirty feet high or more, shaped like the mound of a grave, and below it nearer the river a series of accurately formed terraces running down to the Mississippi, from the edge of the highest land. These were gigantic works, manifestly artificial, and of unknown age and origin. The walk to the "grand mound" and the "falling garden," so-called, was a favorite one with the citizens. The existing tribes of Indians had no tradition of them as structures of their people, but a vague belief that they were the works of a race of white men who preceded them in the past time—but they were not as they said the long knives—English, French, or Spaniards.36 They could not have been the Norsemen. Who were they? I inquired myself of some Indians, to know whether they could tell of their origin, and this was what they said. They must have been the works of a numerous population, for like structures, in the form of conical and square and oblong mounds, are observable in various parts of the country on both sides of the river. The present races of red men make no such erections, nor have they ever had the population, or the skill to make such gigantic structures. In Ohio, as I passed through the state, I observed large forts, or regular earth fortifications of immense extent, on which ancient forest trees were grow­ ing. The terraces of the "falling garden" seem to have been intended for immense assemblages of people; but all is conjecture as to their uses, and as

36 Long knife was an Indian reference to a white settler or frontiersman. The term was first used in the late 1770s to describe a Virginian. William A. Craigie and James R. Hulbert, eds., A Dictionary of American English (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1942), 3: 1449. 20 Missouri Historical Review to the people who preceded our present race of dark colored aborigines.37 I shall ever feel grateful for the kind reception which I met with on my advent to Missouri. My townsman Archibald Gamble, clerk of the circuit court; Edward Bates; Joshua Barton and his brothers;38 Beverley Tucker;39 Judge Harper and their friends and connections extended to me the welcome of cordial friends. I became identified with them in their views of state poli­ cy; almost all my intimates were Virginians, some of them Kentuckians and Tennesseans, very few of the northern states. It is a fact that the most promi­ nent officers of the territory were Virginians. The governor, Clark. The lieu­ tenant governor, Frederick Bates.40 The Sheriff Brown. The Rectors, a large family at the head of whom was General William Rector, the U.S. surveyor of

37 Conrad refers to mounds apparently constructed by prehistoric peoples in the Mississippi River valley in the St. Louis and western Illinois area. In 1810 Henry Brackenridge noted nine mounds in the St. Louis environs. The largest one measured about 30 feet high and 150 feet long; its top was approximately five to six feet wide. It was destroyed in 1869, with the dirt used as fill for a railroad construction project. Henry M. Brackenridge, Views of Louisiana (1814; reprint, Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1962), 189; Scharf, Saint Louis City and County, 1: 95-96. Brackenridge places the "Falling Garden" to the south of the mounds on the second bank of the river. It comprised three large steps and may have been used for public assem­ blies. Brackenridge, Views of Louisiana, 189. In his 1821 directory, Paxton notes that Elias Rector owned the Mound Garden and had leased it to James Gray, who had planted flowers and shrubbery. The residents of St. Louis used it for recreational purposes (p. 262). 38 Joshua Barton (see note 27) was the middle of three brothers who emigrated to Missouri from Greenville, North Carolina (now Tennessee), in the 1810s. The oldest, David (1783-1837), came to the territory around 1809 or 1810; Joshua and Isaac (1798-1842) fol­ lowed a few years later. The first U.S. senator from Missouri, David had served as attorney general of the territory, a circuit court judge, and as speaker of the territorial legislature in 1818. He also presided over the 1820 state constitutional convention and played an influen­ tial role in the drafting of the constitution, often referred to as the "Barton Constitution." David Barton served in the U.S. Senate for ten years and in the Missouri state senate in 1834- 1835. He died in Boonville in 1837. Charles van Ravenswaay, "The Tragedy of David Barton," Bulletin of the Missouri Historical Society 1 (October 1950): 35-52. Like his brothers David and Joshua, Isaac Barton was licensed to practice law. He served as clerk of the U.S. district court in Missouri from 1822 until his death in 1842. Ibid., 47 n; Scharf, St. Louis City and County, 2: 1461. 39 Nathaniel Beverley Tucker (1784-1851) was born in Chesterfield County, Virginia, and graduated from the College of William and Mary in 1801. He studied law and, when not serving during the War of 1812, enjoyed a middling practice in Virginia until 1815 when he migrated to St. Louis. After three years as a lawyer there, he was appointed as a judge of the northern judicial circuit and served in that capacity until 1823. A rabid opponent of the Missouri Compromise, Tucker had spoken of secession as early as 1820. He left St. Louis and moved to Saline County in 1831-1832. He returned to Virginia during the winter of 1833-1834 and accepted an appointment at William and Mary as a professor of law. A half brother of John Randolph, Tucker wrote books on political econo­ my that expressed his states rightist views and corresponded with a number of the South's political leaders, including John C. Calhoun and Jefferson Davis. Dictionary of American Biography, s.v. "Tucker, Nathaniel Beverley"; Shoemaker, Missouri Day by Day, 2: 158-159. 40 Conrad misidentified Frederick Bates (1777-1825) as lieutenant governor. On three occasions, however, Bates did serve as "acting" governor of the Louisiana and Missouri '7 Well Remember" 21 the public lands in Missouri, Illinois, and Arkansas, commanding a large patronage and influence in consequence of the vast tracts of new land that had to be surveyed and put into market by the general government.41 This family was from Fauquier County, Virginia. The president [Thomas F Riddick]42 and cashier [Angus Langham]43 of the Bank of Missouri and the clerk of the

Territories. He was born in Goochland County, Virginia. At a young age he embarked upon a career as a businessman and served as postmaster and in the office of the Goochland County recorder before moving to Detroit. He again became involved in the mercantile business and also gained the appointment of deputy postmaster. President Thomas Jefferson named him the first U.S. judge for the Michigan Territory in 1805. Jefferson appointed Bates the secretary of the Louisiana Territory and recorder of land titles in 1807. When the Missouri Territory was established in 1812, he continued in the office of secretary and stayed in that position until 1820. During that time he played a prominent part in the development and codification of the territorial code. He served as recorder of land titles until 1824. In 1808 he completed the Laws of the Territory of Louisiana, the first book pub­ lished in Missouri. In 1824 Bates became the second governor of Missouri, defeating William H. Ashley in a spirited election. Bates's term as governor was short as he died from pleurisy on August 4, 1825. Charles W. Bates and Edward J. White, "Frederick Bates," in Leopard and Shoemaker, Messages and Proclamations of the Governors, 1: 71-77; Shoemaker, Missouri Day by Day, 1: 417-418. 41 William Rector ( -1826) was one of nine sons and four daughters born to Frederick and Elizabeth Connor Rector in Fauquier County, Virginia. He left Virginia in 1806 and moved to Illinois, where he became deputy surveyor general of the Kaskaskia district. In 1812 he was appointed brigadier general of the Illinois troops. Rector moved to St. Louis in mid-1816 after receiving the appointment as surveyor general of the Illinois, Missouri, and Arkansas Territories. Several of his siblings (including Elias, see note 16) had followed him to Illinois; they also joined him in Missouri. Rector soon became prominent in the economic and political affairs of the territory. He was elected as a director of the Bank of St. Louis in 1817 and served as a delegate to the state constitutional convention in 1820. Rector employed several of his brothers and nephews as deputy surveyors. Charges of nepotism against Rector made by Joshua Barton in 1823 led to the latter's death in a duel with Thomas C. Rector, a younger brother of William. Rector's appointment as surveyor general was revoked in 1824, and he died in Illinois in 1826. Shinn, Pioneers and Makers of Arkansas, 378-401; Billon, Annals of St. Louis . . . 1804 to 1821, 86; Franklin Missouri Intelligencer, 16 June 1826. 42 Thomas F. Riddick, born in Suffolk, Virginia, on June 5, 1781, arrived in St. Louis in 1803. Four years later Riddick was appointed the St. Louis district's assessor of rates and levies and clerk of the court of common pleas and quarter sessions. Riddick served three terms as a justice of the peace. He also was appointed deputy recorder of land titles. A member of the 1820 constitutional convention, Riddick served as the Bank of Missouri's second president, a short-lived experience of six months prior to the bank's closure in 1821. He died in Jefferson County in 1830. Billon, Annals of St. Louis . . . 1804 to 1821, 21, 188-189; Foley and Rice, The First Chouteaus, 178; Shoemaker, Missouri Day by Day, 1: 379. 43 From 1808 until 1816, Virginia-born Angus L. Langham ( -1834) spent periods of time in the army, beginning his tours of duty as an ensign and finishing as a captain with a brevet of major. After his 1816 resignation, Langham came to the Missouri Territory and located in St. Louis, where he became the cashier and a director of the Bank of Missouri. Langham also speculated in land, purchasing property in St. Louis and throughout the territory. He was one of the founders of the town of Osage in present-day Osage County. Langham tried to convince the state to locate the permanent capital on some four hun­ dred acres of land he supposedly owned at Cote sans Dessein. The state rejected his proposal since he used a fraudulent New Madrid land certificate as proof of ownership. Ironically, Langham benefited from the decision to locate the capital at Jefferson City, as he was one of the owners of part of the ground chosen for the site. 22 Missouri Historical Review principal court44 were from Virginia, and the attorney for the commonwealth45 and several of the territorial judges.46 There were many also from Kentucky and Tennessee as well as some from South Carolina. The Southern influence was largely and decidedly predominant. This was the period of the pendency of the Missouri question, the first indication of that sectional strife which was destined to grow and intensify, until the small cloud in the horizon no bigger than a man's hand, should become a dark pall of dense cloud overshadowing the whole land, and send forth the awful thunder of civil war— "blood, and fire, and vapor of sulphurous smoke" over the devastated South. I have watched the ominous storm tokens anxiously ever since. I have, I may say, foreseen its awful results by its portentous mutterings; my public speeches and private letters would show it, from that day to this. The feeling was deep in Missouri then, it was confidently stated that she would have raised the standard of secession if the bill admitting the territory into the U.S. had con­ tained the clause restrictive of slavery. From what I saw and heard, I believe

Langham surveyed a new road from Iron Banks to Chariton in 1824 and spent the late 1820s as a surveyor in present-day Kansas. He died in the Arkansas Territory on August 28, 1834. St. Louis Missouri Gazette, 26 May 1819; 8 November 1818; Franklin Missouri Intelligencer, 25 February 1820; 24 February 1824; Louise Barry, The Beginning of the West: Annals of the Kansas Gateway to the American West, 1540-1854 (Topeka: Kansas State Historical Society, 1972), 134, 140-141, 151; Jonas Viles, "The Capitals and Capitols of Missouri," Missouri Historical Review 13 (January 1919): 154-155; Columbia Missouri Intelligencer, 27 September 1834; F. B. Heitman, Historical Register of the United States Army . . . September 29, 1789, to September 29, 1889 (Washington, D.C: The National Tribune, 1890), 399. 44 Conrad may be referring to Archibald Gamble, who became clerk of the northern cir­ cuit court in 1818. Scharf, St. Louis City and County, 2: 1469; see also note 29. 45 Conrad may be referring to Edward Bates, whom Governor Clark appointed district attorney for the territory in 1818. After serving as a delegate to the constitutional convention in 1820, Bates became attorney general of the new state. Scharf, St. Louis City and County, 2: 1464; see also note 28. 46 At the time of Conrad's arrival in St. Louis at the end of 1819, two of the three superi­ or court judges and one of the three circuit court judges either had been born in or had lived in Virginia. Silas Bent, a superior court judge since 1813, was born in Massachusetts but studied law and owned a mercantile business for several years in Virginia. See note 59. Alexander Stuart (1770-1832) was born in Virginia and practiced law there before serving as a territorial judge in the Kaskaskia district of Illinois. He came to St. Louis about 1808 and was appointed to the superior court in 1814. He resigned his commission in 1820 to run for the state legislature. He later served as a circuit court judge, 1823-1826, and again in the state house of representatives. In 1826 he was unanimously chosen as speaker of the house. Stuart died during a visit to Virginia in 1832. Louis Houck, A History of Missouri (Chicago: R. R. Donnelley and Sons Company, 1908), 3: 10-11 n; Clarence E. Carter, ed., Louisiana-Missouri Territory, 1806-1814, vol. 14 of The Territorial Papers of the United States (Washington, D.C: Government Printing Office, 1949), 740-741; Carter, ed., Louisiana-Missouri Territory, 1815-1821, vol. 15 of ibid., 634-635; St. Louis Missouri Republican, 1 December 1826. Nathaniel Beverley Tucker, also a native of Virginia, was judge of the northern circuit court from 1818 to 1823. See note 39. '7 Well Remember" 23

Virginia-born Thomas F. Riddick suc­ ceeded Auguste Chouteau as president of the Bank of Missouri in 1820.

State Historical Society of Missouri

it. . . . I was a participant in the rejoicings on the passage of the Missouri compromise bill—well named!47 Great national questions of policy, involv­ ing vital political and social rights, cannot be compromised. They must be recognized, and adopted, or be given up and abandoned. . . . There were some strange old customs kept up in St. Louis when I first landed there. A few evenings after I had settled in my boardinghouse, I heard an out­ cry, as of fire. I found on going with some of my fellow boarders to the scene that it was what was called a shivaree—a mock or masquerade cere­ mony of greeting to a newly married couple. I was told it occurred when there was something disproportionate in the union, as where an elderly widow married a young man or an old widower, a young woman. The maskers, or mummers, were in the street, before the door of the mansion where the wedding festivities were going on. Men with vast deer's antlers on their heads and other strange decorations, with torches, and horns, and tin pans to beat on, were vociferating and making a most dissonant noise. The object was to enforce from the newly married pair a present for some public purpose, the church or the poor. The yells were tremendous. I could hear

47 Conrad refers to the Missouri Compromise of March 3, 1820, in which the U.S. Congress admitted Missouri as a slave state, Maine as a free state, and with the exception of Missouri, denied slavery in the land comprising the Louisiana Purchase north of 36°30'. See Glover Moore, The Missouri Controversy, 1819-1821 (Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 1953). 24 Missouri Historical Review some jargon in French such as this: "Shivaree" (by the crowd); response (from someone) "Pour qui." "Monsieur A. et Madame B." And then a tinta- marre [noise or racket] and horns blown, etc. I was told that when the demand was too high, and the wedded party held out, it continued for days; if they removed out of town to escape the racket, the serenaders followed them, so that at last they had to give in, and pay sometimes an increased imposition on the fine. It was very picturesque, but very strange to me who had never heard of the custom. There was no insult or violence offered, and I was informed that some of the most respectable people of the town were among the noisy crowd, "en masque." They had also king balls among the French, where the lady as queen of ball no. 1 salutes any gentleman she pleases, who is then king of the next. He chooses his queen, makes her a costly present, generally a ball dress (and the more expensive, the more kingly he is), and so the balls go on through the whole carnival for some weeks before Lent.48 I never was an attendant, but I know that some of my friends, among the rest, Colonel [Willoughby] Morgan, had to foot a heavy bill for the coronation robes of his queen, some pretty French girl of the humbler class.49 These queer customs, and the strange language and manners of the people, struck me very forcibly as a young newcomer to the place. I mention them as what happened 50 years ago, and are perhaps now obsolete. In St. Louis, gambling was very much the fashion, and on a ruinous scale, among all classes, and produced its usual results. The game of brag

48 The king balls, a custom in the French communities of Upper Louisiana, began on Twelfth Night and continued until Shrove Tuesday. At the Twelfth Night ball the women were served a cake containing four beans. Each of the four women receiving a slice contain­ ing a bean chose a king. These kings sponsored the next ball, where four more queens were chosen, who in turn selected four new kings to hold the succeeding ball, and so throughout the Lenten season. Hyde and Conard, Encyclopedia of the History of St. Louis, s.v. "King's Ball." 49 Although no Morgan is listed in Paxton's 1821 St. Louis directory or found in Billon's Annals of St. Louis . . . 1804 to 1821, letters for Colonel Willoughby Morgan (1785-1832) are mentioned in the Missouri Gazette as being held for him in St. Louis for the 1816-1820 peri­ od. Born in Winchester, Virginia, his father, General Daniel Morgan of Revolutionary War fame, sent him to be reared in South Carolina. Well-educated there, Willoughby Morgan returned to Winchester to practice law. During the War of 1812, he raised a company to fight the British. He participated in the Battle of Fort George (May 1813). Morgan had begun his military career with the Twelfth Infantry and was transferred to the Fifth Infantry in 1819, to the Sixth Infantry in June 1821, and to the Third Infantry in 1829. From 1816 until 1832 Morgan was stationed at various frontier posts. He periodically served as commandant of Fort Crawford. He also saw duty or commanded garrisons at Forts Armstrong and Snelling. From the fall of 1819 until his transfer to the Sixth Infantry in 1821, Morgan, a lieutenant colonel at the time, was stationed at Fort Atkinson. Heitman, Historical Register, All; Draper Manuscript Collection, 22 S, 216-219, State Historical Society of Wisconsin, Madison; Bruce E. Mahan, Old Fort Crawford and the Frontier (Iowa City: State Historical Society of Iowa, 1926), 332; Thomas G. Shaw, assistant site manager, Historic Fort Snelling, Minnesota Historical Society, letter to James W. Goodrich, 7 August 1995. (iI Well Remember" 25 was the rage, and some of my special friends, industrious, hardworking, successful professional men, seemed to resort to it as a relaxation from the severity of their professional labors and studies.50 This passion, it seemed to me, was fostered by the state of the land titles, leading to speculation in lands. The Spanish titles were subjects for this; the New Madrid certificates were fruitful sources of it. These last were claims to locate on public lands elsewhere in the state, by virtue of certificates, which were passed from hand to hand, given to those whose lands had been injured in the earth­ quakes of the winter of 1811-12, the center and chief locality of which was the country about New Madrid, the county south of the junction of the Ohio with the Mississippi.51 The habits of the Creole population furthered the habit, and whatever was the cause, certainly, I never saw a community more addicted to high play than that of St. Louis about fifty years ago. I must relate a good result which this very practice had upon me. I was young, excitable and liable to be led astray. A few weeks after my arrival, my old friend and townsman, Archibald Gamble, gave an evening entertain­ ment chiefly on my account, as he said, to a large number of his friends, in his rooms above his office, who were of the choicest of the society in St. Louis. Judges and eminent barristers and clerks and bank officers were pre­ sent. The card tables were set out, and the parties of players formed. I had hardly learned at my old home to know more than the names of the cards, from the few games of whist which I had played, for fun with the young ladies, at certain parties of young people, and had never betted money on them.52 I declined the brag and loo tables and sat by, looking on, the sole spectator in the company.53 My host came to me and whispered that it would seem very odd if I did not join in some of them. I told him of my ignorance of the games and disinclination to bet. "Oh," said he, "just for appearance sake join the loo party, and they will make an allowance for you, and slip out

50 Brag is an English card game similar to poker. 51 In 1815 the U.S. Congress passed an act enabling those persons who had lands dam­ aged by the New Madrid earthquake to exchange that land for other public domain lands in the Missouri Territory. Only public lands containing lead deposits or salt springs were exempted. The maximum amount that could be claimed was 640 acres; persons owning less than a quarter section could claim 160 acres. Land speculators, many from St. Louis, immedi­ ately descended on the New Madrid area to buy damaged lands before residents became aware of the act's provisions. Some landowners sold the same acreage to more than one buyer, thus compounding the redemption problems. Vacillation on the part of Secretary of the Treasury William H. Crawford about whether the right of preemption applied to Howard County lands in the rich central part of the state added to the confusion. As a result many New Madrid land certificate holders sought to claim lands already improved by others. March, History of Missouri, 1: 237-240; Foley, History of Missouri, 1673-1820, 170-172. 52 Whist is an early form of bridge. 53 Loo is an abbreviated term for the French card game lanterloo, in which each player forfeits his stakes to a pool. 26 Missouri Historical Review as soon as you can." I knew that he was my good friend, so he introduced me and I was admitted into the number around the loo table. I was supplied with counters of two sorts, one set round, of mother of pearl, others like fish. I went on and played away as well as I could to the great annoyance, I suppose, of the others, and yet I won largely, loaned out counters to many of them, and kept on winning more. At last I saw that I was "de trop" [unwelcome] and proposed that I should withdraw. They said they thought it best for me, and for them too, for I really was in their way, and my luck might turn. Someone took up those counters which I had accumulated and put them on the mantel­ piece, and I went to bed. In the morning my host congratulated me on my luck at cards; said I had won a right sound sum; that he owed, I forget how much. I. C. L. owed me $25. E. L. $15.54 R[ufus] P[ettibone] sixty-odd dol­ lars, and the whole board my excess of counters, in all something near or over $200.55 I was astonished, and indeed alarmed. I was the owner of but a few

54 I. C. L. (or J. C. L.) and E. L. have not been identified. Conrad's handwriting makes it difficult at times to distinguish between his capital Is and Js. 55 Born in Litchfield, Connecticut, Rufus Pettibone (1784-1825) graduated from Williams College in 1805. He was licensed to practice law in New York in 1808. Four years later Pettibone won election to the New York legislature. In 1817 he arrived in St. Louis and became a law partner of Rufus Easton. When Missouri became a state, Pettibone was appointed judge of the circuit comprising the counties of Gasconade, Callaway, Montgomery, Pike, Ralls, Lincoln, and St. Charles. At that time he left St. Louis and moved to St. Charles. Pettibone became a justice of the state supreme court in 1823. He and Henry S. Geyer revised Missouri's laws in 1824-1825. Bay, Reminiscences of the Bench and Bar, 98-100; Scharf, Saint Louis City and County, 2: 1463.

State Historical Society of Missouri

Archibald Gamble, a native of Conrad's hometown, helped the young lawyer gain entrance into the influential political and social circles of St. Louis. "/ Well Remember" 27 hundred for my expenses, until I could get into practice. I asked him what those counters represented. "The round ones were each $1, and the fish $5," he told me, and said that was nothing to their bets at brag which were fifty dollars at every bet made. I determined on my course and got his assent to the plan after his pressing me to receive what he owed me. "No," said I, "I will begin with you, and will receive none of this money, and then I can break off from all play for money. I am poor, and I can't stand this expensive style of amusement. I will play no more for money." He agreed and I carried out my plan with some difficulty, but I did carry it out. As to some of my debtors, they said nothing about it, as I said nothing, and they never encoun­ tered me again at the card table. As to I. C. L., he, I knew, would never pay me. So he assented readily to cancel his indebtedness, but another one was a bank officer, a fine generous fellow, but I knew that he was touchy on the point of honor. When he offered to pay me, I told him to wait until I wanted it, he agreed, and so put him off for a long time. But once or twice he would recur to the subject until I told him flatly that he owed me nothing, though he was always claiming to owe me money. He said that he could not tell what it was, or where he incurred it, but he had a strong impression that he owed me 15 dollars but I faced him down, that it was settled long ago, and I had no claim on him. With R[ufus] P[ettibone] who was an eminent lawyer and afterwards a judge, I took a different course. He was perhaps twenty years my senior, and I met him at Jefferson court shortly after our card party. He came to me with the sixty-odd dollars and apologized for not paying sooner; said he had, however, received some fees, and tendered it. I said, "Mr. P., before I take this money, will you let me ask your advice, as my senior in years and professional standing?" I then stated to him my situation, my desire to avoid all play for money, and asked him as a favor not to press me to take it, as it would spoil a good resolution. "Well, but," said he, "I owe you the money borrowed of you, take it, and then keep your resolution." "Don't you see," said I, "that if I do that, I can't conscientiously play out my game. I did not even know what I was playing for, I should feel bound to lose it to you, and you know that would only involve me in further debts, or gains of gambling. Now I pray you let me decline it." He looked at me in silence for a while. Said he, "Mr. C, the money is yours, if you will take it, now, or demand it at any time, but I must, and will say, you are wise in your resolu­ tion. I rarely play myself and I think it would be better if I followed your plan myself." So I got rid of my "l'embarras du richesse" [embarrassment of riches] with this last debtor and kept my resolution. .. .

[Two pages are missing from the original manuscript.] 28 Missouri Historical Review

... I had last seen him [Angus McDonald]56 as he left his cousin's house a few miles west of St. Louis (Major Angus Langham's). He was sick then, with ague and fever (and he said, afterwards), cured himself by going into the cold water of the Missouri River when he felt a chill coming on and stood up to his chin in it until the fit passed off, and as he assured me, it never returned. Perfectly alone, and in that condition he made his way to his Indian destination. More than a year after, perhaps two years, I was seated in my office, writing, as I am now, but upon my chancery records, when someone stepped in behind me. I looked round and saw what I frequently saw, in those times when the Indians would come down for their money, under their various treaties, in the summer, and spend their time wandering over the town, walking, without knocking, into any house, with their catlike tread on their soft, noiseless moccasins. I looked over my shoulder and saw one of them (as I supposed) and merely used their own brief salutation, "How dye do." He walked in front of my table where I continued to write, stood still before me. He was dressed in one of the fan­ tastic styles that they would sometimes adopt in imitation of the costume of the Whites. He had on a frock coat and pantaloons, very clumsily made, of grass green cloth, a fur cape, and moccasins. I repeated my salutation, hard­ ly looking up, when he said in an angry tone, "Is this the greeting that you give to a townsman, an old friend, one raised with you from childhood?" I sprang up. It was Angus. My first silly impulse was to laugh until I could hardly stand or speak. He got more and more angry, and I knew it was time to stop that. I then told him, on my honor, that I did not know him. He had been bronzed into the complexion of an Indian. His dress was so singular that he saw it was the truth. He told me that when [he?] was coming down the river from the Indian [country he had?] on only the buckskin leggins and hunting shirt, [words missing] he had left, and they worn to tatters; that in [words missing] [could?] not procure any cloth to make him clothes, [words missing] [re]mnant of billiard table cloth among the remains of h[is goods?] and thought he would get that made up to clothe him until he could get to St. Louis, and that the outfit was the handiwork of a Dutch tailor there. He said he had slipped into my quarters as soon as he could and would abide with his old crony until he could be made presentable to the townsfolks,

56 Angus McDonald (1799-1864) was born in Winchester a year before Conrad and grad­ uated from West Point in 1817. Assigned to New Orleans, then to Mobile Bay in Alabama, he resigned from the army in 1819 and headed west, ending up in St. Louis. McDonald took a position of clerk for the Missouri Fur Company. He was elevated to interpreter and chief clerk and made a full partner in the company. In its second year of existence, the company's failure to make a profit cost McDonald dearly. During the Civil War, he served with the Seventh Virginia Cavalry. McDonald, who suffered from severe rheumatism, was captured in 1864. After his parole he went to Richmond, where he became seriously ill and died at the home of a daughter, Mrs. Thomas C. Green. Flora McDonald Williams, The Glengarry McDonalds of Virginia (Louisville, Ky.: G. G. Fetter Company, 1911), 55, 56, 59, 60, 96, 97; Quarles, Some Worthy Lives, 150-152. "1 Well Remember" 29

Angus McDonald

Handley Library Archives, Winchester, Virginia which he soon effected, and then looked like the same manly, stalwart, strik­ ing-looking man, but not so much like a green Kickapoo chief. I spent many happy, but varied, times in his company afterwards; in our political cam­ paigns; in a visit which he made to me when he returned from Missouri in deep wrath against Leavenworth, whom, he said, had insulted him in his report of his (Leavenworth's) expedition against these same Rickaree Indians, calling him "one McDonald, a fur trader," for which he vowed he would demand personal satisfaction, and was going then to Washington to do so.57 I tried to calm him and persuade him to be prudent. I followed him

57 In the summer of 1823 Colonel Henry Leavenworth led the first U.S. military expedi­ tion against Indians west of the Mississippi River, the Arikara Campaign of 1823. In early June of that year the Arikara (also known as Rickarees or Rees) had killed or wounded twenty-four of William H. Ashley's fur traders. Leavenworth, upon learning of Ashley's misfortune, decid­ ed to march against the Arikara, whose villages were located in present-day South Dakota. In July Leavenworth's expedition was joined by Ashley and his men and by Joshua Pilcher, pres­ ident of the Missouri Fur Company and an Indian subagent. Pilcher brought with him some forty men, including Angus McDonald who captained the Indian Command of some four hun­ dred to five hundred Yankton and Sioux. The expedition reached the Arikara villages in forty-eight days. Leavenworth's indeci- siveness after reaching the villages caused the campaign to flounder. Langham's Indian Command had distinguished itself in the early fighting. But they quickly tired of Leavenworth's vacillating and inept leadership and abandoned the expedition, which ended ingloriously and created great animosity between the tempestuous Pilcher and Leavenworth, as well as Langham and Leavenworth. Conrad apparently had written about the Arikara in the two missing pages of his "Recollections." Hiram Martin Chittenden, The American Fur Trade of the Far West (Stanford, Calif.: Academic Reprints, 1954), 588-606; John E. Sunder, Joshua Pilcher: Fur Trader and Indian Agent (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1968), 41-48. 30 Missouri Historical Review to Shepherdstown [present-day West Virginia], slept in the room with him and got him to promise me not to seek Colonel L[eavenworth]. "But," said he, "if I see him it must be settled." Fortunately they did not meet and no encounter followed. I spent some days at his house in Romney [present-day West Virginia] during the presidential canvass of 1844. He was the same warmhearted, outspoken, fearless descendant of the old Glengarry McDonalds. He was sent to England by the state of Virginia to obtain some evidence from their old records which might clear up the question relating to the boundary lines between Maryland and Virginia. I saw him last in the spring of 1861 at the beginning of the Civil War. He came to see me from Harpers Ferry and stayed all night with me. His sons are, several of them, if not all of them, distinguished graduates of the university. I wish one of them (if it can be compassed) would give a biography of their father to the world, for he was as marked a man as any chieftain of his paternal clan ever was, with the advantages of an education at our military school at West Point. On his graduation there, he was made an officer in the army, some­ where about the year 1819 or 1820. I need only make record of this brief and imperfect sketch of my friend and schoolmate. . . . I was intimate with Charles Bent who gave the name to Bent's fort.58 He was the son of Judge [Silas] Bent, who resided a mile or thereabouts below St. Louis on the bank of the river, a venerable old gentleman whose signature is affixed to my license as a practitioner of law in the Territory of Missouri.59

58 The oldest son of Silas Bent, Charles Bent (1799-1847) was born in Charleston, Virginia (present-day West Virginia). He joined the Missouri Fur Company in 1822, and three years later he partnered with Joshua Pilcher. Bent left the fur trade for the Santa Fe trade in 1829. He and Ceran St. Vrain established Bent, St. Vrain and Company in 1830. It became the largest mercantile firm in the Southwest. In 1833 the company constructed Bent's Fort near the Purgatoire River. Sometime in the 1830s Bent moved to Taos and became involved in New Mexican politics, becoming allied with Governor Manuel Armijo. During the Mexican War, General Stephen Watts Kearney appointed Bent as the first American territorial governor of New Mexico. He was killed by insurgents during the Taos Rebellion of 1847. See David Lavender, Bent's Fort (Garden City, N.Y: Doubleday and Company, 1954); Lamar, Reader's Encyclopedia of the American West, s.v. "Bent, Charles." 59 Conrad refers to Silas Bent (1768-1827). Born in Rutland, Massachusetts, and one of the first settlers in present-day Marietta, Ohio, Bent left there to study law in Wheeling, Virginia (present-day West Virginia). He then traveled to Charleston, (West) Virginia, and started a mercantile business. Before he came to Missouri, Bent also served as a postmaster, a judge, and a surveyor. In July 1806, he was appointed deputy surveyor for the Louisiana Territory, arriving in St. Louis in mid-September of that year. In 1807 Bent became the first judge of the court of common pleas and quarter sessions. A year later he was chosen to audit the public accounts of the St. Louis district. He became presiding judge of the court of com­ mon pleas in 1809. President James Madison appointed Bent as a judge of the superior court of the Missouri Territory in 1813, and he served in that capacity until Missouri achieved state­ hood. He then accepted the appointment of clerk of the St. Louis County court, a position he held until his death in 1827. Bent also was selected to be a member of the first Missouri state senate and served as president pro tempore. Bay, Reminiscences of the Bench and Bar, 203- 209; March, History of Missouri, 1: 197, 198, 431. 7 Well Remember' 31

State Historical Society of Missouri

Silas Bent lived in this stone house on the riverfront in the southern part of St. Louis.

I knew Joe Immel, an old Indian trader and trapper,60 who told me that he saw an Indian on horseback shoot a buffalo through and through his flank with an arrow; and that once when he was on the Maria[s] River, he saw a buffalo killed by a grizzly bear.61 He first noticed the bear on the river brink, walking about the place where the trace of the buffaloes came down, through the prairie, to the river, a beaten path for them to their watering place. Presently a bull buffalo came tearing down the bluff to drink, unaware of the bear's presence, apparently. The bear reared up on his hind legs, and as the buffalo passed him, with one blow of his paw he tore off his brisket and exposed his vitals. These grizzly bears are the most formidable animals that I have ever seen. I have never seen but two living ones, but I saw claws of

60 Conrad probably refers to Michael Immel ( -1823). A native of Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, Immel arrived in the Louisiana Territory in 1804. He enlisted in the First Infantry commanded by Colonel Thomas Hunt. On June 10, 1807, Immel was appointed an ensign. He advanced to the rank of second lieutenant on October 14, 1808. Stationed at Fort Bellefontaine for most of his service, Immel resigned on November 8, 1808. In 1809 he joined Manuel Lisa's St. Louis Missouri Fur Company expedition up the Missouri River, and he con­ tinued to be involved in the fur trade throughout his life. Described as "brave, uncommonly large, and of great muscular strength," Immel and his trading partner, Robert Jones, were killed by Blackfoot Indians near the Yellowstone River during a Missouri Fur Company expedition. Three other Americans also died during the attack. Heitman, Historical Register, 364; "Reports of the Fur Trade and Inland Trade to Mexico," Glimpses of the Past 9 (January-June 1942): 55; Chittenden, American Fur Trade of the Far West, 1: 158; Richard Edwards and M. Hopewell, M.D., Edwards's Great West and . . . History of St. Louis (St. Louis: Edwards's Monthly, 1860), 335. 61 Conrad probably refers to the Marias River, which rises in northwestern Montana and flows into the Missouri River. 32 Missouri Historical Review them, in Governor Clark's council room, seven inches long. I would wager odds that they would kill any lion that ever I saw, in a fair field. I have heard many legends of their ferocity and strength. Tom Handy (who hunted them) and was honored by the Indians with the sobriquet of "the white bear's mas­ ter," told me that he was somewhat checked in his zeal for seeking them after one night spent up a tree.62 He had discharged his rifle at one, without serious injury to the bear, when he had to run for his life. He came to a young hickory of a few inches in diam­ eter in the trunk, and climbed into the top branches, leaving his gun. The bear came up, and his first act was to break the gun. He then tried to climb the tree but it was too small for his hug, and then he tried to scratch it down, but it resisted his claws. He would shake it, but Handy held on for life. He would go away, look back to his ensconced foe and then resume his efforts. Several times he did this, and the man's only recourse was to wait his departure. He would not venture down during the night, but found in the morning that his ursine enemy had gone home during the night, and Tom slipped down and fol­ lowed his example in the morning, by returning to his camp. But the most interesting man of this class was a head man over them, in his great trapping expeditions, made after I knew him—General William H. Ashley.63 He was a most interesting man to me, modest and reserved. When I first settled in St. Louis he lived in his fine house there, where I often enjoyed his hospitality and drew from him some things showing what an adventurous life he had led, and what a singular passion he had for perilous

62 Tom Handy has not been identified, although Conrad may be referring to the namesake of Handy's Point or Post, on the west side of the Missouri River above its confluence with the Niobrara River. Fort Randall was constructed there in 1856. Robert G. Athearn, Forts of the Upper Missouri (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1967), endpaper map, 50-51; Chittenden, American Fur Trade of the Far West, 2: 952. 63 Born in Chesterfield County, Virginia, William H. Ashley (c. 1778-1838) engaged in business in Powhatan County, Virginia, before coming to the Louisiana Territory sometime during 1803-1805. He first settled in Ste. Genevieve. Ashley became involved in gunpowder manufacturing, lead mining, and merchandising. In 1813 he joined the territorial militia, ris­ ing through the ranks to become a general in the state militia in 1822. During that year he also became involved in the fur trade when he and Andrew Henry selected men for an expedi­ tion to the Upper Missouri lands. A number of those who joined up became noted for explo­ rations and exploits in the American West. Ashley's use of fur trappers on horseback and the trappers' rendezvous in 1825 found him returning to St. Louis with a wealth of furs. His per­ sonal involvement in the trade ended after the rendezvous in 1826, although he continued to supply expeditions and sell their furs. Possessing a penchant for politics, in 1820 Ashley was elected lieutenant governor of Missouri. On two occasions he campaigned unsuccessfully for governor. He also failed to win election to the U.S. Senate, but in 1831 he did win a congressional seat. He served in Congress three terms, and during that time he continually championed the interests of the West. He retired from Congress in 1837. See Richard M. Clokey, William H. Ashley: Enterprise and Politics in the Trans-Mississippi West (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1980); Lamar, Reader's Encyclopedia of the American West, s.v. "Ashley, William Henry." *7 Well Remember" 33 adventures. He was afterwards in Congress. He was the first lieutenant gov­ ernor of the state of Missouri. He was the pioneer in the business of getting furs by trapping expeditions on a large scale. The furs before that were pro­ cured from the Indians in exchange for merchandise. Ashley entered into competition with them in catching the beavers and others upon the headwa­ ters of the Missouri and [the] Columbia. I was sorely tempted to join in his enterprise, but having been appointed clerk of the new chancery court, and beginning to get into a little practice as a lawyer in the counties of Jefferson and Franklin, I thought it better for me to follow the calling I had been trained in, and abide in St. Louis. General Ashley narrated to me a serious adventure that he had at sea. He was aboard a ship, as supercargo, that sailed from New Orleans, and was wrecked on the Bahama reefs.64 She was fast on some rocks for several days, and being injured by the accident, leaked very much. For a time all hands took their turn in pumping and the wreckers would be seen in their light ves­ sels, coming towards them at nightfall, to await the result of the accident and profit by it, like turkey buzzards gathering from all points over a sick animal. All the hands gave in but Ashley and the Negro cook, who stuck with the pumps. The captain wished to make terms with the wreckers. Ashley resist­ ed it. The captain at last, with the assent of the crew, said he would exercise his authority, as commander of the ship and crew, and give up ship and cargo to save their lives. "You may bargain for your ship," said Ashley, "but you have no right to dispose of my part of the cargo, of which I am the custodian and trustee. You shall not include that in your bargain." The dispute ran high. The crew was with the captain. Threats began to be uttered. Ashley was heavily armed. He showed his pistols, and there was no mistaking the flash of his dark eye. I've seen it quell stouter men than the captain appears to have been. Ashley appealed to the lazy crew to bestir themselves and help him and his black comrade. Said he, "I will never yield to those piratical scoundrels. We can save the ship yet, if you will help to clear out the water, when we may get to the leak, or lighten her, by throwing overboard the most useless part of her lading." He was like all truly brave men, their master. They bumped over that reef, encountered others, and with wind and tide passed over them, and at last ran into a mud bank which, when they had got­ ten through, had served to stop her open seams well enough to enable them to reach Cuba, and save ship and cargo. They ran short of water in this long struggle, and he said, "The only man that never gave up was my ally, the Negro cook." He was too modest to include himself, the real ruling spirit of

64 A supercargo is an officer on a merchant ship who is in charge of the commercial con­ cerns of the voyage. 34 Missouri Historical Review the crew. My recollection is that he said they were six weeks in getting through this perilous predicament.65 General Ashley was in delicate health frequently, from weakness of his lungs. When he found himself in this way he would not lie in bed, or nurse himself, but would put on his rough clothes for the woods and prairies, mount his stout pony, call his dogs around him, pass through the settlements into the uninhabited lands west of them, and alone, hunt, live on his game, chiefly bears, and return home fatter and heartier and weather-beaten. He would fol­ low the bears into their dens in the caves and drag them out. He said there was no special danger in it, when you were used to it, and knew how to use your firearms, knife, and tomahawk. But these, mark you, were not the griz­ zly bears, the "Ursi feroci" of the upper Missouri, but the well-known black bear of our country, which may be tamed like a dog. No such thing as taming the grizzly bear have I ever heard of being done. I asked him if he had ever encountered one of these in his wanderings. "But one," said he, "and I did not invite him, nor do I ever wish to be in the company of another. I was out one day in my first trapping expedition (the progress of the boat being slow, for we were cordelling upstream against the wind) in company with our hunter.66 The country was all prairie, and we somehow lost sight of each

65 The only recorded incident of Ashley sending trade goods by ship from the East to New Orleans took place in 1809. The ship carrying Ashley and his merchandise encountered a storm when entering the Gulf of Mexico. It wrecked, and Ashley lost his entire investment. Conrad implies that Ashley left from New Orleans, not from New York where the 1809 trip started. Since Conrad was writing about an event told to him over forty years before, he may have written his account from a faulty memory. W. G. Eliot, An Address on the Life and Character of the Late Hon. Wm. H. Ashley (St. Louis: Bulletin Printing Office, 1838), 5; Clokey, William H. Ashley, 22. 66 Cordelling refers to using a towline to pull a keelboat upstream.

State Historical Society of Missouri '7 Well Remember" 35 other. As I walked slowly up a swell in the prairie I met one of these animals directly in front of me, at some distance. He stopped, and so did I. My rifle was of course loaded. We stood for some time admiring each other, until I thought I would slip back, without taking my eye off him, or changing front, and feeling very much scared. I thought I felt my cap raised up by the hair of my head. The bear seemed to notice my first backward step and as I slowly stepped back, he advanced with equal steps. I found this would not do. So I fired and struck him in the shoulder, but the wound was not fatal. He quick­ ened his steps, and I then ran for the river, and he after me. I then, to my great relief, heard a shot. It was my hunter, who hearing my shot, ran up, and in time to disable him. Hunters in such a country should never lose sight of each other, especially when such game as this may be encountered." "Were you really scared?" said I. "To be sure I was scared," said he, "but not scared out of my senses. I tell you I felt my very hair rise on my head, or thought I did." I was well acquainted with Wilson P. Hunt,67 who made a most perilous journey from St. Louis to the mouth of the Columbia River, by an upper route across the Rocky Mountains, the incidents of which I think are referred to by Mr. [Washington] Irving in one of his works.68 Hunt told me that the most delicious morsel he ever ate was a piece of rancid salmon fat which an Indian threw into the fire as unfit for his digestion, but which Hunt snatched up and devoured. This was after a starving diet upon poor horseflesh for a long time among the mountains. Mr. Hunt had an overcoat of furs, inside and out, which he said was worth at the least $300. They were most beauti­ ful, but the coat was too warm for any weather except the subzero climate which would sometimes prevail in the latitude of St. Louis for a few weeks

67 New Jersey born, Wilson Price Hunt (1783-1842) arrived in St. Louis during 1804 and became a partner in a mercantile firm. In 1810 John Jacob Astor hired him to lead an overland expedition to the mouth of the Columbia River. Hunt and his men finally reached Astoria in 1812. Their route between the Snake and Columbia Rivers became part of the western Oregon Trail. Hunt returned to St. Louis in 1814 and became a merchant. He purchased a large tract of land, which he farmed, southwest of St. Louis. He also built a mill, known locally as Hunt's Mill, on the property. Lamar, Reader's Encyclopedia of the American West, s.v. "Hunt, Wilson Price"; Billon, Annals of St. Louis . . . From 1804 to 1821, 193-194; William Brandon, "Wilson Price Hunt," in LeRoy R. Hafen, ed., The Mountain Men and the Fur Trade of the Far West (Glendale, Calif: Arthur H. Clark Company, 1968), 6: 185-206. 68 Born in Tarrytown, New York, Washington Irving (1783-1859) read law and practiced that profession for a brief time before committing himself solely to writing and travel. Noted for his essays and satire, Irving left the United States in 1815 for Europe. He spent time in England, Germany, France, and Spain; he served on the embassy staff in Madrid, 1826-1829. While in England he wrote Rip Van Winkle and The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. Irving stayed in Europe until 1832, when he returned to America and began to travel through the western states and territories. He wrote A Tour of the Prairies (1835), Astoria (1836), and The Adventures of Captain Bonneville, U.S.A. (1837). In Astoria, he wrote about the western experience of Wilson Price Hunt's overland expedition, 1810-1812, making Hunt out to be a heroic figure. Richard B. Morris, ed., Encyclopedia of American History (New York: Harper and Row, 1961), 732. 36 Missouri Historical Review

Wilson Price Hunt, who engaged in the fur trade with John Jacob Astor, later became a successful merchant and post­ master of St. Louis.

Missouri Historical Society, St. Louis in midwinter, and by its intensity, bridge over the rapid Mississippi, as was the case in the winter of 1819-20. I have seen the thermometer stand, once, at 32 degrees below zero at sunrise. I saw then, what I have never seen in this latitude, the sun rise, with two mock suns, looking at first like three suns, but after awhile changing into two great pencils of rays, and soon disappear­ ing entirely.69 The climate there is drier in winter, and the cold at times more intense than I have ever felt it on the same line of latitude here. The range of the thermometer between the extremest cold of winter and the extremest heat of summer is greater there than here, and this, I think, may be readily accounted for upon principles of climatology laid down by [Alexander von] Humboldt in his Cosmos.10 Besides, the open prairies, the vast lake country

69 Conrad refers to parhelia, also called mock suns or sundogs. Parhelia are luminous spots that appear to the right and left of the sun at the same elevation above the horizon. According to David M. Ludlum, The Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Weather (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1991), "The parhelia of 22° are produced by refraction of flat, hexagonal ice crystals falling with pricipal [sic] axes vertical. As the elevation of the sun above the horizon increases, the position of the parhelia may also increase, as far as 45° above the horizon" (p. 157). 70 Alexander von Humboldt (1769-1859), born in Berlin, was a Prussian scientist and explorer. Between 1799 and 1804 he headed a scientific expedition in Central and South America that covered over six thousand miles. Upon his return to Europe, he settled in Paris, where he spent the next twenty-three years publishing his findings. Humboldt returned to Berlin in 1827. A tutor to the crown prince and a court official, he also gave lectures on sci­ entific topics to the students and faculty of the University of Berlin and to the public. Humboldt's Cosmos, of which four volumes were published during his lifetime, describes the universe as it was then known. His writings did much to popularize the study of science and were translated into several other languages. Encyclopedia Britannica, 15th ed., s.v. "Humboldt, Alexander von." "I Well Remember" 37 to the north, Superior and Huron, covered with ice, the distance of the two oceans, all combine to produce these extremes of heat and cold. There, as here, the autumn is the charming season of the year, being a moderated sum­ mer, while spring is winter prolonged. The fertility of Missouri lands can hardly be understood by persons who have not lived there. The mineral resources of the country too are magnifi­ cent. Iron, almost pure and inexhaustible; lead in profusion; coal underlying vast surfaces of the country; the rich prairies almost inviting the plowshare. Fruits of the very best quality can be raised wherever I have been in the state. The wild strawberries covering the prairies for leagues square. Nuts in every thicket, and at the head of them, the pecan nut growing wild in many places, or were, when I was there. The forest oaks, some of them, bearing acorns that if roasted, would be food for man, as well as the swine that can live out unpenned for the whole year round. Wild game when I was there near fifty years ago was abundant to a degree almost incredible. I have started up a herd of wild deer in sight of the town of St. Louis, and seen the hillsides in Montgomery County so cov­ ered with wild turkeys that you could hardly see the ground on them. And the Mississippi so covered with waterfowl, that from the shore you could hardly see any water across to the Illinois shores. I never saw a country where the spontaneous product of the necessaries of life did so abound. Whether it has changed since, I do not know. The fresh waters abound­ ed also in fish though I did not relish them as I do the tidewater fish of the Potomac, or the varieties to be found in the Norfolk market—the best in the U.S. that I have ever seen. I have dwelt on my sojourn in Missouri because the lapse of half a cen­ tury has made in that great central state, and in that wonderful city, St. Louis, a change greater than was made in any part of America from the set­ tlement at Jamestown, say in 1600, to 1750 or 1776. Greater than was made in England in five hundred years after the Norman Conquest; in France from Charlemagne to Henry IV And if we can only so cherish free governments, with states and general governments both, acting under constitutions, equal­ ly honored and protected under (what is more important than all) good laws, impartially administered, you may live to see that city of St. Louis, Missouri, the capital of a republican empire (republican, in its true sense) the like of which has never been seen on God's earth. The past progress will then prove but the earnest of its future grandeur. Her commercial, agricul­ tural and artistic greatness will extend from ocean to ocean and from the river that she sits upon, to the ends of the earth. . . .

[to be continued] State Historical Society of Missouri

Dr. John Sappington: Southern Patriarch in the New West

BY LYNN MORROW*

Dr. John Sappington earned a distinguished reputation as a physician and a promoter of quinine in Missouri's Boon's Lick region. His influence transcended Missouri in long-distance trade managed by relatives who all became wealthy in the profits. Much more than a country doctor, Sappington was a frontier merchant, a land speculator, a progressive agri­ culturalist, a moneylender, and a political confidant in Jacksonian politics. He entered Missouri prior to statehood with an anxious spirit of gain.

*Lynn Morrow is the director of the Local Records Preservation Program for the Missouri Office of the Secretary of State. He received his B.S. and M.A. degrees from Southwest Missouri State University, Springfield. 38 Dr. John Sappington 39

At the end of the American Revolution in 1783, Americans entertained new political and economic possibilities. Visionaries viewed a vast continent available for exploration and settlement, for purchase and sale. Families moved westward, and individuals dreamed of great adventures. One such entrepreneur was William Blount, a newly elected North Carolina congressman. Blount, a well-traveled businessman, participated in politics to enhance his family's successful and far-flung commercial enterprises, including ship­ ping, merchandising, and land speculation. The Trans-Appalachian lands along the Cumberland River attracted Blount's imagination for a frontier empire at the same time that the North Carolina legislature passed a bill allowing the opening of a land office in Nashville. This, in turn, opened the western lands of the future state of Tennessee for speculation. Blount and James Robertson, a land agent in the Cumberland region, became partners and were joined by ambitious men bound in a web of expansive ventures in the Nashville Basin. The North Carolina legislature appointed members to the local governments in Middle Tennessee, giving a distinctive character to the Cumberland settlements and creating the emerging political organization that became famous in Andrew Jackson's career. Between 1783 and 1788 Blount sent twenty-four justices to Tennessee, including a Dr. John Sappington from Baltimore, Maryland.1 The association of the justices with Blount meant entry into a leadership cadre of like-minded adventurers. Sappington, the only physician among the twenty-four, became a modest speculator and planter in this distinctly southern agricultural hinterland that established a long-distance trade with Natchez and New Orleans. In 1786 he brought his brother's family, Dr. Mark and Rebecca Sappington, their four sons—Roger, Thomas, Frank, and John—and four daughters—Rebecca, Eleanor, Fanny, and Mary—to the Nashville Basin.2 Mark Sappington began a mercantile and a physician's practice near the territorial capital, training his sons in trade and medicine. Enduring the vicissitudes of frontier life, the Sappingtons prospered in a booming 1790s

1 See William H. Masterson, William Blount (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1954), and Anita Shafer Goodstein, Nashville, 1780-1860: From Frontier to City (Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1989), 5-7. In 1782 John Sappington and brother Mark graduated from the Philadelphia College of Medicine. From the Revolutionary War to the Civil War, the family produced a dozen or more "Dr. Sappingtons" from Chesapeake Bay to east Texas. See Walter Morrow Burks, "Missouri Medicine Man" (master's thesis, University of Kansas City, 1958), 41-42. 2 Goodstein, Nashville, 1780-1860, 18-20; family reminiscence, fols. 1 and 5, John Sappington Papers, Western Historical Manuscript Collection, University of Missouri- Columbia (hereinafter cited as WHMC-Columbia). John Sappington was a justice for Davidson County, thereby ensuring himself land surveys as compensation. Mark Sappington stayed behind in Maryland for a year to dispose of his property. Thomas Hardeman, patriarch of another famous Boon's Lick family, also joined the Nashville speculations, befriended the Sappingtons and Thomas Hart Benton, and later migrated to the Boon's Lick country. 40 Missouri Historical Review town but also suffered great personal losses. "Uncle" John Sappington liq­ uidated his properties and moved to New Orleans, where he died in the early 1790s. Rebecca Sappington passed away in 1788; in 1800 son Frank was killed in a duel with another physician; and by 1802, father Mark had died.3 In 1799 Williamson County, Tennessee, was founded, and Mark's bache­ lor son, Dr. John Sappington, served as an official to establish the new coun­ ty seat of Franklin. John moved from Nashville to land on the Big Harpeth River, one of many areas where his energetic brother Roger speculated in land warrants. Upon their father's death, John became guardian for his younger sister, and Thomas joined him in Franklin and later opened a tavern. John practiced medicine but also made money in the keelboat trade by exporting cotton and tobacco to New Orleans and trading in slaves and land. He spent time in Nashville doing business with Roger, using slaves for hire. Roger became the family's largest speculator, trading in thousands of acres throughout central and western Tennessee while practicing medicine and merchandising. In Nashville he served as a captain in the mounted militia. Attracted to blooded horseflesh, Roger owned Oscar, the most famous race­ horse in Tennessee. Roger Sappington, Andrew Jackson, and other Nashville businessmen founded the Jockey Club where Oscar never lost a race.4 John Sappington married Jane Breathitt in 1804, and soon they started a family of nine children. In 1806 he became a trustee of Harpeth Academy, headed by Presbyterian clergyman Gideon Blackburn, a future Thomas Hart Benton colleague. The following year the Sappingtons moved to Todd County, Kentucky, to be near the Breathitt kin. By 1809, however, they had returned to Franklin, where the thirty-three-year-old doctor initiated a period of personal economic success through increased agricultural exports to New Orleans and expanded land speculations. Sappington's achievements paral­ leled those of neighbor Thomas H. Benton, who had begun to practice law in Franklin and Nashville and later aided Sappington's speculations in

3 Edythe R. Whitley, Tennessee Genealogical Records: Records of Early Settlers From State and County Archives (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Company, 1989), 203-209. Frank Sappington served as a surgeon in the militia during the Nickajack Cherokee Indian campaign, the last major Indian hostility of this frontier. During the 1790s all four of Mark Sappington's sons became practicing physicians and merchants in Nashville. 4 A review of Genealogical Abstracts from Tennessee Newspapers, 1791-1808, com­ piled by Sherida K. Eddlemon (Bowie, Md.: Heritage Books, 1988) and her Genealogical Abstracts from Tennessee Newspapers, 1803-1812 (Bowie, Md.: Heritage Books, 1989) indi­ cate that Roger traded in land warrants totaling over sixteen thousand acres and bought and sold various Nashville town lots with John Overton. In addition to the connections through the Breathitt family, the future ties between Dr. John Sappington's family in Missouri and Andrew Jackson included the combination of Roger Sappington's business with Overton and Jackson and their passion for horseracing, coupled with John Sappington and Benton doing business and becoming friends in Franklin. Documents relating to John's work in Nashville are in fol. 10, Sappington Papers, WHMC-Columbia. Dr. John Sappington 41

Missouri. By 1811 brother-in-law Dr. Edward Breathitt had joined the Sappington doctors, John and Thomas, in Franklin.5 John appears not to have served in the War of 1812, while Thomas func­ tioned as a surgeon in the militia for two years. Toward the latter part of the war, John enrolled in medical school in Philadelphia. Perhaps he attended at this late date because he could now afford it, or maybe, like his father and Uncle John Sappington, who had graduated in the early 1780s, he wanted the professional credentials. His classmates included Daniel Drake, a future crit­ ic of Sappington's patent medicine pills, and Fernando Stith, much younger than Sappington, but destined to become a lifelong colleague. Sappington did not complete the curriculum for graduation and returned home in spring 1815. After Stith graduated in 1816, he moved to Nashville to join Sappington in Middle Tennessee.6 By this time forty-year-old John Sappington had become a civic leader in Franklin, a successful planter, and a sponsor for the private education of his daughters in Springfield, Kentucky. He borrowed money and did business with his brothers and brothers-in-law in the Nashville Basin. But, like his Uncle John Sappington before him, the lure of another westward adventure, with the prospect of profits in land speculation, captivated his imagination. And, like his uncle, Sappington used his political connections to plan his future. By 1817 Benton had relocated to St. Louis, and he encouraged his friend Sappington to consider "laying the foundations of a great fortune" in the Missouri Territory. Presbyterian educator Gideon Blackburn drew a map for Sappington, locating the route from Nashville to St. Louis and including landmarks, towns, and the names of people with whom he might board. Blackburn instructed Sappington to investigate the land claims of Colonel Auguste Chouteau and others on the Salt River, up the Missouri River, and in Illinois. Benton, William Clark, and General William Rector, surveyor general of Illinois, Missouri, and Arkansas, offered to secure investments for Sappington. Blackburn suggested specific tracts of land involving seven thousand to twenty thousand acres. Once Sappington arrived in St. Louis in April 1817, Benton offered his slave Jim as a guide and provided letters of introduction to his friends.7 While in Missouri Sappington decided to remove to the Boon's Lick country. He returned to Franklin and began his move in September 1817 to

5 John Sappington bought improved lands and Franklin town lots. He put new wagons and agricultural equipment on his farm and may have built a new house at this time. By 1812 he began speculating in surrounding counties. See fols. 10 and 11, Sappington Papers, WHMC-Columbia. 6 See special issue on frontier doctors in Middle Tennessee in Williamson County Historical Journal, no. 4 (1973-1974). 7 Gid Blackburn to John Sappington, n.d. [1817], fol. 6, and T. H. Benton to John Sappington, 2 July 1817, fol. 12, both in Sappington Papers, WHMC-Columbia. 42 Missouri Historical Review

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Chariton in Howard County, Missouri. Benton loaned $950 to the doctor and instructed him to be at the St. Louis land office in November. Lawyer Benton encouraged Sappington to pass on the financial details to Thomas Hardeman "and others of our friends" who wished to come. Kinsman Edward Breathitt settled Sappington's Tennessee business, and weeks later, Hardeman, a planter-speculator in Franklin, joined the Sappingtons in Missouri, bringing money from the partial settlement of Sappington's properties.8 Sappington was a westering entrepreneur, locating in the vanguard of com­ merce on the fringe of a distinctly southern frontier society. An elite with polit­ ical and economic connections and ideas for estate building, he arrived just as the Boon's Lick was poised for dramatic demographic growth in an emerging market economy. Although Benton had suggested the purchase of eleven thou­ sand acres, Sappington invested in seven thousand by 1819, standing ready to establish his fortune. He worked with lawyer Taylor Berry in Howard County to have land titles cleared and corresponded with Josiah Meigs, commissioner of the General Land Office in Washington, D.C, to clear New Madrid claims.9

8 Cardwell Breathitt to John Sappington, 20 November 1817, and Thomas H. Benton to John Sappington, 2 July 1817, both in ibid. 9 Nancy Counts Sneed, "John Sappington: Frontier Doctor," 1969, 9, manuscript located at Department of History, Southwest Missouri State University, Springfield; Taylor Berry to John Sappington, 23 March 1820, and Sappington to Josiah Meigs, 5 May 1820, both in fol. 14, Sappington Papers, WHMC-Columbia. Berry also traded with Sappington, asking to pur­ chase, at 12 1/2 cents per pound, all the butter that Mrs. Sappington could produce throughout the spring season. For example, Reuben Ewing left $600 with John's wife, Jane, for the doc­ tor to invest at his discretion for the Ewings, and Thomas Shackelford sent Sappington power of attorney to oversee the division of Shackelford properties in Saline County. See Reuben Ewing to Sappington, 21 October 1818, fol. 13; Thomas Shackelford to Sappington, 25 March 1820, fol. 14, ibid. Dr. John Sappington 43

The doctor became a spokesman for Boon's Lick intelligence and investments; upwardly mobile immigrants, many from Middle Tennessee, sought his advice by letter and personal introduction. Some camped on his property, even leav­ ing money for Sappington to invest for them. Sappington's own marketing successes fed a personal cash flow that loomed large on a money-scarce frontier. He kept careful records and hired attorneys to collect debts and sue debtors. Likewise, the Breathitts in Kentucky and Tennessee called upon Sappington to pursue debtors to the family who had immigrated to Missouri.10 And, after the panic of 1819, Sappington loaned money to his Tennessee relatives, with whom he main­ tained an export business in New Orleans and through whom he imported slaves to the Boon's Lick. The doctor required payments in legal tender that the land office in Howard County honored; he wanted money with the low­ est discount to enlarge his land speculations as quickly as possible. Like most Southerners, Sappington's capital was family based, and the more he extended it, the greater status he enjoyed. The doctor's reputation grew as his integrity as a moneylender grew. Throughout his life in Missouri, men besieged him with requests for financial advice and loans." By the early 1820s Sappington managed an extensive regional trade in agriculture, moneylending, and medical services. He traveled throughout Saline, Cooper, Howard, and Chariton Counties to supply bacon, beef, salt, drugs, cider oil (cider with an infusion of honey), wheat, potatoes, and money but employed agents for collection. His credit accounts expanded into Lafayette and Jackson Counties and then into the Grand River country; the complexity of his commerce soon required him to employ prominent attorneys for collection. One such choice, Abiel Leonard in Fayette, worked for Sappington and also for the Breathitts in Kentucky.12 The doctor chose talented associates who directed much of the work on his farms. Virginian Richard Marshall became his slave overseer, and Jesse Lankford, a master builder, moved with the doctor from Nashville and con­ structed Sappington's dogtrot house and the family mills and stores at Jonesborough (modern Napton) and "New" Philadelphia (Arrow Rock), in addition to maintaining the cotton gin and operating the saltworks. Thomas Hardeman's son, John, founder of the famous botanical gardens in Howard

10 John Breathitt listed the names of workmen who owed the Kentuckians money but had moved to Missouri to work on the new Cooper County courthouse. See various Breathitt let­ ters to Sappington in 1819 and 1820 in fols. 17 and 94, Sappington Papers, WHMC-Columbia. 11 For slave purchases see receipts dated 5 May and 5 June 1821, in John Sappington Family Papers, Missouri Historical Society, St. Louis. 12 Lists of accounts for John Sappington in fols. 2, 4, and 13, Sappington Papers, WHMC-Columbia; John Sappington to Abiel Leonard, 20 June 1828. fol. 70, and letter book, April 1830, fol. 554; Sappington to Leonard, 8 December 1829, fol. 645, Abiel Leonard Papers, WHMC-Columbia. 44 Missouri Historical Review

County, kept abreast of Sappington's diversified agriculture and reported progress to Benton, who published the glowing reports in a national trade journal.13 In 1824 Sappington decided to centralize the functions of his diversified commerce. He developed Jonesborough, a family marketing hamlet, and founded his first company, named Pearson and Sappington Company, after son-in-law Alonzo Pearson who had married his eldest daughter, Eliza. Sappington placed Pearson in a managerial position, responsible for business and domestic concerns. This family-centered administration of Sappington's business became a continuing hallmark of his organization. The mercantile at Jonesborough was also a lender institution and a place where the family consummated tenant contracts and made plans for continued land specula­ tion. They received value-added goods from St. Louis for local sales and arranged marketing and collection routes. During the time of Sappington's meteoric rise to wealth and a national reputation, Jonesborough served as the Saline County seat from 1831 to 1839.14

13 History of Saline County, Missouri (St. Louis: Missouri Historical Company. 1881), 582, 647-648; John Hardeman to T. H. Benton, 24 November 1822. quoted in American Farmer. 28 March 1823. National Farm Journals Collection, WHMC-Columbia. 14 For examples see contract between Cornelius Reynolds and John Sappington. 13 November 1826, fol. 15, Sappington Papers, WHMC-Columbia; Pearson and Sappington invoic­ es, 17 September 1824, and ff., John Sappington Family Papers, Missouri Historical Society.

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This detail from a map drawn by Joseph N. Nicollet in 1843 locates Jonesboro (Jonesborough).

Meredith Miles Marmaduke, a Virginian who had already made a repu­ tation and a fortune in successful Santa Fe trading, married Lavinia, another Sappington daughter, in 1826. His commercial acumen and loyalty to the Sappington family would establish him as Dr. Sappington's most effective and long-term business associate. For the next thirty years Marmaduke con­ sidered most significant financial transactions offered by outsiders and then presented them to Sappington.15 During the late 1820s and early 1830s, the doctor's family matured, creat­ ing a generation who grew up in a large social and commercial network. Sappington charged Pearson to govern the education of his children and to audit much of the business, including financial negotiations for Santa Fe trade invest­ ments.16 Sappington's two sons, Darwin Erasmus and William Breathitt, held different interests, but both appear devoted to their father in the family's corre­ spondence. By 1828 twenty-year-old Darwin already worked with Marmaduke in the Santa Fe trade. That year's Santa Fe expedition, which included the

15 Documents relating to Marmaduke's Santa Fe trade are in the John Sappington Family Papers, Missouri Historical Society. Details of his first venture are in the "Memorandum of Agreement," 5 May 1824, that formed the McClure and Marmaduke Company. 16 For example, Pearson arranged for tuition and board and bought textbooks for the chil­ dren, managed the mail, corrected errors in Sappington's moneylending records, arranged freight for agricultural exports, paid the family's county taxes, procured firewood and candles, and bought domestic goods. See Accounts to Doctor John Sappington from Alonzo Pearson, 20 October 1826, and 19 June 1828, fol. 15, Sappington Papers, WHMC-Columbia; fol. 2, Sappington Family Papers, ibid.; James Glasgow to Meredith Marmaduke, 5 December 1827, and John Sappington to Alonzo Pearson, 26 July 1829, John Sappington Family Papers, Missouri Historical Society. 46 Missouri Historical Review financial involvement of neighbors and political allies John Hardeman and General Thomas A. Smith, proved so successful that Sappington considered retiring from his medical practice to enjoy the life of a planter-businessman. Following the trip Marmaduke invested heavily in the sawmill and saltworks in Jonesborough, and Darwin became the village's postmaster. Meanwhile, William Breathitt Sappington left for Cumberland College in Princeton, Kentucky, to prepare for a position as a principal administrator of the family business upon his return. William's writings clearly identify him as a young scholar, interested in intellectual refinements and the "better things in life." His father instructed him to travel in Kentucky and Tennessee and to acquaint himself with Breathitt and Sappington relatives, people with whom he would soon be doing business. Already married, Darwin appears to have preferred immersion in the day-to-day family business and life on the farms. The family patriarch could not have wished for a better combination.17 Just when Dr. Sappington felt secure in the future, scandal erupted in the family. In June 1830, news spread that Pearson had married Eliza while he still had a wife in Alabama. An excited Darwin closed the Arrow Rock store as family members convened to discuss the issue. John Sappington petitioned the legislature for an annulment and by January 1831 had received it. The doctor brought his daughter and five grandchildren to his home and began educating the girls at Fayette Female Academy.18 Pearson's exit from the family demanded a business reorganization. The patriarch paired Darwin with brother-in-law Miles Marmaduke, form­ ing a Marmaduke and Sappington Company at Jonesborough. The doctor then acquired a physician partner in Dr. George Penn, a young graduate from the University of Pennsylvania medical school, who assumed much of the travel in the medical practice, including collections for Sappington and buying trips to Philadelphia. At age fifty-four John Sappington began spending most of his time in Saline County.19

17 W. B. Sappington to Miles Marmaduke, 19 April 1829, John Sappington Family Papers, Missouri Historical Society; John Sappington to William Sappington, 8 October 1831, fol. 19, Sappington Papers, WHMC-Columbia. William later married Mary Breathitt, his first cousin. 18 E. D. Sappington to Miles Marmaduke, 18 June 1830, John Sappington Family Papers, Missouri Historical Society. For a transcription of the annulment proceedings see Burks, "Missouri Medicine Man," appendix E, 144-149. Pearson's first marriage took place in Georgia, and the couple moved to Alabama where he deserted his wife and went to Missouri. Eliza and Alonzo married in 1821 and had two sons and three daughters. Perhaps to avoid a duel, Pearson left Saline County and sought refuge among Cherokee Indians on the Arkansas River. See Lavinia Marmaduke to William Sappington, 8 January 1831, John Sappington Family Papers, Missouri Historical Society. 19 Thomas B. Hall, "Dr. George Penn, 1800-1886," Journal of the Missouri State Medical Association 68 (January 1971): 20; William B. Napton, Past and Present of Saline County, Missouri (Indianapolis: B. F. Bowen, 1910), 367-369. Penn, a Virginian, practiced in Virginia, then immigrated to Saline County and boarded with Sappington, where the two soon became friends. By 1850 Penn had been selected to become the first president of the Missouri Medical Association but declined to accept the chair. Dr. John Sappington 47

By the 1830s the Sappington network of kith and kin was well known in the Boon's Lick country as staunch Jacksonians. On holidays throughout the year, a Democratic planter-elite faction socialized at the Sappington farm. There, they heard the oratory of Thomas Hart Benton and discussed religion, philosophy, economics, and more politics. These gala affairs, lasting days at a time, were celebrations among a local gentry whose loyalty and trust with each other in a long-distance trade made all of them successful. Nathaniel Beverley Tucker, Sappington's lawyer during his daughter's bigamy dispute and son-in-law to General Thomas Smith, became noted for his excessive public frolic at these social outings, resulting in his ouster from a local church. Attendance at the Sappington gatherings by an entourage including Smith, John Hardeman, Thomas Shackelford, Miles Marmaduke, Claiborne Jackson, and many others brought together a core of patrons for George Caleb Bingham, the neighborhood artist. Bingham's 1834 portrait of John Sappington is his oldest extant work.20

20 James Brickey to John Sappington, 1 December 1831, fol. 19, Sappington Papers, WHMC-Columbia; Thomas Shackelford, "Early Recollections of Missouri," Missouri Historical Society Collections 2 (April 1903): 1-20. During the 1830s Sappington's need for blacksmithing in his agricultural trade was extensive. The papers suggest that Wyatt Bingham provided the skill; like other neighbors, the Binghams became debtors to Sappington. The gen­ try probably all had a good laugh at Tucker's dismissal from church as they were deists who championed Thomas Paine and debunked organized religion.

Missouri Department of Natural Resources Artist George Caleb Bingham executed these portraits of John Sappington and Jane Breathitt Sappington in 1834.

Missouri Department of Natural Resources 48 Missouri Historical Review

During the 1830s and 1840s the doctor supported George Penn and Marmaduke to positions in Missouri state government—Penn to the house and senate and Marmaduke as lieutenant governor. Son William served in Democratic state conventions, but Dr. Sappington failed to receive election as a district presidential elector in 1832. At the same time Sappington's brother-in-law George Breathitt was a personal emissary for Andrew Jackson in the South Carolina nullification crisis, while brother-in-law John Breathitt, governor of Kentucky, became a Whig. In 1835 Sappington launched a third business organization—John Sappington and Sons—the enterprise that made his name legendary in Missouri and American medical history. While his family earned on the day-to-day business in the early 1830s, the doctor continued to practice medicine, or his "hobby," as relatives referred to it in correspondence. For thirty years Sappington had known about and experimented with Peruvian bark in the treatment of fevers. As soon as a new quinine sulphate powder had become available in the United States in 1823, Sappington purchased small amounts. He and other doctors, especially southern ones, continued empirical experiments with quinine throughout the 1820s. By 1832 Sappington had extended his use of quinine in treating patients in central and western Missouri. Convinced of the efficacious treatment and prophy­ lactic power of the quinine salts, he began to nationally market his propri­ etary medicine, Sappington's Anti-Fever Pills, in 1835.21 Since the turn of the nineteenth century, many Americans had tried national marketing, but few achieved widespread success. The patent medi­ cine vendors, however, were the first to establish nationwide markets in the United States. They made a virtue of the secrecy of content, used the grow­ ing newspaper and circular advertising methods, managed route sales and collections, claimed to cure much more than their product actually could, and disguised bitter-tasting drugs with a pleasing flavor. Unscrupulous frauds imitated their successes. All of these historic aspects of the business characterized Sappington's career. But, significantly for Missouri history, James Harvey Young, an eminent medical historian, wrote that the "first proprietary to aim quinine at malaria was Dr. Sappington's Celebrated Anti- Fever Pills," a tonic sold to build up strength in a patient.22

21 Sneed, "John Sappington," 24-25. Indicative of his continued experiments, Sappington was still purchasing pounds of Peruvian bark and ounces of quinine sulphate in 1830. By 1832 he had eliminated the bark. 22 James Harvey Young, "Patent Medicines: An Element of Southern Distinctiveness?" in Disease and Distinctiveness in the American South, edited by Todd L. Savitt and James Harvey Young (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1988), 164. The national historic context appears in Young's two volumes, The Toadstool Millionaires: A Social History1 of Patent Medicines in America Before Federal Regulation (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1961) and The Medical Messiahs: A Social History of Health Quackery in Twentieth-Century America (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1967). Modern Dr. John Sappington 49

Although physicians had used Peruvian bark in the treatment of fevers since the seventeenth century, the introduction of quinine sulphate in the 1820s represented a new wonder drug. Patients retained it in the stomach longer, larger amounts could be used, and the bitter quinine extract could be disguised. Physicians exercised caution, however, and used small doses, ever fearful of harmful side effects. The incredible number of fevers and diseases of the digestive system led to an indiscriminate use of quinine throughout the nation, especially in frontier regions. Throughout the 1820s and 1830s quinine continued to be relatively scarce and expensive, but southern doctors continued active experimentation. By the mid-1830s qui­ nine appeared on the shelves at country stores alongside a host of patent medicines, including Sappington's. By the end of the 1830s civilian physi­ cians embraced the successful reports of military doctors, who gave large doses of quinine to soldiers during the Second Seminole Indian War, and treated their own sufferers of malaria likewise.23 Sappington wrote that he spent many years overcoming the popular prej­ udice against quinine. Like others, he owed his conservatism to the arduous task of trial and error, realizing that he experimented with a dangerous drug. Even after he tried it on himself, with the bark in Tennessee and Missouri and later the sulphate in the Boon's Lick, it was not until the early 1830s that he felt comfortable with a new therapeutic concept such as regular dosage. In 1824 future son-in-law Miles Marmaduke took the "essence of the bark" on his trading expedition to Santa Fe. By the 1830s the extended Sappington family and their salesmen, who traveled Missouri and the nation marketing the pills, all ingested the doctor's homemade remedy. Political friends used the pills and gave written testimonials to newspapers and to Dr. Sappington. Joel Haden, registrar of public lands in southwest Missouri, wrote: "I have taken Dr. Sappington's medicine myself and my family has had need for it and use it. . . . There has been a large supply of it left at my office in Springfield, Greene County, for sale, it sold out in a short time and there is pressing demands for a fresh supply. ... I can in good conscience recom-

medical historians consider malaria, the "lazy disease," as a primary reason (with hookworm and pellagra) for the Yankee stereotype of the "lazy southerner." John Duffy, in "The Impact of Malaria on the South," in Disease and Distinctiveness, claims that disease may be the most distinctive trait of southernness in the nineteenth century (p. 29-44). 23 Mary C. Gillett, The Army Medical Department, 1818-1865 (Washington, D.C: Center of Military History, United States Army, 1987), 6-8; Norman Taylor, "Quinine: The Story of Cinchona," Scientific Monthly 57 (July 1943): 18-31; Martha C. Mitchell, "Health and the Medical Profession in the Lower South, 1845-1860," Journal of Southern History 10 (November 1944): 438; John Duffy, "Medical Practice in the Ante Bellum South," ibid. 25 (February 1959): 53-72; and E. L. Hammond, Kenneth Redman, and J. G. Wickstrom, Jr., "Drug and Medical Advertising in Woodville, Miss., 1823-1843," Journal of the American Pharmaceutical Association 9 (March 1948): 164. Most commentators contend that malaria was the greatest antebellum health problem in the South and the West. 50 Missouri Historical Review DOCTOR JOHN SAPPINGTON'S ANTI FEVER k AGIE I

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mend it to all persons who wish successfully to encounter fevers, and save their money."24 The newly formed Sappington and Sons of 1835 proved an immediate economic success. Although the doctor sent agents into most, if not all eastern states, four regions became his major sales area. They included the Ohio River valley, especially Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, and Tennessee; the Mississippi River valley from St. Louis to New Orleans, particularly Mississippi and Louisiana; the White and Arkansas River valleys of southern Missouri and Arkansas; and the Red River valley in Texas. Sons and sons-in- law participated in the sales and collections in these river valleys. Additionally, in 1835 Sappington hired nephew James Burk to take eighteen thousand boxes of pills to Virginia and North and South Carolina. The following year Dr. Mark Sappington, a nephew living in Memphis, acquired a route in several Tennessee counties. Merchants, druggists, lawyers, and planters wrote Sappington offering to become agents in their own counties. After the first

24 John Sappington, The Theory* and Treatment of Fevers (Arrow Rock, Mo., 1844), 25, 84-85; W. A. Strickland, Jr., "Quinine Pills Manufactured on the Missouri Frontier, 1832- 1862," Pharmacy in History 25 (1983): 62; Joel Haden to John Sappington, 24 September 1835, fol. 22, Sappington Papers, WHMC-Columbia. Dr. John Sappington 51 year of national marketing, counterfeiters, who hawked their own cheaper product under Sappington's name, appeared from Michigan to Mississippi.25 Meanwhile, the contributors to professional medical journals engaged in heated debates over the use and abuse of quinine. Since 1823 a small num­ ber of American manufacturers had circulated quinine sulphate, allowing the aggressive physician to experiment. By 1825 some authors had begun to publish favorable articles for its application, and many of the users and pro­ moters lived in the lower Mississippi River valley from St. Louis to New Orleans. From Mississippi in 1826 to Alabama in 1836, doctors who used quinine regularly called for large doses in treating fevers. By 1841 Dr. Austin Flint, a Yankee practitioner, hoped to influence others "to publish their results of longer and more extensive observations" of quinine use; Dr. L. P. Yandell, a southern physician, recommended "liberal doses" of quinine throughout the Mississippi River valley. Two years later another author not only called for quinine but declared that "enormously large doses" were effective. Sappington and his friend, Dr. Fernando Stith in Nashville, were well aware of these publications, as Stith was an active lecturer and author in his own right. At the same time, vendors, reacting to popular and widespread fears, disguised quinine in a variety of tonics and bitters, just as Sappington did in his own anti-fever pills.26 As the controversy over quinine continued, John Sappington established the efficacy of his patent medicine and made a fortune. In 1837 William Eddins, route salesman from Howard County, wrote that he "could sell any quantity."27 Receipts found in the Sappington Papers for hundreds of pounds of quinine purchased in Philadelphia and New York support his claim. Since each purchase represented a small fortune, family members took turns going east to travel with and protect the purchases. In 1837 a trip for five hundred

25 Sneed, "John Sappington," 25, 30. Merchants sold Sappington's pills on consignment for a 10-33 percent commission. Local agents and Sappington counterfeiters could be barbers, druggists, midwives, ministers, medicine men, overseers on plantations, or any enterprising salesman. Sappington had several hundred legitimate local agents around the country whose contact to him was a couple of dozen salesmen, primarily Sappington relatives and employees from Saline County. For example, in 1843 an Alabama paper listed agents in twenty-nine counties plus the J. M. Coffee family of Tennessee who covered the rest of Alabama. These were itemized by Eula Gladys Riley in "John Sappington, Doctor and Philanthropist" (master's thesis, University of Missouri, 1942), 129-131. 26 Erwin H. Ackerknecht, Malaria in the Upper Mississippi Valley, 1760-1900 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1945; New York: Arno Press, 1977), 103-105, 119; Thomas Fearn, "On Sulphate of Quinine in Large Doses," Transylvania Journal of Medicine 9 (1836): 89; Austin Flint, "On the Treatment of Intermitting Fevers," The American Journal of the Medical Sciences 2 (1841): 292; Lunsford P. Yandell. "An Essay on Bilious Fever," The Western Journal of Medicine and Surgery (September 1841): 189; and "Quinia," New York Journal of Medicine 1 (July 1843): 127. Unfortunately, many publications in Missouri have credited Sappington as "the developer of quinine." 21 William Eddins to John Sappington, 19 July 1837, fol. 26, Sappington Papers, WHMC-Columbia. 52 Missouri Historical Review pounds costing $10,800 would have made some sixty thousand boxes of pills, each box selling for $1.50. Selected letters from the same year indicate $60,000 of gross receipts in the four states of Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Illinois; additional Missouri sales must have been significant.28 With the commencement of Sappington and Sons, Dr. Sappington's youngest daughter, Mary Ellen, married Dr. William Price in 1835. This marriage ushered another extraordinarily talented businessman into the fam­ ily business. The Maryland doctor assumed a major role in the marketing of the patent medicine inventory. He entered his own pills and cholera drops into the listing offered by Sappington and ultimately became one of the wealthiest men in Saline County. Because Dr. Penn had become a Missouri legislator, Price assumed the management of the production and packaging of the anti-fever pills.29 With the boom in sales and profits, and counterfeiters tailgating his suc­ cess, Sappington predicted that he would soon receive criticisms from the regular establishment of physicians. Not long after, complainants in Indiana opposed Sappington because he competed with local firms; others accused the doctor of placing arsenic in his pills. Most complaints came from the Ohio River valley, home to Dr. Benjamin Rush disciples like Dr. Daniel Drake. Although dead since 1813, Rush was famous as a Revolutionary War father and founder of American medicine, and he had numerous devoted stu­ dents. Drake, a chief opponent of Sappington, practiced and lectured in the Louisville and Cincinnati region.30 Some objections stemmed from unsavory opportunists who ignored qual­ ity control and used too much quinine, which could cause deafness or death. Merchants beseeched Sappington to accredit his salesmen, both for the pur­ chase of safe medicine and proper payment to Sappington's employees. A particularly costly episode in 1840-1841, the Immerson fraud, occurred in Arkansas. Imposters ran Sappington's route throughout the Arkansas River valley, to Fayetteville, and on to Springfield, Missouri. A Sappington sales­ man said: "Immerson has supplied the whole country and collected all the money. ... He has so deranged our business that we have a great deal of trou­ ble."31 William B. Sappington reacted with an increased advertising campaign

28 These are summed up in Burks, "Missouri Medicine Man," 100, 103-105. Approximate totals were Arkansas, $7,300; Louisiana, $17,500; Mississippi, $10,000; and Illinois, $25,000. The estimated cost for a box of pills ranges from ten to twenty cents. 29 Napton, Past and Present of Saline County, 567. 30 Samuel Frisbee to John Sappington, 10 November 1837, and W. G. Atherton to John Sappington, 15 November 1837, both in fol. 27, Sappington Papers, WHMC-Columbia. For a modern evaluation of Drake see James H. Cassedy, Medicine and American Growth, 1800- 1860 (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1986), 50-54. 31 James Saundry to C. F. Jackson, 12 April 1841, fol. 37, Sappington Papers, WHMC- Columbia. Sappington had assigned Arkansas to son-in-law Claiborne Jackson. Dr. John Sappington 53

¥JB it kfinwn that a certain Dr. pi M. MANSUkf of Jcilertfoii City Mo., h&amtnufacturcdandaoid at kit eliap, pill*, which ho4igiiifiad with the 11*1113 of Df John Sapping- tto*. Thereby intt*ndrn{r mo4 bw.-!y tt» i!ii pWMI Upon the tojii'aumlv, & *pttrtouit base c#untarfeiU in place of tUJ gmume* Dr. John Happingtana Ptfja. He hid * t&rge quantity of the directions that eoirer tit pill boTM, prints J at the office *£ the %tJefferaon Enquirer11 like that around the genuine ptlie wtUi the Deception th;tt in the mam* Sappington* he letvet out a p and i& Joel H» M^ydcn, he omits th* y So mean, pitiful, and fel<»gtotti a trick* so reckleaa of Iifa and fec*lthporp<»tratr<] far the e§&e of gmtifftng hi* cupidity, vii! r*lt^w the KUckne#« of heart. All. I hive to my to tlu- public in beware of pi Hi corning1 ffcnn euch a aonrce* lie km eont hi'* pilU to virion* paints in the BaiitH ftftd South *vc>t% and in pirtioular to hie brother in*Ia*% th<% Ivhf^r of the *• Ozark if i*t&udw#» printed at gprmgticlJ M*>.f JOH3g SAPPINGTON f by WAL a U0D1NU State Historical Society of Missouri that identified accredited salesmen in prominent newspapers.32 The frauds, however, siphoned thousands of dollars from Sappington's revenues. The strength of Sappington and Sons may be measured in part by the continued profits during the panics of 1837 and 1839. The doctor had always kept long-term accounts receivable, and they grew lengthier during the national depression. The circulation of several currencies in the West and the bank failures following in the wake of the depression complicated collections. Family correspondence reveals a cautious dialogue aimed

32 William B. Sappington to John Sappington, 29 December 1841, fol. 38, ibid. See also newsprint by W. Spillman, "The Truth, the Whole Truth and Nothing Else But the Truth," 6 September 1842, fol. 14, Miles M. Marmaduke Papers, WHMC-Columbia. 54 Missouri Historical Review toward gaining the lowest discounts at banks that honored multiple curren­ cies in circulation. Doing business on the East Coast proved difficult. Claiborne Jackson sent various bank notes from Illinois, Kentucky, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania with Dr. William Price, instructing him to exchange them for Virginia money, which held more purchasing power when Price arrived in Philadelphia.33 In 1838 William B. Sappington began special collection routes, and as the years passed, Dr. Sappington employed old political friends like Joel Haden and John Phelps to collect debts for him.34 At a time when banking problems depressed long-distance trade for most merchants, Sappington continued to have the capital and credit to pro­ duce his own value-added product. As L. S. Eddins, a kinsman and sales agent from Howard County, put it, 'This fortune making business, don't make its appearance every day."35 The business continued to flourish. By 1840 Price owned a new brick home in Arrow Rock, and he had assumed most of the medical practice in that part of the county. Dr. C. M. Bradford, another eastern-educated physician, came to Arrow Rock, and like Penn and Price before him, stayed. Bradford became the next young physician taken into Sappington's expanding world. Bradford witnessed a worsening deficit problem by 1842. Overhead expenses in distribution, collection, salary, and commissions were always significant, but in correspondence with William Sappington, Bradford expressed concern that "a damned right harder times" would commence if the Illinois notes did not rise in discount.36 The depression increased Sappington's red ink from a few thousand to tens of thousands of dollars. The Deep South, the region of greatest sales, reflected the largest debts. Sappington hired a pair of Texas attorneys to collect claims totaling over twenty-three thousand dollars, and lawyers in Tennessee represented him to collect over eleven thousand dollars. The results of this litigation are unknown, but Sappington's notoriety motivated enterprising attorneys in the Mississippi valley to ask to be hired to collect Sappington's debts. As large as these debts were, sales and collections continued to drive Sappington and Sons into southern and western markets. Biennial collection tours in the

33 Jackson and Miller to William Price, 20 July 1837, fol. 26, Sappington Papers, WHMC-Columbia. 34 William B. Sappington in account "Current in Collecting Money for John Sappington in Missouri and Illinois," spring 1838, fol. 4, Sappington Family Papers, WHMC-Columbia; Joel Haden to John Sappington and Sons, 16 May 1842, and John Phelps to John Sappington, 9 January 1845, fols. 39 and 60, both in Sappington Papers, ibid. Haden, a former land regis­ trar in Greene County, had returned to Howard County, and Phelps, a planter-lawyer from Greene County, had begun his long congressional career in Washington, D.C. 35 L. S. Eddins to Colonel Marmaduke, 21 June 1841, quoted in Riley, "John Sappington, Doctor and Philanthropist," 43. 36 C. M. Bradford to William Sappington, 1 March 1842, fol. 38, Sappington Papers, WHMC-Columbia. Dr. John Sappington 55 early 1840s generated twelve to fifteen thousand dollars.37 The business grew, but Dr. Sappington had begun to consider publishing a book as early as 1838. With his personal fortune secure, he proposed to publish his Theory and Treatment of Fevers as a self-help manual for the general population; in so doing, he would expose his use of and formula for quinine, a move not supported by the younger men of his family. Sappington challenged readers to "make your own" according to his formula. In 1844, at age sixty-eight, Sappington published the volume while the medical profes­ sion was poised for a revision of therapeutic theory based on the increased use of quinine. He used his commercial routes to promote and sell the book. It appears that he published at least twenty-six thousand copies.38 The book's influence is impossible to determine. As a result of the open debate among practitioners, by the 1840s the use of quinine to combat fevers was common. Quinine sulphate remained expensive for the common man, and many probably chose to buy the drug already mixed in patent medicines. Sappington's Anti-Fever Pills had attained a considerable reputation; perhaps the knowledge that they contained quinine added to consumers' satisfaction in the 1840s. Certainly, many doctors, travelers, and patients felt at ease tak­ ing Sappington's pills.39 The book sales, however, failed miserably. The

37 The Texas debts are in fol. 14, Sappington Papers, and the Tennessee figures are in fol. 6, Sappington Family Papers, both at WHMC-Columbia. Since many of Sappington's clients were fellow slaveowners, he secured slaves as collateral and occasionally foreclosed on the slave property. For examples see foreclosure of James Walsh to John Sappington, 7 January 1846, fol. 50, Sappington Papers, ibid.; William B. Sappington in account collecting for W. B. and E. D. Sappington, July 1843, fol. 6, Sappington Family Papers, ibid.; and L. S. Eddins to Miles Marmaduke, 21 June 1841, John Sappington Family Papers, Missouri Historical Society. 38 Complete invoices do not appear in Sappington's papers. One outline of distribution called for sixteen thousand copies—nine thousand to be sold in Missouri and the rest scattered from New England, down the east coast, and throughout the Ohio River valley. Another ten thousand copies went to the Deep South states. Dr. William Price, however, negotiated a con­ tract with a Philadelphia publisher for forty-seven thousand copies, but it is not clear whether that many were printed. Whatever the number, expenses for the publication represented a for­ tune of the day. See Miles Marmaduke to [?], 19 August 1844, fol. 18, Sappington Family Papers, WHMC-Columbia; William Price to William Sappington, 3, 18 March 1844; John Danforth to John Sappington, 1 January 1844; John Williams to John Sappington, 6 January 1844; and Thomas Rogers to John Sappington, 10 February 1844, fols. 44 and 45, Sappington Papers, ibid. Malaria was known by an amazing array of terms, most commonly, ague; thus, Sappington's work was a "book of fevers," a logical title for the time. The historical transition of treatment was chronicled by Dale C. Smith in "Quinine and Fever: The Development of the Effective Dosage," Journal of the History of Medicine 31 (July 1976): 343-367. Sappington's challenge is in Sappington, The Theory and Treatment of Fevers, 198-199. 39 Some doctors then and now believed that Sappington did the public a great service "by getting quinine regularly into a vast number of people in the middle west and south." Travelers across the Great Plains relied upon his pills. Patients increased their dosage if they felt Sappington's prescription was not enough. See S. R. Bruesch, "Early Medical History of Memphis, 1819-1861," West Tennessee Historical Society Papers 2 (1948): 49; Stella M. Drumm, ed., Down the Santa Fe Trail and into Mexico: The Diary of Susan Shelby Magoffin, 1846-1847 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1926; New Haven: Yale Western Americana Paperbound, 1962), 147, 163-164; and Walter B. Stevens, Centennial Histoiy of Missouri, The Center State (St. Louis: S. J. Clarke Publishing Company, 1921), 76. 56 Missouri Historical Review two-dollar price in 1844 plummeted to twenty cents in four years, and by 1852 New York houses proposed to sell the books for storage costs. In 1854 Sappington's family sold them for a nickel each.40 Sappington made no apology for his great wealth; instead, he claimed that his resources allowed him to widely distribute his medicine, saving the consumer money and alleviating much suffering. The thesis of his nontech­ nical book was that "quinine practice"—i.e., using quinine for all fevers— was superior to the practices of orthodox physicians who had graduated from medical schools. Throughout the book he called for significant reductions in the doctrinal use of calomel and the depletive methods of bleeding, purging, or puking. At the same time Sappington compared the "regular physicians" to "bigots in religion" and singled out several for individual criticism, chal­ lenges that he acknowledged would be refuted.41 Sappington's critics were disturbed that he did not publicly enter the qui­ nine debate until 1844, a time when many physicians had begun prescribing

40 See Thomas [Cowperthwait?] and Company to John Sappington, 5 June 1848, and [?] to John Sappington, 8 April 1852, fols. 12 and 22, Sappington Family Papers; and John Dunkum to C. F. Jackson, 24 March 1854, fol. 62, Sappington Papers, all at WHMC-Columbia. 41 Sappington, The Theory and Treatment of Fevers, 22, 79, 182.

Sons-in-law Claiborne F. Jackson (left) and Meredith Miles Marmaduke (right) became integral members of the Sappington clan. Interestingly, both later served as Missouri governor, Marmaduke in J844 and Jackson in 1861.

State Historical Society of Missouri State Historical Society of Missouri Dr. John Sappington 57 the use of quinine. They resented his role as a profiteer, marketing a "secret" patent medicine to an unknowing public, and considered it "unprofessional." Modern authors credit him for attacking the heroic therapy of depletion (bleeding, purging, and puking), recognizing that infants could suffer from malaria, and using quinine as a preventative medicine. The criticisms now appear as part of the historiography in medical history, and modern medical historians suggest that Sappington deserves recognition as the greatest single promoter of a new wonder drug. By the 1850s old prejudices against quinine were gone and everyone used it.42 With the commencement of his book sales, Sappington once again reor­ ganized his considerable assets. He dissolved John Sappington and Sons into four smaller companies. Principal managers for the first were his sons William and Darwin; for the second, Miles Marmaduke; for the third, sons- in-law Dr. William Price and Claiborne F. Jackson; and the fourth was a company administered by C. M. Bradford for the care of Sappington's grandchildren by his daughter Eliza Pearson. The base of equity in the new companies was notes or accounts receivable, money and interest due, slaves, inventories of medicine, and rights to vend the book. These companies con­ tinued to function, though in reduced volume, until the Civil War.43 The elder Sappington, a successful businessman who had endowed his family's future by the division of his assets in 1843, was raised in Jeffersonian America amidst agrarian ideals. Granted, he spent years prac­ ticing medicine and participating in long-distance trade, but he always enjoyed a considerable agricultural commerce in regions where agriculture was the South. Looking forward to a few years as a local elder, Sappington assumed the mantle of gentleman-planter and founded a great landed estate of improved farms in Saline County. By 1843 Sappington's lands in southeast Saline County totaled 16 tracts and 1,323 acres. Within six years he added another 42 farms and over 4,500

42 One of Sappington's greatest critics has been Ackerknecht in Malaria in the Upper Mississippi Valley, 120-122. He admitted years later that his "acid remarks" about Sappington had to do in large part with a business promotion of Sappington as an ancestor of actress/dancer Ginger Rogers. See Burks, "Missouri Medicine Man," 103 n. 1. 43 Comments on the companies appear in Riley, "John Sappington, Doctor and Philanthropist," 59-60, and Sneed, "John Sappington," 28-29. It is significant that the new personal wealth in the second generation of John Sappington's extended family immediately financed a number of Greek revival country mansions, including those for William and Darwin Sappington, Miles Marmaduke, and C. M. Bradford in Saline County, and William Eddins and C. F. Jackson in Howard County. Owing in large part to the great 1844 flood, the Sappington papers indicate that 1844 may have been the single best collection year in the his­ tory of the company; the cash flow perhaps inspired the younger family to be liberal in their expenditures. Prospects dimmed less than a decade later; a salesman reported from Vicksburg, Mississippi, "Medicine sales very light; stock is old, labels become old and soiled." J. D. Gregory to Miles Marmaduke, 3 January 1852, John Sappington Family Papers, Missouri Historical Society. 58 Missouri Historical Review

acres in the county, totaling some 7,000 acres in southeast Saline County and giving rise to the term "Sappington's neighborhood," used in local accounts.44 These investments significantly extended his landlord-tenant relation­ ships and dramatically increased his agricultural exports through Arrow Rock. His ability to attract tenants encroached upon the efforts of other nearby agricultural capitalists, who felt a disadvantage in not being able to compete for good labor with the doctor. Locke Hardeman, who used Sappington's agents to pursue his own debtors in Texas, complained to Beverley Tucker, his business associate in Virginia, that "Doctor Sappington and his family having laid out large sums in farms for rent [has done] much to the injury of this community."45 By 1850 the national center of cattle raising had shifted from the Illinois prairies to Missouri. Stockmen sent herds to eastern and western markets. At Pilot Hickory, the doctor's farm, Sappington built a considerable trade in mules, cattle, sheep, and hogs. Much shuffling of brood stock, calves, and mature ani­ mals took place between Pilot Hickory and the farms of his sons and sons-in- law. A review of the 1850 agricultural census clearly shows that Sappington outdistanced most agriculturalists in production. He even built a blacksmith shop to complement the extensive needs in tool and machine work and import­ ed the first McCormick reaper to Saline County. By any estimate John Sappington became a leading agricultural estate builder in the Boon's Lick.46 Sappington's notoriety continued to attract numerous requests for finan­ cial advice, business alliances, and loans. A Madison, Wisconsin, man wanted prices for six mules for a proposed trip to California, and another applicant sought a loan to build a hotel in Kansas City. The Cooper County court bor­ rowed ten thousand dollars to finance the construction of a bridge over the

44 Tax receipt to John Sappington, Saline County, 28 November 1843, fol. 43, and tax receipt to John Sappington, Saline County, 19 February 1850, fol. 58, Sappington Papers, WHMC-Columbia. Sappington's home farm, Pilot Hickory, comprised eighteen hundred acres. The family owned thousands of acres outside Saline County, including some four thou­ sand acres in the Osage River drainage purchased in 1839 at the Springfield land office. See "Osage Lands," fol. 67, ibid. 45 J. Locke Hardeman to Beverley Tucker, 13 May 1847, and 29 May 1848, fol. 6, J. Locke Hardeman Papers, WHMC-Columbia. Hardeman managed Tucker's Missouri assets and agricultural exports from Saline County to eastern markets. 46 In 1850 Sappington enumerated eight hundred swine, two hundred sheep, one hundred cattle and milch cows, and sixteen oxen and ranked fifth in the county in value of livestock ($2,500). Perhaps more importantly, his $1,350 of slaughtered animals led the county. The dollar value ($600) of his orchard products was double that of his closest competitor, Miles Marmaduke. A year earlier, Sappington had owned seventy head of mules. "Memorandum of Mules, Cattle, Hogs, etc. which I own at Pilot Hickory farm," fol. 7, Sappington Papers; receipt from McCormick's Patent Virginia Reaper to John Sappington, 19 March 1849, fol. 58, ibid.; receipt of Sligo Iron and Nail Store to John Sappington, 28 May 1849, fol. 13, Sappington Family Papers, all in WHMC-Columbia; Manuscript Census Schedules, Agriculture, 1850, Saline County, Missouri; Charles Leonard Cramer, "An Analysis of Changes in the Structure of Hog Markets in Northeast Missouri" (Ph.D. diss., University of Missouri, 1960), 16. Dr. John Sappington 59

Lamine River. Sappington even staked the newly born Boonslick Agricultural Society by loaning three thousand dollars for the purchase of land, improve­ ments, buildings, and development at the fairgrounds east of Boonville.47 Sappington still had one important legacy to give. After failing to attract others to join him in building a manual training school, he stipulated twenty thousand dollars in his will for the founding of a local school fund. This trust agreement, the Sappington School Fund, available to Saline County residents, grew to several hundred thousand dollars in the twentieth century while assisting, in outright grants, thousands of students. The existence of the fund insured a student body in Saline County, a crucial factor in the 1880s when Sappington's grandson used the existence of locally available tuition money to promote the founding of Missouri Valley College in Marshall.48 In 1853 Sappington again reorganized his business. He made careful assessments of his estate and presented his children with another formal dis­ tribution of wealth. They and their spouses became the beneficiaries of accounts receivable, sales of slaves, and allotments of lands totaling more than one hundred thousand dollars. At his death Sappington's heirs inherit­ ed another twenty thousand dollars.49 Long before Sappington's death in 1856, Thomas Hart Benton could remark that his old friend had "laid the foundation of a great fortune" in Missouri. As a member of the Boon's Lick gentry, the doctor bought blood­ ed horses with Virginia pedigrees and expensive carriages from St. Louis but lived his life in a log, two-story, dogtrot house. Famous as a doctor, Sappington's wealth began and was sustained in agriculture, but he promot­ ed his pills in the long-distance trade of patent medicine salesmanship, a proprietary business that may have been the largest of its kind in the ante­ bellum Trans-Mississippi West. His success probably drew considerably upon luck, but also on astute perceptions of character and merchandising.

47 List of notes belonging to John Sappington, 30 March 1856, fol. 64; J. Rice to John Sappington, n.d., fol. 60; William McClure to E. D. and W. B. Sappington, 16 January 1849, fol. 58, all in Sappington Papers, WHMC-Columbia. 48 Efforts by Sappington's descendants in 1894 to secure the school fund assets for themselves met with defeat in the Missouri Supreme Court. See F. M. Brown, Reports of Cases Determined in the Supreme Court of the State of Missouri (Columbia: E. W. Stephens, 1895), 32.42. 49 List of notes due John Sappington, 1 September 1853, allotment of lands, n.d. [1853], fol. 3; sale bill of the negroes, 10 September 1853, fol. 94; list of various notes, fols. 9, 61, 62, 64; all in Sappington Papers, WHMC-Columbia. Sappington's disbursements to his children in 1843-1844, 1853, and 1856 may have totaled over two hundred thousand dollars or more, assuming that the four companies in 1844 had average assets of twenty thousand dollars each. This is in addition to salaries, and perhaps profit sharings, in the long-distance trade of the 1820s and 1830s. It is instructive to note that the average annual earnings for an Alabama country doctor in 1854 was estimated at one thousand dollars, and small town practitioners at two thousand dollars. A valuation of twenty thousand dollars established a southern planter as wealthy. See Edgar W. Martin, The Standard of Living in 1860: American Consumption Levels on the Eve of the Civil War (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1942), 228. 60 Missouri Historical Review

His good fortune in the national market was impressive, as it did not depend upon railroads, but rather on waterways and overland roads. The wise coun­ sel of Miles Marmaduke and Sappington's judicious selections of three pro­ fessionally trained physicians greatly nourished his flourishing investments. He came to Missouri as a friend of Benton and never deserted him or the party of Jackson. His papers reflect a consistent theme in his desire to pro­ vide well for his children and his not-so-fortunate relatives whom he took into his merchandising. Sappington played many roles, and his imprint on Missouri will long remain as modern travelers visit the Sappington Museum in Arrow Rock, part of a national historic landmark, and the Sappington Cemetery, located on old Pilot Hickory farm, a state historic site.50

?u Although Sappington's profits were immense, a handful of other patent medicine mer­ chants on the East Coast accumulated much more during the first half of the nineteenth centu­ ry. For their background see Young, The Toadstool Millionaires.

The Sappington Museum in Arrow Rock, Missouri

Friends of Arrow Rock Little River Drainage District

"The Last Tree Cut Down"1: The End of the Bootheel Frontier, 1880-1940

BY BONNIE STEPENOFF*

If our proper relation to nature is not opposition, then what is it? This question becomes complicated and difficult for us because none of us, as I have said, wants to live in a "pure" primeval forest or in a "pure" primeval prairie;. . . But, do what we will, we remain under the spell of the primeval forests and prairies that we have cut down and broken; we turn repeatedly and with love to the thought of them and to their surviving remnants. —Wendell Berry, 19822

Conquering a wilderness demands hardihood and determination and inspires heady feelings of power and pride. In the aftermath of conquest, however, emotions may turn to nostalgia and regret. In 1890 the six counties

*Bonnie Stepenoff is coordinator of the Historic Preservation Program at Southeast Missouri State University, Cape Girardeau. She received the B.A. degree from Ohio State University, Columbus, and the M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Missouri-Columbia.

1 Letter from Louis Houck to the editor of the St. Louis Republic, 12 July 1911, reprint­ ed in the Cape Girardeau Weekly Republican, 14 July 1911. 2 Wendell Berry, Home Economics (San Francisco: North Point Press, 1987), 9.

61 62 Missouri Historical Review of Missouri's southeastern Bootheel remained heavily forested and lagged behind other areas of the state in population and development.3 Rapid land clearance in the United States during the late nineteenth century made the Bootheel one of the last undeveloped areas at the edge of cleared land, that is, one of America's last frontiers. Ambitious and adventurous people under­ took the challenge of penetrating, clearing, and draining the region's hard­ wood forests and cypress swamps. But, transformations in the area's land­ scape brought about by clearing caused social changes and a host of new problems. In the early twentieth century Louis Houck and Thad Snow, two prominent Bootheel boosters, expressed strong misgivings about what had been gained—and what had been lost—in conquering this frontier. Both Houck and Snow came to Missouri's southeastern lowlands as lat­ ter-day pioneers, seeking the American dream of success through courageous enterprise. Houck, an Illinois-born lawyer, writer, and entrepreneur, arrived in Cape Girardeau in 1869. In the spring of that year, he traveled south to Kennett, a town deep in the Bootheel region, and gazed in awe at the vast stretches of primeval forest. Late in his life he recalled his impressions:

The Kennett road passed down Deck's creek and I remember before I went into the bottom, I sat down on a hillside on the left of where Dexter now stands, looking over a vast forest of timber on all sides, greatly impressed; not a single farm in sight or opening in the vast woods except at the foot of the hill, an open place known as Miller's Farm. Going south for miles we traveled along the edge of what was known as the East Swamp, all covered with heavy timber.4

Houck spent the next three decades of his life acquiring property, promoting development of the region, building roads and railroads, and encouraging lumber companies to harvest the timber. After 1900 Houck turned his attention to studying and writing Missouri history, often reflecting elegiacally on the state's predevelopment landscape. During his creative years between 1901 and 1925, he enjoyed donning his hat and cape, taking his walking stick, and rambling through the woods on his large property near Cape Girardeau. Houck's books on Missouri history fre­ quently expressed nostalgia for the state's vanishing wilderness. Drawing inspiration from the remaining forests of the lower Mississippi valley, Houck wrote flowery passages, such as, "Missouri is a land of beauty

3 David Thelen, Paths of Resistance: Tradition and Democracy in Industrializing Missouri (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1986), 92. 4 Cape Girardeau Southeast Missourian, 15 May 1969; newspaper edition of Houck's reminiscences, bound in manuscript, in possession of the Houck family. uThe Last Tree Cut Down" 63 now, but, in a state of nature, before touched, and too often defaced, by the work of man, Missouri was a ter­ restrial paradise."5 Snow, an Indiana-born farmer and writer, migrated to the Bootheel in the early twentieth century. Like Houck, he gazed upon vast stretches of uncleared wetlands and felt the lure of the wilderness. Snow defined a frontier as a place with wild ani­ mals and wild people, and when he came to southeastern Missouri in 1910, he found an abundance of both.6 He also saw an opportunity to profit from clearing the land. The ridge farms already cleared by earli­ er settlers did not attract him. Years later he wrote, "For one thing they cost more than uncleared land, and my money wouldn't buy as many acres as it seemed to me my ambition Southeast Missourian, Cape Girardeau required."7 In order to obtain the largest possible landholding, he Louis Houck chose to invest in uncleared acreage. When Snow arrived in Missouri, he succumbed to the excitement and optimism of subduing a wilderness by clearing and successfully farming a large-tract. By the end of his life, however, Snow expressed regret at the loss of the Bootheel frontier. There was something very satisfying, he wrote, about the work of clearing land. In the aftermath of the clearing, Snow watched the land and its people change in ways he did not anticipate. Feelings of optimism gave way to a deep concern about the future and nos­ talgia for the lost wilderness. Because of its swampy character, Missouri's Bootheel remained a fron­ tier until the third decade of the twentieth century. Nineteenth-century set­ tlers bypassed the region because, in the words of one early inhabitant, it

5 Louis Houck, A History of Missouri (Chicago: R. R. Donnelley and Sons, 1908), 1:31. For a good account of Houck's life see William T. Doherty, Jr., Louis Houck: Missouri Historian and Entrepreneur, University of Missouri Studies, vol. 33 (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1960). 6 Thad Snow, From Missouri (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1954), 145. 7 Ibid., 94. 64 Missouri Historical Review had an unjustified reputation for being "sickly and visited by earthquakes." The New Madrid earthquake of 1811 certainly slowed immigration to the lowlands. The earthquake, however, had no effect on the major barrier to set­ tlement—the periodic inundation of wide stretches of the region when the Mississippi and the St. Francis Rivers and other smaller streams flooded.8 Regional boosters in the mid-nineteenth century urged Missouri's state government to support swamp drainage. In 1851 Representative Robert A. Hatcher of New Madrid County pushed a bill through the legislature, estab­ lishing a special reclamation district composed of all the counties in south­ eastern Missouri containing swamps or overflowed lands. Within two years, however, the state turned the responsibility for the drainage program over to the individual counties. In explaining this decision, Governor Austin A. King cited a lack of cooperation from the county courts.9 While Bootheel counties struggled with the drainage problem, loggers cleared millions of acres of timberland in other parts of the United States. The westward movement, industrialization, and urbanization created an unprecedented demand for lumber. Beginning in the 1850s, steam-powered circular and gang-saws increased the output of lumber mills from less than three thousand to more than forty thousand board feet per day.10 American loggers cut less than two billion board feet of wood in 1839, more than eight billion in 1859, twenty billion in 1880, and a peak of forty-six billion board feet in 1904, an amount never again equaled.11 Houck's railroads opened southeastern Missouri's lowlands to the lum­ ber industry. The short lines he constructed in the 1880s and 1890s connect­ ed the wooded regions of the Bootheel with timber markets in Cape Girardeau and elsewhere. His correspondence contained numerous exchanges with lumber companies considering a move to the area. Many timber entrepreneurs, including Gideon and Anderson, Himmelberger-Luce, C. A. Boynton, and International Harvester, built sawmills and planing mills along Houck's lines. Lumber companies acquired huge tracts in southeast Missouri. For instance, Himmelberger and Harrison of the Luce Land and Lumber Company controlled two hundred thousand acres of Bootheel land.12

8 Goah Watson, "Judge Goah Watson's Account of the Settlement of New Madrid," typescript, coll. 995, vol. 3, no. 101, pp. 11-13, Western Historical Manuscript Collection, University of Missouri-Columbia; Leon Parker Ogilvie, "Governmental Efforts at Reclamation in the Southeast Missouri Lowlands," Missouri Historical Review 64 (January 1970): 151, 159. 9 Ogilvie, "Governmental Efforts at Reclamation," 165, 168, 176. 10 Michael Williams, "The Clearing of the Forests," in The Making of the American Landscape, ed. Michael P. Conzen (Winchester, Mass.: Unwin Hyman, Inc., 1990). 153. 11 Ibid., 152. 12 Louis Houck Papers, Regional History Collection, Kent Library, Southeast Missouri State University, Cape Girardeau; Doherty, Louis Houck, 43-44. "The Last Tree Cut Down" 65

ir * ^ Although Thad Snow cleared land and ^S^iifaJlAAil farmed in southeast Missouri, he later 1 regretted the loss of dense forests in the pijHl area. f.ll.€ "-v

••:#:iS^<4^ •'- *0m [l:fi£p|i ^H|§§i§ftl|llB fe ',iiu.--- f ; p^ft:?i ^Bft :«iSjl jH ... • •-" •* . « [i'N^liSJ r|; ;.;^;:-«:V LiM «!-:• i^*>

§11 •vr^' Western Historical Manuscript Collection- St. Louis

Because of his railroad building, newspapers called Houck the "Father of Southeast Missouri." In a retrospective on his life, a Sikeston newspaper stated that before Houck came to the region the alluvial plains of southeast­ ern Missouri formed a wasteland with only a few scattered homes. People had supported themselves by trapping and fishing, and all previous efforts at railroad building had ended in failure. With pluck, persistence, recklessness, and a true pioneering spirit, Houck turned this situation around and opened the Bootheel to the currents of economic development then sweeping the nation. Railroads brought lumber tycoons, who cleared the forested land. As trees disappeared, farming became the chief occupation, and the rich soil yielded excellent harvests. The paper stated: "The alluvial valley of Southeast Missouri stands as a monument to the vision of Louis Houck—a dream realized. The once worthless swamp blossoms as the proverbial rose—concrete highways cross from north to south and from east to west— through the beds of former lakes and sloughs."13 From the beginning, some people questioned Houck's triumph. In the extreme southeastern corner of the state, he built a stretch of road through swamps so deep that the construction crews had to throw huge piles of logs into the water to form a dry bed for the railroad cross ties. Water continual­ ly sloshed over the ties, splashing the cars in which passengers rode. One

Sikeston Standard, 6 March 1936. 66 Missouri Historical Review passenger, in particular, reportedly failed to appreciate this engineering wonder. An elderly lady traveling on a free pass expressed annoyance rather than gratitude, declaring her regret that the railroad had come through these lands. When questioned as to why she felt this way, she replied that she had "hearn tell railroads made a country mighty sickly to live in."14 Snow, an entrepreneur who benefited greatly from Houck's efforts, expressed mixed feelings about development. Once the railroads penetrated the Bootheel, farmers like Snow quickly moved in to tap the potential of the alluvial soil. Some of these farmers purchased cleared lands while others invested in wooded acreages, hoping to clear them and tremendously increase their value. The adventurous Indianan acquired an uncleared tract of land in Mississippi County, near Charleston and across the river from Cairo, Illinois. During his years as a frontier farmer, Snow found that the Bootheel paradise had more than one serpent lurking in it. Looking back on his move to Missouri, the eloquent Snow wrote: "I had the big-eye. I was a fool, looking for trouble, punishment, and perhaps disaster. The improved farms were much the cheapest, really. All the uncleared land was priced much too high and could be sold because outside buyers and even local buy­ ers, who ought to have known better, always figured they could clear and improve land for about half what it would inevitably cost in the end."15 Land tycoons like Snow hired families to clear the land at a fixed price per acre. These families built small shacks on the tract to be cleared and, according to Snow, worked zealously because land clearing was satisfying work, with progress visible at the end of the day. The fact that they were paid by the acre and not by the day also must have spurred their efforts. Yet, a ter­ rible irony existed: cutting trees off a piece of land meant cutting off their means of livelihood. When they finished clearing a tract, the woods people were out of a job and had to move. Rewards for their efforts were slight. As Snow later wrote: "I have no way of knowing how much money per day on the average these valiant axemen and axewomen of the lowlands received for their monumental labor, but I would be surprised if someone who had figured it out told me the average was as much as forty cents per day."16 Trappers and fishermen who depended on forests and swamps for subsis­ tence joined the effort to clear the timber. In Stoddard County during the early twentieth century, Elmer Markham and his sons lived and worked in the forest­ ed swamps. According to local historian Thomza Zimmerman, the Markham men earned their living by working the timber during the day and hunting at night. Like other local woodsmen, the Markhams prided themselves on their ability to find their way around the deep forest by moonlight. As boys,

Clipping in Houck Papers. Snow, From Missouri, 94. Ibid., 134. "The Last Tree Cut Down " 67

Norman and Arthur Markham learned to track game in the dense swampy area known as the Dark Cypress, adding to the family income by selling mink and raccoon pelts. Their father worked on a crew cutting timber in the wetlands. These timber crews eventually hacked away all the trees, depriving the Markham family of income from timber cutting and trapping. The Dark Cypress subsequently vanished and became a haunting local legend.17 Lumber companies brought new workers into the Bootheel forests. One of the largest, the Wisconsin Lumber Company, a subsidiary of International Harvester Company, began operating in Pemiscot County around 1902. Workers migrated from east of the Mississippi River to work in the compa­ ny's sawmill in Deering. The company owned most of the town; workers rented housing from the company and shopped at the company store. According to oral testimony, the company hired both black and white work­ ers. Although black workers traded at the company store, they lived in a sep­ arate area called Negro Town, or Colored Town, with their own school, church, hotel, and recreation center. Deering's post office was located in the company store. In addition to the store, the company provided a barbershop, an icehouse, a ball diamond, and a playground.18 Like other lumber milling towns of the early twentieth century, Deering occupied an isolated clearing in the wilderness. Early resident Mary Putnam Williams remembered that the roads were so bad before the 1920s

17 Thomza Zimmerman, "The Dark Cypress," in Advance, Missouri, U.S.A.: A Look at the First One Hundred Years, ed. Mike Moroni (Cape Girardeau, Mo.: Center for Regional History, 1986), 19-21. ls Ophelia R. Wade, ed., History of Delta C-7 School District in Deerinq, Missouri (Deering, Mo., 1976), 51-52.

A number of timber companies, including the Wisconsin Lumber Company, profited from activities in Missouri's Bootheel.

Pemiscot County Historical Society 68 Missouri Historical Review that it might take two hours to travel two miles. The marshy ground stuck to the wheels of a wagon, impeding progress. After a rain the roads remained muddy until the sun baked them dry; shade from overhanging tree limbs made this a slow process. Wild animals abounded. When the mill whistle blew early in the morning, wolves would howl in response. People had to fence in their livestock to protect it from predators such as bobcats.19 Lumber mill workers adopted the hunting and gathering lifestyle of the indigenous population. As Williams recalled, people could fish in a big ditch south of Deering. She remembered that black women often fished along the banks. Apparently, white families also depended upon fish for many meals, and in the winter people killed wild turkeys and hogs for meat. "The wild hog meat wasn't as good as the fattened hogs," Williams said. "But it sure beat nothing."20 By 1905, however, regional boosters had laid the groundwork for a great engineering feat that would significantly alter life in the Bootheel. In January of that year, supporters of economic development formed the Little River Drainage District, a public agency that planned and constructed a mammoth system of ditches, canals, and levees to drain the swamps. District boundaries stretched from Cape Girardeau southward to the Missouri-Arkansas state line, covering an area of some 540,000 acres in Bollinger, Cape Girardeau, Dunklin, New Madrid, Pemiscot, Scott, and Stoddard Counties. Mississippi County formed its own drainage district. Property owners paid taxes to support facilities that eventually drained or provided drainage outlets for more than a million acres of swampland.21 Houck fought bitterly but unsuccessfully against the Little River Drainage District. In a letter published in the St. Louis Republic in the sum­ mer of 1911, Houck warned against the dangerous fury of what he called the "drainage craze." He denounced "real estate speculators, contractors, bond houses, bond lawyers, and other interested parties" for promoting drainage at the expense of the public. Houck said that legislators, "anxious to pose as men of great enterprise and public spirit," passed ill-considered laws to expedite swamp clearance. These lawmakers, he asserted, acted hastily in response to "the specious plea that the State must be fully improved quickly, the land drained quickly, the empty places filled up quickly, the last tree cut down quickly, the old fogies—so called—rooted out quickly."22 Perhaps feeling like one of "the old fogies," Houck further criticized the drainage plan as costly, unfair, and potentially disastrous. In some drainage

19 Ibid., 52. 20 Ibid. 21 Little River Drainage District of Southeast Missouri 1907-Present (Cape Girardeau, Mo., 1989), 6. 22 Cape Girardeau Weekly Republican, 14 July 1911, reprint of article in St. Louis Republic, 12 July 1911. "The Last Tree Cut Down" 69 districts, he wrote, the owners of the majority of the acres had the power to elect supervisors who controlled the projects. Absentee owners could thus guide the destinies of local farmers and businessmen. Small landowners had little protection. Landowners paid taxes, based on county assessments of property value, to support the project. Houck called the assessments unfair and denounced the entire drainage scheme as a violation of property rights. Because of its massive scale, huge cost, and complicated legal underpin­ nings, Houck predicted the drainage project would end in catastrophe.23 The editor of the St. Louis Republic published Houck's letter but also printed a brief rebuttal. Houck's fears, though understandable, would proba­ bly prove unfounded, in the editor's view. Public scrutiny of the drainage projects would forestall abuses by large landholders and speculators. While some landowners might suffer losses, the people of the Bootheel would reap huge benefits in increased farm productivity and property values. The peo­ ple of Missouri wanted this drainage project, the editor stated, and the pro­ ject would continue.24 Why did Houck fight swamp drainage? Personal motives surely affect­ ed his judgment as the drainage plan caused him financial problems. In August 1916 the Little River Drainage District petitioned the circuit court of Cape Girardeau County to enforce the collection of delinquent drainage taxes from Houck.25 Regardless, throughout his career in southeastern

23 Ibid. 24 Ibid. 25 Little River Drainage District v Mary H. G. Houck and Louis Houck, Petition to Enforce Collection of Delinquent Drainage Taxes, Circuit Court of Cape Girardeau County, Missouri, August 1916, box 34, Houck Papers.

Swampland in Southeast Missouri Before Drainage

State Historical Society of Missouri 70 Missouri Historical Review

Western Historical Manuscript Collection-Columbia

Missouri, Houck showed that he could act from altruistic motives as well as personal ambition. While he certainly enriched himself with his railroad promotions, he also generously supported many public service projects, notably the development of a state normal school in Cape Girardeau. Concern for the region, as much as for his personal position, probably ani­ mated his opposition to the drainage project. Houck's devotion to studying and writing Missouri history demonstrat­ ed his sincere concern for the state's heritage. Ironically, the same vision that drove him to conquer the Bootheel by promoting development may have caused him, in later years, to try to preserve that landscape, at least in people's memories, by writing about it. The man who sat on a hill near Dexter inspired by a vast stretch of wilderness, the man who encouraged exploitation of that wilderness, and the man who ultimately remembered Missouri, before the rush to development, as "an earthly paradise" were all the same man.26 The man who touted the railroads and the man who resist­ ed the drainage project were also the same man, exhibiting inner conflicts between greed and altruism, ambition and regret. Despite Houck's protests, the Little River Drainage District succeeded remarkably in draining the swamps and filling the "empty places" with new populations. Thad Snow observed that after the swamps dried up, poor peo­ ple flocked to the region from the hills of Kentucky and Tennessee. Most

Houck, History of Missouri, 1: 31-32. "The Last Tree Cut Down " 71

were white southerners who followed a long tradition of migrating into the timbered and cutover lands of the Mississippi delta, bringing with them their axes, crosscut saws, and some household possessions. A few large landowners brought in crews of black workers from the South. Snow recalled that these landowners built stockades to keep the workers from wandering off into the still-dense woods. Most of the new workers came to clear land for other people—very few managed to acquire abandoned land and become landowning farmers.27 Between 1880 and 1930, when Missouri's rural population declined, the population of the Bootheel region skyrocketed as cotton cultivation took hold and flourished. From 1900 to 1910 the rural population of New Madrid, Pemiscot, and Scott Counties increased by more than 50 percent, while the rural population of Dunklin County grew by more than 25 percent. The population in all Bootheel counties soared from 1880 to 1930, as the following figures indicate:

Table 1 Population of Bootheel Counties

County 1880 1930

Dunklin 9,604 35,799 Mississippi 9,270 15,762 New Madrid 7,694 30,262 Pemiscot 4,299 37,284 Scott 8,587 24,913 Stoddard 13,431 27,452 SOURCE: U.S. Bureau of the Census, Fifteenth Census of the United States: 1930, vol. 3, pt. 1: Population (Washington, D.C: Government Printing Office, 1932), 1341-1346, and Thirteenth Census of the United States: 1910, vol. 2: Population (Washington, D.C: Government Printing Office, 1913), 1106-1119.

The African-American population of some, but not all, of these counties increased dramatically. The black population in Pemiscot County grew from 412 in 1890 to 10,040 in 1930. In Dunklin County, however, the black popu­ lation remained very small (158 in 1890 and 461 in 1930).28 The following

27 Snow, From Missouri, 134-135. 28 U.S. Bureau of the Census, Thirteenth Census of the United States: 1910, vol. 2: Population (Washington, D.C: Government Printing Office, 1913), 1106, 1114. 72 Missouri Historical Review figures show the change in the black population of the Bootheel counties:

Table 2 African-American Population of Bootheel Counties

County 1900 1910 1920 1930 Dunklin 205 96 147 461 Mississippi 2,265 2,006 1,311 3,997 New Madrid 2,027 2,097 1,950 5,617 Pemiscot 862 1,533 3,865 10,040 Scott 505 545 365 1,531 Stoddard 47 24 17 1,692 SOURCE: U.S. Bureau of the Census, Fifteenth Census of the United States: 1930, vol. 3, pt. 1: Population (Washington, D.C: Government Printing Office, 1932), 1341-1346, and Thirteenth Census of the United States: 1910, vol. 2: Population (Washington, D.C: Government Printing Office, 1913), 1106-1119.

The pattern of rapid land clearance by lumber companies and large- scale farmers created a troubled social climate in the drained lands of the Bootheel. Historian Irvin J. Wyllie has observed: "After the closing of other frontiers the Bootheel came into its own in the 1890s largely under the aus­ pices of lumbermen, real estate promoters, and cotton planters."29 This development resulted in a system of landholding that made the Bootheel a region of absentee landlords, prosperous planters, and tenant farmers. High rates of land tenancy and poverty resulted in social instability and racial conflict in the early twentieth century.30 Largely due to the pattern of land clearance, rapid population growth, and high rates of farm tenancy, the Bootheel became Missouri's only agricul­ tural region with a significant socialist movement between 1900 and 1917.31 Phil Hafner, editor of the Scott County Kicker, advocated public ownership of agricultural land and railroads. His paper, aimed at a rural audience, often expressed Hafner's editorial positions in the form of homespun dialog with a farmer he dubbed the "Sandywoods man." Hafner hammered home the issue of farm tenancy, asking the "Sandywoods man" if his family or his landlord benefited from his labor. The rural editor, whose socialist newspaper flour-

29 Irvin J. Wyllie, "Race and Class Conflict on Missouri's Cotton Frontier," Journal of Southern Histoiy 20 (May 1954): 184. 30 Thelen, Paths of Resistance, 92-99. 31 Leon Parker Ogilvie, "Populism and Socialism in the Southeast Missouri Lowlands," Missouri Historical Review 65 (January 1971): 169. 'The iMst Tree Cut Down" 73 ished from 1902 to 1917, also attacked Houck and his railroads. Who fur­ nished the money to build the railroads? "Was it not the people who sub­ scribed to and paid their cash for a lot of $100 and $1,000 bonds that cost Louis Houck less than a penny apiece for the printing? And while the people furnished the money to build the road, yet these people can ride on this road, or ship over this road, only at the rates fixed by Mr. Houck."32 Houck became the target of scathing protests against social conditions in southeastern Missouri. In 1912 the St. Louis Mirror printed a vitriolic edito­ rial supporting the single tax movement and castigating Houck in purple prose. Noting Houck's opposition to the single tax on land, the editorial writer for the Mirror demanded that Houck disclose how many acres of unimproved land he owned in southeastern Missouri. The paper denounced Houck's rail­ roads as the most "abominably rapacious monopoly in this State." Accusing Houck of opposing the single tax to protect his own interests, the editorial writer insisted: "Anything that endangers Louis Houck's railroad and landlord graft sufficiently to excite his protest must be a thing that will be for the ben­ efit of the people of the whole region upon whom he has fattened for more than a generation."33 By the time this editorial appeared, Houck had partially retired from business to write several histories of Missouri. The profits of his railroad activities allowed him to live on a large feudal-style manor, inhabit­ ed by numerous tenants, on the outskirts of Cape Girardeau.34 In a climate of tension and violence, the transition to a plantation econ­ omy continued through the 1910s and 1920s. Crime and disorderliness increased as poor white and black workers migrated to the region seeking

Scott County Kicker, 28 June 1902. The Mirror 22 (12 September 1912): 2. Doherty, Louis Houck, 121.

State Historical Society of Missouri 74 Missouri Historical Review work in the cotton fields. In the summer of 1910 white mobs lynched black farm laborers in New Madrid and Mississippi Counties.35 Whites, afraid for their own jobs and wages, harassed and intimidated blacks. In Caruthersville, Pemiscot County, a mob murdered a black man named A. B. Richardson and burned a black boardinghouse in the fall of 1911. By 1915 large landowners had banded together to force local authorities to prosecute vigilantes and protect their labor force.36 Cotton became the chief crop of the Bootheel by 1920. As late as 1909 farmers in the region had grown a variety of crops, including corn, wheat, cotton, hay, and forage, in that order. The following table illustrates the dra­ matic increase in acres planted to cotton in the six Bootheel counties:

Table 3 Acres Planted in Cotton

County 1909 1920

Dunklin 44,061 89,241 Mississippi 149 25,239 New Madrid 9,894 54,240 Pemiscot 21,688 125,637 Scott 20 16,182 Stoddard 8,239 19,490

SOURCE: U.S. Bureau of the Census, Thirteenth Census Abstract with Supplement for Missouri (Washington, D.C: Government Printing Office, 1913), 676-683, and Fifteenth Census of the United States: 1930, vol. 2, pt. 1: Agriculture (Washington, D.C: Government Printing Office, 1932), 1017-1023.

Increases in cotton farming generally corresponded with increases in black population. For instance, Pemiscot County, which had the most dramatic increase in acreage planted to cotton, also had the largest increase in African- American population. Thad Snow remembered 1923 as a year of fundamental change in the Bootheel, which he called "Swampeast Missouri." "In that year," he wrote, "Swampeast Missouri went south overnight." When he came to the area, he envisioned its transformation into a "cornbelt garden spot" resembling his Indiana home. In 1923, however, he believed that the "South came up to absorb" the region and "make it over into a land of cotton plantations within

35 Thelen, Paths of Resistance, 95-96. 36 Ibid., 96-97, 99. "The Last Tree Cut Down" 75

State Historical Society of Missouri

Cotton Fields in Dunklin County a year's time."37 Of course, change occurred more gradually than he recalled, but his observation contained more than a grain of truth. By the time of Houck's death in 1925, impenetrable thickets of swamp and timber in the Bootheel had given way to vast flat stretches of agricultural land. Geographer Sam T. Bratton described the southeast Missouri lowlands in 1930 as divided into two parts—the northern corn belt and the southern cotton belt. Farms in the northern section tended to follow a more midwest­ ern pattern of diversified land use, with some trees remaining on the land. In the southern, cotton-growing district, most of the farms comprised less than fifty acres, and in general, the farmer did not own the land. Large landhold- ings were divided into tracts of ten to one hundred acres and leased to tenant farmers.38 Cotton growers removed nearly all the trees from their farms. Having exhausted huge tracts of timber, lumber companies attempted either to join in the plantation economy or sell their holdings to large planters. Charles B. Baker recalled that in 1928 the International Harvester's Deering mill went idle. Subsequently, the company tried to turn its large landholding into a farming operation, using former mill personnel as sharecroppers. Failing dismally, the company sold over twenty-five hun­ dred acres of cleared land to Baker in 1935. Baker employed tenant farmers to raise cotton, soybeans, and alfalfa.39 Some timber remained in the Bootheel in 1930, but lumber companies cut it at the rate of twelve to fifteen million board feet per year. Sawmills still whirred along the railroad lines. In a few remaining forested areas, woods

37 Thad Snow, "History of Swampeast Missouri," fol. 20, Thad Snow Papers, Western Historical Manuscript Collection, University of Missouri-St. Louis. 38 Sam T. Bratton, "Land Utilization in the St. Francois Basin," Economic Geography 6 (1930): 376. 39 Testimony of Charles B. Baker, 24 April 1976, printed in Wade, History of Delta C-7, 57-60. 76 Missouri Historical Review people still hunted for small game animals, using squirrels and birds for food and selling muskrat pelts for cash.40 This way of living would soon fade away. In the 1930s the Federal Writers Project of the Works Progress Administration reported that "King Cotton" had "usurped" all the land in the Bootheel south of the town of Maiden in Dunklin County. Nearly all the trees had vanished. Corn and wheat production had dwindled. According to the WPA Guide to 1930s Missouri, "South of Maiden, 'King Cotton's' dominion meets the horizon with a monotony that is broken only by occa­ sional clumps of trees in a brush-choked swamp."41 Thad Snow watched it happen. By 1924 a new concrete road appeared in front of his door. The Bootheel changed, in his view, almost overnight, from a frontier extension of the midwestern corn- and wheat-growing economy to an extension of the southern cotton-growing economy. This transformation brought with it a change of mind. Snow succeeded as a Bootheel planter, acquiring one thousand acres and twenty tenants. Nevertheless, by the end of the 1920s, with an agricultural depression threatening his way of life, he con­ fessed to feeling pessimistic. "In 1920," he wrote, "we were confident, buoy­ ant, and aggressive; in 1930 we were defeated, confused and listless."42 The Great Depression hit hard in the Bootheel, ruining some cotton planters and displacing many tenant farmers and sharecroppers. During the 1930s the number of farms in the region decreased while the size of the farms increased. Mechanization allowed large landowners to replace tenant farmers and sharecroppers with seasonal day laborers.43 Snow sympathized with the "croppers," who lost their livelihood. As an irrepressible amateur contributor to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, he wrote letters to the editor that called attention to the sharecroppers' plight.44 New Deal programs aimed at reviving the cotton economy increased the misery of the "croppers." In letters and newspaper articles Snow castigated the government for assisting landowners while ignoring the plight of tenants. In what he called the "spectacular plow-up of 1933," planters took many acres out of production, throwing tenants and sharecroppers off the land and creating "thousands of economic semi-exiles in the cotton South," which included the Bootheel. The programs helped the planters at the expense of the tenants. As Snow argued: "Seven years ago cotton planters and cotton croppers alike were down and out. Now after six years of control land own-

40 Bratton, "Land Utilization," 385, 388. 41 WPA Guide to 1930s Missouri (Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 1986), 527. 42 Snow Papers, introductory material with the collection; Snow, From Missouri, 153. 43 Louis Cantor, A Prologue to the Protest Movement: The Missouri Sharecropper Roadside Demonstration of 1939 (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1969), 38. 44 William R. Amberson to Thad Snow, 15 April 1937, and newspaper clippings, Snow Papers. "The Last Tree Cut Down' 11 ers and planters are generally riding high, while the croppers are still scrap­ ing bottom."45 To the alarm of his fellow planters, Snow publicly supported the famous sharecropper and tenant farmer roadside protests in 1939. He invited the Southern Tenant Farmers Union to organize on his plantation. Angry neigh­ bors accused him of masterminding the demonstrations, during which hun­ dreds of sharecroppers and farm laborers and their families camped along U.S. Routes 60 and 61 in the Bootheel. He denied this but openly sided with the tenants against the planters. It was a question, he said, of "toting fair" with the homeless and dispossessed, many of whom were African Americans.46 Snow believed the problems of the tenant farmers arose not only from planters' greed and poor governmental policy but also from the loss of the wilderness. In his memoirs he expressed the belief that people lived more contentedly in the woods, or near them, than on the plantations. People with access to a forest could hunt and fish to diversify their diets and add to their subsistence. Snow wrote: "I don't mean that the work people who cleared up our land could live on wild game but they all had a chance to get it, to cheer up their regular meat diet of sow-belly and hog jowls."47 When the woods and the wild animals vanished, he wrote, the frontier, with all its challenge and promise, also vanished.48 Frontier people, who could turn to hunting and fishing for subsistence, had a degree of indepen-

45 Thad Snow, "Sharecroppers Roadside Strike, 1939," fol. 32, ibid. 46 Cantor, Prologue to the Protest Movement, 30; Snow, "Sharecroppers Roadside Strike, 1939." For an account of the roadside demonstration see also Arvarh E. Strickland, "The Plight of the People in the Sharecroppers' Demonstration in Southeast Missouri," Missouri Historical Review 81 (July 1987): 403-416. 47 Snow, From Missouri, 145. 4K Ibid.

St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Some landowners chastised Thad Snow for openly sup­ porting the sharecroppers' strike and allowing them to organize on his property. 78 Missouri Historical Review

dence from the vagaries of the cotton economy. By the 1930s this indepen­ dence had disappeared. For Snow and other Americans, the frontier embod­ ied optimism, a sense of possibilities, and the chance to make a fresh start. When the frontier closed and all the old problems of established societies engulfed the pioneers, that optimism perished. Louis Houck and Thad Snow lived very different lives, with striking par­ allels between them. Houck, the elder, arrived in southeastern Missouri just after the Civil War. The Bootheel's vast timbered flatlands quickened his ambition, and he spent the next four decades promoting development of the area. In the early twentieth century, however, he had second thoughts about the rush to development. He opposed drainage of the Bootheel swamps and began reflecting on Missouri's heritage, writing wistfully of a lost paradise. Snow came to the Bootheel in the early twentieth century. A tract of uncleared land in Mississippi County caught his eye. Like Houck, he was ambitious, and he worked feverishly to develop the potential of the rich land. The Great Depression shocked him. He angered his landowning neighbors by sympathizing with homeless tenant farmers and calling for social justice. Also like Houck, he had second thoughts about his early ambition. He too regretted the loss of the wilderness. In their last years, both Houck and Snow retreated to the woods. Houck surrounded himself with nature on his Elmwood estate. Snow left the Bootheel in the 1950s and moved to the Rose Cliff Hotel in Van Buren, a small town on the Current River in the rugged Ozarks, to write his autobiography. Both Houck and Snow witnessed the disappearance of one of Missouri's last great wilderness areas in the early twentieth century. Like other people of this century, they faced troubling questions about the proper relationships of human beings and the natural environment. In their early careers they responded to nature in the manner of pioneers, regarding it as an opportunity and a challenge. After they had helped to conquer the wilderness, however, they began to believe that something very precious had been lost.

Not His Choice

Missouri Game and Fish News, August, 1927. "Don't you want to buy a bicycle to ride around your farm?" asked the hardware clerk, as he wrapped up the nails. "They're cheap now. I can sell you a first class one for $35." "I'd rather put $35 in a cow," replied the farmer. "But think," replied the clerk, "how foolish you'd look riding around on a cow." "Oh, I don't know." said the farmer, stroking his chin; "no more foolish, I guess, than I would milkin' a bicycle."—Hi-Jinks. State Historical Society of Missouri

Entitled ''Somewhere in America," this cartoon depicts the suspicion and fear that many citizens felt toward German Americans during the first World War.

With Liberty and Justice for All?: The Suppression of German-American Culture During World War I

BY CHRIS RICHARDSON*

During World War I, Missouri Governor Frederick D. Gardner warned pro-Germans to keep out of the state. Those who did not heed his warning, he stated, would be considered traitors and face a firing squad. He declared,

*Chris Richardson is a sophomore at Rolla High School, Rolla, Missouri. This article won the Floyd C. Shoemaker Award for the best paper dealing with the history of Missouri at State History Day in April.

79 80 Missouri Historical Review

"A pro-German is no better than a spy."1 This was one of the numerous acts of suppression that led German Americans in Missouri to compromise their values and beliefs—their culture—during World War I. Yet the German Americans were loyal, and the suppression of their culture was unjust. Thus, it appeared that Missourians, like the rest of the American people, had declared war not only on Germany and Kaiser Wilhelm but also on German Americans. Even though these acts occurred across the United States, "Missouri, indeed, seems to have been very much the center of trouble."2 The people of Germany became discontented with their political and social conditions during the nineteenth century. Most farmers worked small, worn-out plots of land suitable only for potatoes. When the potato rot swept through Europe, these farmers had little to eat. Craftsmen also experienced hard times when their jobs, such as weaving, were lost to new factories and machines. Additionally, the working class in the cities wanted higher wages, shorter working days, free schools, and lower rents. Many middle-class citizens wanted a new constitution, the unification of all German states, and the freedoms of speech, press, and public meeting. As a whole, the people of Germany were overtaxed and saw many of their free­ doms taken away by the government. They immigrated to the United States because it held promise for much of what they wanted.3 One of the earliest German immigrants, Gottfried Duden, who arrived in America in 1824, wrote favorably about life in Missouri. His work and others like it were published throughout Germany and prompted the first wave of German immigration to the United States. The second group of Germans emigrated because of the failed revolutions of 1848 and 1849; the Franco-Prussian War in 1870 and 1871 sparked the third wave.4 Between 1820 and 1900 over five million German immigrants came to the United States, many to Missouri. Over half of the population of the state

1 "Pro-Germans, Classed As Spies By Gardner, Warned To Keep Out of Missouri," reprint from St. Louis Republic, 8 April 1918, fol. 1702, Ewing Young Mitchell, Jr., Papers, Western Historical Manuscript Collection, University of Missouri-Columbia (hereinafter cited as WHMC-Columbia). 2 Karen J. De Bres, "From Germans to Americans: The Creation and Destruction of Three Ethnic Communities" (Ph.D. diss., Columbia University, 1986), 203. 3 Barbara K. Greenleaf, America Fever: The Story of American Immigration (New York: Four Winds Press, 1970), 73, 74; Adolf E. Schroeder, "To Missouri, Where the Sun of Freedom Shines: Dream and Reality on the Western Frontier," in The German-American Experience in Missouri, ed. Howard W. Marshall and James W. Goodrich (Columbia: Missouri Cultural Heritage Center, University of Missouri-Columbia, 1986), 1-3; Eleanor B. Tripp, To America (New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1969), 82-95. 4 Greenleaf, America Fever, 84-85; Ken Luebbering, "Stories of the Rhineland" (lecture at Lincoln University, Jefferson City, Mo., 1 December 1994); Schroeder, "To Missouri," 1-3; Albert Bernhardt Faust, The German Element in the United States, vol. 1 of The American Immigration Collection (New York: Arno Press, 1969), 585-586, 590; Virginia B. Kunz, The Germans in America (Minneapolis: Lerner Publications Company, 1966), 44. With Liberty and Justice for All? 81 claimed German origin in 1890, and by 1900 the majority of immigrants in Missouri were German. Most immigrants destined for the state first reached St. Louis. In 1910, 27 percent of the people in St. Louis either had been born in Germany or had at least one parent born there.5 German Americans had become a substantial part of Missouri's population by the start of World War I. The assassination of Archduke Ferdinand of Austria-Hungary by Serbian nationalists on June 28, 1914, provoked Austria-Hungary to declare war on Serbia, triggering World War I. Most of Europe soon took sides. Bulgaria, Germany, and Turkey joined forces with Austria-Hungary and became known as the Central Powers; Belgium, France, Great Britain, Italy, and Russia supported Serbia, becoming the Allies. The United States declared itself neutral. Many German Americans supported Germany. They held rallies, and German-language newspapers reported the German perspective of the war. When Allied propaganda sought to paint Germans as brutal and militaristic, German Americans tried to protect the image of the German people. They supported their homeland because of a common culture but were loyal to the United States.6 Missouri Congressman Richard Bartholdt described the rea­ son for the German Americans' split support: "Reverence for the mother [Germany] never detracts from love for the bride [United States], and, fur­ thermore, . . . that reverence is a natural impulse which can no more be reg­ ulated or controlled than can the throbs of the human heart."7 On August 9, 1916, the Hermann Volksblatt echoed the loyalty of Missouri's German Americans. The newspaper reported that many St. Louis newspapers thought Hermann would be the perfect city in Missouri for the annual state meeting of the German-American Alliance, the largest of many German-American organizations. These newspapers had described Hermann as the ideal: it represented a combination of German characteris­ tics and unflagging American patriotism.8 German Americans viewed their support of Germany as active citizen­ ship, their right as long as the United States remained neutral. While many supporters of the Allied countries wanted an alliance with Great Britain, no

5 De Bres, "Germans to Americans," 89; Donald M. Lance, "Settlement Patterns, Missouri Germans and Local Dialects," in The German-American Experience in Missouri, 108; Luebbering, "Stories of the Rhineland"; David W. Detjen, The Germans in Missouri, 1900-1918: Prohibition, Neutrality, and Assimilation (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1985), 9. 6 De Bres, "Germans to Americans," 200; Greenleaf, America Fever, 98; Kunz, Germans in America, 53; Richard Bartholdt, From Steerage to Congress: Reminiscences and Reflections (Philadelphia: Dorrance and Company, 1930), 362; Detjen, Germans in Missouri, 56-57, 86. 7 Richard Bartholdt, The Attitude of American Citizens of German Blood in the European War (Washington, D.C: Government Printing Office, 19 February 1915), 14. 8 De Bres, "Germans to Americans," 201. 82 Missouri Historical Review

German-American leader suggested one with Germany.9 Congressman Bartholdt compared pro-British supporters and German Americans:

Both elements, of course, sympathized frankly with their mother coun­ tries. This they had a perfect right to do as long as America was not involved and such sympathies did not run to unneutral acts. But while the pro-British left no stone unturned to plunge this country into war in order to pull the chestnuts out of the fire for England, the pro-Germans clung to the time-honored American policy of neutrality and justly criticized American support of the Allies by money and ammunition as a flagrant violation of that policy because similar aid could not simultaneously be extended to the Central Powers.10

On April 6, 1917, the United States declared war on Germany. Henry Kersting, former president of the German-American City Alliance of St. Louis, abruptly changed from pro-Germanism to pro-Americanism. When asked about the sudden change, he argued that he had the right to sympathize with Germany as long as the United States was neutral, but after the declara­ tion of war, he felt a responsibility to back President Woodrow Wilson and

9 Lowden (Iowa) News, 10 August 1917, fol. 1434, Benecke Family Papers, WHMC- Columbia; Detjen, Germans in Missouri, 28, 97, 140-141; Clifton J. Child, The German- Americans in Politics (New York: Arno Press, 1970), 106. 10 Bartholdt, From Steerage to Congress, 366.

St. Louis Public Library

Richard Bartholdt immigrated to the United States from Germany in 1872. He served in the U.S. House from 1893 to 1915. With Liberty and Justice for All ? 83 his plans. Most German Americans, especially in Missouri, supported this attitude of loyalty.11 Hermann and Washington had large German populations. Hermann shoe factory workers raised the United States flag and marched in patriotic rallies. The hoisting of the American flag on the new flagpole in front of the Washington city hall brought cheers from thousands, and the Washington International Shoe Company promised twelve hundred pairs of shoes each day to the army. Many German Americans contributed to the four Liberty Bond drives and to the Red Cross.12 August Busch, one such German American, contributed more money than anyone else in St. Louis to all four drives, giving one million dollars to each of the first three campaigns. Additionally, he gave one hundred thousand dollars to the Red Cross.13 Across Missouri most German Americans supported the Hoover policies on food conservation, an effort to conserve wheat and other foods needed in Europe. Thousands of German Americans, including many Missourians, fought in the war for the United States. Washington sent a contingent of 349

11 Detjen, Germans in Missouri, 140-141; Bernard D. Ansel, "Anti-German Thought and Action (1917-1919)" (WHMC-Columbia, typescript, 1960), 1; De Bres, "Germans to Americans," 204; "Germans are Loyal, Says Collier's Writer," St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 1 May 1917; Virginia Gibbons, interview by author, St. James, Mo., 14 March 1995. When asked if her family was loyal to the United States, Mrs. Gibbons answered, "Oh, yes. There was no question about it." Greenleaf, America Fever, 98; Kunz, Germans in America, 54; Wilhemena Meyer, interview by author, Jefferson City, Mo., 15 February 1995. Meyer spoke about the German Americans' loyalty: "The majority stuck to their country. . . . They certainly were loyal to the United States in the war." W. P. Kimberlin, secretary of the Pettis County Council of Defense, to W. F. Saunders, secretary of the Missouri Council of Defense, 11 July 1918; W. J. Jackson, chairman of the Boone Township Council of Defense, to the State Council of Defense, 22 July 1918; Chr. Bunge to Saunders, 31 July 1918; H. Walz to Saunders, 1 August 1918; J. R. Freidrich, pastor of the Evangelical Lutheran Immanuel Church of St. Charles, to Saunders, 27 August 1918; resolution adopted by the Evangelical Lutheran Immanuel Church, 25 August 1918; resolution adopted by the German Evangelical St. John's Church, St. Charles, 27 August 1918, all in fol. 373d, Missouri Council of Defense Papers, WHMC-Columbia. Richard O'Connor, The German-Americans: An Informal History (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1968), 413; Frank Starke, interview by author, Jefferson City, Mo., 15 February 1995. Starke said that his family supported the United States, "just like everybody else did. We were Americans. There was never any question if we were friends of Kaiser Wilhelm or friends of Germany. We were Americans 100 percent." Starke's family also sang songs such as "Over There" and "Send a Pill to Kaiser Bill." 12 De Bres, "Germans to Americans," 202, 204-205; Franklin County Observer, 13 April 1917; Gibbons, interview. Gibbons said that her family contributed to the Liberty Bond dri­ ves. "If you didn't contribute to that you were just off the list." Audrey Louise Olson, "St. Louis Germans, 1850-1920: The Nature of the Immigrant Community and Its Relation to the Assimilation Process" (Ph.D. diss., University of Kansas, 1970), 208; Starke, interview; Meyer, interview. Meyer remembered her mother taking her to see the Red Cross, which had come to Linn. She said that the German Americans were very supportive of the Red Cross. "They [the Red Cross] were very successful. They had no trouble. Germans pitched in the same as any others." 13 Olson, "St. Louis Germans," 208, 327-328; "When Every American Gives," St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 24 June 1917. 84 Missouri Historical Review

State Historical Society of Missouri

Washington, Missouri, in the Late 1910s men, nearly one-tenth of its population.14 General John J. Pershing, the com­ mander of the American Expeditionary Force, was a Missouri native with German-American heritage. Despite these activities that clearly reflected support of the Allies, many German Americans were treated with a hostility and suspicion that led to numerous acts of suppression against them.15 Charles Nagel, a St. Louis lawyer, said, "I do not believe that at this stage any value would be attached to an expression from a citizen of German name."16 Although President

14 Telegram, W. F. Saunders, special agent of the U.S. Food Administration, to Don Farnsworth, 6 November 1917, fol. 27, Council of Defense Papers; Starke, interview. Because the troops needed wheat flour, Starke's mother substituted cornbread for wheat bread, and they ate it with molasses every morning. Gibbons, interview. All three of Gibbons's brothers and many of her cousins fought in World War I. She nursed many injured soldiers, among them numerous German Americans, at the Veterans Administration Hospital at Jefferson Barracks in St. Louis. Greenleaf, America Fever, 98; Kunz, Germans in America, 54; Meyer, interview. Two of Meyer's brothers fought in the war. She said, "My brothers were very proud to serve in the war. . . . They were loyal. . . . There was never any sympathy with the Germans in Germany at that time." Richard Kretzschmar to Saunders, 16 July 1918; Der Lutherifche Immanuels-Bote (newspaper), May 1918 and July 1918, fol. 373d, Council of Defense Papers; O'Connor, The German-Americans, 311; De Bres, "Germans to Americans," 205. 15 Mark Ellis and Panikos Panayi, "German Minorities in World War I: A Comparative Study of Britain and the USA," Ethnic and Racial Studies 17 (April 1994): 239; Gibbons, interview. Gibbons said, "A lot of people were against the Germans [German Americans]. . . . There was a lot of dissent between neighbors because they thought that if you had a German name that you were just against the country." She indicated that some people thought that German Americans were spies. 16 Charles Nagel to George Sylvester Viereck, 18 June 1917, box 1915-1918, St. Louis, Charles Nagel Papers, Missouri Historical Society, St. Louis. With Liberty and Justice for All? 85

Wilson said that America was fighting the kaiser, not the German-American people, his statement did not keep Americans from unjustly attempting to suppress what they viewed as a possible threat to the war effort. Congress introduced bills to close German churches and schools, dissolve German societies, and suppress German literature. In addition, government agencies fed information on alleged acts of disloyalty by German Americans to semi- patriotic organizations in order to suppress subversive activities. One of the most significant of these organizations was the Missouri Council of Defense, established by Governor Gardner on April 24, 1917.17 The Missouri Council of Defense believed that the quickest way to ensure German-American loyalty was to prohibit the use of the German lan­ guage; consequently, one outward sign of loyalty became the use of English rather than German.18 The council worked to ban the German language in lodges and public meetings and succeeded well with churches and schools, even though it had been the most popular foreign language taught.19 In July 1918, Uel W. Lamkin, the Missouri superintendent of schools, stated that German would no longer be an approved subject in the state's elementary and high schools. Four county councils prohibited German from being spo­ ken on telephones, and some towns passed ordinances forbidding the use of the language on the streets. Many people in Sedalia wanted to ban people from speaking German in the town. When the mayor and city counselor asked the Pettis County Council of Defense about the government's opinion, council members had difficulty in answering: "In one way it is almost direct­ ly charging that our citizens who speak German on the streets are disloyal,

17 Clipping, "Foolish Patriotism," fol. 88; clipping, "German Preacher Shows Up Kaiserism," fol. 373a, Council of Defense Papers; O'Connor, The German-Americans, 412; Detjen, Germans in Missouri, 153. 18 Meyer, interview. Meyer commented on why German Americans willingly changed to English. "When the war broke out, you wouldn't have heard anything but German spoken in that area [Westphalia] . . . then that changed. People kind of shied away from them when they found out they couldn't speak English. They seemed to be afraid." Approximately forty let­ ters refer to the change from German to English in Missouri in fols. 373a-373e in the Council of Defense Papers. Adolf E. Schroeder, "The Survival of German Traditions in Missouri," The German Contribution to the Building of the Americas, ed. Gerhard K. Friesen and Walter Schatzberg (Worcester, Mass.: Clark University Press, 1977), 305. 19 Ansel, "Anti-German Thought," 1-2; De Bres, "Germans to Americans," 21; Detjen, Germans in Missouri, 154; Gibbons, interview; Meyer, interview; Elliot Dunlap Smith to Missouri Council of Defense, 14 May 1918, fol. 15; Saunders to Arthur H. Fleming, State Councils Section, Council of National Defense, 25 July 1918, fol. 30; questionnaire, 6 August 1918, fol. 61; F. B. Mumford, chairman of the Missouri Council of Defense, to R. Sam Hays, 16 November 1918, fol. 114, Council of Defense Papers; Starke, interview. Approximately forty letters refer to the suppression of the German language in Missouri in fols. 373a-373e in the Council of Defense Papers. 86 Missouri Historical Review

Uel Lamkin served as state superintendent of schools, 1916-1918, and as president of Northwest Missouri State Teachers College, 1921-1945.

State Historical Society of Missouri when, as a matter of fact, they have shown that they are absolutely loyal in every way and upon all occasions."20 Remarks made by German Americans were frequently misinterpreted as being disloyal or drastically misquoted to prove disloyalty.21 The German- American Alliance resolved, "We pledge ourselves ... to support only such candidates for public office, irrespective of party, who will place American interests above those of any other country." Yet this statement was released in one newspaper as: "When the representatives of German-American soci­ eties publicly pledge themselves in effect to oppose all candidates for office who will not sacrifice American interests to German interests they are strain­ ing American patience to the breaking point."22 Petty remarks and comments were interpreted as acts of disloyalty; rarely did the punishment fit the crime.23 Not only was the speaking of German repressed, German names were also anglicized. Many German-American businesses changed their names. The Kaiser-Huhn grocery, the oldest in St. Louis, became the Pioneer Grocery Company after stones were thrown at its drivers.24 Many German

20 "Bars German in Missouri Schools," Missouri Historical Review 13 (October 1918): 29-30; De Bres, "Germans to Americans," 217; Detjen, Germans in Missouri, 154-155; Saunders to Fleming, 25 July 1918, fol. 30; letter to Elliot Dunlap Smith, 6 July 1918, and Kimberlin to Saunders, 11 July 1918, both in fol. 373d, Council of Defense Papers. 21 Ansel, "Anti-German Thought," 19. 22 Bartholdt, Attitude, 15. 23 Ansel, "Anti-German Thought," 26. 24 Kunz, Germans in America, 53; Olson, "St. Louis Germans," 327. With Liberty and Justice for All ? 87

street names were changed, and one St. Louis newspaper, The Republic, urged changing street names to those of public officials so that St. Louis could be "'100% American.'"25 The German Evangelical St. John's Church in St. Charles dropped the word German from its name, as did many other churches. The Missouri town of Potsdam became Pershing. Many people anglicized their names during the World War I era, as evidenced by the tombstones in Westphalia.26 In St. Louis, German music in operas and concerts was also replaced, and several conductors who were not American citizens lost their jobs. German Americans serving on school boards were dismissed, and the St. Louis Public Library removed books printed in German from the shelves. The Missouri Council of Defense suggested that preachers speaking only German should be replaced; some churches even replaced their secretaries with English-speaking ones. Some acts of German suppression were brutal; mobs wrecked German-American stores and injured people.27 German-language newspapers and immigration, which had kept the German culture viable, were greatly affected. On the national level between 1910 and 1920, German immigration fell to its lowest point since 1830. In 1911, 32,061 Germans emigrated to the United States, but in 1919 only 52 immigrants were German.28 Before World War I, there were more German- language newspapers than any other ethnic newspapers, but because of the war, only a fraction of that number existed afterward. The number of German-language newspapers in the United States fell from 600 in 1904 to 278 at the end of World War I. Events in Missouri reflected those taking place across the nation. Many German-language newspapers began to print in English.29 In August 1919 returned soldiers forced the publisher of the Jackson Deutscher Volksfreund to print in English to save his press. German-language newspaper subscrip­ tions dropped drastically, especially in St. Louis. Die Abendschule had

25 Gibbons, interview; Detjen, Germans in Missouri, 151; "Ordinance In to Change Name of Berlin Avenue; Von Versen Is the Next," St. Louis Republic, 4 May 1918. 26 Henry Krug, Jr., to Saunders, 7 May 1918; German Evangelical St. John's Church res­ olution, 1 August 1918, fol. 373d, Council of Defense Papers; De Bres, "Germans to Americans," 203; Detjen, Germans in Missouri, 154; Gibbons, interview; Greenleaf, America Fever, 100; Meyer, interview. Meyer gave an example of a name change as from Franc, or Franke, to Frank. Luebbering, "Stories of the Rhineland." 27 Gibbons, interview. Gibbons's father, on the board of a country school near St. James, was not wanted because of his German ancestry. Olson, "St. Louis Germans," 204; Saunders to Fleming, 25 July 1918, fol. 30; J. L. Bagby to Saunders, 14 May 1918, fol. 373b, Council of Defense Papers; Greenleaf, America Fever, 99; O'Connor, The German-Americans, 412. 28 Kunz, Germans in America, 55; Howard B. Furer, ed., The Germans in America, 1607- 1970: A Chronology and Fact Book (Dobbs Ferry, N.Y.: Oceana Publications, 1973), 69, 73. 29 Greenleaf, America Fever, 99; Furer, Germans in America, 1607-1970, 69, 73; Meyer, interview. Missouri Historical Review

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State Historical Society of Missouri

This advertisement for war savings stamps appeared in the March 15, 1918, issue of the Hermanner Volksblatt. With Liberty and Justice for All ? 89

60,000 subscribers before the war began; by 1918 it only had 23,000. Between 1895 and 1910 the number of subscriptions doubled from 13,000 to 26,000 for Amerika but declined to 21,000 by 1920. The circulation of the Westliche Post dropped from 29,000 in 1917 to 21,500 two years later. "World War I struck the final blow against the German-language press, a blow from which it never recovered."30 Missouri's German Americans remained loyal to their adopted country throughout World War I. During America's period of neutrality they largely supported Germany, their cultural homeland, but after the United States joined the Allies, the majority became supporters of the Allied cause. Unfortunately, many Americans did not recognize the loyalty of the German Americans; the ensuing injustices forced them to compromise their way of life to become "American," thus forever altering their culture.

30 Schroeder, "Survival," 305; Detjen, Germans in Missouri, 184; De Bres, "Germans to Americans," 214.

Getting the Message

Columbia Herald-Statesman, October 2, 1924. "Hello, hello—is Sam there?" "Yes, this is Sam." "It doesn't sound like you, Sam." "Well—it's Sam speaking." "Listen, Sam, this is Ed. Lend me a hundred dollars, will you?" "Sure—I'll tell him when he comes in."

Undelivered Telegram

Lancaster Excelsior, January 8, 1881. "A child seeing a bill on a telegraph post: "Oh, mamma, look! A message has fallen down!"

The Poor Loner

Knob Noster Gem, July 26, 1878. There's something inexpressibly sad in one's standing alone by himself in the world as night shuts down and the oriole flies to its nest, but man will do it where he has only enough to pay for beer for one.—Free Press. 90 HISTORICAL NOTES AND COMMENTS Reference Library Card Files

The Reference Library contains several card catalogs to assist patrons and staff in accessing the holdings. In addition to the standard Main Card Catalog, this library houses other smaller, unique finding aids. Patrons can use these card catalogs when they visit the Society's Reference Library, and staff members routinely use them to answer correspondence and to reply to telephone calls. The Main Card Catalog of authors, titles, and subjects for books, pam­ phlets, periodicals, atlases, and vertical files comprises six cabinets of 432 drawers. Approximately four hundred thousand cards provide detailed infor­ mation on the items shelved in the Reference Library's five rooms. A profes­ sional product, the Main Card Catalog is the creation of the Cataloging Department. The cataloger recently began entering the Society's cataloging records online with OCLC, the Online Computer Library Center, an interna­ tional online union catalog. The cataloging information is also sent from OCLC to LUMIN, the Libraries of the University of Missouri Information Network. At the present time only a small percentage of State Historical Society items are listed on LUMIN. While work progresses on computeriz­ ing the cataloging records, the card file remains the best and only complete finding aid for the Society's large and diverse Reference Library collections. The Missouri Surname Index provides citations to biographical sections in early Missouri county histories and to selected biographical sections in newspapers, periodicals, vertical files, and books. Begun in 1921 with twenty-five thousand names, the index has grown to over half a million names in five card cabinets containing 360 drawers. Filed in alphabetical order by surname and then by first name, the cards provide the title, author, volume, and pages for each biographical sketch. The cards may refer to book chapters, lengthy or short articles, newspaper obituaries, or brief sec­ tions only a paragraph or a sentence long. A citation will often note the presence of illustrations accompanying the text. Small, unusual items of special interest concerning individuals connected to Missouri may be cited in this file; these may include notations of artworks and shows, inventions, national and international positions held, awards and honors received, fami­ ly lineage charts, etc. All the sources cited in the card file are in the Reference Library's collections. Although this index is not an "every name file," the Missouri Surname Index is a good place for historians as well as genealogists to begin their research on an individual. Another unique card file is the Index to Missouri County Records Indexes, which the library staff created to give patrons and staff a single Historical Notes and Comments 91 location to find references to vital records information on a specific county. The twelve-drawer card index is arranged in alphabetical order by county name. While this index does not name individuals, it does pull together the county records publications for each county into one master list subdivided by subject. Each book, periodical article, vertical file folder, microfilm reel, or newspaper article has one or more cards citing it in the index. The cards refer to indexes or compilations of cemetery inscriptions, wills, marriages, newspaper items, naturalizations, tax rolls, census records, probate records, births, deaths, and miscellaneous abstracted records. More than five thou­ sand cards provide a concise finding aid for patrons seeking specific infor­ mation on Missourians before 1900. Periodical articles offer researchers excellent information in an abbrevi­ ated form, but finding the desired topics in volumes of unindexed magazines and journals can be frustrating and time-consuming. Four periodicals have proven to be so valuable to the Society's patrons that staff members have created in-house indexes to the articles appearing in them. Recent issues of the Missouri Historical Review and all issues of The Bulletin of the Missouri Historical Society, St. Louis (1945 to 1980), are indexed by author, title, and basic subjects of the major articles. Two detailed indexes of authors, titles, names, and basic subjects exist for issues of Missouri Life/Missouri Magazine (1973 to 1992) and Gateway Heritage (1980 to date). Whether the questions are genealogical, historical, technical, or idle curiosity, these catalogs direct researchers to the best available sources among the Reference Library's holdings for answers.

Enough Space, Thank You

Springfield Missouri Daily Patriot, September 22, 1866. A friend once visiting an unworldly philosopher, whose mind was his kingdom, expressed surprise at the smallness of his apartment. "Why, you have not room to swing a cat!" "My friend," was the serene, unappreciative reply, "I do not want to swing a cat."

On a Crowded Road

Lancaster Excelsior, January 8, 1881. Jack (aged 4, taking a walk): "What becomes of people when they die?" Mamma: 'They turn into dust, dear." Jack: "What a lot of people there must be on this road, then!" 92 NEWS IN BRIEF

Central Missouri State University, Tower Grove Park, a National Historic Warrensburg, honored Avis G. Tucker, presi­ Landmark in south St. Louis, is offering a dent of the Society's Board of Trustees, with one thousand dollar reward for the return of an honorary doctorate of laws degree during a bronze relief plaque stolen in December commencement on May 13. Known for her 1974. The plaque, depicting an Amazon involvement in business and public service, River scene, was detached from the base of Tucker is the publisher of the Warrensburg an 1878 statue honoring Alexander von Daily Star-Journal and owns radio stations Humboldt. The park is also requesting that in Warrensburg and Clayton, New Mexico. anyone who has a good pre-1974 picture of She also serves on the Missouri Gaming the plaque, or of the statue including the Commission, the Missouri Commission on plaque, contact the Director, Tower Grove the Organization of the Judicial Department, Park, 4255 Arsenal Street, St. Louis, MO and the Missouri Public Service Advisory 63118, or call (314) 771-2679. Board. In the past Tucker has been a mem­ ber of the Missouri Coordinating Board for Higher Education and president of the The Mid-America American Studies Missouri Press Association. Association is calling for proposals for the annual meeting to be held in St. Louis in April 1996. The conference is specifically Society executive director James W. requesting papers, workshops, or panels on Goodrich will serve on the Missouri Board the theme "From Culture Concept to on Geographic Names, recently formed by Cultural Studies? Changing Models of the executive order of Governor Mel American Studies." Applications should Carnahan. The board acts as a liaison to the include a one-page summary and a brief cur­ national board and assists in decisions and riculum vitae for each presenter, chair, or questions regarding new names and possible commentator. Five copies of each proposal, name changes for state geographical fea­ or any inquiries, can be sent to Elaine tures. Walter Schroeder, Department of Berland, Graduate School of Arts and Geography at the University of Missouri- Sciences, Washington University, Campus Columbia, will serve as chair, with state Box 1187, St. Louis, MO 63130, email: archivist Kenneth Winn as vice chair; Jane [email protected]. The deadline A. Messenger, Mid-Continent Mapping for proposals is December 1. Center of the U.S. Geological Survey, Rolla, is the executive secretary. The Julia Dent Grant Tent #16, a chapter of the Daughters of Union Veterans of the On May 29 Society staff member Marie Civil War, 1861-1865, celebrated their sixty- Concannon presented a talk on "How to fifth year as a tent in St. Louis. On Research Family History at the State September 17 the organization dedicated a Historical Society of Missouri" to the six-foot granite monument honoring Union Grundy County Genealogical Society. Held soldiers at Jefferson Barracks National at the Jewitt Norris Library in Trenton, the Cemetery. For information on the organiza­ presentation included a slide show and tips tion contact Sue Ladage, 2615 Porter on doing genealogy. Concannon sold Avenue, Brentwood, MO 63144. Society publications at the Missouri State Genealogical Association's annual confer­ ence at William Woods University, Fulton, The Younger Family Home and Study on August 4. Center has announced plans to develop a Historical Notes and Comments 93 museum in Lee's Summit. The goals of the "Art and Heritage of the Missouri Bootheel" nonprofit organization are to renovate and can call Ray Brassieur at (314) 882-0191 or restore the home of Cole Younger and to Dana Everts-Boehm, of the Missouri Folk address issues such as the Kansas-Missouri Arts Program, at (314) 882-6296. border war and the founding of Lee's Another product of the Bootheel Project, Summit. Those interested in this effort Art and Heritage of the Missouri Bootheel: should contact Ann J. Corley, Fundraising A Resource Guide, compiled and edited by Chair, Younger Family Home and Study Brassieur and Deborah Bailey, is available in Center, P.O. Box 422, Lee's Summit, MO limited quantities. The fifty-five-page publi­ 64063, or call (816) 525-4739. cation consists of a series of essays about Bootheel creativity, a discussion of the diversity of folk art forms documented by The Western Historical Manuscript project researchers, and a listing of national, Collection recently published A Guide to state, regional, and local organizations that Civil War Collections. Edited by James can provide assistance to folk, ethnic, and Bantin, the guide describes holdings at each regional artists. The Resource Guide also of the four branch repositories that pertain to contains a catalogue of the 135 audio cas­ the military, political, social, and psychologi­ sette recordings of interviews and perfor­ cal aspects of the war. Copies are available mances collected by researchers in 1994. for $15.00 each, plus $1.05 for tax, through Anyone interested in this publication can call the Western Historical Manuscript Brassieur at (314) 882-0191. Collection-Columbia, 23 Elmer Ellis Library, University of Missouri-Columbia, Columbia, MO 65201. On July 12-13 Eve Fine, of the Society's Newspaper Library, traveled across south­ western Missouri collecting newspapers to The traveling exhibition, "Art and be copied and added to the Society's hold­ Heritage of the Missouri Bootheel," opened ings. Visiting historical societies, museums, at the Dunklin County Museum in Kennett publishers, libraries, and individuals, Fine on June 24. This exhibition is a product of gathered items deemed too fragile for stan­ the Bootheel Project, which is cosponsored dard delivery services and aided in the eval­ by the State Historical Society, the Missouri uation of possible acquisitions. Arts Council, and the Missouri Folk Arts Program, a unit of the Museum of Art and Archaeology, University of Missouri- Drawings by Thomas Hart Benton are Columbia. Funding for the Bootheel Project currently being exhibited in the Art Gallery of was generously provided by the National the State Historical Society. The illustrations Endowment for the Arts and the Missouri were created for publication in the 1944 limit­ Arts Council. C. Ray Brassieur, oral histori­ ed edition of Mark Twain's novel, Life on the an for the Society, created the text and cap­ Mississippi. Original editorial cartoons by tions for the folk arts exhibition, which was Pulitzer Prize winner Daniel Fitzpatrick are designed and prepared by Greig Thompson on display in the Corridor Gallery. In honor of the Museum of Art and Archaeology. of the fiftieth anniversary of the end of World Consisting mainly of photographic and War II, the cartoons selected were executed informational panels, the display also fea­ during the war period. Both exhibitions will tures an audio component that allows audi­ run through October 31. ences to hear segments of six musical pieces recorded by project researchers in 1994. A traveling schedule for the exhibition is Lynn Wolf Gentzler, associate director of developing, and those interested in hosting the Society, attended the American Association 94 Missouri Historical Review for State and Local History Annual Awards in senior individual projects and was named Program committee meeting in Nashville on as the outstanding senior entry from the June 2-3. Three Missouri nominees received state. Trisha Brase, a student at St. Vincent awards. The University of Missouri Press, de Paul School, Cape Girardeau, placed Columbia, received an award of merit for its tenth in the junior individual project catego­ publications for new adult readers, the ry. Lissa Skelley, Joplin Junior High School, Missouri Heritage Readers Series. The Boone placed fifth in senior individual perfor­ County Historical Society, Columbia, received mances and also won the national senior a certificate of commendation for the preserva­ division women's history prize. Kathleen tion and interpretation of Boone County histo­ DeGarmo from Aurora High School ry. A second certificate of commendation win­ received an eleventh place ranking in the ner was Patricia Brown Glenn, of Kansas City, same category. Carl Junction High School for her book Under Every Roof. These annual student Ashlee Thompson placed twelfth in awards recognize outstanding achievements in the senior individual projects. Both of state and local history. Missouri's senior historical papers were con­ sidered in the final round of judging: Amy Zeman from Brentwood High School ranked Forty-seven junior and senior high school fifth, and Stephen E. Sachs, Clayton High students represented Missouri at National School, received a ninth place ranking. History Day, held in College Park, Brentwood High School students Nina Maryland, on June 10-15. The state's high­ Fuhrman, Kelly Johnson, and Elizabeth Watt est ranking winner was Nigel Cooney of placed fifth in the senior group performance Sarcoxie High School, who placed second in category. Nicole Fish, Lindsie Pearman, senior individual media presentations. Eight Krista Hyde, and Bettina Arathoon, students other Missouri entries also advanced to the from Dexter, gave a special performance of final round of judging. Heeral Shah, Joplin their junior-level entry at the Smithsonian Junior High School, received a fourth place Institution on June 12.

MISSOURI HISTORIC MARKER PROGRAM The Society is collecting information on Missouri historical markers for a possible future book publication. In an effort to adequately cover all counties, the Society asks interested individuals and organizations for assistance in locating important historical markers. Information needed includes the exact wording of the text and directions to the marker's pre­ sent location. Emphasis is currently being placed on markers erected by local historical societies and city and county governments. To avoid duplication of volunteer efforts, Society staff members Ann Rogers and Christine Montgomery are available to answer questions. They can be reached at (314) 882-9368 between 8:00 and 4:30, Monday through Friday, or by mail at the State Historical Society, 1020 Lowry Street, Columbia, MO 65201-7298. 95 LOCAL HISTORICAL SOCIETIES

Affton Historical Society Barton County" at the Society's quarterly On April 19 the Society hosted a spring meeting held in the Law Chapel of the United meeting at Oakland for all historical organiza­ Methodist Church of Lamar on July 9. In tions in St. Louis County; refreshments and 1955 Carroll took color slides of all the still- tours of Oakland entertained the guests. Over standing rural schools in the county; consoli­ six hundred people gathered on the grounds dation of the rural schools took place in 1965. of Oakland on the morning of July 4 for the eighteenth annual Fourth of July breakfast Bates County Historical Society buffet. The Society, along with the Ladies of August featured Old Settlers Day in Oakland, sponsored this event, which featured Butler; the Society contributed by erecting a the music of the St. Louis Strutters. At the crafts display in the city hall. quarterly meeting, held at Oakland on July 30, members celebrated summer with a gar­ den party. In addition to croquet and the dedi­ Belton Historical Society cation of an herb garden, members heard Members gathered on July 23 at the Audrey Klaus of the St. Louis Herb Society museum, 512 Main Street, and heard "Wild discuss the folklore of herbs. Bill" Oakley present a program on the human side of the Oregon, California, and Santa Fe Trails. Much of the information Andrew County Historical Society presented was gleaned from travelers' The Duncan Gallery in the Society's diaries. The museum's current exhibit show­ museum opened in June. The first show, cases Mexican artifacts and will run through "Harry F. Duncan: Andrew County Native November. Son," features information on the life and civic contributions of Duncan, in addition to a display that will run throughout the fall Boone County Historical Society about the history of chautauquas in Andrew "Explorations in Earth and Pigment," a County. The Society, in conjunction with the fine arts exhibit featuring the work of county Missouri Humanities Council, hosted a 1995 artists Greg Launhardt and Marni Jaime, Missouri Chautauqua in Savannah, June 12- opened in the Montminy Gallery of the 17. On July 22, to coincide with Old Walters-Boone County Historical Museum Fashioned Days, a countywide, weeklong on June 15 and will run through October. fair, members performed historical reenact­ Members heard past president Bill Crawford ments and living history demonstrations at present "Saga of the Lenoir and Nifong the museum. Families: A Boone County Treasure" at the June 25 meeting held in the museum. Ballwin Historical Society The Missouri Infantry Regiment pitched Boone-Duden Historical Society camp next to the Society's log home, which The April 24 meeting, held in the St. is located in Vlasis City Park, on May 20-21 John's United Church of Christ, Cappeln, for a Civil War encampment and reenact­ featured the election of two new officers and ment. In addition to the performances by the a talk and slide show on area cemeteries pre­ regiment, women from the Society presented sented by Lucille Wiechens. Members con­ a period clothing fashion show. gregated at the Busch Wildlife Area Lodge on June 26 to hear Adolf Schroeder speak on Barton County Historical Society Baron von Bock, the founder of Dutzow. Tom Carroll presented "Rural Schools of New officers serving the Society for the next 96 Missouri Historical Review two years include David Brown, vice presi­ Cass County Historical Society dent, and Judy Prager, secretary. On June 25 members gathered at Pearson Hall and heard Judge C. Wayne and Marjorie Reed talk about the heritage of Peculiar. Boonslick Historical Society Newsletter editor Bob Dyer has instituted changes in the format of Boone's Lick Cedar County Historical Society Heritage to help it appear as a quarterly jour­ At the April 24 meeting held in the nal rather than as a newsletter. The museum in Stockton, Lawrence Hembree, a revamped publication features offset printing, guest from Bolivar, discussed his ancestors halftone printing of photographs, additional who are buried in the Cedar Gap Cemetery. graphics, and more articles and pictures. On May 22 in Jerico Springs, Charles Skaggs, a retiree from Mobil Oil Company, Brown County Historical Association talked about his thirty-five years with the On June 13 the Association met at the company and shared his collection of related First Christian Church of Sweet Springs and memorabilia. Eldon Steward provided the heard a presentation by J. Frederick Fausz on program at the June 26 meeting held at the "Partners in Pelt." The program, sponsored community building in El Dorado Springs. by the Missouri Humanities Council, related He discussed his extensive travels around the information on the partnership between country to collect Civil War information; Native American fur traders and the stops of interest included battlefields, muse­ European fur business. In continuation of ums, forts, and cities of related importance. their historic marker program, the Association placed a marker in the city park that pertains to the sweet spring and the Chariton County Historical Society pagoda. Members met at the museum in Salisbury on July 16 to hear a program on the Hopewell Indians, who were in the county Brush and Palette Club, Inc. from 500 to 1500 A.D. At the Missouri State For the sixteenth year, the Club awarded Genealogical Society conference held on its annual scholarships to two Gasconade August 4 at William Woods University, County high school seniors. The recipients Fulton, Society member May Couch included Jennifer Rodgers, who will attend received an award of merit for her work in the University of Missouri-Columbia, and genealogy. Melissa Hoelmer, who will attend Southwest Missouri State University, Springfield. Funding for these scholarships is derived Christian County Museum from the annual arts and crafts festival held and Historical Society each October in Hermann. Regularly scheduled Museum hours will end for the season on October 29; anyone interested in a tour during the winter months Carondelet Historical Society should contact Elise Crain at (417) 581-7344. The Society observed the birthday of kindergarten founder Susan Blow on June 4 at the historic center. The party featured Civil War Round Table of Kansas City refreshments and singing groups from area Anne Bailey, an author and an assistant kindergarten classes. A roundtable discus­ professor of history at the University of sion on World War II, with particular empha­ Arkansas, presented "The Confederate sis on its effects on Carondelet, was held in Cavalry in the Red River Campaign" for the conjunction with the June 25 meeting, also at May 23 program held at the Homestead the historic center. Country Club, Prairie Village, Kansas. Historical Notes and Comments 97

Civil War Round Table of St. Louis Flags" at the May 18 meeting. On May 20 The life of Union general Benjamin Society members participated in the Franklin Butler was discussed by Dale O'Bannon Bank's ninetieth birthday celebra­ Phillips of the Jean Lafitte National tion in Buffalo by maintaining a booth that Historical Park and Preserve at the May 24 featured a historical display and items for dinner meeting of the Round Table. The sale. The June 15 gathering provided two organization meets monthly for dinner and a interesting events: an exhibit of early program relating to Civil War history at American glassware by Evelyn Holt and an Garavelli's Restaurant in Manchester. informative discussion, which included a video, presented by Missouri highway patrolman Terry Moore on scams and crimes Civil War Round Table of Western Missouri committed against senior citizens. All meet­ The Round Table sponsored a walking ings are held in the Crescent School, located tour of Lee's Summit Cemetery on the in the Buffalo Head Prairie Historical Park, evening of August 9. This cemetery con­ off of Highway 65. tains the graves of over sixty Union and thir­ ty Confederate veterans, in addition to mem­ bers of the Younger family. DeKalb County Historical Society The Society participated in the county's Clay County Museum sesquicentennial celebration held in and Historical Society Maysville over Memorial Day weekend. A tour of Pharis Farm and music by the Featured activities included a professionally Rush Creek Bluegrass Band provided the judged art show, the burial of a time capsule entertainment for the Society's June 17 that will not be opened until the county's meeting. bicentennial in 2045, and the presentation of pioneer certificates to 241 applicants who could prove their ancestry in the county back Cole County Historical Society to 1845. The Society hosted the second annual guided tour of the Old City and Woodland Cemeteries on July 2; costumed reenactors Fayette Area Heritage Association told stories and answered questions from A couple of events in June highlighted guests. the Society's summer activities: on the 17th members participated in the annual Fayette Concordia Area Heritage Society Craft Fair, and on the 23rd the Society invit­ A Civil War reenactment highlighting ed the public to their summer celebration, events occurring in and around Concordia in which was held at the home of Robert and 1862 and presented by Erwin's Sixth Morrene Britton. Missouri Volunteer Infantry Unit was spon­ sored by the Society on July 29. Florissant Valley Historical Society Members and friends celebrated the thir­ Dade County Historical Society ty-seventh anniversary of the founding of the Members meet at 7:00 on the first Society with a party held at Taille de Noyer Tuesday evening of each month in the on July 20. The theme of the party paid Society's office, which is located on the tribute to the cultures of the early settlers of square in Greenfield. the valley—the French, the Germans, and the Spanish—and a selection of ethnic gifts Dallas County Historical Society representing these origins was offered in an Eva Marie Glor presented "Grandma's auction. 98 Missouri Historical Review

Franklin County Historical Society Friends of Keytesville At the June 25 meeting held in the The Friends held a luncheon fund-raiser museum north of Union, the Society elected in May that included a fashion show. The the following officers: LeRoy Danz, presi­ July 18 meeting, held at the General Sterling dent; Carol Eckelkamp, vice president; Price Museum in Keytesville, served as an Grace Crawford, secretary; and Helen Vogt, opportunity for members to discuss ongoing treasurer. projects, including highway signs, new museum brochures, and the construction of the log cabin. Friedenberg Lutheran Historical Society The Society is currently restoring an 1874 Friends of Miami one-room brick schoolhouse in Ferguson. A special dedication of the restored meet­ ing hall, which will serve as the Friends of Friends of Arrow Rock Miami Museum, highlighted the annual meet­ The Friends held their thirty-sixth annual ing, held on July 16 in the community center. meeting on June 4 at the Arrow Rock Old Tavern. Incoming president Barbara Quinn Friends of Missouri Town-1855 honored retiring president Day Kerr for her Children's Day at Missouri Town on June thirteen years of service. Other officers 3 offered the young and the young-at-heart include Sue Stubbs and Bill Lovin, vice the opportunity to participate in nineteenth- presidents; Mary Burge, secretary; and century entertainment such as gunny sack Kevin T. Riggs, treasurer. Also on June 4, and three-legged races, a tug-of-war, pie-eat­ trustee Tom Hall led the dedication of the ing contests, and spelling bees. Friends' new headquarters on the boardwalk. The headquarters houses the offices, meeting rooms, sales area, and a permanent display Gasconade County Historical Society of the Christopher collection of early Harry and Lee Sammons of Swiss hosted Missouri firearms. the Society's quarterly meeting at their farm on July 9. In addition to the regular meeting, members toured the Sammonses' restored Friends of Historic Boonville country home and learned about their busi­ The Brown Bag Lunch Concert series ness—an ostrich farm. The Society main­ held at the Hain House gardens provided tained a booth featuring books and maps at free entertainment to the community every two community events this summer: the Friday in June. The following groups per­ Bland Heritage Days on July 1-2 and the formed for this series: the Last Chance Gasconade County Fair on July 27-29. Quartet on June 2; the Boonville Community Theater cast of Big River on June 9; the Glendale Historical Society Bridge Players on June 16; and the Heritage At the June 8 program held at city hall, Days German Band on June 23. Nini Harris presented "Reflections of the Civil War in St. Louis." Her presentation included slides and readings by five Society Friends of Jefferson Barracks members. Members gathered on June 14 at the visi­ tors' center to hear Gina Mills's presentation on frontier homes. A nineteenth-century Golden Eagle River Museum Victorian lawn party was held on August 6 at On June 25 Ed Lekosky showed slides on the park and featured period reenactors, "A Century of Steamboating" at the games, and activities. Museum. The July 23 program featured "St. Historical Notes and Comments 99

Louis Excursion Boats, Past and Present," afternoon of each month at 2:00 in the muse­ presented by J. Thomas Dunn. um, Bethany.

Grand River Historical Society Henry County Historical Society The board of trustees treated Society The Society hosted a kickoff party at the members to homemade ice cream at the sum­ museum for Olde Glory Days, which was mer picnic held on July 11 in Simpson Park, held in Clinton from June 27 to July 4. The Chillicothe. Materials for a new museum daylong event featured a luncheon, a forties- display honoring Nelson Kneas, the musician style fashion show, and hors d'oeuvres in the who wrote the music for Ben Bolt, were evening. Contributions to Olde Glory Days shared at the picnic. activities by Society members included a flower show, a military exhibit recognizing Grandview Historical Society the fiftieth anniversary of World War II, and The Society meets the first Monday exhibitions by spinners and weavers. evening of each month at 7:30 in the base­ ment of the Grandview Depot Museum. The annual ice cream social, held on July 8, fea­ Harvey J. Higgins Historical Society tured the musical entertainment of Teddy At the May 8 meeting held in the Arrandale on guitar. The Kansas Chapter of Higginsville Depot, Armin Shannuth pre­ the Santa Fe Old-Time Fiddlers provided the sented a program on the history of the show at the August 7 picnic held on the Gateway-Western Railroad. museum grounds. At the Grandview City Bar-B-Que on August 12, the Society main­ tained a booth displaying the Grandview Historical Association of History Book. Available from the Society for Greater Cape Girardeau $40.00, plus $4.00 for shipping, orders should Local author, historian, and professor at be directed to the Grandview Historical Southeast Missouri State University Bob Society, Box 512, Grandview, MO 64030. White spoke on the influence of slavery in the county at the May 8 meeting held in the activ­ ity room of Chateau Girardeau. Members Greene County Historical Society gathered at the Glenn House the afternoon of Elise Crain, executive director of the July 2 to participate in a lawn party that fea­ Wilson's Creek National Battlefield Foun­ tured horseshoes, croquet, and a barbecue. dation, updated Society members on the activities of the foundation at the May 25 meeting held in the Glenstone Heritage Historical Society of Maries County Cafeteria, Springfield. The Society invited Members met at the Felker house in members of the Fair Grove Historical Society Vienna on the afternoon of July 16 to view to a picnic at the Chandler farm on June 22. the restoration progress of the Latham log house on the grounds of the Old Jail Museum. The show-and-tell program at the Grundy County Historical Society meeting featured local Indian artifacts, a Although the museum will close for the 1940 school and community fair booklet, a winter the last weekend in October, interest­ 1928 county election ballot, and scrapbooks ed persons can arrange for a special tour dur­ kept by the late Hazel Castle Biles. The ing the off-season by calling (816) 359-6393. third volume of the Maries County history book is now ready. Inquiries about this 519- Harrison County Historical Society page compilation should be directed to the The Society meets the fourth Sunday Society at Box 289, Vienna, MO 65582. 100 Missouri Historical Review

Historical Society of Oregon County Jasper County Historical Society Officers for the 1995-1996 fiscal year Marvin VanGilder discussed county his­ include Mildred L. McCormack, president; tory at the June 11 meeting held in the muse­ Goldina Hansen, vice president; Mary Lee um in Sarcoxie; tours of the museum were Pease, secretary; and Susan Sheets, treasurer. offered after the lecture.

Historical Society of Polk County Jennings Historical Society "The Early Life of Harry Truman," pre­ The Society sponsored a history display sented by Frank Cunningham, a professor of in conjunction with the twentieth annual history at Southwest Baptist University, Jenningsfest, held July 28-30 in Koeneman Bolivar, highlighted the May 25 meeting Park. In celebration of the fiftieth anniver­ held in the North Ward Museum meeting sary of the incorporation of Jennings, the room in Bolivar. Society published a golden anniversary cookbook. To order, contact Linda Schmerber, 7028 Idlewild Avenue, Jennings, Holt County Historical Society MO 63136-1041. Elizabeth Ann Burnsides of Maryville took Society members back in time with her talk, "Fortescue Memories . . . the town, the Johnson County Historical Society people, the school," which she presented at Members and volunteers have success­ the May 27 meeting held in the schoolhouse fully moved the old schoolhouse from its in Fortescue. original location in Elm to the grounds where the old courthouse and museum are presently located in Warrensburg. With this Iron County Historical Society completed, the current project involves Edwin Codding, who has lived in the refurbishing the building. Arcadia Valley for ninety-two years, spoke to Society members on July 17 in the fel­ lowship hall of the First Baptist Church, Joplin Historical Society Ironton. The Society, in association with the Dorothea B. Hoover Museum, presented a special exhibit of clothing from the muse­ Jackson County Historical Society um's collection. Titled "100 Years of The Society, in partnership with the Fashion: 1860-1960," the exhibit opened Historic Kansas City Foundation, sponsored with a Victorian tea party held on July 15. the first summit of regional historic preser­ Debra McDowell, an assistant professor at vation organizations. Representatives from Southwest Missouri State University, was eight counties in Missouri and Kansas met the featured speaker. on May 13 in the Pierson Auditorium of the University of Missouri-Kansas City and heard keynote addresses by Robert Kansas City Westerners Archibald, president of the American The Posse met on May 9 at their standing Association for State and Local History, and meeting place, the Hereford House Amy Jordan Webb, a representative of the Restaurant in Kansas City, and heard retired National Trust for Historic Preservation. To U.S. Army Major George E. Knapp speak on show appreciation for its volunteers, the "The Buffalo Soldier." On June 13 Dr. Society sponsored a trip back to 1812 on Harmon Mothershead, of Northwest June 22, when they traveled by bus to Fort Missouri State University, discussed western Osage in Sibley for a dinner and a tour of writers, and Dr. Robert Gilmore, of the fort. Southwest Missouri State University, pre- Historical Notes and Comments 101 sented "A Wealth of Weeklies" at the July 11 show presentation by Whit Kirk of Imagik gathering. Ann J. Corley of the Younger Photo Lab. George Rhodes spoke on the his­ Family Home and Study Center detailed the tory of the Rhodes family at the June 2 meet­ restoration of the Younger family home at ing, also held in the community building. the August 8 meeting.

Lincoln County Historical Kimmswick Historical Society and Archeological Society History professor Gary Kremer of William The April meeting featured local photog­ Woods University, Fulton, spoke on "Local rapher Ernie Steiner, who discussed the his­ History: A Self-Discovery" at the June 5 tory of photography from 1839 to the present meeting held in Kimmswick Hall. Sponsored and appropriate methods of storing pictures by the Missouri Humanities Council, his talk and negatives. stimulated a lively discussion among mem­ bers about the purpose of the Society and its Meramec Station Historical Society priorities in preservation projects. The Society hosted an open house for area residents on April 30. Held in the Valley Kirkwood Historical Society Park High School Cafetorium, the event fea­ Personalized bricks to be placed on the tured displays of pictures, newspaper articles, grounds of Mudd's Grove are still available. quilts, police badges, military service patch­ Two-line or three-line inscriptions are es, and other memorabilia. A slide show of offered for $50.00 or $60.00, respectively, residences and commercial buildings dating and can be ordered from the Society at P.O. back to the 1880s was also presented. Box 3702, Kirkwood, MO 63122.

Meramec Valley Genealogical Laclede County Historical Society and Historical Society Members elected the following officers Interested members participated in a to serve during 1995-1996 at the April 24 guided tour of Bellefontaine and Calvary meeting: Dorothy Calton, president; Betty Cemeteries, both located in St. Louis, on Randolph, vice president; Charlene Hopkins, May 17. The Society meets bimonthly at the secretary; and Kirk Pearce, treasurer. The Scenic Regional Library, 140 West St. Louis May 22 meeting featured a talk on safety Street, Pacific; November, January, and measures by Fire Chief Bob Acuff. The March meetings begin at 10:00 A.M., and Society meets at 6:30 on the fourth Monday May, July, and September meetings start at evening of each month in the Harwood 7:00 P.M. Manor, Lebanon. Mid-Missouri Civil War Round Table Landmarks Association of St. Louis, Inc. Phil Gottschalk presented a lively report Members traveled to the town of on the battle of Corinth, Mississippi, at the Augusta, which is known as the center of June 20 gathering in the Boone County Missouri's first designated wine district, on Historical Society's meeting room in June 25 to tour significant sites and enjoy a Columbia. brunch and wine tasting. Miller County Historical Society Lee's Summit Historical Society The Society met July 9 at the museum Held in the Lee Haven Community building in Tuscumbia. Following a potluck Building, the April 7 gathering of the Society dinner, Robert Gilmore, professor emeritus at featured a potluck dinner followed by a slide Southwest Missouri State University, 102 Missouri Historical Review

Springfield, presented a talk titled "A Wealth Perry County Lutheran Historical Society of Weeklies," which concerned early On June 4 the Society and the Trinity Missouri newspapers and the impact they had Lutheran Church of Altenburg joined to cel­ on isolated pioneer families in the state. A ebrate the 150th anniversary of the church. new Society-published book, Osage River The worship service featured the Reverend Country: History of the People and Places of James W. Kalthoff, president of the Missouri Miller County, Missouri, is now available. district of the Lutheran Church-Missouri To order, send $17.00 (includes postage and Synod, as the guest speaker. A worship ser­ handling) to the Miller County Historical vice in German provided a highlight the pre­ Society, P.O. Box 57, Tuscumbia, MO 65082. vious Sunday.

Mine Au Breton Historical Society Pettis County Historical Society Members meet the second Tuesday The annual dinner meeting, held on May evening of each month in the Washington 22 at the Heard Memorial Club House, County Courthouse, 102 North Missouri Sedalia, featured keynote speaker James W. Street, Potosi, at 7:30. Goodrich, executive director of the State Historical Society, who presented a program Moniteau County Historical Society on notorious Missouri duels. He also remi­ President Larry Crawford donated a sun­ nisced about his childhood in Sedalia. The dial on the Society's behalf at the county's following officers were elected at this meet­ sesquicentennial celebration on June 28. A ing: Rhonda Chalfant, president; Mona carry-in dinner highlighted the summer McCormack, vice president; Wanda meeting held on the lawn of the Maclay Monsees, secretary; and Alvin Heynen, home in Tipton on July 10. treasurer.

Old Trails Historical Society Pleasant Hill Historical Society Society member Hilda Stock hosted a The Society met at the museum on May Victorian tea at her garden in Manchester on 21 to look at and discuss Jerry Scheer's June 10; Victorian dress was encouraged. On World War II scrapbook. June 21 members gathered at the Manchester Methodist Church to hear Monte Avery pre­ sent "The Civil War Comes to St. Louis." Pulaski County Museum and Historical Society Pemiscot County Historical Society Members meet on the first Thursday At the April 28 meeting held in the night of each month at 7:00 in the Society American Legion Building, Caruthersville, building, 415 Old Highway 66, West Waynesville. five Society members received Pioneer Heritage Awards. On May 26 at the Presbyterian Church in Caruthersville, the Ray County Historical Society Society hosted a party to celebrate its twenty- The Society held its quarterly meeting on fifth anniversary; scrapbooks, photographs, July 13 with a carry-in dinner at the Eagleton and other memorabilia were displayed. Center in Richmond. Billed as Elmer Duffett Night, the evening's activities recog­ Perry County Historical Society nized the contributions of Duffett, the oldest Members and guests gathered at the com­ Society member. Another highlight of the munity center in Perryville to celebrate sum­ evening included Chris Edwards's discussion mer at the Society's annual ice cream and and slide show on the Centralia massacre quilt social on August 12. during the Civil War. Historical Notes and Comments 103

Raytown Historical Society Stone County Historical Society The summer picnic, held on July 26 at The July 2 program featured Cheri Chalet Kupfer, featured entertainment by the Lungstrum's talk on northern Stone County. Dixieland Band. To increase its visibility in In lieu of an August meeting, members took Raytown, the Society sponsored a community- a field trip to Jamesville to view historic wide blood drive at the museum on August 18. sites on August 6.

St. Charles County Historical Society Texas County Missouri Genealogical The quarterly meeting was held in and Historical Society Augusta on July 22. Activities included Rita Hadley of Annapolis provided an lunch at Ashleys Rose Restaurant, a tour of interesting program on the history and the Mt. Pleasant Winery, and a visit to the preservation of thong trees at the June 23 Augusta Historical Museum. meeting held in the fellowship hall of St. Mark's Catholic Church. On July 28 mem­ bers heard Roger and Peggy Holder speak on St, Francois County Historical Society their research trip to the Isle of Man. Bill Mount spoke on the mining industry at the May 24 meeting, held in the civic room of the Ozarks Federal Savings and Harry S Truman Independence Loan Building, the Society's standing meet­ 76 Fire Company ing location. The June 28 meeting provided Held on June 17, FireFest '95 featured the an opportunity for members to participate in following activities: a parade of old and new an open discussion of county history. On fire, police, and emergency vehicles; booths, July 26 Jack Clay shared information about displays, and demonstrations; an auction; and the railroads that have served the county. firetruck rides on the Mighty Seagrave.

Sappington-Concord Historical Society Vernon County Historical Society At the July 26 meeting held in the On June 4 members met in the Nevada Lindbergh School District boardroom, mem­ Park Care Center and heard Bryan bers viewed a videotape about the Pacific Breckenridge, cochairman of Nevada's Land theater of World War II. Management Board, discuss the board's study of land uses for the former state hospi­ tal grounds located north of Nevada. The Smoky Hill Railway Bushwhacker Museum observed its thirtieth and Museum Association anniversary on June 11 with an open house. Members met on June 10 at the Old City Hall, Belton, to focus on improving group participation in Association activities. Washington Historical Society Members had the opportunity to acclimate themselves to their new home in the old Sons and Daughters of the Blue and Gray church building (113 East Fourth Street) on The monthly assembly of members was July 11 when they gathered for a dinner meet­ held on June 11 at the Maryville Public ing. The following officers were elected to Library. Past president George Hinshaw pre­ serve for the 1995-1996 term: Henry Otto, sented a program based on his current president; Walt Hatcher, vice president; Carol research, "What the Civil War Soldier Ate." Brunner, secretary; and Don Hahne, treasurer. On July 16 Round Table members heard Sally Tennihill discuss "What Was Life Like for the Average Woman Pioneer on the Wayne County Historical Society Oregon Trail in the 1860s?" The Piedmont City Council unanimously 104 Missouri Historical Review voted to accept a historic log cabin, to be Harris-Kearney House on June 11 for a fund- located in the Piedmont Area Park, from the raising dinner. Original paintings donated Society. Society members will facilitate the by members were auctioned and proceeds move, the restoration, and the funding for this benefited the Society. project. At the June 5 meeting Sandy Primm, a representative from the Missouri Humanities White River Valley Historical Society Council Speakers Program, presented "Into At the Society's annual meeting on June the Deep Ozarks," which traced the 1818 win­ 11, members heard Sandy Primm, an Ozarks ter expedition of Henry Rowe Schoolcraft in history scholar, present "Into the Deep the Ozarks; slides accompanied his talk. Ozarks," which featured information on Henry R. Schoolcraft's 1818 winter expedi­ Webster Groves Historical Society tion into the Ozarks. Held at the College of "Downtown St. Louis, Its Past, Its the Ozarks, Point Lookout, the program was Present and Its Future" was the program pre­ sponsored by the Missouri Humanities sented by Eric Sandweiss, director of the Council. New officers for 1995-1996 Research Center for the Missouri Historical include Jerry Gideon, president; Robert Society, at the Society's annual meeting on Gilmore, vice president; and Pauline Barton, May 15. All meetings of the Society are secretary-treasurer. held on the first Monday of each month at the Hawken House Barn, Webster Groves. Winona Historical and Genealogical Society Weston Historical Museum The Missouri State Genealogical The Museum offered two programs Association awarded the Society the geared for children this summer. Students Directors Award at their August 4 annual aged ten through fourteen had the opportuni­ conference held in Fulton. This award rec­ ty to serve as museum docents, and a work­ ognizes great efforts in the field of genealo­ shop teaching Indian-style pottery skills was gy in Shannon County. held for ten-to-twelve-year-old students.

Winston Historical Society Westport Historical Society The Society sponsored the annual Jesse The May 19 dinner held at the Woodside James Days on July 14-16 at Winston City Racquet Club, Westwood, Kansas, featured Park. Major attractions included the reenact­ David G. Meyers, associate professor of ment of the 1881 James robbery and a one- medicine at the University of Kansas, who act play titled The Case Against Frank presented a slide show and a lecture on Civil James, which told the story of Frank's 1883 War battlefield conditions encountered by trial for the murder of Frank McMillan dur­ physicians. Members gathered at the ing the Winston robbery.

Easy to Please

St. Louis Melting Pot, December, 1918. A man who had partaken too freely of cocktails finally reached a barber shop. He sat down heavily in the chair. As his head drooped forward, he mumbled to the barber. "Shave." "But, sir," remonstrated the barber, "I can't shave you unless you hold up your head!" "All right," the customer answered languidly, "hair-cut." 105 GIFTS

LeVeta Ann Phillips Anderson, Columbia, donor: "Gamma Alpha History," by the donor; "History of the Creighton Presbyterian Church" and "Olive Branch Missionary Society," by Helen Gray Robinson. (R)* Paul Barker, Pleasant Hope, donor: The Ava Ozark Breeze, August 6, 1906, loaned for copying. (N) Francis M. Barnes, Kirkwood, donor: "70th Anniversary Convention Souvenir Program," American Philatelic Society, 1956. (R) Bates County Historical Society, Butler, donor: Bates County Democrat, 1872-1907, and Butler Daily Democrat, 1890-1942, both loaned for copying. (N) Robert Baumann, St. Louis, donor: Home Place: A Celebration of Life in Bridgeton, Missouri, by Jane Mobley; Missouri's Conservation Atlas: A Guide to Exploring Your Conservation Lands, by the Missouri Department of Conservation. (R) Thomas Boslooper, Palm Harbor, Florida, donor: Robert H. Browne, M.D. (1835-1909) of Bloomington and Mahomet, Illinois, Kirksville, Missouri and Wichita, Kansas: Biographer of Abraham Lincoln, by the donor. (R) James Boulware, Boise, Idaho, donor, through Katherine Boulware: 1978 alumni directory for Culver-Stockton College, Canton, and a large collection of genealogical books. (R) George Buck estate, Dadeville, donor: In Missouri, May 3, 1899, and Dadeville Rustic, September 3, 1915, both loaned for copying. (N) Buffalo Reflex, Buffalo, donor: Dallas County Republican, 1937-1958, loaned for copying. (N) Bernice Burkholder, Columbia, donor: "A Brief History of the University of Missouri Women's Extension Club of Columbia, Missouri," by the donor. (R) Cedar County Historical Society, Stockton, donor: Stockton Journal, 1900, 1904, 1907-1911, 1913, loaned for copying. (N) Christian County Library, Ozark, donor: Ozark Headliner, 1968-1971, and Ozark Voice and View, 1992-1993, both loaned for copying. (N) Clinton County Historical Society, Plattsburg, donor, through Helen Russell: St. Louis The Christian, October 28, 1880. (N) Dade County Genealogical Society, Greenfield, donor: Greenfield Vedette, scattered issues, 1882-1918; Dade County Advocate, June 17, 1920; Missouri Counties Today, issues from 1976, all loaned for copying. (N) Hugh Denney, Columbia, donor: Twenty-five Missouri Regional Planning Commission maps featuring all areas of the state; aerial photos of the following Missouri towns: Boonville, El Dorado Springs, Jamesport, Louisiana, Fairfax, Nevada, Plattsburg, Schell City, and Warrensburg. (R)

*These letters indicate the location of the materials at the Society. (R) refers to Reference Library; (E), Editorial Office; (M), Manuscripts; (N), Newspaper Library; (RFC), Reference Fitzgerald Collection; (B), Bay Room; and (A), Art Collection. 106 Missouri Historical Review

Mr. and Mrs. Robert Dugger, Hartville, donors: Assorted issues of the following newspapers: Richland Sentinel, Gasconade Valley Plain-Dealer, St. Louis Republican, Rolla Weekly Herald, Lebanon Rustic, Wright County Home-Talk, Wright County Republican, Mountain Grove Mountain Prospect, Wright County Progress, Hartville Press, St. Louis Star-Times; several issues of the Civil War Times, all loaned for copying. (N) Lois Schillie Eikleberry, Lakewood, California, donor, through Charlene Schillie: A Folk History of J. S. and Maude Gashwiler, by the donor. (R) Edna C. Fielding, Dallas, Texas, donor: William Houston Gallaher's 1865 Journal. (M) Mary Louise Forbes, Fayette, donor, through Sylvia Forbes: Kenneth Earl, A Country Boy at Heart, by the donor. (R) Friends of Historic Boonville, Boonville, donor: Boonville Republican, 1929-1931; Republican and Sun, 1932; Missourian, 1939-1940, all loaned for copying. (N) Wayne Glenn, Nixa, donor: Scattered issues of the Republic Monitor, 1900. (N) Robert and George Goldman, St. Louis, donors: St. Louis Morning Call, June 26, 1884. (N) Margaret Grandy, Neosho, donor: Scattered issues of the Randolph County Times and the Clifton Hill Rustler. (N) J. Hurley and Roberta Hagood, Hannibal, donors: Hannibal-LaGrange College History, by the donors. (R) John G. Hall, Columbia, donor: Majoring on the Minors: Team Rosters, Most Comprehensive KOM League Rosters Ever Compiled, 1946-52, compiled by the donor. (R) William K. Hall, St. Louis, donor: Springfield, Missouri, Newspaper Abstracts and Index, three volumes for 1899, 1900, and 1921, all compiled by the donor. (N) Hannibal Free Public Library, Hannibal, donor: Hannibal Labor Press, 1915-1937, loaned for copying. (N) Hickory County Historical Society, Hermitage, donor: Hickory County Republican, September 17, 1901; Hickory County Herald, September 5, 1912; and Weaubleau Watchman, April 8, 1926, all loaned for copying. (N) Larry A. James, Neosho, donor: Sixty-eight negatives of Bible records from the Monett area and thirteen negatives of schools and churches in southern Missouri. (E) Max H. Jamieson, Carlsbad, California, donor: Information for the Jameson/Jamison family file. (R) Ethel Johnson, Mexico, donor: Genealogy of the Issac and Hannah Johnson Family and Reams Family History, 1790- 1988, both by the donor. (R) Robert A. Jordan, Tulsa, Oklahoma, donor: The Family of Thomas Jones Who Died 1748, Lunenburg County, Virginia, by the donor. (R) M. Daniel Lane, Oak Grove, donor: The Voice, the weekly newspaper of eastern Jackson County, vol. 1, nos. 13-35. (N) William D. Lay, Fayette, donor: Indian Trade Factories and Forts in the Boonslick, 1812-1815, by the donor. (R) Historical Notes and Comments 107

Leader-Statesman, Versailles, donor: Statesman, 1884-1890; Leader, 1895-1901; the Laurie Highway 5 Beacon, 1988-1989, all loaned for copying. (N) Liberty High School, donor, through Jan Hensel, Liberty: The Spectator, the donor's yearbook for 1972, 1973, 1976-1979, 1994, 1995. (R) Lockwood Public Library, Lockwood, donor: Lockwood Luminary, 1921-1922, loaned for copying. (N) Marcia Manning, South Charleston, West Virginia, donor: A History of the Davis Family, by the donor. (R) Emory Melton, Cassville, donor: The First 150 Years in Cassville, Missouri, by the donor. (R) Marjorie Miller, Montgomery City, donor: Montgomery County Leader, scattered issues from 1890, loaned for copying. (N) Missouri State Archives, Jefferson City, donor: United States Daughters of 1812, Reverend Finis Ewing Chapter, Jefferson City, Missouri, Records. (M) Missouri State Library, Jefferson City, donor, through Barbara Reading: Ten children's books to be added to the Alice Irene Fitzgerald Collection. (RFC) Karen P. Myers, Longboat Key, Florida, donor: Missouri Hybrid Corn Company, Fulton, Records. (M) Northwest Missouri State University, Department of History, Maryville, donor, through Harmon Mothershead: The Teaching of the Social Studies, by the St. Louis County Commission on the Teaching of Social Studies. (R) Charles O'Dell, Columbia, donor: Missouri Music Imprints Through 1870 in the Private Collection of the Compiler and the Public Collection of the State Historical Society of Missouri, Columbia, Missouri, compiled by the donor. (R) Lynne L. Ornes, Aiken, South Carolina, donor: Myron F. Strock: 1835-1932, His Ancestors and Descendants, by the donor. (R) Severely H. and Walter L. Pfeffer II, Columbia, donors: Ashland Area Business Directory, 1995; Souvenir Program of the V.P. Fair, 1981; and miscellaneous items relating to Columbia area organizations, colleges, and political organiza­ tions. (R) Bob Phillips, Dunnegan, donor: Issues of Polk County Times and Polk County Review from the 1960s. (N) Ponder Books, Doniphan, donor: Confederate Surrender and Parole, Jacksonport and Wittsburg, Arkansas, May and June, 1865, by Jerry and Victor Ponder. (R) William D. Powell, Columbia, donor: Chautauqua program, 1922, held in Columbia. (R) Mary H. Ray, Columbia, donor: Grant City Baptist Church, March 22, 1895-1995. (R) Judith Redfield, Columbia, donor: Directories, plat books, and brochures pertaining to Randolph, Boone, and Macon Counties. (R) Mary E. Riedel, La Grange Park, Illinois, donor: Ozarko, yearbook of the State Teacher's College, Springfield, 1932 and 1934. (R) 108 Missouri Historical Review

Edison Shrum, Scott City, donor: Super Floods Raging in Wide Spread Area, by the donor. (R) James Skidmore, Flemington, donor: Flemington Sentinel, two 1913 issues, and Bolivar Free Press, July 1, 1976, both loaned for copying, (N); assorted pictures of Tom Mix and Sally Rand, loaned for copying. (E) Arthur B. Smith, Fulton, donor: Millersburg Mirror, vol. 1, nos. 1-7. (N) Springfield Business Journal, Springfield, donor: Springfield Parent, 1988-1995, loaned for copying. (N) Donald L. Stevens, Omaha, Nebraska, donor: A Homeland and a Hinterland: The Current and Jacks Fork Riverways, by the donor. (R) Stone County Publishing Company, Crane, donor: Chronicle, 1911-1912, 1924, 1940-1941; Stone County News, 1915-1917; Stone County News and Oracle, 1904-1907, 1909-1913, 1918-1919, 1935-1936; Galena James River Republican, 1913, all loaned for copying. (N) Gene Taylor Museum, Sarcoxie, donor: Various issues of Sarcoxie Vindicator, the La Russell Enterprise, and the Bower's Mill Enterprise. (N) Harry S. Truman Memorial Veterans Hospital, Columbia, donor, through Diana L. Shire: Volunteer Recognition Banquet programs, 1992, 1994, and Youth Awards programs, 1993,1994. (R) University of Missouri-Columbia, Department of Geography, donor, through W. A. Schroeder: Political Atlas for the City of St. Louis, 1943; The Status of New Madrid Land Claims in Howard County, Missouri, by Gloria Saalberg. (R) Ophelia R. Wade, Bragg City, donor: Pemiscot County, Missouri: 1860, 1870, 1880 Mortality Schedules and New Madrid County, Missouri: 1830 Federal Census, 1840 Federal Census, both transcribed by the donor, (R); "A Legacy of the Forties," by the donor. (M) Webster County Citizen, Seymour, donor: Seymour Flashlight, June 28, 1894. (N) Wheaton Journal, Wheaton, donor: Purdy News Review, 1973, and Wheaton Journal, 1931-1936, 1946-1964, both loaned for copying. (N) William and Dorothy Williams, Versailles, donors: Morgan County, Missouri Cemeteries Listed by Township, compiled by the donors, loaned for copying. (R) Windsor Review, Windsor, donor: Windsor Review, 1876-1917; Windsorite, scattered issues, 1911-1916; and Windsor Star, 1934, all loaned for copying. (N) 109 MISSOURI HISTORY IN NEWSPAPERS

Albany Ledger April 12, 26, May 10, 17, 24, 31, June 21, 1995: A series on Gentry County historical tours in commemoration of the county's sesquicentennial. May 10: "Family dinners and old time recipes" of Mercer County residents Francis Marion and Martha Elinor Jennison Brees, by Marcaline Brown.

Anderson Graphic July 12, 1995: "A genealogical study . .. Harmons and relations," by Rylen Martin Rudy.

Ashland Boone County Journal May 4, 1995: "Mr. Postmaster," a chronology of postmasters at the U.S. post office in Sapp.

Branson Tri-Lakes Daily News May 21, 1995: Walnut Shade school reunion, "Learnin' The 'Three Rs' In A One Room School," honors teacher Elise Palmer, by Kelly L. Hugenot.

Buffalo Dallas County Courier May 11, 1995: Gene and Letha Bradley built the "London Smoke Store" east of Buffalo on Highway K. May 18: "O'Bannon Bank Celebrates 90th Anniversary."

Buffalo Reflex May 17, 1995: "Fair Grove High School Nine: Sultans of the 1902 baseball field," by Marilyn Smith.

California Democrat June 21, 1995: A special section commemorating Moniteau County's sesquicentennial.

Camdenton Reveille and Lake Sun Leader June 10, 23, 1995: "Daguerreotypes," a series by Fern Moreland, featured respectively: early Gunter-Ha Ha Tonka area settlers and the Samuel and Nancy Jane Crall family.

Canton Press-News Journal June 15, 1995: "Yesteryear's Pictures," a pictorial series, featured the Canton Hotel.

Cassville Democrat June 21, 28, 1995: Special sections commemorated the sesquicentennial of Cassville.

Charleston Enterprise-Courier May 11, 1995: "The History of the St. Francis deSales Catholic Church of Mississippi County's Texas Bend," reprinted. June 20: "The Loebe Opera House—1902-1926."

Charleston Mississippi County Times June 6, 13, 20, 27, July 4, 11, 25, August 1, 1995: "Celebrating 150 Years: The History of Mississippi County," a series, featured respectively: the first settlers, the first courts and epidemics, the depression of 1893, the debate over the county seat and the courthouse fire of 1938, the 1939 sharecropper demonstrations, early Charleston, Charleston businesses, and early East Prairie. 110 Missouri Historical Review

Cole Camp Courier May 11, 18, 25, 1995: Dorothy Stout Phifer, "A Lady of Mystery," in three parts, by Dianne Peck.

Columbia Daily Tribune May 14, 28, June 11, July 9, 23, 1995: "Boone Country," a series by Francis Pike, fea­ tured respectively: the Henry Cave family graveyard, the C. B. Miller building, astronomer Thomas Jefferson Jackson See, Chouteau Springs Resort, and mathematician William Benjamin Smith.

Columbia Missourian May 7, 1995: "Academic Hall," University of Missouri. May 21: "Old Cosmopolitan Recreation Area." May 28: "Bell Mansion, Boonville" and other area buildings listed on the National Register of Historic Places. June 11: "First Christian Church."

Concordia Concordian June 7, 1995: H. A. Weinberg, "Doctor, who was also a stone mason, responsible for doughboy" statue in Concordia Central Park, by Nora Hartwig.

Crane Chronicle/Stone County Republican July 13, 1995: "Crane Christian Church to celebrate 95th anniversary."

East Prairie Eagle June 29, 1995: "The Flood of 1937," by Thad Snow, reprinted.

Fredericktown Democrat-News May 25, 1995: "Friendly Service Oil Co. closing after 56 years," by Alan Kopitsky. June 15: Founded in 1929, "Small business leaves lasting legacy: Homan Oil Company owner Tuck Homan retires from 'gas' business," by Kathe Homan Wunnenberg.

Fulton Sun May 13, 1995: "Danuser Machine—An American Dream," a history of the Danuser Machine Company.

Goodman News Dispatch July 19, 1995: "Early days in the county recalled by former resident" of McDonald County, Carol Dickey.

Hannibal Courier-Post June 8, 1995: "From mud and muck to cobblestones and concrete: The evolution and development of Hannibal's streets," by J. Hurley and Roberta Hagood.

Holden Image-Progress June 8, 1995: "Step Back In Time," Hazelwood Ridenhour Ballard relates her experi­ ences as a teacher in rural schools during the 1930s, by Geneva Baldwin.

Ironton Mountain Echo June 28, 1995: "Echoes From The Past," featured the Sligo and Eastern Railroad. Historical Notes and Comments 111

Jefferson City Post-Tribune June 26,1995: A commemorative section celebrated the "175th Anniversary of Cole County." King City Tri-County News May 12, 1995: Elmer "Culver structure sesquicentennial stop"; early 1900s barn was a state-of-the-art facility in Gentry County. Leeys Summit Journal May 3, 1995: "Fund raising for [Henry Washington] Younger home set to get underway," by Judy Hackemeyer. Licking News June 29, 1995: An early photo and a brief history of the Montauk Mill and the family of Timothy Hickman, its first owner. Marshfield Mail May 17, 1995: "T[urner]B[roadcasting]N[etwork] program to feature home-town girl," Joy Spears Fishel, and her family's 1930s Camp Joy Motel in Lebanon, by Doug Weatherford. Maryville Daily Forum June 9, 1995: Professor John Tapia's circuit chautauqua "'Big Tent' presentation Sunday," by Opal Eckert. July 2: "Take time and explore the Nodaway County Courthouse," by Martha Cooper. July 4: "Maryville celebrates 150th birthday," compiled by Carolyn Elswick. Milan Standard July 6, 1995: The history of "The [Jacob and Livonia Jaynes] Shobes—A Pioneer Family." Moberly Monitor-Index & Evening Democrat July 9, 1995: "Times Past," a special two-part section of photos and articles relating to the history of Randolph County. Mound City News-Independent July 20, 1995: "100th Craig Reunion," by Jim Anderson and Linda Boultinghouse. Mount Vernon Lawrence County Record May 3, 1995: "Happy birthday, Mt. Vernon! City founded 150 years ago May 4," by Kathy Fairchild. New Haven Leader July 19, 1995: "Franklin County . . . The Early Days," a series by LeRoy Danz, featured Union, the "Hotspot of the Nation" in 1954. New Madrid Weekly Record May 5, 1995: 1862 "Family Reunion Ends In Capture, Prison" for Confederate soldier Thomas L. Fontaine, by H. Riley Bock. *0'Fallon Journal June 25, 1995: "Legendary performers, fabled ghost have boarded Goldenrod" show­ boat, by Paul Brinkmann. indicates newspapers not received by the State Historical Society. 112 Missouri Historical Review

Oregon Times Observer June 22, 1995: A history of St. John's Lutheran Church in Corning.

Park Hills Daily Journal May 31, 1995: Civil War veteran Azariah Martin's "Grandson, great-grandson proud of family history," includes Martin's letter describing his participation in the Battle of Pilot Knob, by Sheila A. S. Mansfield.

Perryville Perry County Republic-Monitor June 20, 29, 1995: "Perry County Album," a pictorial series, featured respectively: Brazeau General Store and the Seventy-Six Depot.

Piedmont Wayne County Journal-Banner May 11, 1995: "Piedmont Agrees To Take Aunt Beck May Log Cabin: Historic Log Cabin To Be Erected In Piedmont Area Park."

Poplar Bluff Daily American Republic May 4, 11, 1995: "History Along The Current River," a series by Michelle Friedrich, fea­ tured respectively: the Pratt community in Ripley County, and Pitman's Ferry, ten miles south of Doniphan.

Rich Hill Mining Review June 1, 1995: "From covered wagon to airplane: Clara Peterman's life spans ten decades."

Richland Mirror June 29, July 13, 1995: "Yesteryear," a series by Gordon Warren, featured respectively: the Hazelgreen School, 1906-1907, and the Wair Chapel Methodist Church.

*Richmond Daily News May 31, 1995: "1878 tornado destroys central Richmond," by Pete Maher, reprinted.

*St. Clair Missourian May 3, 10, 17, 24, 31, June 7, 14, 21, 28, July 5, 12, 19, 26, 1995: "Gleanings from the Past ... & Present," a series by Sue Cooley, featured respectively: the 1921 cyclone and the Buescher-Kloppenberg Garage, Guy and Mae Speakes Pierce, Frederick Edwin Schallenberg's barbershop and his descendants, the TINSWAC log cabin and Sam and Clarisa Jennings Crow, descendants of John L. and Sophronia Perkins, Civil War veterans Henry Wieda and James Lee, the Edgar Murray building, the First Congregational Church, the Cuthbert Swepson Jeffries family, Lafayette "Lafe" Phillips, Elijah and Phoebe Manchester Jones, Ann E. and Dr. Matthew J. Young, and the town of Virginia Mines and the Mary "Polly" and George Jennings Inge family.

*St. Louis County Star Journal May 28, 1995: "Old St. Ferdinand [Shrine] serves as reminder of Florissant's past," by James Barrett.

St. Louis Post-Dispatch May 9, 1995: The 1938 Handee House convenience store is "A Hangout Worth Preserving," by Elaine Viets. May 14: "St. Louis Q&A," a series by Jerry Berger, provided answers to questions on Route 66, Tune Town, the Orient Chinese restaurant, and the Quality Dairy Company. "St. Historical Notes and Comments 113

Louis When," a pictorial series, featured the Girl's Home on Enright Avenue in 1953.

Salem News June 22, 1995: "Dent County Courthouse," a special section commemorating the build­ ing's 125th anniversary.

Sedalia Democrat April 24, 1995: After 106 years, the women's scholarly Sorosis "Club's goals remain much the same." May 1: Nineteenth-century madam of the Junction House and the farm, Lizzie Cook, "Businesswoman's success troubled city." May 8: The Ruth Ann School of Music and Mrs. Ben L. Walker's Dancing Academy part of the "Music, arts important to early Sedalia." This and the articles above by Rhonda Chalfant. May 14: "Out of the Ashes," by Ron Jennings, related the history of Missouri's capitol buildings. May 15: "Early Sedalia's mothers charged with maintaining men's morals," by Rhonda Chalfant.

Southwest City Republic May 24, 1995: '"Marx Cheney Days' recalled early Shadow Lake History" when Hollywood stars came to Noel resort in 1938 for the filming of the movie, Jesse James, by Ralph Pogue, reprinted.

Sullivan Independent News May 31, 1995: "First Baptist Church Celebrates 120 Years."

Troy Free Press May 10, June 7, 14, July 5, 1995: "Lincoln County Recollections," a series by Charles R. Williams, featured respectively: Senator Omer Avery; the St. Louis, Keokuk and Northwestern Railroad; the A. A. Kuhne house; and the T. W. Withrow Harness Shop.

Vienna Maries County Gazette June 14, 21, 28, July 12, 26, 1995: "A Trip Along U.S. Highway 63" from its connection with Highway 50 to Rolla, a five-part series on historic sites, by Joe Welschmeyer.

Washington Missourian July 26, 1995: "Reminder of Local Level 'Welfare,'" at county farm in Union, by Sue Cooley.

Webster-Kirkwood Journal May 28, 1995: "The Y[MCA]: From men's club to family-centered association," by Marc Witengier.

Weston Chronicle July 5, 1995: "Historic St. George Hotel, 1845-1995," in downtown Weston, by Sandra Lewis Miller. 114 MISSOURI HISTORY IN MAGAZINES

All Aboard, Frisco Railroad Museum Summer, 1995: "Disaster At Cedar Bluff: Mangled Bodies of Frisco Train Crew Taken from Wreck," reprinted.

American Heritage July-August, 1995: "Quantrill's Bones: a strange epic in the Rebel's restless remains," by Edward E. Leslie.

America's Civil War July, 1995: "Hungarian immigrant turned Union soldier, Joseph Pulitzer would one day become a journalistic titan," by Peggy Robbins.

Boone-Duden Historical Society Newsletter May/June, 1995: "George Muench (1801-1879)," by Ralph Gregory.

Boone's Lick Heritage, Boonslick Historical Society June, 1995: "Captain Kinney and the Railroads," by Andrew Clark; "The Excavation and Destruction of the Missouri Packet," by Wayne Lammers; "Saving the Gateway Western" Railroad, by Sue Ann Meyer; "Santa Fe Traders: Elisha Stanley," by William R. Lay and Robert L. Dyer.

The Bushwhacker, Civil War Round Table of St. Louis May 24, 1995: "'No Amnesty to Guerrilla Outlaws, Shoot Them on Sight': The Birth of the Missouri Outlaw," continued, by Daniel Marshall Shackelford.

Bushwhacker Musings, Vernon County Historical Society July 1, 1995: Maxwell and Sons, "The Progressive Grocer?" in Nevada, by Maxine Maxwell; "Walker, The Community, The People," by Neoma Foreman.

Christian County Historian Spring, 1995: "Griffin, Rich wood and McCracken Cemeteries," by Norma Stewart Maples. Summer, 1995- "Bald Knobbers," by Christal Gilbert.

Civil War Times August, 1995: "A Fight For Missouri," by Dave Page.

Collage Of Cape County, Cape Girardeau County Genealogical Society June, 1995: "Sex, Murder, and a Public Hanging in Cape Girardeau County: John Headrick Hung," reprinted; "John Headrick's Confession," reprinted; "Diary of a Confederate Soldier: Lt. John A. Bennett, of Price's Army from Cape Co.," reprinted.

Community Voice May, 1995: "Hard Rock: Artwell Johnson," by Kelly C. Anderson.

Concordia Historical Institute Quarterly Spring, 1995: "Forty Years Behind The Scenes: A Brief History of the Auxiliary of Concordia Historical Institute," by Gladys Suelflow; "Lutheran Orphanage Home, Des Peres, Missouri," by Charles Turner.

Conestoga Newsletter, Joplin Genealogy Society June, 1995: "Newton County's Jolly Mill," by Dwain Brixey. Historical Notes and Comments 115

Diggin' History, Andrew County Historical Society and Museum Spring/Summer, 1995: "The Early History of Railroads," part 1, by Ina C. Wachtel.

Florissant Valley Quarterly July, 1995: "The Castello Family," by Leo Kimmett.

Gateway Heritage Spring, 1995: "Origins—The Spirit of St. Louis in the History of Professional Baseball, May 4-8, 1875," by J. D. Cash; "Civil War Comes to Main Street: The St. Louis Chamber of Commerce Election of 1862," by Vicki Vaughn Johnson; "St. Louis Theater in the Age of the Original Jim Crow," by Louis Gerteis; "The Prudes, The Public And The Motion Pictures': The Movie Censorship Campaign in St. Louis, 1913-1917," by Julie A. Willett; '"Like Sheep in a Slaughter Pen': A St. Louisan Remembers the Camp Jackson Massacre, May 10, 1861," edited by William C. Winter; "The 'Baron of Arizona': Missouri-bred James Addison Reavis and the Peralta Land Grant," by Patrick Brophy.

Genealogy Society of Pulaski County Missouri Quarterly Newsletter August, 1995: "Early History Of Pioneer Pulaski County Families," by Emma Page Hicks.

Glendale Historical Society Bulletin June, 1995: "Memories of Old North Glendale On Alexandra and Sappington Road, Circa 1939-1947," by Joyce T. Puricelli.

The Historical Society of University City News June, 1995: "The University City Civic Plaza," by Esley I. Hamilton; "Tivoli Theater Re opens," by Peter Wollenberg.

Jackson County Historical Society Journal Summer, 1995: "Schoenberg Collection: Prime Piece of Kansas City History," by Kelly Chambers; Mary Jerome Shubrick, "DuPont Heiress Becomes 'The Prisoner's Friend,'" by Judy McKim; "The John Wornall House in Summer Dress," by Jessica Wornall.

Journal of American History June, 1995: "Walt Disney: Art and Politics in the American Century," by Steven Watts.

Journal of Douglas County, Missouri May, 1995: "A Century of Faith: Oca Delana Brown Cooper," by Juanita Sheets, Bonita Stafford, and Mary Jones; "Let's Go to 'The Show!': A History of Motion Pictures in Douglas County, Missouri, part 1," by Kenneth W. Brown; "Thomas & Hester Osburn: Douglas County Pioneers," by Jack Osburn.

Kansas City Genealogist Spring, 1995: "Kansas City, Missouri Mayors: From the Beginning Days of the City," by Fred L. Lee; "Discarded Street Names In Kansas City," reprinted; "Captured at Milford in Johnson County on the Blackwater River," by Robert Ruxton, reprinted.

Kansas History Summer, 1995: "Cattle Marketing in the American Southwest: The Rise of the Kansas City Commission Merchant in the Nineteenth Century," by O. James Hazlett.

The Katy Flyer, Katy Railroad Historical Society June, 1995: "Incarnate Word Sisters and Katy's Sedalia Hospital," by Joe Welschmeyer. 116 Missouri Historical Review

Kirkwood Historical Review March, 1995: "Occupants of Mudd's Grove Throughout Its History: Part I—The Sequence of Owners 1859-1994." June, 1995: "Occupants of Mudd's Grove Throughout Its History: Part II—The Sequence of Owners 1859-1994." This and the above article by Marie Andel.

KOM League Remembered June, 1995: "The 1946 Carthage Cardinals."

Landmarks Letter, Landmarks Association of St. Louis May/June, 1995: "St. Louis' Eleven Most Endangered Buildings."

Lawrence County Historical Society Bulletin July, 1995: "Pioneer Minister In Lawrence County: Rev. Alexander Anderson Young."

Mid-Missouri Black Watch Summer, 1995: Black churches in mid-Missouri: "White Rose Baptist Church, Bowling Green"; "Jones Holy Temple Church of God in Christ, Sedalia"; "St. Paul African Methodist Episcopal Church, Columbia"; "Second Missionary Baptist Church, Jefferson City"; "Ward Memorial Missionary Baptist, Sedalia"; "Burns Freewill Baptist Church, Sedalia."

Midwest Motorist July/August, 1995: "Jamesport, Mo.: Step back in time in state's largest Amish community."

Missouri Archaeologist, Missouri Archaeological Society December, 1992: "The Kaskaskia Manuscripts: French Traders in the Missouri Valley Before Lewis and Clark," by Theresa J. Piazza; "The St. Louis Mound Group: Historical Accounts and Pictorial Depictions," by John B. Marshall; "Prehistoric Mussel Faunas From the Northern Ozark Highland of Missouri: Cultural and Geological Implications," by Robert E. Warren.

Missouri Botanical Garden Bulletin July/August, 1995: "Joseph Holliday Bascom Manor House Is Dedicated."

Missouri Folklore Society Journal Vols. 15-16, 1993-1994: "Western Myth: History Versus the Legends and Lore of John Smith T" and "The Little Yankee: The Duelist as Folk Hero," by Dick Steward; "The Legend of Joe's Cave: Murder, Medicine, Counterfeiting, and Vigilantism in early Camden County," by Jim Vandergriff; '"Fr. Gus': The Slave Priest from Ralls County, Missouri," by Phil Hoebing; "John A. Gallaher and Coal Mining at Montserrat, Missouri: History and Legend," by Susan Pentlin; "T Am Nothing but a Poor Scribbler': Silas Turnbo and His Writings," by Lynn Morrow; "Snake Lore in Mark Twain Country," by Phil Hoebing; "Was It a Stunned Deer or Just a Deer Stunt? (The Story Behind a Missouri Legend)," by Jan Harold Brunvand; "The Use of Riddles in the Ozarks and Other Mountain Cultures," by Daniel M. Schores; "Art and Heritage in Southeast Missouri: The Bootheel Project," by C. Ray Brassieur; "Collecting in the Bootheel: An Overview of Student Participation," by Dennis Folly; "The Bootheel Project: An Artist's Picture," by Jerome Stueart.

Missouri Messenger, Friends of Missouri Town-1855 June, 1995: "Thirty Years Ago . . . ," by Gary Toms, an excerpt from A Brief History of Missouri Town 1855. Historical Notes and Comments 111

Missouri State Genealogical Association Journal Spring, 1995: "Missouri and the Guerrilla Gangs," by Mary Neblett Beck.

Missouri State Old Time Fiddlers Association Quarterly Spring, 1995: "Nile Wilson—Old Time Fiddler," by Charlie Walden.

Newsletter, Cass County Genealogical Society June, 1995: "History of Creighton," by Clara Rucker Ogg.

Newsletter, Gasconade County Historical Society Summer, 1995: "Reminiscences ... of my childhood in Hermann, Mo.," by Lucile Ward Robinson.

Newsletter, Iron County Historical Society July, 1995: "Dr. Ernest and Flo (Dickey) Funk and the Funk Scholarships," by Mark Cheaney, reprinted.

Newsletter, Lincoln County Genealogical Society Summer, 1995: "History of Southern Part of Lincoln County," reprinted.

Newsletter, Osage County Historical Society May, 1995: "St. Aubert School—No. 13." June, 1995: "Lone Star School—No. 43"; "Meet Me In Saint Louie." July, 1995: "Massmann School—No. 50"; "Early School Administrators."

Newsletter, Scott County Historical Society June, 1995: "Early History of Benton Reveals Colorful Starting," reprinted.

Newsletter, Washington Historical Society June, 1995: Washington potter, "Joseph Bayer."

Newton County Roots, Genealogy Friends of the Library June, 1995: "Ritchey: As Remembered from the Eyes of a Child," by Millie Carnes.

Newton County Saga Summer, 1995: The strawberry business in Newton County, "An Era of Berry Good Times," by Linda Anderson; "A Confederate's Last Retreat: The House at 211 East Hickory," Salem, continued, by Michael Dougan; "An Interview With Eva Liles: Widow of Newton County Sheriff Paul Liles," by Brinley MacLaren.

Old Mill News Spring, 1994: "Alley Spring Roller Mill: Shannon County, Missouri."

Our Clay Heritage Third Quarter, 1995: William Jewell College, "The Jewell of the Frontier," by W. A. Plourd.

Ozar'kin, Ozarks Genealogical Society Summer, 1995: "Early Church of the Brethren in Southwest Missouri," by George T. Harper.

Ozarks Mountaineer June-July, 1995: "The Ozarks Then & Now," by Russell Hively; "One Day, Three Springs, Little Sweat, and No Blisters!" by James Griffith; "Beneath The Old Steel Bridge," by James E. Gentry, Jr.; Senator George Vest's famous dog speech, "When Silver Tongues Defended Wagging Tails," by Joan Gilbert; Mitchell Campground, "A Campground Named 118 Missouri Historical Review

For A Family Of Ministers," by Mabel Carver Taylor; "Mary Scott Hair, At 92, Is Still Cranking Out Columns," by Marti Attoun; "At 106, 'Mattie' Ferguson Mace Still Remembers Her Civil War Dad," by Kathryn Presley.

Perry County Heritage Vol. 13, No. 1, 1995: "An Overview of the One Room Rural School, 1940's-1960's," by Wilma Coffman; "Less Than The Least," autobiography by A. R. Lueders.

Platte County Missouri Historical & Genealogical Society Bulletin April, May, June, July, 1995: "Confederate Home of Missouri" in Higginsville; "History of the Bee Creek Cumberland Presbyterian Church (Mt. Pisgah Church)" and "History of the Bee Creek Baptist Church (Jordan Baptist Church)," by T. J. Beach.

Quarterly of the National Association and Center for Outlaw and Lawman History July-September, 1995: "William Clarke Quantrill: Alias Charles Hart," by George Hart.

Reporter Quarterly, Genealogical Society of Central Missouri Spring, 1995: "Rocky Fork Church (1821-1971)" and "The Ferries of Boone County," by Laura Crane.

The Resume, Historical Society of Polk County July, 1995: "July 5, 1948: Simon Bolivar Day," by Twila Smith.

Ripley County Heritage Vol. IV, No. 2, 1995: "Rocky Point Baptist Church, Ponder, Missouri," by Jerry Ponder; "The Hill Family: Pioneers of Ripley County, Mo."

Rural Missouri April, 1995: "Patching up pieces of the past," Chuck Burton and Elsa Hickethier's antique trunk restoration business in Lowry City, by Jim McCarty; "Missouri's famous ladies," by Heather Berry. May, 1995: "Barn again? Old barns are here today but may be gone tomorrow," by Jim McCarty. June, 1995: "Waiting for the next champion," horse breeder Ed Thayer, by Bob McEowen. July, 1995: "After a lifetime growing vegetables, Jim Clevenger has found his bounty in the Bootheel," by Bob McEowen. August, 1995: "Art for art's sake: Rock Port's old Opp Hotel reopens as a rural center for the arts," by Jim McCarty.

St. Charles Heritage July, 1995: "The St. Charles Dairy," by Emily Corbett; "Contributions of German- Americans from the City of Saint Charles to the Union Cause During the American Civil War," by Kurtis Van Allen and Gary McKiddy; "The Mother-In-Law House Restaurant: A Living Legend," by Matthew Lenger.

St.L June/July, 1995: "St. Louis Takes Off: Attracted by our friendly skies and roomy landing strips, aviators have flocked to St. Louis for decades," by Brad L. Graham.

St. Louis Bar Journal Summer, 1995: "The Terrible Secret of Reformer James L. Blair," by Marshall D. Hier. Historical Notes and Comments 119

St. Louis Life May, 1995: "Value of the Market," history of Soulard Market, by Bob Bourgeois. June, 1995: "Frankie & Johnnie: Paired in Song But Crossed in Love," by Mary O. Brockgreitens; "The Saga of Suds," a history of beer in St. Louis, by Larry Mrazek and Bob Bourgeois.

School & Community, Missouri State Teachers Association Summer, 1995: "75 Years of School & Community: A celebration of Missouri educa­ tion," by Letha Albright.

Seeking 'N Searching Ancestors August, 1995: "The Allee Family of Moniteau County, Missouri," by Peggy Smith Hake.

The Semaphore, Winston Historical Society July, 1995: "The men who robbed the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Railroad at Winston, Missouri, July 15, 1881—What happened to them?" by Virgil Julian.

Springfield! Magazine June, 1995: "Jack & Theone Cole: Exemplifying Living by the Golden Rule," by Gerald E. McCann, Jr.; "First Ladies of Springfield: Mary Frances (Fanny) Campbell Doling" and "Cavalcade of Homes: Part 72—The Coover-Hinch House," by Mabel Carver Taylor; "The Greenwood Sapling, Part IX," by Richard Gardner. July, 1995: Missouri "Constitution Hits 50," by Bob Glazier; "Ragtime Joe Griffin Warms Up Audiences For Baldknobbers," by Mary I. West; "The Ozark Jubilee Saga—Karen Moran Mullis: Memories of a Cue Card Girl," by Reta Spears-Stewart; "Cavalcade of Homes, Part 73—The Chalfant-Downing House" and "First Ladies of Springfield, Part IX: Ellen A. Burge," by Mabel Carver Taylor; "John Butterfield Rode on the First Stagecoach: Overland Mail Began Run Via Springfield in 1858," by Fern Angus. August, 1995: "First Ladies of Springfield: Harriett Ohlen Shepard," by Mabel Carver Taylor; "Four Sheriffs Owen from 1870 to 1981: Pioneer Settler Bake Owen, Union Hero in the Civil War, Started Family Tradition of Serving as Sheriff Here," by Michele Boyts; "Cavalcade of Homes: Part 74—The Jarrett-Smith-Wright House," by Mabel Carver Taylor; "The Ozark Jubilee Saga: Jean Shepard," by Reta Spears-Stewart.

Still National Osteopathic Museum News June, 1995: "Andrew Taylor Still: Mechanic Supreme," reprinted.

Timeline, Ohio Historical Society July-August, 1995: Harry Truman, "Giving 'Em Hell In Ohio," by David McCullough.

Tree Shakers, Meramec Valley Genealogical and Historical Society May-June, 1995: "Muehler Emigrants From Germany," by Ruth Muehler.

United Daughters of the Confederacy Magazine June/July, 1995: "General J. O. Shelby," by June Murray Wells.

White River Valley Historical Quarterly Spring, 1995: "Baughmans in the Ozarks: 1840-1880 (Part I)," by J. Ross Baughman; "'The Turible Times in the Swamps and the Narrow Escapes from the Swamp Devils,' October 1883 to October 1884 (Part I)," by Charley Hershey, edited by Lynn Morrow. 120 IN MEMORIAM

JEAN ISABEL DURANT SMITH Haden Douglas Smith of St. Louis; two Columbia community activist Jean Isabel daughters, Laura Penney Oedel of Amherst, Smith died May 23, 1995. Born in Massachusetts, and Jeanne Marie Powell of Columbia, Smith was the daughter of Adrian Columbia; and six grandchildren. J. and Jean Heckert Durant. On June 2, 1945, she married Columbia attorney Robert AUER, EDWARD T., Columbia, Maryland: Charles Smith, a former president of the January 18, 1919-January 27, 1995 State Historical Society. BIGGS, MARY BRADY, Columbia: In 1945 Smith graduated from the April 24, 1904-July 11, 1995 University of Missouri, where she was a COVINGTON, MRS. FLOYD, Longview, Texas: member of Mortar Board and the Delta August 1, 1898-February 26, 1995 Gamma sorority. In the 1950s she served as DEDMAN, REBECCA, Plattsburg: president of International House, which November 11, 1904-February 8, 1995 housed international students at the university. ENLOE, CORTEZ F., Annapolis, Maryland: Smith helped found the Columbia chapter June 1, 1910-March 14, 1995 of Planned Parenthood in the 1960s, and in HOWE, WALLACE BRADY, Rolla: the 1970s, she participated in the Laubach August 5, 1926-May21, 1995 Literacy Program for Adults. Just prior to her O'CONNOR, GAYLORD P., Louisiana: death, she was honored for her involvement in November 20, 1916-December 26, 1994 the Missouri Symphony Society's Women's RONEY, RUTH B., Lawson: Symphony League, which she cofounded January 1, 1902-March 25, 1995 with Lucy Vianello in 1970. In 1956 Smith SMITH, ROBERT E., Joplin: was appointed to the first Land Clearance and September 28, 1937-February 24, 1994 Redevelopment Authority and Housing WARACK, JOHN L., St. Louis: Authority Boards to be established in the city. November 7, 1910-April 7, 1995 Smith is survived by her husband; two WARD, DOROTHY Y, West Memphis, sons, Robert Durant Smith of Columbia, and Arkansas: January 29, 1919-September 28, 1994 121 BOOK REVIEWS

North Webster: A Photographic History of a Black Community. By Ann Morris and Henrietta Ambrose (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1993). ix+192pp. Illustrations. $35.00, cloth; $19.95, paper.

Through a wonderful selection of photographs and a modest amount of text, Ann Morris and Henrietta Ambrose have presented a fascinating glimpse into the history of North Webster, an African-American community founded at the end of the Civil War and located adjacent to Webster Groves in St. Louis County. The authors recount how the residents, through their schools and churches and social and civic activities, sought to improve their lives and those of their children. The 141 photographs that follow the text depict many of the people mentioned and provide a sense of life in the neighborhood. Although the volume is by no means a comprehensive record of the community, this is local history with a different twist. The school, established in 1866, became a magnet that drew black fami­ lies to the area. Named Douglass School in the 1890s, the institution offered only eight grades until the 1920s. In the 1930s Douglass High School was the only accredited black secondary school in St. Louis County. The high school closed in 1956, but the elementary school remained open until 1978. Churches have played a significant role in North Webster's history. The First Baptist Church of Webster Groves was established in 1866; other denominations and nondenominational congregations followed. Businesses owned by African Americans appeared in North Webster during World War I when two black-owned grocery stores opened. In the 1920s black residents opened other business establishments, and profession­ al men, including two doctors and Joseph E. Mitchell, publisher of the St. Louis Argus, moved into the community. At a time when many amusements were closed to African Americans, North Webster provided numerous diversions for its residents and area blacks. Families skated on the frozen streams in the winter, swam in the summer, and attended dances and outdoor movies. Nightclubs and football and baseball teams helped fill leisure hours. The residents of North Webster strove for corporate as well as individ­ ual improvement. An active PTA supported the school; residents organized the North Webster Volunteer Firefighters Association and founded the North Webster Credit Union. The community also united to fight occasional pro­ jects that threatened to destroy homes or businesses in the name of beautifi- cation or urban renewal. While the authors have provided a good overview of the history of North Webster, they might have enhanced their book by adding some infor- 122 Missouri Historical Review mation for readers not familiar with the community. What was the popula­ tion of the area in each decade? A map would have helped orient readers to the relative locations of businesses and homes of people mentioned and shown in the photographs. More street scenes and photographs from recent years would have augmented the pictorial section. This reviewer noted only one significant error in the text: the authors indicate that Missouri emanci­ pated its slaves "when the war was over"; in fact, the slaves in the state were emancipated on January 14, 1865. This volume makes a valuable contribution to the literature on both black history and local history in the state. The book's design and the vari­ ety of photographs invite the reader to enjoy its contents. Morris and Ambrose are to be complimented for this work; it is a local history that tran­ scends the boundaries of the community.

State Historical Society of Missouri Lynn Wolf Gentzler

The South's Finest: The First Missouri Confederate Brigade from Pea Ridge to Vicksburg. By Phillip T. Tucker (Shippensburg, Penn.: White Mane Publishing Company, 1993). xxvi + 271 pp. Illustrations. Maps. Notes. Bibliography. Index. $27.95.

In the foreword to Phillip Tucker's book, noted Civil War historian Albert Castel quotes a Mississippi officer who described the First Missouri Brigade as "'the brag of this or any other army, they fight better, drill better and look better than any other men in the army'" (p. viii). This opinion is shared by Tucker, whose enthusiasm can be found on each page as he traces the history of this little-known brigade. The First Missouri Brigade has never received the credit or fame of the more legendary units such as the Twentieth Maine, the Iron Brigade, the Orphan Brigade, or Mosby's Rangers. This brigade has been virtually ignored since the publication of two earlier works by Ephraim McD. Anderson (1868) and Robert Bevier (1879). In the last few years the unit has been rediscovered by Phil Gottschalk's In Deadly Earnest: The Missouri Brigade and in Tucker's book, The South's Finest. Tucker's account is not a history of generals or battles but the story of men, the common men, who found themselves caught up in the horrors of war. The reader of this book, like the viewer of Ken Burns's classic docu­ mentary film on the Civil War, follows the war through the eyes of the par­ ticipants. Viewers of Burns's Civil War will recall the names of George Templeton Strong, Sam Walkins, and Elisha Hunt Rhodes. Readers of Tucker's work will follow Private (later Lieutenant) George Williams Warren, a merchant from Franklin County; an Irish priest from St. Louis, Chaplain John B. Bannon; or a most fascinating artillery captain, Samuel Book Reviews 123

Churchill Clark. One of the outstanding features of this book is Tucker's use of personal sources in his story. In this volume Tucker traces the unit from its origin in December 1861 to the Battle of Vicksburg in July 1863. The majority of the recruits were zealous young men in their twenties, of English or Scotch-Irish descent, and from central and northern Missouri counties. Officers such as Louisiana, Missouri, banker John Quincy Burbridge, Dr. Benjamin Allen Rives of Richmond, and farmer Elijah P. Gates helped to mold this unit into one of the most respected and feared units in the Civil War. Many of these men had been members of the state guard and had gained invaluable military experience during the Kansas-Missouri border struggle. From early 1862 until mid-1863, this unit found itself in the hottest and most strategic loca­ tion in battle after battle. Like many, this reviewer tends to view unit histories with some skepti­ cism, particularly one entitled The South's Finest. I was pleasantly surprised, however, to find a well-rounded account of the brigade's history. Tucker pre­ sents strong and persuasive documented arguments to justify his title. This book makes a positive contribution to Civil War literature. The author's work is well researched and documented. He used an extensive amount of primary material, including diaries, journals, letters, and individ­ ual service records to present a well-balanced yet very readable account of the First Missouri Brigade. This work and his planned second volume will help establish the Missouri Brigade as one of the South's finest.

Lincoln University Charles R. Mink

Shadow on the Tetons: David E. Jackson and the Claiming of the American West. By John C. Jackson (Missoula, Mont.: Mountain Press Publishing Company, 1993). xii + 241 pp. Maps. Illustrations. Notes. Bibliography. Index. $24.00.

Shadow on the Tetons is an attempt to bring the partnership of Smith, Jackson, and Sublette into its proper place in the fur-trading fraternity of the Trans-Mississippi West. More specifically, the author, John C. Jackson, attempts to give his forebearer, David E. Jackson, his due not only in the firm of S J & S but also in the Rocky Mountain fur trade. The book covers the most significant events in the life and career of Jackson. The author focuses on the decade 1822-1832 and specifically on Jackson's role in the firm of Jedediah Smith, William Sublette, and David E. Jackson from 1826 to 1830. Little new information on these years is pro­ vided, and the author is left, all too often, with the option of presenting Jackson from the stereotypical concept of the fur trader. Even the prologue is based on a hypothetical, albeit realistic, account of Jackson and his com- 124 Missouri Historical Review panions packing up at the end of the spring hunt in 1830 to return to St. Louis. Following a vivid description of the activity, the author admits, "We can only imagine the noisy camp because, as the resting place of a phantom outfit that left no records, it has no recorded history" (p. 2). The author does provide a refreshing account of the Far West fur trade and the international struggle for the Oregon country. Considerable empha­ sis is placed on the Hudson's Bay Company as being both instrumental and a pawn in international politics and on the free American trapper who rarely had any grasp of empire but had a very real interest in possessing fur-bear­ ing country by whatever means necessary. There are also vivid and colorful accounts of individual trappers and mountain activities. The best new infor­ mation is provided from the records of the Hudson's Bay Company and the Jackson family genealogy and history and on the ties and contributions of the Jackson clan to the early history of the new nation. One of the more interesting stories running throughout the narrative is the marriage of David and Juliet Jackson. While the author suggests that Jackson was concerned about his long absence and the hardships forced on Juliet and their sons, there is no correspondence to support such a view. The author admits that "Juliet never suggested that she needed him at home. Forty-five years old by now, she had managed on her own while he was away in the mountains." Jackson acknowledges, "If David had been a backward-looking man, he might have allowed himself some regret" (p. 3). While it appears that the author has searched diligently for every scrap of information, correspondence, and reference to David E. Jackson, still the single most significant identifying feature of his name remains "a broad, flat hole laying in the evening shadow of the Teton Mountains" (p. 98).

Northwest Missouri State University Harmon Mothershead

The White River Chronicles of S. C. Turnbo: Man and Wildlife on the Ozarks Frontier. Edited by James F. Keefe and Lynn Morrow (Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 1994). xxix + 356 pp. Illustrations. Maps. Appendix. Notes. Works cited. Index. $44.00.

Silas Claiborne Turnbo (1844-1925) was a collector of Ozark folklore who gathered the stories and the oral history of the White River region in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. While Turnbo had interest in the people of the entire Ozark area, he seems to have exhibited a special curiosity about the inhabitants of Marion and Boone Counties in Arkansas and Taney and Ozark Counties in Missouri. He preserved the folklore of the Ozarks at a time when no one else seemed interested in the material. He collected it because he feared that the stories and memories of life during the frontier years would be lost. A poor man, Turnbo made almost nothing Book Reviews 125 from his lifetime of gathering folklore materials. In a self-deprecating way, he described himself as "nothing but a poor scribbler." He sold his twenty- five hundred pages of folklore manuscript to a Kansas City writer in 1913 for the sum of $27.50. Historians James F. Keefe and Lynn Morrow have reviewed the mar­ velous collection of stories left by Turnbo and coedited this publication con­ taining many of his accounts. They have retained Turnbo's creative spelling and his Ozark idiom. The lifelong work of Turnbo is now available to inter­ ested readers in a handsome, well-illustrated format. Like most social histories, the subject matter of Turnbo's Chronicles is diverse and often fascinating. Keefe and Morrow warn their readers that frontier Ozarkers often exaggerated—particularly when discussing their hunting activities. These Chronicles are filled with accounts of killing great numbers of bear, deer, elk, wolves, panthers, and catamounts. They describe such topics as making brandy from pawpaw apples, finding bee trees, killing six deer with three bullets, catching buffalo calves, finding a madstone, skinning a live wolf, and shucking corn in Madison County, Arkansas. To this reviewer, the stories about the giant centipedes were the most interesting. Turnbo begins by telling of centipedes that were eight to ten inches long and had to be shot to be killed. He ends the account by referring to Brice Milum of Yellville, Arkansas, a merchant who preserved a monster, eighteen-inch-long centipede in ajar of alcohol. Unfortunately, the jar and the centipede were "either destroyed or carried off during the heat of the Civil War" (p. 221). Some readers will find the Chronicles repetitive. Others may be con­ cerned about all the discussions of animal killings. But frontier life often was repetitive, and it certainly was a society where hunting was a very important activity for both food and safety. To the student of frontier life and folklore, the most impressive aspect of the book may be the sixty pages of notes that provide scholarly information to illuminate the many subjects discussed by Turnbo. The coeditors have also added twenty-nine pages of photographs, six pages of maps, and genealogical tables of the Turnbo and Coker families—including nicknames. The White River Chronicles ofS. C. Turnbo is a valuable addition to the historical and literary materials describing life and folklore on the nine­ teenth-century Ozark frontier.

Southwest Missouri State University Duane Meyer 126 BOOK NOTES

Home Place: A Celebration of Life in Bridgeton, Missouri. By Jane Mobley (Kansas City: Lowell Press, 1993). x + 126 pp. Illustrations. Maps. $29.95.

This well-designed volume contains a general history of the Bridgeton area with additional sections covering topics of special interest, such as the construction of the Chouteau mansion in 1807 and the Payne-Gentry house. Excellent reproductions of historical and contemporary photographs enhance the text. This book is available through the Bridgeton Historical Society, P.O. Box 922, Bridgeton, MO 63044.

Great Cars of the Great Plains. By Curt McConnell (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1995). xiii + 267 pp. Illustrations. Notes. Bibliography. Index. $40.00.

Showcased in this automotive history are five car manufacturers from the upper Midwest who enjoyed a limited national success at the turn of the century. Each chapter focuses on one industrialist from the area, including Joseph Moon of Missouri, and details their individual approaches to pro­ duction and marketing. This book is available in bookstores.

Reynolds County, Missouri "Sesquicentennial Year" 1845-1995. vol. 1 (Reynolds County Genealogy and Historical Society, 1995). 424 pp. Illustrations. Index. $45.95, plus $4.00 for shipping.

An introductory essay traces the history of the area as it went through its various incarnations under the Spanish and French to its early divisions as a part of a U.S. territory and later as a state. Primarily composed of family genealogies, beginning chapters also cover community histories, including those that have diminished through time. The volume may be purchased from the Reynolds County Genealogy and Historical Society, P.O. Box 281, Ellington, MO 63638-0281.

A History of One Hundred Fifty Years at Smith Creek, 1842-1992. Compiled by Roxana Schroeder (Marceline, Mo.: Walsworth Publishing Company, 1994). vi + 191pp. Illustrations. Maps. Index. $33.00.

The memories of the congregation supply the narrative to this book as it follows Smith Creek United Methodist Church from its early German ori- Book Notes 111 gins as "Bethel Gemeinde" on "Schmidt" Creek to the present day. Intricate histories of the families involved give insight into the church's culture. The book can be purchased from Roxana Schroeder, 3659 Highway U, Warrenton, MO 63383.

The Civil War in St. Louis: A Guided Tour. By William C. Winter (St. Louis: Missouri Historical Society Press, 1995). ix + 179 pp. Illustrations. Maps. Appendixes. Notes. Bibliography. Index. $32.95, cloth; $22.95, paper; plus $4.50 for shipping.

This guide provides a reading tour of Civil War sites in St. Louis. Of particular interest are the first-hand narratives, from famous generals to obscure infantrymen and civilian participants, that give a detailed account of the Camp Jackson tragedy of 1861. This book is available in St. Louis area bookstores or through the Missouri Historical Society, P.O. Box 11940, St. Louis, MO 63112-0040.

Preserving the Family Farm: Women, Community, and the Foundations of Agribusiness in the Midwest, 1900-1940. By Mary Neth (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995). xiii + 347 pp. Illustrations. Maps. Notes. Bibliography. Index. $39.95.

Tightly woven into the social fabric of rural America is the economics of farming. This book examines the impact that the change from nine­ teenth-century family farming to twentieth-century agribusiness had on women and their personal relationships within families and the farming communities. This book is available in bookstores.

A Pictorial History of Montgomery County: 175 Years, 1818-1993. By W. J. Auchly, David Barker, and Peggy Oliver Rodgers (Virginia Beach, Va.: Donnelly Company, 1993). 127 pp. Illustrations. Maps. Bibliography. $30.00, plus $3.00 for shipping.

The opening chapters of this publication cover the general history of the area's courthouses, post offices, and schools. Brief sections portray commu­ nities such as Americus, McKittrick, and Wellsville. High-quality reproduc­ tion of the images used provides seldom-seen views from the past. The book can be ordered from the Montgomery County Historical Society, 112 West Second Street, Montgomery City, MO 63361. 128 Missouri Historical Review

R holiday Gift Jdea

Society members are encour­ aged to consider a gift membership in the State Historical Society, which includes a subscription to the Missouri Historical Review, when preparing their holiday list. Such a gift benefits everyone; it helps the Society to further pre­ serve and disseminate the history of Missouri, and it extends interest in Missouri's rich history to your friends or family. Additionally, memberships expand the influence of the Review and provide recipients with an esteemed journal that they will enjoy throughout the year. For each membership designated as a gift, the Society will send a card to the recipient that will include your name as the donor of the gift. Please consider this outstanding and affordable gift idea, and send names and addresses for member­ ship to the State Historical Society of Missouri, 1020 Lowry Street, Columbia, MO 65201-7298. Memberships are available in the following categories:

Individual Annual Membership $10.00 Contributing Annual Membership $25.00 Supporting Annual Membership $50.00 Sustaining Annual Membership $100.00 to $499.00 Patron Annual Membership $500.00 or more Life Membership $250.00 CONTRIBUTORS TO MISSOURI CULTURE

VINNIE REAM HOXIE

In 1866 Congress offered a commission for the execution of a marble statue of Abraham Lincoln. Despite fierce competition among the artists and their own heated internal debates, Congress awarded the task to Lavinia "Vinnie" Ream, the first woman sculptor to receive such an honor from the government. At the age of nineteen Ream had practiced her profession for only two years, but it was not her youth and inexperience that created the fervor. Some, like Senator Jacob Howard of Michigan, felt Ream's gender alone doomed her to "complete failure." Born in Wisconsin between 1844 and 1847 to State Historical Society Robert Lee and Lavinia McDonald Ream, Vinnie's family lived meageiiy and moved frequently. Her father's occupation as a government surveyor eventually brought them to Missouri, where Vinnie attend­ ed J. T. Robinson's Select School for Girls in St. Joseph in 1856 and Christian College in Columbia. The latter's alumni office currently displays Ream's early painting of Martha Washington. The family moved to Washington, D.C, in 1861, where they renewed a friendship with Missouri congressman James S. Rollins. Architect of the Capitol Through Rollins, Ream met George Caleb Bingham, who later paint­ ed her portrait, and her mentor, Clark Mills, considered at the time one of the foremost sculptors in America. After hearing of her talent and poverty, Lincoln agreed to pose for Ream in 1865. The bust, completed after his assassination, proved a deciding factor for many voting on the commission. Among the visitors to Ream's studio in the Capitol basement in 1868 were politicians seeking the impeachment of President Andrew Johnson. Informants learned that Kansas Senator Edmund Ross, a boarder in the Ream household, supported the president. Radical Republicans pressed Ream to use her influence to sway Ross's vote. She refused, despite threats that she would lose her studio. Johnson escaped impeachment by one vote. Only persuasive arguments in her favor by Thaddeus Stevens, a leader of the impeachment movement, kept Ream's studio open, enabling her to complete her task. Ream's memorial to Lincoln, unveiled in January of 1871, met with great public approval. Ream met her future husband, Richard Hoxie, dur­ ing production of her largest federal commission, a statue of Admiral David Farragut. After completing the monument, she deferred to her new husband's wishes and withdrew from her career. Near the end of her life she returned to her profession to complete two life-size statues—Iowa Governor Samuel Kirkwood and Sequoya, an early chief of the Cherokee Nation. The State Historical Society received the Bingham portrait of Ream, displayed in the Society's Art Gallery', after her death in 1914.