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LONG BRANCH LAKE HISTORICAL RESOURCES A H isto ry

by David March and Larry Stephens

.M8 G7 1977 Vol.3 LIBRARY

APR 1 7 1979

Bureau of Reclamation Denve- ''alorado 92075830

CULTURAL RESOURCES SURVEY LONG BRANCH LAKE Macon County, Missouri

VOLUME III HISTORICAL RESOURCES SURVEY

A PROJECT CONDUCTED FOR THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT

U.S. ARMY CORPS OF ENGINEERS KANSAS CITY, MISSOURI DISTRICT

UNDER CONTRACT NO. DACW41-76-C-0116 AN INTENSIVE SURVEY OF HISTORICAL RESOURCES IN THE PROPOSED LONG BRANCH RESERVOIR

By David March and Larry Stephens

AN HISTORICAL PROJECT CONDUCTED FOR U.S, ARMY CORPS OF ENGINEERS KANSAS CITY, MISSOURI DISTRICT

By NORTHEAST MISSOURI STATE UNIVERSITY KIRKSVILLE, MISSOURI

IN FULFILLMENT OF CONTRACT DACW41-76-C-0116 TABLE OF CONTENTS

From European Incursions Through the Civil W a r ...... 1 From the Civil War to World War I ...... 23 From World War I to the P r e s e n t ...... 34 Mitigation Suggestions...... 41 Endnotes...... 43 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

1. Map of Macon County (Map 1 ) ...... 58 2. Map of Hudson, Eagle, Lyda, Bevier, Liberty and Independence Townships (Map 2) 59 3. Duck Creek S c h o o lhouse...... 60 4. Lea H o u s e ...... 62 5. Swallow Sorghum M i l l ...... 64

6. Swallow Farm Implements...... 66 7. Bethel Church ...... 67

8. Macon County Courthouse and Annex ...... 69 ABSTRACT OF HISTORICAL REPORT

Settlers, chiefly from Kentucky and North Carolina, began moving into the Long Branch area in the early 1830's. By 1837 the population north of Randolph County was large enough to warrant the creation of Macon County. The Upper South origin of the early settlers was reflected in the ante­ bellum political, social, and economic development of the area. The county was the chief unit of local government, congregations of Baptists and Methodists were most numerous, public schools were slow to appear, farming was the principal occu­ pation with tobacco as the chief money crop, and slaves were a part of the labor force. The economy and social institutions changed somewhat in the latter 19th century with the ar­ rival of European immigrants and additional free blacks. General farming continued to dominate economic activity, though livestock production and apple growing received much attention. Public schools, lodges, and churches increased in number.

A decrease in the population began in the late 19th century and has continued to the present. This, plus all-weather roads and the automobile, brought about the virtual elimination of the rural schools and churches which had provided a societal cohesion. Most of the farmers turned to commercial agriculture and learned to depend upon the radio, television, and urban institutions for their edu­ cation and entertainment. Examples of the 19th century culture which should be preserved include the Lea House, the Bethel Church, the Duck Creek schoolhouse, various artifacts including the Swallow sorghum mill and vats, and articles and poems written by Daniel D. Foley. I From European Incursions Through the Civil War

Macon County, Missouri, in which the Long Branch dam is being constructed, was a very small part of the vast expanse of territory claimed by France from April 9, 1682, until that power trans­ ferred all its claims west of the Mississippi River to Spain in the secret Treaty of Fontainbleau, November 3, 1762. This transfer became a part of the final Treaty of Paris signed on February 10, 1763, by the representatives of England, France, and Spain following the Seven Years War, known in America as the French and Indian War. However, Spanish officials did not take over the adminis­ tration of "Upper Louisiana" until the spring of 1770.

During the years France claimed the territory efforts were made by private interests to mine lead and gather furs. Philippe Renault, a French mining company director, operated lead mines from 1723 until 1742 in what is now Washington County, and French fur traders were active on the lower reaches of the Missouri River and its tributaries. What might have become a significant penetration by the French into what is now central Missouri occurred in 1723 when Etienne Veniard de Bourgmond, named "Commandant of the Missouri River," built Fort Orleans among the Missouri Indians in what is now southeastern Carroll County. Four years later the French abandoned the post, allowing the wilderness to reclaim the spot on which Fort Orleans stood so thoroughly that not even a trace remained to mark its location.

Little more interest in what is now central Missouri was shown by the Spanish, very few of whom came to Upper Louisiana. The French in Ste. Genevieve and St. Louis, who enjoyed an Arcadian existence under lenient Spanish rule, carried on a lively trade with the Indians along the Mis­ souri and Osage rivers, often encountering com­ petition from French Canadian trappers trespassing on Spanish territory, but the land per se held no attraction for the convivial French,“who pre­ ferred village life and would have been extremely unhappy on isolated farms. For a quarter of a century the official policy of the Spanish government was to keep Americans who poured into Kentucky and Tennessee after the Ameri­ can Revolution from entering Louisiana. During the last decade of the 18th century, however, the exclu­ sion policy was rescinded; indeed, American families east of the Mississippi were invited to locate in Upper Louisiana and land grants were made available even to Protestants. Among those who accepted the invitation was Daniel Boone, whose sons had pre­ ceded him into the Femme Osage Valley. Mbst of the American immigrants wanted to take up land. Therefore, they tended to avoid the French villages, move into the interior, and make farming a way of life. They came in such numbers, mainly from Kentucky, Virginia, Tennessee, and North Caro­ lina, that by 1800 approximately one half of the population of Upper Louisiana had moved from east of the Mississippi. Most of them had settled just to the west of the French villages along the Mis­ sissippi and the lower reaches of its tributaries. In 1803, three years after Spain had agreed to return Louisiana to France, the United States purchased the territory for approximately fifteen million dollars. In March, 1804, Congress created the Territory of Orleans, which in 1812 became the State of Louisiana, and provided that the area above 33° north latitude be the District of Louisiana governed by the officials of the Territory of Indiana. The District of Louisiana lasted only a short time, for in 1805 Congress created the Ter­ ritory of Louisiana, which in 1812 became the Territory of Missouri. In 1819 the Territory of Arkansas was carved out of the Territory of Mis­ souri and two years later Missouri was admitted to the Union as the twenty-first state. Although the purchase of Louisiana from France was followed by the migration of an increasing number of Americans from east of the Mississippi, it was not until after the War of 1812 that settlers in any significant numbers moved into the central part of Missouri, known as the Boonslick country. These migrants, following the one great natural route into the interior, the Missouri River, were seeking timbered lands near navigable streams.^ In 1816 the territorial legislature recognized this

2 movement by creating Howard County, which comprised £he land within the territory which lay north 2faS? Rlve5 ’ including parts of the counties ot St. Charles and St. Louis organized in 1812. Franklin, near the present Boonville, was the boom town of the area, but a number of other villages several ephemeral, were laid out by speculators.* Among them was Chariton, which was platted by Duff Green near the mouth of the Chariton River said to have been named for Joseph Charette, a St. Louis fur trader who drowned in the river while on an SXp?2iilon 1?d by Jean Baptiste Truteau in 1795. By 1820 settlements had been made along the Mis­ souri River as far west as the present Liberty and a sufficient number of people had made their homes upriver from Boonville to warrant the creation of Chariton County. Nine years later, 1829 after the economic depression of the 1820's had run its course, and the best lands in the present Howard County occupied, Randolph County was established At that time white settlement in what is now Mac¿n begun^2 St3-H farther from the river, had hardly

The first to erect a cabin in what was to be Macon County was James Loe from Wayne County Kentucky, who settled just south of the present CaUao in 1827. Other Kentuckians as well as North rC5? f lni“ 8 soon followed him, among them the William Blackwell family who in the spring of 1831 settled six miles north of the present city of Macon. The families of Nathan Richardson, who planted the first apple orchards in the area, and John Walker soon joined him to form "Blackwell Settlement, later called Moccasinville because ackmg leather, the people wore Indian moccasins. Moccasinville occupied a spot on the Bee Trace Yu C£-ra? n?rtb and south alonS the Grand Divide, the Mississippi and Missouri watershed.^

. . 4n ol£ Indian trail from St. Louis to the vicinity of the present Omaha, Nebraska, partially following the Grand Divide, also ran near the settlement. Entitled the Great Trail, this trade route had several branches, one of which, according to a map published in 1722 by Guillaume Delisle, made it an extension of an easterly route called Nemacolm s Path" that crossed the Mississippi near the present Portage des Sioux in St. Charles

3 County. Moreover, the Delisle map, as well as one published in 1755 by Philip Buache, shows the Great Trail with an extension to the Rocky Mountains. These trails correspond with one to which Major Stephen H. Long referred as running from Ohio to the Rocky Mountains, crossing the Missouri just below the mouth of the Platte. The Long route, which encompassed the entire Mississippi Valley, can be interpreted in Indian parlance as the Great Trail.4 George Pohlman, a Macon County historian, located the Great Trail as passing not far from the present junction of U.S. Highways 36 and 63 and running northwest through a point near the present Bloomington. This would place it directly across the main body of the Long Branch reservoir.5 It was erroneously believed that the many Indian mounds and artifacts found in the Long Branch area, some recently, near the juncture of Long Branch Creek and East Fork Chariton, which is on a direct line between the highway junction and Bloomington, may have been connected with the Great Trail.6 The Blackwell, Richardson, and Walker families did not long remain the only settlers in the area. The Frederick Rowland family from North Carolina started a settlement in 1829 which became the present Woodville (formerly Centreville), the oldest town in the county, and that same year the Isaac and Alexander Goodding families of Kentucky took up land between the present towns of Macon and Bloomington. They were followed in the early' 1830"s by a number of other pioneers, including William Morrow of Kentucky whose settlement in the southwest corner of what became Macon County was the site of the first grist mill in the area and boasted of a blacksmith shop. Joseph Owenby and Clement Hutchison arrived in 1832 to start the Owenby Settlement on the site of what came to be known as Box Ankle, and later Bloomington.7

Macon County pioneers, as had their fore­ fathers , preferred to take up and cultivate timber land and to avoid prairie land for several reasons. First, they thought growing trees, with the excep­ tion of pines, indicated fertile soil and they

4 doubted that prairie land was fit for cultivation. Second, they were not prepared to haul logs for houses and rails for fences; and third, they did not have the tools to break virgin prairie sod. So they built crude horizontal log cabins, hunted in the tall timbers, fished in the waters of the Chariton and its tributaries, planted gardens, set out a few fruit trees, and cleared some land for corn, long the chief pioneer crop and dietary staple for both men and animals. They girdled the large trees and felled the smaller ones for fuel and fences. Hog raising became a principal industry, with pioneers seeking out sections of land where the animals could thrive most of the year on the indigenous vegetation.8 These early settlers faced little danger to life or property. Wild animals did frequently kill their livestock, and Indians who appeared from time to time moving about or camping tem­ porarily on the banks of a stream caused some apprehension, but offered no real threat. Birds and wild animals, especially wolves, were so numerous and ravenous during the first few years, it has been said, that farmers raised little corn and not many domestic animals. Wolves running in packs would dare even to invade the yards sur­ rounding cabins in search of food. However, hunt­ ing and trapping by individuals, community wolf hunts, and the decrease of suitable habitats, soon reduced the wildlife population to the point that the animals were of little danger to livestock.9 The uneasiness about Indians remained even though under continuing pressure from Missourians and the federal government the Iowas and the Sacs and Foxes who had roamed north of the Missouri River had agreed to removal treaties by 1824. It is true that Indian sojourns and hunting expeditions in Missouri continued sporadically and that some small bands, denouncing the treaties, were deter­ mined to stay. Perhaps the pioneers' apprehension^ was increased by their knowledge of the white version of an incident, part tragedy and part farce, that had occurred in July, 1829, when a band of Iowas consisting of about sixty men, women, and children encamped near "The Cabins," a new white settlement a few miles southeast of the present Novinger in Adair County. Tension between the whites and Indians mounted when some of the latter appeared arrogant

5 and threatening. A small party of whites, contending that the Indians had stolen some hogs, went to the Indian camp to reclaim their animals or seek payment therefor and to require the Iowas to get out of the state. The leader of the Indian band, Chief Moana- honga, called Big Neck by the whites, not only refused to pay for the hogs, but claimed he was not a party to the removal treaty of 1824, and, therefore, would not leave the area. The white settlers, be­ lieving their lives in danger, sent a messenger south to ask for reinforcements. Twenty-six volun­ teers commanded by Captain Fields Trammel of Howard County started up the Chariton, but when they reached The Cabins, they found the Indians had fled. The next day the volunteers tracked Big Neck and his band to an encampment farther up the Chariton in what is now Schuyler County. Captain Trammel sought to talk with Big Neck through an interpreter, but before any parleying could take place, a shot was fired, probably by James Myers who thought an Indian, Big Neck's brother, was aiming a gun at him. In the skirmish that followed John Myers (the father of James Myers), Powell Owenby, and Captain Trammel were killed instantly or mortally wounded. The remaining volunteers fled back to The Cabins, got the women and children, and hurried south to a settlement near Huntsville. News of the skirmish spread rapidly. The frontier was agog when rumor had it that 1,500 Indians had concentrated at the battle site. Militiamen from Howard, Chariton, Randolph, and Boone counties prepared for a campaign under the command of Brigadier General Ignatious P . Owen of Fayette, and Governor John Miller asked General Henry Leavenworth to send federal troops. The militia reached the site of the skirmish, found no Indians, and after marching twenty-five to thirty miles farther north without finding any, returned to their homes. The Indians, fearing retribution, had gone north to the Des Moines River. Big Neck and four other Indians later surrendered to United States authorities, stood trial at Huntsville, and were exonerated of any willful wrongdoing.10 Probably a number of the early settlers in what became Macon County were among the "considerable

6 military force" which went with General John B. Clark of Howard County up the Chariton to recon­ noitre the situation in 1832 during the Black Hawk War. They built Fort Clark at the site of The Cabins, but soon retired after finding that the Indians posed no danger. Indians wandering about continued to be spotted now and then until 1845, and "blanket" Indians may have been seen later than that, but before that time the settlers' latent fears had disappeared.il On January 6, 1837, when the population north of the present Randolph County line had reached approximately five thousand, the General Assembly carved Macon County, named for Nathaniel Macon of North Carolina, out of Chariton and Randolph. Three commissioners, Joseph Baker, Henry Laseter, and James Pipes, all of Randolph County, were chosen to select the county seat. After consider­ ing and rejecting the villages of Moccasinville and Winchester, they chose Box Ankle, soon renamed Bloomington. At the time, the jurisdiction of Macon County officials extended north to the Iowa border, including the present Adair and Schuyler counties. That arrangement continued until Adair County was organized in 1841.12 In 1838 the Macon County Court, provided for in the law creating the county, ordered a temporary two-story frame courthouse built in Bloomington, the chief settlement in the Long Branch region. When that almost immediately proved inadequate, the court ordered the construction of a two-story brick building forty-five feet square. This second structure, completed in 1852, served the county until the present courthouse was erected in the city of Macon in 1864-1865.12 The history of the area is to a large extent a microcosm of the history of rural middle Missouri That the whites who first came into the Chariton Valley were from the South was reflected in the development of the county during the pre-Civil War decades. The county was the chief unit of local government, as it was in all the states from which the settlers came, with an elected county court of three members directing its affairs The court eventually divided Macon County into twenty-four townships, but these were merely con­ veniences for political and judicial purposes, not

7 Tunits government. The townships of Independence Lyda, Liberty, Eagle, and the northern edges of Bevier and Hudson townships comprise a geographic U?^tua5°Un? Long Branch and East Fork Chariton which developed an identifiable social and economic CountyS S°°n aS whites beSan populating Macon

Among the county court's chief concerns was the marking, construction, and maintenance of roads. Routes of travel on land in the early days along ridges where possible, usually following Indian trails, as previously mentioned. The first white route through the area directly affected by the Long Branch reservoir was the aforementioned Bee Trace on the Grand Divide along which U.S. Highway 63 and the Norfolk and Western Railroad run today. In the fall of each year pioneers with their wagons (as many as forty in 1826), dogs, and guns went up the trace in search of honey The purpose of the trip was serious, since honey was about the only sweetener available, but the hunters were usually in a frolicsome mood.i4

Little was done by the state to build roads °r to improve waterways until after World War I. Meanwhile, responsibility for the construction and maintenance of roads was left to local units o government. Even the "three per cent fund" foie^ d by1tbe state from the federal government ror internal improvements was divided among the county such a small portion that little could be done with it.

roads were vftal to People who lacked f-i-ro?1? ^ acaesf to navigable streams, among the to nininSl ?f ?ounty court in a new county was to provide for their construction. Thus, the JSS?“ ?°Unty in May’ 1837, issued its first order for a public road:

On motion of the petitioners, ordered by the court, that Aaron Gee, Robert Van- skike, George Reynolds, Joseph P. Holly and James Rowland, or any three of them, after being duly sworn, to proceed to view and mark out a way for a road, com- mencing at Jones' mill on the Middle Fork of Salt River, by Centerville, and thence

8 to Frederick Rowland's, passing on the south of said Rowland's; thence by Daniel Crawley's, and to intersect the Bee road in the Grand Prairie, the nearest and best way, and as little as may be to the prejudice or injury of the several pro­ prietors of land on said road. . . .15

The court subsequently provided similarly for other public roads in response to petitions from house­ holders concerned. In the early days the crossing of streams was a problem. Fords were designated at shallow places and there rocks might be placed in the river bed. Old fords across streams in the Long Branch area include one on the Mote Dawson farm and another on the road going west out of Axtel across Long Branch. Legend persists that Indians captured a wagonload of gold at the latter crossing and that the gold remains buried near this site. Rope ferries were built across the Chariton and tolls charged for their use. Ferry boats began operating on the Chariton very early and continued even as late as 1886-1887. The construction of better roads encompassed the erection of wooden bridges over the principal streams.16 The Missouri legislature during the 1840's promoted road construction by calling for state roads connecting adjoining county seats, but responsibility for construction and maintenance still lay with the local units of government. The state did in 1845 distribute equally among the counties proceeds from the sale of 500,000 acres of land granted by the federal government, a boon to small counties like Macon. Most of the roads ran out of Bloomington, connecting the county seat with Brunswick, Huntsville, Glasgow to the southwest, and to the northeast with Edina, Monte- cello, and Hannibal, as well as with Kirksville to the north. A branch of the Bloomington to Hannibal road, which ran northeast through Moc- casinville, was laid out so as to pass the home of Isaac Goodding, a member of the county court. During the gold rush to California these roads formed what was known as the "Overland Trail" across northern Missouri just a few miles north and parallel to the present Burlington Railroad,

9 which when constructed as the Hannibal and St. Joseph supplanted the Overland Trail, facilita­ ting its decline.17 Charles Anderson, born in 1842 and reared on a farm north of the present city of Macon, recalled late in life how important avenues of trade were to the people in the Long Branch region in the early 1850's: About twice a year the oxen were yoked up to a big covered wagpn, and one of the settlers would drive to Quincy [Illinois} for supplies, travel­ ing along the trail some miles north of federal Highway No. 36. This wagon, hauled by four or six oxen, would bring home the supplies ordered by the people of a community extending many miles. The word would be passed out that the wagon would start on a certain date and the people would come in with their commissions for the driver, handing him their little hoards of cash and a list of what they wanted. The returning wagon would bring what looked like a miniature dry goods and grocery store. Among the goods was always a bar­ rel of liquor, and some jugs of brandy. The liquor sold here at 25 cents a gallon. . . . There was some of it in nearly every household. It was regarded as a necessary family medicine.18 Other articles the driver brought were almanacs, ammunition, boots and shoes, candy (if it was near Christmas), coffee, salt, sugar, and quinine. Burlington soon became a division point for a number of stage lines. Coaches came in twice a week from Hannibal and St. Joseph and three times a week from other places, such as Glasgow and Kirksville. As a result the small town was quite lively. One citizen recalled: The coaches would all be assembled on the square Wednesday mornings, each headed toward its respective destination,

10 the lordly driver walking about, gloved and grand, critically inspecting his team. . . . About the entire town would turn out as the hour of departure drew near.19

In 1847 all of Macon County was enthusiastic about a proposed railroad from Hannibal to St. Joseph. Two local men, George A Shortridge and Thomas Sharp, were among the incorporators. The people of Bloomington, thinking the Hannibal and St. Joseph would go through their town, donated money for its construction. However, the railroad went through Macon City and continued west through Kern and New Cambria, south of Bloomington. The Bloomington money was returned but failure to be on the road was the beginning of the town's decline.20

A second railroad, the North Missouri from St. Charles through Mexico, reached Macon City early in 1859. The Civil War prevented further work for a time, but after 1865 the company extended the line to the Iowa border. Within a few years the North Missouri had spanned the Missouri River at St. Charles, the Hannibal and St. Joseph had built a bridge across the Mississippi at Quincy, Illinois, and had entered Kansas City via the Kansas City and Cameron tracks and the Hannibal bridge, thus enabling Macon County farmers to ship their products directly to markets in St. Louis, Kansas City, and Chicago.21 Meanwhile, during the 1850's, Bloomington was not only the seat of local government, the home of several newspapers, and a stage line, but also a hub of social activity with a popular race track, an Odd Fellows lodge organized in 1853 with twenty- six charter members, and a Masonic lodge, of which Isaac Goodding was a charter member.22 Moreover, it was the site of a major tobacco factory operated by George and Minor Towner.23 Negro slaves worked in the factory preparing the leaves purchased from local farmers for shipment to Glasgow and the national and international markets.24 Other busi­ nesses in the area included: the first mill in the county powered by horses hitched to a sweep established at Bloomington in 1837 by County Judge James Cochran,25 and Moses Taylor's grist mill on

11 East Fork Chariton one-half mile below the junction of Long Branch and East Fork.26 Prior to the Civil War, Long Branch, a region of only pockets of settlement, could hardly be called a settled area. Most of the people were poor, but they did not live in pqverty. The very^ earliest settlers lived in log houses, usually 14 to 16’ square with a large fireplace at one end for both heating and cooking. Their furniture was scanty — beds, stools, and tables made with no^ other tools than an ax and an auger. Such primi­ tive conditions existed only a short time, however, for soon lumber from sawmills became available.2/ The food of the pioneers may have lacked variety at times, but it was nearly always sufficient. Besides fish and wild game, there was the meat of domestic animals, as well as milk, butter, and eggs. Wild grapes, berries, and plums were found in abundance, while the garden furnished such eat­ ables as beans, corn, various kinds of greens, pumpkins, and squash. Mush and milk was the favo­ rite dish for supper and potpie the standard dish at social gatherings, such as husking bees, reaping bees, logrollings, and house raisings.28

As the population increased from 6,034 in 1840 to 14,346 in 1860,29 extended families consisting of father, mother, children, grandchildren, a few hired hands, and a small number of slaves constituted the backbone of the culture._ Appendages of this society consisted of small village merchants, grist mill and tobacco factory operators, stage line attendants, and a few lawyers, physicians, and preachers. On the farms, where most of the people lived, every member of the family old enough to work had his or her tasks to perform.^ Outside the house there were crops to be cultivated, animals to be tended, and gardens to be planted and weeded. Inside the house would likely be a large quantity of yarn along the walls, for spinning, weaving, and sewing were ordinary domestic tasks. Small children would card the wool, the older daughters spin the wool and prepare the yarn for the loom, and the mother weave the threads into cloth. Thus, the early settlers made clothes of wool, cotton, or flax for both sexes in the home. Then, of course, all members of the family had morning and evening chores to do.30

12 Water mills used to saw lumber, sharpen tools, and grind corn into meal soon replaced "band mills" that were powered by animals. In 1840 Howell Rose built the first mill on the Chariton, seven miles west of the Owenby Settlement, which came to enjoy a wide patronage. He died soon thereafter and the mill was acquired by Henderson McCully from Ten­ nessee. Farmers brought their shelled corn to the mill, paying the miller one sixth of the grain for his service. Usually millers fed most of their share of the grain to hogs and then sold the hogs. Since such mills could grind only two or three bushels per hour, farmers expected to spend several days at the millsite before returning home with their meal.31

When whites first settled in the area, the federal government sold land at the minimum price of $1.25 per acre at the land office in Franklin. However, the government transferred the office in 1832 to Fayette and then in 1857 to Boonville. One hundred sixty acres could be pre-empted after 1841, and in 1854 Congress passed an act, long urged by Senator Thomas Hart Benton of Missouri, that graduated the price of public lands that had been on the market for ten years or more from $1.00 to 12% cents an acre. By the time this graduation act passed, however, much of the good land in Macon County had been purchased, though not neces­ sarily improved, for little above the minimum price. Some land in the Long Branch area may have been taken up after the Civil War under the terms of the Homestead Act of 1862. The price of land owned by individuals increased, of course, as they made improvements, the railroads were con­ structed, and the population increased. By 1860 tht total value of farm land in Macon County was approximately $2,500,000.32

Corn and hogs continued to be the farmers’ economic mainstay in the Long Branch region, though small grains, as well as cattle and sheep, were not neglected. Practically no local market existed for country produce and grains prior to the con­ struction of the railroads; hence, tobacco was the principal cash crop. Nearly every farmer in the region produced some, but most of it was grown around Callao, west of the East Fork Chariton.33

13 Since most of the early settlers were from the Upper South, it is hardly surprising that they were Protestants. The largest number seem to have been Baptists, with Cumberland Presbyterians second, and Methodists third. Baptists, however, were divided among themselves into several groups, and by the time many Methodists had settled in Macon County, the Methodist Episcopal Church had split over the issue of slavery.

In the early days of settlement, church services were often held in the homes of members. The first organized church in what became Macon County, Big Spring Baptist Church, began holding services four miles west of the present La Plata in 1831. A number of Baptist churches — Primitive, Free Will, Mis­ sionary, and "regular" — started up in Macon County in the 1840's, as did Cumberland Presbyterian churches. A few Christian churches also made an appearance, and just prior to the Civil War a sufficient number of Roman Catholics were in the area to establish Catholic churches at New Cambria and Macon.34

Dr. Abram Still, father of the founder of oste­ opathy, Dr. Andrew Taylor Still, organized the first church in the Long Branch region in 1842-1843. Mrs. Elizabeth Hannah, daughter of William Blackwell, recalled the organization of the Methodist class consisting of Still, Urban East, and the families of William Blackwell, Felix Parker, and Isaac Good- ding. They met in the Moccasinville schoolhouse about one-half mile west of the site of the Duck Creek schoolhouse, which is still standing just west of the junction of U.S. Highway 63 and County Road DD. This group, enlarged by others who joined later, stayed together until the time of the Civil War when disagreements arose over political issues. Subse­ quently, the Methodists who had sided with the South built the Bellview Methodist Church in 1869 at the site of the present Bellview cemetery, named for John Bell, a pioneer of the area who contributed both his time and money to the church, which was later known as Fairview Church. The building is no longer standing.35

Among the various congregations that used the Moccasinville schoolhouse from time to time were the Cumberland Presbyterians, first established as a

14 church in Bloomington in 1841. They later, because of their split with the Methodists over slavery in the Civil War, formed Liberty Congregation, and in 1878 dedicated a church building which still stands, one-half mile east of the junction of U.S. Highway 63 and County Road DD.36

Another church was formed in the immediate area at a later date, probably 1906 — the date on the Bethel Church of Christ cornerstone. This building still stands due west of Bellview cemetery on County Road 0. A preacher at the Bethel Church of Christ, Willis J. Haley (1844-1931), buried his wife, Sarah Margret Haley (1844-1914), at the Richeson-Glaze- Jones cemetery east of Bee Trace, while he was buried at Bethel cemetery, another indication of the later formation and service of the Bethel Church of Christ.

Before the advent of cemetery associations and more proficient means of caring for the remains of the dead, church cemeteries and family plots were the last resting places for residents of the com­ munity. Four cemeteries, well kept and still in use, are in the vicinity of the reservoir — the Bloomington cemetery; the Bellview cemetery, south of the old Axtel road; the Powell cemetery, a short distance north of that road; and the Bethel Church of Christ cemetery, on County Road 0, which seems to have been started in the late 1930's. Two other cemeteries in the Long Branch vicinity have evi­ dently been abandoned as burial places, viz., the Richeson-Glaze-Jones cemetery, which is in a grove beside an abandoned road to the east of Bee Trace and south of Bellview; and the Chitwood-Taylor cemetery, located east of the Long Branch-East Fork Chariton junction. In these two many of the markers have failed and some have become buried in the earth.

Originally, the pioneers buried their dead on the family farm. One such case was an uncle of Mrs. C.G, Lea, known only as Lee Foley’s brother, who was buried on the Lee Foley farm, the family's original homestead, immediately west of the New Fairview school- house site on the old Axtel road. Another case is that of Wesley Reynold's baby laid to rest near the west bank of the East Fork Chariton, south of the old Axtel road.37 a more precisely located burial spot is that of four children of Willis and Sarah Haley. It is marked by three (formerly four) trees on the crest

15 of a hill immediately east of the junction of Long Blanch and East Fork Chariton.3° This burial place will not be flooded by the reservoir, but it is on government land.

Names and dates on the stones show that many of the original settlers lie at rest in the Bellview, Chitwood-Taylor, and Powell cemeteries. The inscrip ti0j ^ 2 ^ S0 ?lues to dates when the people ■ different national origins moved into the area and when epidemics, such as the Spanish influenza following World War I, struck the community.

Settlers in Macon County organized churches long before they established public schools, probably because the need seemed greater and they were cheaper to maintain. As in most pioneer areas, the first schools were subscription schools in which reading writing, arithmetic, and spelling were taught. Al- though Missouri's first constitution asserted that schools and the means of education shall be forever encouraged in this state" and directed the establish­ ment in each township of one or more schools "as soon as practicable and necessary, where the poor shall be taught gratis,"39 several decades passed before free public schools were available to the children According to the 1910 History of Mauon County, Prior to 1850 there were no free scEôols — all were run by subsrciption payments."40 Indeed, the first public school building in the city of Macon was not constructed until 1868.51

1-3’^’diness with which public schools appeared was due to several factors, among them the concept of early settlers from southern states that public educa­ tion was for the indigent, the lack of ability to pay taxes for the support of public schools, and the even greater lack of willingness to do so. Moreover, after public schools made their appearance, adequate build­ ings could not be constructed and furnished and competent teachers obtained because of the lack of funds. Funds the ?tfte were woefully inadequate until in 1853 the General Assembly provided that one fourth (raised in 1877 to one third) of the general revenue of the state be distributed annually for the support of organized school townships. But the law failed to require any local taxes to be levied, even for building and equipment let alone for operative costs.5/ 8

16 As for education beyond the elementary level, two private academies, one at Bloomington and the other at Macon, and one private college --- McGee College -- were established before the end of the Civil War. Though the academies were called "Bloomington College" and "Macon College," respectively, neither offered any courses beyond the secondary level.43 McGee College, a Cumberland Presbyterian co-educational school located near the East Fork Chariton about eight miles south of the Long Branch dam, matriculated its first class in 1852. Its charter described the institution as one "purely literary, affording instruction in ancient and modern languages, the sciences and liberal arts, and not instituting any regulations . . . offensive to the reason of liberal-minded persons, what ever may be their religious persuasions."44 Like most other such institutions in the 19th century, McGee College had a preparatory school.

Doubtless the trustees of McGee College desired to locate the school in an isolated area in order that the students would not be distracted from their work. However, when settlers began to move into the vicinity, the trustees laid out a town called College Mound which grew until in the early 1900's it boasted of seven general stores, three churches, two mills, a barber shop, a livery stable, and a Negro school.45

The vicissitudes of McGee College were not unlike those experienced by other small church-related colleges in Missouri. In 1850 the college building burned, forcing the students and teachers to find temporary quarters until a new three-story structure was com­ pleted in 1861. Immediately thereafter, the Civil War forced the college to close and remain closed until 1867. Although during the next two years it had the largest enrollment in its history — 280 students — the college was having financial difficulties. The nation-wide financial panic of 1873 forced the college to close the next year. The plant remained closed until 1883 when the Southwest Holiness Association purchased the building and opened the Pauline Holiness College there. However, the new college did not thrive, partly because of its isolated location and partly because of controversies among the members of the church. In 1888 the Holiness Association sold the facility and the next year the school reopened under the old name of McGee College, this time under the auspices of the Methodist Episcopal Church. In 1890 it had thirteen teachers and two hundred students, but

17 six years later the Church of God, a sect which had developed out of the Holiness group, bought the col­ lege and renamed it McGee Holiness College and Minis­ terial Training Institute.46 School children in the vicinity attended the grade department of the college and some continued through high school and college at the institution. Student tuition of $24 per month for ten months and free will offerings constituted the sole financial support. When the building began to require constant repairs just prior to World War I, community sup­ port saved the college from closing by raising money to make repairs, remodel the structure, and in 1916 to build a new dormitory. Even with the extra in­ vestments, however, the McGee Holiness College closed its doors in 1921 because of financial problems and razed the building in the 1930's. Yearly camp meet­ ings are held every summer in a one-story structure erected later at the site.47

The original McGee College and the succeeding institutions of learning housed in the original structure played an important role in the area. For almost seventy years young people were able to receive conveniently and at a moderate cost an education that enabled them to serve ably the community in which they lived.

One cultural characteristic which a college could not change was slavery. Since most of the early settlers were from slave states, they accepted slavery in the area as a matter of course. However, the number of slaves in Macon County was small, never constituting more than 5 per cent of the total popula­ tion. Census reports indicate 225 slaves in 1840, 303 in 1850, and 660 in 1860, and practically no free blacks before 1860 when there were thirteen.48

Some of the slaves were used in general farming and as domestics but most labored on farms producing tobacco, the principal cash crop in the area before the Civil War. Not only was much hand labor neces­ sary to grow tobacco, but, as noted above, slaves worked in the factories preparing the leaves for shipment to the Missouri River at Glasgow via Hunts­ ville or to Hannibal.49

18 The people of Macon County took no direct part in the growing controversy over slavery extension following passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act spon­ sored by Stephen A. Douglas, Democratic Senator in Congress from Illinois. The county, strongly Demo­ cratic, supported James Buchanan for President and Robert M. Stewart for governor in 1856-1857. Four years later, in the four-cornered races for President and for governor, the majority supported Douglas and Claiborne Fox Jackson for the respective offices. Secession by South Carolina and the states along the Gulf of Mexico did not wean the people of Macon County from their strong attachment to the Union. They may have sympathized with the slave states, but few believed that Abraham Lincoln's election justi­ fied secession. Division of public opinion occurred when President Lincoln called for troops in April, 1861, following the attack on Ft. Sumter, and the capture of Camp Jackson near St. Louis the next month. Initially, opinion seems to have been over­ whelmingly pro-Confederate. Several thousand people gathered in Bloomington to endorse Governor Jackson's refusal to provide the troops requested. Someone hoisted a Confederate flag atop a pole on the square. James S. Green of Lewis County, who has just completed his term in the United States Senate, exalted the crowd, setting forth in strong language the reasons Missouri should cooperate with the Confederate states. Efforts to enlist volunteers to join the Confederacy moved into full swing, but slowed quickly after the arrival in Macon City of Union soldiers, regiments from Iowa and Illinois, under the command of Brigadier General Stephen A. Hurlbut. The soldiers climbed off the Hannibal and St. Joseph railroad cars, cut down several "secesh" flags, and encamped just south of the railroad depot. They took over Macon's Missouri Register, renamed it The Whole Union, and launched a campaign to persuade the people to remain loyal to the Union. Early one Sunday morning a company of the 16th Illinois regiment marched to Bloomington where the soldiers confiscated and carried to Macon all of the firearms owned by the citizens. The presence of Union troops gave courage to men who had feared to make known their opposition to secession. It is estimated that seven hundred men from Macon County went with the Union Army, while six hundred fought at one time or another for the Confederacy.50

19 Both federal and state governments concentrated troops at Macon during most of the war. Soldiers seemed to be everywhere, guarding the two railroads and trying to prevent Colonel Joseph Porter and other Confederate recruiters in Northeast Missouri from moving recruits south to join the Confederate Army. In addition to using patrols to protect the railroad lines, blockhouses were erected and manned at bridges to prevent their destruction by Confederate guerrillas. One, built to protect the Hannibal and St. Joseph bridge across the Chariton after Price's guerrillas had destroyed it late in 1862, served as a reminder of the war for many years after hostili­ ties had ceased.51

It was customary after a Union victory in a battle or skirmish to parole the men defeated upon their oaths that they would never again take up arms against the Union. In order to impress upon those paroled the seriousness of their oaths, men caught in vio­ lation of their paroles were court-martialed and executed with little delay. Thus, after Colonel John McNeil defeated Porter at the Battle of Kirks­ ville on August 6, 1862, he ordered fifteen parolees who had fought with Porter shot the next day.52

A few months after the executions at Kirksville ten rebel prisoners at Macon charged with violating their paroles as well as with murder and treason suffered the same fate. Some of them begged for mercy, claiming that they had been led astray by others. Their pleas were in vain. On September 25, 1862, as the climax of an impressive ceremony, the ten men were marched one-half mile south of the town, blindfolded and forced to kneel. Then they were shot by a firing squad.53

Meanwhile, after the Battle of Kirksville, Colonel Porter and about 1,500 of his men had fled down the Chariton Valley into Macon County. They were weary, hungry, many of them wounded, and few of the raw recruits had recovered from the panic which had seized them at Kirksville. At Painter (Panther) Creek, five miles north of Stockton (now New Cambria), they were discovered by Lieutenant- Colonel Alexander M. WooIfoik and four hundred troops of the Missouri State Militia. Porter, using the creek embankment as a breastwork, stood his ground when Woolfoik attacked. Local tradition has it that

20 although the battle raged on August 8, 1862, from before noon until dark, not a man on either side was killed or wounded — that the only casualty was a Confederate who drowned while trying to swim his horse across the stream.54 However, the Union official report written by Colonel James McFerran, Missouri State Militia, eight days after the engage­ ment states that Porter lost twenty killed and fifty wounded while Woolfolk had two of his men killed and ten wounded. After the battle, Colonel Porter fled north with the MSM in pursuit. After two small engagements along the Chariton the next day, the MSM abandoned the chase.55 in 1976 a stone marker was erected at the site of the Painter Creek Battle. That same year, 1862, Colonel Lewis Merrill, commander of the Union troops at Macon, ordered Major Thomas Moody, commander of the Enrolled Missouri Militia, to raze Bloomington, where evidently Mer­ rill thought much of the guerrilla activity in the area originated. One account has it that Major Moody demurred, suggesting that he would run for the General Assembly and, if elected, have the county seat moved from Bloomington. In March of the next year the legislature passed a bill which Governor Hamilton R. Gamble signed ordering the county seat to be moved by May 2 to a site within one mile of the junction of the Hannibal and St. Joseph and the North Missouri railroads, which meant Macon City. Moody was one of the three commissioners appointed to locate the site for the construction of a new courthouse.56

Until 1863 few people in Macon County, including Union soldiers, regarded the Civil War as more than an effort by the North to preserve the Union. An indifferent attitude toward slavery seems to have prevailed throughout most of the war. When in 1862 a slave girl ran away from her master and took refuge at the home of Ewing Littrell, an antislavery man in Macon County, no effort was made by the people or by the soldiers to help Littrell prevent the slave's master from taking her away. After President Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation and an ordinance passed January 8, 1865, by a state constitutional convention proclaiming slaves in Missouri to be free, the people in Macon County accepted the new order with compla­ cency. Some concern was expressed when blacks who had worked on farms as slaves flocked to the towns,

21 and efforts by some whites to assist the blacks were likely to arouse hostility, but the number of freed- men in the county was not large enough to arouse any serious racial animosity.57 By the time the war ended in 1865, the anti­ slavery Radical Republicans had won political control of the state and had drafted a new constitution to be submitted to the people on June 6, 1865. The convention which submitted the document had dis­ franchised all who could not or would not take an oath that they had never aided the Confederacy di­ rectly or indirectly. The eligible voters in Macon County approved the proposed constitution by a majority of more than three to one. However, their enthusiasm for the Radicals had cooled perceptively by 1868 when Joseph McClurg, the Radical candidate for governor, received only 51 per cent of the votes. Two years later, after the Radical party split over the question of removing the suffrage disqualifica­ tions , Macon County voters supported the Liberal Republican candidate for governor, B. Gratz Brown. In 1874 the Democratic party staged a comeback when it nominated and elected Charles H. Hardin to the governorship. Most of the voters in Macon County had returned to their antebellum Democratic moor­ ings where they have remained, though Republican candidates, especially those running for state of­ fices, not infrequently carry the county.58

Under Radical Republican control of Missouri the blacks were freed, but little more was done for them. By the time the Democrats regained the state house two legal principles had been enunciated upon which the public education of Negro children rested for the next ninety years, viz., equality of oppor­ tunity for all children regardless of race, and separate schools for Negroes and whites. It was the latter principle which made the first unattainable in practice, especially in rural counties like Macon. Even in areas where public opinion was favorable the high cost of building and operating separate schools and the lack of qualified teachers often made the organization of black schools very diffi­ cult. 59 As will be noted, Macon County did make some effort.

22 II From the Civil War to World War I

The economic and social structures of Macon County, including the Long Branch region, underwent considerable change in the post Civil War era. Most important in bringing this about was the exploitation of coal deposits which had been known for many years to exist in the county, but until railroads were built through the area, little use could be made of the coal. In July, 1853, James M. Bucklin, chief engineer of the Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad, reported "an immense lot of bituminous coal ... in the vicinity of Bloomington, Macon County."1 In 1860, Alex Rector discovered coal while digging a well one and a half miles west of Bevier. When two railroad officials heard of his discovery, they employed Rector and two other men to wall the shaft with hickory logs. Soon others became aware that the Hannibal and St. Joseph, which had been using wood as fuel, afforded a market for coal.2

It was Thomas Wardell, a new arrival in Macon County in 1861, who became the principal promoter of the coal industry in what was soon known as the Bevier Field. He secured a lease on the Hazleton, a slope mine operated by Lewis Robeau just east of the deposit Rector had found, introduced various mining methods he had seen in his native England, arranged a market for the coal as locomotive fuel in Hannibal, and hired William Hardesty to transport the coal in wagons drawn by oxen to the railhead at Bevier. Thus, by combining these various elements Wardell created the first full scale coal industry in Macon County, and Bevier, the center of his operations, became the leading coal mining community in northern Missouri. By the time of his death (1888) as a result of a tragic incident in the streets of Bevier, Wardell had parlayed this industry into a wealthy conglomerate of enterprises consisting of farming and cattle rais­ ing in Bevier and Independence townships, the Wardell Apple Orchards in Eagle township, and various business interests in Hudson township -- city of Macon.^

A curious remembrance of this period is a time capsule encased in the Wardell family vault. The vault, built by Thomas E, Wardell in 1908 at Oakwood

23 cemetery, Macon, was to house the bodies of four deceased Wardells. During its construction the family placed within the edifice a glass jar care­ fully insulated which was, hopefully, to be opened after 10,000 years had passed. The grandiose scheme was an imitation of the tombs and pyramids of the ancient Egyptians. More intriguing were the items deemed historical that were placed within the jar and thus preserved for posterity. They included: an almanac; a description of the William Howard Taft and William Jennings Bryan political campaign for President of the United States; and engravings of modern battleships, a dynamo, a locomotive, tele­ graph transmitters, and Wright airships.^ The coal industry in Macon County continued to expand. State Geologist G.C. Broadhead reported in 1871 "some twenty mines and banks.By the end of the century Macon was the leading coal pro­ ducing county in Missouri, but nearly all of the mines were south of the Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad (a part of the Burlington system after 1883). Reports of coal veins and small scale mining operations in the Long Branch region per­ sisted, however, throughout the 19th century and beyond.

The Macon County Geological Society heard a report in May, 1875, by A.L. Gilstrap of an eight- foot coal vein eighty feet below the earth's sur­ face in the East Fork valley.® W.J. McGee reported in his Notes on the Geology of Macon County (1888) an outcropping of coal on the”W.tt. Payson farm two and one-half miles northwest of Macon, another lo­ cated one and one-half miles northwest of a railroad cutting, and a third on Bevier Road one mile west of Macon.7 A local reporter of "Eagle Township Items" to the Macon Republican, February 7, 1889, noted the opening of a coal mine on the "Long Branch Farm" of Dr. Charles Atterberry, who, incidentally, was the first resident physician in that township. J.W. and Charles Rilev recall a 14" coal vein near their Centennial Farm® in Eagle township that had never been worked for lack of potential,9 and Lee Kindle, a farmer west of the Long Branch reservoir, remembers an old slope mine and a deep shaft mine on what is known as the old George Kindle place in the Bevier township portion of the Long Branch area. In the fall of 1976 the land clearing crews of the

24 Army Corps of Engineers uncovered the remnants of the old slope mine about one-eighth of a mile north of the Long Branch dam on the east side of the river. Although the economy of the Long Branch region was affected little by coal mining, it did undergo some important changes. These included the appear­ ance of some manufacturing and banking. An entre­ preneur by the name of Sam Phillips opened a hoop pole manufactory somewhere in Eagle township in the fall of 1889 where one could buy clean shavings and ready-for-use hoop poles.H G.L. Towner, a descendant of a pioneer settler, established a bank in Bloom­ ington which was moved to Macon in 1877, where it became known as the Farmers and Traders Bank of Macon. *-?■

Agricultural endeavors in the latter 19th and early 20th centuries remained much as they had been prior to the Civil War. Farmers in Independence township reportedly produced corn, hay, tobacco, cattle, and hogs during the 1880*s.^3 Doubtless others in the general area did likewise, but a number of farmers established stock farms on which they worked to improve the quality of the animals. The Goodding Brothers (Isaac and Alexander) Poland China Hog Farm became a nationally famous source of supply for breeding stock. ^ Dr. Atterberry, a progressive, enterprising stockman, as well as a physician, had a herd of fine shorthorn cattle, a large number of Cotswold sheep, and many Poland China hogs on his 900-acre farm in Eagle township.15 other stock farms in the area during 1865-1900 included the Glen Eden Stock Farm of Jeroma T. Brickell and one run by Major M.A. Miles, two and one-half and twelve miles, respectively, north of Macon. 1°

More and more land was utilized for raising cattle and sheep, though cash crops — corn, oats, rye, wheat — continued to occupy considerable acreage. Tobacco, which had been regarded as the cash crop par excellence prior to the Civil War, continued to be important for a decade or two after that war. Wright's Opera House in Macon, built in 1873, sub­ stituted as a tobacco warehouse for several years,1? indicating a continued growth in the cultivation of the weed. However, before the end of the century farmers abandoned its production as a cash crop because of low prices, the need for much hand labor

25 in tobacco production, and the deleterious effect it had on the soil. Grain and livestock became far better investments.18

Apples were a new cash crop of Macon County in which Long Branch shared. In the winter of 1882- 1883 apples marketed reached an astonishing 105,000 barrels, not including local sales.19 Major outlets for this trade were by rail to Chicago and other northern markets. In 1899 William E. McCully ef­ fected the organization of the Wardell-McCully Orchard Company which in a few years owned 25,000 trees one mile north of Macon. The firm cleared $12,000 in the 1909 crop season.20

Other new productions for cash sold in signifi­ cant quantities included milk and milk products, small grains, including buckwheat, which does well on poor soils, and Irish potatoes.21 The post-Civil War influx of Irish immigrants was likely responsible for the last. The social structure of the Long Branch region underwent two major changes in the period 1865- 1916. The first was an influx of German and Irish immigrants; the second was the existence of free blacks. The German immigrants found compatriots already in the area, for some of the original settlers were of German origin. The latter included the family of Captain Gideon Lyda, who in 1836 left White County, Tennessee, to settle finally in what is now Lyda township in 1838-1840. The Lyda Memoriam compiled by Maggie Davenport of Callao traced the founding of the American Lyda family back to Jacob Leidy who with his family had come from Palatine, Germany, on the ship Adventurer which landed at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on October 2, 1727. The Long Branch Lydas can definitely trace the family back to Andrew Lyda of Buncombe County, North Carolina. However, it can safely be assumed that by the time Captain Lyda moved to Long Branch the Lydas were more American in characteristic than German.22 Other early German, or "Pennsyl­ vania Dutch," settlers of the area were the Adam Gwinner family in Eagle township, and Gordon C. and Sallie C. Stephens who died in 1853 and 1857, respectively, and were buried in the Powell cemetery.23

26 The influx of German immigrants can be directly associated with the opening of the coal mines in the 1860's. Traditional European mining peoples from such places as England and Wales, Germany, Bohemia, and Austria migrated into Macon County, including the Bevier township portion of the Long Branch region.24 Tombstones of many German people of the era immortalizing their names still exist in Bloomington cemetery, including Frederic Hetzel, 1792-1800; Johnnie Dasch, 1805-1905; Aaron Geist, 1842-1901; and Abraham Geist, 1846-1912. Scottish names (such as Lucy F. McDuffee, 1854-1902; James J. McDaniel, 1832-1911; and John McBeth, 1833- 1912) also began appearing in the same period. Irish immigrants appeared in the Long Branch region following the Civil War. J.W. and Charles Riley, previously mentioned, whose Centennial Farm is a quarter-mile west of U.S. Highway 63, owned the original Riley forty-acre plot on the Axtel road between Long Branch Creek and East Fork Chari­ ton until pre-empted by the Corps of Engineers. Their grandfather, Charles Riley, came from Ireland in 1868, the same year in which he bought the original farm. Other Irish immigrant families who settled in Eagle township during the same period included the Maloney, McCarrigan, and McGee families who, according to tradition, all came from the same county in Ireland and upon meeting one another on the boat decided to settle together. Having been deposited in Axtel by the North Mis­ souri Railroad, they fanned out and started an active Irish settlement centered around the C.F. Smiley General Store in Axtel.25 A comparison of the census figures for 1860 with those for 1890 shows the impact immigration had on Macon County as a whole. In 1860 the foreign born numbered only 504 out of a total population of 14,346, or 3% percent, but by 1890 they numbered 2,153 out of a total population of 30,575, about 7 percent. In the latter year the foreign born included 623 from Wales, 444 from Germany, 364 from England, and 224 from Ireland.26 Doubtless their influence was much greater in the mining areas of the county than in the rural Long Branch region, but definitely new stocks of people did enter the latter and brought with them a new culture.

27 A second major development in the social structure of Long Branch during antebellum time, 1865-1900, was the existence of free blacks. The 1860 census recorded only 660 slaves in Macon County. Some slaves were in the Long Branch region, as can be seen from a separate slave section in the Chitwood- Taylor cemetery, which dates back to the antebellum period. Slaves buried their dead on the southwest corner and used small, rudely carved native stones, arranging them in two rows totaling approximately twenty graves.27 Post-Reconstruction figures for Macon County list the number of free blacks as 1,499 out of a total population of 26,222 for 5.71 percent in 1880; 1,196 out of 30,575 for 3.91 per­ cent in 1890; and 1,580 out of 33,018 for 4.78 percent in 1900.28

The drop in number and percentage in the 1890 census corresponds to what reportedly happened to the free blacks of the Long Branch region. Stories recount a large number of blacks farming in the area^immediately after the war. Daniel D. Foley, in his history of the Foley family, retold a story he heard as a young man about some blacks cutting timber in a group not far from a white cutting team on Long Branch Creek. A solar eclipse occurred which frightened the blacks; whereupon, they in­ quired of W. Daniel Foley what had happened. He informed them of the natural occurrence and sent them home to allay the fears of their families. The story, whether true or apocryphal, does con­ firm the existence of blacks on the Long Branch and the paternalistic attitude which whites took regarding the supposed simplicity of blacks.

Foley continued that some blacks left the Long Branch region to receive educational and economic benefits in Iowa which they could not receive in that area.29 This reasoning corresponds with a report in the Macon Republic on February 7, 1889, concerning the defeat of a black school proposal in Eagle township for which the taxpayers of School District Two continued to agitate. Had the blacks left during this time of crisis it would correspond to the drop in the Macon County black population of 1890.

Reports of black families in the Long Branch region after 1920 are very few and sketchy. Long­ time residents of the area could recall only very

28 few black fanning families in the area during their youth through the 1930's. There remained blacks in Macon County as a whole but none in the Long Branch region when the Long Branch dam project became operational.

Since the black population in Macon County increased greatly after the Civil War, Negroes must have regarded conditions for them as com­ paratively good. Nevertheless, not only did most blacks in Macon County suffer from traditional white racism, but with that went the lack of economic and educational opportunities. Probably the trend in rural areas away from tobacco and the increase in livestock production, the influx in foreign born labor, and the lack of previous training for little else than routine or menial tasks limited gainful employment for most of them. There were exceptions here and there as in the case of Lawrence Carter, a retired black man now resid­ ing in Macon, who recalled his youthful days on the farm of his father, Louis Carter, in the early 20th century. Lawrence, born in 1896, lived with the family on a 137-acre farm just west of the present Van's Nursery. They grew corn, wheat, sorghum, and watermelons, and herded a few head of cattle. The watermelons and the sorghum, the latter con­ verted to molasses at their own horsedrawn mill and cooking vats, were their major cash crops. They also earned some cash by working at the Kelso and Wardell apple orchards which adjoined their farm on the north. Lawrence remembered the rela­ tionship between blacks and whites as being friendly and cooperative. Neighbors treated one another fairly, loaned each other supplies, and created a pleasant social atmosphere. The family left the farm during and immediately following World War 1.30 Given the insistence upon segregated schools in Missouri, inadequate provision for the educa­ tion of black youth was almost a foregone conclu­ sion, especially in rural areas. The citizens of Macon did establish a public elementary school for black children, Dumas School, in the late 1870's which Lawrence Carter and his brothers John Henry and Scott attended along with other young blacks through the eighth grade. Around 1914 Dumas of­ fered work through the tenth grade, but until the 1950's young blacks had to leave the county to attend a high school.31

29 In January, 1890, Western College, an institution for the education of young black people sponsored by the Baptist churches in Missouri, moved to Macon from Independence, where it had originated in 1890. Its stated purpose was "to train black students to become useful, industrious and intelligent citi­ zens, and energetic, inspiring school teachers, missionaries, preachers, and laborers in general."32 Western College offered work for students from the fifth grade through college. It remained in Macon until 1921, when it moved to Kansas City in the hope that the new location would increase enroll­ ments.^

Western College had a wholesome influence in the community and on the thousands of students who passed through its doors. Moreover, its pres­ ence afforded an opportunity for local black stu­ dents to extend their formal education beyond that available at Dumas School without their havipg to go to Lincoln Institute in Jefferson City or some institution outside the state. Among the local blacks who attended Western College and whose career illustrates its far-reaching influence is James H. Major, now a retired teacher living in Macon. Born near Paris, Missouri, and reared in Macon, Major graduated from Western College in 1914. He then went to Wilberforce University in Ohio, from which he received the Bachelor of Arts degree, and in 1920 launched a teaching career that spanned forty years. He taught at the Pres­ byterian Academy in Bowling Green, Kentucky; taught and served as assistant principal at Parkersburg, West Virginia; and then went to Arkansas Baptist College in Little Rock. He spent the last seven­ teen years of his career as principal of the Washington School in Monroe City, Missouri. Many another graduate of Western College became a member of a profession or a success in the business world.34 Educational opportunities for white children were much better than those afforded blacks, for by 1860 the public had begun to accept the desir­ ability of tax-supported elementary schools for the former. Moreover, in the forty years between 1860 and 1900 the population of Macon County in­ creased 130 percent, which made necessary the establishment of more and more neighborhood schools to handle the growing enrollments. By 1884 Macon

30 County could boast of 126 schoolhouses, most of them one-room frame structures, with 7,000 pupils enrolled. The number of such plants did not change much during the succeeding decades, though some did increase in size and the school term lengthen, until the construction of all-weather roads and the declining population in rural districts. After the passage of the Missouri School District Re­ organization Act in 1947, the consolidation of school districts proceeded apace.35

Elementary one-room schoolhouses constructed in the Long Branch region were Centerville, Duck Creek, Hazel Grove, New Falrview (sometimes known as Hooligan School), Wardell, and White Oak. New Franklin stood at the intersection of Axtel road and Bee Trace until removed just prior to the recent road construction. Duck Creek is the only remaining school building in the Moccasinville- Bellview area.36

Teachers, mostly men, in the early public schools were woefully unprepared; hardly any had even mastered common fractions. The chief qual­ ification, according to old timers, was the ability to manage the big boys who attended. Little progress was made toward obtaining qualified teachers until 1866 when the first of a number of teacher institutes opened in Macon. Later, the state established normal schools to augment the efforts of the Universityoof Missouri in teacher education.37

While the number of elementary schools was growing, secondary education during the 19th century remained entirely in the hands of private institutions, usually called academies. One such institution in Macon County was St. James Academy, opened in 1875 on the site of the present Immaculate Conception Church in the city of Macon under the leadership of the Reverend Ethelbert Talbot. It was a boarding school for boys under the auspices of the Episcopal Church. Young women residents *of the community could attend classes under certain restrictions. In 1884, when the academy had six teachers and sixty-six students, it became St. James Military Academy, and four years later Colonel Frederic W. Blees took it over. For several years Blees conducted successfully

31 what had become a non-sectarian academy, but when he returned to Germany in 1895 to care for his ailing parents, the school closed.38

When Colonel Blees came back to Macon a few years later, he constructed a large building on twelve acres south of the city of Macon in which he opened the Blees Military Academy in 1899. It remained in session until a few years after his death in 1906. From 1914 until the late 1960's the building housed the Still-Hildreth Sanatorium. In 1973 Gary Dickinson purchased the property from the Kirksville College of Osteopathic Medicine and later donated the building and fifty-four acres to the city of Macon with the city agreeing to purchase the remaining seventy acres.39 At the time St. James Academy became St. James Military Academy, 1884, Mrs. Louisa Walker Atkinson Smith, who had moved from Virginia to Macon, founded St. Agnes Hall, a school for young women. Two of her daughters assisted her in operating the school. They received some financial help from the Episcopal Church, but the Smiths gave up the enterprise three years later.40

By the time Mrs. Smith closed St. Agnes Hall, more and more people in Missouri were beginning to demand co-educational public high schools. Just as tax-supported elementary schools developed very slowly, so did the establishment of public edu­ cational facilities for young people who had completed the eighth grade. Parents who wanted their children to acquire more than an elementary education, many people said, should send them to the private academies or to the preparatory de­ partments of the colleges or normal schools. There had been some support for high schools generated in the cities — St. Louis, St. Joseph, and Kansas City — in the mid-19th century, but it was 1883 before the General Assembly gave its blessing to their establishment by permitting state and local school revenues to be usdd for them. In 1901 the General Assembly encouraged the high school move­ ment further by permitting the consolidation of school districts to maintain "both primary schools and a High School. . . ."41

When in 1868-1869 a new three-story school building was constructed in the city of Macon,

32 accomodations were made for students to continue their education there beyond the elementary level. That arrangement seems to have continued until Central High School opened in 1906. Two years later Bevier maintained a high school and within a comparatively short time suGh schools appeared in Callao, Elmer, Ethel, La Plata, and New Cambria, though not all were four-year schools at first.42

Schools and churches served the community in many peripheral ways. Mrs. C.G. Lea recalled the many parties and community gatherings at the Liberty Congregation church building, one of which was a meeting in the fall of 1889 of the Farmers Alli­ ance, 43 which had replaced the Patrons of Husbandry (National Grange) in public attention.44 Duck Creek schoolhouse was the site of the Duck Creek Lyceum which met every Friday night, where young boys and girls recited poems or "spoke like great orators."45 Such gatherings were the cultivating influence for local authors such as Daniel D. Foley. Foley, still a local legend, wrote edi­ torials, poetry, short articles, and news accounts for several local papers from 1900-1957. His work represented a rural, backwood, family culture, but one certainly not devoid of humor, human under­ standing, and intelligence. His love of family can be seen in his "Little Girl Dresses in Blue" written when his five-year-old daughter, Mrs. C.G. Lea, was lost for a time while on a shopping trip to Macon. Foley on the eve of Franklin Delano Roosevelt's third election to the Presidency published in the Macon Chronicle on October 31, 1940, the reasons one should vote for F.D.R. A humorous poem concerned politics in general which he equated with many parasites in his play on words, "poly-ticks * ' Some of his poems are still recited by his descendants.46 In Foley, and per­ haps others less well known, Long Branch and the Duck Creek Lyceum had produced a classis example of rural Americana.

W. Daniel Foley, from Kentucky, had settled on a farm in the Long Branch region in pioneer days and died in 1909. His son, Daniel D. the poet, lived his whole life in the area and died in 1959.

33 Ill

From World War I to the Present

The population of Macon County reached its zenith in 1900; that of the rural portions of the Long Branch region more than a decade earlier.1 Since the turn of the century the population trend in the county, as in most of rural Missouri, has been downward. As the chart below illustrates, there has been a mass exodus out of rural Long Branch, but no compensating growth of nearby towns. The population of Hudson township, which contains the city of Macon, has remained quite constant, while the number of people living in other Long Branch townships has decreased from 50 to 65 per­ cent since 1920. The black population of the county dropped even more precipituously, from 1,580 to only 223 in 1970, many of them having left during the war years of the 1940's. None in 1970 lived on a farm in the rural Long Branch.2

COMPARISON OF POPULATION FIGURES FOR SELECTED MACON COUNTY TOWNSHIPS WHICH COMPRISE THE LONG BRANCH REGION3

Township 1900 1910 1920 1940 1950 1970 Bevier 4,471 4,726 3,807 2,011 1,604 1,372 Hudson 5,156 4,492 4,611 4,979 5,051 5,887 Eagle 799 778 754 545 420 315 Liberty 960 869 706 450 390 245 Independence 858 726 692 454 403 238

Lyda 1,260 1,271 1,218 973 808 640 Along with the decrease in population has gone a decrease in the number of farms in Macon County from 285,000 in 1900 to 137,000 in 1969.4 Doubtless there was proportionately as great a reduction in the Long Branch area. This decline in the number of people and the number of farms seems to have been due primarily to the consolidation of farms required to keep farming a viable economic enterprise.

34 Moreover, in the Long Branch region much land was given over to grazing and extensive cattle opera­ tions such as those of Frank Lollie. The Lollie family, operators of the Lollie Sale Barn in Macon since July, 1946, used many acres in the Long Branch region on which to run cattle for short and long terms.5 Since the 1970 census the purchase of land by the Army Corps of Engineers has escalated this migration from the farm. One such loss was Hooli­ gan's Hollow, a name applied to a hollow on a section of Tick Ridge — a north-south ridge between Long Branch and East Fork along which Bee Trace ran — near the Fairview school area.6

Life in the Long Branch region, however, changed very little during the decade of the twen­ ties and the early 1930's. Longtime residents — James Dixon, William E. Ewing, Lee Kindle, Mrs, C.G. Lea, J.W. and Charles Riley, Francis Swallow, and others — recall those days with some nostalgia. Their memories focused on attending school func­ tions , going to church, working at a primary eco­ nomic level on farms, and attending Sunday and holiday community picnics. For example, Ewing, who formerly lived across the creek west of the Lea place, spoke of working on the Wardell farm, logging and putting in cane, corn, millet, and oats. He recalled the use of live decoys to attract wild ducks to the large lake created by the Wardell dam across East Fork./

Swallow remembered selling cream and eggs to the general store at Axtel and taking his grain to the Haley Mill located on the south side of the Axtel road just west of East Fork. Once powered by horses, the mill was then run by a gasoline engine. Another recalled that farmers took their whole milk to the store at Axtel at the blowing of a whistle to have it separated.8

Swallow also raised sorghum, which seems to have been widely grown in the Long Branch region, and operated a sorghum mill and cooking vats on Tick Ridge between the Long Branch and the East Fork River. He moved his horsedrawn cane press and heating vats, which he still uses, to his home in Bevier after the Army Corps of Engineers bought his farm.9 Mrs. Lea and her husband, "Sid," also raised sorghum in the Long Branch region and produced, according to those who sampled their wares, a very good grade of molasses.f 0

35 Several persons recalled sawmills operating on the Long Branch and the East Fork Chariton dur­ ing this period at the junctions of those streams with the Bellview cemetery road. These mills operated for local consumption only but it is quite probable the local market included lumber yards in the city of Macon, among which was the Jepson Lumber Company founded in 1919.H An older sawmill two miles downstream from the junction of Long Branch and East Fork did not survive the 1920's, for Thomas Wardell replaced it with a concrete dam without a mill. Wardell, who, as noted above, had entered the cattle busi­ ness in Liberty township, needed a reliable source of water for his livestock; hence, he constructed a dam some twenty-five feet high and seventy-five feet across on the East Fork about two miles south of the confluence of that river and Long Branch. This dam, which backed up water for hundreds of feet, also served as a reserve water supply for the city of Macon. If the water supply at the Macon pumping stations located near the site of the present Long Branch dam became too low, water behind the Wardell dam, only a few miles upstream, could be released to supplement the normal river flow. After Macon built its present reservoir during the 1930's by putting a dam across Duck Creek, Warden's dam was dynamited, but longtime residents still remember it as the site of many community picnics.12

Although people who were young in the 1920's may have fond memories of those days, Macon County did not fully share in the economic prosperity of that decade. Coal mines were closing,13 the pur­ chasing power of farmers was declining,14 and many small manufacturing and processing plants in the towns were going out of business.15 Consequently, when the nation entered the deep depression in the early 1930's, Macon Countians found conditions only somewhat worse that they had been for some time. As a result of the economic problems, signifi­ cant social changes occurred in Macon County as in all other parts of the state and nation. Re­ sponsibility for the care of the needy, which had historically belonged to local charities and county government, was shifted to the state and

36 federal governments. Numerous agencies arose to provide assistance to the elderly, the infirm, dependent children, and to provide sustenance for the poor and work for the unemployed. Records show during 1937, when relief matters were handled almost entirely by the federal government, in Macon County 858 persons receiving old age assistance, a monthly average of 143 on general relief, and 62 cases of aid to dependent children involving 129 children. There were 1,242 persons who re­ ceived surplus commodities and forty Macon County youths enrolled that year in the Civilian Conser­ vation Corps.16 The lack of modern conveniences in Macon County was rather widespread. In 1938 only 43 percent of the residents had telephones, 57 per­ cent had automobiles, and 71 percent had even the cheapest radio.17 Very likely the percentage of the people in rural areas, such as Long Branch, who had these items was much smaller than in the county as a whole. Yet, in some areas considerable progress was made during these decades. Roads were improved, better educational facilities were made available, electric power was brought to nearly every rural home, and unemployed persons were put to work — all of which spelled social changes. As for the first, little had been done to get Missouri out of the mud until the passage of the Centennial Road Law in 1921 by the state legislature, though the inauguration of rural free mail delivery in the late 1890's had focused attention on the need for roads that were passible during all seasons of the year. State road bond issues in the 1920's and federal subventions for road construction led to the present road system. Most county roads in the Macon area, however, remained dirt roads until the Works Progress Administration (WPA) began rocking them from nearby quarries in the 1930's.l® Three limestone quarries in the Long Branch region provided most of the rock for the projects and gave employment to Long Branch residents. One such quarry was on the west bank of Long Branch just north of the Bellview cemetery road, another was on East Fork approximately one-eighth of a mile north of its junction with Long Branch, and the third was halfway between the present dam and the confluence of Long Branch and East Fork.19

37 The King Road Act (1945) encouraged further improvements by making state funds available for construction and maintenance of purely local roads, and a constitutional amendment adopted in 1962 giving the counties 5 percent of the net proceeds from the state gasoline tax increased the money available.20

Today Macon County has two federal highways — U.S. 63 running north and south through Macon and U.S. 36 which runs east and west through Macon, passing just south of the Long Branch dam; three state highways — Nos. 3, 149, and 156; and numerous black top roads crisscrossing the county, though none is in the area to be flooded by the dam. The Corps of Engineers is constructing an improved road on the site of old Axtel road from U.S. 63, east of the Long Branch reservoir, to County Road 0.

The construction of all-weather roads and highways encouraged the use of automobiles, buses, and trucks which spelled the doom of the country store, many rural churches, and all of the one- room country schools. Declining enrollments had forced the consolidation of school districts and the abandonment of numerous rural schools in the county long before the Missouri School District Reorganization Act of 1947 was passed. From a high of approximately 130 at the turn of the century the number of one-room rural schools opera­ ting in Macon County dropped to 110 in 1940 and to 88 five years later.21 Today there are seven districts in which are included a consolidated elementary school at Elmer (which once had a high school), consolidated elementary and high schools at Atlanta, Bevier, Callao, La'Plata, and Macon, and a seventh district which operated a consoli­ dated high school at New Cambria and an elementary school at Ethel. No longer are there any schools in the immediate Long Branch area.22

Probably no New Deal agency did more to ease farm life and make it more pleasant than did the Rural Electrification Administration (REA) which provided loans and WPA labor for the extension of power lines into rural areas not served by private companies. Although the REA was estab­ lished in 1935, work to provide electricity to the people in the Long Branch region did not even

38 start until August, 1938, but within a short time nearly every home had electric power available.23

Improved roads coupled with a declining popu­ lation had a deleterious effect upon rural churches in Macon County, particularly after the depression of the 1930's and World War II. During the latter 19th century, the growth of population, to which European immigrants contributed, and the relatively isolated rural neighborhoods had encouraged a rapid multiplication of congregations, most of them in the mainstream of American protestantism, as the first congregations organized in the county had been. The number of Baptist, Christian, Methodist, and Presbyterian churches had grown after the Civil War and to them had been added churches established by Congregationalists, Episcopalians, Latter Day Saints (Reorganized Church), Seventh Day Adventists, people belonging to the Church of God (Holiness), members of the Church of Christ, and perhaps .other sectarians from time to time.24 A Catholic congre­ gation which had been organized in Macon just prior to the Civil War had taken on new life,25 and two Negro churches — - the African Methodist Episcopal Church and the Second Baptist Church -— had been established in the city of Macon in 1866.26 While the churches in the towns have continued to play a significant role in the lives of Macon Countians, in recent decades many rural churches have been abandoned and their congregations merged with those in the towns. Today no more than twenty-five rural churches have services with any regularity.27 None is in the rural Long Branch area. Although the culture of the people living in the Long Branch region today may seem far removed from that of the first settlers and their ways different in important respects from those of their forebears, historically the area has, after a fashion, completed a cycle. The population rose and then fell; churches, homes, and school- houses multiplied and then were moved or torn down; and land use changed from livestock raising, to cropping, and back again. This is not to say that the cycle in land use can be neatly delineated. There has been a continuing emphasis on improving the quality of nursery stock, illustrated by the establishment in 1941 of Van's Nursery two miles north of Macon. James Dixon, many of whose ancestors

39 are buried in Powell cemetery, had a diversified farm near the Axtel road on which he raised live­ stock, cropped c o m and beans until it was recently purchased by the Army Corps of Engineers. Dixon, as did his forefathers, likes to hunt coyotes in the extensive woodlands, while Swallow prefers to hunt coons in the area. With the construction of the Long Branch dam much of the land will be given over to water sports, natural parks, and scouting trails.

40 MITIGATION SUGGESTIONS

Particular mitigations suggested by the historians include restoration, collection, and publications to preserve insofar as possible the Long Branch culture. The old Lea House which is still standing on Tick Ridge has first priority. It should be restored to its pioneer state and used as a focal point for a Long Branch park and living museum on Tick Ridge. Other extant struc­ tures associated with the history of Long Branch which should be purchased and moved to the park for additional preservation and museum space in­ clude the Duck Creek schoolhouse and the Bethel Church of Christ building. The museum should house collections of artifacts and be surrounded by exterior exhibits.1

Artifacts of the first half of the 20th century abound in Macon County. Emma West, daugh­ ter of Dr. Charles West, maintains a museum on U.S. Highway 63 at New Cambria. Artifacts she has collected should at some time be purchased and transferred to the museum on Tick Ridge. Francis Swallow has at his home in Bevier various farm implements of the 1930's which were used on his Tick Ridge farm. The old Swallow sorghum mill and vats which now sit in his yard should be bought and returned to their original site one quarter mile north of the Lea House.2 Lee McDowell of Macon has a large collection of news­ paper clippings from which those pertaining to Long Branch might be Selected and acquired. Doubtless the members of the Macon County His­ torical Society would assist, and perhaps take the lead, in collecting Scattered artifacts to house in the museum.

Curators and operators of the museum and exterior exhibits during the tourist season each summer could be easily found. Northeast Missouri State University, only twenty-five miles away, could operate the museum and exhibits through an internship arrangement with students and faculty supervisors. With the cooperation of government officials, Macon County citizens, Northeast Mis­ souri State University, and the many people in northeast Missouri who are interested in historic

41 preservation, the park on Bee Trace would become the home of a significant display of the Long Branch cultural history. A collection of Daniel D. Foley's poems and artifacts should be edited and published as a part of an effort to preserve the culture of the area in words. The work could be sold at the Long Branch site as a prime example of the influence the culture of the Long Branch area had on one who spent a lifetime there. A short history of Long Branch should also be published, with enough copies to distribute to organizations in Macon County and to sell at the park on Tick Ridge. Failing that, this report should be reproduced by the Army Corps of Engi­ neers and copies given to the Macon County Public Library, the Macon County Historical Society, Northeast Missouri State University Library, and the State Historic Society of Missouri. A cemetery site on the property acquired by the Army Corps of Engineers which should be pre­ served contains the graves of the four Willis Haley children on the hilltop just east of the confluence of Long Branch and East Fork Chariton.3 Three of the original four trees planted to mark the site are still standing. Since the site is in a potentially high use zone, it should be clearly marked and fenced off from any possible intrusions in order to preserve it as a cultural reference point and as a mark of respect for a burial place.

The only structures that have some relevance to Long Branch which might be eligible for nomi­ nation to the National Register of Historic Sites are the Macon County Courthouse and the Lea House.^ Preparations are already going forward to submit the former to the State Historic Preservation Office for consideration; the latter might be considered of sufficient local significance for nomination because of its link to a rather dis­ tinct past.

42 Endnotes

I

From European Incursions Through the Civil War

The material in the preceding paragraphs is from David D. March, History of Missouri (2 voIs.; New York and West Palm Beach, 1967) I, 1-205, passim.

Ibid., 309-319, passim; Eugene Morrow Violette, A History of Missouri (Boston-New Yor, 1918),

History of Randolph and Macon Counties, Mis- souri (St. Louis, 18S4T, 702, 7 & T . - “ Louis Houck, Missouri Indian Trails and War- Paths (November 1930), 13, in George Pohlman Collection, Western Historical Manuscripts Collection, Columbia, Missouri.

George Pohlman, "Where the Highways Cross," Pohlman Collection.

Ibid. See also the Archeology Report for Long Branch Project.

Randolph and Macon Counties, 702-705.

General History of Macon County (Chicago, 1910),

Randolph and Macon Counties. 739.

The best account is Dorothy J. Caldwell, "The Big Neck Affair; Tragedy and Farce on the Missouri Frontier," Missouri Historical Review, LXIV (July, Ì970), 391-412.

Eugene Morrow Violette, History of Adair County (Kirksville, Missouri, 1 9 T T ) 7 T 2 7

Laws £f Missouri, 1840 (Jefferson City, 1841) 51; Macon County, 2, 8-9.

Randolph and Macon Counties, 733. 14. Caldwell, "Big Neck Affair," 2n. 15. Macon County, 30.

16. Ibid., 53-54; Russell Waller, of Macon, to Howard Needles, Tammen and Bertendoff, of Kansas City, August 4, 1973. Copy in possession of Waller.

17. Laws of Missouri, 1841 (Jefferson City, 1841), 285-291; Original map of surveyors of Hannibal Road, Pohlman Collection, Folder 4.

18. "Pioneer Shopping," Chronicle-Herald (Macon, Missouri), American Revolution Bicentennial edition, June 29, 1976. 19. Macon County, 55.

20. Ibid., 56; Randolph and Macon Counties, 798. 21. Violette, Missouri, 240; March, Missouri. II, 1034-1ÏÏ35"! ------

22. Chronicle-Herald, June 26, 1976. Newspapers published from time to time during the 1850's included the Bloomington Gazette (1850-Inde- pendent), Register (1852-Whig), Republican (1852-Democratic), and Messenger (1856- Democratic). Randolph and Macon Counties. 843. ------

23. Macon County, 248. 24. Ibid.

25. The Early Settlement of Mâcon County and the Lives of"the PioneersTpamphlet PublishedTn Macon, Missouri, 1871), 2, in State Historical Society of Missouri Library, Columbia; Randolph and Macon Counties, 286. 26. Macon County, 24.

27. A description of the cabins and their fur­ nishings is in Randolph and Macon Counties. 714-715. ------

28. Ibid., 717.

44 29. "Missouriana: Missouri's Growth in Population, 1810-1860," Missouri Historical Review, XXXV (January, 1941), 236. 30. Randolph and Macon Counties, 796. 31. Ibid., 721; Macon County, 22-24. 32. Floyd C. Shoemaker Missouri and Missourians, Land of Contrasts and People of Achievements (5 voT¥. ; Chicago, 1943) , 1 , 2TT5~ 207, 209- 210, 798. 33. The United States census of 1850 shows the following production in Macon County: 420,023 bushels of corn; 77,961 bushels of rye and oats; 19,131 bushels of wheat; and 845,110 pounds of tobacco. At the time there were 31,443 hogs; 9,732 sheep; 8,679 cattle; and 2,789 horses, asses, and mules. See also, H. G. Crawford, "Callao Used to be Center for Tobacco Growing in Macon County in Early 1800's," Chronicle-Herald, June 29, 1976. 34. Chronicle-Herald, June 29, 1976. 35. Pohlman Collection, Folder 4. See Appendix A for geographical sites. 36. Ibid. 37. Mrs. C. G. Lea, daughter of Daniel D. Foley, recorded interview by David D. March and Larry Stephens at public forum, Macon County Library, Macon, Missouri, July 1, 1976. 38. William E. Ewing interview and personal recon­ naissance with March and Stephens in Macon, Missouri, and the Long Branch region on July 15, 1976. 39. Missouri Constitution of 1820, reprinted in Floyd Calvin Shoemaker, Missouri* s Struggle for Statehood, 1804-1821 (Jefferson City, T9T6), Art. VI, Sec. 1. 40. Macon County, 140. 41. Chronicle-Herald, special edition in observance of the 100th anniversary of Macon public schools, April 29, 1969.

45 42. Laws of Missouri, 1852-1852 (Jefferson City, 1853), 147-159; Laws of Missouri, 1887 (Jefferson City, 188777 ZT Sü~alsö7~March, History of Missouri, I, 729-430; II, 1091.

43. Chronicle-Herald. April 29, 1969.

44. Quoted in Macon County, 143.

45. Sandy Coons, "McGee College Opens in 1852," Chronicle-Herald. June 29, 1976.

46. Ibid; Chronicle-Herald. April 29, 1969.

47. Coons, "McGee College Opens."

48. Statistical View of the United States: A Compendium of the Seventh Census (Washington, D . C T ^ 1854), 266; Population of the United States in 1860 Compiled from the Returns of the Eighth Census (Washington. D.C., 186077 286

49. Chronical-Herald. June 29, 1976

50. Ibid.; William E. Parrish, A History of Missouri, Vol. Ill of a projected 5 volume series (Columbia, Missouri, 1973), 25-26)

51. Macon County, 176-177; Chronicle-Herald, June

52. War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies (130 vols.; Washington, D.C., 1880- 1900), i, XIII, 215)

53. Randolph and Macon Counties, 858-860; Duane Meyer, The Heritage of Missouri (Rev. ed.: St. LouTsT 1935), 3951 ------

54. Macon County, 182-183.

55* War °f the Rebellion Records, i, XIII, 208.

56. Macon County, 183-184; Laws of Missouri, 1863 (Jefferson City, 1863), 149-150' ----

57. Daniel D. Foley, "History of the Foley Family." Letter to his daughter, Mrs. C. G. Lea, read at recorded public forum, Macon County Library July 1, 1976. y

46 58. Missouri Democrat (St. Louis), December 25, 1868; Robert F. Karsch, The Government of Missouri (11th ed. ; Columbia"] 1971), 29. 59. March, History of Missouri, II, 1088-1059.

II

From the Civil War to World War I

1. Quoted in Sam T. Bratton, "Coal in Missouri," Missouri Historical Review, XXII (January, 1928),.152^------2. Ibid., 153-154; Macon County, 100-101. 3. Macon County, 101, 248; Recorded public forum, Macon County Library, July 1, 1976. 4. "Time Capsule at Oakwood Cemetery," Macon Republican, October 17, 1908, reprinted in Chronicle-Herald, June 29, 1976. 5. Bratton, "Coal in Missouri," 152-153. 6. A. L. Gilstrap, paper read before the Macon Geological Society in May, 1875, in Macon County, 246-247. 7. W. J. McGee, Notes on the Geology of Macon County (St. Louis, 1888), 320-321. 8. A Centennial Farm was a farm that in 1976 had been in continuous possession of a family for at least 100 years.

9. J. W. and Charles Riley, interview at their home with March and Stephens, June 24, 1976. 10. Lee Kindle, interview at his home west of the Long Branch reservoir with March and Stephens, June 24, 1976. 11. Macon Republican, September 5, 1889. 12. Chronicle-Herald, June 29, 1976.

47 13. Randolph and Macon Counties, 805.

14. "Sale Bill" for Isaac and Alexander Goodding, brothers, great annual sale of Poland China hogs, Wednesday, September 8, 1897. State Historical Society of Missouri, Collections.

15. Randolph and Macon Counties, 1042-1043.

16. Chronicle-Herald, June 29, 1976; Theodore Gary, Handbook of Macon County, Missouri, 1888 (Macon, T8HF)"i 13.

17. Chronicle-Herald, June 29, 1976.

18. Macon County, 250-251.

19. Randolph and Macon Counties, 900.

20. Macon County, 251, 637.

21. Historical Sketch of Macon County, Missouri prepared by the Missouri Historical Records Survey, Division of Community Service Pro­ grams, Works Projects Administration (St. Louis, 1941), 13. See also, Compendium of the Tenth Census: 1880 (Washington, D.C.. T5S577~5&2-S83. ------

22. Maggie Davenport, Lyda Memorjam (Callao, Missouri, 1971), 1-6.

23. Randolph and Macon Counties, 1049-1050; Reading of Powell cemetery, June 17, 1976, by Larry Stephens.

24. Persons of foreign birth in Macon County numbered 504 in 1860; 2,032 in 1870; fell off in 1880 to 1,852; rose to 2,153 in 1890, but fell off again to 1,896 in 1900. The largest number by far were from England and Wales, those from Germany were second, and the Irish were third. Statistics and Popula­ tion of the United States from the Original Returns oF~the Ninth Census : 1577) (Washington, D. C. , T872") , 315; Report of the Population of the United States at the Eleventh Census: T890 (Washington. D.C., 1895), 419, 619; Twelfth Census of the United States (1900), Population, Part I (Washington, D.C., 1901),

48 25. Charles and J. W. Riley, interview with March and Stephens, June 24, 1976.

26. Report of the Population of the United States at the Eleventh Census : 1890 (Washington, D.C., TB95), 639. The percentage of foreign born in the population of Macon County was greatest in 1870 -- almost 9 percent. 27. Reading of Taylor-Chitwood cemetery, July 1, 1976, by David D. March and Larry Stephens; Francis Swallow, interview at his home in Bevier, Missouri, July 8, 1976 with March and Stephens.

28. Report of Population, Eleventh Census, 419; Twelfth Census of the United States, Population. Part I, 590. — ------~

29. Daniel D. Foley, "History of the Foley Family." 30. Lawrence Carter, interview with Larry Stephens in Macon, Missouri, July 27, 1977. 31. Idem; Chronicle-Herald. April 29, 1969. The first class graduated from Dumas School in 1886. The first building, a brick structure, was leveled by a tornado in 1883; a second school building was immediately constructed and used by black students until 1954. Today the Dumas Elementary School is intergrated. 32. Quoted in Sandy Coons (Historical Background by Irma Miller), "Black College Located Here at Turn of Century," Chronicle-Herald, June 29, 1976 ------33. Ibid.

34. James H. Major, interview in Macon, Missouri, with Stephens, July 27, 1977; Sandy Coons, "Black College Located Here at Turn of Century." 35. Thirty-fifth Report of the Public Schools of the State of Missouri (Jefferson City, 1884T, 38; Forty-second Report of the Public Schools (Jefferson City, 1892) , (5ÌJ; Laws of Missouri, 1947 (Jefferson City, 1947),’37^-177';'Mirch, Missouri, II, 1496.

49 3 6 . U.S. Geological Survey map (1905-1906), N3945- W9Z15/15, Atlanta Quadrangle; State of Missouri Geological Survey and Water Resources map (1936- 1937), N3945-W9320/15, Elmer Quadrangle. 37. F. Theo Mayhew of Morrow, Missouri, to Edgar White, Macon, Missouri, March 4, 1901, in Chronicle-Herald, June 29, 1976; Macon County. TW. ------38. Chronicle-Herald, June 29, 1976; Thirty-Fifth Report of the Public Schools (18 85) 7'166. 39. Chronicle-Herald, June 29, 1976. 40. Ibid.

41. March, Missouri, II, 1086; Laws of Missouri, 1901 (Jefferson City, 1901)7"259^5iT 42. Chronicle-Herald, April 29. 1969: Macon Countv, tw . ------43. Macon Times, September 27, 1889.

44. Approximately twelve local Grange lodges in Macon County were meeting regularly in 1878, two of them in the Long Branch region -- Moccasinville and Independence. The Grange in the county continued to exist until the early years of the 20th century. The organi­ zation revived in 1937 when several lodges were organized, one of which was Independence, but only one still existed in 1976. George Wisdom, "The Grange in Macon County," Chronicle-Herald, June 29, 1976.

45. The Macon Republican, January 17, 1889. 46. Interviews with Mrs. C.G. Lea, daughter of Daniel D. Foley, and her grandson at Mrs. Lea's home in Macon, Missouri, by March and Stephens on July 1, 1976. Mrs. Lea's grandson memorized one of his great-grandfather's poems entitled "Love." The Foley poems and essays were collected in a scrapbook by Mrs. Lea.

50 "Love" Love it is a very funny thing It acts just like a lizard It wraps its tail around your heart and it tickles your very gizzard. It makes you feel like a fresh water eel It causes your head to swell You lose your mind for love is blind and empties your pockets as well.

And when married folks have lots of cash their love is firm and strong but when they have to live on hash their love don't last so long. With a wife and fourteen half-starved kids I'll tell you its no fun When the butcher comes round to collect his bill with a dog and a double barrelled gun. So now young folks take my advice Don't be in a hurry to wed For you'll be in clover until the honeymoon is over and then you will wish you were dead.

Ill

From World War I to the Present

1-' Twelfth Census (1900), Population, Part I, 243. 2. 1970 Census of Population, Vol.I, Character- istics~~of the Population, Part 27, Missouri (Washington, D .C., 1973), 282.

3. Twelfth Census (1900), Population, Part I, 243; Fifteenth Census of the United States : 1930, Vol. I, Population (Washington, D.C., 1931) 613-614; Report of the Seventeenth Decennial Census of the United States -- Census of Popu­ lation, Vol. II, Part 25, Missouri, 17-T5; "Population Count Shows County Losing Farmers," Chronicle-Herald, June 29, 1976.

51 4 . Historical Statistics of the United States --- Colonial Times to 1970 (Washington, D.C. 1975). Part I, 459.

5. Local interviews by David D. March and Larry Stephens and U.S. Corps of Engineers purchase platts. Only between 50 and 60 percent of Macon County was regarded as crop land in 1950 by the College of Agriculture at the University of Missouri, Columbia. See James E. Collier, Agricultural Atlas of Missouri (Columbia, 1955), 31.

6. Waller to Needles, Tammen and Bertendoff, August 4, 1973.

7. William E. Ewing, interview with March and Stephens, July 15, 1976

8. Francis Swallow, interview with March and Stephens, July 1, 1976. 9. Idem.

10. Public forum at Macon County Library, recorded interview.

11. Idem; Chronicle-Herald. June 29, 1976. 12. Swallow interview and foot survey by Swallow, March, and Stephens, July 8, 1976; Larry and’ Betty Stephens and Roger and Sandra Boyd, foot survey, July 10, 1976.

13. Coal production dropped drastically in 1919 and continued downward due to competition from mines nearer the markets and the increasing use of natural gas and electricity in fac­ tories. Stephen E. Daniels, "Coal Mining in Northeast Missouri, 1850-1920" (unpublished Master's thesis, Northeast Missouri State College, Kirksville, 1968), 98-101.

14. The following indices of prices paid to and by farmers (based on 100 for the years 1909- 1914) go far toward explaining why 83 Missouri counties, including Macon, lost population between 1920 and 1930. Florence Helm, Banking Developments in Missouri, 1920-1936 (Fulton, Missouri, 19391, 108.

52 Year Prices paid to farmers Prices paid by farmers 1918 202 176 1920 211 201 1922 132 149 1924 143 152 1926 145 155 1928 149 155 1930 126 145

15. In 1919 Macon County had 51 factories employing a total of 91 persons and producing $613,281 worth of goods; ten years later there were only nine such plants employing 53 people and producing goods valued at $535,864. Historical Sketch of Macon County, 14. 16. Ibid., 16-17. 17. Ibid., 15.

18. Other WPA projects upon which some Long Branch men may have worked included the construction of the present Duck Creek dam, a swimming pool at Macon, and a lake near New Cambria. Chronicle-Herald, June 29, 1976. 19. Survey by Larry Grantham, project archaeo­ logist. The ground clearing crews of the Army Corps of Engineers uncovered a fourth quarry about a quarter of a mile north of the Long Branch dam on the east side of the river. Grantham concluded that this had not been a source of road rocks since he found no large rock piles but did find what appeared to be areas carved up by formations of stone blocks.

The architects and archaeologists for the Army Corps of Engineers survey found bricks stamped with the same mold imprint at nearly every building site which utilized such mate­ rial. Since geological surveys mentioned the existence of clay suitable for brick­ making and since brick kilns had existed in the city of Macon since the 1890’s, the discovery of such uniform use of a particular brick for buildings constructed in the 1900"s indicates the possibility of a Long Branch related kiln.

53 20. Laws of Missouri. 1945 (Jefferson City, 1945), 1471-1475; March, Missouri. II, 151-1511; State of Missouri Official Manual. 1963-1964 (Jefferson City, 1965), ------

21. Fifty-second Report of the Public Schools (Jefferson City, 19027, 218; Ninety-first Report of the Public Schools (Jefferson Citv. 1941)7 88; Ninety-sixth Report of the Public Schools (Jefferson City, 1946),~T787

22. Missouri School Directory, 1976-77 (Jefferson City, 1977), 97-W. ------23. Historical Sketch of Macon County. 15.

24. Randolph and Macon Counties. 904-915, passim. 25. Ibid., 904.

26. Macon County, 165-166. 27. Chronicle-Herald. June 29, 1976.

Mitigation Footnotes 1. See Appendix B for photographs of buildings and implements.

2. Swallow interview with March and Stephens at his home in Bevier.

3. See Appendix A for locations of historic sites. 4. See Appendix B.

54 APPENDIX A

Historical Sites

(A) Modern Day Towns*

Macon

Bloomington Bevier Ax tel

(B) Abandoned Towns+

Moccasinville — located one-quarter to one- half mile south of Bellview cemetery. Legal description — SE.NW, Section 29, T-58-N, R-14-W.

(C) Schools+

New Fairview School located on the southwest corner of Axtel road and Bee Trace junction NE ,NW,NE,NE,NW, Section 19, 1-Do-iN, K-14-W.

DiC£-C?eek 5?h°o1 — located one-half mile west of Highway 36 and County road DD junction. Legal description — sE,s e ,nE, section 29, T-58-N, K-14-W.

(D) Farms+

Wardell & McCully Apple Orchard — located on the north side of the section road across from Van s Nursery. Legal description — SE.SW SW Section 4, T-57-N, R-14-W. ’

Carter Farm — located just west of Van's Nursery lectin descriPtlon - NE.NE.NW,

*See map 1 +See map 2

55 Farms (Continued)

Lea House — located one-half mile south of Axtel road on Bee Trace . Legal description — NW,NE,SW, Section 19, T-58-N, R-14-W.

(E) Mills and DamH-

Francis Swallow Sorghum Mill — located one- quarter mile south of Axtel road on Bee Trace. Legal description — NW,SE,NW, Section 19, T-58-N, R-14-W.

Willis Haley Mill — • located on the south side of Axtel road just west of East Fork Chariton River. Legal description — NW*NW,NE, Section 24, T-58-N, R-15-W.

Two unnamed lumber mills — located on the old county road between Bellview and Bethel churches on the Long Branch and East Fork Chariton cross­ ings . Site 1 — SW,SW,SE, Section 19 and NW,NW,NE, Section 30, T-58-N, R-14-W. Site 2 — SE,SE,SE, Section 24 and NE,NE,NE, Section 26, T-58-N, R-15-W.

Moses Taylor Grist Mill and Wardell Dam Site — Both were located on the same spot one-half mile south of the Long Branch and East Fork Chariton junction. Legal description — NW,NE,SE and NE,NW,SE, Section 1, T-57-N, R-15-W.

(F) Churches and CemeteriesH-

Bloomington cemetery — located one-half mile north of Bloomington. Legal description — SE.SE.NE, Section 27, T-58-N, R-15-W.

Bellview Church and cemetery — located one mile south on the first road west of Axtel. Legal description — SE,SW,SW, Section 20, T-58-N, R-14-W.

+See map 2

56 Churches and Cemeteries (Continued)

Bethel Church of Christ and cemetery — located due west of Bellview on County road o. Legal description — SW.SW.SW, Section 24, T-58-N, R-15-W. Richeson-Glaze-Jones cemetery — located a quarter mile west and one-quarter mile south of Duck Creek School. Legal description — SW.NE.SE, Section 29, T-58-N, R-14-W. Powell cemetery — located one-half mile west of the junction of Highway 63 and the first road north of Axtel approximately one-half mile. Legal description — NW.NW.SE, Section 17, T-58-N, R-14-W. Chitwood-Taylor cemetery — located a mile and a half north on the County road just east of Long Branch dam and one-quarter mile west off the road. Legal description — NE,NW,SE, Section 6, T-57-N, R-14-W. Haley Burial Site — located on a hill due east of the Chariton East Fork and Long Branch junc­ tions. Legal description — SW.SW.SW, Section 31, T-58-N, R-14-W. Liberty Church and cemetery — located three- fourths mile east of Highway 63 on County road DD. Legal description — SE.SE.NE, Section 28, T-58-N, R-14-W.

(G) Macon County Courthouse+ — located in Macon, Missouri. Legal description — SW.SW.NE, Section 16, T-57-N, R-14-W.

+See map 2

57 *o-ai-ioss GALLUP MAP a S T A T IO N C P r CO.,K.C.,MO. MAP 58 AP AP 1 M MAP OF MACON COUNTY MAP OF

N-OT-l A 1 n n o 3 N-6g-l N-89-1 M Kl , n N-/.5-1 MAP 2

MAP OF HUDSON, EAGLE, LYDA, BEVIER, LIBERTY AND INDEPENDENCE TOWNSHIPS

59 Duck Creek Schoolhouse, viewer facing northwest

Duck Creek Schoolhouse, viewer facing southwest

60 r

Duck Creek Schoolhouse, viewer facing southeast

Duck Creek Schoolhouse, viewer facing northeast

61 Lea House, viewer facing southwest

Lea House, viewer facing east

62 Lea House, viewer facing northeast

Lea House, viewer facing northwest

63 Swallow Sorghum Mill, viewer facing northeast

Swallow Sorghum Mill, viewer facing west 64 Swallow Sorghum Mill, viewer facing south

65 Swallow 1930's Farm Implement

Swallow 1930's Farm Implement 66 Bethel Church, viewer facing northeast

Bethel Church, viewer facing west

67 Bethel Church, viewer facing southeast

Bethel Church, viewer facing northeast

68 Macon County Courthouse, viewer facing northeast

Macon County Courthouse, viewer facing south-southwest

69 Macon County Courthouse, viewer facing southeast

Macon County Courthouse, viewer facing north-northwest

70 Macon County Courthouse and Annex viewer facing west-northwest

Macon County Courthouse viewer facing north-northeast

71 Macon County Courthouse Annex, viewer facing south

Macon County Courthouse Annex viewer facing north-northeast 72