Missouri Historical Revi Ew
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MISSOURI HISTORICAL REVI EW, CONTENTS The Missourian Walter B. Stevens A Century of Missouri M lisle Ernst C. Krohn How Clay County Celebrated Her Centennial Mrs. Ethel Massie Withers The Five Oldest Family Newspapers in Missouri Grace L. Gilmore Shelby's Expedition to Mexico John N. Edwards Pioneer Life in Southwest Missouri Wiley Britton. Historical Notes and Comments Historical Articles in Missouri Newspapers STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY ^MISSOURI JANUARY, 1923 THE MISSOURI HISTORICAL REVIEW Vol. XVII January, 1923 No. 2 CONTENTS The Missourian 117 WALTER B. STEVENS A Century of Missouri Music 130 ERNST C. KROHN How Clay County Celebrated Her Centennial 159 MRS. ETHEL MASSIE WITHERS The Five Oldest Family Newspapers in Missouri 16? GRACE L. GILMORE Shelby's Expedition to Mexico 187 JOHN N. EDWARDS Pioneer Life in Southwest Missouri 198 WILEY BRITTON Historical Notes and Comments 212 Historical Articles in Missouri Newspapers 239 r^§^> FLOYD C. SHOEMAKER, Editor The Missouri Historical Review is published quarterly. The sub scription price is $1.00 a year. A complete set of the REVIEW is still obtainable—Vols. 1-16, bound, $65.00; unbound. $32.00. Prices of separate volumes given on request. All communications should be addressed to Floyd C. Shoemaker, Secretary, The State Historical So ciety of Missouri, Columbia, Missouri. ** Entered as second-class matter at the postoffice at Columbia, Mis souri, under act of Congress, Oct. 3, 1917, Sec. H2-" CONTRIBUTORS WALTER B. STEVENS, author and journalist, is the most popular historical writer in Missouri. Mr. Stevens has over a score of books to his credit and in 1921 published a Centennial History of Missouri. He has held several important public positions, including the secretaryship of the Louisiana Pur chase Exposition at St. Louis. He is president of the State Historical Society. His home is in St. Louis. ERNST C. KROHN, pianist and composer, was born in New York City but has been a resident of St. Louis since 1899. He has been prominently identified with the musical life of St. Louis for the past fifteen years and has been professionally active as teacher and pianist. He was secretary of the Musicians' Guild of St. Louis for seven years and was also a member of the International Music Society, Music Teachers' National Association, and the Missouri Music Teachers' Association. He has composed many piano pieces, "Valse D'Amour," "Valse Serenade," and a "River Romance" being typical compositions. He has contributed articles on piano study to the Etude and the Musician. His monographic study of "The Bibliography of Music" ap peared in The Musical Quarterly. MRS. ETHEL MASSIE (ROBERT S.) WITHERS, was born in Illinois and reared in Missouri. She received her A. B. degree from the University of Missouri in 1903 and for three years taught history in the Liberty (Mo.) high school. In 1906 she married Robert Steele Withers, descendant of one of the oldest families in Clay county. Mrs. Withers has been prominently identified with women's club and organization work, and in 1915-1917 was state historian of the D. A. R. of Missouri. She compiled and illustrated the lecture "Pioneer ing in Missouri," contributed to W. H. Woodson's History of Clay County, and planned the Clay County Centennial Celebration for 1922. Miss GRACE L. GILMORE has been employed in The State Historical Society since June, 1922. She'received her degree of A. B. from the State University of Iowa, having specialized in history. Miss Gilmore contributed in the final compilation of the Messages and Proclamations of the Governors of the State of Missouri (1820-1864, 3 vols.), recently published by The State Historical Society, JOHN N. EDWARDS (deceased), one of the most widely known journalists of Missouri, was a member of Shelby's expedition to Mexico. He is regarded by some competent authorities as having been the greatest master of jour nalistic writing that the State has produced. WILEY BRITTON, author, public official, and Civil War veteran, is a native Missourian. Born in Newton county in 1842, he has spent much of his life in western and southwestern Missouri. From 1871 to 1905 he was special agent of the War Department and later special examiner of the Bureau of Pensions in investigating war claims in Missouri, where he examined fifteen thousand witnesses. Mr. Britton is the author of several valuable works on the Civil War, among which are The Civil War on the Border (2 vols.) and Memoirs of the Rebellion, 1863. (116) THE MISSOURIAN BY WALTER B. STEVENS Ninety-five out of the hundred Missourians were born in the United States. Seventy out of the hundred Missourians are natives of the state. These results Floyd C. Shoemaker obtains from the census of 1920 and presents in his recently published "Missouri and Missourians." "So Missourians means more than most people think," Mr. Shoemaker comments. In the "Autobiography of Missouri," prepared for the World's Fair of 1904, Dean Walter Williams, of the School of Journalism, defined the spirit of the united citizenship of Missouri and suggested the Missourian as a type: "The spirit of Missouri is the spirit of progress, tempered by conservatism. It rejects not the old because of its age, nor refuses the new because it is not old. It is the spirit of a community conscious of its own secure position, somewhat too careless at times of the world's opinion, hospitable, gen erous, brave. The dream of the greatest statesman is a nation of useful citizens dwelling in happy homes. In Missouri the dream finds realization. The noble Latin motto of the state has ever expressed—and does—the spirit of the united citizen ship: 'Let the welfare of the people be the supreme law.' " Some years ago Dean Williams, in a newspaper article, took up the question, What composite is the present-day Missourian? He traced the making of this composite through the century and one-half of white settlement. The Missou rian, he said, was first a Frenchman, then a Kentuckian. But in the forties and fifties came the Germans and the Irish. "Of all the foreign-born immigrants," said Dean Williams, "the German in number and effect upon the life of the state has been the largest and the chief." Following, soon after the Civil war, came settlers from every state in the Union and from every country of the globe, but more especially from the states north and east of Missouri and from the countries of Northern Europe. (117) 118 MISSOURI BISTORICIAL REVIEW. "This new immigration," said Dr. Williams, "has made Missouri more cosmopolitan but scarcely less conservative than it was previous to the Civil war." Coming down to still more recent times the Dean said: "The last quarter of a century has brought to Missouri immigrants from every section. The Kentuckian has not ceased to come but he is outnumbered now among the ranks of the immigrants by newcomers from Illinois, Iowa, Indiana and Ohio. The population of Missouri is no longer of the South but of the Middle West. It has strong admixture of Kentucky sentiment, but the North and East contribute much to its population and hence to its social, political and commercial life." A conclusion, interesting and significant, may be based upon Dr. Williams' tracing of Missouri immigration through the several generations. The Missouri melting pot has not been a hodge podge commingling of many elements. One ingredient of new population at a time has been added and for a period sufficient to permit assimilation. Thus the composite character of the Missouiian has been formed slowly and in enduring quality. The commingling of elements in Missouri's population was the subject of a bulletin of the state government a few years ago. It was shown that of Missourians adopted from other states at that time, Illinois led in numbers, and was followed by Kentucky, Kansas, Ohio, Indiana, Tennessee, Pennsylvania, Arkansas, New York, Virginia, Nebraska and Wisconsin, in that order. The remaining states of the Union, at the time of this analysis, had contributed 106,441 of their sons and daughters to Missouri. Of Illinois birth there were 186,691 Missourians at that time. Is the Missourian the best type of the American to-day? In his address at the centennial celebration of Missouri statehood, August 10, 1921, on the State Fair Grounds at Sedalia, Senator Reed said: "The material progress of the state, its sturdy adherence to the sound principles of free government and the high MARK TWAIN The Best Known Missourian {From a Painting by Carroll Beckwith) THE MISSOURIAN. 119 type of its Americanism is accounted for if we remember that Missouri is in no sense a sectional state. Originally settled by venturesome spirits from Virginia, Kentucky and Tennessee who brought with them the institutions, romance and chivalry of the old South, her later population came largely from the North and East, bringing with them the virtues and sterling qualities of that great region. From this commingling of the descendants of Cavalier and Puritan there was developed a people possessed of the virtues of both strains, yet free from the narrowness and prejudice which had characterized each blood. Thus was developed the Missourian, the typical American." Following Senator Reed, Senator Meyers, of Montana, a Missouiian abroad, enlarged upon the Missourian as the typical American: "Missouri, in different ways, occupies an unique position; unique in geography, population, history. In the North she is called the South. In the South she is called the North. In the East she is called the West. In the West she is called the East. She combines the good of all of these. She is almost the center of the United States, and may be considered the center of the world and of the universe.