Seventy-Five Years on the Border
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NYPL RESEARCH LIBRARIES 3 3433 08192138 3 1 I To Tin: .m-:.noRV()r LlEUT.-CoL.rloHX .SllAW IkLLINO^S .n.D..D.C.L.,LL.D. FiR.sT ])iui:cTt)R or u TiiH Xi:\\""^f)RK PriJLic Library WHO I5V ni.S FORESIGHT ENERGY" AXl) .UJ.HIXLSTRATIVK AlUUTi" .^\.ADE EFFECTI\K IT.S FAR-RHACIIIXG IXFU'KXCE 111-: I.V NOT DE-XI) WHO ('.I\ 1:711 lAfK TO KX<n»l.El)<;E" JoHX -Sh^VV BlLLlXG-S .HE.nORIAI, KlND ForxDED BY AXXA P^SI-.^EK DRAPER \VP ,sru*- J ^^^D Yours truly, JAMES WILLIAMS SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER By JAMES WILLIAMS KANSAS CITY: Press of Standard Printing Co. 19 12 'i>-<^ THE NEW V )RK ^S^^^S'^jt?^^^ va^ vss>^ CHAPTER I. MY PARENTAGE. I trust my readers will not think me egotistical if I first mention my parentage, also a short sketch of my life work of 70 years at Midway Place, where I now live. My father, Luke Williams, and my mother, Louisa Beatty, were natives of Kentucky and came to Mis- souri early in the 19th century. They were married in Cooper County, at Boonville, Mo. They moved to Van Buren County, now Cass County, Mo., to where my first memory goes back—and removed to "Midway Place" April 30th, 1842, which I have ever since called my home. Luke Williams is a family name reaching back as far as we can trace our family—and the Baptist re- ligious faith is a heritage we claim to trace to the his- toric "Roger Williams." We claim to be lineal descend- ants of Roger Williams. My father was a hard working farmer, but found time to preach of the faith that was in him on Saturdays and Sundays, riding horseback frequently twenty-five miles home after services on Sunday. He fought the good fight and kept the faith, and has the promise in the Good Book of a great reward. He departed from us at the age of 38 years, on Nov. 2nd, 1848, leaving us in the wilderness in a double log cabin, two brothers, two sisters, and a weakly mother, with little to live on after the doctor bills and burial expenses were paid. See Chanter on ffoinp- to mllL 412 Missouri. Williams (J.). Seventy-Five Years on the Border: Remin- iscences of the Days when Clinton County was a Wild; Possum Hunting; Ft. Leavenworth in '55; Old Shawnee Mission. Some Unwritten History; Wild Riding among Wolves; Some Panther Stories; Across the Plains, etc. 1912. 8vo, 207 pp. Portrait and Plates. Kansas City, _' The author was the nephew of the celebrated Old Trapper and Guide, "Bill" Williams, of Fremont fame. SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER Language fails me to describe the privations, the win- sufifering, the cheerless gloom of that long terrible ter of '48 and '49. Chilblains, corns and bunions are yet painful reminders of it. I yet had a good, coura- geous mother and an overruling Providence decree that I should live to tell the painful story to my grand- children, 63 years afterward. In the next chapter I will take up the thread of my own life, mentioning frequently that good mother, who laid the foundation of honesty, probity and fair dealings with my fellow men, which has served me so well through my long business career. CHAPTER 2. AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF JAMES WILLIAMS. Taking up the thread of my life after my father's death, that brother Alex and I did not go to the bad (as nearly all of our surroundings were calculated to lead in that direction), I attribute to a good pious mother, and an overruling Providence. "There is a divinity that shapes our ends, rough hew them as we will." For a time I thought the backwoods cabin shin- dig, hoe-down dance was just the place for a young man to have a good time, but I soon found that the young men who attended those midnight revelries seldom had any money and frequently had a bottle of whiskey, and usually were exceedingly popular with the class of girls who attend those dances. Guess I was envious. So, in the early stage of the game, I decided that was not the kind of company I wanted to be found in by decent, respectable people, and I got out of that crowd, and stayed out. Those who lived here sixty or more years ago, will remember what a struggle it took to make ends meet at the end of the year. I've seen the time when eggs MY MOTHER SEVENTY. FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER went begging at 3 cents per dozen. I have carried them in baskets to Plattsburg or horseback at from 5 cents to 7 cents. I was a grown man before I ever had a suit of store clothes. All were home spun, woven and tailored, and the girls wore hoop skirts as large at the bottom hem as a good, big umbrella, (no hobble steel skirts then) ; grape vines were used before hoops got here. However, their cheeks were as rosy, their hearts as good, and their love as constant then as in this age of hats as big as their dress skirts were then. The means of getting an education sixty years ago were very meager. The log hut with split puncheon floor, with cracks so big that the boys, and girls, too, frequently fell through and hurt their legs in going to recite. It is funny to tell about now, but not so funny to the boy or girl who went through the floor. The others always laughed. And this was the only kind of a school house I ever attended. In fact, I graduated in just the kind of build- ing described, not more than four miles from Cameron. The teacher, however, neglected to give us our diplo- mas. Permit me to pay a tribute to that splendid young man, the teacher, Mr. John S. Wells. He could pronounce and spell every word in Webster's elemen- tary spelling book, without missing a word. The poor fellow met a tragic death shortly after at Warsaw, Mo. John S. Wells went to Warsaw, Mo., in an early day and started a surveyor's and land agency, fell in love with a nice lady. They went out driving on a rough road; their horse got frightened, ran away with them, throwing the lady out of the buggy. The lines wrapped around his feet, or legs, dragging him to death. I give this as I heard the story afterward. I was born at Boonville, Missouri, May 16th, 1834. In the old Webster Elementary Spelling-book, on the front leaf was the picture of a man climbing a rugged cliff on which stood the "Temple of Fame." I have been clambering up that rugged height for more than seventy years but I have not yet reached the goal. SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER As I get nearer, it seems to get higher, and more diffi- cult to gain its giddy summit. As to my business career, I was among the first to ship live stock, and I know I was the first man who shipped grain to St. Louis from Cameron in a commer- cial way. Grain at that time had to be sacked and re- Bhipped at Hannibal by steamer for St. Louis. I shipped thousands of sacks that way during war time. There were no bridges then spanning the Mississippi or Mis- souri rivers, save one at Clinton, Iowa. There were no banking facilities nearer than St. Joseph, where a strong military force was usually kept. All the interior banks had s«nt their specie either to and large cities or to Canada, for safe keeping. Gold silver were bought like any other commodity. Green backs were the circulating medium until the organi- zation of National Banks based on the credit of the government. At one time it took $2.85 in currency to equal $1.00 of in gold, hence the apparent high prices property. Gold dropped in Wall street immediately after Gen- eral Lee's surrender, from about $2.00 to 50 cents pre- mium which caused the so-called "Black Friday" panic, when Jay Gould laid the foundation for his great for- tune. In all the considerable business I did in Cameron and surrounding country, not a half dozen checks were of dol- passed. We carried the currency (thousands and lars) in our pockets, and paid on or before demand, my credit then was as good as now. I shipped the first carload of salt in barrels to Came- in sacks ron, from Chicago. All our salt formerly came from the Kanawa Salt Works, in West Virginia. I sold the salt at $5.00 per barrel, as fast as I could roll it to the car door. I charged little profit, as most of my custom- on ers had generously sold me their cattle, hogs, etc., credit until I shipped them. When I returned no grass grew under my feet until they were paid for. SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE BORDER Many is the time I've got off the rear end of the train and slipped around the stock lots, (which were then located where the big Standard Oil tanks now stand), and footed it home with several thousand dol- lars in my pockets, and cocked revolver in each hand, ready for instant action. The truth is, I was about as suspicious of some of the loafing militia soldiers, as I was of the Confederates or their sympathizers, hence I carefully dodged all of them.