Historical Review
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HISTORICAL REVIEW Columbia—Providence Plank Roac DGTOBER Published Quarterly The State Historical Society of Missouri COLUMBIA, MISSOURI THE STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF MISSOURI The State Historical Society of Missouri, heretofore organized under the laws of this State, shall be the trustee of this State—Laws of Missouri, 1899, R. S. of Mo., 1949, Chapter 183. OFFICERS 1959-1962 E. L. DALE, Carthage, President L. E. MEADOR, Springfield, First Vice President WILLIAM L. BRADSHAW, Columbia, Second Vice President GEORGE W. SOMERVILLE, Chillicothe, Third Vice President RUSSELL V. DYE, Liberty, Fourth Vice President WILLIAM C. TUCKER, Warrensburg, Fifth Vice President JOHN A. WINKLER, Hannibal, Sixth Vice President R. B. PRICE, Columbia, Treasurer FLOYD C. SHOEMAKER, Columbia, Secretary Emeritus and Consultant RICHARD S. BROWNLEE, Columbia, Director, Secretary, and Librarian TRUSTEES Permanent Trustees, Former Presidents of the Society RUSH H. LIMBAUGH, Cape Girardeau E. E. SWAIN, Kirksville GEORGE A. ROZIER, Jefferson City L. M. WHITE, Mexico Term Expires at Annual Meeting, 1962 F. C. BARNHILL, Marshall ROBERT NAGEL JONES, St. Louis FRANK P. BRIGGS, Macon FLOYD C. SHOEMAKER, Columbia HENRY A. BUNDSCHU, Independence WILLIAM C. TUCKER, Warrensburg W. C. HEWITT, Shelbyville ROY D. WILLIAMS, Boonville Term Expires at Annual Meeting, 1963 RALPH P. BIEBER, St. Louis LEO J. ROZIER, Perryville BARTLETT BODER, St. Joseph W. WALLACE SMITH, Independence L. E. MEADOR, Springfield JACK STAPLETON, Stanberry JOSEPH H. MOORE, Charleston HENRY C. THOMPSON, Bonne Terre Term Expires at Annual Meeting, 1964 WILLIAM R. DENSLOW, Trenton FRANK LUTHER MOTT, Columbia ALFRED O. FUERBRINGER, St. Louis GEORGE II. SCRUTON, Sedalia GEORGE FULLER GREEN, Kansas City JAMES TODD, Moberly ROBERT S. GREEN, Mexico T. BALLARD WATTERS, Marshfield EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE The twenty-eight Trustees, the President and the Secretary of the Society, the Governor, Secretary of State, State Treasurer, and President of the University of Missouri constitute the Executive Committee. FINANCE COMMITTEE Five members of the Executive Committee appointed by the President of the Society at each annual meeting of the Executive Committee constitute the Finance Committee. L. M. WHITE, Mexico, Chairman ELMER ELLIS, Columbia GEORGE A. ROZIER, Jefferson City W. C. HEWITT, Shelbyville T. BALLARD WATTERS, Marshfield Missouri Historical Review RICHARD S. BROWNLEE JAMES E. MOSS Editor Assistant Editor Published Quarterly by THE STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF MISSOURI COLUMBIA, MISSOURI VOL. LVII OCTOBER 1962 No. 1 The Missouri Historical Review is published quarterly at 119 S. Elson Street, Kirksville, Missouri. Send communications and change of address to The State Historical Society of Missouri, Columbia, Missouri. Second class postage is paid at Kirksville, Missouri. The Review is sent free to all members of The State Historical Society of Missouri. Membership dues in the Society are $1.00 a year or $20 for a life membership. The Society assumes no respon sibility for statements made by contributors to the magazine. CONTENTS Page IN DEFENSE OF JOHN CUMMINGS. By Harold C. Bradley 1 A MISSOURI CONFEDERATE IN THE CIVIL WAR. THE JOURNAL OF HENRY MARTYN CHEAVENS, 1862-1863. By James E. Moss 16 THE COLUMBIA—PROVIDENCE PLANK ROAD. By Paul C. Doherty 53 JAMES REDPATH, MISSOURI CORRESPONDENT. By James A. Hart 70 THE SAINTS BUILD A TEMPLE. By Roger Yarrington 79 HISTORICAL NOTES AND COMMENTS Those Active in Increasing the Society's Membership 89 New Members in the Historical Society 90 Missouri News 93 Local Historical Societies 102 Anniversaries 109 Monuments and Memorials 110 Notes Ill Obituaries 113 Historical Publications 115 MISSOURI HISTORY NOT FOUND IN TEXTBOOKS 120 JOHN S. MARMADUKE Back Cover THE COVER: This illustration portraying the building of the Columbia-Providence Plank Road was taken from a mural in the council chamber of the Columbia Municipal Building. The mural, painted by Kenneth Eugene Hudson during 1934-1935, consists of twelve 6' x 9' panels, and depicts the area's development from an early Indian settlement in all its simplicity to the advent of the industrial era. The subjects are general in nature and require no special explanation although several refer to specific incidents. Hudson explained the mural as "an attempt to sum up the surging forces that create a civilization rather than to glorify incidents in its development." For more on the Columbia-Providence Plank Road, see page 53. The artist was born in Xenia, Ohio, December 28, 1903, attended Ohio Weslcyan University, Delaware, Ohio, and received a B.F.A. degree at Yale in 1927. For two years he served as assistant professor in the School of Architecture and Allied Arts at the University of Oregon. He came to the University of Missouri in 1929 where he remained until 1938 serving as professor and chairman in the School of Fine Arts. Since 1938 he has been Dean of the School of Fine Arts at Washington University, St. Louis. IN DEFENSE OF JOHN CUMMINGS BY HAROLD C. BRADLEY* The one American in a thousand who recognizes the name of John A. Cummings knows it only as another in a long list of plain tiffs in civil liberties cases. Fewer know what he has to tell us about how to go on living as free men. Justice William O. Douglas has lamented that "during the 1940s and '50s legislatures, courts, and educational institutions in America forgot the lesson of the Cummings case."1 If it is unfortunate that we have forgotten the lesson of a case important in the history of our freedom, it is foolhardy for us to ignore the man responsible for the case and allow his story to fade from our consciousness. The glory of our jurisprudence is that it establishes and protects the liberty of the individual citizen, that it safeguards the conscience of each. This law was not worked out by wooden old men pondering abstract justice in cloistered chambers but argued out by lawyers confronted by citizens who would not suffer injustice in silence. John Cummings was such a man. To know something about him is to know more about the meaning of our law, how this meaning is established, and the importance of the so-called "little man" in history. Although he never attained historic stature before or after his brief interlude of notoriety, Cummings' name will live as long as there is an interest in Anglo-Saxon law. John Cummings died in 1873. His case, the result of a trial for preaching without taking an oath of loyalty to the State of Missouri was before the United States Supreme Court in 1866, but now it is impossible to gather any but the most basic facts about his life. Some of the little information about him which can be found in print is mistaken. It is said that he died as a result of his imprison ment.2 Apparently this writer did not know that Cummings was in jail only a week and that six years elapsed between the time of his release from jail and the day of his death. Someone reported that *Harold C. Bradley, S.J., M.A., a member of the faculty at Saint Mary's College, St. Marys, Kansas, is currently on a leave of absence to study in Bogota, Columbia. iWilliam O. Douglas, An Almanac of Liberty (New York, 1954), 205. *The Catholic Encyclopedia (New York, 1907), XIV, 539. Missouri Historical Review THE OATH OK LOYALTY PBE3CRIBED BY Ifil CQ1IOTIH AB0FT1B II 1105. 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J. P. Garasche was given an honorary degree by St. Louis University for having defended him, but the degree was awarded before the case came up.3 A third writer has said that if Cummings and his advisors planned to make a martyr out of him to gain publi city for the case they did a fine job.4 But Cummings seems to have started with no advisors and no plan. Finally it has been mistakenly said that the case gained its importance and notoriety from its precedence.5 Missouri got a new constitution in 1865. Four years of inter necine struggle, with the ruthless bellicosity of the guerrillas equally matched by the inevitable stupidity of the military, had left Missouri in 1865 a political viper's nest.