Historical Review
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HISTORICAL REVIEW 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 and Librarian TRUSTEES Permanent Trustees, Former Presidents of the Society RUSH H. LIMBAUGH, Cape Girardeau E. E. SWAIN, Kirksville ALLEN MCREYNOLDS, Carthage L. M. WHITE, Mexico GEORGE A. ROZIER, Jefferson City G. L. ZWICK, St. Joseph Term Expires at Annual Meeting, 1960 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, 1961 RAY V. DENSLOW, Trenton FRANK LUTHER MOTT, Columbia ALFRED O. FUERBRINGER, St. Louis GEORGE H. SCRUTON, Sedalia GEORGE FULLER GREEN, Kansas City JAMES TODD, Moberly ROBERT S. GREEN, Mexico T. BALLARD WATTERS, Marshfield Term Expires at Annual Meeting, 1962 F. C. BARNHILL, Marshall RALPH P. JOHNSON, Osceola FRANK P. BRIGGS, Macon ROBERT N. JONES, St. Louis HENRY A. BUNDSCHU, Independence FLOYD C. SHOEMAKER, Columbia W. C. HEWITT, Shelbyville ROY D. WILLIAMS, Boonville EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE The thirty 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 FLOYD C. SHOEMAKER DONALD H. WELSH Editor Assistant Editor Published Quarterly by THE STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF MISSOURI VOL. 54 APRIL 1960 No. 3 CONTENTS Page FORTY-FIVE YEARS AS EDITOR AND AUTHOR OF MISSOURI HISTORY. By Floyd C. Shoemaker 225 THE PONY EXPRESS STARTS FROM ST. JOSEPH. By Olaf T. Ilagen 231 THE PONY EXPRESS IN RETROSPECT. By Donald II. Welsh 237 DR. BROWN'S ST. LOUIS. By John Francis McDermott 245 MISSOURI'S PROGRAM FOR HIGHWAY HISTORIC MARKING, 1959. PART I. Directed by Floyd C. Shoemaker. Inscriptions by Ruby M. Robins 254 THE CONTROVERSIAL DRED SCOTT DECISION. By Harold Schwartz 262 VIGNETTES OF FAMOUS MISSOURIANS. By Nancy Weatherly Sharp and Kitty Thomas Wilkinson 273 HISTORICAL NOTES AND COMMENTS 282 MISSOURI HISTORY NOT FOUND IN TEXTBOOKS 319 AUDRAIN COUNTY MUSEUM Verso Back Cover SAW MILL Back Cover THE COVER: This year marks the The cover picture, which depicts a centennial of the Pony Express, one of scene at a relay station, is from a paint the most colorful interludes in the his ing by Frederic Remington and is tory of American communication. The reproduced through the courtesy of the key observance in Missouri is being owner, The Thomas Gilcrease Institute staged at St. Joseph, the eastern termi of American History and Art, Tulsa, nal of the operation. Oklahoma. 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 Revieiv is sent free to all members of The State Historical Society of Missouri. Member ship dues in the Society are $1.00 a year or $20 for a life membership. The Society assumes no responsibility for statements made by contributors to the magazine. AN INVITATION The Officers and Trustees of The State Historical Society of Missouri are giving a luncheon in honor of Dr. Floyd C. Shoemaker, retiring Secretary of the Society, on May 18 at twelve noon in Room 214 of the Student Union, University of Missouri. Members of the Society and friends of Dr. Shoemaker are cordially invited to attend. As the seating capacity is limited, please send your reservation with your remittance of $2.50 each at your earliest convenience to Miss Marie Woods, Administrative Assistant, The State Historical Society of Missouri, Hitt and Lowry Streets, Columbia, Missouri. Fickets will not be mailed. They may be picked up at a table in the hall near the entrance to Room 214 beginning at eleven o'clock on May 18. No reservations will be accepted after May 12. FORTY-FIVE YEARS AS EDITOR AND AUTHOR OF MISSOURI HISTORY 1915-1960 BY FLOYD C. SHOEMAKER As this is the last number and volume of The Missouri Historical Review with which my name will be officially connected I here pre sent a resume of my 45 years connection with it as its editor. While copy for the July Review will be prepared under my supervision and will go to the printer by or before the day of my retirement as sec retary, on May 5, 1960, it will not officially carry my name as editor or secretary. I have also appended a list of the books of which I am author, editor, or co-editor, but have not compiled a list of the articles I have written for the Review and other magazines during these years. THE MISSOURI HISTORICAL REVIEW When I became editor of The Missouri Historical Review on May 5, 1915, the position came to me with my election that day to the office of secretary of the State Historical Society of Missouri. I had been assistant secretary to the Society since 1910 and was familiar with the duties of secretary, including the obtaining of appropriations but excluding the editing of the Review. On the day before, May 4, 1915, I had been elected secretary and treasurer of the Missouri Writers Guild organized that day. On May 7 I was twenty-nine years old. So those early days in May 1915 were red- letter days to me. The one thing I was unfamiliar with was editing the Review, although several of my articles had been published in it. To give it wider appeal and to make it more interesting was the immediate problem as its circulation to paid members had increased from 70 in 1906 to only 400 in 1915. There was little time available as copy for July had to be collected and prepared for the printer in a few days. I recalled a 20-page address I had delivered at the St. Joseph meeting of the Missouri Society of Teachers of History and Govern ment on November 13, 1914, on which I had worked for months and which had been favorably commented on. I scheduled this address, 226 Alissouri Historical Review "Six Periods of Missouri History," as the first article. It has since been the skeleton for the three Missouri school textbooks by Dr. Jonas Viles, Dr. C. H. McClure, and myself. For the second article I wrote a 7-page special appeal to Missouri club women and to observers of the recently legislated first Monday in October as ''Missouri Day." This was '"Missouri Day' Programs for Missouri Club Women," with a rather complete bibliography on each of the topics. The article was well received and is still referred to for these programs. The third article consisted of 870 lines of 7-point type listing "Historical Articles in Missouri Newspapers, April-May 1915." Six hundred and eighty-eight magazines and newspapers were read through these two months and 98 had one or more historical and biographical articles, a total of 401 articles. The series continued into the January 1927 Review and included newspaper articles from April 1915 to June 1925. I have gone into this series of articles at length because from it came three developments: first, the thousands of articles were typed on cards and became and still are valuable references for writers and research workers; second, the series in July 1921 gave birth to what is today the most popular section of the Review, "Missouri History Not Found in Textbooks;" and third, the series developed in 1924 into the Society's newspaper index over a period of 121 years of files in eight Missouri towns and covering 267 newspaper years, which now include 402,908 carded references. It is of interest to note that the July 1915 Review called attention to the expected completion of the new library building in the fall, as today the Society's quarters in the new East Wing will be completed this fall. The July Review contained 60 pages! The experimentation in the July 1915 Review to produce a maga zine that had reader interest and forwarded Missouri history and the Society has continued to the present. A corollary was attention to current historical news and events. In both world wars a series of articles on each relating to Missouri's participation was published. Missouri's centennial of statehood in 1920 and of admission to the Union in 1921 was given tremendous treatment, the 1920-1921 Review rising to 749 pages. But the quarterly was much more than a Time historical magazine. Features were introduced and continued or dropped as I gauged their worth, ever watching the paid membership barometer. I have always felt sold on "Missouri History Not Found in Textbooks," Forty-five Years as Editor and Author of Mo. History 227 and this feeling has been shared by the members. It will soon be forty years old and while it has varied in worth and interest, in rarity and suggestiveness, it has lived vigorously and reached The New Yorker peak in the 1940's and early 1950's.