MISSOURI HISTORICAL REVI EW, CONTENTS St. Joseph, Missouri, As A Center of the Cattle Trade Frank S. Popplewell The Evolution of A Frontier Society in Missouri, 1815- 1828, Part II .-.,, Hattie M. Anderson Letters of George Caleb Bingham to James S. Rollins, Part IV Edited by C. B. Rollins Missouriana Historical Notes and Comments Missouri History Not Found in Textbooks 5TATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY or MISSOURI VOL. XXXII JULY 1938 No. 4 OFFICERS OF THE STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF MISSOURI, 1938-1941 ALLEN McREYNOLDS, Carthage, President. WALTER B. STEVENS, St. Louis, First Vice-President. GEORGE A. ROZIER, Perryville, Second Vice-President. MARION C. EARLY, St. Louis, Third Vice-President. B. M. LITTLE, Lexington, Fourth Vice-President, JOHN T. BARKER, Kansas City, Fifth Vice-President. ROY H. MONIER, Carrollton, Sixth Vice-President. R. B. PRICE, Columbia, Treasurer. FLOYD C. SHOEMAKER, Secretary and Librarian. BOARD OF TRUSTEES Term Expires at Annual Meeting, 1939 WILSON BELL, Potosi. JUSTUS R. MOLL, Springfield. CHARLES B. DAVIS, St. Louis. ELMER N. POWELL, FORREST C. DONNELL, Kansas City. St. Louis. WM. SOUTHERN, JrH ELMER O. JONES, LaPlata. Independence. HENRY KRUG, Jr., St. Joseph. CHARLES L. WOODS, Rolla. Term Expires at Annual Meeting, 1940 JESSE W. BARRETT, St. Louis. W. J. SEWALL, Carthage. ALBERT M. CLARK, Richmond. H. S. STURGIS, Neosho. HENRY J. HASKELL, Kansas City. JONAS VILES, Columbia. McMILLAN LEWIS, St. Louis. L. M. WHITE, Mexico. WM. R. PAINTER, Carrollton. Term Expires at Annual Meeting, 1941 BEN L. EMMONS, St. Charles. ISIDOR LOEB, St. Louis. STEPHEN B. HUNTER, E. E. SWAIN, Kirksville. Cape Girardeau. CHAS, H. WHITAKER, WALDO P. JOHNSON, Osceola. Clinton. LANGDON R. JONES, Kennett. ROY D. WILLIAMS, Boonville. EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE The twenty-six 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. THE MISSOURI HISTORICAL REVIEW VOL. XXXII JULY 1938 NO. 1 CONTENTS Page St. Joseph, Missouri, As A Center of the Cattle Trade 443 FRANK S. POPPLEWELL The Evolution of A Frontier Society in Missouri, 1815-1828, Part II 458 HATTIE M. ANDERSON Letters of George Caleb Bingham to James S. Rollins, Part IV. 484 Edited by C. B. ROLLINS Missouriana 523 Historical Notes and Comments 550 Missouri History Not Found in Textbooks 596 *#s§g&: FLOYD C. SHOEMAKER, Editor The Missouri Historical Review is published quarterly. It is sent free to all members of the State Historical Society of Missouri. Membership dues in the Society are $1.00 a year. All communications should be addressed to Floyd C. Shoemaker, The State Historical Society of Missouri, Columbia, Missouri. The Society assumes no responsibility for statements made by contributors to the magazine. "Entered as second-class matter at the postoffice at Columbia, Missouri, under Act of Congress, October S, 1917, Sec. 422." CONTRIBUTORS POPPLEWELL, FRANK S., native Missourian, received his B. S. degree from the Kansas State Teachers College, Pittsburg, in 1931 and his M. A. degree from the University of Missouri in 1937. He is instructor in history in the St. Joseph (Mo.) Junior College. ANDERSON, HATTIE M., a native of Carroll county, Missouri, is now professor of history in the West Texas State Teachers College at Canyon, Texas. She received an A. M. degree from the Univeristy of Missouri in 1920 and a Ph. D. degree from the same institution in 1935. ROLLINS, C. B., native Missourian, is a graduate of the University of Missouri. He is interested in all phases of Missouri history and is an occasional contributor to the Missouri Historical Review. His home is in Columbia, Missouri. ST. JOSEPH, MISSOURI, AS A CENTER OF THE CATTLE TRADE* BY FRANK S. POPPLEWELL In order to get a proper perspective of St. Joseph, Mis­ souri, as a center of the cattle trade, it is necessary to return to the day when that town was a part of the great American frontier. Along the western borders of Missouri, Arkansas, and Iowa the advancing stream of home seekers seems to have halted for a quarter of a century between 1825 and 1850. On the upper Missouri river these settlers built the river towns of Independence, Westport, St. Joseph, and Council Bluffs— all of which served as gateways and supply stations for emi­ grants bound for the West. Beyond these settlements lay a vast and little known region referred to in school geogra­ phies as the ''Great American Desert," which in this early day was traversed by California gold seekers, Oregon emi­ grants, Indians, soldiers, and buffalo, but which in the 1860's was to become the scene of one of America's greatest industries, the range cattle business. The first white settlement of St. Joseph was made in 1803 by Joseph Robidoux, an employee of the American Fur Com­ pany. All up and down the frontier, this settlement was known as "Robidoux's" or "Blacksnake Hills." Father De Smet, the widely known missionary who labored among the Indian tribes of the northwestern United States, referred to it in 1838 as "one of finest locations on the river for the erection of a city."2 In 1845, a correspondent for the St. Louis Reveille wrote that St. Joseph had a population of "several hundred with upwards of a dozen stores, two or three hotels, cabinet making shops, wagon shops, and a half dozen lawyers."3 1This article is a summary of the author's masters thesis completed at the University of Missouri in June, 1937. 2Life, Letters, and Travels of Father De Smet Among the North American Indians, ed. by Hiram M. Chittenden and Alfred T. Richardson, Vol. Ill, p. 214. 3St. Joseph Gazette, August 15, 1845. (443) 444 MISSOURI HISTORICAL REVIEW The economic basis for the development of St. Joseph at this period was found in the business of furnishing supplies of oxen, mules, and provisions to emigrants bound for the West. Like all frontier communities, St. Joseph had little ready cash, for the farmers were still in debt for their lands. Any forces, therefore, which would create a demand for cattle, bacon, and lard, and bring money into the town would enrich the farmers and provide a strong impetus to the cattle trade. Such forces were adequately provided by the Oregon and California migrations and by the needs of the frontier military forts for cattle and their products. With the acquisition of the Oregon territory by the United States in 1846, the volume of traffic to that country through St. Joseph swelled into a veritable flood. A corre­ spondent for the St. Louis News, writing in St. Joseph in May, 1853, declared that "for the past two weeks roads leading into this city have been thronged with emigrant wagons, cattle, and horses, and our streets have been so crowded that it is with difficulty that you can get along the sidewalks."4 In the spring of 1854, it was reported that ten thousand head of stock for Oregon had been bought in the city.5 The second great customer of St. Joseph farmers during this period was Fort Leavenworth, the general depot for the distribution of supplies to all military establishments through­ out the West. These supplies were collected by steamboats plying up and down the Missouri river and calling at such towns as Leavenworth, Weston, and St. Joseph.6 When Horace Greeley visited Fort Leavenworth, he wrote that "no one who does not see can realize what a vast business this is . there is at least two million dollars invested in oxen, mules, and wagons."7 The Oregon migrations and the market furnished by the military forts were two powerful forces which established St. Joseph as a thriving western town. In the seven-year period between 1846 and 1853 the population grew from 964 to 2,257. The total value of the stock of goods in St. Joseph 4St. Joseph Gazette, May 25, 1853. 5St. Joseph Gazette, March 1, 1854. 6Hunt, Elvid, History of Fort Leavenworth, 1827-;1927, p. 97. 7Greeley, Horace, A Journey Across the Continent, p. 124. ST. JOSEPH, MISSOURI, AS CENTER OF CATTLE TRADE 445 stores in 1849 was over four hundred thousand dollars.8 Along with this rapid growth, two important lines of economic enterprise were developing—the rise of pork packing establish­ ments and the growth of overland freighting.9 The St. Joseph Gazette, in disseminating information to prospective emigrants, called attention to the fact that "there is a large Beef and Pork Packing Establishment here and the proprietors are prepared to furnish such articles at prices cheaper than can be procured in any other town in the West."10 By the first of December, 1848, two pork packing firms, one the Corby and McLaughlin, the other Baker and Holladay, had slaughtered about 1,500 hogs.11 Shortly before the Civil war, the David Pinger Pork Packing Company was estab­ lished and enjoyed a flourishing business for over twenty years.12 With the establishment of mining camps in California, and the increase in the number of settlers thereafter its ad­ mission into the Union in 1850, there developed the greatest market for beef cattle which St. Joseph enjoyed before the Civil war. The demand for beef in the mining camps was tremendous "as the men soon grow tired of salt bacon and pork."13 Cows could be bought in Missouri for ten dollars and sold in California for one hundred and fifty dollars per head.14 Enterprising stockmen from St. Joseph were to be found traversing Missouri, Arkansas, and Iowa in search of cheap cattle to be sold in St. Joseph during the spring emi­ gration.15 It was estimated by the local press that ten thou­ sand head of cattle crossed the Missouri river in May, 1853, and that one hundred thousand would be sent across the prairies during the summer.16 The problem of communication, particularly that of rail­ road connections with eastern markets, was common to all sSt.