Historical Review

— The State Historical Society of Missouri

COLUMBIA, MISSOURI BOARD OF EDITORS

LAWRENCE 0. CHRISTENSEN SUSAN M. HARTMANN University of Missouri-Rolla Ohio State University, Columbus

WILLIAM E. FOLEY ALAN R. HAVIG Central Missouri State University, Stephens College, Warrensburg Columbia

JEAN TYREE HAMILTON DAVID D. MARCH Marshall Kirksville

ARVARH E. STRICKLAND University of Missouri-Columbia

COVER DESCRIPTION: Henry J. Weber established a nursery in southwestern St. Louis in the 1860s. By the turn of the century, the family-owned and -operated business had become one of the preeminent retail and wholesale nurseries in Missouri. Kenneth W. Keller traces the rise and decline of this business in "Merchandising Nature: The H. J. Weber and Sons Nursery," beginning on page 307. [Cover illustration courtesy of the L. H. Bailey Hortorium Library, Cornell University; tint added] MISSOURI HISTORICAL REVIEW

Published Quarterly by THE STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF MISSOURI

COLUMBIA, MISSOURI

JAMES W GOODRICH EDITOR

LYNN WOLF GENTZLER ASSOCIATE EDITOR

CHRISTINE MONTGOMERY RESEARCH ASSISTANT

ANN L. ROGERS RESEARCH ASSISTANT

Copyright 1995 by The State Historical Society of Missouri 1020 Lowry Street, Columbia, Missouri 65201

The Missouri Historical Review (ISSN 0026-6582) is owned by the State Historical Society of Missouri and is published quarterly at 10 South Hitt, Columbia, Missouri 65201. Send communications, business and editorial correspondence, and change of address to the State Historical Society of Missouri, 1020 Lowry Street, Columbia, MO 65201. Second class postage is paid at Columbia, Missouri.

SOCIETY HOURS: The Society is open to the public from 8:00 A.M. to 4:30 P.M., VOLUME LXXXIX Monday through Friday, and Saturday from 9:00 A.M. to 4:30 P.M., except legal holidays. NUMBER 3 Holiday Schedule: The Society will be closed May 27-29 for Memorial Day and on July 4. APRIL, 1995 THE STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF MISSOURI The State Historical Society of Missouri, heretofore organized under the laws of the State, shall be the trustee of this State-Laws of Missouri, 1899, R.S. of Mo., 1969, chapter 183, as revised 1978. OFFICERS 1992-1995 Avis G. TUCKER, Warrensburg, President JAMES C. OLSON, Kansas City, First Vice President SHERIDAN A. LOGAN, St. Joseph, Second Vice President VIRGINIA G. YOUNG, Columbia, Third Vice President NOBLE E. CUNNINGHAM, Columbia, Fourth Vice President R. KENNETH ELLIOTT, Liberty, Fifth Vice President ROBERT G. J. HOESTER, Kirkwood, Sixth Vice President ALBERT M. PRICE, Columbia, Treasurer JAMES W. GOODRICH, Columbia, Executive Director, Secretary, and Librarian

TRUSTEES Permanent Trustees, Former Presidents of the Society WILLIAM AULL III, Lexington LEO J. ROZIER, Perryville FRANCIS M. BARNES III, Kirkwood ROBERT C. SMITH, Columbia RUSH H. LIMBAUGH, Cape Girardeau

Term Expires at Annual Meeting, 1995 WALTER ALLEN, Brookfield W. ROGERS HEWITT, Shelbyville JAMES A. BARNES, Raytown EMORY MELTON, Cassville VERA H. BURK, Kirksville DOYLE PATTERSON, Kansas City RICHARD DECOSTER, Canton STUART SYMINGTON, JR., St. Louis Term Expires at Annual Meeting, 1996 HENRIETTA AMBROSE, Webster Groves FREDERICK W. LEHMANN IV, H. RILEY BOCK, New Madrid Webster Groves LAWRENCE O. CHRISTENSEN, Rolla GEORGE MCCUE, St. Louis ROBERT S. DALE, Carthage WALLACE B. SMITH, Independence Term Expires at Annual Meeting, 1997 ILUS W. DAVIS, Kansas City DALE REESMAN, Boonville JOHN K. HULSTON, Springfield ARVARH E. STRICKLAND, Columbia JAMES B. NUTTER, Kansas City BLANCHE M. TOUHILL, St. Louis BOB PRIDDY, Jefferson City HENRY J. WATERS III, Columbia

BOARD OF TRUSTEES The Board of Trustees consists of one Trustee from each Congressional District of the State and fourteen Trustees elected at large. In addition to the elected Trustees, the President of the Society, the Vice Presidents of the Society, all former Presidents of the Society, and the ex officio members of the Society constitute the Board of Trustees.

EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE Eight Trustees elected by the Board of Trustees together with the President of the Society consti­ tute the Executive Committee. The Executive Director of the Society serves as an ex officio member. WILLIAM AULL III, Lexington, Chairman ROBERT C. SMITH, Columbia FRANCIS M. BARNES III, Kirkwood BLANCHE M. TOUHILL, St. Louis H. RILEY BOCK, New Madrid Avis G. TUCKER, Warrensburg LAWRENCE O. CHRISTENSEN, Rolla VIRGINIA G. YOUNG, Columbia JAMES C. OLSON, Kansas City EDITORIAL POLICY The editors of the Missouri Historical Review welcome submission of articles and documents relating to the history of Missouri. Any aspect of Missouri history will be considered for publication in the Review. Genealogical studies, however, are not accepted because of limited appeal to general readers. Manu­ scripts pertaining to all fields of American history will be consid­ ered if the subject matter has significant relevance to the history of Missouri or the West.

Authors should submit two double-spaced copies of their manuscripts. The footnotes, prepared according to The Chicago Manual of Style, also should be double-spaced and placed at the end of the text. Authors may submit manuscripts on disk. The disk must be IBM compatible, preferably in WordPerfect. Otherwise, it must be in ASCII format. Two hard copies still are required, and the print must be letter or near-letter quality. Dot matrix submissions will not be accepted. Originality of subject, general interest of the article, sources used, interpretation, and style are criteria for acceptance and publication. Manuscripts should not exceed 7,500 words. Articles that are accepted for publication become the property of the State Historical Society of Missouri and may not be published elsewhere without permis­ sion. The Society does not accept responsibility for statements of fact or opinion made by the authors.

Articles published in the Review are abstracted and indexed in Historical Abstracts, America: History and Life, Recently Published Articles, Writings on American History, The Western Historical Quarterly, and The Journal of American History.

Manuscripts submitted for the Review should be addressed to Dr. James W. Goodrich, Editor Missouri Historical Review The State Historical Society of Missouri 1020 Lowry Street Columbia, Missouri 65201 CONTENTS

GEORGE ENGELMANN AND THE LURE OF FRONTIER SCIENCE. By Michael Long 251

"A MOST UNEXAMPLED EXHIBITION OF MADNESS AND BRUTALITY": JUDGE LYNCH IN SALINE COUNTY, MISSOURI, 1859. PART 1. By Thomas G Dyer 269

CATALYST FOR TERROR: THE COLLAPSE OF THE WOMEN'S PRISON IN KANSAS CITY. By Charles F. Harris 290

MERCHANDISING NATURE: THE H. J. WEBER AND SONS NURSERY.

By Kenneth W. Keller 307

HISTORICAL NOTES AND COMMENTS

Society Libraries: Western Historical Manuscript Collection 327

News in Brief 329 Local Historical Societies 330

Gifts 340

Missouri History in Newspapers 343

Missouri History in Magazines 347

In Memoriam 353

Graduate Theses Relating to Missouri History 354

BOOK REVIEWS 355

BOOK NOTES 360

HISTORIC MISSOURI COLLEGES: GEORGE R. SMITH COLLEGE Inside Back Cover Missouri Historical Society, St. Louis

George Engelmann and the Lure of Frontier Science

BY MICHAEL LONG*

In December 1832 the young physician and naturalist George Engelmann arrived in the United States. He had left the German city of Frankfurt at age twenty-three to make his uncertain way in the New World. By his second winter in America, Engelmann was living in an Illinois cabin with a roof so full of holes that he could observe the stars from his bed. To make daily notes, he had to keep a pen warming by the fire to replace the one in his hand when the ink froze.1 Despite such obstacles, Engelmann eventually succeeded in his adopted

*Michael Long is an adjunct instructor in the media department at Webster University, St. Louis. He received a bachelor's degree in history from the University of Missouri-St. Louis.

1 Jacob Lindheimer, "Meine Reise und Aufenthalt in Mexiko" [My journey and stay in Mexico], in A Life Among the Texas Flora: Ferdinand Lindheimer's Letters to George Engelmann, ed. Minetta Altgelt Goyne (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1991), 13. 251 252 Missouri Historical Review country, as both a physician and a scientist. Indeed, during the fifty years he lived in and around St. Louis, he played an important role in American sci­ ence. He aided the French mapmaker Joseph N. Nicollet and the explorer John C. Fremont and corresponded with men like Asa Gray and Louis Agassiz of Harvard and William J. Hooker of Kew Gardens and dozens of other scientific persons around the globe. Engelmann encouraged and partly financed western plant collectors and wrote authoritative studies on American cacti, oaks, conifers, mistletoe, and grapes. Scientists Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Alexander von Humboldt, and Charles Darwin knew his work. In St. Louis he helped establish two scientific organizations and two botanical gar­ dens—the first of their kind west of the Mississippi—of which the Academy of Science of St. Louis and the Missouri Botanical Garden still survive. Why did George Engelmann, a talented, young, middle-class physician, trade the comforts of Europe for the hardships of America? Several reasons prompted him. In the 1830s the Karlsbad Decrees, adopted by the German Confederation in 1819 to control intellectual freedom at German universi­ ties, continued to stifle the free exchange of ideas. Government agents spied on professors and students, censored their writings, and outlawed stu­ dent groups like the Burschenschaften that called for the unification of Germany. In effect, the measures attempted to suppress student opposition to the conservative government. While enrolled at the University of Heidelberg in 1828, Engelmann had supported a brief student protest that failed. Forced to leave Heidelberg, he transferred to the University of Berlin, a move that the German authorities made difficult. Newly graduated by the 1830s, he still sympathized with the movement for intellectual free­ dom and German unification but despaired of progress in his homeland.2 Economic conditions, too, discouraged him. Early nineteenth-century Germany was filled with middle-class professionals who had little hope of rising in the world without wealthy patrons. Though Engelmann's father and mother owned a girls' school in Frankfurt and had some connections with prominent men, the family was not wealthy. Hard times had recently driven his parents and other relatives to consider emigrating to America. In fact, an uncle's offer to pay his expenses if Engelmann would invest money for him in the new land provided the immediate reason for the young naturalist to travel to the United States.3

2 George Julius Engelmann, "Sketch of the Life and Work of the Late George Engelmann," 4, 8-9, box 37, Biographies and Memorabilia, George Engelmann Papers, Missouri Botanical Garden Archives and Manuscript Collection, St. Louis. Hereafter cited as G. J. Englemann, "Sketch." This typescript includes a partial translation of the elder Engelmann's brief autobiography as well as supplemental material provided by the son. Engelmann's original autobiography, written in German, is missing. 3 Ibid., 2-5. For political and economic conditions in Germany at that time see Eda Sagarra, An Introduction to Nineteenth Century Germany (Harlow, England: Longman Group, 1980), 2, 44. George Engelmann and the Lure of Frontier Science 253

Another incentive for Engelmann's emigration has been little explored in previous accounts of his life: the lure of scientific riches in America. Evidence suggests that he became keenly aware of such opportunities avail­ able in the New World during an 1832 visit to Paris, where his stay predis­ posed him to become a traveling naturalist. Carrying out the role of scien­ tist in the tradition of the German explorer and naturalist Alexander von Humboldt, Engelmann often traveled to collect scientific information in Illinois, Missouri, and Arkansas during his first years in the United States. Engelmann's scientific ambitions, more than anything else, shaped and guided his future life in America. In an autobiographical sketch written at age seventy-one, Engelmann briefly outlined the circumstances that led to his emigration:

I was just making preparation to leave for Paris where I wanted to contin­ ue my studies when the emigration fever seized upon our family and I accompanied my father to Wachenheimer where a family meeting was held in April 1832 at the house of my Uncle Joseph. No definite plan could ever be agreed upon and I left for Paris where in place of medical studies I found only the cholera. Still Braun, Agassiz, Constadt, and other friends were there and we led a glorious life in scientific union. Then came the plan of my uncle [Joseph] ... to send me to America for the pur­ pose of investing money for him in that new country. I took up this propo­ sition at once.4

At first glance little connects Engelmann's brief trip to Paris—where he "led a glorious life in scientific union" with his friends—and his decision to emigrate. Other sources, however, suggest that the Paris trip mentally pre­ pared the young man for a journey to frontier America. What had made life so "glorious" in Paris for Engelmann was the close association of his friends, Alexander Braun and Louis Agassiz, with Humboldt and the French scientist Georges Cuvier. From these older men, Braun and Agassiz—and eventually Engelmann—heard stories of exploration and discovery and learned of the possibilities still awaiting young men willing to travel to the scientifically unexamined regions of the earth.

4 G. J. Engelmann, "Sketch," 4-5. No definitive biography of George Engelmann exists. The lengthiest treatment to date is Patricia Timberlake, "George Engelmann: Scientist at the Gateway to the American West, 1809-1860" (master's thesis, University of Missouri- Columbia, 1984), which covers only the first two-thirds of Engelmann's life. Shorter works on Engelmann include William G. Bek, "George Engelmann, Man of Science," parts 1-4, Missouri Historical Review 23 (January 1929): 167-206; (April 1929): 427-446; (July 1929): 517-535; 24 (October 1929): 66-86; [Asa Gray], "George Engelmann," Proceedings of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences 19 (1884): 516-522; Enno Sander, "George Engelmann," Academy of Science of St. Louis Transactions 4 (1878-1886): 1-18. In describ­ ing Engelmann's journey to the United States, all these authors rely mainly upon information found in Engelmann's autobiographical sketch. 254 Missouri Historical Review

Braun and Agassiz had arrived in Paris before Engelmann, in the winter of 1831, and lost no time in establishing themselves in the scientific life of the city. Agassiz, especially, made important connections. Within a week of his arrival, he met Cuvier, one of the leading zoological anatomists in Europe. After seeing Agassiz's work on fossil fishes, Cuvier magnanimously gave up his plans to write a book on the subject and opened his home and workplace at the Jardin des Plantes (the Natural History Museum) to Agassiz.5 Shortly after, Agassiz met Humboldt, who gave money and advice to the young man. Humboldt sometimes accompanied Agassiz to Cuvier's public lectures on the history of science. At other times Humboldt visited Agassiz and Braun in their modest rooms on the Rue Copeau to discuss scientific subjects with them.6 Engelmann joined his former classmates in Paris after the unproductive family meeting in April 1832.7 He arrived in time to hear Cuvier lecture but

5 Agassiz to his father, 18 December 1831, and Agassiz to his sister Olympe, 15 January 1832, in Elizabeth Cary Agassiz, Louis Agassiz, His Life and Correspondence (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1886), 1: 162-163; Jules Marcou, Life, Letters, and Works of Louis Agassiz (New York: Macmillan, 1896), 1: 39. 6 Louis Agassiz, Address Delivered on the Centennial Anniversary of the Birth of Alexander von Humboldt (Boston: Boston Society of Natural History, 1869), 43-45. 7 C. Mettenius, Alexander Braun's Leben, nach seinem handschriftlichen Nachlass [Alexander Braun's life, from his handwritten unpublished works] (Berlin: G. Reimer, 1882), 219, n. State Historical Society of Missouri

Louis Agassiz, who later became a zoologist and a Harvard professor, introduced Engelmann to a number of well-known scientists during his visit to Paris in 1832. George Engelmann and the Lure of Frontier Science 255 missed meeting Humboldt, who had returned to Germany.8 Nonetheless, Engelmann learned about Humboldt and Cuvier from his friends, for he was part of the intimate circle that gathered in their rooms at night to share food, drink, and conversation on scientific topics. During these lively evenings Braun and Agassiz probably would have regaled Engelmann with Cuvier's stories of recent travelers to India and South America and Humboldt's tales from the Amazon.9 Agassiz was beginning to think seriously of becoming a traveling naturalist; perhaps Engelmann also entertained a similar idea. During the 1820s Engelmann had received valuable botanical training under Professor Johannes Becker at the Senckenberg Institute in Frankfurt. Often Engelmann and other students had risen before five o'clock to tramp with the professor through streams, ponds, and fields to collect specimens.10 Less than a year after Engelmann received his medical degree in 1831, the great German poet and scientist Johann Wolfgang von Goethe praised Engelmann's ability as an observer and a recorder of the natural world. Goethe received a copy of the young man's inaugural dissertation, written on the subject of plant monstrosities, in February 1832 and was impressed by the work. Asking for more information about Engelmann, he paid him a high compliment when he offered the young man the use of his unpublished botanical notes and sketches.11 But Goethe's death on March 22, 1832, closed that door forever. Luckily, in the summer of 1832, Engelmann received the offer from his Uncle Joseph to serve as an investment agent in America, with the uncle paying all expenses. Surely the duties of an investment agent would overlap with those of a traveling naturalist. Engelmann accepted the offer and soon left Europe for the American frontier. In December 1832 he arrived in Baltimore. After a brief visit in Philadelphia, then the scientific capital of the United States, he traveled to St. Louis—probably by steamboat down the Ohio River and up the

8 George Engelmann, "Briefe aus Arkansas, geschrieben im Fruhjahre 1837" [Letter from Arkansas, written in the spring of 1837], Das Westland (Heidelberg: Joseph Engelmann, 1837): 326. Though Cuvier died suddenly on May 13, 1832, Engelmann must have heard him speak publicly at least once, for he refers to a notebook in which he once set down the scien­ tist's lectures ["einst Cuvier's ... Vortrage niederlegte"]. For a slightly different interpretation of this passage, as well as an annotated English translation of the rest of the letter, see Jerome Jansma and Harriet H. Jansma, "Engelmann Revisits Arkansas, The New State," Arkansas Historical Quarterly 51 (winter 1992): 328-356. On Das Westland see n. 40 in this article. 9 Agassiz, Louis Agassiz, 1: 196; Marcou, Life of Agassiz, 1: 48. 10 Gustave Koerner, Memoirs of Gustave Koerner, 1809-1896, Life-sketches Written at the Suggestion of his Children, ed. Thomas J. McCormack (Cedar Rapids, Iowa: The Torch Press, 1909), 1:43. 11 Goethe to Maria von Willemer, 23 February 1832, Briefwechsel zwischen Goethe und Marianne von Willemer (Suleika) [Correspondence between Goethe and Marianne von Willemer (Suleika)], ed. Th. Creizenach (Stuttgart: J. G. Cotta'schen, 1878), 324-325. 256 Missouri Historical Review

Mississippi, which did not freeze over that year.12 For the next six months he lived ten miles west of the city with a friend of his uncle, "geologizing and botanizing." Using part of his expense money, he purchased a good horse and named it Wolff.13 Engelmann likely did not invest any other part of his uncle's money until the summer of 1833, when another uncle from Germany joined him in St. Louis. This uncle, Frederick T. Engelmann, brought his wife and children with him and decided to buy a farm about twenty miles east of St. Louis in the Shiloh Valley near Belleville, Illinois. But Uncle Fritz, as he was known, had only enough money to purchase one hundred acres and a small farmhouse—a house too small to accommodate family and friends—so Engelmann agreed to loan his uncle six hundred dol­ lars toward the purchase of an adjacent farm and cabin. In this way the nephew insured Uncle Joseph's investment by keeping it in the family.14 Moreover, as part of the family, George Engelmann decided to move with his relatives and friends to Illinois and live on the upper farm, which housed the bachelors. The bachelors' farm quickly became Engelmann's scientific headquar­ ters. From the log cabin he recorded daily temperatures, prepared snake- skins, and stuffed wild birds. Though not a trained marksman, he began to accompany relatives and friends on hunting trips. After purchasing an American long rifle, he practiced shooting—inside the small cabin. According to his roommate and cousin Theodore, George would sit on a bed and read a book until one of the mice that infested their lodgings began to run along the wall. Engelmann would then quietly raise his gun and "burn up" the mouse.15 He soon graduated to larger game. Once while riding by a prairie near Lebanon, Illinois, Engelmann and a companion surprised a herd of deer. Though Engelmann raised his rifle, the sound of the horses' hooves on the frozen soil scattered the herd before he could shoot. Another time, down by the spring where the bachelors fetched their drinking water about a hundred yards from the cabin, Engelmann spied a wild turkey. He took aim and

12 G. J. Engelmann, "Sketch," 7. The ship that brought Engelmann to the United States remains unidentified. George Engelmann, "Das Klima der Mississippigegenden, insbesondere der Gegend von St. Louis" [The climate of the Mississippi region, particularly the area of St. Louis], Das Westland (1837): 54. 13 Koerner, Memoirs, 1: 288. Neither the name of the uncle's friend nor the exact loca­ tion of his residence is known. Theodore Engelmann, Reminiscences, trans. Joseph Casimir Kircher, 8, Missouri Historical Society, St. Louis. [Typescript translation of Erinnerungen aus meinem Leben, c. 1885]. 14 Koerner, Memoirs, 1: 293, 296, 300; indenture between Benjamin Watts, Jr., and Frederick Theodore Engelmann, 10 August 1833, Grantee Index (deeds 1790 through 1908), Book G, 193, Recorder of Deeds, Belleville, Illinois. George Engelmann is listed as a witness. 15 Ada M. Klett, "Belleville Germans Look At America (1833-1845)," Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society 40 (March 1947): 32; T. Engelmann, Reminiscences, 44. George Engelmann and the Lure of Frontier Science 257

State Historical Society of Missouri

Although Engelmann's scientific pursuits continued to dominate his time, he took an interest in hunting while living on his uncle's homestead in Illinois. fired, but his shot only wounded the bird. After a prolonged chase, George and Theodore finally brought the turkey home, whereupon George mea­ sured its wingspan. Impressed by the bird's size and quality, he announced that he would send it to the museum in Berlin. Science, however, cannot fill every need; the turkey traveled only as far as the Engelmann table.16 Engelmann also collected and dried many plant specimens, among them, no doubt, spectacular prairie flowers that would have been novel to him. By the end of summer 1833, he had sent a collection of seeds to the Senckenberg Institute in Frankfurt, where a former botanical classmate, Georg Fresenius, directed the herbarium. The gift enabled Fresenius to grow some of the seeds and provide European researchers with living plants for study, instead of the usual dried herbarium specimens.17 In America, Engelmann engaged in more than hunting and collecting. With the other bachelors on the farm, he sometimes discussed art, politics, and science, helping Theodore to keep abreast of recent developments. Fellow roommate Gustave Koerner, a young lawyer who eventually became lieutenant governor of Illinois and a friend of Abraham Lincoln, served as Engelmann's main intellectual partner in these discussions. Koerner and Engelmann "frequently conversed about the many books written by

16 Koerner, Memoirs, 1: 327; T. Engelmann, Reminiscences, 44. 17 Fresenius to Engelmann, 19 August 1834, Engelmann Papers. 258 Missouri Historical Review

Germans concerning the United States, and how very unsatisfactory and misleading most of them were." One of the books that came under fire (Koerner subjected it to a critical essay) was Report on a Journey to the Western States of North America, written by Gottfried Duden and published in Germany in 1829.18 Duden, a German lawyer, had lived in Missouri for several years in the 1820s and wrote to encourage German migration to the area. Among other things, his book depicted favorable weather conditions in the Missouri region. Duden claimed that the winters in the Mississippi Valley featured mild weather with only an occasional, brief snow and cold temperatures lasting no longer than two days. Yet, during the winter of 1833-1834 a foot of snow fell on the farm in Illinois, and temperatures dropped below freez­ ing and stayed there for over a week. Engelmann and Koerner thought that any Germans contemplating a move to the area should know the truth about local weather conditions.19 Throughout his life in America, Engelmann carefully and conscien­ tiously recorded daily temperatures and other meteorological information. Memory, he knew, could play tricks with the weather; records would tell the truth. Furthermore, as a doctor Engelmann was especially interested in the climate because he believed, as did many physicians before the science of bacteriology, that weather was primarily responsible for the onset of disease. During the hot summer of 1833, for instance, when Engelmann first met his Uncle Fritz's party in St. Louis, he had witnessed the deaths of four of the group's sixteen members, caused by what was then called "intermittent fever" (probably malaria) and endemic to St. Louis at the time. Engelmann and another German doctor had looked on helplessly while even American doctors familiar with local diseases could not save the immigrants. That early incident may have increased Engelmann's determination to study the climatic causes of disease and to publish his findings in 1853 in the St. Louis Medical and Surgical Journal.20 He had an additional reason for appointing himself chief meteorologist of the Mississippi Valley, one that helps explain why, even after the germ theory of disease made his medical-meteorological studies obsolete, he con­ tinued to study the climate for nearly fifty years. Engelmann believed in the Humboldtian view of nature, which sought to describe the entire physical universe.

18 Klett, "Belleville Germans," 32-33; Koerner, Memoirs, 1:411. 19 Gottfried Duden, Report on a Journey to the Western States of North America and a Stay of Several Years Along the Missouri (During the Years 1824, 25, '26, and 1827), ed. James W. Goodrich et al. (Columbia: The State Historical Society of Missouri and the University of Missouri Press, 1980), 156-157; Koerner, Memoirs, 1: 331, 411. 20 Koerner, Memoirs, 1: 288-289; George Engelmann, "The Meteorological Causes of Our Climatic Diseases," St. Louis Medical and Surgical Journal 11 (1853): 226-232. George Engelmann and the Lure of Frontier Science 259

Engelmann shared many intellectual conver­ sations with fellow German immigrant Gustave Koerner.

State Historical Society of Missouri

Though Engelmann had not met Humboldt in Paris in 1832, he scarcely could have avoided the great man's influence. Not only did his friend Agassiz have a special relationship with Humboldt, but Engelmann's father was a friend of Karl Ritter, the cofounder, with Humboldt, of modern geog­ raphy.21 Ritter taught at the University of Berlin, where Humboldt lectured on physical geography from November 1827 to April 1828, shortly before Engelmann transferred there as a student. Humboldt's extremely popular lectures, given to students and professors from all disciplines, did much to introduce science to the general public in Germany.22 Indeed, though largely forgotten now, Humboldt was one of the most famous international scientists of his age. In the early 1800s he had explored the Upper Orinoco and Amazon Rivers in South America, collected new plant and animal species, taken temperature and barometric pressure read­ ings, set a world altitude record by climbing Mount Chimborazo in Ecuador, and dined in Washington, D.C, with President Thomas Jefferson. In his per­ sonal narrative of that trip, published around 1814, Humboldt acknowledged that his most important goal had been to collect facts that would further the science of physical geography. Humboldt wanted to gather as many new facts as possible and to discover relationships between those facts— "the

21 G. J. Engelmann, "Sketch," 2. 22 Douglas Botting, Humboldt and the Cosmos (New York: Harper and Row, 1973), 232-233. 260 Missouri Historical Review eternal ties which link the phenomena of life, and those of inanimate nature." In botany, one of his favorite subjects, Humboldt stressed not only "the rela­ tions the plants have to each other" but also their relationship "with the soil whence they spring" and "the air which they inhale and modify."23 Humboldt continued to seek these "eternal ties" throughout his career. His Berlin lectures on physical geography grew into one of his most famous works, Cosmos, which he finally published in the 1840s. In Cosmos Humboldt once again acknowledged his desire "to comprehend the phenom­ ena of physical objects in their general connection, and to represent nature as one great whole, moved and animated by internal forces."24 This grand view of nature required close attention to many individual branches of sci­ ence—such as botany, geology, geography, and meteorology—and to the relationships between them. In botany, soil and rock formations, altitude from sea level, and distance from the equator as well as local climate deter­ mined what plants would grow in a given area. Botany, geology, geography, and meteorology—all were connected and had to be grasped to understand the worldwide distribution of plants.25 Engelmann observed and collected in Humboldtian fashion to increase his total understanding of the western frontier. Though botany was his favorite science, he did not—indeed, could not—limit himself to its study if he wanted to fully understand the subject. He studied the geology of St. Louis, particularly its limestone, which he observed in many area quarries.26 After traveling to lead and iron mines in southern Missouri, he wrote about a simple method of assaying gold and silver.27 He also painstakingly fol­ lowed the weather. In short, his work reveals that, like Humboldt, Engelmann believed in the connectedness of phenomena and the importance of the search to find unity within nature.

23 Alexander von Humboldt and Aime Bonpland, Personal Narrative of the Travels to the Equinoctial Regions of the New Continent, During the Years 1799-1804 . . . , trans. Helen Maria Williams (London, 1814-1829), 1: iii, v. The first edition was published in French. A German edition of the work appeared between 1815 and 1832. 24 Alexander von Humboldt, Cosmos: A Sketch of a Physical Description of the Universe, trans. E. C. Otte (London: Henry G. Bohn, 1849), 1: ix. The first and second volumes of the German edition appeared in 1845 and 1847. 25 Helmut de Terra, Humboldt: The Life and Times of Alexander von Humboldt, 1769- 1859 (New York: Alfred Knopf, 1955), 52; Botting, Humboldt and the Cosmos, 52-53; Humboldt, Cosmos, 1: x. 26 George Engelmann, "Remarks on the Melonites multipora," American Journal of Science and Arts, 2d ser., 3 (January 1847): 124; George Engelmann, "Remarks on the St. Louis Limestone," ibid., 119-120. 27 George Engelmann, "Briefe geschrieben auf einer Reise in den sudwestlichsten Theilen der Vereinigten Staaten im Jahr 1835" [Letters written on a trip to the southwestern parts of the United States in the year 1835], Das Westland (1837): 145, 157; George Engelmann, "Separation of silver or gold from lead," American Journal of Science and Arts, 1st ser., 42 (January-March 1842): 394-395. George Engelmann and the Lure of Frontier Science 261

By the mid-1830s Engelmann believed that he must widen his search beyond the middle Mississippi Valley. He had lived in the Belleville area for almost two years, collecting specimens, measuring air temperatures, and making forays into Missouri and other parts of Illinois, while only occasion­ ally practicing medicine. Rural Illinois did not provide a lucrative practice. In those two years in the Belleville region, only about fifteen out of eighty German immigrants fell ill; for the most part, Engelmann concluded, the area and the immigrants were healthy.28 Despite his pronouncement on the health of the region, Engelmann dis­ couraged his parents from coming to America to join him and begin life anew. He did not think that they would be in their "proper sphere" in the cosmopolitan atmosphere of Philadelphia or New York, much less in the rugged town of St. Louis. Engelmann, too, was beginning to feel out of place; he considered returning to Germany, which meant that he would have to find another place to practice medicine long enough to earn money for passage. Undoubtedly, this idea prompted him to move across the river to St. Louis in late 1834 or early 1835, hoping that a town approaching ten thousand residents would increase his income. He moved in with his cousin Theodore, who was also seeking his fortune in the big city, at a small house at Second and Chestnut Streets.29 The attempt at city medicine did not last long. Warmer weather stirred Engelmann's wanderlust and revived his hopeful spirit, and in the spring of 1835, he packed his medicines, chemicals, notebooks, and collecting materi­ als and left the Mississippi Valley. Though excited, he was also sad; he wondered if he would ever see his friends and relatives again.30 Heading south and west into Arkansas and Indian Territory—the frontier—he hoped to find places where few naturalists had been. He might practice medicine among the sparse population; with any luck, he would make scientific dis­ coveries. Maps for these places were often unreliable or nonexistent, but if they failed him, he would let his adventuresome spirit be the guide. He scorned the direct, known route to Little Rock, choosing instead the wind­ ing, unsure path through northwestern Arkansas. Such roads, of course, had their dangers. A shopkeeper he met in Missouri warned him of "half-breed Indians" who stole horses at night along the border.31 By letter, Alexander Braun cautioned him to take care among the Native Americans who had been banished from their eastern tribal lands

28 George Engelmann, "Die deutsche Niederlassung in Illinois; fiinf Meilen ostlich von Belleville (mit einer Charte)" [The German settlement in Illinois, five miles east of Belleville (with a map)], Das Westland (1837): 286. 29 G. J. Engelmann, "Sketch," 14; T. Engelmann, Reminiscences, 48. 30 George Engelmann, "Briefe geschrieben auf einer Reise . . . 1835," Das Westland (1837): 146. 31 Ibid., 157, 159. 262 Missouri Historical Review

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Missouri Botanical Garden Archives

A Sample Page From George Engelmann's Botanical Sketchbook George Engelmann and the Lure of Frontier Science 263 and forced to live farther west. The consequences of uprooting Indian tribes could prove deadly for white travelers—earlier that year Florida Seminoles had killed the German botanist and plant collector Edward Leitner, who was experienced at traveling alone in the Southeast.32 Perhaps that is why Engelmann explored only as far west as Fort Gibson in Indian Territory (near the modern-day border of Oklahoma and Arkansas), although he may not have been permitted to explore farther west. At any rate, he did not stay long at the fort.33 Other naturalists had been in the area: Thomas Nuttall explored the Arkansas River region in 1819, and Army physician Zina Pitcher, stationed at Fort Gibson, collected plant specimens from 1831 to 1834.34 Engelmann, no doubt a little discouraged, decided to head east. At Hot Springs, Arkansas, he observed plants, animals, and geological formations. He also made chemical tests on the spring waters, tasted them, and reported their medicinal effects. Although he judged the waters and the climate of the area to be healthful, he did not settle there or establish a med­ ical practice. Perhaps he thought of his fiancee, Dorothea Horstmann, who was still in Germany and waiting to join him in America. To Engelmann the Hot Springs area remained "wild" and "unsettled," filled with land specula­ tors and gamblers—no doubt an unsuitable place to bring a bride.35 In addi­ tion, by the fall of 1835, Engelmann's luck had changed. While crossing swollen streams and rivers—a risky business for a nonswimmer—he had lost plant and other scientific specimens. He also ran short of cash. To raise money, he sold most of his remaining equipment, including his lame horse. Finally, he became ill, probably from malaria, and may have received med­ ical assistance from a black family in Arkansas, enough to enable him to reach the Mississippi River.36 There, the ailing scientist boarded a steamboat headed north to St. Louis and spent what must have been a miserable trip

32 Braun to Engelmann, 29 August 1835, in Mettenius, Alexander Braun's Leben, 296- 299; Jeannette E. Graustein, Thomas Nuttall, Naturalist: Explorations in America, 1808-1841 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1967), 274. 33 Engelmann's itinerary can be partly traced from an extant page of a travel notebook. See box 31, Arkansas Reise, Miscellaneous Botanical Notes, Engelmann Papers. 34 Susan Delano McKelvey, Botanical Exploration of the Trans-Mississippi West, 1790- 1850 (Jamaica Plain, Mass.: The Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University, 1955), 443-444. 35 George Engelmann, "Die heissen Quellen in Arkansas" [The hot springs in Arkansas], Das Westland (1837): 15, 20-25. See Jerome Jansma and Harriet Jansma, "George Engelmann in Arkansas Territory," Arkansas Historical Quarterly 50 (autumn 1991): 225- 248, for an annotated translation. 36 G. J. Engelmann, "Sketch," 10. Though Engelmann's son claimed that many scientific specimens had been "lost in swimming rivers," it must have been the horse that swam. Evidence that the elder Engelmann could not swim is in Marcus E. Jones, "Botanical Reminiscences," Contributions to Western Botany No. 77 (3 September 1930): 2. The story of a black family nursing Engelmann back to health first appeared in print in Charles S. Sargent, "George Engelmann," Science 3 (1884): 405. The Jansmas reasonably argue that Sargent heard the story from Engelmann during their trip together to the Pacific Northwest in 1880. See Jansma and Jansma, "Engelmann in Arkansas Territory," 247, n. 25. 264 Missouri Historical Review

Missouri Botanical Garden Archives Commissioned by Henry Shaw and unveiled in November 1878, this statue of Alexander von Humboldt, which stands in Tower Grove Park, St. Louis, pays tribute to Humboldt's contributions as a scientist and a traveler. surviving on crackers and cheese. Upon arriving in St. Louis, he made his way to the house at Second and Chestnut where he had briefly lived with his cousin Theodore. Often sitting at his bedside when he grew feverish, Theodore nursed him back to health, listening to the tales of travel that Engelmann felt compelled to recount.37 Within a few months Engelmann was well enough to try his hand again at medicine in St. Louis. Starting earnestly in January 1836, he placed a notice of his profession and address in the St. Louis Anzeiger des Westens, a German newspaper. The advertisement ran each week, and within six

T. Engelmann, Reminiscences, 48. George Engelmann and the Lure of Frontier Science 265 months it had provided him with enough patients from the German commu­ nity that he could drop the ad. His knowledge of French and English also allowed him to broaden his practice to other ethnic groups. By May 1836 his medical colleagues recognized his merit by unanimously electing him to the Medical Society of Missouri.38 Though his traveling naturalist days were temporarily over, Engelmann did not abandon his scientific pursuits: he merely adapted them to the city. In his spare moments between patients—growing less spare all the time—he observed what nature he could. He noticed and recorded, in a "loose" way, the flow and level of the Mississippi River, two blocks east of his lodgings. Mounting thermometers on his house, he continued to record the air temper­ ature three times a day. He noted wind and sky conditions and soon added barometric pressure, rainfall, and humidity to his measurements. In February 1836 the doctor began publishing weekly temperature readings in the St. Louis Anzeiger des Westens?9 His publishing plans expanded in 1837 when Engelmann and two other editors founded Das Westland, a jour­ nal written in the United States and published in Germany.40 The journal sought to rectify the inaccurate picture of the area previously drawn by Gottfried Duden and others. Engelmann wrote articles about the German community near Belleville, the climate and geology of the area, and his trip to southern Missouri and Arkansas. Sometime in 1836 Engelmann began meeting with other young men in St. Louis interested in science. They pooled their botanical, zoological, and geological collections and occasionally read papers.41 At first they called themselves the St. Louis Association of Natural Sciences, publishing a table of meteorological readings under that name in the American Journal of Science and Arts, but by February 1837 they incorporated and changed their name to the Western Academy of Natural Sciences.

38 St. Louis Anzeiger des Westens, 22 January 1836; Constitution and Minutes of the St. Louis Medical Society [formerly the Medical Society of Missouri] 1 (1836-1852): 14. Though most St. Louis Medical Society records are located in the Washington University School of Medicine Library, Archives and Rare Books Collection, this typescript remains in the medical society's institutional records. 39 George Engelmann, "Elevation of St. Louis Above the Gulf of Mexico," Academy of Science of St. Louis Transactions 1 (1859): 667; George Engelmann, "The Mean and Extreme Daily Temperature in St. Louis for 47 Years," ibid. 4 (November 1883): 496; St. Louis Anzeiger des Westens, 19 February 1836. 40 Only three issues of this journal appeared. Each set of issues located by the author was bound in a single volume titled Das Westland (1837). Though rare, Das Westland may be found at the Belleville Public Library, Belleville, Illinois; the Missouri Historical Society; and the St. Louis Mercantile Library. The Mercantile Library volume contains one of the original journal covers and a map of the Shiloh Valley, where Engelmann lived for two years. 41 Western Academy of Natural Sciences, Acts of Incorporation, Constitution, and By­ laws of the Western Academy of Natural Sciences at St. Louis (St. Louis: William Weber, 1837), 14. Engelmann's copy is in the Missouri Botanical Garden Library. 266 Missouri Historical Review

The Western Academy was devoted to "the intellectual improvement of its members and a general diffusion of scientific information throughout the State of Missouri."42 Within a few years it had "an extensive museum in Zoology, Botany, Conchology, Geology, etc." and could boast of beginning a five-acre botanical garden—the first of its kind in St. Louis. The members were aware of their fortunate location: explorers heading west and returning east would likely pass through St. Louis, and the academy would be ready for them.43 Shortly after its founding, the academy counted the French car­ tographer and explorer Joseph N. Nicollet among its corresponding mem­ bers. Nicollet's young assistant, John C. Fremont, later began his own west­ ern expeditions from St. Louis and relied in part on Engelmann's help. In 1843 the academy presented an honorary membership to the celebrated ornithologist John James Audubon when he passed through the city.44 In serving the Western Academy during these early years, Engelmann did not, as one would expect, direct the botany department. Rather, he headed the chemistry and mineralogy departments—further evidence of his diverse scientific interests and abilities. Because of his talents, a silver-min­ ing company made him a "lucrative offer" to test ore in Arkansas in the spring of 1837. This time, instead of bearing the hardships of travel alone, he took a German servant named Schnatzky and rode in a Dearborn wagon.45 Streams swollen by spring rains in Missouri and Arkansas delayed them several times, giving Engelmann a chance to observe local transplant­ ed Germans and their customs. He had hopes, which he confided to his cousin Theodore, of becoming a mine inspector (Humboldt had been one early in his career), but the ore in Arkansas did not prove rich enough, and after several weeks Engelmann returned to St. Louis.46 It was his last oppor­ tunity for many years to act as a traveling naturalist.

42 St. Louis Association of Natural Sciences [Western Academy], "Meteorological Tables for the year 1836," American Journal of Science and Arts, 1st ser., 32 (1837): 386; Western Academy, Acts of Incorporation, 3. 43 The Valley of the Mississippi Illustrated in a Series of Views, ed. Lewis F. Thomas (St. Louis: Office of the Clerk of the District Court of Missouri, 1841), 10; Henry M. Whelpley, "A Sketch of the History of the Academy of Science of St. Louis," Academy of Science of St. Louis Transactions 16 (1906): xxii; Western Academy, Acts of Incorporation, 14. 44 Western Academy, President Henry King and Recording Secretary George Engelmann to Joseph N. Nicollet, 16 November 1837, Joseph N. Nicollet Papers, Minnesota Historical Society, St. Paul (hereinafter cited as Nicollet Papers); Audubon to his wife and family, 20 April 1843, Audubon in the West, ed. John F. McDermott (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1965), 60-61. A copy of Audubon's certificate of honorary membership in the Western Academy is in Audubon and His Journals, ed. Maria R. Audubon and Elliott Coues (London: John C. Nimmo, 1898), 2: facsimiles of historic diplomas, post-554, no. 8. 45 St. Louis Directory (St. Louis: Charles Keemle, 1840-1841), 78; St. Louis Directory (St. Louis: Chambers and Knapp, 1842), vii; G. J. Engelmann, "Sketch," 5; Sander, "George Engelmann," 4. 46 George Engelmann, "Briefe aus Arkansas, . . . 1837," 325, 328, 338-342, and passim; T. Engelmann, Reminiscences, 48. George Engelmann and the Lure of Frontier Science 267

Nevertheless, his scientific endeavors continued to prove useful in St. Louis. Nicollet visited Engelmann several times in the 1830s and came to rely upon him. The federal government charged Nicollet and Fremont to gather scientific information and topographical data that could be used to map regions along the Missouri River. To do this, Nicollet needed to deter­ mine the altitude above sea level of various locations, a process that required the "compound levelling" of simultaneous barometric pressure readings from different locales.47 Nicollet, who carried a portable barometer in the field, relied upon Engelmann in St. Louis to keep daily barometric and other mete­ orological readings for comparison. Engelmann's conscientious service pleased Nicollet greatly, and in 1841 he gave him a new standard barometer as a gift. With it, Engelmann kept measurements to help Fremont on his first solo western expedition in 1842, as well as other explorers in the 1840s and 1850s.48 Engelmann helped Nicollet and his party in other ways. In 1839 he pro­ vided the expedition with the vaccine matter that Nicollet used to inoculate western Indians against smallpox. The naturalist/physician also sold paper

47 Mary J. Klem, "The History of Science in St. Louis," Academy of Science of St. Louis Transactions 23 (1914): 100; Martha C. Bray, Joseph Nicollet and His Map (Philadelphia: The American Philosophical Society, 1980), 148. 48 Nicollet to Engelmann, 7 June 1841, Engelmann Papers; Engelmann to Nicollet, 16 April 1842, Nicollet Papers. See also Bray, Joseph Nicollet and His Map, 152; George Engelmann, "Elevation of St. Louis," 663.

State Historical Society of Missouri

George Engelmann 268 Missouri Historical Review for pressing plant specimens, shipping boxes, geological hammers, and other supplies to the party.49 Engelmann's wide-ranging scientific interests allowed him to pursue more than just meteorology with Nicollet. Both men were astute observers of geology and fossils. The Frenchman had seen some of Engelmann's rock specimens at the Philadelphia Academy of Science. To supplement the report on his western expeditions, he asked Engelmann to collect fossil samples from the St. Louis region and send them to Washington, D.C.50 By 1840 Engelmann could be proud of what he had accomplished. He came to America with the desire to travel and collect scientific information about its frontier. After settling in St. Louis, he organized a scientific acade­ my to continue and promote the aims of Humboldtian science—the increase and spread of knowledge about the physical universe. By the spring of 1840, he had been successful enough in medicine to return to Europe and marry his fiancee, who had waited patiently for eight years. In the fall of that year the newlyweds arrived in the United States. While in New York City, they met Asa Gray, the only botanist ever to be memorialized in that city's national hall of fame. Much to the benefit of western American botany, Engelmann and Gray began a lifelong friendship and correspon­ dence. But there also would be disappointments. During the mid-1840s the Western Academy of Natural Sciences declined because of lack of money. Although its collections were eventually disbanded and the botanical garden sold, Engelmann would not let the academy or the botanical garden die. They rose again, phoenixlike, in the 1850s, transformed into the Academy of Science of St. Louis and the Missouri Botanical Garden. Engelmann became a founding member and the first president of the new academy. He served as Henry Shaw's main scientific adviser in establishing the Missouri Botanical Garden and continued to write scientific papers, encourage plant collectors, and advise explorers heading west. For decades to come, Engelmann enriched the legacy of his early days of science on the American frontier.

49 Bill A, U.S., to George Engelmann, 17 May 1838, The Expeditions of John Charles Fremont, eds. Donald Jackson and Mary Lee Spence (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1970), 1:42. 50 Nicollet to Engelmann, 7 June 1841.

Earnest Search

Jefferson City Weekly Clarion, Missouri Department of Penal Institutions, February 17, 1923. Tom: "They say people with opposite characteristics make the happiest marriages." Tim: "Yes, that's why I'm looking for a girl with money." State Historical Society of Missouri "A Most Unexampled Exhibition of Madness and Brutality": Judge Lynch in Saline County, Missouri, 1859 Parti

BY THOMAS G. DYER*

In July 1859, within the space of three days, whites in Saline County, Missouri, lynched four slaves accused of unrelated crimes in four different locations within the county. Because extensive sources concerning such incidents rarely survive, there have been virtually no case studies of slave lynchings in the antebellum South and certainly none of such occurrences along the western perimeter of slavery in volatile, pre-Civil War Missouri. Although the episode bore some resemblance to a slave insurrection panic, the causes ran much deeper and tapped a tradition of frontier and racial vio­ lence that had been intensified by the border warfare of the 1850s, reinforced

*Thomas G. Dyer is a professor of history and higher education at the University of Georgia, Athens. He received the A.B. degree from Missouri Valley College, Marshall, and the M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Georgia. 269 270 Missouri Historical Review by the ideological legacy of Revolutionary- and Jacksonian-era collective violence, and linked by the participants themselves to the widespread experi­ ence with vigilantism in the last years of the decade.1 Saline County is located in a seven-county area called Little Dixie, which stretches along either side of the Missouri River from Callaway County, approximately ninety miles west of St. Louis, to Clay County on the Kansas border. Settled largely by emigrants from western Virginia, Tennessee, and Kentucky, the region exhibited a decidedly southern character and culture. Politics, religion, architecture, and economic life all partook heavily of south­ ern practices and traditions, although there was a mix of influences from other regions as well. Of profound importance to the area, slavery pervasive­ ly affected life there, especially the system of commercial agriculture that developed soon after the first waves of settlement had passed.2 Saline County lies in the big bend of the Missouri River, near the geo­ graphic center of the state and in the middle of Little Dixie. Verdant, prosper­ ous, and immensely well suited to a variety of crops, including hemp, corn, oats, and wheat, the county had by the late 1850s become home to nearly ten thousand whites and almost five thousand blacks, virtually all of whom were slaves living on and working the county's farms.3 Near the western and the northern edges of slave territory, the county's climate was characterized by frigid winters and hot summers. While life there in the mid-nineteenth centu­ ry could be pleasant enough for whites, slaves not only dealt with an inhu­ mane system of forced labor, they also contended with a harsh climate, living in quarters that could be made stifling in the summer by heat and humidity and grimly cold in the winter by wind, snow, ice, and subzero temperatures. Slavery in Saline County was a vigorous institution. The slave popula­ tion grew by 79 percent during the 1850s, by far the greatest increase of any county in Little Dixie, the area of heaviest slave ownership in the state. By 1860 Saline County ranked fourth among Missouri counties in slave popula-

1 Brief mentions of the incidents in Saline County in 1859 are found in Robert Duffner, "Slavery in Missouri River Counties, 1820-1865" (Ph.D. diss., University of Missouri- Columbia, 1974), 73; and R. Douglas Hurt, Agriculture and Slavery in Missouri's Little Dixie (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1992), 250-251. Duffner incorrectly dates the lynchings to 1852. A more thorough report of the episode is found in History of Saline County, Missouri (St. Louis: Missouri Historical Company, 1881), 259-265. The author found no references to the incident in standard works including Harrison Anthony Trexler, Slavery in Missouri, 1804-1865, Johns Hopkins University Studies in Historical and Political Science, ser. 32, no. 2 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1914); and Herbert Aptheker, American Negro Slave Revolts (New York: International Publishers, 1969). 2 The author has relied upon the geographic definition of Little Dixie as set out in Hurt, Agriculture and Slavery. Hurt points out that there have been varying definitions of the region, some of which include as many as twenty counties in the state's eastern, central, and western sections. For a brief discussion of the region's parameters and an introduction to the literature on Little Dixie see ibid., ix-xiii. 3 Ibid., 220. Judge Lynch in Saline County 271 tion and had the second highest percentage of slaves relative to total popula­ tion. Forty percent of the county's families owned slaves, and the average number of slaves per slaveholder had increased since 1850 from 5.4 to 6.9. Nearly half the county's slaveholders, however, had four or fewer slaves, with only 45 of the 693 owners belonging to the planter class; that is, they owned at least twenty slaves and a minimum of five hundred acres. Slavery appears to have been profitable for Saline County farmers, with most expe­ riencing substantial increases in crops, acreage, slaves, and value of their farm lands.4 Violence was familiar to blacks and whites who lived in Little Dixie in the late antebellum period. Conflicts settled by gunplay or fisticuffs seemed almost routine, and vigilante lynchings of whites accused of horse stealing or other crimes were not unknown, two alleged horse thieves having been dispatched by lynchers in Clay County early in 1859. Violence against slaves was also common and occurred with dreadful regularity in the seclu­ sion of the farms and plantations, with punishments ranging from casual whippings to brutal beatings. Accounts of some of the most heinous of these acts became part of the black oral tradition. Ed Craddock, born a slave, told of his father's recollection of an especially brutal Saline County master who, as an object lesson, chained a recalcitrant slave to a hemp brake on a bitterly cold winter night and allowed him to freeze to death.5 The border wars that had begun in 1854 added to the violent mixture, heightening the anxieties of slaveowners about the security of the slave sys­ tem and saturating the tense atmosphere with fears of a national cataclysm. Bloody conflicts along the Missouri-Kansas border and occasional aboli-

4 Ibid., 218, 220-222; Duffner, "Slavery in Missouri River Counties," 10, 13, 15-16, 21, 23-29. Donnie D. Bellamy, in "Slavery, Emancipation, and Racism in Missouri, 1850-1865" (Ph.D. diss., University of Missouri-Columbia, 1971), concludes that slavery in the state was not in decline during the 1850s but, in fact, was "holding its own" (p. 100). See ibid., chap. 3, "Missouri Slavery During the 1850s," for an elaboration of this argument. Slavery in Missouri has not been extensively studied. In addition to Bellamy, Hurt, Duffner, and Trexler, see Michael Fellman, "Emancipation in Missouri," Missouri Historical Review 83 (October 1988): 36-56; Michael Fellman, Inside War: The Guerrilla Conflict in Missouri During the American Civil War (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989); Lyle Wesley Dorsett, "Slaveholding in Jackson County, Missouri," Missouri Historical Society Bulletin 20 (October 1963): 25-37; James William McGettigan, Jr., "Boone County Slaves: Sales, Estate Divisions and Families, 1820-1865," Missouri Historical Review 72 (January and April 1978): 176-197, 271-295; George R. Lee, "Slavery and Emancipation in Lewis County, Missouri," ibid. 65 (April 1971): 294-317; and Philip V. Scarpino, "Slavery in Callaway County, Missouri: 1845- 1855," ibid. 71 (October 1976, April 1977): 22-43, 266-283. Also see Melton McLaurin, Celia, A Slave (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1991). 5 Hurt, Agriculture and Slavery, 245-272; Duffner, "Slavery in Missouri River Counties," 83-90; Ed Craddock narrative, in George P. Rawick, ed., The American Slave: A Composite Autobiography, Supplement, 1st ser., vol. 2 (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1977), 158; Richard Bruner narrative, ibid., 154. For a penetrating study of the culture of vio­ lence in Civil War Missouri see Fellman, Inside War. 272 Missouri Historical Review tionist raids into Missouri occurred throughout most of the remainder of the decade and prompted a sizable number of Saline Countians repeatedly to go the seventy miles or so into Kansas, where they participated in proslavery raids or cast ballots in elections with the aim of thwarting the establishment of yet another free state on Missouri's borders.6 In this uncertain and fear- laced setting, anxious whites in Saline County became agitated over what they saw as an insufficiently obsequious slave population and the effects of abolitionism on it. White concerns were exacerbated by alarmist proslavery newspapers, par­ ticularly by the Marshall Democrat, located in the county seat, founded in 1858 by prominent county Democrats, and edited by twenty-six-year-old John S. Davis, a transplanted Virginian with sharply prosouthern views. Local newspa­ pers were a relatively new phenomenon in Saline County, and journalism as practiced there drew out strong points of view. Journalism could become high­ ly personalized as well, culminating at least once in serious violence between editors. During the incidents leading to and following the lynchings, the news­ papers played important roles in shaping events through commentary and hyperbolic reportage. Widely read throughout the county, they contributed to the formation or reinforcement of public opinion and spread views that, in a newspaperless society, might not have found wide currency.7 For more than a year, the Democrat had reported an increasing number of runaway slaves seeking freedom by escape on the underground railroad, which ran through the free states and territory bordering Missouri on three sides. Reportedly, at least twelve Saline County slaves escaped between January 1858 and September 1859. Some were captured; others were not. The number of runaways may not have been large considering the size of the slave population, but there had been a steady stream of escapes from western Saline County and eastern Lafayette County since the beginning of

6 History of Saline County, 257-259. 7 Claiborne F. Jackson, a future Missouri governor, and John W. Bryant, circuit attorney, were among the founders of the Democrat. During the prelude to the lynchings, the Democrat fed the fires of unrest among the county's whites and drew enthusiastic support from Lafayette County's Waverly and St. Thomas Saturday Morning Visitor. After the lynchings, at least some criticism came from the Marshall Saline County Herald, the county's first newspaper, which had been founded in 1856 as an organ for the American Party but had become Democratic by 1859. George W. Allen, who appears to have been a moderate Democrat, edit­ ed the Herald. A third newspaper, the Marshall Saline County Standard, owed its founding to the dissatisfaction of members of the American Party with the Herald and was edited by a young lawyer, Samuel Boyd, who would become a Constitutional Unionist in the election of 1860. In addition, the Lexington Express, a moderate Democratic newspaper located forty miles away in Lafayette County, would eventually become quite critical of the lynchers and of Saline County in general. John M. Henry to Abiel Leonard, 25 September 1860, Abiel Leonard Collection, Western Historical Manuscript Collection, University of Missouri- Columbia (hereinafter cited as WHMC-Columbia). History of Saline County, 389-395; U.S. Census, 1860, Saline County, Missouri. See also Donald E. Reynolds, Editors Make War: Southern Newspapers in the Secession Crisis (Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 1970). Judge Lynch in Saline County 273 the Kansas troubles in 1854. In September of that year, nine slaves had escaped in a week's time, prompting the editor of the Lexington Express to speculate that a "branch" of the underground railroad operated in the area.8 The Democrat reprinted detailed suggestions from a neighboring news­ paper on how to minimize runaways. Form a society of slaveowners, the newspaper adjured, and charge members hefty admission fees to be utilized as sizable rewards for the return of escapees. "Money is powerful," the newspaper concluded, but it warned that slaveholders must be "vigilant in watching the itinerant population who infest the community at this season of the year. Every one found talking with the slaves should be spotted and their movements closely watched."9 The escapes continued and local fears grew, but still more disquieting news arrived in late 1858 with reports of the murders of a white jailer by a slave in Fulton, seventy miles away in Callaway County, and of an overseer in nearby Lafayette County, who had "found it necessary to correct, for some misconduct, two negro men." By the end of the year, edgy Saline Countians

8 Marshall Democrat, 30 April, 11 June, 27 August 1858; 11 February, 1, 8, 29 July, 4 November 1859; Hurt, Agriculture and Slavery, 257-258. The runaway rate in Missouri appears to have been higher than the national average, possibly because of the geographic location of the state. See Duffner, "Slavery in Missouri River Counties," 74-75. Despite the views of the local populace, there was apparently not a well-organized underground railway. See Bellamy, "Slavery, Emancipation, and Racism," 91-92. 9 Marshall Democrat, 20 August 1858.

State Historical Society of Missouri 274 Missouri Historical Review heard of a master killed by slaves fifty miles to the east in Randolph County.10 Such reports of violence had the double effect of raising white anxiety about slave violence and shoring up an angry determination to take further mea­ sures to control and intimidate the slave population. A sudden, daring raid into Missouri by the militant abolitionist, John Brown, who had been in Kansas periodically since 1855, caused even more alarm. During the night of December 20-21, 1858, Brown and two columns of men penetrated the border, slipping into Vernon County where they killed a farmer and took eleven slaves to freedom in Kansas. Brown's audacity made proslavery Missourians angry and fearful. The proslavery press spewed out a torrent of vitriol, and for a time it appeared that the civil war that had raged along the border would erupt again. A similar exploit, under­ taken by three abolitionists who went into Clay County and took fourteen slaves to Kansas, occurred about six weeks later. Pursuing Missourians recaptured the bondsmen and returned them to their owners.11 The proximity of Saline County to the border, its relative nearness to the sites of abolitionist raids (particularly the Clay County incursion), and the knowledge that many antislavery men going to Kansas traversed the

10 Ibid., 3, 10, 17 December 1858. 11 Stephen B. Oates, To Purge this Land with Blood: A Biography of John Brown, 2nd ed. (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1984), 261-262; Hurt, Agriculture and Slavery, 259.

State Historical Society of Missouri

Both the federal government and the Missouri state government offered rewards for John Brown's arrest fol­ lowing his raid into Vernon County in ^M1I B 'S 1858. ||||L ,/ w \ 0^

M«liiHE^Sf K^f Judge Lynch in Saline County 275 county or passed around it on the Missouri River persuaded slaveholders that the menace from Kansas and from abolitionists was real. Given the cir­ cumstances, it was a reasonable concern and certainly had more basis in fact than the wild reactions to supposed abolitionist plots that Deep South slave­ holders perceived in the wake of Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry in October 1859. Brown's expedition into Vernon County and the abolitionist foray into Clay County coincided with the heightened concern over slave escapes in Saline County, undoubtedly contributing to the general unrest over the slave issue and to the conviction that abolitionists and other suspicious characters skulked about the county.12 The possibility also exists, although it remains virtually impossible to document, that Saline County slaves took heart from the raids and the border troubles in accelerating their attempts to escape. By the spring of 1859, still more escapes had occurred, and the county shook with agitation over how to stop them. In mid-May, however, concern over runaways suddenly became secondary when fears of black violence toward Saline County whites materialized with the murder of thirty-three- year-old Benjamin Hinton, the son of a prominent farmer who lived near Waverly. Hinton lived in a shanty and ran a woodyard several miles west of Miami near the village of Laynesville on the Missouri River. There, he and a partner, Giles Kiser, chopped and sold wood to the passing steamboatmen. Each man also owned a slave who worked in the enterprise.13 On Saturday morning, May 14, Hinton's slave awoke and went to his master's cabin to rouse him and build his fire. As he drew near the cabin the startled slave saw Hinton sprawled in the doorway, partially clad, "his head complete[ly] mashed, and the brains and blood spattered all over the threshold." Inside the cabin a bloody ax lay near Hinton's split-open steam­ er trunk, from which, it was later discovered, about fifty dollars had been taken. Initial reports held out the possibility that either whites or blacks could have committed the crime. The Waverly and St. Thomas Saturday Morning Visitor, published just over the county line in Lafayette County, used the occasion to call for a stronger police force to protect the country­ side from "desperate characters, prowling about in quest of victims to grati­ fy their thirst for blood and plunder."14 Two days later, however, Kiser's twenty-three-year-old slave, John, was arrested for the crime, "upon the very strongest circumstantial evidence," and

12 History of Saline County, 257-259. For accounts of post-Harpers Ferry violence against slaves see Clarence L. Mohr, On the Threshold of Freedom: Masters and Slaves in Civil War Georgia (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1986), 1-11; and Randolph B. Campbell, An Empire for Slavery: The Peculiar Institution in Texas, 1821-1865 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1989), 224-228. 13 Marshall Democrat, 20 May 1859; U.S. Census, 1850, Lafayette County, Missouri. 14 Marshall Democrat, 20 May 1859; Waverly and St. Thomas Saturday Morning Visitor, 14 May 1859. 276 Missouri Historical Review &hrttap$M«g Bisitor. W*w*rty *tt» YiMftat, May 14,1»». A^wful lnt#lligmnm •Dapjamin Hinton Bra- t*lly Murtiarod ' Wt ttof UM prww* 14 IMNftiffe* th* awful and h*ur%- rsmttag iat<4%fa% tfcat Ilaiu »m* liiti**. aaavftf Cot. t>m* i Hia*M. %M brwlalJf Mr«ier«l. latt ftftffct, b7 tcm** oi»* uaar>< «» M*t h<*ty mm fmmwk tWb a*or«i»g is Mi at ;». at ?« * *<*Ml-jr*r4: ft ftewo milt* fcttoW f h*t l»Iaw# i i rh^ tXit-##w b#K#iflM» fcj &** Negro mm, with b.« h** * »pit- i-ii with a.Mi *'• fw left by a*** &ijr4#r* r *- irtl^rtrs, •» **• $wtf« to welter *n hu otr, bi^ta ilia trts»k was iNreieo aitCt of the pwf^imf^rf #*f

tM« HW *t f 4**mL WMkm the crime it the act of whit* or M*.-k •*-Qtt»4rdb» ki M4 known. No other pmnu-u- lar* tart h%m (!>>m*iniikii>»«i to ui Th<* fiiend* have g*'f*f f«wlfefa*'Mljr, atti ^&« funeral will fnk*< t»lare t.>-

Mt**rr#wt auh* H »umk Hope Burj trig (jwutrl, about f-mr mtba wa*i e# tlu* }MaaW. It if nwa**££i»#*t thai jwnmg Mr Hinton han«t«i«>ra~ >M* mow*? witt tifw, at he bn* IMHMI «-ri£.igr«! ,ri the jjff»oi*'i ImAiaaat I nr *>mt tin**. tn«l U-! no .l.,«c«l Iftt. fjt tn finp.*--r«-l«4l »a«* with m«»iji *. Afi«i the C-MITI- rj i*lewtwrt witt *^if*erafe chararter«. | r > * ling ai.-ut lit «| ir«| i f Mii.f/* gr*nf\ thtir !hh*t fur bl**o*i au«J |4tn* '» r I' • v« * * t rong police wa* ijecettarv, it n» **» now. f*Wa*b*«»r * -I ftobbera hate wart

State Historical Society of Missouri

The Waverly and St. Thomas Saturday Morning Visitor reported the murder of Benjamin Hinton just hours after it happened; at that time no suspect had been determined. Judge Lynch in Saline County 277 taken to Marshall, where he was put in heavy irons and "confined in a very secure jail." In a hearing before Justice of the Peace H. D. Doak, Martin A. Gauldin, a prosperous slaveowning farmer, offered the principal testimony, swearing that he had been told that John had proposed to two other slaves that they kill Hinton for his money. Gauldin also claimed that John had "deposit­ ed" ten blood-covered dollars with another slave and that, on the morning after the murder, his clothes had been covered with blood. Gauldin's hearsay testi­ mony proved enough to keep the slave in custody. John refused to testify.15 According to the Marshall Democrat, John soon confessed to the crime, giving as his motive that he held a grudge against Hinton for "a threatened or actual chastisement." After he had failed to gain accomplices, the newspaper reported, John left Giles Riser's home at ten o'clock on Friday evening astride Kiser's horse and rode six miles to Hinton's cabin. When he arrived, he knocked on the door, claiming to be on business for his master. The sleepy Hinton opened the door: "Is that you, John?" he asked. When he paused to light a candle, the slave "felled him to the floor with a club, and finished the work" with Hinton's own ax.16 The Democrat confidently accepted John's confession, declaring that there was virtually no chance of his innocence given that he had returned to Kiser's place with mud and blood on his clothes and with "bloody bank bills [that] he had deposited with his wife and others subsequent to the murder." To an "outraged community," the evidence proved "indubitably" that John had murdered Hinton.17 The Saturday Morning Visitor presented a slightly different account. On the day after the murder, the newspaper declared, a greatly excited John had reported the murder to the residents of a nearby farm where his wife lived. According to the paper, John claimed to have seen the murdered Hinton in his cabin near the river, "laid out—the hands crossed and feet placed together." The paper suggested that John had lied. At the farm he had in his possession a ten-dollar note with blood on it, and an additional thirty-eight dollars had been found in his wife's cabin, hidden in a mitten belonging to Hinton. John claimed that he had gotten the money from Kiser's other slave, Dick, whom he blamed for the murder. Not so, the newspaper averred: John was guilty. He had told other slaves of his plans, and he likely had accomplices—raising the possibility of a slave conspiracy. "Hanging [is] too good for him," the editor concluded. "He does not deserve a longer existence, only with the hope of finding his accomplices, that they may all suffer together."18

15 Marshall Democrat, 20, 27 May 1859; State v. John, a Slave, Circuit Court of Saline County, Saline County Courthouse, Marshall. 16 Marshall Democrat, 27 May 1859; Waverly and St. Thomas Saturday Morning Visitor, 28 May 1859. 17 Marshall Democrat, 27 May 1859. 18 Waverly and St. Thomas Saturday Morning Visitor, 21 May 1859. 278 Missouri Historical Review

Word of John's confession rapidly spread to Hinton's friends and neigh­ bors in Saline and Lafayette Counties, who, fueled by indignation over the murder and the recent difficulties with slaves, decided to take matters into their own hands. "Judge lynch would hold a special term," it was said, "and try the murderer with/jre!"19 Thus, before dawn on Friday, May 27, several wagon loads of men, together with others on horseback, gathered a few miles north of Marshall, headed south, and, while it was still early, clattered into the town. Upon arriving at the jail, they demanded that John be handed over. They were outraged to learn that a forewarned Sheriff Jacob H. Smith had, the day before, spirited the slave to a jail in Boonville, forty miles away.20 Shortly thereafter, the thwarted mob dissolved into a stormy meeting at the courthouse, where they were joined by some residents of the town. The conclave, according to the Marshall Democrat, was presided over by "one of our prominent citizens" and featured speeches pro and con for going to Boonville and lynching the slave. In the end some unnamed Marshall citi­ zens persuaded the group to petition Russell Hicks, the judge of the circuit court for Saline and six other counties, for a special term of the court to try John, who, as it developed, would remain in the Cooper County jail in Boonville for the next forty days. The persuasive powers of the Marshall citizens notwithstanding, public sentiment seemed solidly arrayed against the slave, judging from reports that Sheriff Smith had been forced to take John out of the county because he could not raise a reliable posse to defend the jail against the mob. The Democrat commented that Sheriff Smith had acted properly in removing John from the county, noting that the sheriff had done so in a procedurally correct way as well, a probable reference to secur­ ing permission from the circuit attorney. The editor also seemed to recog­ nize that the newspaper itself had played a role in the unfolding drama, observing that publication of John's confession had "added fuel to the flame, insomuch as to nerve some of them [the mob] to the hazardous undertaking of inflicting punishment on the criminal without the sanction of law."21 For three weeks a tense quiet settled on the county in anticipation of the special session of the court. Then on June 22 a slave in Arrow Rock, fifteen miles east of Marshall on the Missouri River, allegedly attacked William Durrett, a prosperous slaveowner and farmer. The Democrat reported that the slave, Holman, had stabbed the white man, wounded him dangerously in the arm, and intended to murder him.22

19 Ibid., 28 May 1859. 20 Marshall Democrat, 3 June 1859. 21 Ibid.; Waverly and St. Thomas Saturday Morning Visitor, 28 May 1859; Revised Statutes of the State of Missouri (Jefferson City: James Lusk, Public Printer, 1856), 1: 545. 22 Marshall Democrat, 1 July 1859. Judge Lynch in Saline County 279

State Historical Society of Missouri

Because he feared mob violence, Saline County Sheriff Jacob H. Smith transferred John to the Cooper County jail in Boonville.

Holman told a more detailed story. The slave said that he had gone to the farm late at night to visit an old black man and to ask him for some tobacco plants. While there, he fell asleep. Durrett discovered him, the slave went on, and "tied him [up] to whip him." Holman broke free and ran away, but Durrett pursued and caught him. The two fought, and according to Holman, Durrett threatened to cut his throat. When Durrett reached into his pocket for a knife, the slave drew his own and cut the white man on the arm "in order to make him let him [Holman] go."23 Arrested and jailed in Arrow Rock, Holman was soon taken from custody by his owner, Virginia Howard, who sent him out of the county with the inten­ tion of selling him, thus protecting her investment.24 Holman got about thirty miles away before he was captured a few days later, returned to Arrow Rock, and transferred to the jail in Marshall. Howard's action angered those who believed that such behavior contributed to criminality among slaves. The incident inspired the Marshall Democrat to argue that the time had come for direct action. "If a few healthy examples were made," the editor wrote, "no doubt we would hear of fewer crimes committed by our slave population."25

23 State v. Holman, a Slave, Circuit Court of Saline County, Saline County Courthouse. 24 Marshall Democrat, 1 July 1859; Mark V. Tushnet, The American Law of Slavery, 1810-1860: Considerations of Humanity and Interest (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981), 188-190. 25 Marshall Democrat, 1 July 1859. 280 Missouri Historical Review

Meanwhile slaves continued to run away, adding to a brittle nervous­ ness among whites. On July 1, the Marshall Democrat complained, "Almost every week we hear of some outrage committed in this or the adjoining counties by negroes." Then, on July 12, an incident two miles east of Marshall incensed the white population and caused the increasingly shrill Democrat to raise the prospect of a countywide "servile insurrection." Jim, a slave belonging to James M. White of rural Marshall, was arrested and jailed for the attempted rape of Mary Habecot, a white woman. Habecot lived on a farm with her mother, her sister, and her husband, who had gone to nearby Marshall for the evening. The women became fright­ ened at twilight when a group of boisterous slaves passed the house and again later when Mary thought she saw a black man lurking in her garden. According to Habecot, Jim broke into the house after the edgy women had gone to bed and unsuccessfully attempted to rape her.26 Two days after his arrest, Jim appeared before L. R. Parsons, a justice of the peace. Mary Habecot testified extensively about the events of July 12. She said that a black man had knocked on the door, claiming that her husband had fallen ill at a hotel in Marshall and that the slave had been sent to get him a clean shirt. Suddenly, according to Habecot, the slave broke a window and burst into the house, where he "made a very insulting proposal to me." According to Habecot, he then threw her on the floor, bit her on the shoulder, threatened to kill her, and attempted the rape. She shouted for her sister to bring an ax, but the sister had fled to a neighbor's house for help. When Mary tried to get the ax, her assailant caught her and threw her to the floor again. Finally, she broke free, the struggle ended, and the assailant fled.27 During the proceedings that followed, Jim had counsel, probably hired by his owner since the identity of Habecot's attacker (and thereby Jim's guilt) was in doubt.28 His attorney, Samuel Boyd, a twenty-four-year-old lawyer and a Kentucky native, had recently emigrated from Illinois. Boyd also edited the Saline County Standard, the American Party organ in the county, and was in the midst of a feud with the editor of the Democrat, John S. Davis, who later in the year would fail in an attempt to shoot Boyd. Although still in his legal novitiate in 1859 (he would go on to a career as a judge), Boyd already showed signs of lawyerly craftiness.29 He had serious doubts that Jim had been justly accused and on the way to the hearing told him to change hats with another slave in an apparent effort to confuse

26 Ibid., 1, 15 July 1859; State v. Jim, a Slave, Circuit Court of Saline County, Saline County Courthouse. 27 State v. Jim, a Slave. 28 Ibid. The Missouri Constitution allowed the assignment of counsel to slaves in capital cases. There was no statutory or constitutional provision pertaining to appointment of counsel in noncapital cases. 29 U.S. Census, 1860, Saline County; History of Saline County, 390, 771-772. Judge Lynch in Saline County 281

Habecot, who would be called upon to identify her attacker in court. When word of Boyd's tactic leaked out, it enraged some citizens who thought that the legal system was too lax in dealing with slaves and that such "tricks" were execrable.30 The prosecutor brought the other slave into the courtroom and asked whether he was the assailant. Habecot said no. Jim was then brought in, and despite the hat-switching, she identified him as the man who had attacked her. But Habecot's answers to Boyd's questions indicated that the lawyer had raised substantial questions about the accuracy of her identifica­ tion of Jim, showing that it was Habecot's sister who had first identified the attacker as the slave of James M. White.31 The sister, Martha Hood, pinned her identification of Jim on her state­ ment that she knew him well, having seen him frequently several years before when she stayed at Dance's Hotel in Marshall for a period of three months. Boyd carefully probed her statements concerning who owned Jim and asked questions that led her to state that there had actually been two Jims at Dance's Hotel, a "little Jim" and a "big Jim." Boyd summoned Edward Dance, the owner, who denied that the defendant Jim had ever been at the hotel while Martha Hood boarded there. Then Boyd called two female slaves who testified that Jim had been with them at about the time of the alleged attack. Thus, despite serious doubts about Habecot's and Hood's identifications of Jim, the slave was bound over and remained in jail to await the action of a grand jury. The public mood would likely have allowed nothing else.32 Unlike Boyd, the newspapers expressed few doubts about Jim's guilt. The Saline County Herald showed sympathy for dealing with the matter through mob action, raised the issue of whether the punish­ ment for rape (castration) was sufficient for so serious a crime, and called for legislation to make rape a capital offense.33 Meanwhile, Judge Hicks had set in motion the machinery for a special term of the circuit court to try John for the murder of Benjamin Hinton. After receiving a petition "signed by a large number of citizens" from Saline County asking for a special term, Hicks wrote to the circuit attorney in Marshall, John W. Bryant, ordering that the session be held on July 5. He then left on a busi­ ness trip to Daviess County in the northern part of the state.34

30 State v. Jim, a Slave. 31 Ibid. 32 Ibid. 33 Saline County Herald in Waverly and St. Thomas Saturday Morning Visitor, 23 July 1859; Revised Statutes of the State of Missouri, 1856, 1: 565. By contrast, the Waverly paper argued for castration as a more fitting punishment for rapists. Hanging and burning were "too good in cases of rape." Waverly and St. Thomas Saturday Morning Visitor, 23 July 1859. 34 Russell Hicks to editors, Lexington Express, published in Marshall Democrat, 5 August 1859 (hereinafter cited as Hicks to editors). 282 Missouri Historical Review

Hicks returned to his home near Lone Jack in Jackson County about July 4 and started almost immediately for Marshall to conduct the special session. On the way, however, he learned that his letter had not reached Bryant, and that no special term had been arranged. During his absence, he had also received a letter from Bryant, who feared that "if a trial was not had soon, an outbreak of popular violence" would occur. Hicks immediate­ ly ordered that the court convene on July 19, waiting two weeks to comply with the legal requirements of notice.35 By Monday, July 18, excitement in the county had spiraled higher. On that day, as reported by the Democrat, "another brutal outrage was perpe­ trated by a negro" man. Some children had gone to pick blackberries, the paper reported, when one of the group, a little girl between ten and twelve years old, "was picked up by a negro man and carried into the woods close by, where he perpetrated a most diabolical outrage upon her person." A man heard the girl's cries and hurried to her aid, "but not in time ... to pre­ vent [the black's] fiendish designs." The alleged assailant escaped, but he was soon identified by the children as a slave belonging to Dr. William Price of Arrow Rock. Reports circulated that the slave had been nude when he confronted the children.36

35 Ibid.; J. W. Bryant to Claiborne F. Jackson, 8 July 1859, John Sappington Collection, fol. 69, WHMC-Columbia. 36 Marshall Democrat, 22 July, 5, 26 August 1859.

State Historical Society of Missouri

John W. Bryant, a native of Virginia, came to Saline County in 1841; he was appointed circuit attorney in 1854 and elected to the office in 1856. Judge Lynch in Saline County 283

On the same day, the citizens of Arrow Rock took swift retribution. An extralegal "committee" arrested the unfortunate man, then tried and summar­ ily hanged him before a crowd estimated at nearly a thousand people, leav­ ing the body hanging overnight and into Tuesday morning, July 19, so that the slave community might be warned of the consequences of such deviant behavior. The Saline County Herald reported that the incident had driven public sentiment against slaves in the county to "an uncontrollable pitch." "The little girl," the Waverly newspaper reported, "is much injured."37 Meanwhile, Judge Hicks had again started for Marshall, where John, Holman, and Jim were incarcerated and where he would hold the special term of court the next day, Tuesday, July 19. Hicks, fifty-one years old and a native of Massachusetts, had been reared and educated in New York, emi­ grating to Missouri in 1826. After reading law in Old Franklin soon after his arrival in the state, he became a successful lawyer and was elected to the circuit court in 1856. In the more than thirty years that he had resided in the state, the well-regarded Hicks had become a slaveowner and developed strongly prosouthern sympathies.38 Early on July 19 Sheriff Smith and Circuit Attorney Bryant, obviously excited, called on the judge at his hotel and reported the incidents involving Holman and Jim and rumors about the hanging in Arrow Rock. Hicks asked whether they thought that mob violence was likely. Yes, the two men replied. Hicks said that a posse should be raised immediately to try and pre­ vent it. No reliable posse could be raised, the sheriff responded. An anx­ ious Hicks then asked whether violence could at least be avoided during the court proceedings. That might be possible, Smith and Bryant thought, but they offered no guarantees concerning what might transpire once the court session ended.39 Bryant and Smith left, and Hicks quickly consulted others about the level of public agitation, seeking advice on what course to follow "in the approaching crisis." In those hurried conversations, he learned that at least "three distinct, exasperated parties" had already gathered at the courthouse: friends and relatives of Benjamin Hinton, Mary Habecot, and William S. Durrett.40 Nevertheless, the judge resolved to proceed with the court session but did not order a posse, believing that if only an ineffective one could be raised then "all the moral power a court claims from the law, and its position, would be [at] once prostrated, and all be at the mercy of popular violence."

37 St. Louis Democrat in National Anti-Slavery Standard, 6 August 1859; Saline County Herald in Waverly and St. Thomas Saturday Morning Visitor, 23 July 1859. 38 History of Saline County, 265; W. Z. Hickman, History of Jackson County, Missouri (Topeka, Kans.: Historical Publishing Company, 1920), 239. 39 Hicks to editors. 40 Ibid. 284 Missouri Historical Review

Hicks decided to put his trust in the moral power of the court "at least for a time, not in the least suspecting an outbreak [of violence] until towards evening."41 The judge then walked the short distance from his hotel to the court­ house, which stood in the middle of the town square. A tall, heavy man with a crippled leg, Hicks took a while to reach the building. On the way he saw knots of angry white men gathered on the square. When he arrived at the courthouse, he went immediately to the already crowded courtroom, took his place on the bench, and opened court sometime before 9:00 A.M.42 Preparations for the special term had been underway since Hicks had issued his second order on July 5. The sheriff had efficiently issued subpoe­ nas to various witnesses and made the necessary preparations to summon cit­ izens from whom a grand jury would be selected and who would constitute the pool for a petit jury. The sheriff also complied with the provisions of the law mandating that the accused be given copies of the various orders ten days before the special session and a copy of the venire list for the petit jury forty-eight hours before the special session. After opening court Hicks impaneled the grand jury and addressed its members "in the usual way for a special term," describing their duties. Next, he turned his attention to the spectators.43 Mildly, but firmly, Hicks spoke to them about the rumors of violence. He hoped that the reports were baseless, he said, but if there were those who contemplated violence, they should remember "that however well they could justify themselves to themselves for wresting the prisoners] from the officer of the law, and inflicting summary justice upon them, it would not be so easy to justify themselves to the world," especially since a duly constitut­ ed court was in session. Alluding to the predictable reaction of the antislav- ery and abolitionist press, the prosouthern Hicks hinted "distinctly enough to be understood, that the enemies to our institutions would rejoice in and triumph over such a scene."44 Let justice take its course, Hicks calmly told the crowd. If the jury reached guilty verdicts, "in a short time the prisoners would receive in a legal manner the punishment due their crimes." "However much their [the crowd's] feelings were irritated and exasperated," the judge added, "they should think and consider if they acted in a summary manner at the present time."45 Disgrace and injury would result from violence, Hicks went on, and he stated that he was determined to do his duty, though "limb should be torn

Ibid. Ibid. Ibid.; State v. John, a Slave; State v. Holman, a Slave; State v. Jim, a Slave. Hicks to editors. Ibid. Judge Lynch in Saline County 285

Judge Russell Hicks

State Historical Society of Missouri from limb."46 Hicks concluded with an admonition to the "old and thinking men of the crowd to keep down popular excitement" and control the hot­ heads.47 His remarks finished, the judge surveyed the room, measuring the expressions on the faces of his listeners. Thinking that he read approval on the majority and seeing "looks of defiance" on only a few, he decided to move ahead with the proceedings. The grand jury then retired from the courtroom to the jury room, where it quickly returned formal indictments against John for the murder of Benjamin Hinton, Jim for the attempted rape of Mary Habecot, and Holman for assault with intent to kill William Durrett. The indictments in hand, Hicks assembled a petit jury to try John who was then brought in.48 Hicks appointed John P. Strother and Joseph L. Hutchinson to represent John, who until that point had no attorney, unlike Jim, who was represented by the able Samuel Boyd. Strother and Hutchinson were, like Boyd, in their twenties and recent emigrants from Kentucky, not yet well established in the local legal fraternity.49

46 Saline County Herald in Waverly and St. Thomas Saturday Morning Visitor, 23 July 1859. 47 Hicks to editors. 48 Ibid.; State v. John, a Slave; State v. Jim, a Slave; State v. Holman, a Slave. 49 State v. John, a Slave; U.S. Census, 1860, Saline County. 286 Missouri Historical Review

On such short notice Strother and Hutchinson obviously could mount no credible defense, but motions for delay would have been unthinkable given the tension in the courtroom and the ugly mood of the crowd. Thus, John entered a plea of "not guilty," and the trial proceeded. Witnesses for the state included Martin A. Gauldin, who had provided testimony at the earlier hearing; two slaves, Harvey and Banjo, who testified that John approached them about killing Benjamin Hinton; the jailer, W. W. Arnett; George, the slave who allegedly received the bloodstained ten dollars from John; George's owner, Robert Kirkley; and three other slaves, one of whom was summoned to testify about John's whereabouts during the early morn­ ing hours after Hinton's slaying. The calling of slaves as prosecutorial wit­ nesses was a common practice in slave trials; they could be expected to give testimony as directed by whites or be punished when they returned home. No witnesses appeared for the defense. The indictment and the trial that fol­ lowed took about two and one-half hours. The jury swiftly found John guilty of murder in the first degree.50 Apparently convinced that the crowd was under control, Judge Hicks routinely remarked to the defendant's attorneys that before sentencing he would entertain motions for a new trial or to set aside the verdict. Hicks instantly realized that his procedural correctness had further angered the impatient crowd, which wanted only to hear the death sentence. "The thought flashed across my mind," the judge remembered, "that if the prison­ er was publicly ordered back to jail, he would never reach there." Hicks therefore directed that John remain in the courtroom while he began Jim's trial for the attempted rape of Mary Habecot.51 Just before noon, after a jury was impaneled and sworn for Jim's trial, Hicks ordered a one-hour recess. By that time the crowd had begun to press into the area where the lawyers, the judge, and the prisoners sat. In a voice loud enough to be heard throughout the courtroom, Hicks told the sheriff to keep the two prisoners (John and Jim) in the courthouse during the break for the "dinner hour." A few minutes later, however, he whispered to Sheriff Smith that as soon as the crowd had dispersed, he must take John back to the safety of the jail.52 Hicks remained on the bench for a few moments longer, nervously watching the people in the room, hoping they would leave. Some did, but many in the menacing crowd stayed, and suddenly they moved toward the prisoners. As rapidly as he could, the crippled Hicks stepped down from the bench, walked over to the prisoners, and stood by their side, where he turned boldly to the crowd and announced that the prisoners were "in no

State v. John, a Slave. Hicks to editors. Ibid. Judge Lynch in Saline County 287 danger in the presence of the court." Hicks then ordered Sheriff Smith to take John to the jail, declaring that he would personally escort them.53 The sheriff, the judge, the slave, and a deputy then pushed through the angry, milling crowd, out the courtroom door, down the stairs to the first floor, and outside into searing noontime heat. From there they strode rapidly through the yard encircling the courthouse toward the jail, approximately one hundred yards away. Just before reaching a gate that opened to the street, Hicks looked to his right and saw crowds of men hurdling the fence around the courthouse yard and running down the street toward the jail. In an effort to reach the safety of the jail, John and Sheriff Smith broke into a run. The crippled Hicks could not keep up. Smith got his prisoner to the jail safely and turned him over to the jailer, W. W. Arnett, who hurried the slave to his cell.54 By then the gathering crowd had become a mob in fury, full of wild noise, and pressed against the jail, where, according to Judge Hicks, they were harangued and incited to violence by James M. Shackleford, a local farmer, justice of the peace, and neighbor of Mary Habecot. In the confu­ sion of the riot, Hicks found Circuit Attorney Bryant and urged him to calm the mob. Bryant refused. "If such men [as Shackleford] had taken the mat­ ter in hand," he said, "it was all over with the prisoners." Shackleford was, Bryant added, "as respectable as any man in the county."55 When Shackleford finished, the exhorted mob stormed the jail, surged into the jailer's family quarters, threatened the sheriff and the jailer with

53 Ibid. 54 Ibid. 55 Ibid.

State Historical Society of Missouri 288 Missouri Historical Review sledgehammers, and demanded John's surrender. The jailer refused. The mob overpowered him, took the keys, opened the cells, and dragged out John and also Holman, who had remained in the jail during the morning. Meanwhile, a part of the mob rushed back to the courthouse where it forced two sheriff's deputies to surrender Jim.56 Loud, furious, and profane, the two mobs then converged—pulling, shoving, beating, and dragging their prisoners through the dust of the streets around the square in a swirl of savage force that took them finally to a ravine in a quiet grove about two hundred yards from the courthouse, down­ hill to the north. Of the three slaves, Jim struggled hardest during the melee, causing minor injuries to some of his tormentors.57 In the grove, barefoot and stripped to the waist, John was chained to a walnut tree, all the while talking rapidly with his captors.58 According to the Marshall Democrat, the slave "had an intelligent and open countenance, and conversed very freely with all those who indicated a willingness to hear him while chained to the stake." The frantic man now claimed that he had had a white accomplice in the murder of Benjamin Hinton, but the charge caused no one in the mob to halt the awful work. While the slave talked, white men gathered dry wood and other combustibles and piled them around John's bare feet at the base of the tree. Only when the mob set fire to the wood did John seem to comprehend that he was to be burned alive. The newspaper's grisly account provides the hideous details:

He was heard through, and the match was applied beneath the com­ bustibles piled around him. When the flames began to hiss about him, and the fire to penetrate his flesh, he first seemed to realize that he was to expi­ ate his crime in that dreadful manner, for all along he had fed upon the fond belief that an honest confession would mitigate his punishment. We did not hear of his having made his peace with a more terrible Judge than Lynch, and in his dying agony he prayed more to those around him than to One above him. He lived from six to eight minutes from the time the flames wrung the first cry of agony from his lips, the inhalation of the blazing fire suffocating him in a short time. His legs and arms were burnt off, and his body but remained, a charred and shapeless mass.59

The St. Louis Democrat offered more details. The ghastly effects of the fire could be seen "in the futile attempts of the poor wretch to move his feet. As the flames gathered about his limbs and body, he commenced the most

56 Ibid. 57 Saline County Herald in Waverly and St. Thomas Saturday Morning Visitor, 23 July 1859; Marshall Democrat, 22 July 1859; History of Saline County, 260. 58 St. Louis Democrat in National Anti-Slavery Standard, 6 August 1859. 59 Marshall Democrat, 22 July 1859. Judge Lynch in Saline County 289 frantic s[h]rieks and appeals for mercy, for death, for water! He seized his chains; they were hot and burned the flesh off his hands. He would drop them, and catch at them again and again. Then he would repeat his cries; but all to no purpose. In a few moments he was a charred mass, bones and flesh alike burned into a powder."60 Meanwhile, Holman had been taken to another walnut tree, where a hangman's noose was placed around his neck. The crowd then took the rope, threw it over a limb, jerked Holman from the ground, and suspended the slave until he also died, "apparently easy," as the Marshall newspaper unpersuasively noted. The mob also intended to burn Jim, but having wit­ nessed John's horrible immolation, decided against this manner of death for the slave accused of attempted rape. Jim was "swung up on the same limb with Holman, where he struggled for some time, dying hard."61 Its work finished, the satisfied mob dispersed. Described by one observ­ er as "ribald," the mob may have carried out its plans in an atmosphere of Saturnalia, characteristic of Jacksonian-era mobs two decades before.62 At least some of the men, however, were sickened and horrified by the affair. The St. Louis Democrat reported, "Many, very many of the spectators, who did not realize the full horrors of the scene until it was too late to change it, retired disgusted and sick at the sight." Throughout the afternoon and into the long summer evening, the bodies of Jim and Holman hung from the limb of the walnut tree while John's charred remains smoldered until the fire died out. Not until the next morning were the three buried in a common grave nearby.63 The slaves were dead, four lynched within the space of two days, one in Arrow Rock, three in Marshall, all by horrible means. The absence of any records showing the immediate effect upon the slave community makes it impossible to say with certainty what the reactions of the families of the four slaves might have been—if indeed they had families. Of the four, only John is known to have had a wife. Whether the others had wives or children will never be known. But there would have been great grief among the sur­ vivors and, presumably, great fear engendered among the county's slaves— at least that was the specific intention of the mob and its leaders.64

60 St. Louis Democrat in National Anti-Slavery Standard, 6 August 1859. 61 Marshall Democrat, 22 July 1859. 62 Saline County Herald in Waverly and St. Thomas Saturday Morning Visitor, 23 July 1859. 63 St. Louis Democrat in National Anti-Slavery Standard, 6 August 1859. 64 Waverly and St. Thomas Saturday Morning Visitor, 21 May 1859. Courtesy of the author The Union army used one of the buildings in the Metropolitan Block of McGee's Addition in Kansas City to house female Confederate sympathizers in July-August 1863. Catalyst for Terror: The Collapse of the Women's Prison in Kansas City

BY CHARLES F. HARRIS* One of the most fascinating but mysterious events of the Civil War on the Missouri-Kansas border is the collapse of the building housing female prisoners in Kansas City on August 13, 1863. Among the killed and injured were women who were close relatives of prominent Confederate guerrillas. William Quantrill's raid on Lawrence, Kansas, which occurred only eight days later on August 21, involved several of the same guerrillas. Did the prison collapse provide the reason for the raid, or was it a catalyst for an event already being planned? By 1863 the "City of Kansas" had begun to develop along the south bank of the Missouri River, west of Independence, and next to the conflu­ ence of the Missouri and Kaw Rivers. The town, bordered on the north by the Missouri River and on the west by the Kansas state line, was first settled

*Charles F. Harris is an attorney in Wichita, Kansas. He received the B.A. degree from Wichita State University and the J.D. degree from Washburn University, Topeka. Harris is related to Nannie Harris McCorkle. 290 Catalyst for Terror 291 around 1837 and commonly referred to as Kansas City—although not its legal name until 1889. Many wagon trains started west from Kansas City. By 1860 the population of the community had reached 4,414, and it boasted four railway connections, seven churches, one daily and five weekly news­ papers, two banks, several seminaries, numerous companies manufacturing a variety of goods, one hundred retail establishments, and four large hotels.1 For years prior to the beginning of the Civil War in April 1861, the Missouri-Kansas border area near the city had been in a constant state of warfare. Under the terms of the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, a referen­ dum would determine whether the Kansas Territory would enter the Union as a free state or a slave state. Kansas attracted many settlers who held anti- slavery sympathies; at the same time many of the citizens of Missouri, a slave state, were concerned about having a free state on their border. As a result, friction developed between the groups holding these political views throughout the late 1850s. Both sides attempted to influence the politics of the Kansas Territory by vote fraud and intimidation. Murders and kidnap­ pings of persons known to hold one political view by adherents of the other side became common. Groups of Kansans called "Jayhawkers" or "Red Legs" raided into Missouri, taking slaves and anything else they could steal.2 One such raider was James Montgomery, a fierce abolitionist who had emigrated from Ohio. Beginning in the mid-1850s, he organized attacks against proslavery forces in Kansas. He later led raids into Missouri, steal­ ing from and even hanging those who resisted. Among his subordinates were Charles Jennison and William Clarke Quantrill.3 Born in Canal Dover, Ohio, in 1837, Quantrill migrated to the Kansas Territory in 1857. An opportunist, Quantrill spent his first few years on the border engaged in petty crime. One of his favorite tricks was to befriend runaway slaves and then kidnap them back to Missouri for a reward.4 For reasons that remain unclear, he decided in April 1861 that he would fare better on the Missouri side. Whether from a desire for revenge for some

1 Sherry Lamb Schirmer and Richard D. McKinzie, At the River's Bend: An Illustrated History of Kansas City, Independence, and Jackson County (Woodland Hills, Calif.: Windsor Publications, 1982), 29; George Fuller Green, A Condensed History of the Kansas City Area (Kansas City: The Lowell Press, 1968), 32; James Sutherland, comp., 1860-1861 Kansas City Directory (Indianapolis: James Sutherland Publisher, 1861). 2 Ann Davis Niepman, "General Orders No. 11 and Border Warfare During the Civil War," Missouri Historical Review 66 (January 1972): 190. 3 Jay Monaghan, Civil War on the Western Border, 1854-1865 (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1955; Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, Bison Book, 1984), 81; Lew Larkin, Bingham: Fighting Artist (Kansas City: Burton Publishing Company, 1954; reprint, Point Lookout, Mo.: School of the Ozarks Press, 1971), 140-141; Monaghan, Civil War, 122. 4 William E. Connelley, Quantrill and the Border Wars (Cedar Rapids, Iowa: Torch Press, 1910), 114. 292 Missouri Historical Review perceived slight he had received in Kansas or a view that his lot was best cast with the Missourians, Quantrill acted first and foremost for himself and not from any true loyalty to either side. Dr. Charles Jennison had originally come to Kansas from Wisconsin, and he quickly became a leader among the antislavery forces along the trou­ bled border. Commissioned a lieutenant colonel in September 1861, Jennison received authorization to organize the Seventh Kansas Volunteer Cavalry. This regiment, which attracted the worst element of thieves and opportunists, quickly earned the nickname "Jennison's Jayhawkers."5 In early 1861, under the guise of pursuing guerrilla Upton Hays, Jennison's men rounded up numerous horses and slaves and brought them back to Kansas. Throughout the area around Jackson County, Missouri, Jennison led his men on plundering expeditions, all under the cover of official military operations. An investigation of Jennison's activities brought about by complaints from prominent citizens forced his resignation in April 1862.6 His exploits had earned the long-term hatred of many Missouri citizens. The guerrillas were primarily area citizens who could participate in a raid and then return to their ordinary activities. As the incursions from Kansas became more frequent, the number of Missourians turning to guer­ rilla gangs increased. Historian Richard S. Brownlee observed, "The major­ ity of them [were] driven to insurrection by the treatment their people had received from the Union troops that occupied the area."7 On June 9, 1863, Union authorities created the District of the Border, which included the Kansas City area. Brigadier General Thomas Ewing, Jr., was appointed to command. Ewing, an attorney originally from Ohio and the foster brother of General William Tecumseh Sherman, had resigned his position as chief justice of the Kansas Supreme Court to organize the Eleventh Kansas Infantry Regiment. As a colonel he led the regiment in the battles of Cane Hill and Prairie Grove.8 The District of the Border encompassed the state of Kansas north of the thirty-eighth parallel and the two western tiers of counties in Missouri north

5 Richard S. Brownlee, Gray Ghosts of the Confederacy: Guerrilla Warfare in the West, 1861-1865 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1958), 40-41; William E. Connelley, History of Kansas State and People (Chicago: American Historical Society, 1928), 3: 1274; Michael Fellman, Inside War: The Guerrilla Conflict in Missouri During the American Civil War (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989), 35. 6 Larkin, Bingham, 141, 146. 7 Brownlee, Gray Ghosts, 10, 60. 8 U.S. War Department, The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies (Washington, D.C: Government Printing Office, 1880- 1901), ser. 1, vol. 22, pt. 2, 315 (hereinafter cited as O.R., with all references to series 1); Thomas Goodrich, Bloody Dawn: The Story of the Lawrence Massacre (Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press, 1991), 20; Nancy Rash, The Painting and Politics of George Caleb Bingham (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1991), 189; Connelley, Kansas, 2: 620. Catalyst for Terror 293

Brigadier General Thomas Ewing, Jr., commanded the District of the Border from June 1863 to February 1864.

State Historical Society of Missouri of the same parallel and south of the Missouri River. The command was established to focus on the continuing state of conflict in the area. Prior to its organization, the area fell within the District of Kansas under the com­ mand of Major General James G. Blunt. Military authorities had attempted to allocate troops to the Jackson County-Cass County area without much success because demands for troops to fight in the East drained the region of arms and men. On January 31, 1863, only 66 officers and 1,333 men were available for duty in the district. As early as April 16, 1863, Blunt issued an order for the placement of the Ninth Kansas Volunteer Regiment in the area to interdict not only the guerrillas but also the "Red Legs," who were observed to be operating under apparent military authority.9 The guerrilla forces in the District of the Border area consisted of loose­ ly organized, heavily armed, highly mobile bands of men. Although not officially sanctioned by the Confederate government, they generally sup­ ported the southern cause. The guerrillas, who numbered between three hundred and five hundred men, fought mounted and armed primarily with sets of up to eight six-shot revolvers. To perform their missions successful­ ly, the guerrillas required the support and cooperation of the local populace. Many of them or their relatives owned land in the District of the Border.10 Operating from wooded areas such as the Sni Hills near Kansas City, the bushwhackers could venture out on raids and return with impunity.11

9 O.R., 22, pt. 2: 80, 89, 125, 185, 223, 315. 10 Ibid., 403, 428. 11 Richard Cordley, A History of Lawrence, Kansas (Lawrence, Kans.: E. F. Caldwell, 1895), 192. 294 Missouri Historical Review

During the first part of 1863, the situation in the district had worsened. On January 20, in response to continued guerrilla attacks, military authori­ ties issued the following order: "All persons who shall knowingly harbor, conceal, aid, or abet, by furnishing food, clothing, information, protection, or any assistance whatever to any such emissary, Confederate officer or sol­ dier, partisan ranger, bushwhacker, robber, or thief, shall be promptly exe­ cuted."12 Shortly thereafter, the headquarters for the Department of the Missouri issued an order to all the military districts:

Commanding officers and provost-marshals will make it a special duty to ascertain, as far as possible, all cases of violations of the rules and arti­ cles of war, and of the laws of war . . . such as of spies, disloyal persons, guerrillas, and individuals that have violated oaths of allegiance . . . [and] will cause their arrest, imprisonment, and trial. ... It is believed that a great number of persons within our lines are carrying on treasonable correspon­ dence with the enemy, rendering him all the aid and comfort in their power, and themselves amenable to the articles of war as spies. Doubtless, also, numerous regularly employed spies of the enemy frequent our camps and cities. Such persons, whether male or female, old or young, will be brought to trial, and the strict severity of military law administered as soon as practicable.13

On April 22 the commander of the Department of the Missouri believed it necessary to issue an order defining for judge advocates a number of terms such as "spy," "guerrilla," and "disloyal persons." The order also pro­ vided that such persons would be tried by military commission. Among the definitions was the following:

II. Correspondence with the Enemy, Mail Carrying, &c: A person dwelling in a district under military occupation and giving information to the enemy is universally treated as a spy—a spy of a pecu­ liarly dangerous character. . . . By the Fifty-seventh Article of War, whosoever shall be convicted of holding correspondence with, or giving intelligence to, the enemy, either directly or indirectly, shall suffer death, or such other punishment as shall be ordered by the sentence of a court-martial. Persons engaged in carrying such correspondence will be held liable to the same punishment as the correspondents themselves.14

In an effort to destroy the guerrillas' base of support, Union troops

O.R., 22, pt. 2:65. Ibid., 103. Ibid., 237. Catalyst for Terror 295 began in July 1863 to arrest Kansas City area women suspected of gathering information on the partisans' behalf.15 Presumably, the authorities planned to detain the women until they could be tried by military tribunal. On August 13 the pro-Union Kansas City Daily Journal of Commerce ran an editorial in support of striking at the families of the guerrillas:

It is an utter impossibility to rid the country of these pestilent outlaws, so long as their families remain. . . . One of the greatest difficulties the mili­ tary authorities have to encounter, is the constant and correct information which the families of the bushwhackers give of every movement the troops make. . . . With the aid of these spies, dotted all over the country and living in perfect security, a hundred bushwhackers may defy the utmost efforts of five hundred soldiers to exterminate them.16

Until it became too crowded, Union troops imprisoned the women in the Union Hotel, located at the southeast corner of Sixth and Main Streets.17 The authorities then moved them to a building at Delaware and Commercial, for­ merly the Mechanics Bank.18 Because this building proved unsanitary, the military authorities then commandeered a structure in the Metropolitan Block of McGee's Addition. General Ewing subsequently acknowledged the seizure of the building in a letter dated September 11, 1863: "This certifies that a cer­ tain house in McGee's addition to Kansas City, Mo., known as 'No. 13 Metropolitan Block,' was occupied as a prison, by my order, from some day in the latter part of July, 1863, until the 13th day of August last, when it fell."19 E. M. McGee, the patriarch of one of the most prominent families among Kansas City's early settlers, also owned some of the first slaves in the area.20 An early promoter of Kansas City, in May 1857 he had platted the 240-acre McGee's Addition between Twelfth and Twentieth Streets.21 McGee laid out Grand Avenue, one hundred feet wide and running north- south, as a major thoroughfare through the addition and divided the acreage into approximately sixty-five blocks.22 In the spring of 1857, the only struc-

15 Connelley, Quantrill, 299. 16 Kansas City Daily Journal of Commerce, 13 August 1863. 17 Connelley, Kansas, 2: 632; Sutherland, Directory, 109. 18 Mattie Lykins Bingham, "Recollections of Old Times in Kansas City," Kansas City Genealogist 25 (winter/spring 1985): 116. 19 Connelley, Kansas, 2: 633; Brownlee, Gray Ghosts, 118; Senate Committee on Claims, Report, 43rd Cong., 1st sess., 1874, S. Rept. 67, serial 1586, 1. 20 Green, History of Kansas City, 64. 21 Plat of McGee's Addition to the City of Kansas, 3 June 1857, Recorder of Deeds, Jackson County, Missouri; C. C. Spalding, Annals of the City of Kansas (Kansas City: Van Horn and Abeel's Printing House, 1858), 38. 22 Charles P. Deatherage, Early History of Greater Kansas City, Missouri and Kansas (Kansas City: Interstate Publishing Company, 1927), 482; plat of McGee's Addition. 296 Missouri Historical Review ture in the addition was McGee's personal residence. By 1858 thirty-eight brick buildings and seventy-nine frame buildings stood in the addition.23 The focal point of the addition was the Metropolitan Block. Built in 1859 on the east side of Grand Avenue between Fourteenth and Fifteenth Streets, the structure consisted of a row of identical two-story buildings run­ ning the nine lots in the block.24 Although a period woodcut shows four fifty-foot-wide and one seventy-five-foot-wide buildings in the block, the 1860-1861 City Directory for Kansas City indicates that the block consisted of eighteen twenty-five-foot adjoining buildings. Each building shared a common wall on both sides, with access to the lower story from the front and to the second story from the rear.25 The lower stories appear to be shopfronts, with the upper floors more suited to offices or residences. The 1860-1861 Directory lists a carpentry shop, three grocery stores, a drug­ store, a physician, a saloon, a law office, and a real estate office among the tenants.26 At the time of the collapse, the building selected for the women's prison was owned by the estate of Robert S. Thomas, a minister who had died on June 12, 1859. The prominent Missouri artist, George Caleb Bingham, was married to Thomas's daughter, Eliza.27 Contrary to other reports that place the building at 1409 Grand, it was located at 1425 Grand on the north half of lot 169, McGee's Addition.28 Because he needed a studio, Bingham had the building remodeled to add a third story. By 1861 the artist was working and living in the building, along with his own family, his mother-in-law, Elvira Thomas, and his disabled brother-in-law, John P. Thomas. In a letter to his friend James S. Rollins, Bingham stated, "The window of my Studio commands the main avenue leading from Kansas City towards New Mexico, through which thousands of horses oxen and mules are almost daily passing."29 This reference is to Grand Avenue. The building became vacant after Bingham was appointed treasurer for the state of Missouri on January

23 Spalding, Annals, 39. 24 Green, History of Kansas City1, 64; Spalding, Annals, 39; Connelley, Kansas, 2: 633. 25 Spalding, Annals, 39; plat of McGee's Addition; Sutherland, Directory, 14; Connelley, Kansas, 2: 633. 26 Sutherland, Directory, 37-139. 27 George C. Bingham affidavit, 14 March 1874; petition of heirs of Robert S. Thomas to Senate and House of Representatives; Robert S. Thomas family record, all in Native Sons of Kansas City Archives, Western Historical Manuscript Collection, University of Missouri- Kansas City. 28 Plat of McGee's Addition; inventory of estate proceeding of Thomas, Native Sons Archives; Sutherland, Directory, 43. 29 Kansas City Daily Journal of Commerce, 14 August 1863; Sutherland, Directory, 108; C. B. Rollins, ed., "Letters of George Caleb Bingham to James S. Rollins, Part 4," Missouri Historical Review 32 (July 1938): 495. Catalyst for Terror 297

Artist George Caleb Bingham and his fam­ ily lived in the Thomas building on Grand Avenue prior to its use as a Union prison.

State Historical Society of Missouri

4, 1862, and moved with his family to Jefferson City.30 It remained unoccu­ pied until late July 1863, when Ewing chose it for the women's prison. In late July or early August 1863, Union soldiers arrested Nancy "Nannie" Harris McCorkle and Charity McCorkle Kerr while they were in Kansas City on a shopping excursion.31 The two women, who lived in east­ ern Jackson County, had supposedly gone to the city to exchange wheat for flour. While they were in town, Anderson Cowgill informed military author­ ities that the women were buying supplies for the guerrillas. Cowgill, a neighbor of the girls, held a grudge against Kerr's brother, John McCorkle, after being captured and released by the guerrillas.32 Another purported rea­ son for the girls' arrest was that they had witnessed the murder of Henry Younger, a prominent proslavery citizen in Jackson County and the father of Cole Younger, by a detachment of troops from the Fifth Missouri Militia Cavalry under Captain Irvin Walley. Since the Younger shooting occurred in 1862, the passage of such a substantial amount of time between the shooting and the arrests makes this justification questionable.33 After their apprehen-

30 E. Maurice Bloch, George Caleb Bingham: The Evolution of an Artist (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1967), 213. 31 Kansas City Star, 19 November 1911. 32 John McCorkle, Three Years with Quantrill (1914; reprint, Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1992), 120, 62. 33 Brownlee, Gray Ghosts, 43, 61. 298 Missouri Historical Review sion McCorkle and Kerr were placed in the temporary prison in the Metropolitan Block with other women who had also been seized as spies and collaborators.34 The Union authorities treated the women prisoners decently because they were considered to be of good character. They were allowed to bring their own bedding into the building, and ten-year-old Janie Anderson was permitted to move into the building to be with her sisters. One source sug­ gests that the women could even go shopping with an escort.35 When one of the women became ill, local physician Peter Arnoldia came to the building to treat her. Another doctor stated that he regularly visited the prison to care for the inmates and to check on the conditions.36

34 Kansas City Star, 19 November 1911; Kansas City Daily Journal of Commerce, 14 August 1863. 35 Connelley, Quantrill, 300; Connelley, Kansas, 2: 633. 36 Peter Arnoldia affidavit, 12 September 1863; Joshua Thome affidavit, 17 May 1876, both in Native Sons Archives.

Nancy Harris McCorkle and Charity McCorkle Kerr

Courtesy Carl W. Breihan Catalyst for Terror 299

Whatever the circumstances of the women's imprisonment, on the after­ noon of Thursday, August 13, 1863, the building collapsed, taking the occu­ pants with it. At least ten women, none over twenty years old, resided in the building at the time of the collapse.37 Nancy "Nannie" Harris McCorkle, the daughter of Reuben Harris and Laura Fristoe Harris, was born in 1844.38 The elder Harris, a farmer, active­ ly supported the guerrillas, and a brother, Thomas, rode with Quantrill. McCorkle was the widow of Jabez McCorkle, who had died earlier in the summer after accidentally shooting himself in the leg. Both Jabez McCorkle and his brother, John, rode with Quantrill. Nancy's mother was the aunt of guerrilla Cole Younger.39 Charity McCorkle Kerr, a sister of Jabez and John McCorkle and the sister-in-law of Nannie McCorkle, lived in Lee's Summit and was arrested with her. She was married to Nathan Kerr, one of Quantrill's followers.40 Sisters Armenia Crawford Selvey and Susan Crawford Vandever lived near Sni Mills, Missouri. Because their mother, Elizabeth Harris Crawford, was the sister of Reuben Harris, they were cousins of Nannie Harris McCorkle. Their brother, Riley Crawford, was allegedly Quantrill's youngest guerrilla.41 Aged fourteen, sixteen, and ten respectively at the time of the collapse, Josephine Anderson, Mollie Anderson, and Janie Anderson were sisters of William Anderson, one of Quantrill's chief lieutenants. When Josephine and Mollie were arrested, Janie was allowed to accompany her sisters, a decision the military authorities would later regret.42 Orphans Sue Mundy and Mattie Mundy lived near Santa Fe, Missouri, with their sister. They were arrested with the Anderson girls. Mollie Grindstaff, a neighbor of the Anderson girls, was staying with them at the time of their arrest.43

37 Thorne affidavit, 17 May 1876, ibid.; Sue Mundy Womacks interview, Kansas City Post, 27 February 1916. 38 U.S. Census, 1860, "Jackson County, Missouri, Blue Township, Dwelling No. 904"; Joanne Chiles Eakin and Donald R. Hale, Branded as Rebels (Independence, Mo.: Joanne Chiles Eakin and Donald R. Hale, 1993), 192. 39 Connelley, Quantrill, 250; McCorkle, Quantrill, 99, 120; Marley Brant, The Outlaw Youngers: A Confederate Brotherhood (Lanham, Md.: Madison Books, 1992), 318-319. 40 McCorkle, Quantrill, 120; Kansas City Star, 19 November 1911; Brownlee, Gray Ghosts, 118-121. 41 Brownlee, Gray Ghosts, 61, 118-121; U.S. Census, 1850, "Jackson County, Missouri"; June Baldwin Bork, Burnett's and Their Connections (Apple Valley, Calif.: June Baldwin Bork, 1989), 1:387. 42 McCorkle, Quantrill, 121; Kansas City Post, 27 February 1916; Connelley, Quantrill, 300. 43 Kansas City Post, 27 February 1916; Connelley, Kansas, 2: 632. 300 Missouri Historical Review

When the building collapsed, the ten women were on the second floor. Kerr, who was ill, lay on a bed while Grindstaff fixed her hair; several of the girls sat on the floor watching. McCorkle and Mollie Anderson had gone into the hall to get a bucket of water just as the ceiling cracked and began to shower dust on the girls. The prisoners attempted to escape by climbing out windows and running onto the back balcony as the building collapsed.44 A number of area newspapers reported the disaster. The Daily Journal of Commerce stated: "The large three story brick building in the Metropolitan Block, McGee's Addition, owned by G. C. Bingham, Esq., and occupied for the last two weeks as a guard house, fell in yesterday after­ noon, carrying with it the adjoining building south. There were in the build­ ing at the time, nine women prisoners, two children and one man: Four women were killed; the balance escaped without fatal injuries."45 The Wyandotte Commercial Gazette reported, "A three-story brick building in Kansas City, used as a guard house for she rebels, fell Thursday afternoon and killed four of the inmates and badly bruised several others."46 Signs of structural failure had apparently appeared prior to the collapse. The occupants of the store on the first floor removed their goods after see­ ing cracks in the walls and mortar dust on the ground. The guard at the building notified the captain of the provost guard, who had a soldier inspect the structure. The building collapsed during the inspection, before the occu­ pants could be evacuated. Charity McCorkle Kerr, Susan Crawford Vandever, Armenia Crawford Selvey, and Josephine Anderson died in the disaster. Mollie Anderson was severely injured, and Mollie Grindstaff sus­ tained slight injuries.47 The collapse outraged the families and friends of the girls. John McCorkle wrote, "A loved sister foully murdered and the widow of a dead brother seriously hurt by a set of men to whom the name assassins, murder­ ers and cutthroats would be a compliment." When Bill Anderson learned what had happened to his sisters, he became crazed with anger and swore an oath to kill all Union soldiers he thereafter encountered. To record his feat he began carrying a long, silk scarf in which he tied a knot for each of his kills. At his death in October 1864, the scarf had fifty-three knots.48 By then he had earned his nickname "Bloody Bill."

44 Kansas City Post, 27 February 1916; Connelley, Kansas, 2: 633; Carl W. Breihan, The Complete and Authentic Life of Jesse James (New York: Frederick Fell, 1953), 243. 45 Kansas City Daily Journal of Commerce, 14 August 1863. 46 Wyandotte (Kans.) Commercial Gazette, 15 August 1863. 47 McCorkle, Quantrill, 122; Goodrich, Bloody Dawn, 8; Connelley, Kansas, 2: 633; Kansas City Daily Journal of Commerce, 14 August 1863. 48 McCorkle, Quantrill, 123; Connelley, Quantrill, 303; Darrell Garwood, Crossroads of America: The Story of Kansas City (New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 1948), 54; Goodrich, Bloody Dawn, 180. Catalyst for Terror 301

State Historical Society of Missouri John McCorkle, left, lost a sister when the Thomas building collapsed. He and Thomas Harris, both members of Quantrill's band, posed for this picture in 1864. The rumor quickly circulated that the building had collapsed because the Union soldiers had undermined the supports in an apparent attempt to assas­ sinate the women. Another report suggested that a windstorm caused the collapse after soldiers working on the building removed supports. A third theory indicated that a latrine located at the rear of the building had under­ mined the foundation. Another conjecture held that pigs rooting around the foundation in the back of the building had weakened the structure.49 None of the contemporary reports of the event referred to a windstorm. Instead, they used such terms as "fell in," "fell," and "fell down." The col­ lapse occurred in mid-August when violent storms are unlikely in the Kansas City area. Also, the building stood in the middle of a block, sup­ ported on both sides by other structures. The latrine and the rooting pig theories likewise lack credibility. A site inspection by the author of the 1400 block of Grand revealed that the block is built on a fairly steep grade running uphill south to north and that the hill rises to the east or rear of the building site. This configuration suggests that the structure was not built on pylons. Additionally, this was a fully occupied, four-year-old, upscale block in the middle of a developed area of

49 McCorkle, Quantrill, 121; Connelley, Quantrill, 301; Kansas City Star, 12 September 1993. 302 Missouri Historical Review the city. It is unlikely that an open latrine or a pigpen would have existed in the neighborhood. The least plausible of the theories is that Union soldiers intentionally weakened the structure. While the military authorities believed that the women were spies providing valuable information to the guerrillas, once they were imprisoned they no longer posed a threat. During this period it was simply unthinkable for men to intentionally harm women and children in warfare.50 Few examples exist of atrocities directed at women during the Civil War. If the authorities had determined to kill the women, they could not have picked a more time-consuming, cumbersome, or unreliable method. Why not set the building on fire or poison the food? Bingham asserted in a December 21, 1863, letter to Rollins that he had filed a claim against the government because soldiers had undermined the supports and caused the collapse.51 In fact, the true owner of the building, the estate of Robert S. Thomas, did submit a claim to the federal government for compensation, but not until 1872. The claim was for five thousand dollars, the stated value of the building at the time of the collapse.52 Sworn affidavits, which provide valuable first-person insight into the condition and structure of the building, supported the claim. According to the affidavit of Charles H. Vincent, who worked in the Metropolitan Block, Elizabeth Cockrell owned the building immediately to the south of the Thomas structure. For some time prior to the utilization of the Thomas building as a prison, the Cockrell building had served as a guardhouse for soldiers. The soldiers had removed the partitions and the center posts on which the center girder supporting the joists of the second floor of the Cockrell building rested. By the time of the collapse, the center girder running the sixty-foot length of the Cockrell building had sagged, and the joists resting thereon tipped at the center of the building. This created a lever action on the common wall between the two buildings. This torquing action caused the Thomas building to fall top over into the Cockrell build­ ing.53 Once the wall began to tilt, the weight of the third story added to the Thomas building by Bingham probably contributed to the collapse. Solomon S. Smith was the brick mason who built the building. According to his affidavit, the brick wall between the two buildings was thirteen inches thick and in good condition at the time of the collapse. He

50 FoWman, Inside War, 201. 51 C. B. Rollins, ed., "Letters of George Caleb Bingham to James S. Rollins, Part 5," Missouri Historical Review 33 (October 1938): 62. 52 George C. Bingham affidavit, 14 March 1874; petition of John P. Thomas, administra­ tor of the estate of Robert S. Thomas, to the Senate and House of Representatives, both in Native Sons Archives. 53 Charles H. Vincent affidavit, 7 September 1863, ibid. Catalyst for Terror 303 stated that the wooden joists supporting the second floors of both buildings were set in the dividing walls on one end, with the other end resting on cen­ ter girders running from front to back.54 The affidavit of Dr. Peter Arnoldia, who officed in the Metropolitan Block, indicated that he had gone to the Thomas building to treat one of the women on the day before the collapse. He observed nothing about the building that caused him to believe a problem existed.55 Nothing in the affidavits indicated that any structural alterations had occurred in the Thomas building. The suggestion has been made that the authorities weakened the building over a period of days for the express pur­ pose of harming the women. More likely, the modifications were performed to reconfigure the first floor of the Cockrell building, removing the parti­ tions and supports that interfered with converting the building into a guard­ house. The military authorities may have wanted a large open bay rather than a floor broken up by interior walls. Whatever the theory, no report exists that determines the cause of the collapse. Given contemporaneous attitudes toward women, it is not credible to believe that Union authorities would have intentionally injured the prisoners. If they had wanted to harm the women, they could have found a more effective means. Following the building's collapse, the four dead girls were buried in area cemeteries, and the survivors were removed to the Union Hotel. Some of the prisoners were apparently later sent to St. Louis until the guerrilla threat had passed.56 The Union authorities allowed others to leave the state. Nannie Harris McCorkle remarried after the war and died on November 10, 1872. William Quantrill had been attempting to organize a raid on Lawrence for some time prior to August 13. He hoped to launch a monumental attack on his former hometown, perceived as the headquarters of the hated Jayhawkers.57 Because the guerrillas were not an official military unit, Quantrill could not simply order the attack. When he proposed the raid, several of his lieutenants proved reluctant for a variety of reasons. The raid would involve a fifty-mile trip into the heart of Jayhawker territory in the vicinity of Union forces of unknown strength. The almost three-day ride would tax the limits of both men and horses, and upon completion the band would have to escape through the same territory with the enemy forces alerted. With the collapse of the prison and the death of their female relatives, any reservations on the part of the guerrilla leaders vanished. Quantrill's

54 Solomon S. Smith affidavit, 10 September 1863, ibid. 55 Peter Arnoldia affidavit, 12 September 1863, ibid. 56 Connelley, Quantrill, 304. 57 Goodrich, Bloody Dawn, 11; Brownlee, Gray Ghosts, 121; Paul I. Wellman, A Dynasty of Western Outlaws (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday and Company, 1961; Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, Bison Book, 1986), 36. 304 Missouri Historical Review raid on Lawrence began on the evening of August 20, when approximately 450 mounted men crossed into Kansas. By riding all night they reached Lawrence early on the morning of August 21.58 When the morning-long attack ended, 140 men and boys had been killed. The guerrillas did not physically harm a single woman, although eighty were left widows. With most of Lawrence looted and burned, officials calculated the loss from the raid at $887,000. The invaders escaped back to Missouri pursued by small groups of soldiers and citizens.59 Because the Union authorities knew that the guerrillas had come from the Jackson County area and were receiving support from many of the resi­ dents, the commander quickly tried to destroy the problem at its source. On August 25, General Ewing issued General Order Number 11:

All persons living in Jackson, Cass, and Bates Counties, Missouri, and in that part of Vernon included in this district, except those living within 1 mile of the limits of Independence, Hickman Mills, Pleasant Hill, and

58 Shelby Foote, The Civil War: A Narrative (New York: Random House, 1963), 2: 704; Brownlee, Gray Ghosts, 121; Connelley, Kansas, 2: 628; Goodrich, Bloody Dawn, 81. 59 Brownlee, Gray Ghosts, 124; Garwood, Crossroads, 57; Cordley, History of Lawrence, 246; Goodrich, Bloody Dawn, 123-130; O.R., 22, pt. 1: 580-585.

Quantrill's Raid on Lawrence, Kansas

State Historical Society of Missouri Catalyst for Terror 305

Harrisonville ... are hereby ordered to remove from their present places of residence within fifteen days from the date hereof. Those who, within that time, establish their loyalty to the satisfaction of the commanding officer of the military station nearest their present places of residence will receive from him certificates stating the fact of their loyalty, and the names of the witnesses by whom it can be shown. All who receive such certificates will be permitted to remove to any military station in this district, or to any part of the State of Kansas, except the counties on the eastern border of the State. All others shall remove out of this district. Officers commanding companies and detachments serving in the counties named will see that this paragraph is promptly obeyed.60

This forced removal led to many hardships. The order, which forced twenty thousand people to evacuate their homes and land, gave the residents little time to prepare.61 Historian Albert Castel characterized the order: "Order No. 11 was the most drastic and repressive military measure directed against civilians by the Union Army during the Civil War. In fact, with the exception of the hysteria-motivated herding of Japanese-Americans into concentration camps during World War II, it stands as the harshest treatment ever imposed on United States citizens under the plea of military necessity in our nation's history."62 Those forced to evacuate had to move into counties outside the district. While on the move with whatever possessions they could carry, the evac­ uees were forbidden to stop at a place of their choosing. They had to travel until they reached a place where they did not carry the stigma of refugees; some relocated to other states. The order almost completely depopulated Bates and Cass Counties, and Jackson County also lost a substantial portion of its population. Soldiers often burned the abandoned buildings, thus creat­ ing what was for many years thereafter called "The Burnt District."63 Three months later, Ewing and his superior, Major General John M. Schofield, decided that Order Number 11 had accomplished its desired effect. On November 20, Ewing issued General Order Number 20, which permitted persons to return to the cleared area if they signed a loyalty oath agreeing not to support the guerrillas. It took more than the stroke of a pen, however, to repair the damage done by the earlier order, and many years passed before the evidence of the devastation disappeared.64 Order Number 11 did deprive the guerrillas of their base of support.

60 O.R., 22, pt. 2: 473. 61 Niepman, "General Orders No. 11," 198. 62 Albert Castel, "Order No. 11 and the Civil War on the Border," Missouri Historical Review 57 (July 1963): 357. 63 Niepman, "General Orders No. 11," 201; Brownlee, Gray Ghosts, 126. 64 O.R., 22, pt. 2: 693, 713; Niepman, "General Orders No. 11," 206. 306 Missouri Historical Review

State Historical Society of Missouri

Ewing's Order No. 11 as Depicted by Bingham

Although they continued to be a viable force at times in the area, they con­ centrated most of their efforts outside the District of the Border.65 Following the end of the war, Bingham completed his famous painting, Order Number 11, in which he captured the horror of the forced eviction of the citizens of Jackson County.66 One author characterized the artist's motives: "Beneath Bingham's pique lay an intensely personal reaction, a bitter resentment that Ewing had confiscated his own house, but more to the point, that the collapse of that house had killed innocent women and had led to the Lawrence Massacre and then on to the disastrous consequences of Order No. 11 in the western part of the state."67 In the years following the war, Bingham wrote numerous articles criticizing Ewing for his handling of the events that led to the prison collapse and Order No. 11. One article, published after his death in July 1879, is credited with helping to defeat Ewing in a bid for the governorship of Ohio in 1880.68 Whatever the cause, the collapse of the Kansas City prison served as a catalyst for a chain of events that led to the decline of the guerrilla bands along the Kansas-Missouri border.

65 Niepman, "General Orders No. 11," 206. 66 Alberta Wilson Constant, Paintbox on the Frontier: The Life and Times of George Caleb Bingham (New York: Thomas Y Crowell Company, 1974), 154. 67 Rash, Bingham, 191. 68 Ibid., 212; Larkin, Bingham, 317-323. Courtesy of the author

The H. J. and Christine Weber Family Merchandising Nature: The H. J. Weber and Sons Nursery

BY KENNETH W. KELLER* Missouri was the home of a thriving nursery trade in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Helped by its central location, access to cheap transportation, an agricultural economy, and varied climates and soils, Missouri ranked as one of the top ten states for the nursery business. In 1919 nurseries in the state had the highest average receipts per acre in the nation.1

*Kenneth W. Keller is a professor of history at Mary Baldwin College in Staunton, Virginia. He received his B.A. degree from Washington University, St. Louis, and his Ph.D. degree from Yale University. He is the great-grandson of Henry J. and Christine Weber.

1 Bureau of the Census, Fourteenth Decennial Census, Agriculture, vol. 5, "Forest Products of Farms, and Nurseries and Greenhouses" (Washington, D.C, 1923), 884-886. See also U. P. Hedrick, A History of Horticulture in America (New York: Oxford University Press, 1950), 326-327; L. H. Bailey, ed., Cyclopedia of American Horticulture (New York: Gordon Press, 1975), s.v. "Missouri Horticulture," "Nursery"; The Nurseryman's Directory—A Reference Book for Nurserymen, Florists, Seedsmen, Tree Dealers, &c. for the United States, 1883 (Galena, 111.: D. W. Scott and Company, 1883), 179-189. The Nurseryman's Directory identified 158 Missouri nurseries, 55 florists, and 27 tree growers. St. Louis had 25 nurseries, including H. J. Weber, whose location was given as Gardenville. 307 308 Missouri Historical Review

After 1900 the business changed from the traditional farm-oriented, fruit tree-growing business in which the older nurseries specialized to a more diversified market. Nurseries continued to grow fruit trees, but as urban reformers promoted making American cities more attractive, some newer nurseries developed an interest in floral design, ornamental shrubs, "land­ scape art," "modernized" plantings, and municipal "beautification." They bred, cut, engrafted, shaped, trimmed, standardized, fumigated, packaged, shipped, advertised, and sold the bounty of nature. Guided by the late nineteenth-century trends of promoting the commer­ cialization of agriculture and urbanization, an enterprising German- American family founded the H. J. Weber and Sons Nursery in 1867 and developed it into a prospering business. Located southwest of St. Louis along Gravois Road, this firm's career through three generations illustrates the impact of the commercialization of agriculture and urbanization on a family business. While the Weber Nursery benefited from these trends, it also succumbed to them.2 The founder of the Weber Nursery, Carl Christian Weber, a nineteenth- century immigrant from Allendorf an der Landsburg in Ziegenhain County of Electoral Hesse-Kassel, worked his first couple of years in St. Louis as a surveyor and a cabinetmaker. In these capacities he built the windows, sashes, and door frames for Ulysses S. Grant's cabin at "Hardscrabble" in 1856, and according to family oral tradition, he surveyed Weber Road, the main route leading from St. Louis and Carondelet on the Mississippi River to southwest St. Louis County.3 Although the date of Weber's immigration is unknown, by March 29, 1834, he was in St. Louis, where he married Anna Margarethe Mueller of Mengsberg, Ziegenhain County. Her father, Jonas Mueller, helped found St. John's Evangelical Church in the Gravois Settlement of St. Louis County and was one of the first persons with a

2 The "City Beautiful" movement of the early twentieth century attempted to beautify American cities and, in so doing, apply middle-class ideals of order, harmony, and cleanliness to urban life. Urban parks, gardens, and avenues lined with trees were essential to these objectives. See Edward C. Rafferty, "Orderly City, Orderly Lives: The City Beautiful Movement in St. Louis," Gateway Heritage 11 (spring 1991): 40-62. The author is indebted for information on the Weber Nursery provided by historian Ross Wagner and H. J. Weber's grandchildren, Dr. Helen Aff-Drum and Walter H. Keller. 3 Location of the birthplaces of Carl and Anna Margarethe Weber from the burial entry for Peter Carl Weber, 11 March 1840, Burial Register, St. John's Evangelical Church [United Church of Christ], Mehlville. See letter of Frank A. Weber, 7 February 1920, to Mrs. Eugene Marsh, printed in "The U. S. Grant Cabin," Missouri Historical Review 15 (January 1921): 413. Kimberly Little is in error when she calls Charles Weber the proprietor of the Weber Nursery—Henry J. Weber was its proprietor. See Kimberly Scott Little, Ulysses S. Grant's White Haven: A Place Where Extraordinary People Came to Live Ordinary Lives, 1796-1885, Historic Resource Study, Ulysses S. Grant National Historic Site (St. Louis: National Park Service, 1993), 110-111. The H. J. Weber and Sons Nursery 309

German surname to file on land in the southern part of the county.4 French landholders had claimed land in the Gravois Settlement, next to Gravois Creek, in the earliest days of European settlement. Americans from Kentucky, Virginia, and western Maryland followed them. Mueller and his Weber in-laws were in the vanguard of an increasing number of settlers emi­ grating from the Rhineland, especially Hessen, Baden, Hannover, and the Palatinate of Germany, to the vicinity of the Gravois. Weber began farming in January of 1836 when he bought fifty-two acres in present-day Affton, nine miles southwest of the St. Louis County Courthouse on the road to Gravois Creek.5 Other land purchases in the neighborhood followed in the 1840s and 1850s. The 1850 census reported that he had real estate worth three thousand dollars. By 1865 Weber had accumulated sixty-nine acres between the Mackenzie Tract and Gravois Road.6 There he built a home, farmed, and made wine until his death on December 9, 1872.

4 Marriage records of Holy Ghost Evangelical Church, St. Louis; E. Dupre, Atlas of the City and County of St. Louis by Congressional Townships, Showing All the Surveys of Public Lands, and of the Confirmed French and Spanish Grants, New Madrid Location and Entries of Public Lands up to the 1st Day of January 1838 (St. Louis: n.p., 1838), Township 44 North, Range 6 East, No. 6728; Jonas Mueller patent certificate, 16 April 1836, St. Louis Land Office, papers of the U.S. General Land Office, National Archives, Washington, D.C. 5 Inventory of the real estate of Carl C. Weber, 11 January 1873, City of St. Louis Probate Court file room; Clayton Watchman-Advocate, 4 June 1915. 6 J. H. Fisher map of St. Louis County, 1865, Missouri Historical Society, St. Louis.

Shortly after immigrating to the United States in the mid-1830s, Carl Christian Weber worked on the construction of Ulysses S. Grant's cabin at "Hardscrabble." Interestingly, Weber's son Henry purchased over one hun­ dred acres of Hardscrabble in 1889 to augment the nursery's landholdings. State Historical Society of Missouri 310 Missouri Historical Review

In his will filed in the courts of the city, Carl Christian Weber bequeathed each of his seven living children fifty dollars two years after his death, with the remainder of his estate going to his wife. At the time of his death, Weber had an estate of twelve thousand dollars, and his real estate holdings had more than doubled. Carl Weber, intent on holding onto the land he had acquired for the support of his wife, specifically ordered in the will that the estate's real property remain under Anna's control until her death. Only then would it be equally divided among his children. The inventory of his real estate listed 7 tracts amounting to 115 acres purchased between 1836 and 1870. Chattels included items typical of a well-off German farmer: six hundred pounds of pork, sweet potatoes, glass and wooden frames for hotbeds, a grain cradle, scythes, quarry tools, whiskey barrels, numerous old books and a case, two hundred gallons of Concord wine, wine glasses and bottles, a cider press, three barrels of cider, a fer­ menting tub, a kraut cutter, a sausage stuffer, and fruit dryers.7 Jonas Heinrich Weber, born in Gravois Settlement, near present-day Affton, on May 20, 1841, was Carl Weber's eldest surviving son. Abandoning the German version of his name, he always called himself Henry J. Weber. Prior to his father's death, Henry began growing fruit trees for sale on six acres of the family farm. Thus began the operations of what would become the H. J. Weber and Sons Nursery. In his youth Henry worked at several nurseries in St. Louis County before returning to manage his father's farm. Drafted into the Union army as a private on December 8, 1864, he was assigned to the commissary of the 39th Missouri Infantry.8 In May 1865 he was mustered out at Benton Barracks without seeing action. After the war he returned to his father's farm and met his future wife. Four weeks after meeting Emelia Christine Sutter at her father's dairy, Henry mar­ ried her on January 31, 1867. As a young woman, Christine Weber helped with the field work at the nursery. In later years Henry regarded the year of their marriage as the founding year of the nursery. By 1870 the federal cen­ sus designated him as a nurseryman with two thousand dollars in real estate.9 Starting the nursery during the financial panic of the 1870s proved diffi­ cult. The economic depression played havoc with the plans of nurserymen as with those of other businessmen. It not only led potential customers to delay purchases, but it also disrupted riverboat and railroad traffic, vital to shipping nursery stock inexpensively. Additionally, problems arose in the

7 Carl C. Weber will, 17 December 1872, no. 10443, St. Louis Civil Courts, Probate Court Division. 8 Declaration for Pension from Henry J. Weber, 24 June 1912, Bureau of Pensions, U.S. Department of the Interior, National Archives. 9 Henry J. Weber's Pension Application Affidavit, 3 April 1915, Bureau of Pensions, Department of the Interior, National Archives; Ninth Census of the United States, 1870, "Missouri, St. Louis County, Carondelet Township," 85. The H. J. Weber and Sons Nursery 311 settling of Carl Christian Weber's estate, which took thirteen years to com­ plete. In the midst of the settlement, on February 3, 1875, Anna Margarethe Weber died, so her estate also had to be administered. Henry remained liv­ ing on the farm, but the father's lands were divided into seven parcels for the seven living children. A public auction of the household goods took place. In 1877 Henry's six siblings sold their parcels of land to their broth­ er. Years later, Henry remembered the difficulties of the early years by post­ ing a sign on a linden tree along Gravois Road: "This tree was planted in 1876, when H. J. Weber was in a hell of a fix."10 His wife made him take it down. In spite of the troubles of the first years, Weber quickly added land. He purchased thirty-three more acres on Gravois Road and twenty acres from Mathilda Avenue west, where the nursery grew ornamental stock. After the death of his mother, Weber managed the farm and moved the site of the nursery up a hill to the east so that the property would abut Weber Road to Carondelet and the Mississippi River. After the Civil War these roads ran past many farms and truck gardens that produced orchard fruits, berries, watercress, horseradish, cereal grains, and vegetables for shipment to St. Louis markets.11 Such an agricultural environment would provide many customers for the nursery's fruit trees, vines, and bushes. Weber built a new homestead on this site and surrounded it with ever­ green, salvia, and canna plantings.12 Christine and Henry Weber had eight children, two of whom died early in life. Four surviving sons—Frank, William, Walter, and George—became their father's partners in the operation of the nursery. The daughters, Anna Margarethe and Emelia Christine, mar­ ried men who established independent careers. The nursery became a large- scale commercial operation that grew its own stock on the premises for retail sale. It also distributed goods to other dealers in nursery products. A large physical plant arose with many buildings, each used for a specific function. The family developed a nursery establishment that became something of an attraction for visitors. Photographs by the Richard Gruss Studio of St. Louis recorded the expanding facilities of the nursery during the late nineteenth century.13 To

10 Anna Margarethe Weber will, 18 February 1873, no. 11624, St. Louis Probate Court. Final settlement of the estate was not posted until July 28, 1883. See St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 25 July, 25 August 1883; Watchman-Advocate, 8 May 1936. 11 For a survey of agriculture in St. Louis County before it was engulfed in suburbs see H. H. Krusekopf and D. B. Pratapas, Soil Survey of St. Louis County, Missouri (Washington, D.C: Government Printing Office, 1923), 540ff. 12 The site of the homestead was at 9200 Gravois Road, Affton. The Gravois Gardens subdivision was built there in the 1940s. 13 See Malcolm C. Drummond and Walter L. Eschbach, eds., Down By the Gravois—The Photography of Richard Gruss—South St. Louis—1900 through the 1920s (St. Louis: Harland Bartholomew and Associates, 1976). Photographs of the nursery and nursery-related subjects appear on pages 112-113, 126, 184, 208 [appears in 1907 Weber Catalogue], 213, and 216 [appears in 1907 Weber Catalogue]. 312 Missouri Historical Review

L. H. Bailey Hortorium Library, Cornell University The Weber home provided a showcase for nursey plantings. the west of the Weber homestead, a bell tower called workers in from the fields. There were a washhouse to its east, a vegetable garden in the rear, and a bathhouse under the nursery water tower. A lake on the property pro­ vided water for the tower and the stock. With the building of more struc­ tures on the original site, the family began to expand its landholdings. In 1889, while adding to the buildings on the homestead property, Weber pur­ chased 123 acres of Hardscrabble, the original farm of Ulysses S. Grant. This tract soon expanded to 160 acres, which lay at the western end of Weber Road (where it presently intersects with Laclede Station Road). Weber and his sons frequently mentioned their ownership of Hardscrabble as a way of drawing customers to their nursery. By exploiting the owner­ ship of the original Grant farm, Weber showed a flair for advertising the family business products.14 Good business sense and public notice encouraged the Webers to publi­ cize the nursery and attract customers from the city. To please potential buyers, at least until prohibition, the Webers treated visitors to wine pro­ duced in the nursery's vaulted wine cellar, where the owners kept several large brewery-sized wine kegs for making Concord wine. Christine Weber served the women wine diluted with water and sugar. The Webers proudly

14 Watchman-Advocate, 4 June 1915. See also William L. Thomas, History of St. Louis County, Missouri (Chicago: S. J. Clarke Publishing Company, 1911), 1: 108, 251-252. Grant's "Hardscrabble" cabin is a St. Louis County landmark. Family members recalled that Henry J. Weber had hitched rides on Grant's wood wagon as a boy and was kicked in the but­ tocks by the future general. Grant later gave Weber an Aldeney heifer from livestock grown on the Dent estate, which Grant owned. The H. J. Weber and Sons Nursery 313 displayed a collection of ornamental glass jars that contained samples of their fruit. They also exhibited fruits from their trees at local fairs such as the St. Louis County Fair at Creve Coeur Lake. A horse-drawn wagon delivery system was created to carry nursery stock to city customers. They advertised their products in St. Louis and in the new county seat of Clayton. One Gruss photograph shows a somewhat incongruous effort to promote the use of nursery products in urban landscaping: the Webers equipped a land­ scaped wagon drawn by four liveried horses and labeled it "Landscape Art."15 To become truly established, the nursery had to reach a wider mar­ ket beyond the patronage of the horse and buggy trade. Such a change meant shipping goods by railroad and reaching new customers through mail sent from a convenient post office located on the nursery grounds. At least two of Henry J. Weber's relatives, his younger brother and his eldest son, actively participated in local Republican politics. The brother, John G. Weber, had started a career in the mercantile business around 1865 and engaged in farming and fruit growing until 1890 near Ballas Road and Olive Street in St. Louis County. Voters elected him as assessor of St. Louis County in November 1890, and he served three terms in this position until 1895. In 1892 he moved to Clayton, where he established a hardware store

15 A photograph of the Mathilda fields appears in Drummond and Eschbach, Down By the Gravois, 216, but the caption should read "Traveling east on Gravois Road, St. Louis County, 1907." The photo is cropped on the left in the Drummond and Eschbach book. Weber Road intersects from the right. The photograph appears in the 1907 Weber Nursery Catalogue. St. Louis County Watchman, 8 September 1894. See also Dickson Terry, Clayton: A History (Clayton, Mo.: City of Clayton, 1976), 37. The landscaped wagon appears in Drummond and Eschbach, Down By the Gravois, 112-113.

L. H. Bailey Hortorium Library

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mSmtffe&-te\> ' 314 Missouri Historical Review in 1898. There, Clayton residents could purchase Weber Nursery stock. In 1906 voters elected him to the Forty-fourth Missouri General Assembly from the First District of St. Louis County. He was also public administra­ tor of St. Louis County from 1909 until 1912.16 While John served in St. Louis County offices, the nursery received a post office. Frank A. Weber, Henry's eldest son, also took part in Republican poli­ tics in St. Louis County. After 1890 he oversaw the business affairs of the nursery, and he later became secretary and treasurer of the H. J. Weber and Sons Nursery.17 On January 7, 1892, during the Republican administration of President Benjamin Harrison, the post office at Gardenville, a truck gardening com­ munity on Gravois Road toward St. Louis, was moved west to the Weber farmstead and called "Nursery." The St. Louis County Watchman reported in 1893 that there was "trouble brewing" in Nursery because some local res­ idents did not like the name. Inhabitants of the area complained to Congressman Richard Bartholdt about the change. The St. Louis County Watchman noted the relationship between Henry J. Weber and his brother, the county assessor, implying that political connections had influenced the change. Two years after the establishment of the Nursery post office, Henry's son, Frank, became permanent secretary of the Gardenville Republican Club. Henry took the job of postmaster on November 29, 1899. The post office was discontinued on July 31, 1902, then reestablished on May 17, 1904, and he returned as postmaster. In 1915, a few months before his father's death, Frank assumed the duties of postmaster. John G. Weber died in 1918; Frank in 1925; and the post office at Affton absorbed the Nursery post office on January 15, 1926.18 While at the Nursery location, the Webers used the post office to conduct extensive catalogue mailings to locations throughout the United States. Even when the operations and the size of the nursery began to expand, it continued as a family business. Members of several generations did much of

16 St. Louis County Watchman, 16 November 1894; 13 April 1900; Watchman-Advocate, 3 January 1919. According to the Watchman-Advocate, when John G. Weber died, there was "general mourning" in Clayton and the flag on the St. Louis County Courthouse flew at half- staff. The newspaper referred to him as "Uncle John." Weber was the publisher of the St. Louis County Directory for 1896, where an advertisement for the Weber Nursery emphasizing fruit and ornamental trees appears on page 189. 17 Watchman-Advocate, 17 December 1917. Frank Weber received a business education at St. Louis's Toensfeld Institute from 1882 to 1886. See St. Louis Globe-Democrat, 1 December 1925. 18 St. Louis County Watchman, 25 March, 8 April 1892; 13 October 1893. See the postal history of the Nursery Post Office, comp. Ward Parker, Collection of Ross Wagner, Sappington. See St. Louis County Watchman, 5 October 1894. Long after the post office and the nursery were extinct, some maps continued to show the location of Nursery. See Rand McNally Road Atlas—United States/Canada/Mexico (Chicago: Rand McNally Company, 1978), 59. The H. J. Weber and Sons Nursery 315 the work, although the nursery employed hired hands from the earliest days. Each Sunday night the Webers brought workers from the end of the streetcar line in St. Louis to the nursery and then returned them Friday evening. During the week the workers slept on the upstairs floor of the washhouse and ate in the main house around a large, round table in the rear wing. All of Henry Weber's children worked at the nursery, either taking care of stock, clerking in the office, or sewing and cooking. Grandchildren also helped by grafting fruit trees and addressing mail. The whole family pitched in during butchering, which took place in the cold weather of early November, and at threshing. Another chore, unique to nurseries, involved the aftermath of hailstorms. After hail pummeled the greenhouses, children plucked glass shards from hothouse plants. While the work of the nursery proceeded, the children played hide-and-seek among the barns and build­ ings. Annual summer reunions reinforced the family orientation of the nurs­ ery. These events took place at a nearby picnic grove from about the 1890s to the 1920s. An 1898 family reunion brought out 156 descendants of Carl Christian Weber.19 Clearly, the Weber Nursery was a family-centered busi­ ness, though its proprietors aspired to a corporate structure for the firm. As the nursery trade at the national level became more professionalized, the family orientation of the Weber's business began to change. Nurseries formed national and regional associations in the nineteenth century. Quickly affiliating itself with these groups, the Weber Nursery participated in national efforts to set standards and solve problems common to the industry. Henry J. and Frank Weber traveled to national meetings of nurserymen, including an 1885 gathering in Indianapolis. Frank attended the silver anniversary con­ vention of the nurserymen in Chicago in 1900 and held several offices in state and national nursery organizations. In 1903 he was vice president of the American Association of Nurserymen, and from 1920 to 1922 he served as president of the Missouri State Nurserymen's Association. His memberships also included the executive board of the Western Association of Nurserymen and the Pomological Society of America. Expositions and world's fairs pro­ vided additional opportunities to exhibit products and to meet people engaged in the nursery trade. Son William Arthur Weber traveled with relatives to the 1893 Chicago World's Fair, where the nursery exhibited and won a prize for peaches from its trees. Family members also toured rural Missouri and Nebraska to locate possible sites for nursery expansion.20

19 St. Louis County Watchman, 27 May 1898; Watchman-Advocate, 13 January 1905; rec­ ollections of Weber grandchildren Helen Aff-Drum and Walter H. Keller to the author. 20 Richard P. White, A Century of Service—A History of the Nursery Industry Associations of the United States (Washington, D.C: American Association of Nurserymen, 1975), 25-26, 31, 117. Frank Weber served on an American Association of Nurserymen committee to study the creation of a mutual insurance company. Moses P. Handy, ed., The Official Directory of the World's Columbian Exposition, May 1 to October 30, 1893, A Reference Book (Chicago: W. B. Conkey Company, 1893), 858; St. Louis County Watchman, 13 July 1900; 9 August 1901. 316 Missouri Historical Review

Above photos courtesy of the L. H. Bailey Hortorium Library

Several generations of Webers helped to maintain the nursery's fields and green­ houses, although they always employed additional workers. The H. J. Weber and Sons Nursery 317

In the early twentieth century, the Weber family clearly held high expec­ tations for the nursery. A Price List for 1901 proclaimed: "Our establish­ ment is one of the largest and best stocked in the country,... located on high rolling land especially adapted to produce healthy growth, solid, firm wood and abundant roots so necessary for successful transplanting." Incorporated in 1903, the firm adopted the name H. J. Weber and Sons Nursery, with Henry as president and his sons serving as the officials of the firm.21 The acreage the firm cultivated clearly made it one of the largest nurseries in early twentieth-century Missouri. According to a federal census report, the average size of a Missouri nursery in 1909 and 1919 was 13.2 acres and 8.6 acres, respectively. In 1909 the Webers had cultivated 200 acres of land. A 1911 history of St. Louis County commented: "This nursery carries the largest variety of trees, shrubs and plants of any in the state of Missouri, and also has the largest selection of ornamental and fruit trees and ornamental plants. The name of the company is known not only in America but in the principal parts of the world, and it is one of the largest shippers of St. Louis county."22 The proprietors assembled a remarkable array of flora that attract­ ed the interest of both St. Louisans and out-of-town visitors. These new cus­ tomers brought change to the nursery and its owners. Henry J. Weber's sons caught the enthusiasm for commercial and trans­ portation improvements so typical of the business-oriented reformers of the progressive era before 1915. Frank, William, and Henry helped form the Gravois Improvement Association, which organized a drive for cinder walks along Gravois Road and Heege and Seibert Avenues in Affton. Henry sup­ plied the cinders from boilers in the nursery greenhouses for one dollar per load. The organization also promoted extending the streetcar line tracks from Gravois and Itaska Avenue in St. Louis to the River des Peres and advocated the extension of streetlights to the city limits. By 1905 the group consisted of about sixty members. Frank Weber served as the association's secretary in 1902, and by 1916 he was president. The association also approved a bond issue for good roads. In addition, the Webers pioneered efforts to provide banking facilities for south St. Louis City and County. Persons in Affton organized a Gravois Bank in 1913, with Frank A. Weber as a director. In 1916-1917 he sat on the board of a second bank organized on March 13, 1914, the Gravois Farmers' Bank at Grand Avenue and

21 H. J. Weber and Sons Nursery (hereinafter cited as HJW Co.), Retail Price List, "Introductory" (fall 1900-spring 1901); St. Louis County Watchman, 10 July 1903. 22 Bureau of the Census, Fourteenth Decennial Census, vol. 5, 884-886; Thomas, History of St. Louis County, 2: 252. The American Association of Nurserymen did not collect statis­ tics on the size of nurseries until 1946, so estimates about the comparative size of nurseries are impossible to document. See White, A Century of Service, 218. 318 Missouri Historical Review

Courtesy of the author

Gravois in St. Louis. His brother William became a director of the Gravois Bank in 1926 after Frank's death.23 By the early twentieth century, the nursery had begun to appeal to urban customers through the florist trade and the beautification of parks, city lawns, country clubs, and new cemeteries. The 1901 Price List promised customers a shift away from the traditional fruit trees and grapes in which the nursery had specialized: "We aim to keep abreast of the times in the introduction of fruit and novelties and valuable acquisitions in ornamentals; accepting with pleasure everything that has real merit, we shall with equal readiness discard and discountenance the sale of worthless humbugs."24 Though the nursery had specialized in fruit trees and vines, with some emphasis on ornamental shrubs, the proprietors were becoming confident that a broader selection of plants was essential. The array of fruits offered expanded to include apricots, medlars, almonds, dewberries, and currants; ornamentals now included weeping deciduous trees, thirty-seven shrub varieties, flowering vines, hedge plants, roses, evergreens, and perennials. By 1908 the nursery also began to adver-

23 St. Louis County Watchman, 17 January 1902; Watchman-Advocate, 13 January 1905; 7 November 1913; 6 February 1914; 14 January, 4 February, 16 March 1916; 16 March, 21 December 1917. Transportation to the nursery became easier when brewery magnate August A. Busch had Gravois Road paved to Weber Road in 1910. St. Lucas [Evangelical Church] Visitor, Sappington (August 1926). Gravois Bank purchased an advertisement in the church newspaper that listed the bank's directors. Henry J. Weber and his family attended St. Lucas Evangelical Church. 24 HJW Co., Retail Price List, "Introductory" (fall 1900-spring 1901). The H. J. Weber and Sons Nursery 319 tise the sale of B. G. Pratt Scalecide, arsenate of lead, sulphur, Paris green, and whale oil soap. The demand for "landscape design" led the owners in 1910 to create a department for "landscape designing, architectural designing for summer houses, gateways, [and] forestry" oriented toward urban cus­ tomers, not farmers. The nursery notified its clients that it had "arranged with competent Landscape Designers and Foresters" to help in planning "parks, club grounds, cemeteries, and private places, [in locating] . . . build­ ings, gardens, driveways, [and supervising] driveways, formal gardens, etc., according to plans."25 The nursery became less specialized and began selling products far beyond the original expertise of its founder. It had become an advocate of controlling the entire natural environment in the name of design. The first prominent exposure of the nursery to the floral and ornamental shrub trade occurred at the St. Louis World's Fair in 1904. The Webers con­ tributed displays for the fair's agriculture and horticulture buildings to stir up an interest in the nursery's merchandise and show the variety of its prod­ ucts. The world's fair edition of its Catalogue boasted: "Our firm received by far the largest contract from the Exposition Company for Ornamental Trees, Shrubs, Grasses and Evergreens awarded any one concern, upwards of 50,000 being delivered [to] them."26 The Webers received a grand prize for their exhibits. In addition, the event brought new people with new horti­ cultural skills to the city. Due to the hiring of a Japanese gardener who had come to St. Louis during the fair in 1904, the nursery fields on either side of Gravois Road were soon ablaze with flowers. The Webers also established

25 HJW Co., General Catalog and Price List (fall 1910 and spring 1911): 29. 26 HJW Co., Illustrated and Descriptive Catalogue (world's fair edition, 1904): 56.

Grand Prize at 1904 World's Fair L. H. Bailey Hortorium Library 320 Missouri Historical Review a ten-acre field of ornamental shrubs along the north side of the road, and new greenhouses, built around 1907, were devoted entirely to growing cut roses.27 People who recalled visits to the nursery remembered traveling west on Gravois Road to see the flowering plants. In the early twentieth century, urban church congregations that moved west of the city relocated their graveyards to areas along Gravois Road once occupied by truck gardeners. Since the Webers could supply flowers to the new Roman Catholic, Protestant, and Jewish cemeteries, a market devel­ oped that encouraged the nursery's proprietors to establish a floral division. By 1915 they added a floral department under the supervision of a son, Walter T. Weber. To fit the new emphasis on flowers, the nursery construct­ ed more greenhouses, with twenty to thirty thousand feet of glass covering space for hothouse plants and cut flowers.28 Nurseries with extensive mail-order operations like the Weber Nursery became experienced in the latest techniques of advertising and promotion. To notify customers of new plants, the Webers had postcards printed with advertising and floral ornament designs. More importantly, the nursery mailed catalogues featuring plantings around St. Louis, Missouri, Illinois, and Iowa. Even before the Webers began their extensive distribution of cat­ alogues, sometime before 1892, Henry had produced and published a detailed instructional pamphlet for planting and cultivating his wares. The Webers occasionally used German at home, but the pamphlet, intended for public consumption, appeared in English. Entitled Instructions in Transplanting and Managing Fruit Trees, Vines, Shrubs and Flowers, it was printed by August Wiebusch and Son Printing Company, a German- American publisher in St. Louis.29 With no illustrations, this first Weber publication explained proper techniques for cultivating plants such as one might find on a typical farm of the day. Only a small portion of the publica­ tion emphasized techniques for cultivating evergreens, roses, bulbs, and gar­ den shrubs. It included words of advice for growing the plants in the West, the South, and Missouri. Later issues of the Catalogue became far more sophisticated in illustra­ tion and marketing. They show a shifting attitude toward the merchandising of nature and reveal the proprietor's attempts to take advantage of the grow­ ing campaign to beautify cities and the new residential areas developing near them. The catalogues quickly adopted the use of scientific and common

27 HJW Co., Price List (fall 1907-spring 1908); Illustrated and Descriptive Catalogue for 1907; Watchman-Advocate, 19 July 1907. 28 HJW Co., Descriptive Catalogue (1909): 3; Weber's Guide—1915, frontispiece. 29 Ross Wagner of Sappington has copies of these postcards, collected by Ward Parker, in his collection of local history materials. There is a copy of Henry J. Weber's "Instructions in Transplanting . . ." at the Missouri Historical Society. The H. J. Weber and Sons Nursery 321

Courtesy of the author

The administrative duties of the nursery were conducted from this office. names for plants to help customers order the exact plant they wanted. In their catalogues the Webers advertised their development of special varieties of fruits that visitors could sample. They also published separate descriptive catalogues featuring growers' experiences with specially developed products and testimonial letters from customers around the nation praising Weber stock. When the nursery established a fumigating chamber to remove fungus and scale insects from the products before shipment to distant customers, they announced it in a catalogue. The publications also documented the changing attitudes toward landscaping and residential design for emphasiz­ ing a family's social position. Landscaped homes featured in the catalogues were imposing residences built by the wealthy in the most attractive elite suburbs and urban neighborhoods. It was essential for substantial citizens to have artistically landscaped homes. Nature developed new uses in the city. An almost complete collection of the Weber Nursery catalogues, pub­ lished exclusively in English, is housed at the L. H. Bailey Hortorium Library of Cornell University, the chief repository of old nursery catalogues in the United States. The collection contains Weber catalogues and price lists for nearly all the years from fall 1899 to 1933.30 Until 1904 August Wiebusch and Son printed the catalogues, but professional printers of nursery catalogues eventually published them. After 1904 the catalogues became more elaborate, with many photographs and color illustrations. Printers in St. Joseph, Michigan; Kansas City and Jefferson City, Missouri; and Rochester, New York, produced the successively more elaborate publica-

30 From 1899 to 1906 the catalogue was called the Illustrated and Descriptive Catalogue. In 1908-1911 the title changed to General Catalogue and Price List. From 1912 to 1931 it was Weber's Guide, in 1932 Weber's Planting Guide, and finally Weber's Annual Guide in 1933. 322 Missouri Historical Review WEBEKS GUIDE ^>^'^P

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Courtesy of the author tions. The Gruss Studio took many of the photographs appearing in the cata­ logues, depicting settings in St. Louis and neighboring communities. The nursery frequently published photographs of its own plantings, facilities, and personnel in the catalogues. To emphasize the professionalism of the nurs­ ery, photographs of employees dressed in white shirts and skimmers, even while standing near manure piles or watering stock on a hot summer day, appeared in the catalogues. These advertising shots also contained a surpris­ ing variety of locations for the "installation" of plants. Many sites where the Webers planted stock are prominent St. Louis landmarks today. They sold shrubs to brewers August A. Busch and William and Edwin Lemp and landscaped the estate of the Nims family, whose mansion overlooked the Mississippi in what later became Bee Tree Park in South St. Louis County. The new Sunset Hills Country Club, south- The H. J. Weber and Sons Nursery 323 west of St. Louis, featured a lodge and a sunken garden "planted" by the nursery. The Webers landscaped industrial sites, including a chemical works in Webster Groves and the Pittsburgh Plate Glass Corporation in Crystal City. It sold thousands of plants to the St. Louis city park board, to Tower Grove Park, and to the Cottage Restaurant in Forest Park, which later became a country club. Additionally, the nursery landscaped imposing homes for well-to-do St. Louisans in new residential developments in the Central West End of St. Louis, Clayton, Richmond Heights, on Kingshighway Boulevard, and St. Louis Hills. The Sunset Burial Park, a new secular cemetery on Gravois, received extensive landscaping from the nursery. The Webers also had distant customers such as the U.S. Housing Corporation in Davenport, Iowa, and the U.S. Post Office in Granite City, Illinois.31 The catalogues revealed the changing environment for the nursery trade. By 1913 they depicted new delivery trucks that identified the firm as "Nurserymen and Florists." In their advertising they adopted the slogan of the professional florists' association, "Say It With Flowers." The nursery began to advertise many specially bred varieties of iris, hybrid roses, and other flowers suitable for suburban gardens. An old mainstay of the Weber Nursery had been the sale of vines and the making of wine. With the establishment of national prohibition in 1919, the Webers no longer advertised their wine and vine business as they had once done. Although the catalogues advertised grapes, their use was left to the imagination of the readers. Grape vines "can be used in various ways" read the 1930 Guide, but there was no further description of winemaking. The Webers worked a patriotic motif into advertisements for grapes, undoubtedly used for making wine: their catalogues identified red Catawba, white Niagara, and blue Concord grapes for sale. The nursery abandoned the sale of strawberries, a specialty of farmers in the neighborhood, because of the difficulty in shipping the plants over long distances. Reflecting the commercialization of agriculture and the demand for fruit that could be shipped to distant commercial markets, the nursery's catalogues began to describe peaches and blackberries as "good shippers." The old truck garden neighbors on the Gravois were becoming less important as customers; the nursery sought the trade of "professional orchardists."32 As the suburbs of St. Louis grew into the truck gardens of St. Louis County, the Webers placed increasing emphasis on lawns and ornamental

31 The Price List of fall 1908-spring 1909 at the L. H. Bailey Hortorium is marked to indicate that the Weber Nursery supplied many trees and shrubs to Tower Grove Park. The Watchman-Advocate, 27 December 1918, indicates that the Webers sold "several carloads" of trees to the federal government in 1919. 32 Drummond and Eschbach, Down By the Gravois, 126; HJW Co., Weber's Guide— 1915, 26-29; Weber's Guide, 1926; 1930 Guide, 39; Weber 1932 Planting Guide, 2. 324 Missouri Historical Review

Above photos courtesy of L. H. Bailey Hortorium Library

By 1915 St. Louis featured Weber Nursery landscaping in a variety of public and private locations. Depicted here are clematis paniculata plantings on the arch at Forest Park (above) and the R. H. Stockton residence and garden, 4528 Maryland Avenue (below). lawn shrubbery. By 1903 the nursery grew half a million trees. The 1908- 1909 Price List boasted: "Our plantings of ornamental stock are now the largest in the West, covering over 600 varieties, including all old and well known varieties as well as many of the newer sorts that we have found meri­ torious. We make a specialty of supplying stock for Parks, Cemeteries, Club and Institution grounds, and private places." By 1912 the proprietors adver­ tised that they had eight hundred varieties of ornamental stock, some import­ ed from Holland, France, England, and Japan.33 The 1915 catalogue empha­ sized the suitability of certain plants for urban environments. Maples, poplars, pin oaks, and box elders proved to be excellent choices for street planting. The Norway maple was, according to Weber's Guide, 1915, "some of the most desirable species for streets, parks and lawns," and the oak- leaved mountain ash was "a fine lawn tree." It recommended a variety of the

33 HJW Co., Price List, "Introductory" (fall 1908-spring 1909); Weber's Guide—1912, "Introductory." The H. J. Weber and Sons Nursery 325 horse chestnut because it "bears no nuts to litter the lawn." The buckthorn proved "splendid for massing in parks and public grounds," while the baby rambler white rose and the hydrangea worked especially well for "cemetery planting." The 1932 Planting Guide, emphasized the use of shrubs to deco­ rate homes, especially those of the "owners of large estates and thousands of substantial home owners" whom the nursery counted as clients.34 Prosperous city dwellers could improve the value of their property by planting nursery stock. According to the catalogues, such homeowners needed to "modernize" plantings by pulling out large old trees and ample shrubs and replacing them with smaller, more closely pruned plants suitable for smaller urban lots. With such modification, one could have "a big show­ ing at a small cost" to impress one's neighbors and business associates. The catalogue reminded the reader: "It isn't a home till it's planted," a slogan employed by the American Association of Nurserymen's national advertis­ ing campaign. The catalogue proposed that landscaping was a part of the natural architecture of a home. The "nature" introduced was, of course, a highly modified and molded one, not natural to the site but purchased at a nursery and introduced to the spreading suburbs. Nursery plants, in the view of the catalogue, were "investments" that improved the monetary value of the house and enhanced "pride of ownership." Not an expenditure, the puchasing of nursery stock was safer and surer than other depression-era investments might be. Plantings were "that unheard of thing, a financial deal in which you cannot lose." The commercial products of the nursery were superior to "nearly every other variety of merchandise." Nature had become merchandise.35 The financial language in the 1933 catalogue suggested a growing con­ cern with the precarious economic conditions of the Great Depression. By the late 1920s the owners sensed that the golden era of the Weber Nursery had passed. A 1925 fire destroyed the old homestead, six other nursery buildings, and much stock.36 The ploy of emphasizing ornamental lawn shrubs over fruit-growing trees in an age of tightening economic conditions did not succeed. The nursery had spread too far beyond its original special­ ties, acquiring too much land and growing too many varieties of plants. Less intensive cultivation of the stock might have saved capital that the pur­ chase of too much land had absorbed. It is doubtful that even specialization would have allowed the nursery to survive the depression. After the death of Frank A. Weber in 1925, the nursery never had ade­ quate management. Benevolent but firm Christine Weber, called by the Watchman-Advocate the "Mother of the Nursery Industry" in St. Louis

34 HJW Co., Weber's Guide—1915, 38, 42, 54, 56, 60, 65; Weber 1932 Planting Guide, 2. 35 HJW Co., Weber's Annual Guide, 1933, 1-3; White, A Century of Service, 142. 36 HJW Co., Weber's Annual Guide, 1933, 1-3; Watchman-Advocate, 24 February 1925. The 1933 Annual Guide is the last surviving catalogue in the Cornell collection. 326 Missouri Historical Review

County, served as president, but she lacked financial or management train­ ing.37 By the pit of the depression, a sense of diminishing opportunities began to creep into the ever-optimistic catalogues. The 1933 catalogue informed readers that "satisfied customers mean more to us than financial gain." From 1935 until the nursery closed in 1940, it piled up annual deficits totaling more than twenty-five thousand dollars.38 The Webers had to sell land to keep the nursery in business. In 1940 the nursery covered only thirty-two acres. The Great Depression destroyed the Weber Nursery. The Webers sold land west of Mathilda Avenue and the triangle between Gravois, Weber, and Mackenzie Roads. The old Grant farm gave way to St. Paul's Churchyard, a cemetery moved west from the city. A developer purchased the nursery's office, cut it in half, and moved it to Weber and Gravois Roads. It became a real estate office, then a Velvet Freeze Ice Cream store that sported a giant ice cream cone until it closed in 1988.39 Christine Weber died in 1940, and the nursery closed its doors, unable to survive a depression in which few people had enough money for even "a big showing at a small cost." The proprietors' enthusiasm for as many different kinds of plants as possible, their eagerness to experiment with new forms of the nursery trade, the booming optimism of post-world's fair St. Louis, and the Great Depression overtook the Weber Nursery. Nevertheless, the trees and shrubs it supplied to customers still survive throughout St. Louis and the vicinity as silent wit­ nesses to its proprietors' optimism and disappointment.

37 Watchman-Advocate, 8 May 1936. 38 HJW Co., Weber's Annual Guide, 1933; "Financial Statement for the Year 1939," type­ script in possession of the author. 39 St. Louis County Gravois-Watson Times, 20-26 May 1988.

ITS ^«^<<^ 327 HISTORICAL NOTES AND COMMENTS Western Historical Manuscript Collection

The Western Historical Manuscript Collection, which houses the manu­ script holdings of the State Historical Society and the University of Missouri, is home to a substantial body of records concerning the American Civil War. As a resource for research in military, social, political, and fami­ ly history, approximately four hundred individual collections document the experiences of soldiers and civilians in Missouri, surrounding states, and other theaters of the war. The letters, diaries, memoirs, and other personal papers of Union and Confederate soldiers—with a concentration on Missouri regiments operat­ ing primarily in the western and deep south theaters—convey the vast spec­ tacle of the war. Produced by the literate and the uneducated of all ranks and varying widely in scope and content, these first-person accounts allow the researcher to ride through the Missouri countryside with Union militia in pursuit of Confederate guerrillas, endure the tedium of camp life, feel the shock of an unexpected skirmish, and experience the degradations, chaos, and exhilaration of major campaigns and engagements such as Wilson's Creek, Pea Ridge, Shiloh, Vicksburg, Chickamauga, the march through Georgia, and Price's Missouri offensive. Much of the war weariness found in these papers is expressed succinctly in a letter in the William E. Lewis Letters. From the Twenty-sixth Missouri Infantry's camp in Tennessee, Lewis laments to his wife about a friend's discharge: "I wish I were in the same situation. But I reckon that that will never be . . . well let the world wag as it will, half of my time is gone . . . but it looks like the balance will be a long time a running off." In conjunction with personal papers, the official records generated by companies, regiments, and other levels of command, and consisting of cor­ respondence, orders, reports, telegrams, muster rolls, and equipment and supply records, can be useful in tracing the larger tactical military picture as well as the history of individual units or soldiers. While these records are fragmentary, they can provide interesting glimpses of the day-to-day war. The Eighteenth Missouri Infantry Papers document the demoralized regi­ ment's casualties at the Battle of Shiloh along with the desertion of their surgeon immediately following the battle— "with his consolation that we must do the best we can." The letters, diaries, business records, and other personal papers of the Missouri civilian population, from both northern and southern perspectives, reflect the experiences of social dislocation, discord, and strife caused by the war in a border state. The rending of a Missouri family is evident in the John D. McKown Papers, as his mother in St. Louis exhorts McKown, a 328 Missouri Historical Review

Union officer, to "hold to the South, my dear son, you are a Southern man." Pension papers, records of organizations such as the United Daughters of the Confederacy, and other postwar records can be of value to genealogists. The collections are accessible to researchers through an extensive sub­ ject index, a listing of collections by title, and individual collection invento­ ries. Reference archivists are available to respond to in-person, telephone, mail, and e-mail inquiries. Patrons may have documents photocopied or borrow microfilmed collections through interlibrary loan. The Western Historical Manuscript Collection is operated on the four University of Missouri campuses, and collections can be shuttled between the locations to suit the requirements of the researcher. The collection's hours are 8:00 A.M. to 4:45 P.M., Monday through Friday, with Tuesday evening hours to 9:00 P.M. while university classes are in session. WHMC has recently compiled a guide to its Civil War holdings. It is available for $15.00, plus $1.05 tax for copies delivered within Missouri, payable to the University of Missouri. Guides may be ordered by contact­ ing the collection at 23 Ellis Library, Columbia, MO 65201. The Society actively seeks materials to augment its Civil War holdings. Anyone interested in donating records should contact the Western Historical Manuscript Collection.

The 1994-1995 edition of the Directory of Local Historical, Museum and Genealogical Agencies in Missouri is now available. A softback, spiral-bound, 106-page volume, it lists information on over 375 organizations in the state. Entries for each agency include the mail­ ing address and the telephone number, the names of key officers, infor­ mation on property holdings and special collections, and the titles of current publications. This directory, which is updated biennially, can be purchased for $6.00, postpaid. To order, send a check or money order made payable to the State Historical Society of Missouri to

The State Historical Society of Missouri 1020 Lowry Street Columbia, MO 65201 329 NEWS IN BRIEF

The seventeenth Mid-America Conference in the construction of a permanent, hands-on on History will be held at the Sheraton- exhibit for children. The project, "Springfield Hawthorne Park Hotel in Springfield on Wagon," will give visitors the opportunity to September 14-16. Proposals for papers and experience how Ozark families lived at the sessions on all fields, time periods, and phases turn of the century. The museum is located of history, including overview sessions and on the third floor of the City Hall Building, graduate papers are welcome. The deadline 830 Boonville, Springfield. Hours are from for submissions is June 15. Featured speakers 10:30 A.M. until 4:30 P.M., Tuesdays through will include Lloyd Gardner (Rutgers), Jiirgen Saturdays. For further information call (417) Forster (MFGA Potsdam), Susan M. 864-1976. Hartmann (Ohio State), Charles P. Roland (Kentucky), and Theodore A. Wilson Beginning May 1, the State Historical (Kansas). For submission of proposals and Society Gallery will feature Thomas Hart further information contact Worth Robert Benton's series, The Year of Peril. Benton Miller, Department of History, Southwest produced this series of eight oil paintings Missouri State University, Springfield, MO depicting the horrors of war upon hearing of 65804. the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Executed in an exaggerated and graphic The Illinois State Genealogical Society style, Benton's stated intention was to and Sangamon State University will hold the awaken and incite Americans "against the second Genealogical Institute of Mid- greatest evil that has ever come to them." America on July 10-13, on the university's The American government employed the campus in Springfield, Illinois. A nationally works as propaganda on posters, leaflets, recognized faculty will provide fundamental and postcards during World War II. Benton and intermediate level coursework with a presented the series to the Society with two special section on eastern sources. For fur­ companion pieces, Negro Soldier and ther information contact Julie Slack, Embarkation. Accompanying the oils in the Continuing Education Coordinator, exhibit are two Benton lithographs, Letter Sangamon State University, Springfield, IL from Overseas and Morning Train, depict­ 62704-9243, (217) 786-7464. ing poignant scenes of the period. A self- portrait and a portrait of Harry Truman M. Elise Crain was recently named exec­ complete the exhibit. utive director of the Wilson's Creek National Battlefield Foundation. Crain, a Christian On May 15 the Jackson County Historical County native, has previously served as a Society is sponsoring "A Summit On History board member and a vice president for the in the Heartland." History groups and orga­ foundation and as president of the Christian nizations from Jackson, Buchanan, Lafayette, County Historical Society. She is currently Clay, and Platte Counties in Missouri and the southwest representative for the Missouri Johnson, Leavenworth, and Wyandotte Museums Association. For information on Counties in Kansas will gather for a daylong the foundation's activities write the director discussion at Pierson Auditorium on the at P.O. Box 8163, Springfield, MO 65801, or University of Missouri-Kansas City campus. call (417) 581-4387. Interested groups are invited to contact Barbara Potts, Executive Director, 102 The Community Foundation of the Independence Square Courthouse, 112 W. Ozarks has awarded the History Museum of Lexington, Independence, MO 64050, or call Springfield-Greene County a grant to be used (816)461-1897. 330 LOCAL HISTORICAL SOCIETIES

Adair County Historical Society held in conjunction with the quarterly meet­ A special exhibit, "Over A Century of ing in the Stage Coach Depot at the museum. Service: Adair Countians in the Armed Forces," ran from November 1 to December Belton Historical Society 15 at the museum. The Society's genealogy Members gathered at the Old City Hall, study group meeting held on November 20 Belton, on January 22 to hear Don Gilmore, featured museum director Adam Marchand historical editor for the Combat Institute in demonstrating the organization of the muse­ Leavenworth, Kansas, speak on Quantrill's um's genealogical materials and the develop­ "Revenge in Kansas, 1863." ment of the computerized obituary database. Benton County Historical Society Affton Historical Society New Society officers include Lewis Over three thousand children provided Smith, president; Raymond Miller, vice pres­ Christmas lists to Santa Claus during the ident; Edith Scarbrough, secretary; and Christmas House celebration held the first Dorothy Miller, treasurer. At the January 12 week of December at the Society's historic meeting held in the Warsaw Library, mem­ house, Oakland. An additional ninety visi­ bers heard Vice President Miller discuss tors viewed the holiday decorations and par­ parks in the state. ticipated in a candlelight tour of Oakland in mid-December. William C. Winter, author Blackburn Historical Society of The Civil War in St. Louis: A Guided To augment the current photo display in Tour, discussed the Camp Jackson massacre Blackburn's civic center, Society members at the January 22 meeting held in Oakland. are collecting and mounting pictures of all of the town's former chairmen and mayors. Andrew County Historical Society Thus far, the search has netted photos of Patrick S. Clark has been named the new twelve of these prominent citizens. director of the Andrew County Museum. New officers for 1995 include L. Glen Boone County Historical Society Zahnd, president; Gary Hurst, vice president; In celebration of singer Jane Froman's and Joyce Holt, second vice president and birthday on November 10, the Society held a treasurer. special showing of With A Song In My Heart, a movie about Froman's life. The Ballwin Historical Society cooperative efforts of the Society and the The Society meets the second Tuesday of Columbia Parks and Recreation Department each month at 3:30 P.M. at the Ballwin City resulted in the first candlelight tour of the Hall. museum and the nearby nineteenth-century residence, Maplewood, on December 10. Barton County Historical Society Both buildings were extensively decorated, The Society's first quarterly meeting of and Maplewood featured reenactors dressed the year was held at the Law Chapel on in 1865 period clothing discussing different January 8 and featured conservation agent facets of county history. The Society held the Bill Campbell's program on "Wild Life in annual Christmas party at the Walters-Boone Barton County." County Historical Museum on December 18, where they heard the music of John Bauman Bates County Historical Society on the Blind Boone piano and Scott Denson On January 12 members displayed histor­ on the accordion. A photographic exhibit, ical artifacts for the show and tell program "150 Years of Boone County Photography," Historical Notes and Comments 331 opened in the Montminy Gallery of the Carroll County Historical Society museum on January 15. The November 17 meeting, held in Norborne, focused on the town and its histo­ Boone-Duden Historical Society ry, with the emphasis on the Citizens' Bank Dr. Jean Fields of Lindenwood College of Norborne, which is listed on the National spoke on the early French settlers of St. Register of Historic Places. Living history Charles at the Christmas meeting held on presentations, historic craft demonstrations, December 19 in the New Melle Baptist and a hand-carved Christmas village and city Church. of Bethlehem were featured at the museum on November 19-20, November 26-27, and December 3-4. Boonslick Historical Society On January 18 the Society, the Cooper Cass County Historical Society County Historical Society, and the congrega­ Zoe Rexroad, author of a series of novels tion of the Episcopal Church cosponsored a about "Lizzy Ida," a character set in the 1920s, meeting at the church that featured Prince provided the program at the dinner meeting Hans von Sachsen-Altenburg, Duke of held at Pearson Hall on November 26. The Saxony, speaking on Duke Paul of officers for 1995 are Ellen Moore, president; Wuerttemberg's journeys up the Missouri Mary Doris Davis and Connie Price, vice pres­ River in 1823-1824, 1830, and 1851. idents; Mary Margaret Ingels and Lois Stevick, Current Society officers are Marty Ferry, secretaries; and Irene Webster, treasurer. president; Wayne Lammers, vice president; James Higbie, secretary; and Sue Ann Cedar County Historical Society Meyers, treasurer. The October meeting was held at the home of James and Polly Shipley near Jerico Brown County Historical Association Springs. Polly and her son, Rodney, led the Members met on January 10 at the First group in singing hymns and other favorite Baptist Church in Sweet Springs and heard songs for the evening's program. The Nancy Reid, an area third-grade teacher, dis­ Society met in the Community Building at cuss class projects involving the history of El Dorado Springs on November 28 and Sweet Springs and Brownsville. heard Inez Hoffman speak on the active liter­ ary societies during the late nineteenth and Caldwell County Historical Society early twentieth centuries. The annual meeting of the Society, held on November 17 at the Red Rooster Inn in Chariton County Historical Society Polo, featured the presentation of the second The Society's new officers are Carol volume of the county history book, which Bentley, president; Juanita Grotjon, vice had just returned from the printer, and a talk president; Kathryn Winkelmeyer, secretary; on lynchings and executions in the 1800s. and Faye Cruse, treasurer. A show and tell Dr. Harriett Frazier, a professor of criminal program at the January meeting gave mem­ justice at Central Missouri State University, bers and guests an opportunity to discuss Warrensburg, delivered the program. The family treasures. new president for 1995 is Bob Grant, Jr. Christian County Historical Society Carondelet Historical Society A fund-raising auction sponsored last The Society celebrated the holidays with August, which included Branson theatre a Christmas dinner on December 11 at the tickets, netted the Society $2,500. Officers historic center. Additionally, members and for 1995-1996 include Carol Romano, presi­ guests brought nonperishable food to benefit dent; John Nixon, vice president; Avaline the local family care center's food drive. Harris, secretary; and Elise Crain, treasurer. 332 Missouri Historical Review

Civil War Round Table of Kansas City instrumental in maintaining the state's interest Dr. Leslie S. Rowland, faculty member in in its collection of Civil War battle flags. the history department at the University of Robert L. Hawkins received the Alex and Maryland and director of the Freedmen and Catherine Hope Award for his efforts in pre­ Southern Society Project, spoke on emanci­ serving historical buildings and the pated slaves and his findings from the pro­ Woodlawn and Old City Cemeteries. Nearly ject at the November 22 dinner meeting at two hundred members and guests attended the Homestead Country Club, Prairie Village, holiday celebration at the museum, followed Kansas. The January 24 meeting, also held at by a reception at the Governor's Mansion. the country club, featured Dr. William Glenn On December 3 the Society's forty-five muse­ Robertson's talk, "Bull of the Woods?: um docents were honored with an apprecia­ Longstreet at Chickamauga," where he reex­ tion luncheon at the country club. On behalf amined the generalship of Lee's "Old War of the docents, Marian Eskijian presented Horse." Current officers include Gil retiring docent chairperson Ruth Barrett with Bergman, president, and Tim Westcott and a gift in honor of her eight years of service. Harriett Duff, vice presidents. Concordia Historical Institute Civil War Round Table of St. Louis Dr. August R. Suelflow, director of the A popular Round Table speaker, Marvin Institute for forty-six years, has announced Knoll, discussed Confederate raiders at the his plans to retire. A banquet on November January 25 gathering at Garavelli's 17 honored longtime volunteers and patrons Restaurant in Rock Hill. Werner and Elizabeth Ringger Krause with a Distinguished Service Award for outstanding Civil War Round Table contributions to the cause of Lutheran histo­ of Western Missouri ry. Reverend Frederick S. Weiser, New The November 9 meeting, held at the Oxford, Pennsylvania, spoke on German Truman High School library, Independence, Lutheranism at the banquet, which was held featured a program on the "War Experiences in the Wartburg Dining Hall of Concordia of General Blunt," presented by Fred George Seminary in St. Louis. and Ed Harris. The second annual Christmas party on December 10 at the Rose Garden Cooper County Historical Society Center at Loose Park called for period dress, At the October 10 meeting Iola Potts pre­ period jokes, and period music. sented information on "Round Hill," a small frontier settlement located in the southern Clay County Museum part of the county. Lucy Layne also gave a and Historical Society history of the Tipton Presbyterian Church, Early tallying of the profits from the where this meeting was held. The recent fall homes tour, cosponsored with the November meeting, held in the Prairie Home Soroptimist International of Liberty, totalled Baptist Church, featured a talk by Keith $1,700. Daleen on Confederate General Jo Shelby.

Cole County Historical Society Dade County Historical Society The Society held its annual membership The Society meets on the first Tuesday of meeting on November 13 at the Jefferson City each month at its office on the square in Country Club and heard Francis "Bud" Greenfield. Members are currently working Barnes discuss "Missouri's Battle Flags: To on the restoration of two properties owned Be Or Not To Be." During Barnes's sixteen- by the Society, the Hulston Mill and the year term in the General Assembly, he was Washington Hotel. Historical Notes and Comments 333

Dallas County Historical Society Ferguson Historical Society Buffalo Head Historical Park was the site The L. & N. and Great Northern Cabooses for the annual covered-dish supper on reopened April 1 for the summer season; November 17. Participants enjoyed a sing-a­ tours are available from 1:00 to 3:00 P.M. on long with music provided by JoAnn Viets. the first Saturday of each month. At the annual business meeting on December 2, also held in the park, members elected Florissant Valley Historical Society officers who include Thelma Kurtz, presi­ The Society opened the holiday season dent; Month Viets, vice president; Eva Marie on November 27 with its "Florissant by Glor and Leni Howe, secretaries; and Ralph Candlelight" tour of Victorian homes, the Tucker, treasurer. railroad station, and the log cabin the Society has preserved. Gift, antique, and craft shops DeKalb County Historical Society opened during the tour to facilitate early In recognition of DeKalb County's Christmas shopping, with all proceeds going sesquicentennial, the Society prepared the to the newly opened resource center located "Commemorative History of the County," in the Gittemeier House. which appeared as a supplement to the April Heritage, the Society's newsletter. Franklin County Historical Society Members met at the Scenic Regional Library in Union on December 4 to celebrate Dent County Historical Society the Society's twenty-fifth anniversary. The On January 13 Society members met at party featured past reflections and keepsakes the Salem District Memorial Hospital to view of the organization's history. a promotional film on the hospital and future economic development in the community. Friends of Historic Fort Osage Currently on sale, Ozark Heritage, Volume HI The Friends have announced the publica­ is a hardbound, limited edition that features tion of Receipts From the Common Kitchen, family and cemetery histories. It can be a collection of period recipes tested in the ordered for $65.00 from Ken Fiebelman, fort's factory kitchen. The book also 1202 Gertrude, Salem, MO 65560. includes historical trivia, illustrations by Cathy Johnson, and a suggested reading list. Douglas County Historical It is available for $5.00, plus $1.50 for ship­ and Genealogical Society ping, from "Friends," P.O. Box 195, Sibley, Meetings of the Society are held every MO 64088. third Monday of each month at 6:30 in the museum. The museum is open each Saturday Friends of Missouri Town-1855 from 10:00 A.M. until 3:00 P.M. The Friends sponsored a Christmas Open House on December 10-11 that featured pop­ Fayette Area Heritage Association corn stringing, hearth cooking, caroling, and A Christmas open house was held at the a visit from a nineteenth-century Santa Wright Building on December 3 to coincide Claus. In addition, the evening of the tenth with Fayette's Christmas evening parade and included "Windows on the Past," a candle­ caroling around the square. In addition to light tour of the town that focused on the tra­ holiday treats, a special exhibit of children's ditions of German, English, and French holi­ toys from the early 1900s was on display. day celebrations. Members brought period Officers for 1995 are Jan Addison, president; costumes to the February 5 meeting in Sandra Marshall, vice president; and Barbara Woods Chapel. Patterns and a display of Alexander and Virginia Monroe, secretaries. historical costumes were available to help 334 Missouri Historical Review the volunteers create their attire for the secretary; and John Cook, treasurer. upcoming season. On February 18 Mavis Simmons and Norma Bowers provided a Grandview Historical Society bonnet workshop, featuring a variety of bon­ On February 6 the Society met at the nets and day capes. Depot Museum to hear Sterling Goddard dis­ cuss genealogy and the use of obituaries. Friends of Rocheport The museum will reopen for the summer Greene County Historical Society season on April 22. Walking tours, leaving Jobelle Burk, a member of the Ozarks from the Friend's country store on Central Genealogical Society, spoke on the history of Street, will resume the same day. Christmas cards at the December 1 meeting in the Glenstone Heritage Cafeteria. She Gasconade County Historical Society illustrated the talk with examples from her The quarterly membership meeting of the personal collection. Officers installed at that Society was held in the courthouse at meeting include Hayward Barnett, president; Hermann on February 5. Following a busi­ Wayne Bartee, vice president; and Greta ness meeting, Kenneth Kitchen of Bay pre­ Huff, secretary. Outgoing secretary Louise sented a program on pottery and Gasconade Hull received a plaque recognizing her seven­ County clay. teen years of service to the Society.

Glendale Historical Society Grundy County Historical Society The dedication ceremony for a granite The Grundy County Museum marks its veteran's memorial monument took place on 100th birthday in 1995 and will celebrate with November 11 in front of city hall. Society events throughout the museum season. The president Oscar Fuchs presented the memor­ museum will open on May 1—regular hours ial to Mayor Anthony Monaco and gave a of operation are from 1:00 to 4:00 on week­ brief history. The annual Christmas meeting, ends and holidays, May through October. held on December 8 in city hall, featured the Quartermasters, a barbershop quartet. Harrison County Historical Society Tom Lesnak, city of Bethany coordinator, Golden Eagle River Museum spoke at the Society's meeting in the senior Members celebrated Christmas on citizen building in Bethany on February 26. December 3 at Lemmon's Restaurant; musi­ cal entertainment by "Jammin' Jimmie" Henry County Historical Society Balch followed the dinner. A videotape of On Thanksgiving Day members held a stories of excursion boat days in the 1930s potluck dinner in the Adair Annex of the and 1940s by Arthur Denkman, former cap­ museum. In cooperation with the Kansas tain of the Mississippi Belle, provided the City Symphony, the Society presented a win­ program at both the January and February ter concert series in the annex. A brass meetings held in the Grone Cafeteria, ensemble made up of members of the sym­ Yorkshire Shopping Center, St. Louis. phony performed on December 1, followed by vocalist Karren Allyson on January 8, and Grand River Historical Society Alex Shum, violinist, and Westley Kelly, Judith Shoot presented a program on harpist, on February 12. The museum Peter Rabbit's first one hundred years at the reopened on April 1; hours of operation are quarterly meeting held in the Methodist 12:00-4:00, Tuesday through Saturday. Church, Chillicothe, on January 10. New officers of the society include Frank Stark, Heritage League of Greater Kansas City president; Bill Lightner, Doris Wilson, and The League's annual dinner meeting, Bob Skinner, vice presidents; Suzi Beck, held at the Benjamin Ranch on November 3, Historical Notes and Comments 335 featured an evening of active entertainment Jackson County Historical Society with doggers, line dancing, and hayrides. Through December a special holiday exhibit at the 1859 Jail, Marshal's Home, Historical Association of and Museum highlighted quilts from the Greater Cape Girardeau frontier era and chronicled the restoration of The November 14 meeting for the the jail. At the annual meeting of the Association took place in the activity room Society, held January 22 at the Alexander of Chateau Girardeau, where members heard Majors Historic Home in Kansas City, the featured speaker David Dickey discuss the following officers were elected: Daneen construction of Thebes Bridge. Beginning Barbour, president; Mary Childers, J. April 22, and extending through December Gordon Kingsley, and Jane Flynn, vice presi­ 1995, tours of the Glenn House are available dents; Mary Davidson Cohen, secretary; and Friday through Sunday, 1:00-4:00 P.M. John McGee and Robert Busier, treasurers. Richard Pierre Nadeau received the third Historical Society of Maries County annual President's Award, and the Society The Latham log house, recently disman­ honored Janann Adams as the volunteer of tled and moved to the historic district, the year. In a two-year pilot program, the acquired a new tin roof and upstairs flooring John Wornall House is tailoring monthly in December. The recently published third programs for students of the Children's volume of the Maries County history can be Center for the Visually Impaired. The muse­ ordered from the Society for $50.00, plus um staff has developed special tours that $4.00 for shipping. Send orders to the emphasize learning through touch, taste, Historical Society of Maries County, Box feel, and sound. 289, Vienna, MO 65582. Jasper County Historical Society Historical Society of Oregon County The home of Eleanor Coffield provided The Society elected the following offi­ the location for the annual Christmas party cers to serve through the 1995 term: Mildred and meeting on December 11. McCormack, president; Goldina Hansen, vice president; Mary Lee Pease, secretary; Kansas City Fire Brigade and Susan Sheets, treasurer. Museum director Jerry Adkins discussed the recent purchases of two antique fire Historical Society of Polk County trucks, progress on electrical and plumbing Society members met in the banquet projects, and a donation of museum cases at room of Citizens Memorial Hospital on the January 21 meeting in the museum. November 22 to feast on a traditional Thanksgiving dinner. A display, located in Kansas City Westerners the hall of the museum, highlights old Eugene DeGruson, special collections switchboards, wall and desk telephones, and librarian for the Leonard H. Axe Library at a variety of other related communications Pittsburg State University, gave a talk on equipment. "When the West was Red" at the November 8 meeting. On January 10 members heard Iron County Historical Society "Plants, Animals, and Soldiers: The Army Howard Noble, a history professor at and Natural History in the 19th Century" by Mineral Area College, spoke to members at Michael Brodhead, an archivist with the the January 15 meeting, held in the fellow­ National Archives-Central Plains Region. ship hall of the First Baptist Church, Ironton. The newly elected officers for the Posse are 336 Missouri Historical Review

B. C. Snidow, sheriff; Lenore Carroll and Lee's Summit. Over forty members and Elizabeth Ergovich, deputy sheriffs; Leroy guests enjoyed a potluck dinner and a tour of and Mary Campbell, talliers; and Barbara the house, which had been built for J. C. Larsen, chip keeper. All Westerners meetings Jones in the early 1900s. are held at the Hereford House Restaurant, 20th and Main Streets, Kansas City. Lincoln County Historical and Archeological Society Kimmswick Historical Society New officers include John Metzger, pres­ The Society hosted a Christmas party for ident; Mrs. Arnelda Knaus, vice president; members on December 5 at Kimmswick Mrs. John Clare, secretary; and Mrs. Robert Hall. After a gift exchange, the following Hechler, treasurer. new officers were elected: Glee Heiligtag Naes, president; Nadine Garland, vice presi­ Meramec Valley Genealogical dent; Sylvia Fromm and Madeline Sheltman, and Historical Society secretaries; and Loretta Boemler, treasurer. The Society's new officers are F. Arthur Jan Taylor presented "Medicinal Herbs of Muehler, president; Jane Pritchett, vice presi­ the 1840s" at the February 6 meeting at dent; Dorothy Votaw, secretary; and Mayo Kimmswick Hall. Votaw, treasurer. John Hinkle presented "History of Ink and Inkwells" at the January 18 Kirkwood Historical Society meeting at the Scenic Regional Library, Pacific. The Society sponsored a Victorian Christmas celebration at Mudd's Grove on Mid-Missouri Civil War Round Table December 3-4. Handmade items and baked Round Table members heard Jim goods were available for purchase. Stafford speak on "The 79th New York Infantry" at the November 15 meeting at the Laclede County Historical Society Columbia Daily Tribune building. Roger On November 28 members gathered at Baker talked about his experiences in using a Harwood Manor in Lebanon to partake in metal detector on Civil War battlefields at the annual Thanksgiving feast. Following the January 17 meeting, which was held in dinner and door prizes, the group was enter­ the Jefferson City Public Library. tained by the Barber Shop Singers from Hillcrest School. The Society meets the Miller County Historical Society fourth Monday of each month at 6:30 P.M. in The Society held its annual Christmas the Harwood Manor meeting room. dinner and meeting on December 4 in the museum in Tuscumbia. Approximately one Lawrence County Historical Society hundred attendees heard music presented by The Society met in Jones Memorial Esther Clawson, Margaret Simmons, and Chapel, Mt. Vernon, on November 20; new Bob Kensinger and enjoyed Dolores Brondel officers elected were Lem Compton, presi­ and Peggy Hake's presentation of the "True dent; Don Seneker and Maxine Armstrong, Story of Christmas." The January 8 meeting vice presidents; Margaret McBride, secre­ included a potluck dinner and a show and tary; and Fred Mieswinkel, treasurer. tell program by the members. Seneker presented a program on sources to use when researching ancestors who fought Mine Au Breton Historical Society in the Civil War. Catherine Polete is the Society's new president. Lee's Summit Historical Society Mrs. Robert Gallo hosted the December Moniteau County Historical Society 2 Society meeting at her historic home in On November 14 members gathered for Historical Notes and Comments 337 the annual dinner meeting at the United elected the following officers for 1995: Church of Christ in California. Bob Priddy, Donna Zeilmann, president; Dorothy a Jefferson City radio broadcaster and Rudroff, vice president; Clara Backes, secre­ author, presented the program. Several tary; and Byron Baker, treasurer. members assisted with the California Chamber of Commerce's "Christmas Overland Historical Society California Style" celebration on December 4. Members assembled on November 7 and At a special meeting on December 12, the heard Monte Avery of Manchester speak on Society's members voted to sell the Cronin- "Civil War Visits St. Louis - Missouri, a Newton house, which was occupied by the State Divided." Over 130 people participat­ organization prior to its move to the Cultural ed in the Society's Christmas candlelight Heritage Center, formerly the California post tours of the log house on December 10 and office. New officers are Larry Crawford, 11. At the January 11 meeting in the president; Joann Thornton, vice president; Overland Community Center, Ron Brunnert Carlene Petree and Dottie Gump, secretaries; presented a program on Fort Bellefontaine, and Grover Snead, treasurer. the first American fort west of the Mississippi River. John G. Neihardt Corral of the Westerners Perry County Historical Society Phil Gottschalk, author of In Deadly The Society's office and library, located Earnest, spoke on "Missouri in the Civil at 111 South Spring, Perryville, will be open War" at the November 10 meeting. The every Saturday morning from 9:00 to 12:00 Corral meets monthly at the Days Inn in until November 25. Columbia. Perry County Lutheran Historical Society Old Trails Historical Society On November 27 the Society dedicated a The Society joined with the Walter La marker at the site of the former St. Paul Pere American Legion Post in Manchester to Lutheran Church in Wittenberg. honor area military personnel on November 12. The event, held at the American Legion Pettis County Historical Society post, featured displays of military memorabil­ H. H. Luetjen, a retired engineer living in ia, uniforms, and souvenirs from conflicts dat­ Smithton, discussed his work on the ing back to the Civil War. On December 11, Mercury and Apollo space programs for the Society held its semiannual homes tour, McDonnell-Douglas and gave a history of followed by a Christmas party for members at American aerospace endeavors at the the Bacon Log Cabin. Five area houses, the November 28 meeting. At the January 23 Society's cabin, and St. Joseph's Church were meeting, Dr. T. S. Hopkins, Hughesville, available for touring. Members had cookies, related his experiences as a Navy doctor dur­ crafts, and gifts available for purchase at the ing the Korean War and the early 1950s. cabin. The January 16 meeting, held in the Both meetings were held in the Pettis Manchester Methodist Church, featured Gary County Courthouse, Sedalia. Micanek discussing travel in the western United States prior to 1940. Platte County Historical and Genealogical Society Osage County Historical Society The Society sponsored Christmas tours of Dorothy Heckmann Shrader, author of its Ben Ferrel Platte County Museum on the Steamboat Legacy, was the featured speaker first three Fridays and Saturdays of December. on November 28 at the annual meeting in the A special candlelight tour of the decorated Loose Creek School Hall. Members also mansion was held on November 26. Gone 338 Missouri Historical Review and Forgotten: Pleasant Grove Cemetery and describe their current activities and goals. Church, Camden Point, Missouri, the The Society held its thirty-fourth annual Society's new book, is available for purchase. antiques show and sale on March 11-12 at The paperback volume, which sells for the St. Charles West High School. $12.00, plus $2.00 postage, can be ordered from the Society at P.O. Box 103, Platte City, St. Clair County Historical Society MO 64079. Rick Reed, a Civil War reenactor, pre­ sented a program on the Civil War in Pleasant Hill Historical Society Missouri and the Confederate Second Ivan Slaughter spoke on Civil War events Brigade at the November 15 meeting in the in the area at the January 15 meeting at the Lakeview Apartments public meeting room, museum. Osceola. At the January 17 meeting in the St. Clair County Library, Osceola, Shirley Randolph County Historical Society Collins, a former St. Clair County sheriff, Members gathered at Nelly's Restaurant was the guest speaker. Members met on in Moberly for the January 23 meeting and February 21 in the Taberville fire station to heard Carol Diaz-Granados present hear several local residents discuss the histo­ "Missouri's Prehistoric Rock Art." ry of the town and the surrounding area.

Ray County Historical Society St. Francois County Historical Society The Society held its annual meeting on Janet Barton showed slides of Bonne January 19 at the Eagleton Civic Center, Terre at the October 26 meeting in the Richmond. After a carry-in dinner, Dean Ozarks Federal Savings and Loan building in Snow, Ray County coroner, discussed recov­ Farmington. Officers elected at the meeting ery efforts following the flooding of the included Leora Giessing, president; Jack Hardin Cemetery in 1993. Society officers Clay, vice president; Dorothy Mount and elected at the meeting include Harold Ruth Womack, secretaries; and Faye Morris, Barchers, president; Jean Hamacher, vice treasurer. Cory Spence and Jason Sheppard, president; and Eliz Harrison, secretary. students at Farmington High School, pre­ sented their video about local theaters at the Raymore Historical Society November 16 meeting. Members planned This newly organized Society has gar­ future projects at the January 25 meeting. nered 160 members, and a local businessman has agreed to provide space for a museum. Saline County Historical Society The Society held its annual meeting on Raytown Historical Society January 19 in the Marshall Public Library. Members held their quarterly meeting on Members heard Paul Gieringer present January 30 at the Raytown Christian Church. "German P.O.W. Camps in Missouri" and New officers installed at the meeting includ­ honored Byron Banta for his contribution of ed Phyllis Miller, president; William the Banta Cemetery Collection to the local Hanaway and Howard Bell, vice presidents; history and genealogy collection of the Jean Wheeler and Annetta Herring, secre­ Marshall Public Library. taries; and Earl Jones, treasurer. Sappington-Concord Historical Society St. Charles County Historical Society Cynthia Miller, from the St. Louis Public At the quarterly meeting held January 28 Library Department of History and at Williams Memorial Methodist Church, Genealogy, gave a slide show and discussed members heard representatives of local his­ local history sources at the January 25 meet­ torical societies in St. Charles County ing. Officers for 1995 are Rose Marie Historical Notes and Comments 339

Karius, president; Oliver Sappington, vice December 19 members attended the Society's president; Jacqueline Burgess and Muriel Christmas dinner party at Altemueller's Marks, secretaries; and Terry Kelly, treasur­ Restaurant. er. All meetings are held in the Lindbergh School District board room. Wayne County Historical Society Officers elected for 1995 include Linda Sons and Daughters of the Blue and Gray Lunyou, president; Mary Glenn, vice presi­ The Hinshaw-Tennihill Theatrical dent; Deloris Keele, secretary; and Opal Lee Players spoke about and read brief scenes Payton, treasurer. At the November 7 meet­ from seven plays about the Civil War at the ing, John Bradbury, a manuscript specialist at November 20 meeting held in the Mercantile the Western Historical Manuscript Collection- Bank community room, Maryville. Rolla, showed slides of Missouri Civil War forts and talked about the war's leaders. Stone County Historical Society Following a business session at the Weston Historical Museum November 6 meeting, members heard Mary Members gathered at the Weston Cafe on Strickrodt speak about grant sources. November 13 for dinner and the annual meeting. Frank Fogler presented "Lewis and Texas County Missouri Genealogical Clark—Leavenworth to St. Joseph." and Historical Society The Society is collecting pictures for Westport Historical Society inclusion in the pictorial history sponsored The Society held its quarterly meeting on by the county commissioners in celebration November 18 at the Woodside Racquet Club, of the county's sesquicentennial. Westwood, Kansas. Ona Gieschen, director of the Save A Connie, Inc. Museum, gave a Harry S Truman Independence slide presentation about her organization's 76 Fire Company efforts to restore a Constellation, an early pro­ The Company participated in the peller commercial aircraft. Officers elected Halloween and the American Royal parades. for 1995 are Arthur Anacker, president; On December 2 members gathered for a hol­ Daniel Verbeck, Katherine Barnett, and iday dinner party at the meeting hall in Louise Meyers, vice presidents; Beverly Fleming Park. Shaw and Alice Phister, secretaries; and Gailen Stockwell, treasurer. The Society held Vernon County Historical Society its annual Christmas open house at the Harris- The Society held its annual meeting on Kearney House Museum on December 4. December 4 in the Nevada Park Care Center. New officers elected for 1995 are Floreine Winston Historical Society Moore, president; Ethel Dean McComas, Officers for 1995 are Virgil Julian, presi­ vice president; Eva Sparks and Patrick dent; Dorothy Olsen and Helen Wilson, vice Brophy, secretaries; and Harry Gilbert, trea­ presidents; Jay Groves, secretary; and Melba surer. Marjorie H. Goss, a retired professor Martindale, treasurer. from Cottey College, presented a program on W T. Ballagh, a longtime Nevada druggist. Wright County Historical Society The Society has recently published a Washington Historical Society booklet containing death notices and obituar­ The Society held an open house at its ies found in the Hartville newspaper, 1921- quarters on December 11; the museum, 1930. Price and ordering information may archives, and Ralph Gregory Library were be obtained from the Society at P.O. Box 66, open and refreshments were served. On Hartville, MO 65667. 340 GIFTS

Armed Forces Association, Jefferson Barracks, donor, through Carl C. French and Charles E. Woolf: Colonel John R. Bamvakais, Military Service, 1942-1981 and several brochures about Jefferson Barracks. (R)* Eleanora A. Baer, St. Louis, donor: Sacred Heart Parish 1882-1982: 100 Years of Faith. (R) Robert A. Baumann, St. Louis, donor: Miscellaneous items on the St. Louis MetroLink mass transit system. (R) Mary Watkins Bhuta, Los Osos, California, donor: Genealogy of the Watkins Family of Virginia and Missouri from 1957 to 1994, compiled by the donor. (R) Golda Boulware, Palmyra, donor: Berry Hill Spencer (1819-1883) Papers. (M) Trenton Boyd, Columbia, donor: 1992-1993 Southwestern Bell Greater St. Louis Yellow Pages. (R) Tom Clatworthy, Harrisonville, donor: Raymore City Cemetery, by the donor. (R) Marie Concannon, Columbia, donor: Two issues of The Community Voice, two newsletters of the Mid-Missouri Herpetological Society, and four newsletters of the Columbia Zen Center. (R) Thomas Danisi, St. Louis, donor: Two original plat maps by the donor of the Lafayette Square area and two additional maps of the area. (R) Daughters of Union Veterans of the Civil War, Julia Dent Grant Tent, donor, through Sue Ladage, Brentwood: Missouri—Our Civil War Heritage, vol. 3, by the donor. (R) Winnett Dent, Salem, donor: The Cannonball Stove and Other Holler Tales, by the donor. (R) Robert L. Elgin, Rolla, donor: A tinted photograph of Elizabeth N. Shelby, wife of Joseph Orville Shelby, and a colored enamel membership pin for the United Daughters of the Confederacy that had belonged to Mrs. Shelby. (E) & (R) William Hill Field V, Westport, Connecticut, donor: "Field Genealogy," by Frederick Clifton Pierce, and other Field family materials. (R) First Christian Church, Jefferson City, donor: "The House of Benjamin Everett Caruthers and Others," by J. Henry Caruthers; The Church Bell, vol. 49, nos. 1-45; and other church materials published in 1994. (R) Marcus J. France, Lakewood, Colorado, donor: One copy of a treatment written by the donor for the upcoming Lyon of Missouri screen­ play that features information about General Nathaniel Lyon. (R) Friends of the Daniel Boone Regional Library, Columbia, donor, through Jack Kennedy: The City Beautiful Movement in Kansas City, by William H. Wilson. (R)

*These letters indicate the location of the materials at the Society. (R) refers to Reference Library; (E), Editorial Office; (M), Manuscripts; (N), Newspaper Library; (RFC), Reference Fitzgerald Collection; (B), Bay Room; and (A), Art Room. Historical Notes and Comments 341

Gamma Alpha, donor, through Ralph R. Anderson, Columbia: Information about the history of Gamma Alpha fraternity at the University of Missouri. (R) Willie K. Norton Gill, Hayti, donor, through Paul Brooks, Columbia: Kay's Expressions, by the donor. (R) Grandview Baptist Church, Murry, donor, through Frances Jones, Hallsville: Grandview Baptist Church, Murry, Missouri, Collection. (M) William K. Hall, St. Louis, donor: Springfield, Missouri, Newspaper Abstracts and Index, three volumes for 1889, 1890, and 1891, all by the donor. (N) William Marion Harlan, donor, Columbia: Randolph County, Missouri, Marriage & Death Notices, two volumes for 1854-1869 and 1870-1879, both compiled by the donor. (R) Joyce E. and Harold R. Hodges, Leavenworth, Kansas, donors: Fourteen original photographs and twelve black and white copy negatives featuring members of the Hodges, Lippelmann, Andersen, and Dugger families; businesses in Missouri; and a group photograph of waitresses and waiters at the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair, (E); The Marionville Turrentines, by Ethel Turrentine Hook, loaned for copying, and copies of three newspaper articles about Frank Hodges. (R) Sterling E. and Karen K. Holbrook, Farber, donors, through Walter L. Pfeffer, Columbia: Information on the Holbrook family. (R) Wesley W. Horner II, Englewood, Colorado, donor: A Personal Inquiry Into the Genealogy of My Horner Family in America, by the donor. (R) Lyndon N. Irwin, Bois D'Arc, donor: The Rogers Family of Paint Lick and Crab Orchard, by the donor. (R) Ronald G. Kamper, Lake Mary, Florida, donor: The Boone's Lick Road from St. Charles to the Historic Boone's Salt Lick, by the donor. (R) Kenneth Keller, Staunton, Virginia, donor: Five black and white negatives and corresponding copy prints relating to the H. J. Weber and Sons Nursery, Affton. (E) Joy Leistritz, St. Louis, donor: Ebenezer Lutheran Church, St. Louis, 1869-1994. (R) Lorene McCleary, Adrian, donor: Copy print of a 1921 studio portrait of Warren D. Welliver, a former Missouri State Supreme Court judge. (E) Betty Coleman Maker, Bend, Oregon, donor: Coleman, Branstine, Reusch, and allied families and Reusch, Jones and allied families, both by the donor. (R) The M.M.M. Club, donor, through Nannie May Hughes, Fayette: Records of the donor organization. (M) Jean S. Mitchell, La Feria, Texas, donor: Stocktons of Grove Dale, Maries County, Missouri, by the donor. (R) Siegmar Muehl, Iowa City, Iowa, donor: Friedrich Muench: Man of Letters on the Missouri Frontier, (R) & (M); In and Around a Small Missouri Town: Rhineland 1837-1952, An Historical and Genealogical Resource, both by the donor, (R). R. J. Mutti, Fort Collins, Colorado, donor: The History and Genealogy of the Niklaus Beutler and Rosina Andres Family of Moniteau County, Missouri and Tuscarawas County, Ohio, by Gary D. Bettcher. (R) 342 Missouri Historical Review

Neelyville Area Historical Society, Neelyville, donor, through Iva Cosby: History of Neelyville: Historical Information; and Oral Histories of Neelyville Citizens, all by the donor. (R) Ruth Norwood, Houston, Texas, donor: Descendants of Harvey John and Margaret McDonald Hicks, by the donor. (R) Osmund Overby, Columbia, donor, through Deb Sheals: "Final Report of a Survey of the East Campus Neighborhood, Columbia, Missouri, Phase One," by the donor and others. (R) Catherine N. Parke, Columbia, donor: In the Shadow of Parnassus: Zoe Akins's Essays on American Poetry, edited by the donor. (R) Walter L. and Beverely H. Pfeffer, Columbia, donors: Miscellaneous publications, programs, invitations, and brochures from a variety of busi­ ness, educational, civic, conservation, cultural, charitable, and political organizations and associations in the Columbia area; information on the DeOrnellas family. (R) D. Reid Ross, Durango, Colorado, donor: "Sgt. J. P. Barnes and the Fourth Regiment (Jefferson County) Kansas State Militia," by the donor. (R) F. W. Shadwell, Jefferson City, donor: Multiple issues from 1954 to 1961 of Missouri Insuror, the magazine of the Missouri Association of Insurance Agents, and multiple issues from 1951 to 1957 of the Missouri Peace Officers Association's Law Enforcement. (R) Beatrice Shaw, Chicago, Illinois, donor: Drawing of Ralph Shaw and Dr. Donny Harris titled Evolution, by Daniel Fitzpatrick. (A) Lawrence H. Slaughter, Larchmont, New York, donor: History of a Missouri farm family: The O. V. Slaughters, 1700-1944, by Stephen S. Slaughter. (R) William E. Smith, Colorado Springs, Colorado, donor: Drury's Marshall, Missouri City Directory, 1932, and The Book of Commerce, Saline County. (R) Southwest Missouri State University, Springfield, donor, through Jim Coombs: Seven station maps of the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railway Company. (R) John B. Stoeckley, Louisiana, donor: Thirty-three lithographs from original drawings by the donor, featuring historic locations and personalities in or from Missouri. (A) John G. Westover, Tucson, Arizona, donor: Selected Memories, by the donor. (R) Joy E. Whitener, Webster Groves, donor: "Historical Information Relating to the E. S. Lett Memorial Bridge at Marquand, Missouri," by the donor, and a program for the dedication of a new bridge spanning the Castor River at Marquand. (R) Robert Gail Woods, Palmyra, donor: A variety of newsletters for Palmyra area churches and invitations, announcements, and programs for events occurring in the Palmyra area in 1994. (R) 343 MISSOURI HISTORY IN NEWSPAPERS

Albany Ledger-Headlight October 26, 1994—Dale St. John, a member of the "1933 conference basketball team inducted into NWMSU Hall of Fame," by Craig Gibson. January 11, 1995— "Family dinners and old time receipts," featured William and Clarica Grace.

California Democrat October 19, 1994— "Hobby also investment for antique phonograph collector," Joe LaPrise, by Grant Chapman.

Camdenton Reveille and Lake Sun Leader November 28, 1994— "Daguerreotypes: The Crispin House," by Fern Moreland.

Canton Press-News Journal October 20, December 15, 1994— "Yesteryear's Pictures," a photo series, featured respectively: the construction of the hydroelectric plant at Keokuk in 1912 and the German Methodist Episcopal Church.

*Cape Girardeau Southeast Missourian January 1, 1995— "City's hangouts change through 20th century." January 3— "Hangouts were plentiful in Cape during '50s, '60s." This and the article above by Sam Blackwell.

Carrollton Daily Democrat September 27, October 4, 25, 1994— "Journey into the past," a series by Martha Elliott, featured respectively: agriculture firsts in Carroll County, the Carroll Bowl grand opening in 1958, and the early history of Hale and Hurricane Townships. January 3, 1995— "Buzard Motor Company, Post-War Carrollton business."

Columbia Daily Tribune October 16, 30, November 13, 27, December 11, 25, 1994, January 8, 22, 1995— "Boone Country," a series by Francis Pike, featured respectively: General Enoch Crowder; Neff Hall at the University of Missouri-Columbia; the Tate and the Caldwell families; Daniel Boone Jones and Winterton C. Curtis; gold mining on Cedar Creek; Terrapin Neck; tornadoes; and the 1917 cyclone. January 12— "Time Passages," a special supplement featuring a timeline of county history. January 15— "The Image Makers: One hundred and fifty years of Boone County pho­ tography is the focus of an exhibit opening today at the [Walters-Boone County] historical museum," by Sara Ervanian.

Columbia Missourian October 23, 1994— "Columbia: Circa 1905," a photo of the three-story brick building formerly at the corner of Ninth and Elm Streets. November 13—The Shack. December 4—Varsity Theater. December 11—Benjamin Franklin Dimmitt home, Rocheport. December 18— "Rollins Field," University of Missouri-Columbia. indicates newspapers not received by the State Historical Society. 344 Missouri Historical Review

*Excelsior Springs Daily Standard December 2, 1994— "Old Crockery Inn is rich in history," by Patty Bouldin.

Fayette Democrat-Leader December 31, 1994—Faith Family Fellowship "100-Year-Old Building Gives View of Fayette's Olden Days: From Opera House to Recording Studio," by H. Denny Davis.

Fulton Sun November 5, 1994— "County Politics: Callaway County has a rich political history." November 19— "Gone but not forgotten: A Tribute to former Callaway settlements." This and the article above by Lee Godley.

Goodman News Dispatch January 18, 1995—Pineville's McDonald County Bank is featured as "Photo from the past. . . Early county banks reflected changing times."

Hamilton Advocate November 30, 1994—Highway 36, the Pikes Peak "Ocean to Ocean Highway helped 'lift Missouri Out of the Mud,'" by Dennis Cox.

Hannibal Courier-Post December 17, 1994—Charles Blackburn finds ancestor William McDaniel while "Tracing his roots to Hannibal," by J. Hurley and Roberta Hagood.

Hermitage Index December 8, 1994— "Ceremony dedicates old [Hermitage Methodist] church building to the public."

Ironton Mountain Echo January 5, 1995— "Echoes from the Past. . . ," a photo series, featured the Lookout Fire Tower on Taum Sauk Mountain, c. 1955.

Kansas City Star January 28, 1995—Historic Wirthman, Belvidere, Carlton, Berkshire, Wrennmoor, Senate, Cavalier, and Armour Plaza apartment "Buildings evoking bygone days soon will be gone, too," by Jeffrey Spivak. February 1—George Washington "Carver created art, too: Sketch of Missouri cabin to be given to national organization," by Brian Burnes.

Kirksville Daily Express & News October 27, 1994—Elise Eileen Luton-Dunlop recalls food "Peddlers" from her youth.

Liberty Tribune-News October 19, 1994— "1944: Not even war could disrupt innocent youth."

Linn Unterrified Democrat December 21, 1994— "Old Voss Saloon has 104 year success story to tell customers," by Chris Feeney. Historical Notes and Comments 345

December 28—Alvin and Delores "Eisterholds put long-vacant [Rich Fountain] building into use as guest house." January 11, 1995—White Stone Inn, "Historic store is transformed into restaurant."

Marshall Democrat-News January 3, 1995—The Chicago & Alton Railroad yard in Slater is featured with a photo, c. 1905.

Memphis Democrat November 17, 1994— "Scotland County Schools," a series, featured Cox School, c. 1950.

Moberly Monitor-Index & Evening Democrat November 22, 1994— "Large Fire Destroys Historic Moberly [Wabash Hospital] Building," by Scott Loesch.

Neosho Daily Democrat January 23, 1995— "Neosho has had a daily newspaper for 90 years" and "Newspapers date back to 1843 in Neosho," by Kay Hively.

New Haven Leader December 7, 1994— "Walt Theater's history goes back 70 years," by Larry Offner.

Perryville Perry County Republic-Monitor October 27, November 17, December 20, 1994— "Perry County Album," a photo series, featured respectively: Si Gagnepain in the Kroger Grocery Store, c. 1930; the Schulte family and the Millheim Store, c. 1890; and a Miesner Brothers lawn rocker, 1912.

Piedmont Wayne County Journal-Banner November 3, 17, December 15, 29, 1994— "Historical Wayne County," a series, fea­ tured respectively: John and Manerva (Ward) Davis family, the old Malloy Hotel, early St. Louis streetcar conductors, and an ad for a 1961 Carl Perkins show with a short biography of local musician Jimmy Haggett.

Pineville McDonald County News January 11, 1995— "Around & About McDonald County," a special page featuring a history and bibliography of the Anderson News-Review.

Poplar Bluff Daily American Republic December 22, 1994, January 5, 12, 1995—A series of articles on the history of area his­ torical societies featured Carter, Stoddard, and Ripley Counties.

St. Joseph News-Press October 28, December 30, 1994— "Young at Heart," a special section, featured articles on history with accompanying photographs.

St. Louis Post-Dispatch November 27, 1994, January 15, 1995— "St. Louis When," a photo series, featured respectively: the Wolfner Library for the Blind in 1927 and a protest against racial discrimina­ tion at the F. W Wool worth store, 1963. 346 Missouri Historical Review

St. Louis Review November 18, December 16, 1994— "Parish Profiles," a series, featured respectively: St. Catherine Parish and St. Wenceslaus. December 18—Most Holy Rosary and St. Engelbert, "Merged Parish Ready For New Beginning," as St. Elizabeth, in honor of the black parish founded in 1873.

Sedalia Democrat January 12, 1995—An early photo and description of Sedalia's first post office. January 13— "Rail hospitals: Catholic Sisters were early Sedalia healers," by Joe Welschmeyer.

Slater News-Rustler November 3, 1994—An aerial view of the Slater Mill and Elevator Company, 1905.

*Springfield Daily Events November 7, 24, 28, 30, December 1, 2, 5, 6, 8, 16, 23, 26, 1994, January 2, 12, 17, 18, 26, February 2, 1995— "Tales of History," a series by Tom Ladwig.

Stockton Cedar County Republican November 2, 1994—Blake "Family Tradition: Mother, daughter receive award for own­ ing century farm."

Troy Free Press January 11, 1995— "Lincoln County Recollections," a series by Charles R. Williams, featured recollections of the St. Louis-Hannibal train.

Union Franklin County Tribune November 2, 1994— "Franklin County ... the early days," a series by LeRoy Danz, fea­ tured molasses making.

Warsaw Benton County Enterprise October 20, 1994— "Looking Back," a special supplement of local historical pho­ tographs and stories.

Washington Missourian January 25, 1995—One of Washington's oldest manufacturing firms, "Riechers' Truck Body and Equipment Co.," by Suzanne Hill.

Weston Chronicle October 26, 1994— "Trick or Treat—October 31, 1911—Weston, Missouri," by Sandra Lewis Miller. 347 MISSOURI HISTORY IN MAGAZINES

All Aboard, Frisco Railroad Museum May-June/July-August, 1994: "The Frisco Museum: Holding a [Schmitt] Family Together," by Gerald W. Dupy.

American Studies Fall, 1994: "What's in a Name Anyway?: The Calamity of Calamity Jane," by Ona Russell.

America's Civil War March, 1995: "Jo Shelby and His Shadow," Major John N. Edwards, by Roy Bird.

Area Footprints, Genealogical Society of Butler County November, 1994: "Historical And Genealogical Research In Ripley County," by Jerry Ponder.

Boonslick Heritage, Boonslick Historical Society December, 1994: "M. M. Marmaduke: Santa Fe Trader and Missouri Governor From the Boone's Lick Country," by Michael Dickey; "Ice Harvest," by Bob Dyer; "A Brief History of the Stephens Museum of Natural History at Central Methodist College," by George A. Vaughan.

Border Star, Civil War Roundtable of Western Missouri November, 1994: "Bushwhacker Tales," by Fred George.

Bushwhacker, Civil War Round Table of St. Louis January 25, 1995: "'No Amnesty to Guerrilla Outlaws, Shoot Them on Sight': The Birth of the Missouri Outlaw," by Daniel Marshall Shackelford.

Christian County Historian Fall, 1994: "One Family's Influence: The Maples of Christian County" and Simeon David Maples, "A Beloved Circuit Clerk, Christian County: 1906-1914," by Halleck Maples. Winter, 1995: "The Ozark Region: A Reminiscent History," reprinted.

Collage Of Cape County, Cape Girardeau County Genealogical Society December, 1994: "Traffic Bridge to Span Mississippi River at Cape," reprinted.

Comments On Etymology January, 1993: "I'm From Missouri, You've Got to Show Me," part I. October/November, 1994: "I'm From Missouri, You've Got to Show Me," part II, both articles by Barry Popik and Gerald Cohen.

Community Voice July, 1994: "Local Black History—Tom Bass, Horseman," by Joan Gilbert. December, 1994: "Local Black History—Columbia: One Stop on the Road to Brown v. Board of Education," by Kelly C. Anderson.

County Lines, Boone County Historical Society December, 1994, January, 1995: "Historical Highlights: Tragedies of the Civil War in Boone County," reprinted. 348 Missouri Historical Review

Despatch January/February, 1995: "The Sauk and Fox Indians, Part 2: The Treaty Of 1804—The Road To War," by Michael Dickey.

Egregious Steamboat Journal September/October, 1994: "The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Kansas City District," by Dorothy Heckmann Shrader.

Gasconade County Historical Society Newsletter Winter, 1994: "Highlights of Society's 25 Years."

Gateway Heritage, Missouri Historical Society Fall, 1994: "From Robber Caves to Robber Barons: New South Missouri and the Social Construction of Mark Twain, 1910-1935," by Gregg Andrews; "Waiting for Tojo: The Pro- Japan Vigil of Black Missourians, 1932-1943," by Ernest Allen, Jr.; '"The Seed Time of Gay Rights': Rev. Carol Cureton, the Metropolitan Community Church, and Gay St. Louis, 1969- 1980," by Rodney C. Wilson; "Celebrating Humanism in St. Louis: The Origins of the Humboldt Statue in Tower Grove Park, 1859-1878," by Andreas Daum.

Gateway Postcard Club News October/November/December, 1994: "A History Lesson For A Quarter," Lincoln University, Jefferson City, by Sue Steinherd.

Glendale Historical Society Bulletin December, 1994: "The Mystery of 1025 East Essex Avenue (25 Moreland Avenue), Old Residence Recently Razed," by R. T. Bamber.

Good Life November, 1994: "The Civil War In Our Backyard, A Final Note," by John Bradbury. January, 1995: "These 'Dogs Still Have Teeth: A '54 Bulldog Reunion," Rolla High School.

The Herald, Grand River Historical Society and Museum January, 1995: "History of Sturges," continued.

Heritage, Assemblies of God Winter, 1994-95: "An Eye-witness recalls the 1919 Missouri Outpouring: The Revival in Wiser Chapel," by Cecil R. Corbin.

Heritage Advocate, Heritage League of Greater Kansas City Fall, 1994: "Rice-Tremonti Home marks 150 years."

Heritage News, Jefferson Heritage and Landmark Society November, 1994: "Hanover/Bailey Station," by Lisa K. Thompson.

James Farm Journal October, 1994: "James Home History." Historical Notes and Comments 349

Kansas City Genealogist Fall, 1994: "The John Harris Family of Westport," by Fred L. Lee; "Zachariah T. Davis," by Joanne Chiles Eakin; "An Incident of Old Independence," reprinted; "Gone But Not Forgotten: William Weston, Builder of Kansas City's First Schools," by Fred L. Lee.

KOM League Remembered, Kansas-Oklahoma-Missouri League February, 1995: "The 1951 Carthage Cubs."

Lafayette Square Marquis November, 1994: "The Origin of Lafayette Square," by Thomas Danisi; "A History of Benton Place." December, 1994: "The Two Oldest Houses in Lafayette Square," by Thomas Danisi.

Landmarks Letter, Landmarks Association of St. Louis November/December, 1994: "The Former Isaac H. Lionberger House At 3630 Grandel Square," designed by Henry Hobson Richardson.

Lawrence County Historical Society Bulletin January, 1995: "The Overton House" and "Second Court House," by Claude Kendall, reprinted.

Mid-Missouri Black Watch Winter, 1994: "Show Me Black Missouri"; "Annie Turnbo Malone: A Woman of Substance."

Missouri Archaeological Society Quarterly October-December, 1994: "A Tribute to Harry L. and Florence N. Collins," by Thomas T. Hoyne.

Missouri Conservationist February, 1995: W. B. Campbell, "The Man From Yesterday," by Joel M. Vance.

Missouri Press News December, 1994: "Looking Back . .. Through the Missouri Press News."

Missouri State Genealogical Association Journal Summer, 1994: "William Linn Of Ste. Genevieve And Perry Counties, Missouri And Fayette County, Illinois," by Phyllis J. Bauer and Norman R. Peters; "The Supreme Sacrifice: Dean Gilroy Murphy, The Forgotten Marine Of Crawford County, Missouri," by Sheila Tyree Wood; "The Pioneer Garr Family Of Livingston County, Missouri," by F. Gene Garr; "German Immigration To Loose Creek, Osage County, Missouri," by Sharon Kliethermes Gulick.

Newsletter, Cass County Historical Society December, 1994: "The Beef Cattle Industry in the Pleasant Hill Area," by John A. Riffle.

Newsletter, Howard County Genealogical Society November, 1994: "Howard County: Incidents and History of its Early Settlements," continued. December, 1994: "Howard County History (Concluded): Glasgow." 350 Missouri Historical Review

Newsletter, Iron County Historical Society January, 1995: "Marvin L. Dinger: Iron County Lawyer and Prosecuting Attorney, Representative From The 128th District, and State Senator From The 20th District," by Randall Cox.

Newsletter, Osage County Historical Society November, 1994: "Lehigh School—No. 11"; "The Branson Connection—Part II: The Violent Death of Galba Branson." December, 1994: "Memories of Mt. Ariel School," by Augusta Buhr; "More About Lehigh School." January, 1995: "Potts School—No. 34."

Newsletter, Saline County Historical Society December, 1994: "The First Four Years Of The Marshall Symphony Orchestra," by T. M. Hamilton.

Newsletter, Scott County Historical Society January, 1995: "Benton Community House Talk of Southern Missouri," reprinted.

Newsletter, South Central Missouri Genealogical Society Jan/Feb/Mar, 1995: "Our 20th Anniversary," by Irene Kinberlin.

Newsletter, Washington Historical Society December 1, 1994: "Vignette of an early Washingtonian: Charles Tamm."

Newton County Roots, Genealogy Friends of the Library December, 1994: "Tipton Ford."

Newton County Saga Winter, 1994: "History Of Diamond," by John S. Crouch; "A History Of Diamond Schools," by Larry A. and Linda S. James.

Northwest Missouri Genealogical Society Journal October, 1994: "Facts About St. Joseph—In The Beginning," by Jean O. Swafford.

Old Mill Run, Ozark County Genealogical and Historical Society January, 1995: "The Bushong Family," continued, by Dale Morrison; "Hodgson Family History," by H. A. King.

On Track, Friends of Union Station Winter, 1994-95: "KC Celebrates Union Station's 80th Birthday in Style"; "Thanks for the Memories . . . [1914]," by Marie Heinze Rehkop.

Our Clay Heritage First Quarter, 1995: "Two Weeks on the Arabia," part II, reprinted.

Overland Journal, Oregon-California Trails Association Fall, 1994: "Fremont's Second Expedition," by Jeanne H. Watson. Historical Notes and Comments 351

Ozar'kin, Ozarks Genealogical Society Winter, 1994: "A Message to the Homeseeker . .. 1924 Bolivar, Missouri," abstracted by Betty Ammerman; "Antebellum Churches in Dallas County," by George T. Harper.

Ozarks Mountaineer December, 1994: "The Ozarks Then & Now," by Russell Hively; Sam Butcher, "Carthage, Mo.'s Precious Moments Founder—You've Come A Long Way, Sam!" by Anita Heistand; "The Incomparable Jasper County Courthouse," by Janice Noll Kinman; "Newtonia: On America's Priority List," by Kay Hively.

OzarksWatch Vol. VIII, No. 1, 1995: "T. M. Macdonnell, M.D.: Country Doctor," by Robert Gilmore; "The Jim Johnson Story," by Melinda Muetzel Hartel.

Past, Pioneer America Society Volume XVII, 1994: "German Stacks, Saltboxes, and Shotguns of South St. Louis," by Michael Roark and Katherine Dobson.

Pemiscot County Missouri Quarterly Fall, 1994: "The Life Story of Naomi Baird Morgan," by Naomi Baird Morgan.

Platte County Missouri Historical & Genealogical Society Bulletin October, November, December, 1994: "Ohlhausen History," by William Ohlhausen; "A Pioneer History: The Peterson's and Glennwood Farm," by Todd Peterson Graves.

Randolph County Historical Quarterly Dec, 1994-Jan/Feb, 1995: "Valentine Mayo and His Family: First Documented Settler in Randolph County," by Cecy Rice.

Record, Friends of Missouri State Archives Fall, 1994: "World War II in Missouri," by Kenneth H. Winn; "Before Welfare: Poor Relief in Douglas County, Missouri," by Linda Myers-Phinney.

Reporter Quarterly, Genealogical Society of Central Missouri Fall, 1994: "The Earliest Settlers of Boone County, Missouri," reprinted.

Rural Missouri December, 1994: "Daniel Boone's Missouri: A visit to Boone's mansion in the Missouri wilderness where he lived out his final years," by Jeff Joiner.

St. Charles Heritage November, 1994: "A Holiday Conspiracy?" by Gary McKiddy; "Historical Series . . . Christmas in 1802," by Edna McElhiney Olson, reprinted. January, 1995: "Beginnings of St. Joseph's Parish, Cottleville," by Sandy Hense; "The St. Charles Bridge Fire of September 26, 1916, Part II," by Wilbert Williams; "The Victory Highway, Missouri's First Modern State Highway" and "Calvin Coolidge's 'Appearance' in St. Charles," by Louis J. Launer.

St. Louis Bar Journal Winter, 1995: "The Able and Upright Judge Samuel Treat," by Marshall D. Hier. 352 Missouri Historical Review

St. Louis Commerce November, 1994: "The Danforth Legacy."

St. Louis Genealogical Society Quarterly Winter, 1994: "Early St. Louisans Believed in Equal Rights," by Sharon Quigley Carpenter.

Seeking W Searching Ancestors December, 1994: "Window To The Past: Robbery of a Missouri Pacific Train at Otterville, Missouri on July 6, 1876," by Peggy Smith Hake.

Springfield! Magazine December, 1994: "The Greenwood Sapling—Part III," by Richard Gardner; "Cavalcade of Homes: Part 66—The Duncan-Neff House," by Mabel Carver Taylor; "They Married Young: Charley & Bev Slavens," by M. Charlene Purvis; "Looking Back 60 Years to Spring­ field] L[ittle] T[heater]'s Start: Bruce Lemmon," by Michele Boyts; "First Ladies of Springfield: Louisa Cheairs Campbell—Part II," by Mabel Carver Taylor; "Sounds of Music Fill the Home of Kathy Love," by Kay Snyder; "The Ozark Jubilee Saga," by Reta Spears- Stewart; "The Teacher Who Became a TV Star: Hope Elsie Harris," by Gerald E. McCann, Jr. January, 1995: "Philip Wannenmacher: 25 at Central Assembly," by Shirley Shedd; "The Greenwood Sapling—Part IV," by Richard T. Gardner; "Cavalcade of Homes: Part 67—The Rathbone-Hunt House" and "First Ladies of Springfield: Louisa Cheairs Campbell—Part III," by Mabel Carver Taylor. February, 1995: "Cavalcade of Homes: Part 68—The Hayden-Twibell House" and "First Ladies of Springfield: Sarah Rush Campbell Owen," by Mabel Carver Taylor; "The Ozark Jubilee Saga," by Reta Spears-Stewart; "The Greenwood Sapling—Part V," by Richard Gardner.

Terminal Railroad Association of St. Louis Historical and Technical Society Newsletter Summer, 1994: "The TRRA and the Maplewood Connection."

Tree Shakers, Meramec Valley Genealogical and Historical Society November-December, 1994: "Thumbnail Sketches From The Past . . . Mayle-Smith Building."

White River Valley Historical Quarterly Fall, 1994: "Where did all the money go? War and the Economics of Vigilantism in Southern Missouri," by Lynn Morrow; "The Lucile Morris Upton Papers."

Yearbook of German-American Studies Volume 28, 1993: "A Brief Encounter Between Friedrich Muench, German-American Rationalist in Missouri, and Theodore Parker, New England Transcendentalism" by Siegmar Muehl. 353 IN MEMORIAM

VIRGINIA MULLINAX BOTTS FRANK L. MARTIN Virginia Mullinax Botts, historian and Frank L. Martin, editor, publisher, and genealogist, died December 2, 1994, in war correspondent, died January 24, 1995, in Columbia. Born on July 11, 1904, in Mercer West Plains. The son of Frank Lee and County to Charles I. and Mary Girner Martha M. Martin, he was born August 29, Mullinax, she graduated from high school in 1912, in Columbia, where he received his Princeton and attended Christian College bachelor's degree in journalism from the and the University of Missouri-Columbia University of Missouri in 1936. He married prior to teaching at the elementary and high Mary Elizabeth Brownlee in Brookfield on school levels. She married Thomas W Botts July 8, 1944. on August 30, 1929, and moved with him to Throughout World War II Martin worked Columbia in 1942 when he began coaching for various national news services during the track under Don Faurot. North African campaign and in the China- Mrs. Botts was instrumental in preserv­ Burma-India theater. One of several overseas ing Maplewood, the 1877 home of promi­ adventures included a clandestine operation nent Columbia physician Frank Nifong, and for the U.S. Navy, which involved Martin getting it placed on the National Register of photographing Japanese troop landing craft Historic Places. Recipient of the State while camoflaged by a pile of mats in a sam­ Historical Society of Missouri's pan gliding past Shanghai harbor. Distinguished Service Award in 1980, she He retired from the Associated Press in was an active member of the Boone and 1946 and purchased the West Plains Quill in Audrain County Historical Societies, the partnership with the late Howard Kellet and King's Daughters and the Daughters of the John H. Farland's First National Bank. American Revolution in Mercer County, the Under Martin's leadership, the Quill sub­ Missouri Heritage Trust, and the National scribed to the Associated Press news wire in Genealogy Society. She also served as the the late 1940s, becoming the first newspaper sponsor and advisor of the Virginia Botts in the area to provide its readers with state, Genealogy Club of Columbia. national, and international news. Survivors include her husband; a son, Martin is survived by his wife; a son, Thomas M., of Virginia Beach, Virginia; a Frank L. Martin III, of West Plains; and a sis­ sister, Ruth Moore, of Ruidioso, New ter, Martha Ann Swofford, of San Antonio, Mexico; and two grandchildren. Texas.

LANGE, ROBERT H., Kansas City: THILENIUS, JESSE, Brookings, South March 3, 1920-August 3, 1994. Dakota: November 2,1903-November6,1993. 354 GRADUATE THESES RELATING TO MISSOURI HISTORY, 1994

UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI-COLUMBIA MASTER'S THESES

Chalfant, Rhonda, "Down at the Junction: A Study of Madam Lizzie Cook, A Prostitute in Sedalia, Missouri, 1870-1879."

Edet, Victor Okon, "The Making of a Student Activist: The Story of James Henry Rollins."

Montgomery, Rebecca S., "Gender and Agricultural Reform in Missouri: Cooper County and the State, 1880-1915."

Sparks, Laura Lynn, "Vernacular Architecture and Ethnicity on the Missouri Frontier: The Case of the Burton/Wight House and the Bruns House."

DOCTORAL DISSERTATIONS

Prawl, Toni M„ "E. J. Eckel (1845-1934): The Education of a Beaux-Arts Architect and his Practice in Missouri."

UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI-KANSAS CITY MASTER'S THESIS

Haynes, Ross, "The Importance of the Black Press in the Desegregation of the University of Missouri."

WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY, ST LOUIS DOCTORAL DISSERTATIONS

Cook, Helen K., "Small Town Talk: The Undoing of Collective Action in Two Missouri Towns."

Duncan, Carol Diaz-Granados, "The Petroglyphs and Pictographs of Missouri: A Distributional, Stylistic, Contextual, Functional, and Temporal Analysis of the State's Rock Graphics." 355 BOOK REVIEWS Yankee Dutchman: The Life of Franz Sigel. By Stephen D. Engle (Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 1993). xix + 333 pp. Illustrations. Maps. Notes. Bibliography. Index. $36.00.

Although Franz Sigel is only now being favored with a full-dress biog­ raphy, the average Civil War buff knows something about him: at least that he was "hell on retreat," preferred maneuvering to engaging, and was long on "book-learning"—television's notion of "a little German professor on horseback." Stephen Engle rolls honestly with such punches, while urging readers to see the whole story. What saving graces can be mobilized in defense of "the Flying Dutchman?" When the clouds of civil warfare burst over the unready American landscape, anybody with even slight military training found him­ self in demand. Sigel, an alumnus of the grand ducal military academy at Karlsruhe, had risen quickly to command of Baden's military in the revolu­ tions of 1848 and then fled to America when Prussian field marshals low­ ered the boom. When warfare began here, Sigel was living in St. Louis, the city superintendent of schools and a "mover and shaker" in German- American cultural and political affairs. Born to the family of a visionary, liberal, Heidelberg-educated attorney, Sigel easily became as "politically correct" here as on the Rhine a dozen years earlier. He readily saw the American struggle in the context of a broader conflict in which he had already won his spurs. Sigel quickly perceived the importance of Germans in the coming showdown—four million Americans had nativity or ancestry in the Old Country. He was equipped not only to tell them where their loyalties led but to command them in getting there. With German know-how and enthusi­ asm quickly mobilized around St. Louis, the Union cause was on its way to early victory "out West." The author masterfully details Sigel's lackluster military performance. Readers see the hero losing the Battle of Carthage on July 5, 1861, then showing up too late to save the "martyred" Nathaniel Lyon at Wilson's Creek. While "anti-Dutchmen" loudly ridiculed the "book-soldier," Sigel, risen to brigadier general, partially redeemed himself the following winter at Pea Ridge, Arkansas, with a deft counterthrust that sent the Confederates reeling. Pea Ridge was Sigel's "finest hour," and the rest of his war went down­ hill. As his popularity rose with the adoring German-American citizenry, it declined with "old army" WASPs, who saw him only as a foreign-born political adventurer. The regulars booted him out of the West in the spring of 1862, after his promotion to major general, and he spent the rest of his war in the shadows of Appalachia. The May 1864 battle at New Market, 356 Missouri Historical Review

Virginia, finished off his military career—except for the ensuing acrid corre­ spondence that led to his resignation the following May. Engle sees in Sigel a decisive catalyst in the German-Americans' rite of passage into the American mainstream, and he eloquently credits Sigel far more for his civil and political charisma than for his military contributions to the redefined America emerging from the vast tragedy of the Civil War.

Central Missouri State University Leslie Anders

From Prairie to Prison: The Life of Social Activist Kate Richards O'Hare. By Sally M. Miller (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1993). xv + 261 pp. Illustrations. Bibliographic essay. Index. $29.95.

The sometimes radical, always passionate public life of Carrie Kathleen "Kate" Richards O'Hare, a renowned turn-of-the-century activist and popular public speaker for the Socialist Party, is presented in a long-overdue biogra­ phy by Sally Miller, a scholar who has studied O'Hare for over fifteen years. Born in 1876 in the harsh physical, but open political, environment of the central Kansas plains, young Kate idolized her politically progressive father. When an economic collapse and drought in the late 1880s made con­ ditions unbearable for the homesteaders, Andrew Richards relocated his family to Kansas City, where he later opened a machine shop. After receiv­ ing a teaching certificate in 1893 from a Nebraska academy, Kate returned to the city in 1895 and dabbled in religion and missionary work before becoming involved with her father's shop. There, she became increasingly involved with labor unions and, after influential meetings with Mary Harris "Mother" Jones and Eugene V Debs, the rapidly emerging Socialist Party. By 1901 the budding activist had graduated from the International School of Socialist Economy in Girard, Kansas, where she met and married Frank O'Hare. Demonstrating their growing commitment to socialism, the newlyweds celebrated their honeymoon on the lecture circuit, speaking to the working masses of America. Although they initially toured together, by 1910 Kate's exciting and easily accessible style had become the featured attraction. Touring dominated her life for the next twenty-five years (despite bearing four children between 1903 and 1908), where she appealed to rank-and-file members, rather than the national party elite. After becoming leaders in the Socialist havens of Girard and central Oklahoma, the O'Hares joined the editorial staff of the St. Louis-based Socialist newspaper, The National Ripsaw. In this city the family experi­ enced their happiest years, and Kate enjoyed her widest influence as a speak­ er and a journalist. This bliss proved short lived. In 1917, while addressing a crowd in Bowman, North Dakota, Kate openly opposed United States war preparedness efforts. Arrested and jailed for fourteen months for violating Book Reviews 357 the Espionage Act, O'Hare would fight for penal reform the rest of her life. Thanks to surviving letters that she wrote to her family, the descriptions of her incarceration are particularly vivid. O'Hare treated her stay like an educational experience—constantly classifying, analyzing, and observing her surroundings. The private activities and feelings of Kate Richards O'Hare largely remain a mystery and are not a focus of this biography—primarily due to a lack of sources. The reader is left with unanswered questions regarding Kate's home life and relationship with her children, her eventual divorce from Frank in 1928, and the remaining years of her life with her second hus­ band in California. Regardless, Miller introduces readers to a progressive American female figure, known by many as "Red Kate," and allows the audience to better understand O'Hare's contributions to the Socialist Party during its heyday in the first two decades of the twentieth century. The dedication and admira­ tion that the author feels for her subject is clearly revealed; however, objec­ tivity is not compromised. While presenting O'Hare's agenda, Miller also analyzes some of the activist's seemingly inconsistent views—namely her attitudes toward blacks, and sometimes even women. A valuable biblio­ graphic essay takes interested readers on a brief odyssey of the author's research. She points to avenues for additional information on many of the people, places, and ideas key to this biography.

State Historical Society of Missouri Ann L. Rogers

Civil War in the Ozarks. By Phillip W. Steele and Steve Cottrell (Gretna, La.: Pelican Publishing Company, 1993). 136 pp. Illustrations. Map. Bibliography. Index. $8.95, paper.

Civil War in the Ozarks is a primer of the "classic" battles and major military events in the four states that compose the Ozark Highland. Attractive, well-illustrated, and inexpensive, the volume will appeal to the popular audience and the novice historian. It is especially suited for sut­ ler's rows at reenactments. Twelve of the more than fifty illustrations are photographs from reenactments. The others, drawn from private collections and area repositories, show personages and places of the war. The narrative consists of six chapters. The first four are chronologically ordered around the war's main combat events in the Ozarks: the Lyon cam­ paign and Wilson's Creek (1861), Pea Ridge and Prairie Grove (1862), the guerrilla war (1863), and Price's expedition and the end of the war (1864- 1865). The last two chapters include a brief discussion of lost treasures in the Ozarks and stories of Jesse James and the outlaws whose war did not end in 1865. 358 Missouri Historical Review

The story is generally evenhanded and factual. With the exception of the big battles, however, the book appears geographically biased toward western Missouri where the Ozarks merge with the plains. Events in Indian Territory are adequately covered, but actions in southeast Missouri and northeast Arkansas receive no attention except in connection with Price's expedition in 1864. The authors note William Quantrill's and Thomas Livingston's guerrillas but overlook entirely the exploits of M. Jeff Thompson and others. This regional bias obviously represents the personal interests of the authors, whose prior work concerns the Civil War in Jasper County, Missouri; Jesse and Frank James; Belle Starr; and postwar outlaws associated with western Missouri. The theme would have been better served by mention of the Union's main line of resistance in the northern Ozarks: from Cape Girardeau through Pilot Knob/Ironton, Rolla, Springfield, and Kansas City, which goes a long way in explaining how the North won. That Marmaduke's Springfield raid relieved pressure on Arkansas is debatable, as is the significance of guerrilla actions that, dramatic as some were, had no lasting effect on the war's even­ tual outcome. In any case the guerrilla conflict needs explanation within con­ text of the war in other theaters, especially along the Mississippi River. The demands on manpower and resources from the Ozarks set the stage for chron­ ic, small-scale war in which neither side could entirely dominate the other. The last two chapters should have been combined into a single chapter on the folklore and legacy of the Civil War. Unsubstantiated stories of lost caches of payrolls and weapons are otherwise pointless. The chapter on Jesse James is more appropriate but deals as much with postwar events that occurred outside the Ozarks. The book includes a bibliography of secondary sources and an index but is not footnoted. The bibliography might be expanded to include biogra­ phies and recent monographs. The citation for The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies notes only a single volume (for the period of the Lyon campaign). Better proofreading would have caught the misspelling of Nathaniel Lyon's given name and his absence from the index. Franz Sigel's surname appears two different ways, as does "guerrilla." The egregious "calvary" appears in a photo caption.

Western Historical Manuscript Collection-Rolla John Bradbury

Brothers on the Santa Fe and Chihuahua Trails: Edward James Glasgow and William Henry Glasgow, 1846-1848. Edited and annotated by Mark L. Gardner (Niwot: University Press of Colorado, 1993). xx + 229 pp. Maps. Illustrations. Notes. Appendix. Bibliography. Index. $24.95. Book Reviews 359

Do you want to know about every primary and secondary source avail­ able on the Santa Fe and Chihuahua Trails? Do you want an excellent model of professional research? Do you want an entertaining and enriching book for yourself? If your answer is yes, then Mark Gardner's study of the Glasgow brothers is a must read. The author has cleverly presented the reader a documented and method­ ical study of the Santa Fe and Chihuahua trading system during a two-year period of the Mexican War. This is accomplished by looking at the events as they were recorded by the young Glasgow brothers from St. Louis. In the first half of the book, Gardner presents a narrative of the trading ventures carried out by the Glasgows. The latter half of the book is devoted to edited letters that the brothers wrote to family and friends while their wagons fol­ lowed the army of Stephen Watts Kearney into Mexico. Traditionally, researchers have used letters like these to document the pri­ mary and eyewitness accounts to history. Gardner places the Glasgow broth­ ers in the center of the action and lets the letters tell the story. Added docu­ mentation and verification from military and newspaper accounts, along with historical interpretation, give authenticity to the book. The reader enjoys the relationships the Glasgow brothers form with other traders on the trail, the exchange with Mexican traders, and the encampment and defense of the entourage as it makes its way into various Mexican communities. The rela­ tionships with the American government and military officials are covered as one would expect in an operation such as this. A surprise was the way in which the traders were organized (forced) into temporary military units, and their participation in at least two battles of the war is well documented. The letters prove the Glasgow brothers enjoyed the challenges of the situation. They present the reader with a perspective on the lives of these young men as they write about ambitions, hopes, love interests, and obser­ vations on their two-year sojourn into the Southwest. It is obvious, from the tone of their letters, that they missed their family and the social activities of St. Louis, but they were challenged by the situation in which they found themselves. This is the story of two young, uninhibited, unmarried American businessmen on a journey that will have an impact on their lives and their participation in events that will have an impact on the future of the United States. The research Mark Gardner carried out for this book is commendable. He has validated his work with extensive documentation from archival material, government documents, military records, manuscript sources, let­ ters, newspapers, unpublished studies, books, and articles. This volume is a must for every library and reader with an interest in the development of nineteenth-century America.

Northwest Missouri State University Thomas W. Carneal 360 BOOK NOTES

Dangerous Passage: The Santa Fe Trail and the Mexican War. By William Y. Chalfant (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1994). xx + 325 pp. Illustrations. Maps. Notes. Bibliography. Index. $29.95.

In the mid-1840s, Americans perceived an empty continent stretching to the west and believed it was their right, their "Manifest Destiny," to annex this land to the United States. After the declaration of war on Mexico, the Army of the West set out for Santa Fe on the trail blazed by early traders, thereby leading the way for the homesteaders who followed. Instead of finding an "empty" continent, the soldiers and settlers discovered the territo­ ry of the Cheyenne, the Arapahoes, the Comanches, the Kiowas, and the Plains Apaches who watched as the invading whites stole their land, demeaned their culture, destroyed their food supply, and decimated their families with the introduction of alcohol and new diseases. Numerous drawings illustrate the events surrounding this violent clash of cultures, and contemporary photographs depict the existing topographical formations that marked the rugged trail. This engaging book is available through the University of Oklahoma Press, 1005 Asp Avenue, Norman, OK 73019- 0445.

Pictorial Memories of Dade County, Missouri. By Dade County Historical Society (Greenfield, Mo., 1994). 244 pp. Illustrations. Notes. Index. $20.00, paper, plus $2.00 for postage and handling.

This heavily illustrated volume chronicles the personal reminiscences of area residents about the first Jones School of 1838, the old Washington Hotel, and the events in the life of a graduating senior in 1922. Large sections are devoted to family genealogies, including those of the area's founding fathers. Stories of interest include the Loveless sisters, identical twins who gained national recognition in the 1950s for marrying identical twin brothers, and the tale, related by Maysel Grider White, of a trip to California at the age of four with her parents and younger brother, on a new 1929 Harley Davidson motor­ cycle with a sidecar. Pictorial Memories may be ordered from the Dade County Historical Society, Box 344, Greenfield, MO 65661.

St. Louis Union Station: A Place for People, A Place for Trains. By H. Roger Grant, Don L. Hofsommer, and Osmund Overby (St. Louis: St. Louis Mercantile Library, 1994). 128 pp. Illustrations. Maps. Notes. Bibliography. Index. $17.95, paper. Book Notes 361

The restoration of St. Louis Union Station is a major landmark in the history of American preservation: a bustling turn-of-the-twentieth-century train station is successfully converted into a bustling turn-of-the-twenty- first-century shopping mall. Three noted historians examine the history of this social hub in essays pertaining to the railroads that met there, its cultural milieu, and the planning, construction, and impact of its architecture. Enhanced by beautiful architectural drawings, excellent photographs, and the personal recollections of people who utilized the station, this volume provides an intersection of historical and cultural events with sentimental memories of train travel. This book may be purchased in bookstores.

Memories of Weston, Missouri: A Visual History—1837 to 1992. By Sandra Lewis Miller (Marceline, Mo.: Heritage House Publishing Company, 1993). 128 pp. Illustrations. Index. $37.79, plus $5.66 for tax and shipping.

A wide array of images depicting the people and the events that make up Weston's memories are featured in this handsome hardback. Largely devoted to photographs of its residents, including prominent families from the black community, the book also covers churches, schools, and business­ es. Turn-of-the-century views of notable area houses are matched with recent photographs taken from the same angle, introducing a different aspect of the evolution of the town. This book is available by writing the Weston Chronicle, 18279 Highway 45, P.O. Box 6, Weston, MO 64098.

History of Guardian Angel Parish: Oran, Missouri 1893-1993. (Marceline, Mo.: Heritage House Publishing, 1994). 140 pp. Illustrations. $25.00, plus $3.00 shipping.

The history of Guardian Angel Parish is intricately woven with the development of Scott County and Oran. Biographies of all the pastors and many of the sisters connected with Guardian Angel are included in the book, but few individuals have had as much impact on the Oran area as Father Michael Helmsbacher, pastor of the parish from 1897 to 1943. Father Helmsbacher installed the first telephone line in Oran, between his residence and the sisters' home, and obtained the first automobile in the town, only the fourth car to be purchased in the state. He is credited with planning and building the beautifully ornate church, which stands today, and organizing the church's credit union in 1933. Carefully documenting the church, its contents and records, this volume also includes pictures of the 1993 centennial celebration. The book may be ordered from Carol Dirnberger, Route 1, Box 46, Oran, MO 63771-9705. 362 Missouri Historical Review

Vernacular Architecture in Rural Small Town Missouri: An Introduction. By Howard Wight Marshall (Columbia: University of Missouri Extension Publications, 1994). 64 pp. Illustrations. Maps. Bibliography. $6.00, paper, plus $1.42 for shipping.

Whether one's interest in this area of architecture is economic, aesthet­ ic, and/or historical, this little reference book will serve as a handy guide. Illustrations of traditional building types with accompanying floor plans are included with a basic introduction to their particular use and place in Missouri architecture. The introductory essays on cultural conservation and the role of citizens' groups in preservation would be of interest to individu­ als and organizations approaching their first project. This book may be obtained from University of Missouri Extension Publications, 2800 Maguire Boulevard, Columbia, MO 65211.

A New History of Nodaway County, Missouri, Indian Lands to 1859: Volume I. By Martha L. Cooper (Maryville, Mo.: Accent Printing, 1992). ii + 148 pp. A New History of Nodaway County, Missouri, 1845-1869: Volume II Sesquicentennial Edition. By Martha L. Cooper (Maryville, Mo.: Accent Printing, 1994). 160 + x pp. Illustrations. Maps. Notes. Indexes. Each $16.00, paper, plus $4.00 for shipping.

In this series the author's intention is to provide readers with informa­ tion not previously published in other county histories. Articles gleaned from frontier area newspapers and interviews with early pioneers provide colorful insight into the earliest days of white settlement. Nodaway County's location made it an active participant in major state and national historical events such as the Platte Purchase and the Lewis and Clark expe­ dition. The second volume contains a large section on the recollections of pioneer women and chapters on the Civil War, early schools, churches, and businesses. Anyone interested in Missouri history will find these volumes engaging and informative. They can be ordered from Accent Printing, 114 East Third Street, Maryville, MO 64468.

Living on the River: A Pictorial History of the Great Flood of 1993— Chariton County, Missouri. Edited by Larry and Susan Baxley (Marceline, Mo.: Heritage House Publishing, 1994). 128 pp. Illustrations. $29.95, plus $3.35 for shipping.

The flood of 1993 has inspired many pictorial histories depicting the people and places damaged by this violent and traumatizing event. The Book Notes 363 photos in this recent collection, many apparently taken by the flood's unwilling participants, display the dramatic rise of the water, the efforts to stem its flow, and the practical chores of putting lives in order again. A cal­ endar of flood-related events and monthly temperature and precipitation tables provide the factual information behind the images. A small section of photos features aerial views of areas involved downriver in Howard County. This history may be ordered from the office of the Salisbury Press- Spectator, 111 South Broadway, Salisbury, MO 65281, or from the Brunswicker, 118 East Broadway, Brunswick, MO 65236.

Caldwell County, Missouri, History: Volume 2. (Caldwell County Historical Society, 1994). 238 pp. Illustrations. Index. $50.00, plus $2.91 for shipping.

An interesting array of essays at the beginning of this book describe early medicine wagons, the 1838 Mormon War, and a visit by President Benjamin Harrison in 1891. Similar to volume 1, published in 1985, the majority of the material is dedicated to genealogical histories, often written by descendants of the families noted. The user-friendly index is organized by surnames for quick access. The volume can be purchased from the Caldwell County Historical Society, P.O. Box 32, Kingston, MO 64650.

1843-1993, Founded on Faith: First Baptist Church, Boonville, MO. (First Baptist Church, Boonville, Mo., 1994). 72 pp. Illustrations. $30.00, plus $2.00 for shipping.

This hardback volume presents a comprehensive look at a church that spans 150 years of Missouri history. Established at the end of 1843, the First Baptist Church in Boonville is one of the oldest churches still in opera­ tion in the Missouri Baptist Convention and no stranger to controversy. In the spring of 1844 the founding members voted to allow African Americans to join their congregation—an unusual move in mid-Missouri at the time. By 1859 the church officials licensed a slave, Bro. Grandson, to conduct the services for the black membership held on Sunday evenings. This open pol­ icy precipitated a crisis after the Civil War when the freedmen, comprising half of the church membership, left to form the present-day Morgan Street Church. A more radical departure from the church came at the turn of the century when disagreements over the Sunday school teachings of J. F. Rutherford led to his dismissal. Rutherford went on to form the "Russellite" movement, now known as Jehovah's Witnesses. Essays by various church leaders and members reveal the continuing role of the church in the devel­ opment of Boonville. This book can be ordered from the First Baptist Church, 625 Main Street, Boonville, MO 65233. 364 Missouri Historical Review

SELECTED SOCIETY PUBLICATIONS

Directory of Local Historical, Museum and Genealogical Agencies in Missouri, revised edition, 1994. $6.00, post­ paid. Ellis, Elmer. My Road to Emeritus, 1989. $19.95, postpaid. Historic Missouri: A Pictorial Narrative, 2nd edition, 1988. $9.95, plus $1.50 postage. Missouri Historic Sites Catalogue, 1963. $15.00, postpaid. Missouri Historical Review Index, Vols. 1-25, $15.00; Vols. 26-45, $15.00; Vols. 46-70, $27.00, postpaid. Missouri Newspapers on Microfilm at the State Historical Society of Missouri, revised annually. $12.00, postpaid. Missouri Plat Books in the State Historical Society of Missouri. $5.00, postpaid. Missouri Union Burials—Missouri Units, 1989. $6.00, postpaid. Selected Union Burials—Missouri Units, Vol. 1, 1988, $5.00; Vol. 2, 1993, $5.00, postpaid.

Thomas Hart Benton: Artist, Writer and Intellectual, 1989. $22.95, postpaid.

These volumes can be ordered from the Society by sending a check or money order to

The State Historical Society of Missouri 1020 Lowry Street Columbia, MO 65201 Historical Notes and Comments 365

Art you Interested in Missouri history?

Are you a Member?

Your membership in the State Historical Society of Missouri contributes to the collection and preservation of:

Missouri newspapers> photographs> art> family lineage books> Civil War sources> census records> westward expansion sources> historic sites files> county and town history books and other valuable source materials.

Membership entitles you to a one-year subscription to the Society's quarterly publication, the Missouri Historical Review.

Individual membership $10.00 Contributing membership $25.00 Supporting membership $50.00 Annual sustaining membership $100.00 to $499.00 Annual patron membership $500.00 or more Life membership $250.00 SpeciaC (Donations Gifts of cash and property to the Society are deductible for fed­ eral income, estate, and gift tax purposes. Memberships and inquiries concerning gifts or bequests to the Society should be addressed to:

James W. Goodrich, Executive Director State Historical Society of Missouri 1020 Lowry Street Columbia, Missouri 65201 366 Missouri Historical Review

A MESSAGE FROM THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

The theft of a rare book owned by the State Historical Society has required a review of security measures in the Society's Reference Library and Photograph Collection. Patrons of these collections are asked to leave coats, jackets, purses, briefcases, backpacks, and similar articles in coin-operated lockers located in the Society's main corridor. Only items such as paper, writing instruments, notes, laptop computers, tape recorders, and camera equipment are allowed in these areas. These items, plus any jack­ ets and sweaters worn when the rooms are cool, will be subject to search by Society personnel upon departure. In addition, patrons asking to use rare books must provide a driver's license or other acceptable identification for examination by a member of the refer­ ence staff. The State Historical Society realizes that some of the thou­ sands of visitors to these departments will find the new security measures to be of some inconvenience. But to maintain control of the Society's extraordinary collections, the questionable acts of even a single person can affect those who have been valued friends and patrons of the Society over the years, as well as first-time visi­ tors. The inexcusable action by even one individual requires that these measures be instituted. Again, the State Historical Society regrets any inconvenience caused by these restrictions. But it believes that such procedures are necessary to retain proper over­ sight of its prized collections. HISTORIC MISSOURI COLLEGES

State Historical Society of Missouri

GEORGE R. SMITH COLLEGE

State Historical Society of Missouri The 1900 Smith College Football Team

On the afternoon of January 18, 1894, African-American and white dignitaries gathered in the unheated chapel of the newly constructed George R. Smith College in northeastern Sedalia for impres­ sive opening ceremonies. Built under the auspices of the Freedmen's Aid and Southern Education Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church, the new coeducational school for African Americans had been made possible through a generous gift of land by Sarah E. Smith and Martha E. Cotton, daughters of Sedalia's founder, George R. Smith. Like many small educational institutions of the period, George R. Smith College offered a compre­ hensive schooling to its students. The curriculum included elementary grades (six years), college prep (three years), college (four years), normal school (three years), and biblical instruction (one year). In addition, the school offered some industrial training and, for a short period, a nurses training course. Never a large nor prosperous institution, Smith College, by the 1910s, was drawing students from nine states, with the majority from Missouri and Oklahoma. The student body numbered over one hun­ dred, many from areas where the paucity of African Americans precluded the establishment of a school. The first graduates of the college prep and normal courses left the school in 1897, and in 1903 two men received bachelor's degrees. By 1913, 117 students had graduated from these three programs. Students organized literary societies, branches of the YMCA and the YWCA, a school newspaper, and competed against other black schools in football. Many worked part-time in Sedalia homes and businesses to pay tuition. The Methodist Episcopal Church provided significant operating funds to sup­ plement tuition income. Tragedy in the form of fire struck George R. Smith College early on the morning of April 26, 1925. Within a short time, flames first spotted in the cupola engulfed the building; low water pressure prevented the fire department from fighting the blaze. All of the building's occupants escaped, and some of the students' personal possessions were saved. In an attempt to finish the term, classes met in churches, and area residents opened their homes to students and faculty, but the church requested that the school close on May 5. In mid- May the church decided against rebuilding, and later private efforts to build a new college also failed.