Holt County, Missouri - Chapter 1: The Transition from Wigwam to Cabin - Coming of White Man Epochal - Early Settlers and Where They Settled - Natural Resources of, 1917

THE TRANSITION FROM WIGWAM TO CABIN - COMING OF WHITE MAN EPOCHAL - EARLY SETTLERS AND WHERE THEY SETTLED - NATURAL RESOURCES OF THE COUNTRY - PRIMITIVE MODE OF LIVING BY THOSE WHO DID THE PIONEERING - EARLY DAY PASTIMES.

The transition from wigwam to cabin, from tomahawk to plowshare, from moccasin to boots, from savagery to civilization came not in one great enveloping swell of activity, sweeping everything before it like a mighty tidal wave. The transformation from wooded hills smiling in their virginity to fields of ripening corn ; of broad, uninteresting prairies, useful only as a habitat for rattlesnakes and gophers, to pastures of fattening kine ; from lakes and streams where only the Indians canoe was known, to waterways of service to man, was not accomplished over night.

These changes, which paved the way for the multiplied homes of future generations, came through the bravery, perseverance and hardihood of the pioneers. The men who faced death from savages, disease and even starvation are entitled to the credit for bringing into touch with civilization what was once a vast wilderness of no use to man and little practical benefit to the aborginee. Reclamation work it might be called.

Nearly four score years have passed since the white man first began to contest with the Indian for possession of the territory that is now known as Holt County. The coming of the white man was epochal; it marked the turning point in the affairs of this part of the world. It opened for development the richest, most productive section of the United States.

Naturally the Red man resented the invasion of the domain over which he had roamed decade after decade. Sullenly he watched the pale brother encroach upon what he considered his rightful territory. He resisted the oncoming civilization with more or less vigor and gave the white man some trouble before he finally moved on westward where he could continue his carefree existence as he was wont to do. Compared with other sections of the country, however, the change in ownership of the territory now comprising Holt County was comparatively peaceable. The Indians gave way without enacting the bloody scenes which marked the advent of the white man in other sections.

Viewing the situation from this date - three-quarters of a century afterward - one cannot blame the red man for fighting for his rights. According to all the laws of mankind the country was his by reason of long, undisputed possession. His race was as much the rightful owner of the soil as the white race is today. Who shall say, therefore, that he had not the right to protest, not only in words, but by resort to forceful means as well?

But the red man did not make use of the opportunities for development that surrounded him on every hand. He was an inconoclast and not a builder. His bent was toward demolition rather than construction. His indifference to the uses which could be made of those things which the God of Nature had placed within the grasp of His people was so at variance with the intent of the Creator that inevitably the aborigine was forced to give way to theindustrious, enerprising white man.

While we may well say it was wrong to deprive the Indian of his property without compensation, yet it must be borne in mind that that first inhabitants of the counry really made no claim of ownership. It was sufficient if he could roam the woods, the fields and the prairies, care-free and indifferent to the future ; that was what he considered his right and when one locality displeased him he movevd to another. In his untutored mind that may have been his conception of ownership. At any rate he remonstrated - sometimes forcefully - against any incursion into his hunting ground.

So the slothful, indifferent, shiftless savage, in the mutations of Providence, surrendered his birthright to those who would make use of it. Very soon the country felt the touch of the hand of development and its work has gone steadily forward until the present day. What the future may bring forth is not given man to understand, and perhaps it is better for his peace of mind that this is so.

The first white settlers in Holt County were of that hardy stock that characterized the pioneers in those days. They suffered privations and hardship, the recital of which would fill a large volume, and many of them gave their lives that their posterity might enjoy the fruits of a land the superior of which does not exist anywhere in the world. They came from the older states, Indiana, Virginia, Tennessee and Kentucky. Their ancestors had been pioneers before them and they quailed not at the thought of hewing a home out of the forest wilderness.

The first permanent white settlers in Holt County were Peter and Blank Stephenson. They came from Parke County, Indiana, early in the spring of 1838 and settled about five miles southeast of the present town of Oregon, on section 7, township 59, range 37. The same spring Judge R. H. Russell, John Sterrett, John Russell and James Kee left Indiana for the Platte Pur- chase. Judge Russell proceeded by steamboat to Clay County, Missouri, where he remained until the following August, cultivating a crop of corn in the meantime. The other members of the party, who had come overland, joined him at that time and the entire party came on to Holt County. They settled near where Peter and Blank Stephenson lived. Judge Russell, who afterwards became one of the wealthy and influential citizens of the county, used to tell his friends how the Stephensons had raised a fairly good crop of corn in that, their first year, and that when he stopped at their cabin upon his arrival in Holt County, they gave him roasting ears.

Judge Russell soon became active in the affairs of the county. He was the first postmaster and the postoffice officially located at Thorp's Mill and was kept in Judge Russell's house. Thorp's Mill was operated by John Thorp and was the first enterprise of the kind in the county. It was located on Mill Creek, about two miles southeast of Oregon.

John Baldwin came also from Parke County, Indiana. Pie arrived in the fall of 1839 and established his farm on section 18, township 57, range 37, about a mile south of where the Stephensons had settled. George McIntyre came in the fall of 1839 and located on section 5, same congressional township; Smith Mc- Intyre came at the same time and settled on the same section. John M. Briggs, the Widow Jackson and family were other early settlers in this part of the county in 1840.

Roland Burnett (brother of Peter H. Burnett, once prosecuting attorney of this judicial circuit and later a prominent and wealthy citizen of Califodnia), Harmon G. Noland, John Gibson and others settled in the vicinity of Oregon in 1839. Burnett established a claim on what afterwards became the townsite of Oregon, but it was subsequently decided that the county possessed the title, and Mr. Burnett moved to his farm north of town.

The Blairs and Baldwins were the first settlers in Benton Township. John M. Blair and his sons, Uriah and James, reached Holt County April 12, 1839, and located on the bluff line south of the present town of Mound City, on section 20, township 61, range 38. The Blairs came originally from Indiana, about 1827. They settled in Pike County, Illinois, a little later, then moved to Iowa and came to Holt County in the year above given. John M. Blair died in the summer of 1849, on Carson River, at the foot of the Sierra Nevada mountains, while en route to California, with an expedition from Holt County.

Jeremiah Baldwin, his brother, Daniel, and his son, Lambert, settled in the fall of 1839 in the neighborhood of the Blairs. John Hughes and son, also named John, located in the same neighborhood toward the close of the year 1839. Additional settlements were made in the same locality in 1840. W. A. and Abraham Sharp took up their abode near where the town of Craig now stands in 1841 and the region round about is still known as Sharp's Grove. The same is true of Nickol's Grove northeast of Oregon, which was first permanently inhabited in 1841 by Robert and John Nickols. German settlers were the first to begin the improvement of the extreme northwestern part. John H. Roselius was the pioneer, and Henry Dankers, Henry Peters and Andrew Buck followed soon after.

Whig Valley, where the political sentiments seem to have been so marked as to leave a record in the name of the locality, was first settled by Theodore Highley, who gave the name of that once great party to the beautiful and fertile valley which he settled. It is about midway between Mound City and Maitland.

The early settlers found, besides timber and water an easy and productive soil. To these advantages the sturdy pioneer had but to apply his energies, and the reward was certain. Hence, the wealthy farmers of today, whose broad acres and ample houses, whose grand orchards and blooded live stock are but the primitive establishments of the early settler amplified and developed, step by step, from generation to generation, by industry and thrift, aided by natural conditions, and a constant benediction in the climate. It can truthfully be said that there has never been a total failure of crops in the Platte Purchase.

Because of their early environments, and of the traditions to which they had been brought up, most of the early settlers took naturally to the timbered districts that skirted the streams. Many of them had been taught that land that would not grow timber would not produce crops worth harvesting. Prairie land was classed about the same as a desert by some of the early farmers in Holt County. Most of them lived to see a practical demonstration of the fallacy of this reasoning, although in the '40's and '50's it was accepted as sound agricultural wisdom. There was a practical reason, however, for choosing the timbered sections first. The early settlers required wood for their houses, their fences and their fuel. Transportation was an item of great moment in those days and the nearer the settler was to timber and streams the less his burden along this line.

Among the most abundant trees of all originally found was the black walnut. However, the later demand for this wood in the manufacture of furniture was so great that the forest fell before the axe, and now there is but little of it left. A line of timber still follows most of the streams and detached groves, natural and artificial, are found throughout the county. Along the Missouri bottom is found the ever present willow and the sturdy cottonwood, and the stately sycamore. Forty years ago these trees were considered of little value. They were not even used for fuel, as a general thing, the discriminating populace demanding oak or other hard wood for their stoves. But it is different now. The oak, like the walnut, has nearly all disappeared and the willows and cottonwoods have been removed to make room for the plow and harrow.

Pioneer life in Holt County was no different from pioneer life elsewhere in the west. The first settlers were plain, hospitable, brave, generous people. They were good . neighbors, bound together with a strong bond of sympathy, which made one man's interest every other man's interest, also, and every man's protection lay in the good will and friendship of those about him.

The first dwellings of the white man in this country were a cross between Indian bark huts and "hoop" cabins, for it took a number of men to build a log house. The settlers generally located in bunches for mutual protection, and when three or four families had formed a community, they began the building of log houses, each assisting the other. The logs were round, notched together at the corners. The cabins were ribbed with poles and covered with split boards. A puncheon floor was then laid, a hole cut in the end and a chimney made of sticks and mud. The door was of clapboard, and a window was provided by cutting out a log in the side and inserting glass or covering it with greased paper. The house was then chinked and daubed with mud, and was ready for the occupant.

The furniture consisted generally of the one-legged bedstead, a rude table, a few plain chairs and an assortment of pots and pans for cooking the food at the fireplace, there being no stoves. The one-legged bedstead was made by cutting a stick the proper length and boring holes in the edge to correspond with holes in a log of the cabin. Rounds of wood were inserted into the corresponding holes, and what resembled a ladder in a horizontal position was supported on one corner by a leg, the other end and one side being fastened to the walls. Bark was woven into the rounds, and upon this primitive structure the bed was laid.

The manner of living was extremely simple. For some years the only mills were propelled by horse power or water power. There were no roads and the grain was carried in sacks on horseback. In the first years very little wheat was grown, corn being the only grain. The hominy block, an Improved mortar, made by cutting a hole in the stump of a large tree, and using a heavy timber as a pestile, was one way of producing meal for bread. Another instrument was the "gritter," made by punching holes in a piece of tin, which was then nailed to a board, rough side out, and upon which green or previously softened corn was rubbed into a pulp and then baked into bread or ash cakes.

Rye and corn meal parched were often a substitute for coffee and sassafras root produced a palatable substitute for "store tea." Game was plentiful, especially deer, elk, wild turkeys, prairie chickens, and even bear, so there was no scarcity of meat until the hog could be turned into pork.

The clothing was homespun, made by the women of the household - "jeans" for the men and "linsey-woolsey" for the maids and matrons. Hunting shirts and pantaloons of dressed buckskin were also worn by the men. The linsey and jeans for every-day use were colored with hickory or walnut bark and those for Sunday were dyed in indigo. A full suit of blue jeans was considered a fine dress.

It required great industry and rigid economy to make a plain living in those times. Iron and salt, two very necessary articles, were high in price and difficult to obtain. The pioneers had not money, as a rule, and for the first few years had nothing to sell, except skins, wild honey and beeswax. Along the streams there were many hollow trees in which wild bees had deposited their honey, and these were eagerly sought.

There were amusements, too. Log-rolling was a laborious sport. Rail-splitting was another. The women had quilting parties, while the men enjoyed themselves with the logs and the rails, and in the evening there was generally a dance, if a fiddler could be had, or games of various kinds, as in all primitive communities. In fact the history of the early settlers of Kentucky, Tennessee and Indiana was repeated in Missouri.

In a few years the settlers of Holt County had made great progress, and in five years after the country was opened for settlement there were ^vral saw and flouring mills, roads and other improvements.