Jasper County, Missouri - Chapter 41: Old-Timers Prom Everywhere, 1912

Last Reunion op Jopun Old Settlers Association - ^President Carter's Address - ^*'Old Settlers' Ode to Joplin" - The Toasts and Speakers - Personnel op Those Present - Oldest Living Pioneer - State Picnics and Organizations.

The last reunion and annual banquet of the Joplin Old Settlers' Association occurred May 14, 1905, and although the supper was excellent and the after-dinner speeches fine, there was a touch of sadness that crept into the banquet hall and set the pioneers thinking of the ''city not made with hands." During the year that had passed since the last gathering of the association, nineteen of the members had answered the summons of the Great Master Workman and the president, William Carter, who had been the leading spirit in arranging the details of the several banquets which had been given, on taking the chair was greatly affected when he looked around the room and noted the many vacant chairs and, being somewhat indisposed, was obliged to leave the hall before the exercises of the evening were concluded.

Eighty-seven members of the association attended the reunion - and from eight to nine - ^the remnant of the old guard were boys again and lived over the exciting days of the early seventies by swapping yarns and telling reminiscences of the days when Joplin was the **real thing" and a red-hot mining camp.

At 9 o'clock President Carter rapped for order and began the program with a welcoming address. He spoke as follows: ''My old acquaintances, neighbors and friends, at no time in my life has it been to me a greater pleasure than that which is mine tonight, in the opportunity and privilege of meeting, greeting and welcoming, you all here now. Somehow, I am admonished and have in thought a conviction that my participation in this night's celebration of the eleventh annual banquet of the Joplin Old Settlers' Association will close that part of all that has been mine in the life of the association. To me all these annual meetings have been a distinctive and highly appreciated pleasure and now standing where one year ago I stood in the presence and the happy mingling with my old neighbors of a century, there wells up in my heart a deep feeling of gratitude and love for all.

* ' The honor you have so repeatedly extended through the eleven years of our association 's life has to me a meaning, and here and now I beg to repeat and emphasize the assurance of my dear and sincere appreciation, and I have not now words adequate to express my gratitude and thanks.

**To meet as we have to renew old acquaintance and friendship, to buttress, to strengthen, to add to our ties of love for each other, to open the page in our record book where are written the names of our illustrious and loving dead, is an obligation to halt a moment in sad and sorrowful thought in memory of these grand and noble men, our city s proudest, bravest, best; revered and loved by all - men who blazed the way, who laid the foundation and made possible the building of our great proud city; men whose worth, whose clean hearts, generous and spotless characters and boundless energies; men whose lives and character enriched our city and state and who stand today examplars of grandest worth and goodness ; men who just a little while ago were with us on our banquet nights, cruelly touched with death's merciless hand. They are sleeping now, and this banquet hall is tinged with sorrow. Reverently we bow and drop a tear in saddened memory of these worthy, these splendid men. To meet, to keep green the memory of the dead, to seek and cherish a kindlier thought and warmer heart for the living, is your purpose, your inspiration here tonight.

** Mankind has never known, nor can it know, a loftier, purer or nobler incentive. So now I beg again to repeat the word, welcome ! Yes, a hundred times thrice welcome, greetings and congratulations around this banquet table, with your boundless store of cheer and love, within tliis splendid and inviting hall, odorous with the sweets of your rich and bounteous banquet spread, I bid you mix and mingle, celebrate, make merry, dedicate, make memorable this old settlers' eleventh annual banquet night!

*'You know your rights, your duties here. The public know; you dare maintain and do them. Take oflF the limit and play your night festivities open. Let your joy be boundless and unconfined! Tell yams (lies, if you will) of Joplin's early, wild and wooly days. Do any old thing, of all sorts and sizes in your own old way, remembering always to do the right, but keep an eye an Captain Bartlett, Reinmiller and Pearson ; for they will entice you to follow them into ways that are dark and tricks that are vain. With my heart pulsing with love and ray sincerest, best wishes for the health, long life, prosperity and happiness of every member of Joplin's Old Settlers' Association here assembled, I now assign you to the care and tender mercies of your own and only toastmaster, the Hon. Clark Craycroft.''

Captain Carter's address was received with tremendous enthusiasm and when the nominations for president of the association were announced, as the next order of business. Captain E. O. Bartlett named Captain Carter and asked all in favor to rise. Everybody did, excepting Mr. Carter himself. However, he thanked the men present for the honor and said: **I ascribe this show of sentiment to a s>Tnpathy, to long ac-

For secretary, G. W. Koehler was placed in nomination and unanimously elected. Koehler appeared too busy selling groceries to make a lengthy speech of acceptance, but he thanked the association in appropriate terms for the honor.

This concluded the business of the evening and President Carter then called Mr. Craycroft to the chair and asked him to preside as toastmaster. The master of ceremonies announced a Dutch lunch, ** All sorts'* by E. O. Bartlett, and gave forth the mandate to fall to, which was promptly obeyed.

The late arrival of William Norton, one of the old-timers, now living in Columbus, was greeted with a round of cheers from all the guests and he was escorted to a place of honor near the front.

At 10 o'clock, Toastmaster Craycroft again rapped for order and a report from the mortuary committee was heard. Attorney John W. McAntire read the report, which deplored the death of the following old settlers since the last annual meeting: P. M. Redbum, P. Quinn, Ira Creech, D. H. Gilbert, John Delany, T. J. Patterson, T. A. Fields, J. B. Glover, Sr., Thomas Heath wood, E. B. Leonard, John H. Taylor, C. P. MoUoy, J. W. Moore, Dan Collins, L. R. Nugent, J. W. Stephenson, H. Conley, H. Wear and Sylvester Huffman.

D. K. Wenrich, the poet of Joplin, and C. M. Miles and W. S. Taylor then sang the following '*01d Settlers' Ode to Joplin," which is one of his many popular productions :

**Joplin'8 Early Police Courts, and How They were Run/' was the toast responded to by Judge W. B. McAntire, who was among the first judges of the city. Judge McAntire spoke in part as follows : * * Our number is passing swiftly ; a short time and this entire assembly shall have passed away. There was a time when our hair was not gray. Now it is a question of gray hairs or no hair at all! (Applause.)

^'In my period of residence, the record of achievement and progress looms up like a mountain, ' ' Judge McAntire continued, and he related numerous anecdotes of the early days, when music, dancing and fights took place nightly and when there were dangerous men in the then rough and growing community. Joplin was then truly a * * wide-open town. ' * E. R. Moffett was mayor; T. J. Howell, police judge, and George De Omer, city attorney ; they were appointed by the governor under a special charter provided for the city of Joplin. Following their term, Lee Taylor was elected mayor and J. W. McAntire, city attorney. William Lupton was city marshal. Judge McAntire told an amusing story of how Lupton refused to give up the office when William McCracken was named to succeed him and of how he locked that gentleman up in jail, forever curing him of the desire to become city marshal. The speaker told of how W. S. Norton, then city marshal, rode up to a tough character who was holding the other policeman and a crowd at bay and disarmed him without using a firearm. Several other old-time anecdotes, equally spicy, were related by the speaker and his whole talk was very much enjoyed.

Philip Arnold responded to "The Village Schoolmaster," which, besides giving a glowing word-picture of the educational facilities of the early days, was an excellent example of rhetoric, as a schoolmaster's literary work should be. He concluded by exhorting everyone present that he should be fully prepared when the Great Master called on him for the final examination.

*'The Early Joplin Lawyer," was L. P. Cunningham's toast, and it was cleverly and eloquently handled. He spoke of the ovations being tendered Roosevelt in the west and of his being as free as any of us, an

American among Americans. ''The Lawyer and the people, the people and the lawyer, constitute a covenant to uphold the life, liberty and property of the community," said the speaker in conclusion.

At this point Captain Carter prepared to take his departure and stated to the assembly that he felt he could not go without saying **Gk)odby." The men in the room listened intently and in sadness.

John W. McAntire responded to the toast ''Any Old Thing.'' On account of the wide range of his subject, Mr. McAntire confined himself to " a few old things. ' ' He pointed out the three present who were among the first officers of the city, and recalled the fact that at the next meeting there may be none to whom to refer in this wise. He said, in conclusion : "The clasp of an old settler is to me like the clasp of a brother, " and rendered the little couplet

" Joplin and Its Future," was eloquently extolled by ex-Mayor John C. Trigg, who could only see brightness ahead for a city of such glorious achievement in periods past.

The address of Attorney Thomas Dolan, "The Old-time Miner," was ably and conscientiously given and Mr. Dolan paid the encomiums justly due the old-time lawyers, no old-time business men, nor no old-time Joplin.

The association tendered a voluntary offering to Colonel O'Rear, upon whom the ravages of time and adversity have laid a heavy hand. Colonel O'Rear was not present and the offering was presented to him the next day.

During the feasting the association had the pleasure of hearing young Percy Wenrich (who is now a composer of note in New York City, but at that time in Chicago, and was bom and raised in Joplin) play several piano selections.

Before the time for the next annual meeting President William Carter, of the Old Settlers* Association, passed to the great unknown, and his death occurring about the time when arrangements for the annual event should be made, out of respect to his memory the banquet was postponed to a future date atid since then no one has felt called upon to assume the duties of leader and take the initiative for a reunion. Thus the banquet at the Germania Hall, May 14, 1895, was the last given and the association has been together in a body since then, only to assist in the burial of the members as they, one by one, have passed away.

At the date of the writing of this history, J. N. U. Seela is the oldest living pioneer, having come to Jasper county in 1883. A short time ago a representative of the Joplin Daily Herald visited Mr. Seela at his home and obtained from him the following little interview which we print with the paper's consent on account of its historic incident.

When interviewed Mr. Seela gave an interesting account of early days here. He regards them as the **good old days.'' '*In those days everybody worked," he said. **My earliest remembrance is of hoeing potatoes, by the side of my mother. Mother raised flax and cotton and spun and wove all our clothing. Brother and I used to sit in front of the fire place and seed the cotton for her and twist it into a long loose rope, for the spinning wheel. Often the blaze from the logs would ignite it, and then we would have a big blaze.

**We boys wore long shirts which mother made, reaching below our knees. They were wove of the linen and were our only garment. There were no fine dressers in those days. And we didn't have much money. But we enjoyed ourselves more, I think, than people do now. People were more truthful and honorable then. There was more humanity.

**Now-a-days you'll find mighty little humanity. Why, men would come for twenty-five miles, in those days, to a house-raisin'. Now a man wont do a thing for you unless you pay him well. I have hewn logs many a time for a neighbor's cabin. I used to know the number of logs it took to raise a corner and could go into the woods and split the exact number for a cabin. I've reared the comer of a cabin by myself. But I couldn't do it now."

Speaking of their foods, Mr. Seela told of the first sugar he ever saw, when he was a grown young man. It came in cakes and was whittled off for use. Honey was the only ** sweetening" they had, save for maple syrup in the springtime. But only a few sugar maples grew along Center creek. The woods, however, abounded with bees and honey was plentiful. Coffee was bought at ten pounds for a dollar, green, and often the unopened burs were sprouted.

A tuition school located on Center creek, supported by Barry county 's farmers, was taught by the more learned of the districts settlers. But, as Mr. Seela declared, his first teacher hardly knew his A. B. C's.

In 1854 Mr. Seela, with his wife and baby boy, moved to the old homestead on which he now lives, and erected his one roomed log cabin. Grass then covered the site of Carthage and the county's court house. On the north side of what is now the square, George Hombeck then had a general store. Here farmers of the surrounding country obtained their provisions.

Mr. Seela 's farm was the scene of skirmishing during the Civil war, and the old cabin in which he and his wife first settled, was burned by pillaging parties.

Brooms were made either of bunches of buckbrush tied together, or from a straight stick of hickory, whittled at one end to be small enough for handling, with the other split into fiber. A band of the bark was left at the top of the brush part to prevent further splitting.

But when a light was needed it was from a tallow dip. These were made by frying out the fat of deer or bears and having it melted in a pot. Then a row of strings was suspended from a stick and dipped into the grease and pulled out. The fat that clung to the string soon cooled and it was dipped quickly into the melted fat and again \vithdrawn. This was repeated until each string was surrounded with a thick layer of grease. Then they were cut loose from the stick and laid away. The string in the center served as a wick and these tallow dips made very good candles.

A simple substitute for a mouse trap was devised by one settler, with the aid of a thimble and a saucer. The thimble placed under the rim of the saucer small end down, with bait attached, proved to be an effective devise and no mouse was the wiser.

Deer were plentiful, and furnished the main portion of meat for the earliest inhabitants. The fat was used for lard. Each autumn, hunting parties of Indians invaded this country until it was well settled, in search of deer.

Butter, milk and eggs were as scarce as they have been in Chicago recently and when procurable, were of such high prices that would make today's sufferers from the **high cost of living'* thankful that they weren't pioneers of a half century ago. Sixty-five cents was the price of a pound of butter in the latter '60 's, while the price of eggs per dozen was half a dollar. Milk was sold at 30 and 35 cents a gallon, but was scarce.

Preachers were even more scarce. Almost every settler had his Bible, and those who could read, spread the gospel teachings among their neighbors. The preacher of the neighborhood was one of the farmers or a carpenter, on weekdays. But even when a preacher could not be procured, gatherings were held on the Sabbath, with the men and women of the country leading the service of worship.

In this day of rapid transportation a man in a busy career may be called far from his boyhood home, and although we are a cosmopolitan people and easily adjust ourselves to changing conditions and scenes, and, aa Eugene Field in his charming poem, ''John Smith," says:

**Ju8t which John Smith you are, I really can't recall. And somehow I like to think that you must be them all; And so you are, for whether your crest be badger, bear, palmetto, sword or pine, Yours is the glory of the stars that with the stripes combine. Or mebby Colonel Smith you are the gentleman I knew, Who came from the state where Democrats and the finest horses

But while we are all Americans and love this great nation of ours and feel at home any place where the stars and stripes float, still now and then our minds wander back to the old homestead and in our dreams, at least, we live over the days of our youth.

The year 1900 was noted for the organization in this county of a number of state societies, when the people from other states than ours came

The Kentucky Association was formed at Lakeside Park in August, 1900. At the Kentucky picnic Hon. W. J. Stone was the orator of the day. A permanent organization was formed, with Capt. C. H. Price, of Webb City, president; A. L. McCalley, of Carthage, secretary, and Dr. A. B. Freeman, of Joplin, treasurer. This society has since had a number of delightful gatherings.

The Hoosiers and the Buckeyes also both formed state societies and held a state reunion at Lakeside that year. Major John B. Lloyd was the first president of the Indiana Society and R. T. Stickney, president of the Ohio reunion. At the Ohio picnic it was found, on the examination of the roster, that three brothers, John, Joseph and Henry Cather, were the oldest Buckeyes in attendance, they having come to Jasper county from Ohio in 1848 and resided continuously in the county from then to now.