John Siddle Williams House

Hermitage, the county seat, was surveyed and platted in 1847, included the Northwest fourth of the Southeast quarter of Section 23, Township 37, Range 22, and is within sixty rods of the center of the county. Williamson E. Dorman, (Buck,) moved his groceries and liquors, and the log house in which he had kept his store at Pittsburg to what is now Hermitage, before it was surveyed as a town, and it is not certain as to the time Aaron Trippett came, but he and William Waldo were in business here shortly after the town was surveyed. The exact date when the town was surveyed is not known, as the certificate made by the Surveyor, who surveyed it is not dated. The land on which it was located was entered by Thomas Davis, but was not entered until January 30, 1847. Thomas Davis, probably, settled the Southeast fourth of the Southeast quarter of Section 23, Township 37, Range 22, which corners with the town forty at the Southeast corner in 1843, or, early in 1844, and built and lived in the log houses now standing there, as early as 1844. One room of that house is now at least 64 years old, and in it Mr. Davis kept the first hotel and gave room for the courts. The second hotel or boarding place was opened by Williamson E. Dorman at what is now the Ephraim F. Halbert property which was then outside of the survey of the town. Mr. Dorman was a single man, and managed to run his hotel for three years before he married. In 1860-61, he built a new hotel where the Morgan hotel now stands on Lot 4, Block 8. In 1847, William Waldo built a business house on the North end of Lot 4, Block 2, near where the barber shop now is. John Lawrence, who was a brotherin-law of Mr. Dorman, built on the Northwest corner of Block 1, where Mrs. Nancy F. Blair's residence now stands. Oliver Edwards built where John H. McCaslin's residence now stands on Lot 1, Block 3, and it was his daughter. Mary E. Edwards, who became the wife of Williamson E. Dorman. Mr. Dorman put up his second saloon building on Lot 3, Block 2, and dug a cellar under it, some of the rubbish that was in this cellar, being found when Charles Manuel and Slavens Coon & Co., dug the trenches for the foundations of their buildings 50 years later. Jno. C. Dollarhide kept a saloon in town at the same place in 1859-60, and sold out to Alexander Hall. The Donnell boys, Thomas, and another one, built the first business house on the Southeast corner of Lot 1, Block 4, and George W. Blackwell, Sr., and Charles M. Whelchel were keeping store there in 1865, it stands there yet. Mr. Dorman built a store house where the first Court House stood, after it was burned. The house where C. M. Bentley lives was built by George B. Alexander, two or three years before the Civil War. WilUam M. Dorman, the father of Williamson E. Dorman, bought the lot and built a log house where Mrs. Minnie McCaslin now lives, about 1848, on Block 1, and that log house is now a part of the residence that stands there. Along in those years mills were scarce and Mr. Dorman built a mill run by oxen tramping a tread-wheel, and could grind about 80 bushels of grain in a day. It stood about 40 feet South of where Albert Pitts^now hves. Later he and others built a steam mill near the South ford of Pomme de Terre about a quarter of a mile from the Public Square. This mill did a good business, but was about worn out at the close of the Civil War, but continued to be run until about 1874. About 1883, Mr. Dorman and his son, OUiver L. Dorman, and Joseph S. Hartman built a new steam mill on Block 13, in the North part of town, this continued to be run until it was superceeded in 1902 by a new mill built by Eugene Belknap, of Urbana, Missouri, which was burned June 28, 1906. Two weeks after the burning (July 12, 1906) the stone store building and warehouse of Slavens Coon & Co., situated on Lot 3, Block 3 was destroyed by fire. The store and warehouse probably contained $15,000 worth of goods, of which about $2,000 worth was saved. They had insurance to the amount of $8,000 most of which was paid to them. The main store building was 28x100 feet, and the frame warehouse South of it was 28x42 feet. The town has had many disastrious fires. In 1881 the people in and about the town and Hermitage Lodge No. 288, A. F. & A. M. built a substantial brick church with second story for Masonic Hall on . Lot 2, Block 4, and it is now used as a Union Church and Masonic Lodge Hall.

Passage source: Wilson's History of Hickory County, published 1909.

The first newspaper in the town was edited and run by James R. Wilson and James W. Ritchey. Its publication was commenced in 1869 and it was named "Hermitage Enterprise." It went into the hands of Henry H. McKee, and in a short time went out of business. In 1875, John D. Pitts, then County Collector, bought the plant of the Hickory County Mirror, which was being run at Wheatland, and moved it to Hermitage. This plant was bought by F. Marion Wilson, late in 1876, and with it Wilson and Ernest P. Baldwin published the "New Era" until sometime in 1880, when Wilson sold the plant to Courtney M. Wilson and it was taken to Stockton, Cedar County, Missouri. In 1882, Alexander Humble, an IlUnois man, came with a new plant and started the "Hickory County Herald," which he continued to pubUsh until after the November election in 1886. In July, 1885, WilUam McCracken and F. Marion Wilson bought a plant from Charles L. Cu-itis, at Buffalo, Mo., and in that month commenced the publication of the Index. In December, 1885, McCracken sold his interest to Al. R. Miller, and Wilson sold his interest to Alanson M. Halbert; Miller in 1887 or 1888 sold his interest to Charles M. Bentley, and later Bentley bought the interest of Halbert, and became sole owner, but soon sold an interest to Alanson H. Dent, who remained only a short time, when he sold his interest to Bentley, who continued to publish the paper until he sold out to Luther J. Slavens, who had in June, 1895, commenced the publication of the "Hermitage Gazzette," and afterwards purchased a Prouty Power Press. This consolidated the two papers under the name of the "Index- Gazette," which Slavens sold to William U. Morton, who had been formerly interested in the Index, in 1903 when the name was changed to the "Index" and in 1906 he sold the plant to Paul Murphy and he has published it since that time.

Passage source: Wilson's History of Hickory County, published 1909.

Machine-read from a century-old scan, so expect the errors a machine makes: misspelled names, dropped words, stray characters.

Read the whole chapter on Hermitage Township - 2,051 words on its settlement, mills, schools and churches.