Quincy Public Hall

The people who came here from Sweden in the early 70's who were Baptists erected a church building about 1877, about six miles East of Cross Timbers, and have built a new and better church since that time near the same place. These people about 1882, also built a church building about four -miles Southeast of Hermitage, and both organizations grew and prospered. Another good church building stands on a ridge about three-fourths of a mile Northeast from Galmey, in Dooley Bend, where the Baptist church has a strong following, led by Elder Landrine J. Tatum, an enterprising, able and devout old christian gentleman. The Christian church people also have a church building at this place, and have quite a goodly number of members in this neighborhood. The Baptists also have a good, roomy church building at Nemo and a strong congregation. We have elsewhere mentioned numerous churches in the towns. The Presbyterians are not very numerous in the county, but up to the Civil War they had a church and numerous following in the neighborhood of what is now the town of Cross Timbers. The church building was known as the Halbert church, and stood at the edge of the woods, about a mile and a half North and a few degrees West of the town of Cross Timbers. Before the division of the Methodist Episcopal church in 1845, it appears that there were quite a number of Methodist people here, but the division of the church and later the Civil War very much retarded the progress of the church. The preachers and members had very decided opinions on the question of slavery, and the issues of the war. But both churches had congregations when the war came on, but the members ot the M. E. church, South were most numerous. Since the war neither of these churches have built up fast, but the M. E. church, South is now stronger than the M. E. church. The latter church having only one country church building in the country, that being Prospect church in the Southeast corner of the county. A church building for the M. E. church. South was erected in 1883, about two and a half miles South of Hermitage. As we mention elsewhere both of these churches have church buildings in the towns. There are organizations of the Christian church at Quincy and Preston but they have no church buildings. The Menonites, a very devout people, have three church buildings on the Wheatland prairie, and hold regular services in their churches, and have quite a following among our German-American citizens.

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

There is an abundance of lead and zinc, and perhaps other metals in this county. In the pioneer days men who wanted lead bullets to hunt with, did not need to buy pig or bar lead if they would take time and heat a furnace hot enough to melt lead ore. Lead has probably been found in a hundred places in the county. Tons of it have been taken from the ground in Sections 17, 18, and 19, in Township 38, Range 21, Northwest of the town of Cross Timbers, and within a radius of two miles of Hermitage it is found most anywhere, but most plentiful in the hills of Crane creek, South and Southeast of town. Up in and about Dooley Bend five miles Southwest of Hermitage both lead and zinc are in sight in many places. In and about Pittsburg, ten miles Southeast, mining has been in progress at intervals for ten years, and car loads of cleaned zinc have been hauled from there to the railroad about fifteen miles away and shipped to market. Car loads of zinc have been dug, cleaned, hauled and shipped from the mines in Section 18, Township 36, Range 22, Northeast of Elkton, about two miles, and in Section 13, Township 36, Range 23, North of Elkton a good body of lead has been discovered. Down in the neighborhood of Quincy most anywhere in the Northwest part of the county lead and zinc are found, and there are strong evidences of oil being easily accessible, but the value of the minerals of the county will never be fully known and realized until railroad facilities are such that it will not take two car loads of mineral to dig, clean and ship two loads. Men now fifty years of age will, perhaps, never know the immense amount of wealth that lies hidden under the surface of the hills and valleys of the county. Treat this as a dream, as you may, but the mineral is here and will be brought to the surface, whenever there are railroads near enough to it to haul it away. No section of the country with mineral sticking out at every pore, ever failed to produce great wealth when it was developed. The mining regions of Jasper county contained no more evidences of their hidden millions of underground wealth fifty years ago than do the hills and valleys of our county.

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 Montgomery Township - 5,504 words on its settlement, mills, schools and churches.