Salt Fork Township

Salt Fork Township

This is one of the county's new, or "railroad towns." It was laid out in the fall of 187S, upon the completion of the railroad. The surveying into town lots was done by County Surveyor Ross. The town was laid out upon land belonging to Joe. Thompson & Son, James Huey, and Wm. Sheridan. Messrs. Rae & Page were the first to engage in business here. Their business was buying, and shipping grain. Then

Fh'nn & Bro. built and opened out a grocery store, followed in the same line of business by Armentrout & Gauldin, now Armentrout & Bro. Next the hotel was built ; then another store house ; then a saloon, now a drug store.

At present there are two grocery stores, one dry goods establishment, a drug store, a blacksmith shop, hotel, a Baptist Church, a large grain house, railroad depot, and stock-yards.

Baptist Church

The Baptist Church, of Shackelford, was organized April 1, 1880. The original members were J. H. Huey, W. H. Vaughan, Emily Vaughn, May V. McPherson, M. E. Hatcher, Minnie Walk, Eliza J. Caswell, Carrie Caswell, Eveline Walk, Giles Turley, Gabriella Turley, Kate Huey, Emily J. Hunter, Elizabeth Cox, and D. H. Hatcher. A frame church building, to cost $700, is in process of erection.

The subject of this sketch, one of Saline's most distingushed men, was born in Wayne county, Kentucky, on the 12th day of July, 1807, and died in Saline county, Missouri, April 21st, 1866, being nearly fifty-nine years of age. He was a son of Wm. Bruce, a native of King George county, Virginia, and Sarah Bruce, his wife, whose maiden name was Vandever, and who was a native of Buncomb county. North Carolina. His father saw the army of Washington in its march to the final victory of the revolution at Yorktown. Both his parents lived to a green old age, the father being in his ninety-second, and the mother in her eighty-sixth year of age. The subject of this sketch was the sixth of a family of nine children, all of whom are now dead, except Mrs. Lavina Strother, mother of Hon. John P. Strother, late of Kentucky, but now of Marshall, and at present circuit judge of this circuit. In the year after his birth, his parents moved to Henry county, Kentucky, where they spent the remainder of their lives, dying in 1862, and where Aaron F. Bruce was reared. He was always industrious and energetic, even in boyhood. At that early day, school privileges were not abundant, and when a grammar schoiDl was started in his boyhood, in the neighborhood, his father told him and his brother they could attend. The brother attended, but Aaron told his father that if he would pay him the money that he intended to pay the teacher for his tuition, he would study his grammar at his plow-handle. This was done, and he carried his book with him into the field and cultivated his mind while he cultivated the corn. This serves

* This biography was not received by the printers in time to be inserted with those of Distinguished Citizens of Saline dounty," and consequently appears here.

fitly to illustrate his indomitable will and energy. When a young man, th'is same brother persuaded him to embark in, a mercantile venture in Owenton, Owen county, Kentucky, which proved financially disastrous, and was, in fact, entered upon in the first instance against the better judgment of Aaron. During this time both brothers were married, Aaron F. Bruce to Miss E. J. Robertson, of Woodford county, Kentucky. They were married on the 10th day of November, 1831, and Mrs. Bruce still survives him, after actively assisting him in his busy life, as only a true and faithful housewife can. But the failure at Owenton was not a conquest. Boldly striking out in reliance upon their energy and judgment Mr. Bruce and wife removed to Woodford county and started the race of life anew. Not satisfied with the prospect there, they sold out, and in the year 1837, removed to Missouri and pitched their tent on the magnificent prairie west of Marshall, then unbroken and blooming in virgin beauty and fragrant with the aroma of native flowers. Here they began anew the struggle for success, in which victory came as a reward to the industry and superior judgment displayed in nearly all his undertakings through life. His selection of lands, of which he became the owner in large quantities, was one of the best ever made in this, the richest of all counties.

In the year 1850, against the advice and protest of his parents, he joined that long and disastrous procession of pioneers, that moved across the continent to take possession of the golden shores of California, and work its precious mines. His reasons for going are best given in his own words. In a letter to his parents, began near Ft. Kearney, and written partly on the way and partly on his return, among other things, he says: " I am dyspeptic, and in rather a feeble state of health, and according to the advice of all the physicians, with whom I have conversed, I ought in justice to myself and family to take such a trip as this in order to prolong my life and benefit my family; and if, bye the bj^e, it should be the cause of my coming to my end in this world, it will not, in all probability, rob me of many days, nor take me from my dear family much sooner than if I had stayed at home." Further on he says : " I have, three wagons and teams of oxen and cows, two mules and one horse. The wagons started^ on the 5th day of May, ( 1850) and I started on the 7th. We are now on the Platte river, about sixty miles above Fort Kearney, and in the midst of sickness and death on all sides. The cholera has been among the emigrants for about eight or ten days. I have been sick for five or six days myself, and have got well. * The doctor said I had it ^ myself." Further on, under date of June 15th, he says: "We are still ascending the Platte river, or I might say, we are still in the valley of death. The cholera has been for several weeks making sad havoc in this emigration. Thousands have fallen victims to its wrath, if I may

Through sickness, dangers, and death, this fearless man moved on. On July 5 he says : " Yesterday was the 4th of July. We took a snowballing as we passed a deep bank of snow. * * Our health has much improved." On the 9th of February following he arrived at home, after having finished the journey to California overland, and disposing of his property and returning On a sail-ship by way of Panama. The ship landed, after being at sea forty days, when he weighed and found that he had gained twelve pounds over his weight at home. Among other things he says: " Well, I have got home again, after a long and unpleasant journey. Thousands of the most robust and best constitutions have fallen and left their bones to bleach on the plains, or have found a grave in the great ocean. Thousands died on the plains of cholera." At Salt Lake, he says that flour was $50 per barrel; sugar, coffee and dried fruit, 75 cents per pound. He saj^s the road was lined with dead stock for one thousand miles, and that " at the great desert, which is forty miles wide where we crossed, I believe had all the stock that died there been placed in a line, they would have reached across it - they would have touched each other all the way; and had the wagons left there been placed with their bodies end to end, they would have reached across it. A barrel of crackers would command $500. * * Two hungry fellows, after crossing the desert, sat down at a little brush shanty where was kept for sale pies, bread and meat, and they called for what they wanted, and when they got up their bill was $29, so said, and the writer thinks it likely."

When he returned, his dyspepsia was gone, and no doubt he had a new lease of life. So he plunged again into the activities of a farmer's life, rejoicing at his safe return and restored health.

On the outbreak of the late civil war he was a large slave-owner, and perhaps the largest hemp-grower in Saline county, his annual crop being from 300 to 400 acres. His sympathies were naturally with the south, and his wealth made him a prey to the avaricious. One day^ as he was returning home from Marshall, a murderous detachment of militia lay in ambush intending to kill him, as one of them afterward confessed, but were prevented by the fact that he was in company with a Union man. Busin:;ss was paralyzed by war, and, not content to risk his life and do nothing- at home, he left his beautiful home on Pilot Knob, four miles northwest of Marshall, and going to Nebraska City, embarked in a lucrative enterprise on a large scale, that of freighting for the government and transporting supplies across the plains to Colorado, whose silver and gold mines were then attracting a large emigration. In this business he employed many men and twelve heavy vv^agons and one hundred and twenty head of work cattle.

In the year 1865 he returned, to find much of the fencing on his large estate, laid waste by the jackals of war, and he set to work with characteristic energy to repair and re-build. An effort was made by vandals, during the war, to burn his fine mansion on Pilot Knob, but the incendiaries becoming alarmed, fled in haste, leaving the family to extinguish the flames, after many of his valuable papers were burned. The ravages of war - ^the mental and bodily excitements and tensions, and his wanderings in the west, no doubt, told on his powers of life, and in the spring of 1866, his body fell a victim to the King of Terrors, but he gave pleasing evidence that his Christian spirit triumphed over death and entered upon a happier life beyond. He died the owner of about eleven thousand acres of Missouri's best land, and leaving much property beside, and a family of five children, all of whom are now living and have their homes in the city of Marshall, where lives also his widow, Mrs. E. J. Bruce. They are among our worthy citizens, ^enterprising, intelligent and cultivated. The sons are Wm. R., Sidney T. and Robert Bruce, and the daughters, Mrs. Georgia A. Bruce and Mrs. Mary B. Marmaduke. Aaron F. Bruce was no ordinary man. Although a farmer, persuing with unusual activity, the business affairs of rural life on a large scale, he was well posted in public affairs, and could readily puzzle the college man with questions in science and philosophy, as well as in theology. He had a fine intellect, with strong powers of analysis, and was deeply reflective in quiescent moments. He was a liberal and faithful friend, a man of enterprise and public spirit and a kind'husband and father. If his mind had t^en a turn to public affairs he would have made a conspicuous mark in the roll, of distinguished men.