Van Buren Township

By Martin Rice

The Presbyterians - Schools - Doctors and Lawyers - Mails and Newspapers - First Township Officers - Lone Jack - Retrospect - The Oldest Man - The Oldest Woman - Physicial Features

The township of Van Buren, as now constituted, lies in the southeastern corner of Jackson county; being nine miles north and south, by eight miles east and west. The first organization for municipal purposes was in May, 1834; embracing, in addition to its present territory, the whole of what was called the Big Creek Settlements in Jackson county; which then included, or had jurisdiction of all the territory now included in Jackson, Cass and Bates counties. The Big Creek country, or the Big Creek Settlements so called, also included the few inhabitants on the contiguous head branches of Sni-a-bar.

The first settlement, or first cabin made on the creek was by David G. Butterfield, in the autumn of 1827, in what is now Prairie township, near the head of the creek or branch on which Pleasant Hill is now situated. This cabin was built on or near the east half of the northwest quarter of Sec. 25, Tp. 47, R. 31. The farm has since been known as the old Connor farm. Butterfield was from Lafayette county ; an old resident of Missouri, and had recently married Nancy Graham, a widow, also a resident of the State since 1816. His nearest neighbor when settling, as stated, at the head of the creek, was on Little Blue ; but who that neighbor was, or whereabouts is not known. The whole country lay in its native wildness; no white man lived between him and Harmony Mission, which was a small government school for the Indians, in the present County of Bates. The Mission Road from Lexington and Fort Osage to Harmony, ran near the house ; as also did the Shawnee trail, a small trail made by the Shawnees in moving from the Lower Mississippi to their homes west of the Kansas River ; and this lone cabin served as a house of entertainment for many a lost, belated and weary hunter and traveler, though the entertainment may not have been sumptuous, it was better than none. How long it was that he was the only settler on the creek is not certainly known. From the best information David Creek was the next at or near the Vanhoy farm, north of Pleasant Hill. Joseph Walker is also said to have located near the same place, at or about the same time, but remained only a short period. During the years 1829 and 1830 several families came and settled on that and other branches of Big Creek, among whom may be mentioned Jeremiah X. and Alfred G. Sloane, both yet living in Cass county ; Thomas, James and Joel Biddle ; Isaac, Austin and Gaven Bledsoe ; David and Henry Burriss ; the Wardens, Butlers, Burgens and others.

The first land entered, or bought from the Government, in this part of the county was in the Butterfield neighborhood, on the 12th day of January, 1830. On that day WiUiam Adams entered the west half of the northwest quarter of Sec. 36, Tp. 47, R. 31; and on the same day Thos. Hamlin entered the west half of the northwest - of Sec. 25, same township; James Wilson now owns the first and Mary C. Hicklin owns the second. On the 20th of the same month Joab Powell entered the east half of southeast quarter of Sec. 35 ; and on the 3 ist Butterfield entered his home, east half northwest of 25 ; and on the 3d of February John Powell entered the west half of the southwest quarter of Sec. 30, Tp. 47, R. 30, now owned by I. J. Russell. Those lands are now in Prairie township.

The first settlement, or the first cabin built in the territory now included in Van Buren, was built by Isaac Dunnaway in the spring of 1830. It was a short distance west of the present village of Lone Jack; on Sec. 23, Tp. 47, R. 30, on the farm and a short distance from the residence of George Griffith. The same spring Daniel Graham, a son of Nancy Graham, who had married Butterfield as above stated, built his cabin a short distance south of Dunnaway on the west half of the southeast quarter of Sec. 26, it being eighty acres that his wife had entered a short time before marriage, and only a short time before settlement. The same spring, also. Redden Crisp settled across the creek west of Dunnaway and Graham, on the Keersey farm, on the west half of southwest quarter of Sec. 27, which he entered the same day that Celia Edmundson did the tract on which Graham built, January 26th, 1 830. These three famihes were all that resided within the present Hmits of the township that year. Some others bought lands or made claims and did some work during the summer and autumn but did not move until the spring of 1831. Of this number were William Crawford, Charles Hopper (Big Charley) and Joshua Hitchcock. Crawford broke prairie and planted corn, with no fence, on the farm now owned by Wesley Yankee, Sec. 31, Tp. 47, R. 29. He gathered his corn in the fall, but the turkeys it is said, ate it up during the winter. Hopper selected his home a- short distance east of the lone tree, where John Shawhan now lives, on Sec. 18, and Hitchcock a little farther east, a part of the Miller Easley farm, same section.

In 1 83 1 and 1832, the Lone Jack settlement received an addition of several families among whom may be mentioned Warren P. Reavis, Charles Hopper, Jr., A. H. Helms, Thomas McKnight, David L. Cadle, Thomas Hamlin, Squire Bridges, George Larrison, William and Samuel English, John Beeler and James Noel. In the mean time a few families had settled in the northeastern part of the township, a short distance south of Oak Grove, and in and near the Round Prairie ; WilHam Cox, Elihu and Silas Cox, Parson McKinney, Jephtha Crawford, Robert, Stephen and Joseph Austin, Elijah Thompson, Thomas Sharp, Jacob and Abram Roger, some of the Webbs, and also John S. and Martin Corn. In the fall of 1833 the writer of these collections, a youth of nineteen, came with his father and father's family, and built a cabin where he now lives, on Sec. 29, Tp. 47, R. 29. It was while building that cabin that the Mormons were expelled from the county, and the great meteoric shower occurred, on the 13th of November, 1833. Settlers continued to come in 1834 and 1835, ^^^ ^' began to be said there was not room for many more. There not being woodland enough, it was thought to fence and supply many more farms with the needed timber ; and the making of farms away out on the large prairies, as has since been done, was not even dreamed of. In 1833 there was one house between Blue Springs and Lone Jack. Francis Prine had built a house and opened a farm on the Sni-a-bar creek, on Sec. 32, Tp. 48, R. 30, which a few years after he sold to Wilson Alexander. Since, it has been known as the Dr. Miller place. David Dealy had entered land and done some work on it in 1833, but did not move to the farm, on Sec. 3, Tp. 47, R. 30, till the spring of 1834. William Adams (Captain William) came with the writer from Tennessee in 1833, and located on Sec. 10, same township, where he died about the year 1859 or i860.

Pioneer Life

Having stated who were here at that early day, let us ask or rather answer the question, how they lived? In general they lived as most back-woodsmen and pioneers do, in cabins small and rude, with clap-board roofs and puncheon floors, and chimneys made of sticks and clay, or of rough and undressed stones. There were no saw-mills nearer than Little Blue, and very few of them from which lumber could be obtained. Of grist-mills there were a few horse-mills of the draught-wheel pattern run with a rawhide band, one kept or owned by William Cox near Chapel Hill, one by William Savage west of Pleasant Hill, and one by Thomas Burgen three miles east of it. The settlers, however, generally went to water mills in the neighborhood of Independence and Lexington, except when the water was too low to grind, taking a wagon load of grain at a time. Going to mill was one of the hardships of pioneer life, and the settlers would gladly give one bushel of corn to get another one carried to mill and ground.

One of those early settlers yet living,' says : "I well remember my first trip to mill in Missouri. It was the last of December, 1853, when I and James Noel went to a water mill on Little Blue, built and owned by Benjamin Majors. I had sold a rifle gun to Wm. Rider, near the mill, for corn and other articles necessary for new beginners in the country. We shelled our corn at Riders, and took it to mill, and that night a deep snow fell, and before our load of meal could be ground, it had turned bitter cold ; but with the assistance of the miller, Aleck Majors (afterward the great ox driver across the plains), we loaded up and got over the icy and dangerous crossing of the Blue, and set out for home. We had a five horse team, and twenty odd miles before us. Noel rode the saddle horse and drove the team, until to avoid freezing he would jump off and run by its side, till tired and exhausted, he would mount and ride and whip again. In the same manner, I rode in the wagon, and ran in the snow behind it by turns. Dark came on, and oh ! how cold - how bitter cold. To make matters worse, in crossing a ravine at the head of the creek, our team became tangled in the gearing, and some of it was broken or came loose, in arranging which Noel's fingers were frozen, and I fell into the ravine, and so twisted One knee as for a time not to be able to walk. He, however, managed to get hitched up again, and I managed to get in the wagon, and he drove Jehu-like until we reached the house of Isaac Dunnaway, who opened his hospitable door, and saved us from freezing to death.'

Of meat, the early settlers had enough, both tame and wild. Beef and pork - especially pork - were plenty and cheap, and wild game abundant, and the major part of the settlers knew how to kill it.

Though those early pioneers were thrown together from different parts of the country, they soon became socially connected and intimately acquainted with each other. Though neighbors might be said to be few and far between, therg was something that drew them together as friends and helpers of one another. If one

On Sunday, when they went to meeting (they had preaching then, though no meeting houses or churches), they met with their neighbors, far and near, and every one who behaved himself was as good, or at least, thought himself as good as another.

Preachers, Preaching And Churches

We are told that the first preaching services in the Big Country, or portion of Jackson county, was north of the present town of Pleasant Hill, near the present line between Jackson and Cass, the date not remembered ; the preachers being James Savage and Joab Powell, both early settlers, both living on Little Blue, and both Baptists. Powell was quite an illiterate man, but possessed of good common sense, natural ability, a good reputation for honesty and industry, and full of the milk of human kindness. He it was of whom it was said, that he took his text in the two I chapter of the one I John, and quoted the epistle of General Peter, instead of the epistle general of St. Peter - a made tale, no doubt.

Old Jimmy Savage was pretty much the same kind of man, never read anything but the Scriptures, and not much there ; yet he was a man of note among the early pioneers, for he was one of the oldest of them ; and so far as we know, these two did the principal part of the preaching for some years, aided by Jesse Butler, and by Wm. B. and Hiram Savage, licentiates, with an occasional sermon by preachers of other denominations.

The first church or worshiping assembly was constituted by the Baptist's on the second Saturday in June, 1832, at the house of Warren Reavis, where A. Amos now lives. Sec. 34, Tp. 47, R. 29; or at the house of Wm. Butler, one mile south of it. It was constituted by Elders Enoch Finch and Thos. Stayton, Finch being from the present Greenton, in Lafayette county, and Stayton from near Independence. James Savage was the first pastor and Warren P. Reavis, clerk.

The earliest records of that church were lost during the civil war of 1861, and the number and names of those who first went into it are not known.

When the narrator of these incidents first came to the county in 1833, and his father and mother united with that church, it numbered near forty members. Savage was yet pastor and was living on Little Blue ; but about that time he sold out his farm and mill there and bought the farm of Isaac Dunnaway, to which he moved in the spring of 1834. Reavis Was gone and David L. Cadle was clerk and the most influential member.

In addition to Cadle and wife, the following names are remembered as belonging to the church : Thomas Hamlin and Mary, his wife, William Butler, Sr., and wife, Wm. Butler, Jr., and wife, Jesse Butler, John Butler, Wm. Savage and wife, Hiram Savage and wife, Wm. B. Savage, William Warden and wife, Hezekiah Warden's wife, Catherine Bledsoe, Nancy Hopper and Artilla Hopper. The meetings were held at private houses - most commonly at the house of Thomas Hamlin, where George Rheem now lives. Sec. 25, Tp. 47, R. 30; or at the house of Wm. Butler, three miles east of Pleasant Hill. This continued until the year 1837 or 1838, when a log meeting house was built where the cemetery known as the Rheem Cemetery now is on the farm of Fred. Edmundson, Sec. 25. That house was built by the voluntary contributions and labors of the brethren and friends. In 1837 Wm. 'Ousley, a Baptist minister, moved into the vicinity, and after a time became pastor of the church. It prospered until the year 1841, when it numbered over 100 members. In that year and the year following the question of missions divided it. The Lone Jack Church (first called Basin Knob) and one called Bethel being constituted out of a part of its mem-

The old Pleasant Garden church still has a name to live. After Ousle)' and Savage withdrew from it and formed the Bethel church, Elder Hiram Bowman served it as pastor up to the time of his death, about the year 1872. Many years ago the church sold its old log house and built a frame building about three miles 'southeast of Lone Jack, on Sec. 33, Tp. 47, R. 29, where its meetings are yet held. It now styles itself t^e Regular Predestinarian Baptist Church, and belongs to the Mount Zion Association of Anti-Mission Baptists, and is ministered to by Elders Mercer and McVey. That church, which may with propriety claim to be the mother church of all the Baptist churches between the Little Blue and the Osage River, numbering now less than twenty members.

Lone Jack Church

Was constituted Oct. 29th, 1842, by Elders Joseph White, Wm. White, Joab Powell and Henry Farmer. It was constituted with fourteen members, their names being as follows : Samuel Cunningham, Wilbourne Cunninghim, Stephen I. Easley, William Hopper, Morris Edwards, David Lynch, Frances Cunningham, Catherine Cunningham, Rebecca Easley, Mary A. Easley, Artilla Hopper, Mahala Fox, Minerva Alexander, the last named being the only one now remaining, Henry Farmer (who with his uncle, John Farmer, both Baptist ministers, came to Cass county in 1837), was called as its first pastor, and served it as such uninterruptedly for twenty years, during which time it grew from 14 to 212 members. Its first meetings were held in a school house, in private houses, or in the groves until 1849, when a comfortable frame house was built at Lone Jack, and the name of the church was changed from Basin Knob to Lone Jack.

Since the close of the Civil War, it has had as its pastors, Jeremiah Farmer, Abram Weaver, A. M. "Johnson, Solomon D. Brown, Wm. Farmer, I. B. Jackson, Isaac N. Newman, and the present pastor, F. W. Leonard. It numbers now one hundred and twelve (112).

There are three other Baptist churches in the township. New Liberty, Sni Mills and Willow Spring ; all of which, as well as Strasburg, in Cass, Elm Spring, in Johnson, and Concord and Chapel Hill, in Lafayette, mainly grew out of the Lone Jack church.

New Liberty Church

was constituted in 1859 with the following named members: Abram Koger and wife, Ehas Duncan and wife, Thornton Duncan and wife, Jacob M. Adams, Sinai Koger, Alvis Lynch and wife, William Gosney, Flemming Harris and wife, and Sarah Wood.

Since then the following pastors have served the church : Edward Wood, Samuel Shepherd, David S. Miller, Abram Weaver, L B. Jackson, A. M. Johnson, and Thos. L. Powell, the present pastor ; membership 70.

Sni Mills Church

was constituted in the year 1875, with the following named members : Nicholas Hutchins, Benj. Hutchins, J. N. Hutchins, John C. Faulkenberry, Louis D. Long, Nathan Hunt, I. Faulkenberry, Lucy Hutchins, Margaret Hutchins, Rebecca Hutchins and Nancy Williams. The church built a frame house in 1877, costing about $400.

Willow Springs Church

was constituted in June, 1877, with the following members : Drury Davis, Joseph Haynes, M. Haynes, Joseph A. Jackson, George H. Noel, Mollie Davis, Rebecca A. E. Jackson, Rachel Noel, Sarah J. Noel, Sarah Williams, J. B. Jackson, Helen Jackson, Sidney Jackson, Noel Jackson, Frances Jackson, Frances Jackson, Jr., EHas Duncau, Mary F. Duncan, Wm. Duncan, Ellen. Duncan, Samuel Shepherd and Lucinda Shepherd. This church has no house of worship of its own.

Although the Baptists have from the beginning predominated in the township, other religious denominations have had a place in the community. ' Even the Mormons, when their headquarters were at Independence, had a stake, as it was called, on Big Creek. Daniel Graham, one of the oldest pioneers, tells of a meeting, held in the neighborhood, at which Sidney - Rigdon, Liba Peterson, Ohver Cowdery, Lyman White, and Elder Whitman, were in attendance; and that Joshua Hitchcock, Jesse Hitchcock, and Mrs. Thomas McKnight were converted to the faith, and baptized into their fellowship. Peterson, one of their elders, was for a short time residing in the township, and taught the first school ever taught in it. But when Mormonism was expelled, he and Jesse Hitchcock went also. Joshua and McKnight remained a few years, and they too left.

The Christian Church

sometimes called Campbellites, were here at an early day. The first baptism that the narrator ever witnessed in the State, was by an elder of that church, whose name he thinks was Stanley or Sanders ; the person baptized was a Miss Elizabeth English; this was in 1834. Afterward Simon Bradley, Elder Mulkey, Thos. McBride, James McBride, William Parker and oth-ers preached and organized churches. Elder Parker, who came to the county in 1842, continued to preach up to near the close of his life, about 1875. Next to the Baptists this is, perhaps, the most numerous sect in the township ; preaching at Lone Jack, Hicks City, New Liberty and other places.

The local church at Lone Jack was organized on the 21st of September, 1842, and they have an interest in the Baptist church building erected in 1848. The names of the original members were : Thos. Mulkey, Sion Bradley, Thos. Mc- Bride, Sr., Thos. McBride, Jr., John S. Cave, Wm. Parker, Wilson Lewis, John Wright, Robert H. Crawford, Elizabeth L. Bynum, Fannie Parker, Euphronia Crawford, Ann Wright, Elizabeth Gibson, Susan Drake, Annie Snow, Martha Bynum. Of these the only, one now living and belonging to the church is Annie or Alice Snow. The pastors who have served the church in succession are Thos. Mulkey, Thomas McBride, Sion Bradley, Wm. Parker, Joel Wilmot, C. P. Arbuckle, John O. Kane, Madison Burnett, John W. Dawson, W. R. Cunningham, H. M. Price and Jas. L. Warren.

The Methodists

Were slow to commence in the township. Elder McKenney, in 1833 or '4, settled between Oak Grove and Round Prairie, and William Ferrill and Patrick Talbot a short time after, rlear the site of Pleasant Hill, and there preached as occasion served; but there was no local church established in the township or any stated preaching till 1837.

In 1836 John Patton bought out Joshua Hitchcock and Charles Hopper, Jr., and moved to the present Miller Easly farm - a pious, good man of that faith ; and in 1837 Samuel Yankee and James Sanders also moved into the neighborhood, and a church or class was formed, consisting of these three famiUes, Wm. Hays and family, and Charles Hopper, Sr., with perhaps one or two others. Their meetings and preaching were at Patton's residence, and they were ministered unto for several years by travehng preachers in succession, as follows : Elder Lacy, George Bewly, Jesse Green, Thomas Ashley, Daniel Capell, Silas Williams (a their number increased as the county increased in population and they have ever since had a respectable minority of the worshiping community.

In 1844 the great division occurred in the Methodist Church, since which time a large majority of the Methodists in the township have been with the Church, South ; though the Northern branch has' had its adherents, and for years kept up an organization, and were ministered unto in turn by Westerman, Dodds, Lee, Thomas Ferrill and others.

Of the original members of that church, organized in 1837, there are yet living in the vicinity James Sanders, Wm. Hays and Mrs. Parmelia Yankee.

The Presbyterians

Have ever been weak in the township. There is, however, a number in the northwestern part, and they have regular preaching at the Union church house, on the line between this and Prairie township.

The Cumberland Presbyterians some years since had a church and regular preaching at Lone Jack, but for some years it has been discontinued. They have also had monthly meetings at New Liberty, Elder Dalton and others officiating.

The preacher was not the only useful character that was found among the early pioneers of the county. The school teacher was also here at an early day. It has already been stated that the Mormon preacher, Peterson, was the first teacher in the township.

He, it is said, was one of the first five commissaries sent out by the prophet, as Caleb and Joshua were, to spy out the land, and to select the New Jerusalem in the West. After selecting Independence as the site, he next turned his attention to selecting a bride for himself, instead of selecting one for his master's son ; and his choice fell on a Miss Hopper, the daughter of an old citizen of Lafayette county. And as his wife had a brother, two sisters and other relatives near the Lone tree, he fell in there also, and at a time when the settlers began to think of sending their children to school. The fact that there was no school house did not stand in the way at all. A few of the neighbors went to work, cut a few hickory logs, split them so as to make two of one, notched them up in the shape of a pen, twelve or fourteen feet square and the height of a man's head, cut down a burr oak tree standing near by, and made it into clap-boards four feet in length; and with these boards and a few poles to hold them up, and few more to keep them down, covered the pen, and the school house was there. A doorway, however, was wanted to get into it. This was soon sawed or chopped out, and* nothing remained to be done but to furnish the house. A few more poles were cut and split open, the splinters hewed off, auger holes bored and legs put in, and the seats were there.

That pioneer school house was built on the east half of the northwest quarter of Sec. 32, Tp. 47, R. 29, on the Kreeger or Fish farm, southeast of Lone Jack, and the first school was taught in the summer of 1833. How long the term continued is not known, nor who all the pupils were.

Of the next school, which was taught the next summer, something more definite can be stated ; as the youth who taught that school then, writes these recollections now. When the school of seventeen scholars was made up, with a promise to pay two dollars per quarter per scholar, it was determined to move the site of the school house, the old one not being centrally located. The school, however, was to commence and go on in the old house, until another was ready. One week of school in the old pen, and the teacher and the other boys of the neighborhood, met on Saturday with axes and two yoke of oxen, and cut and dragged up logs enough for the house.

Another week of school in the old house, and on the next Saturday the house was raised. The boards and benches were hauled over from the old house. The new one was covered, a door cut out, and that house was done, and furnished and the school went on ; and for several years the schools in that part of the township were taught in that house. But after that session they managed to get a fire place and floor on it; and there are several persons now living in the township, and other parts of the county, who got the whole or the principal part of their schooling in that small house ; which stood a very short distance from the residence of Wesley Yankee.

The names of the pupils who attended the first school that was taught in it, as near as recollected, were : Willie B. English, Christopher McKnight, Wm. McKnight, Jonathan McKnight and sister, William Edmundson, Rufus Edmundson, Elvira Edmundson, Spencer Rice, Isaac Rice, Elizabeth Rice, Nancy Rice, James Rice, Rachel Beeler, Mary Beeler, Joab Bridges and sister, Leannah Larrison and two sisters.

The first school ever taught at Lone Jack, or its immediate vicinity, was in a house built where the cemetery east of town now is. It was considered a good house in its day ; built of hewed logs, with floor, chimney and fire place. The first school was taught by Wesley Underwood. After that, Warren Easly, John Snow, Galen Cave, Charles Hopper, John Patton and Samuel Yankee, employed one John E. Roberts to teach a school for a whole year ; binding themselves individually to pay him two hundred dollars, which was considered good wages - $16.66 per month. It was considered the best school that had been taught in the county, and no doubt it was; and better, perhaps, than some schools taught now, costing three times as much money ; in houses that cost five times as much as that did. The first taught in the township, was in 1842. Township 47 in Range 29, was organized in the spring of that year, under the school law of 1838, and the southwest fourth of that six mile square was the first district. The two houses that have been mentioned were both in that district; one on the north, and one on the south side. So a new house was built on the lands of John Hunter, on the southeast quarter of northwest quarter of section 29 : a large roomy log house, in which David Harris taught the first school, for $16.66 per month.

The stove that was put into that house then is yet in use in that school district, and looks as if it might last twenty years to come ; and the old house is a stable on the Miller- Easly farm.

Since then things have changed in the way of schools as well as in other things. Instead of one organized school district, and one school taught under the free school laws of the State, there are thirteen in the township, in which schools are taught on an average six months in the year, and teachers are paid more than double as much as then. The houses, with one or two exceptions, are all comfortable frame structures. But truth compels us to say, that the pupils do. not receive the same benefit in proportion to the dollars and cents expended, that they did in the little log cabin schools when the teacher's wages came out of the patron's pockets individually; and the teachers were of the old fogy style, taught themselves in the old fogy school ; or else self-taught, instead of in the normal schools as at present. This may not be the fault of the school law. It may not be the fault of the school officers. It may not be the fault of the teachers or the pupils; but such is the fact and the cause lies somewhere. For many years there were neither in the township. In fact we have never had a resident lawyer in it, except Judge Russell Hicks, who owned a good farm here and spent a part of his time upon it. When the school. Sec. i6, Tp. 47 R. 29, was sold in 1837, Russell Hicks bought the whole section, except the west half of southwest quarter^ also buying a large quantity contiguous to it. He then spent a large part of the money he made in his large practice, in improving it and stocking it with live 'stock and slaves ; and no doubt lost money by his farming operations ; and when the events of the war swept away his negroes and large herds, he was left almost in poverty. He was a man of giant intellect, and great legal attainments, and his history belongs to the county and State ; and not to any particular township. Hicks' City, which he laid out upon his lands on the Lexington, Lake & Gulf Railroad, if it shall ever grow to be a city, will perpetuate his name to posterity. The first doctors to practice in the township were Doctor Caleb Darby, near Oak Grove, and Patrick Talbot, near Pleasant Hill. They both came about the year 1836. Darby was a botanic or steam doctor, and was both farmer and doctor. Talbot was farmer, doctor, lawyer and preacher. They both lived and died on their first locations. Previous to their coming, in cases of emergency or extreme sickness, doctors were sent for to Independence, or wherever they could be found.

Mails And Newspapers Mail Facilities

It was not until 1838, that a post route was established between Lexington and Harrisonville, and post-offices located at Greenton, Cool Spring (now Chapel Hill), Lone Jack and Pleasant Hill. Stephen I. Early, was the first contractor, and A. L. and Wm. Snow, were the first mail carriers on the route. They both live yet, not far from Lone Jack. Before the opening of that route the settlers got their mails from Independence and Lexington, and newspapers were not often read, when they were, they were frequently a month or six weeks old.

In 1834 the citizens of the Big Creek country established a sort of newspaper circulating club; made three distributing offices, or agencies, and subscribed for three weekly newspapers : the Washington Globe, the Missouri Republican, and the Jefersonian Republican (Jefferson City). One was to be sent to Andrew Wilson, west of Pleasant Hill, one to Wm. Butler, three miles east of it, and one to Enoch Rice, near Lone Jack. These papers were to pass from hand to hand, and be read in turn. It was tried for a year; did not work well, and was abandoned.

As was said, the township was first organized in 1834, part being in what is now Cass county. The first Justices of the Peace appointed were Wm. Savage, Wm. Butler and Enoch Rice. James WilHams, (a son of the noted pioneer peacher, Luke Williams,) was constable.

The county boundaries of Van Buren county had been defined, or prescribed at the session of 1832, but owing to the sparseness of the population, it still remained as a part of Jackson, for all civil and military purposes.

In August, 1834, the general election for the township was held at the house of Thos. Burgin, in what is now Cass county, and the candidates at that election, were Michael McClelland, Russell Hicks and Wm. Savage, for the State Senate. Richard Fristoe, Smallwood V. Noland, Thomas Jefferies and Robert Rickman, for the House of Representatives ; John King, for Sheriff; James Noel and James Williams, for Constable; (clerks. Justices of the Peace and Judges were not then elective). McClelland, Fristoe, Noland, King and Williams were elected.

The Legislature next winter organized the County of Van Buren (now Cass), and those citizens of Jackson on the heads of Big Creek and Sni, were for a time added to Sni-a-bar township. The election in 1835, to vote for members of congress, was held at the house of James Lewis, near Stony Point, and the voters were called on to vote bv general ticket for two members of congress ( that being the number to which the State was then entitled). Albert G. Harrison and George F. Strother, were the Democratic candidates, and Wm. Ashley and James - H. Birch, Whigs. Harrison and Strother were elected ; receiving nearly the unanimous vote of the township. At the same election, Sam. C. Owens was elected Circuit Clerk, over Franklin Smith.

In 1836 or 1837 the township was re-organized or separated from Sni-a-bar, embracing its present territory and the greater part of what is now Prairie township. Warham Easley and Wilson Alexander were the first elected Justices of the Peace, and David L. Cadle the first constable, and, as near as we have been able to learn, the following served as Justices of the Peace in the order named : James Tucker, William Baugh, John A. Green, Samuel Yankee, T. M. Poindexter, Edmund McCraw, Wather Flournoy, Robert F. Campbell, Samuel Clark, Miller W. Easley, Samuel Crump, Nicholas Hutchins, Charles Smith, William Caryle, Alvis Lynch, John Trandle. These were the Justices before the war of the rebellion. During those years of war civil laws were almost suspended. After .the war we have had as Justices : John C. Allen, Charles Smith, Harvey G. Hickton, Daniel B. Borrow, Easthan Allen, Daniel Joyce, David Faulkenberry and James Thompson. The office of constable has been filled, in addition to D. L. Cadle, by his son, Patterson Cadle, Woodson Tucker, James Dealy, George Webb, Andrew Chamberlain, Henry Long, Jr., William Spainhower, Wilson D. Round and Milton Cash, the present incumbent.

Lone Jack

The plat of the town of Lone Jack was made and the town laid off at the request of Warham Easley, and it is situated in Van Buren township, on the dividing line between ranges 19 and 20 in township 47, being a part of the northwest quarter of southwest quarter of Sec. 19, containing twelve acres ^^^\, including three acres owned by James Finlay, and subdivided into streets, lots and alleys. The main street runs east and west and is sixty feet wide. It bears the signatures of James Firilay and Warham Easley, and dated April 8, 1841.

When the township was organized in 1837, the place of voting was fixed at Beattie's store, on the site of the present town of Lone Jack. The first to build a cabin on that site was 'Squire Bridges. Emigrating from Tennessee he first settled and built his cabin in 1831 on Sec. 32, Tp. 47, R. 29 - a part of the Fish or Kreeger farm, southeast of Lone Jack. In 1832 he sold to John Beeler, and in the winter of that year built north of the lone tree, on the southwest quarter of the northwest quarter of Sec. 19, a very short distance north of George H. Shanhan's present residence. Not having teams enough to break prairie and to haul rails and fence it, he cleared a field a mile or two north and fenced it with the rails and brush that grew upon it, and there he made his corn for two or three years. In 1856 he sold to Jasper Hopper, and he to Pamphaey Byram.

In 1835-6 Galen Cave, Warham Easley and John Snow, three brothers-inlaw, came from North Carolina, and entered the land on which the lone Black Jack tree stood, and some hundreds of acres adjoining and contiguous, and being men of energy, some means, and some help in the way of slaves, soon made

In the winter of 1836 a Mr. Beattie built a storehouse, the first in the township. This house was built of logs, a large, roomy building, and the logs were cut on what was called the condemned land in Cass county ; that is, land not yet surveyed or brought into market, and which, it was said, had been returned as not worth surveying. The goods were brought into the house in the spring of 1837. Reuben B. Fulkerson, a brother-in-law of Senator Cockrell, was the first clerk or salesman, and he still lives a few miles from' the town in Johnson county. After Beattie had sold goods for three years, Jas. Findlay, a son-in-law of Hon. Judge John F. Ryland, sold goods in the same house until about the year 1846, when Major George W. Tate, and Col. John W. Tate, his son, succeeded him, and sold goods there until near the opening up of the great rebellion. In the meantime there were othe4- rival merchants, and in 1843 or 1844 Warham Easley laid off «ome lots and christened the newly laid off town Lone Jack, by which name it had already been known for years. The post-office, establishd'd in 1838, bore the name Lone Jack. The store was called the Lone Jack store, and the country round was called the Lone Jack neighborhood. And why? Simply on account of the solitary lone Black Jack tree that stood on that elevated ridge, dividing the waters of the Missouri from those of the Osage. That tree could be seen for miles in almost every direction, and in the early days was a noted landmark to the hunter and traveler when no roads were in the country. But the tree is gone. It died in 1861. The men, too, who first made their homes here are gone. Bridges left in 1836 or 1837, and his intimate friends soon lost sight of him altogether. He went, none knew where.

Byram died many years ago and the farm fell into the hands of G. W. Tate ; he too has been dead nearly twenty years. Galen Caves, who entered the land on which the tree grew, and John Snow, his brother-in-law, died in a few days of each other in 1851, with that dread disease cholera. Warham Easley, who bought the tract on which the tree stood, of his brother in-law Cave, and laid a part of it out in town lots, has been dead five or six years.

The first doctor to stop in the town for practice was a Dr. Profontaine, we believe, in 1839. He staid but a short time. He was one of the band engaged in the robbery and murder of the Mexican merchant Chaves, at Cow Creek, as he was on the way from Santa Fe to Westport.

After him there were Doctors Horn, Talbot, Patterson, Warren, Cruise, E. D. and J. B. Harris; and afterward. Doctors Wash burn e, Porter, Benton, Winfrey and othens, up to the year 1861.

In the year 1847 Stephen Easley built near the town a saw mill on the tread wheel principle. It was an old fashioned sash saw and did some sawing, but it was not a success and soon fell into disuse. It was, however, turned into a grist-mill, and carding machine and under the management of the present excellent miller, Noah Hunt, did good work.

In 1859 or i860 Dr. E. D. Porter built the first steam flouring mill in the township. It was just west of the village, at the large spring near Henry Longs, an mill with two run of burrs. John Daniel and Nathan Hunt furnished the means to build, and the mill fell into their hands and was run by them until 1863, when it was abandoned under the stern mandate of order number eleven, and burned by armed marauders a few days afterward.

The first and only church built at Lone Jack was built by the Baptists in 1849, and the first sermon preached from its pulpit was by Henry Farmer, in January, 1850. It is a frame building, 40x50 feet, roughly plastered, and plainly seated. Although owned by the Baptists, other denominations of Christians preached in it, whenever they desired to do so, if not occupied by the And in consideration of the Christian church, having plastered the house, they are secured by a written contract in the use of the house, for worship, one-fourth of the time. There being no town hall it is also frequently used on public occasions for lectures, township and political meetings, etc.

In 1866 Noah Hunt built just east of the town a steam flouring mill and carding machine, which he still runs, and which has been profitable to him and beneficial to the community.

The seminary or school building in Lone Jack was built by Dr. E. Porter, in 1858-9, as a private seminary. After his death it was bought by the school district, and is now the public property of district number - , Tp. 47, R. 30. It is a neat two story building, with which any school district should be content, the upper room being sometimes used by the Masonic brotherhood.

In looking back over the fifty years that have passed since the first settlement of the county, and calling to mind the names of those earliest settlers, we are reminded of many incidents in their history, that would perhaps be interesting or amusing to the men of the present and coming generations. Nearly all of those first and early pioneers have passed away ; and in many cases they and their descendants have been lost sight of by the few who yet remain ; and it is only by a few old gray headed ones that they are remembered as ever having aided or taken part in opening up a wilderness land, and preparing it for the homes and the civilization of to-day. A few reminiscences will now be given of those early pioneers. Some of them had been among the pioneer settlers in counties or States farther east, and when settlements crowded upon them too closely, had come farther west, to be where the deer and other wild game were abundant. Others were young men just commencing in life, who had taken Horace Greeley's advice long before he gave it, and had come west to grow up with the country.

David G. Butterfield was an old settler of Lafayette county. After moving to Jackson, and living almost alone at the head of Big Creek for some years, he moved further south, and in 1836 was elected the first assessor of Cass county, then Van Buren. In a very few years, he sold out again, and moved still farther south.

John, William and James Savage, and their brother-in-law, William Warden, were four of the early settlers of Jackson county, and they were four of the fifteen who, with their famiHes, in the war of 1812, lived together in Cole's Fort, on the present site of Boonville.

William Warden and Hezekiah Warden, Hiram and Bowling Savage, were also among the early settlers here, and, according to Slaven's History of Cooper county, they were four of the seventeen pupils that attended the first school ever taught in that county, which school was taught by John Savage, in the shade of a tree, the pupils sitting on a log; the site of which school is now covered by the city of Boonville.

William Savage, as has been seen, was a candidate for the State Senate in 1834, and, though he was not elected, he had the votes of nearly all his neighbors. James Savage, or old Jimmy, as he was familiarly called, came early to Jackson county, and built or bought a small water mill on the Little Blue, and did the early grinding and preaching in that part of the country. He sold his mill in 1833 to a Mr. Hawkins, who was afterward murdered there, by his wife and a Dutchman, named Gaston. After selling his farm and mill. Savage moved to Big Creek, in the early spring of 1834, and was elected captain of a company of volunteer minutemen, who had volunteered to resist the threatened return of the Mormons to the county. He had seen service in the war of 1812 ; he had fought the Indians in those troublous times, and had used the rifle and flint- lock all his life ; hence, the choice of the old Baptist preacher for a leader. And as the old captain has long ago gone to his rest, and the most of the brave volunteers he commanded have gone too, it may not be amiss, for one of the very few who remain, before he too goes where they are, to put upon record some of the services and doings of that brave captain, and his equally brave compatriots, in the campaign of 1834. It was in the month of April (says the narrator) that rumors became rife, that the followers of the prophet, Jo. Smith who had been expelled from the county the preceding autumn, were being strongly re-enforced from New York and Ohio, and would, in a short time, re-possess themselves of their former homes, and of the whole of Jackson county. About the last of that month, at a meeting of the citizens of the Big Creek settlements at the house Hezekiah Warden, a company of volunteer minutemen was organized, with James Savage, captain, Wm. English, lieutenant, and Andrew Wilson ensign, and each volunteer was enjoined to keep his horse and gun in readiness. Each week the rumors became more alarming, as to the preparations making on the north of the river, to cross over and exterminate the Gentiles on the south. Our patriotic captain resolved to see for himself, and passing himself as a horse hunter, he crossed the Big Muddy, entered the enemy's camp, made his observations, returned and reported : that the enemy was already strong, and growing in strength ; that the Mormons were much better provided than the Israelites were in the days of Saul, for they had of blacksmiths quite a number, and that those smiths were busily engaged in repairing guns, and in making swords, spears and other dire and dangerous weapons of war; that he had not only penetrated the enemy's camp, but had entered the house of one of the principal elders (Partridge), and, by leading his wife to believe him a brother, had learned from her that large re-enforcements were shortly expected, and that the promised land would soon be possessed. The whole county of Jackson was now in arms, and the adjoining one, Lafayettee, was appealed to for help. General Samuel C. Owens was appointed commander-in-chief and generalissimo of the army of occupation and defense ; and he was notified that the Big Creek battalion - Captain James Savage - was at his service whenever needed.

There being no post-offices or post roads, the news was brought from the seat of war every few days by couriers, mounted upon swift-footed horses and mules and thus the citizens were informed of what was transpiring. The failure of the Peace Congress at Liberty, to which General Owens, Judge Fristoe, Smallwood Nolan and Smallwood V. Nolan, with other prominent citizens of Jackson had been sent. Also how an attempt had been made to drown those delegates on their return.- How the ferry boat was scuttled and sunk in crossing, and Lynch, Bradbury, Carey, and two others drowned ; and how narrowly the other delegates and passengers escaped by goodluck, and by good swimming. At length on the morning of the 20th of June, David Dealy, Jun., arrived with a dispatch to the captain, caUing for his promised battalion. By three o'clock it was assembled at the house of the captain, and soon after fifty strong commenced its march to Independence. Through the almost pathless prairies, it wended its way; night came, and by the light of the moon the march was continued. Arriving at Independence late at night but no army of occupation was there, not even a sentinel, to halt us as we approached. The town seemed wrapped in sleep, with no one to bid us welcome, or hail us as deliverers come to their rescue.

Some demonstration being made by the trampling of horses, or the murmur of disappointed soldiers, a man in nightdress appeared on the street and demanded whence we came. He was soon recognized asL. W. Boggs, Lieutenant-Governor, and afterward elected Governor of the State. He informed us that the army was at the river guarding the ferries and crossings, to prevent the crossing of the enemy ; but that the commander, General Owens, was then in town and at his home. To the commander's house then, our Lieutenant and Orderly (Wm.

H. Moore) repaired to report and receive orders ; but all the orders they received were to let him sleep and not disturb his repose. Then there was some grumbling; and some of the boys said if they were at home, they would stay there ; which, no doubt, has been said by many a volunteer soldier before and since.

Our officers then ordered us to mount and ride back on the road we came. About this time the moon which had shone brightly all the night began to refuse her light, and it became darker and darker, until we were in total darkness. It was. a total eclipse.

Two miles from town the battalion went into camp in Daniel King's woodpasture. Each soldier hitched his horse and lay down on his blanket to sleep, or not to sleep as it might happen. Next morning, after going through a short military drill by our stuttering Lieutenant, we rode again to Independence, and received a more cordial reception. The commander apologized, and excused himself on the ground of his unremitted labors and want of sleep. The citizens spread their tables and opened their corn cribs, and to us was assigned the post of honor, the defense of the town.

In the afternoon the cheering intelligence reached us that a treaty of peace had been concluded, by which the elders of the Mormon faith had agreed to desert from their threatened invasion and leave the people of Jackson in quiet ; and in a short time the army of defense arrived from the river, and marched into town with their six pound cannon, which was drawn up on the square and fired several times to announce the war ended. The volunteer allies from Lafayette received the thanks of the officers, and the whole army was discharged and disbanded, and Captain Savage and his battalion returned home ; and that gray haired veteran lived and died without receiving a land warrant or pension for his services either in this or the war of i8i2.

As has been said elsewhere, he was preacher and pastor of the first Baptist church ever organized between Little Blue and the Osage River, and for that and other churches growing out of it, he continued to preach until about the year 1847, when he moved to Grayson county, Texas, where he died and where some of ids family yet live.

Daniel Graham was the second person to settle in the township, and continued to live on the farm he first settled until after the war of the rebellion, increasing the number of his acres, the number of his slaves, and other personal effects. The war, however, and its effects took away his slaves, and much of his other possessions, and in 1866 he sold his valuable farm to P. S. Alexander, the present live stock man of the township, and moved to Texas. There he met with losses and misfortunes and moved back to Cass county, where losses and misfortunes still followed him ; till now in his old age with a large family by a second wife, he is hving in the northeast corner of Cass county, about six miles from his old home in straitened circumstances, but with a memory stored full of incidents of pioneer life in Jackson county. He has two sons, David and Ambers, living and doing well on a part of his old homestead, sold or given to them before the war. David claims to have lived longer in the township than any other person living or dead.

Charles Hopper, or Big Charley, was among the first to locate near the lone tree. He selected his home there in 1830 and moved to it in i83i;and like Graham, continued to add to it, until he became a large landholder, as well as one of the greatest hunters of the country. It was said he could kill more deer than any one man in this or the adjoining counties. He was one of the prominent men among the pioneers, and a leading member in society, and of the First Methodist church in the township. In 1835 Greenville Crisp, Anthony Bledsoe and some other Big Creek boys returned from hunting and trapping in the mountains, with Walker Sublette and others, and told such marvelous tales of California, and the mountain life that Big Charley took the California fever (the first that had ever had it in the county). It stuck to him, and a few years after with Col. Bartleson's company he crossed the plains and the mountains to the Pacific, and after some months spent in exploring, returned, but not to rernain. Some years after he sold out his farm to John Darniel, and moved to the land of gold before that gold was discovered, and is yet living there a wealthy man.

Jasper Hopper, who was an uncle to Big Charley, and also his father-in-law, with his sons, Little Charley, William and Tuck, were all among the early settlers, all of them like Nimrod - mighty hunters, and all of them gone to California. Uncle Jasper (as he was called) died there a few years ago at the age of loo years, and it is said was a hunter almost to the last. In his younger years he had spent some time in hunting and trapping in the mountains of New Mexico, and with trading with the natives at Santa Fe, and could tell many a cranky tale of his life among the Spaniards and Arapahoe Indians.

Peace to his memory (says the narrator). Many hundreds of miles he reposes, from that hospitable home where I first knew him, but his companion in that home, the wife of his youth, reposes just across the field, in plain view of my door, and some of his children, companions of my youth are there too.

William Crawford moved to the township in the spring of 1831. He was the son of an Irish widow woman of New York City. He there entered in the regular army of the United States, served his five years and was discharged at Fort Gibson about the year 1828. He there became acquainted with young Daniel Graham, who had wandered out there after his mother married Butterfield, and when Dan returned to his step-father's cabin, on the head of Big Creek, Crawford came with him and the two somehow became acquainted with and married two widowed sisters in Lafayette county. Their names originally were Celia and Leah Hicklin. They had married two brothers, Richard and Edmundson, and after the death of the brothers, transferred their affections, their slaves and other possessions to the two friends, Graham and Crawford, and with them came to the vicinity of the Lone tree. Crawford's wife died many years ago, and he sold his farm (the one on which Wesley Yankee lives) to Lion Bradley, and moved to Bates county, where he died in 1878. He was not of the ordinary class of backwoods hunters, but a man of intelligence, and better read than most of the early settlers were.

David Dealy, though not the oldest settler in the township, was an older settler in the county than any of the others. He had settled in the Six Mile, near Fort Osage, and as soon as he was permitted to do so, came west of the Little Blue, he being one of the first to plow the rich soil "between the Blues," and is said to have sowed the first wheat in that locality. He afterward settled south of Blue Springs, on the old Cowherd farm; and in 1834 came to the farm where he died, four miles northwest of Lone Jack. He was the father of twenty-six children, all of the same mother, some of whom yet live in the county. He died in 1878. Few men in the county were possessed of more muscular power than David Dealy, and very few retained it to the age that he did.

Thomas Hamlin built the first cabin on what is called the Rheems farm Sec. 25, Tp. 47, R. 30, or at least he was the first to Hve there. Wm. Adams entered the land on which it stood, but exchanged with Hamlin for lands in R. 31. Hamlin moved there in 1832, and opened a farm, and the first plowing that the writer of these recollections ever did in Missouri was on that farm, when he hired to work for Hamlin for ten dollars per month. Hamlin was one of those plain, hard working men, who after marrying in Tennessee, resolved to come west and grow up with the country. An old friend, Joab Powell, assisted him in the selection of a home in the new settlement. He did well for a few years, when, like many others desiring to do better, he sold his farm to John Daniel, and moved to Arkansas.

large brick house which is still there. He also built the first tread wheel mill in the township, which was considered a great help to the citizens, and a great advantage to the country; and for many years that mill supplied a large scope of country with its meal and flour. The great drawback was that each customer, when he went to mill, had to take the motive power with him in the shape of a team, four or five horses or oxen being necessary to make the mill go. It was more reliable, however, than the water-mills of the county, as they always stopped when the rain ceased. In 1856 Daniel sold his large and well improved farm to Wm. Robinson, and moved to the farm which he had bought from Charley Hopper. At the commencement of the great civil war he was the largest landholder and taxpayer in the township. As a result of the war he lost his slaves and much other property, and afterward divided among his children the greater part of what remained. He died in 1879, at the residence of his son-inlaw, John Shanhan, on the old Charley Hopper farm. His widow Rachel, (a daughter of John Beeler,) resides there with her daughter, and she and her sister Orleana Yankee, and her aunt Rachel Noel, have lived longer in the township than any others, except, perhaps, David Graham. They came from Tennessee in the fall of 1832 ; he was born in the township in the spring of the same year.

The oldest man living in the township on the ist of March, i88t, is John Hunter, aged ninety-two years. He emigrated from Surry county, N. C, in 1835, and located near Lone Jack, in the spring of 1836, on Sec. 29, Tp. 47, R. 29, where he has resided ever since, with the exception of eighteen months during the great civil war, when, with others, by the mandate of Order No. 11, he was expelled from his home and left it under circumstances distressing indeed, being compelled, on the day that he left, to assist with his own hands in burying his two only sons, a son-in-law, a grandson and two other near neighbors, who, on that day, Sept. 6th, 1863, met a violent death at the hands of armed men.

The oldest lady in the township on March, 1,1881, was Mrs. Mary Rice, who died March 11, 1881, aged eighty-nine years, widow of Enoch Rice, who came from Tennessee to Jackson county in 1833. Those two aged persons (Mr. Hunter and Mrs. Rice), have made their homes on adjoining farms, and have hved within three hundred yards of each other the principal part of the time since 1836.

Physical Features, Etc

The features of the country is diversified with prairie and timber land. The elevated ridge or table land dividing the waters of the Missouri from those of the Osage, passes through the township from east to west near its center. On the south are the head branches of Big Creek, and on the north those of Sni-a-bar ; and on these streams is an ample supply of timber for farming and other purposes, the timber and brush lands of the Sni-a-bar, being considered the best tobacco lands of the county, if not of the State.

Van Burren has no railroad completed in its territory. The Lexington, Lake & Gulf Railroad, for which the township in 1870 voted $50,000 in bonds, has been graded and bridged from Lexington to Butler, since which, nothing more has been done.