Virgil Township

Virgil Township

Anrgil township is composed of congressional township 35, range 29, and was named for Virgil City, the little village in the southeast corner. Its eastern line is a portion of the line be¬ tween Cedar and AYrnon counties.

Clear creek runs diagonally, from southwest to west of north¬ east through this township, its course being generally tortuous and irregular. This stream is sometimes called by the old In¬ dian name, "Peshaw\" It was a noted water course among the Indians. On either side was a considerable body of thick tim¬ ber, which sheltered flocks of turkeys, herds of deer and other game, and was often resorted to by them as a hunting ground. The land on either side of Clear creek is generally broken and stony.

On Clear creek, about the center of the township (se. sw. see. 16), are two fine sulphur springs. The stream bubbles up from a dark gray sand and is very strong. A slialy bed containing iron pyrites (sulphur mingled with iron), occurs below the spring, but Prof. Norwood doubts that this has anything to do with the properties of the water. The springs afford a great deal of the water, which is pleasant to the taste.

Early History

Judge James Overstreet was the best known old settler of Virgil township, although he did not come until about 1844, having previously lived in Badger township and Cedar county. He changed his location frequently, but finally located on sec¬ tion 13 and at the sulphur springs. He was a Virginian and went South in 1861.

It may that Dr. Elisha Smith was the first settler in the town¬ ship. In the year 1840 he came from Indiana to the southern part of the township (section 35) and settled near Mulberry creek. The next fall half a dozen families settled on Horse creek. Dr. Smith practiced his profession through the country for a number of years. In 1853 he went to California and finally died in Oregon.

In about 1842, Capt. Andrew Girard came to the southwest part of the township (section 30) and located on Clear creek, at the point since known as the Girard ford. The captain was from Ashtabula county, Ohio. He was a Catholic and in 1846 and afterwards Fathers Bax and Sehoeppenhorst, the Jesuit mission¬ aries among the Osages, came from the mission in Kansas and attended the spiritual wants of his family. Perhaps they said mass at his house, for there were a few other Catholics in the country. Captain Girard removed to California in about 1852.

It is quite difficult to trace and establish the few other pio¬ neer settlers here. There were but few of them, however, and they changed their locations in a short time, and had but little influence in the development of the county.

early day by Rev. Arbuckle, of the Christian denomination. Hon. Robert Jordan, of Cedar, was one of the first school teachers. A man named Callison was another pioneer teacher who la¬ bored in the southern part of the township. A Mr. Reed was an early instructor and a good one.

A sad case of drowning, in about 1850, is remembered. Charlie Overstreet, a promising young man, and the son of Judge 0\ erstreet, attempted to swim his horse across Clear creek at the Girard ford. The stream was high; the horse and its rider were swept away and both were drowned. The casualty occurred on Sunday, and the following Thursday Charlie was to be mar¬ ried to Tempie McKnight, the daughter of the old pioneer, Abram McKnight. The poor girl was well nigh heart-broken at the fate of her betrothed, and received the deepest sympathy of everybody. Judge Overstreet gave her all of Charlie's per¬ sonal effects and the portion he had intended for him, saying, You are in effect Charlie's widow, and entitled to what be¬ longs to him and what I intended for him."

The Nottingham murder in this township occurred in 1854, and Dr. Nottingham was hung in November, 1855. The name of Mrs. Nottingham 's first husband was David Duncan.

Dr. Badger asserted that the oldest hunter that ever lived in this country was John Skidmore, who lived on the site of Virgil City for many years and died about 1850, at the age of 85. He came to Missouri with Daniel Boone, and assisted in the con¬ struction of one of the first forts in the Howard county settle¬ ments. For some years after Mr. Skidmore settled here he was visited annually by Col. Nathan Boone, son of Daniel Boone, and an officer in the regular army for a considerable time; he died in Greene county in 18o6. Colonel Boone had great respect for Mr. Skidmore, because of his former association with his (Boone's) father, the noted pioneer and explorer.

Mr. Skidmore informed Dr. Badger, with whom he was very intimate, that he had trapped for beaver on the Arkansas and Red rivers prior to the year 1800 ; that he had been the father of twenty-one children, twenty of whom were twins, and all by one mother; that he had outlived most of them, and that he had accumulated in all of his wanderings and experiences only about $800, on the interest from which, together with what he could raise on a few acres of ground near Virgil, he contrived to sub- sist. In bis last days he lived alone in a small cabin near the present site of Virgil, in the borders of Cedar; he had two sons in that county.

Of the first elections in what was then Clear Creek township, Bates county, Dr. Badger said they were held at Judge Over¬ street's sulphur springs, then about the center of the district. A short piece of board, or puncheon, for the table, a sheet of foolscap paper and a pen, placed under a thick shade near the spring (elections then were in August), pointed out the place of voting. The judges and clerks were always within hail¬ ing distance at a pony race, shooting match, or perhaps listen¬ ing to an anecdote related by some candidate between drinks. Yet there was never any tampering with returns.

The voting was done on the plain old courageous viva voce plan. Each voter walked up, called out the name of the candi¬ date for whom he wished to vote, and the clerks made a "tally mark" accordingly. When the polls closed the result was easily ascertained, and it was a matter of record ever after for whom every voter had expressed his preference. Matters were fre¬ quently simplified by the announcement of the voter in this wise : "I vote the Democratic ticket, state and county, straight;" or "I vote the Whig ticket straight." When an ancient mugwump wished to "scratch" a particular candidate he called out: "I vote the Democratic (or Whig) ticket straight, except John Smith for sheriff; I vote for Thomas Brown," etc. The viva voce method was abolished and voting by ballot substituted during the Civil War, and the first election in Missouri where ballots were exclusively used was in November, 1863.

Some of the old-time voters at Overstreet's were Overstreet himself, old "Black Hawk" (A. M. Markham), Muke Box, Dunnagan, Swanson, Jarrell, Welch, Smith, Rose, Collins, Ray, Mas¬ sey and Martin. Of these old Muke Box was a Howard county pioneer, who in 1812-15 was an inmate of Fort Hempstead, in the Missouri river bottom, in that county.

In 1850 a store and blacksmith shop were established on Clear creek (section 31) in the southwest corner of the town¬ ship. Here, in about 1855, Ceorge Pope stabbed Wooliver in a fight at the blacksmith shop. Pope was a cripple, lame in one

A man named Martin built a mill on Clear creek, on the Faulkner place (section 21), at a very early day. Dr. Badger said it was running when he came to the country, in 1844. It was but a 4 ' corn-cracker " and the dam was made of brush. Kindred Pearson bought the mill.

During The War

In the early fall of 1862 fiv6 men on their way to the Con¬ federate army were killed at the old Butler ford, now called the Smith ford, on Clear creek, in the southwest corner of the township. It is said that the time was the day after John Camp and others were killed near Montevallo. Two of the men, Hornsinger and Kennedy, were from this county; the others were from Bates. It is said that these men were captured by Frank Wvrick, James Moore. Bob Kane, Jim Millender and thirteen other men from this section, who were in the Federal service, never buried ; even after the war the bleached bones lay scat¬ tered about on the ground. A very probable version of this in¬ cident is that there were but three men and that they were captured at the ford and taken nearly two miles northeast, in the vicinity of the Baptist Church, and killed, and that Wyrick and his men were watching the ford with a view of intercepting recruits who were going to Coffee. Still another version says the killing was done by Bacon Montgomery 's men.

Valentine Mashaney, who had come to this township from St. Charles, was murdered by the Federals; some say by the Third Wisconsin, for harboring bushwhackers, while others as¬ sert that the killing was by Wvrick 's men and was for money; Mashaney was a potter and a few days previously had sold

In the fall of 1862, Air. Faulkner, an old and prominent cit¬ izen, was brutally murdered at his home by some Kansas troops. He was shot down in his barnyard. The charge against him was "feeding bushwhackers." The facts were that some irregular parties had encamped on his place from time to time, but of course he was powerless to prevent them.

Frank Wyrick lived in the extreme western part of the town¬ ship, nearly a mile east of Greene's Springs. Ilis father-in-law, Janies Moore, lived near by. Before the war Wyrick was a quiet, peaceable citizen and generally respected. When the troubles came on he was a Union man, but announced that if Missouri seceded he would go with his state. As Missouri did not secede, he remained loyal to the Federal Government. His former neigh¬ bor, Mr. James Lancaster, says Wyrick was offered a lieutenant's commission if he would enter the rebel service, but he refused. When Price's army came into the county just before the Drywood fight, Wyrick and other Union men were made prisoners and taken out to the camp. Here he escaped the night after the fight during the thunder storm. The next day he was searched for. As he lay in the tall prairie grass, his neighbor's son, Jim Millender, saw him but consideratelv looked the other way and did not betray him. Wyrick made good his escape and at once went on the war-path. He alleged that he was badly treated while a prisoner, threatened with hanging, and that had he not escaped he would have met the fate of Chronic, who was hung in the border of Barton county. lie raised a squad of men in this and Cedar county and it is said he killed fourteen Confederates before he left the country in the fall of 1863, when he and Moore removed to California. One of his men was Jim Millender, who saved his life on Dry wood, and who deserted Price's army to join him.

Mt. Hebron Baptist. This church was organized in 1868 by Rev. G. M. Lamkins. P. R. Encell and wife, William Brvant and wife, Lucinda Lancaster, S. L. Lancaster, E. F. Lancaster, Mr. Quisenbury and wife, and Henry Siebler and wife were among the first members. A frame church building costing $750 was constructed in the same year as the organization. This is said to have been the first Baptist church building erected in the county.

Sulphur Springs Baptist. The organization of this church was effected in July, 1867. The original members were Alfred Ryan and wife, Moses Busby and wife, Richard R. Hargrave and

The village of Virgil City is located in the southeastern cor¬ ner of the township, on the county line, a part of the village being in Cedar. That portion of the town in Vernon was laid out on the land of Andrew Ingraham; in Cedar, on the land of James Henderson.

The town was laid out in September, 1866, by Virgil W. Kimball and Andrew Ingraham, and Mr. Kimball, the real founder, gave it his Christian name. John S. Lewis, of Cedar county, built the first house, which was used as a store building. Other business houses were put up soon afterwards by Murphy & Carroll, William A. Ackason and Johnson & Wallace. Drs. Alfred Barter and J. W. Cochran were the first physicians. Cap¬ tain Hubbell established a hotel, which he conducted for many years. Some years afterward Mr. Kimball built a large brick residence.

For a year or two after its establishment Virgil City grew quite rapidly. In 1869 more business was transacted here than at Nevada, and the town had a population of 400 or 500. Its business men were enterprising and it promised to become an important point. A daily line of stage coaches ran through from Sedalia to Carthage and hundreds of travelers, investors, and home-seekers visited it. Parker, in his " Missouri As It Is," (1867), mentions it as an example of the rapid growth of towns in the West. The site is on the old road from Boonville to the Granby lead mines, a well-known thoroughfare before the war. On petition of John D. Reed and others the village was incor¬ porated September 5, 1867.

In 1867 a Masonic lodge (Hesperian, No. 286,) was established. An Odd Fellows' lodge was organized here at an early day. The Presbyterians had an organization here at an early day and held meetings in a building originally constructed for a store¬ house. Subsequently the Christian denomination built a good church.