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THE FIRST DAYS OF KIDDER
THE REAM FAMILY AT KIDDER - 1867
KIDDER NEAR CENTENARIAN
THE BEGINNING OF THAYER COLLEGE
EARLY DAYS AT KIDDER INSTITUTE
BARWICK CHAPEL AND THE PLUMBS
THE McKEE FAMILY IN LOVELY RIDGE IN THE SEVENTIES
MRS. HELEN L. BOOTH'S YOUNGER DAYS IN OHIO AND CALDWELL COUNTY
TO LOVELY RIDGE IN A COVERED WAGON
FARMING IN LOVELY RIDGE LOVELY RIDGE NEIGHBORS

THE FIRST DAYS OF KIDDER
Narrator: Miss Nannie Beaumont of Kidder, Missouri

Miss Nannie Beaumont is a daughter of James Beaumont who came to Kidder
October 1860, when nothing was there but the depot and a start on the hotel.
Mr. and Mrs. Beaumont and their little daughter Nellie aged nine months
stayed in the depot till the hotel was finished. This Hotel was the pro-
perty of the Kidder Land Company and was kept by A.W. Rice, Mrs. Beaumont's
father. This Kidder Land Company (New England Land Company) was a New Eng-
land corporation and induced a large number of "Yankees" from Massachusetts
to settle. George S. Harris was the superintendent of this company and laid
out the town, he was a cousin of James Beaumont which explains why the
Beaumonts came from Illinois very soon after the town was laid out August 3,
1860. The Rice family was the first family to live in the town. At first,
the town seemed a family affair with this Harris-Rice-Beaumont set-up. Mr.
Beaumont was station and express agent, Post master in fact about everything.
He afterwards ran a general store with Ben Laribee under the firm name - J.
Beaumont and Company. The two men never disagreed in their long partnership.
They were located on site of the Farmers Bank.

The Rice Hotel or "Kidder House" (where Nellie Beaumont lives as a child)
was a well known hostelry of the early sixties. It stood west of the old
Kidder Bank. Their nearest house at the start was the Judge P.S. Kenney
mansion nearly two miles to the west. It still stands, and is well known
to this day as a land mark for travelers.

In time other buildings arose. One of these was the Drug Store kept by
Worth. He sold out to Winston Bros. and they to Osborn. Charlie Shaw
worked for Osborn and finally bought him out. That Drug Store was mid way
in the block. In 1880 occurred the Shaw fire and Mr. Charlie Shaw put up
the brick drug store on the well known Shaw Corner. Which he and his
brother Frank kept till his death a few years ago.

During the later part of the Civil War the Kidder Hotel changed hands, M.E.
Conger being proprietor. An interesting old dance invitation (now in the
possession of Mrs. James Kautz) inviting her Mother, Fanny Dodge to attend
a cotillion party to be given at the Kidder House January 20, 1863, with
three dance managers, all Soldiers; and supper at 10 P.M.

While Kidder was a younger town than Hamilton it soon became a bigger one;
but the Kidder Land Company made a sad mistake in placing too high a price
on its lots which sent home buyers away to cheaper sites.

Interviewed August 1934.

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THE REAM FAMILY AT KIDDER - 1867
Narrator: Adam Ream, 80, of Hamilton

Mr. Ream was born Dec. 1854, the son of Conrad Ream and Amanda Grable. On
March 13, 1867, the Ream family got off the train at Kidder, and Adam, the
boy of 12, saw a very small town.

The family had decided to move west from Summit County, Ohio. They already
had moved to Stevenson County, Ill. The story of how they chose to come to
Kidder is peculiar. One of their old Ohio friends, John Hallam, a teacher
and preacher in Greensburg, Summit Co., had gone to Omaha for a job. On
account of poor railway connections, he missed the job, and got on the train
to return. When the family was near St. Joe one of the children became sick.
It was discovered that it had scarlet fever and the conductor forced the
whole family to get off at Kidder. When the entire family had recovered
from the disease, the father was in love with Kidder people and Kidder
country and wanted to stay. He bought a farm northeast of the present Allen
School and afterwards taught school in Hamilton in the old school on the
Methodist parsonage site walking over every day.

He wrote back to his Ohio friends about the country and they came and bought
farms. There were the Heldbrand family, east of Winston, John Rohrbough,
near the Allen School, Michael Young, near Winston, Henry and Ephraim Koonse.
Henry H. Brown bought two and one-half miles southeast of Hamilton. He
later married the widow Clampitt. The Conrad Ream family bought one and
one-half miles southwest of Kidder, paying $3,000.00 for 233 acres. They
bought it of Herman Townsend, whose predecessor had entered the land. It
had a log cabin which they used for nine months. Now, Kelley Strickland
owns one-half of it and Jesse Ream (Adam's son) the other half. Conrad Ream
proceeded at once to fence. He bought 1200 feet of fencing, paying $39.75.

When the Reams came in 1867, Kidder had about twenty houses. One mile west
of Kidder was the Kenney mansion around which much local interest has
centered, and about which arose the Kenney-Hemry quarrel in the early
eighties. To this same P.S. Kenney belonged the three-story frame on site
of the present garage opposite the old Shaw corner. This was the site of
one of the first wells. The first story of the building was Kenney's
general store, the second was the home of Kenney's mother, the third was
the Catholic Chapel for services once a month. A little earlier, the
services were held in the mother's apartment and the third story was the
office of the land company. Then there was a one story store where the
Farmers Bank is, a general store owned by D.G. Chubbuck's widow and run by
Ben Laribee, his brother-in-law. In 1867, James Beaumont's term as
postmaster ran out and he and Laribee became partners in the above general
store. Fitzpatrick had a wagon shop on the street north of Front Street.

Mr. Ream attended the one-room Kidder school several years, it being on the
same lot as the present school. Some of his teachers were Miss Mary Sackett,
Charlie Fletcher, C.W. Smylie who was a farmer teacher living near the
present Manson district and the father of Prof. C.N. Smylie, now of Carlton
College, Minn. They afterwards lived in Hamilton on the corner northeast of
the park. Mr. Ream also was a student at old Thayer College both down town
under Van Collem and out on the hill in the new building when Dr. Cochran
came from Grinnell. But he grew tired of school and did not stay long. The
enrollment varied from thirty to sixty with three and four teachers. Dr.
Cochran had a charming young lady daughter, Minnie, who taught music. They
lived north of Thayer Hall in a house built by Miss Mary Sackett who also
built the one-story part of the Burbank home. The old Cochran home later
was known as the Prof. Burmeister house (Prof. Burmeister and his wife
taught music at Kidder Institute) and is now the property of Sterling Shaw
(son of Prof. G.W. Shaw).

Mr. Ream talked about the church history of Kidder. The Catholics, as had
been said, met in the Kenney Hall. The Congregationalists being the
predominant class in Kidder ran the town in those days; hence they took the
public school building for their church-house and wouldn't let anyone else
in. G.G. Perkins was the pastor, afterwards a pastor in the church at
Hamilton. Little by little the Yankee element in Kidder decreased, either
by death or removal elsewhere and the church dwindled. Mrs. Purple, mother
of Ed Purple, the wealthy stove manufacturer in Chicago, was a great worker
in it and for her sake Ed gave much money to its support. Now it is unused.

The Methodists held monthly services in the home of J.G. Thompson. Kidder
and Hamilton at that time were on one circuit. He finally moved to Hamilton
and bought land from the present Methodist Church corner out north to the
Doll home, intending to make it into a Thompson addition. Finally A.H.
Gurney came to Kidder in 1869 and being a strong Methodist, circulated a
subscription paper to raise money to build a church. The Methodist church
had the first church building in Kidder.

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KIDDER NEAR CENTENARIAN
Narrator: Mrs. Eliza (Thornhill) Stephenson Kidder, Missouri

Covered Wagon Days
Indians in Daviess County
Frank James Story

Mrs. Stephenson was born 1834 and almost reached her one hundred years. She
was born in Kentucky and was sixteen years old when her parents left their
farm and brought a dozen slaves and two covered wagons to Missouri settling
near Gallatin in Daviess County. It took them a month to come, but it was
a wonderful trip especially to the youngsters, with out door meals and new
sights every day. After they built their new home she saw Indians but they
were what people called "friendly or begging Indians." By 1860 the
occasional wandering Indians in this section did not bother anyone except
for cooked food.

During the Civil War, the Thornhills sided with the South. One day a body
of Union troops passed their home. Her brother promptly showed his mother's
training by yelling "Hurrah for Jeff Davis." The soldiers quickly scared
him into silence.

She loved to tell a story about Frank James, the famous Missouri bandit. She
had then moved to Kidder. One of the family was called back to Kidder on
account of illness in the home. She got on a train, by mistake, which did
not stop at Kidder. She pled in vain to have the train stop there to let
her off. Suddenly a passenger informed the Conductor that the train WAS
GOING to stop at Kidder. When the astounded Conductor recognized the
passenger as Frank James he naturally stopped the train at once.

Miss Thornhill was married 1862 to William Vallandingham and to A.J.
Stephenson in 1882.

Interview taken 1934 (shortly before her death).

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THE BEGINNING OF THAYER COLLEGE
Narrator: Frank Shaw of Kidder, Mo.

The plan for a College at the New England village of Kidder came from George
S. Harris Superintendent of the Kidder Land Company, as he came there 1860.
Nathaniel Thayer of Boston negotiated a provisional land grant of over six
hundred acres from the above company. But the Civil War and the consequent
depression deferred action. In 1868, the matter was again taken up. By
1869, the building was started and the outside completed but no money was
left for the inside. In 1870, the people were determined to start their
College, building or no building. There was a vacant store on Front Street.
They rented this room and installed Mr. Van Collen, a German from Iowa, a
capable teacher, as head. That year they had about thirty pupils. He lived
north of town. The next year, the newly elected President Dr. S.D. Cochran
of Grinnell Iowa came on. He and Van Collen did not get along well and the
latter left for Iowa where he became well known as an Educator.

It was while the College was on Front Street that Frank Shaw first became a
pupil. The Shaw family lived above that store and they coaxed Frank to be
janitor for his tuition. He also went to the new building "Thayer College"
as it was called from the early friend Nathaniel Thayer. The course of
study was largely preparatory, although the school was called a College.
Most of the pupils were resident pupils; a few out of town boys stayed in
the upper floor of the College building. Latin and Greek were stressed, but
few were advanced enough to take these subjects.

Some of Frank Shaw's schoolmates were H. Huson, Joe Townsend, Leslie Allen
(son of Edmund Allen, the agent for the Land Co. who had an office on the
site of the old Kidder Bank), James Temple, Minnie Lacy, Cassius M. Hoyt.
There were two graduates of old Thayer - one was Carrie L. Smith (Mrs. Utter)
and the other was Levi Chubbuck who died August 1934.

The School lasted four years under Dr. Cochran and then the doors were
closed under foreclosure and the building on the hill was given to bats and
birds. It was reopened in 1884 as Kidder Insitiute under Principal G.S.
Ramsey.

Interviewed August 1, 1934.

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EARLY DAYS AT KIDDER INSTITUTE
Narrator: Wm. Bristow of Daviess County

Mr. Bristow was one of the pupils who attended Kidder Institute when
Professor G.E. Ramsey came in the early eighties to revive it after it had
been closed for several years. There were around 120 in attendance. Some
of those enrolled were Grant McCrary, Tyua Catron, Lettie Martin, Emma
Brown, Chas. Burris, Mary and Della McCrea and Byron Evans. While there he
and three other boys (Grant McCrary, Byron Evans, John and Ames Hubbard)
rented a room and batched which reduced expenses to a very low point. This
was a very common thing to do and many a boy used to joke about baking his bread
before he came to school. As a matter of fact, most of the food was brought
from home already cooked on Monday afternoon; Monday being a holiday.

These days the majority of K.I. students took the common branches with extra
hard training in Arithmetic, History and Grammar to prepare to teach. When
he got this work he took the teachers examination under Professor Brown the
County School Commissioner at Winston.

He was then 22 years old and begun teaching at Swisher School (Daviess
County) at $35 a month. He taught then at Sell, then back to Swisher and
then the Wooderson, making twenty years in all. He quit teaching once and
then they had trouble with some of the big boys at one of these schools they
came for Bill to straighten them out. He did so in a short while.

Out at Wooderson he taught the Sears children among whom was Jesse who is
now a professor at Leland Stanford University and won a Ph. D. degree at
Wisconsin.

Interview August 1934.

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BARWICK CHAPEL AND THE PLUMBS
Narrator: Mrs. A.D. Crockett

Mrs. Alice Plum Crockett the second oldest child of William and Anna Maria
(Knoch) Plumb was born on a farm in the Barwick community in Kidder Township.

Mrs. Plumb was born in Pennsylvania and Mr. Plumb was born in Preston County
now West Virginia March 14 1921.

In 1840 Wm. Plumb left Virginia and settled in southern Ohio where he lived
until 1844 then settling in Caldwell County, Missouri. In 1846 he went to
Mexico with the United States Forces to repress a revolt. In 1847 he
entered the employ of the Government as express carrier in New Mexico also
having charge of grazing camps of Government stock for two years. In 1850
he went to California during the "Gold Rush" and was on the road thirty two
days. He returned to Missouri in 1853 and homesteaded his farm which still
belongs to the family. At the outbreak of the Civil War 1861 he raised a
company of Union Troops of which he was Captain and for meritorious conduct
was made Major. Mr. Plumb's grandfather Wm. Plumb was also Captain in a
company in the Revolutionary War. Major Plumb and Captain Turner were in
the army and were the very closest of friends as long as they lived. They
lived in the same community.

Mr. and Mrs. Plumb were the parents of ten children. These children were
all born and reared in the same house on the same farm which was unusual for
those times. The Childrens names are Adelia, Alice (the Narrator), Clara
and Belle (twins), Arthur, Rose, Harry, Harve and Addie. The four older
girls attended a "Select School" in Cameron. A Mrs. Tiernan and Miss Bell
had this school in their own homes. Mrs. Tiernan would have from thirty to
forty pupils and Miss Bell would have fifteen or twenty. These schools were
considered "the Place" for the children of such parents as the Plumbs. The
younger children attended the Kidder Institute.

Alice married Andy Crockett, a staunch Democrat in the County. Mr. and Mrs.
Crockett are the parents of three children, Clara, a very beautiful girl
died as a young lady, Foster, a son lives on a farm near Kingston and
another son in Oklahoma.

Mrs. Crockett relates a very funny incident: Her father Wm. Plumb was a
very strong Republican and her husband a strong Democrat were arguing
politics one day and they got pretty loud. The Mother begun to fret lest
they would really become angry so insisted they quit. The father says, "Oh
Andy knows something and reads, I like to talk to him, and besides he knows
enough not to get mad."

Mrs. Crockett recalls the organization of the Barwick Chapel. The Barwick
Chapel church was organized sixty years ago, after a ten weeks meeting held
in the school house near the Chapel now called Barwick School house, not the
same building but the same location. Brother Charles Phillips was our
pastor. He lived at Kidder but preached at Mirabile and our School house.
The Meeting was held in the winter. There was sleighing for eight weeks out
of ten weeks. Many came from Kidder, Mirabile, Hamilton also from Cameron.
We had only a small membership before that Meeting, twenty five or thirty.
We had a Membership of a hundred or over at the close of the Meeting.
Brother Phillips did all the preaching only helped by a young man, who led
the singing. It was an old fashioned meeting with shouting and much praying.
All converts testified at their conversion. The church was named for our
Presiding Elder, as they were called then, District Superintendent now,
Brother Barwick. After a few years, Kidder and Barwick had the same Pastor
and so continued for many years. They had a fine working church for many
years and a great many able pastors. Some of them were: Brother Bobee. I
went into the church during his preaching, the year before we built the
church. I was only ten when I joined the church, with an older sister and
four other little girls. I remember two McCrea girls one of them still
lives in the neighborhood, Mrs. Beryl Spurlock.

Brother Caughlin, Jones, and Harrison were especially fine men. Brother
Jones is one of the Ministers that helped conduct my fathers funeral. Our
home was always the home for the Minister but father especially always
insisted most on paying the pastors salary. He said that must be paid just
the same as your grocery bill. When other failed to pay he paid for them.
I know of only three or four of the old members left, a Mrs. Jerry Bell,
she was also a McCrea. They still have preaching twice a month and have a
much smaller membership but still some very active members. A good Aid and
has been a power for good in the neighborhood. The last time I was there,
was at my sisters funeral Mrs. J.E. Petree. She was also married at Barwick,
and as I now remember as the only church wedding.

Interviewed August 1934.

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THE McKEE FAMILY IN LOVELY RIDGE IN THE SEVENTIES
Narrator: Mrs. Alice McKee Shaw, 75, of Kidder

On Dec. 13th, 1872, the Addison McKee family came to Caldwell County. After
service in the Civil War, Mr. McKee, then living in Indiana, resolved to
come west. For seven years, he tried Macon County, Mo., but somehow it was
not what he wanted. He heard of the good bargains in fine farms in Caldwell
County and finally bought what was known for years as the McKee farm in
Lovely Ridge district, west of Hamilton. Mrs. Shaw recalls how the family
hated to leave Indiana to come to Missouri, even the child playmates pitying
them, for in the sixties in Indiana and other states near by Missouri was
regarded as very wild, very wolly and full of Indians and rattlesnakes.

When Mr. McKee came here, he found few farms with fences, poor roads and no
bridges. People in Caldwell County in the seventies preferred not to use
the laid-off roads, as they could drive across the open prairie and save
time and horse-strength. Mr. McKee, like other farmers round here, had his
cattle on the range and the McKee boys had the daily job of rounding them up
in the afternoon. The hunt was over when the last cow was turned homeward.
The old McKee farm now belongs to the narrator, Mrs. Chas. Shaw.

Mrs. Shaw attended school at the second Lovely Ridge school (the one which
burned down). It was her father, Addison McKee, who suggested the pretty
name "Lovely Ridge." Some of her teachers there were Herbert Huson who had
attended Thayer College, Sam Bay (who married a Bray girl and came from
Vinton County, Ohio) and Hettie Martin (first wife of Dr. Tensley Brown).

The McKee family always traded at Kidder with the Beaumont store and with
Pat (P.S.) Kenney who had the largest store building ever put up in Kidder,
a three story affair with the store on the first floor. This burned several
years ago. Mr. Kenney had a store at Breckenridge before coming to Kidder
in 1858. At one time, he owned probably 10,000 acres of land around Kidder,
but bad luck and law suits lost much of it for him. It was due to Pat
Kenney's activity that at one time Kidder was about the most promising town
in the county. (See also Adam Ream paper).

After Mrs. Shaw married Chas. Shaw as his second wife, she moved to Kidder
and became interested in the Kidder Congregational Church. This church was
first held in Thayer College and lastly in the present church building which
stands almost in front of the Shaw home and has been unused for several
years, since the congregation federated with the Methodists in Kidder.

Interviewed July 1934.

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MRS. HELEN L. BOOTH'S YOUNGER DAYS IN OHIO AND CALDWELL COUNTY
Narrator: Mrs. Helen L. Booth, 80, of Hamilton, Missouri

Mrs. Booth was born July 30 1854 in McArthur Ohio, the child of Ellis B.
Pugh and Cassandra Selfridge. Pugh, a birth right Quaker, was a cabinet
maker and wagon maker and had passed through the three steps of apprentice,
journeyman and master workman in his trade. He opened a shop in Moorfield
Ohio and later in McArthur. His name was on most of the wagons and buggies
used in Vinton County from 1850-1880. As a cabinet maker, he made chests,
bureaus, beds, tables and chairs in a period when little furniture was
brought on to sell in the small town store. He also made small articles
like paddles, potato mashers, rolling pins, apple butter stirrers. She
still has left some of these articles which he made over sixty years ago to
help his children begin their kitchen outfits.

Her Mother was an early milliner in McArthur and knew all the tricks of the
millinery trade when one must reshape straws on blocks, sew braid, bleach
straws, make wire and buckram frames, cover them with satin or velvet and
sew on flowers and plumes to nod exactly right. She always kept one or two
apprentices who helped with the house work to pay for their "tuition" in
learning the trade. There was usually at the back door a pile of plaster-
paris hat blocks; for new blocks must be bought every summer and the old
shapes discarded.

The bleaching of hats demanded special knowledge. A wooden box was built
waist high with a pole across the top under the lid. From this hung the
hats to be cleaned. At the bottom was a dish of brimstone, mixed in exactly
right proportion with acids. These recipes were part of the instruction and
were handed on to the apprentice. The mixture was lighted and the bleaching
began. The time depended on the condition of the hat. When the peep-
windows were opened, the white vapor almost suffocated one. Most women made
their straws last two years with a bleaching the second year. So this was
an important part of the business.

Mrs. Booth was her mother's trimmer and began by getting 5 cents a hat,
which was not so bad then for a fifteen year old girl.

She was a small girl during the Civil War and recalls the horror of seeing
soldiers brought home dead. She, when ten years old, sang a popular war
song "Good bye Mother, You will never press me to your heart again" at the
funeral of a sixteen year old boy killed in battle. Even at that time she
had a very unusual soprano voice. She recalls the dread of Morgan's raiders
who came very near McArthur. The women buried their silver and jewelry and
baked up pies, cakes and ham but Morgan did not come.

Those were the days when dignified society ladies met in teas and chewed
snuff out of beautiful snuff boxes just as today women smoke cigarettes.
Mrs. Booth saw it but was too young to rub snuff.

Her childhood games were much like those of her daughters some years later:
Blackman, hide and seek, drop the handkerchief, hopscotch, button, button
(for an out door game) Needles eye when a string of players ran under a
couple with hands clasped high; "Needles eye that doth supply the thread
that runs so smoothly; many a fair one we shall pass before we catch Miss
Julia. At the end of the last word, the arms suddenly came down on "Miss
Julia" and she had to stand in the mushpot (the center of the ring). Then
there was "King William." One stood in the middle and a circle of players
leaped around and sang -
King William was King George's son
And from the royal race he sprung
Upon his breast he wore a star
Pointing the way to his Kingdom's far"
and the last word, King Wm. in the mush pot suddenly pointed out her
successor and the game went on.

At eighteen she married Dan Booth and they soon left Vinton County to come
to a farm west of Hamilton in the Lovely Ridge district in Caldwell County.
Her people pitied her because she was coming to poor old Missouri.

She stayed at the Broadway Hotel (Later Harry House) kept by the Van
Volkenburg family on site of present Davis Motor Company. The next day they
went out to the new farm which had been bought from Altman, it is now the
Gregory farm. There she went through many new experiences for a town
girl - like taking care of milk (but her husband never had her go out after
the cattle as many neighbor women did) raising chickens and making butter to
sell. She sold it to the hucksters and to the Goodman Hotel in town. She
learned to cook harvest dinners for thirty to thirty five men without the
aid of a girl, things which scared her to death when her motherly neighbor
Mrs. Jack Edminister told her about them as necessary duties of a farm wife.

Her worst experiences out there were - grasshoppers which came to the farm
when Mr. Booth was on a cattle buying trip to Nebraska; the hog cholera
which killed every hog for miles, the James Boys who lived not far away and
rode by the farm once or twice. When word came of their approach her
husband would turn his horses loose from the barn. The worst scare came one
night when a terrible wind storm was upon them. They dragged the furniture
against the doors to keep out a current which might lift up the house from
the ground. That night they both determined to sell out and go back to Ohio.
This same wind was a cyclone north of town.

One of the things they had on the farm is still in the family - a hutch
table. In those days, the kitchen also served as a dining room. A bench was
built against the kitchen wall to serve as seats at the table. The average
family then had six chairs and a family was quite unusual if that did not
have to move chairs from one room to another.

When the Booths left the farm 1881 after seven years to come to Hamilton to
live they came in such a snow drift that they drove a sled through the
fields, over a few fences, since it was shorter and equally easy on the
horses.

Interviewed April 1934.

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TO LOVELY RIDGE IN A COVERED WAGON
Narrator: Mrs. Hattie Bennett Smith, 74, Hamilton, Missouri

Mrs. Smith is the eldest child of Thos. Bennett born 1834 and wife Betsey
Gibson Bennett. They were both born in England but met first in America.
Thos. Bennett was a poor man and came into Caldwell County 1871 to get a
farm cheap. His brother-in-law Fred Gibson had moved here and told him
about the county. At that time, the Bennett family was composed of man,
wife and three children, the eldest boy being nine years old. They came
here in two covered wagons which held all they had. Bennett drove one wagon,
the little boy Jim, the other. They had no extra horses so had to make
frequent rests by the road side.

They bought two miles west and one-half mile north of Hamilton in Lovely
Ridge district. It was a two room house with a lean-to. They were so poor
that they had no carpets at all which meant much scrubbing. The girls and
boys "worked out" for the neighbors. The children set out hedge plants
around the farm by the road and in a dry spell carried buckets and buckets
of water to save them.

The Lovely Ridge community had frequent revivals in the school house. After
the service the host would treat the crowd to cider or apples, and people
would try to beat each other in pealing an apple without breaking the
pealing. The Bennetts were Methodists; other Methodists there were the five
families of the Jones tribe, the Bray family, Altmans and perhaps others.

Going to church in town became quite common in the late 70's; when the big
Bennett family would fill the lumber wagon with chairs (probably all the
chairs they had). If the horses gave a lurch at a whip or a passing train
etc., the chairs were apt to land the youngsters backward. There was a
baptizing hole to the north where converts of all denominations from that
part were immersed; in fact immersion was much more general those days than
now; and a "baptism" drew big crowds as a mild diversion on Sunday
afternoons.

Interview taken April 1934.

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FARMING IN LOVELY RIDGE LOVELY RIDGE NEIGHBORS
Narrator: C.C. Alden, 78, of Kidder, Missouri

Mr. Alden is the son of George L. Alden and Marietta Bump and is a lineal
descendant of John and Priscilla Alden. When he was three years old, his
parents came west to settle in Missouri. His father, as he says, was of a
roving disposition and tried several homes before he settled down. They
were two years in Illinois before they came in the early Sixties to this
county. At one time they owned the Lenhart place over the line in Daviess
County but they did not run the old mill there. They lived for a while on
the McKee farm in the Lovely Ridge district, but the lack of fruit trees did
not please them. In the early seventy's Mr. George Alden was in the produce
business with Andrew Nash in Hamilton, located on south Broadway, an early
business street, about where the Cope shop stands. They employed hucksters
who went in wagons through the country and picked up eggs, butter and
poultry. He finally settled down on land bought from Henry Clark, father
of Elmer E.

The son C.C. Alden worked as a hired hand four years for Clark getting $186
cash yearly besides room, board and washing. When he asked for $200, Clark
refused; and C.C. struck out for himself, got married and began paying for a
home on time.

Farming, even as late as 1800 was harder work than today. Much of the land
was full of stumps which had to be encountered in plowing. The farm
processes took more time because they were done by hand not machinery. A
trip to town for necessities meant a day not a few hours. They had crops
burned out (although never as bad as in 1934) they had crops ruined by
grasshoppers 1875; they lost all their hogs by cholera about the same time -
when soap companies sent wagons through the county to pick up dead hogs;
they had to experiment to find the best crop for their new soil. They had
their small, poorly built homes damaged by the hard winds.

Some of the neighbors whom Mr. Alden recalls in the Lovely Ridge district
are: D.W. Rosencrary, the first teacher in the second school, who lived
first house south of its site; Addison McKee who suggested the name Lovely
Ridge and lived near the Shaws and Baldwins to the west of the Henry Clark
farm and east of George Alden; the Esteb family lived in the brick house,
but earlier lived one-quarter mile south of the brick. Jake Esteb, a son
built on the present Ora Hosman place. The Forbes family lived on the Jim
McBride place; the Allen place was the present Hogkinson home near the
county line. Dan Booth owned the Gregory farm and across the road was
Jackson Edminster. Wm. Bray lived west of Edminsters, George Brown south of
Edminsters, Thos. Bennett west of Browns. The Jones families Wm., Jones,
Will Henry, John and Joe were all clustered east of Booth farm by the
railroad. The C.C. Alden farm is yet owned by the Alden family.

Interview taken August 2, 1934.

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This page was last updated September 24, 2006.