Page 15

HOME STEADING IN KANSAS 
KENTUCKY LIFE IN THE SEVENTIES 
THE McQUEENS -- PIONEERS IN IOWA 
PIONEERING IN KANSAS 
IRISH PIONEERS IN IOWA AND OKLAHOMA 
PIONEER OZARK CABINS IN THE SIXTIES 
WASH DAY IN OZARK PIONEER DAYS 
"CAVE" WILSON OF MILLER COUNTY 
THE CLAVES, GRUNDY COUNTY PIONEERS 
BILLY JONES FAMILY OF KINGSTON TOWNSHIP 

HOME STEADING IN KANSAS 
Narrator: Albert Bolen, 73, of Hamiton, Missouri

Mr. Bolen was born in 1861 in Vinton County, Ohio, ten miles
north. In 1885 he and his wife left Ohio for Kansas to grow up with
the country; as so many have said. There was a whole train-coach of
Ohio emigrants on that trip. Mr. Bolen went to Kansas in the boom
years of the 80's when covered wagons went through Missouri towns with
big signs "Kansas or Bust." A year or two afterwards, the same wagons
might return with the sign "Kansas and We Busted." Perhaps one half
of the homesteaders did not stay to prove up their claims, for lack of
moisture and bugs spoiled the corn crops which most of them planted.
On getting to Kansas, at first Mr. Bolen rented; then desiring a home
of his own, he and his wife took up a homestead in Stephens County
which was not yet organized. Everything was very new. Prairie grass
was everywhere - as were the bones of buffalo, which men collected and
sent off to factories for fertilizer. Not a tree could be seen. Not
a bird was seen or heard of that first year. They had hundreds of
jack rabbits, coyotes, rattlesnakes, wild horses and some antelopes as
late as 1886. They were far from any stream, hence the
homesteaders dug wells. Mr. Bolen's well was one hundred fifty feet
deep and it took seventeen days to dig it with spade and shovel. He
paid twenty-five cents a foot for the work. One Joe Vinton, also of
Vinton County, Ohio, who was a regular ground-mole when it came to
digging deep wells, did the work. Their fuel was "buffalo chips"
with which the ground was covered. Mrs. Bolen also said she had baked
bread in a sheet iron stove with dry weeds as fuel. The terms of
getting a homestead was to stay five years; then the farmer got one
hundred sixty acres. Of course there was the tree-claim which some
people used to get their land. They had to plant ten acres of trees
and get their quarter section (160 acres). Mr. Bolen was not able to
raise enough on his place to keep his family, so he became a freighter
and hauled lumber and goods from the railroad station at Hartlin. He
hauled lumber for his own home near Woodsdale forty miles. Although
he had a wood house, many people had sod houses. Buffalo sod was cut
into strips twenty-eight inches long, fourteen inches broad and four
inches thick. They were laid to gether in brick fashion and stuck of
their own power. they were cool in summer and hot in winter. Mr.
Bolen came to Caldwell County thirty-eight years ago and bought land
in the Mill Creek district - the farm now owned by John Potts.

Interviewed July 1934.

~~~~~~~~~~

KENTUCKY LIFE IN THE SEVENTIES 
Narrator: Ed Vaughn, 72, of Hamilton, Missouri

1. Horseback Riding 
2. Civil War 
3. Droughts 
4. Centennial Year 
5. Driving Oxen with a Limber Tongue

Mr. Vaughn was born in Estell Co., Kentucky on a farm and stayed
there until he was 22 years old. He followed his sister, Mrs. Robert
Cash, to Caldwell Co., Mo., and worked the Kenney farm near Kidder
which belonged then to Mr. Cash. The Vaughn family in Kentucky
had been slave owners before the Civil War. Their community during
the war was about 50-50 in sentiment. Even their own family was
divided. The father followed the Union because he thought secession
was wrong, while one of the sons fought for the south. The Vaughn
home was not molested because the father was a strong Mason.
Every boy and girl of well-to-do parents were given a horse and saddle
at an early age, and that provided them a way to go places. When a
young couple went out to-gether, each provided their own way
generally. There was a terrible drought in 1880 for one hundred
five days. Mr. Vaughn's father raised just enough feed to get through
the winter. In the spring, he paid a dollar a bushel for seed-corn
and feed. He recalls vividly riding to town to attend the big
Fourth of July celebration in 1876 when the nation celebrated the
centennial of its birth. There were fire crackers, fire works,
cannons, lots of whiskey and a half-drunk orator. He said he could
still picture some of the fashionable clothes he saw on that occasion.
One of his interesting experiences in Kentucky was driving steers
over the hilly land. He said that it was not at all uncommon to use
two yoke wagon and from that up to eight yoke could be hitched
together. A chain on each side ran from one yoke to the one back and
this last chain was hitched to a limber tongued ox-wagon. There were
no lines but the driver used a buckskin whip by which he controlled
the steers. Oxen, if uncontrolled, had a tendency to make for streams
of water. Steers were broken to driving at two years and were
splendidly fitted for the heavy loads on Kentucky hauls. Every steer
knew his name and obeyed at once. "Whoa-haw-Buck" meant for the steer
called Buck to turn to the left. About one-fourth of the hauling was
done in the 70's and 80's by oxen. The stiff tongued wagon, used for
horses, which in Missouri has given way to the limber tongue is still
the favorite type in hilly Kentucky.

~~~~~~~~~~

THE McQUEENS -- PIONEERS IN IOWA 
Narrator: Chas. McQueen, 78, of Hamilton, Mo.

1. Going West in 49 
2. Early Schools
3. Early Styles 
4. Early Sewing Machines

Mr. McQueen's father, John McQueen (1817-1893) was born in
Scotland. He brought his mother and two sisters to America to improve
their circumstances. They lived one year in New York then moved to
Galena, Illinois. In 1849, he joined a wagon train for the gold
fields of California. There were one hundred ten men, forty wagons
and six yoke of oxen to each wagon. Not knowing what was ahead, they
filled their wagons with materials ill fitted for their expedition.
They were the first wagon-train to cross the plains and found going
very hard. There were no bridges and they swam the cattle through the
water and cut down trees to make pontoon bridges. They passed through
St. Joseph and went on the Great American Desert (as Kansas was then
called). They ran out of water. Men and animals suffered, and died.
As the oxen died, they began throwing stuff out of the wagons to
lighten the load and went on. When they got to their destination they
had been out one year and had three oxen and the front wheels of one
wagon. They stopped at Feather River close to Sacramento City and all
found gold in small amounts. They lived in a log cabin four years and
three months. Mr. McQueen returned by way of Cape Horn in a
sailing vessel, back to New York and then to Galena and home. He then
bought land in the Iowa Prairie at $1.25 per acre. Later he bought
one and one-half sections in Cherokee County, Iowa, one hundred eighty
miles west of his former home, which the McQueen family still hold.
Mr. Chas. McQueen told much of his boyhood days in Iowa. They had
begging Indians who were different from the wild Indians which his
father had met on the western plains who shot people with arrows.
They had no roads, no bridges in the 60's and 70's. At school, he
learned the 3 R's; the McGuffey reader ended one's education.
Examinations were unknown. Teachers boarded round on the patrons--one
week at a home. School lasted four months a year and that in the
coldest months. Seats and desks were built around the wall, and the
pupils faced the wall; turning around to face the teacher to recite.
The teacher was very fortunate if she taught in a boxed-up school, for
most of them were log-schools. Men's and boy's clothes were
somewhat different from now. Boys wore boots with copper toes if they
wanted to be stylist. For boys of 5-16 years, there were "jimmies" or
vests of coarse cloth held by a buckle in front (called by Ohio
frontiers-men "wampus"). Boots of genuine leather cost only $3.00 and
they came up to the knee. They had bootjacks to pull off boots and
the straps pulled them on. Hog grease kept the leather soft, also
kept out the water. No male person wore a necktie; why do it when a
long beard would hide it? However the gold front collar button often
had a fancy set for show. Enemies of stock were coyotes and
wolves. There were regular hunts to destroy them. The blizzards in
Iowa were terrible. People got lost and their bodies might lie for
weeks before found. The old dinner horn (some animal horn) hung
at the back door and it was the duty of the women folks to blow it a
half hour before meals. A gourd from their own garden always hung at
the well. There was no white sugar, all was dark brown. Candy was
rare except for a Christmas treat, and Christmas brought simple gifts
those days of the sixties up in Iowa. Mr. McQueen never saw a
kerosene lamp till he was ten. They used candles and grease lamps.
The coal-oil was dark colored. The new lamp his father bought had a
sign on it "Never move after you light it." The body of the lamp was
bronze, so you stuck a straw in to see how much oil was there.

All sewing was done by hand till his father bought a sewing
machine "Little Giant" about 18 inches long. It was screwed on to any
table you had. The children turned the knob on the wheel while the
mother directed the garment under the needle. There was no belt on
the machine.

~~~~~~~~~~

PIONEERING IN KANSAS 
Narrator: Mrs. Nellie Scott of Kansas

This is my mothers history. The maple sugar making and the
sleigh rides on Lake Erie are the only frolics I recall hearing her
mention. The quilting and husking bees we so often heard of from the
older generation seem not to have entered in her life. Possibly she
was too young to have shared in these things, possibly too busy, for
she married so young that every minute and all her strength was
consumed by her family. Julia Clarissa Curtis, daughter of Julia
Miller and Richard Curtis was a direct descendant of Richard Warren of
the Mayflower and of Philip Delano the French Huguenot, and both
progenitors of a long line of pioneers who would settle and start the
rudiments of culture when they would move on to repeat the same in a
new region. Mother came to Kansas 1870, the wife of Jeremiah
Stewart, a Homeopathic physician. My Mother's mother was a pioneer
from Vermont to Portage County Ohio in 1818 in ox-drawn sleds cutting
their way through the forests. The Miller forbears, Hosea and Isaac,
had gone from Massachusetts to settle the town or township of
Deimmerston Vermont 1770. Isaac and his eight sons rendered patriotic
service in the Revolution. So the love of conquering the unknown -
the spirit of pioneering - was in the blood. Mother and father
started from Indiana to Kansas September 1, 1870 in a covered wagon
accompanied by a number of others families intent on taking up
homesteads. My parents settled in Washington County one of the
poorest counties of north eastern Kansas. There were all the
privations possible, blizzards, cyclones, droughts, grasshoppers, what
the drought left, the grasshoppers ate up. The most available food
was the wild jack rabbit but it became stale as a regular diet.
Building upon the prairie, it was too rocky to cut and build a sod
house and no timber at hand for a log cabin. The material used was a
cheap lumber and built in what is known as a box house, the boards
running up and down with battings used to cover the cracks. I have
forgotten the size of the house which we always called the "Homestead
House" but it was not large enough to have sleeping rooms apart form
the kitchen and living room, which was one and the same, hence the
attic was utilized, access to which was gained by a ladder on the
outside. The smaller children were tucked away in the trundle bed,
lodged when not in use under the large bed. Four children were born
in the Homestead House. A district school was established and in
the school house the church service was held, usually by the faithful
circuit rider who "put up" with the doctor and his family. There were
few books to borrow among the neighbors. My mother relied on the
Cleveland Plain Dealer and the Toledo Blade for current events and on
Godey's magazine for fashion and home articles. Once when she was out
of something to read, she sent my eldest sister to a neighbor to ask
if she had something to read. The neighbor offered her the Bible,
much to my sister's embarassment, for the Bible was a well known book
in our home. In those early days, when the family was to attend a
gathering of any sort or a trip to town taken it was done in the farm
wagon. There were few orchards and almost no berry patches
productive then. Most of the fruit was wild plum, gooseberry and
grape. Not much jelly was made because sugar was scarce and
expensive. Most of the fruit was made into butter where sorghum could
be used for sweetening. During the later years of my mother's
life, many of the hardships had disappeared and life was more
comfortable. She died January 1 1906 and was buried two days later in
the worst snow storm I have ever seen. No one was able to attend the
interment but the sexton and his helpers, the undertaker, the
minister, and two of her children. 

Interviewed July 1934.

~~~~~~~~~~

IRISH PIONEERS IN IOWA AND OKLAHOMA 
Narrator: Mrs. Julia Tofflemire of Breckenridge, Missouri

Mrs. Julia Tofflemire, mother of Dr. C.D. Tofflemire of
Breckenridge, Missouri was born in Providence Rhode Island June 23
1866. At the age of six weeks, her parents went by train to
Providence Illinois. Provisions were high, flour being $16 a barrel.
One of her recollections of the life in Illinois was the candles her
mother made. They always had one large candle that would burn all
night on Christmas night. Her parents had only been over from Ireland
a year when Julia (Sheila as they called her in Irish) was born. Her
father, Daniel Sullivan came from Kahersiveen County Cary and her
mother Catherin O'Brein came from Bantry County Cork. The name in
Ireland was O'Sullivan, the O being a sign of the nobility but after
coming to this country they dropped the O. When Julia was eight
years old they went in a covered wagon to Greefield Iowa and bought a
hundred sixty acre farm from James Calman of Des Moines. They lived
on this farm for years keeping the family from 1875 until 1915. They
lived in a tent and in a covered wagon while they hauled lumber twenty
miles from Creston, each trip taking two days. When their house was
nearly finished a big wind storm blew away the tent and blew in the
end of the house. The small creek came up and carried away lots of
their household furnishings. It was the custom on the open
prairie for the community herdsmen to take cattle out and herd them
all day. He received $1.50 a month for each cow. They built a
sod barn of thick pieces of sod about two feed square. For windows
they used lime barrels with open spaces between the staves. They set
out willow and cotton wood shoots and planted maple seeds for trees
and started a young orchard. The wolves were thick and killed their
pet dog and got after their young pigs. For a Christmas treat they
had bakers bread, candy, tea with cubed sugar in it. They went
thirty two miles to Stuart to exchange wheat for flour and went twenty
miles to Creston to church. Every Saturday Julia rode horse back
across the open prairie nine miles to Greenfield and carried a bucket
of eggs to exchange for sugar, tea, and tobacco. In the fall,
Julia started to school, making the first path across the prairie to
the String Town School House. The main road afterwards followed this
same route. There was no bridge so she forded the creek, the only
bridge being west several miles by the big buffalo wallows. These big
hollows in the ground were the salt licks and wallows of the buffalo
are still to be seen there. One day while in Greenfield, a prairie
fire started cutting her off from home. She found a narrow place and
jumped her horse across the blaze but the horses tail was burned
getting across. At twenty one she was married to Charles Jerome
Tofflemire. They moved to St. Joseph Missouri to live. He worked in
the K.C. shops as blacksmith. The K.C. shops, now the Burlington
Round House were then the south edge of St. Joseph. Lake Contrary was
all wild country then. Mr. Tofflemire shot wild ducks there and she
used the feathers for baby pillows. A grocery store near their house
was a favorite loafing place of Jesse James known as Jesse Howard. He
was a great friend of Wilkerson, the boss blacksmith, and often came
to visit the men. He was considered a very quiet fellow and a model
citizen. They were very much surprised after his death to find out
who he was. He was a familiar figure on his fine saddle horse.
After they had lived there ten years they went to Oklahoma by covered
wagon and took up a homestead. The town of Fay now stands on this
homestead. They built a log house for it was wild country. Their
land lay between the two forks of the Canadian River but there were no
bridges near. They forded the river to go to Watonga fourteen miles
away. There were plenty of wild turkeys and prairie
chickens and deer were thick. The deer loved to eat watermelon and
raided their patch often. They raised a big patch of melons and
raised two crops of sweet potatoes on the same ground each year. Also
raised lots of peanuts and the sun roasted the peanuts in the sand.
Snakes were common and came in the house too. Mrs.
Tofflemire possessed a heavy butcher knife and she became quite expert
at throwing this knife and killing snakes on the log wall. Some
one stole property from the Indians and they were very much excited,
threatening to take the war path. The sound of the war drums carried
for miles and the settlers were warned to gather together. But the
militia came and quieted them so there was no trouble. Mr.
Tofflemire's health failed and after two and half years they went back
to Lenox Iowa. 

Interviewed October 1933.

~~~~~~~~~~

PIONEER OZARK CABINS IN THE SIXTIES 
Narrator: John Ferguson, 90, of Iberia, Mo.

Mr. Ferguson came into the Ozarks after serving in the Civil War
and settled near what is now Iberia, Miller County. The 1860-70
period was quite a pioneering period in that county. He did as others
did after arriving at his new land--he first built a home. The
little log cabin was usually built the next day after arrival. With
several helpers, it was a day's job. The logs might be split; or if
time pressed, they would be left in the round. After the cabin was
up, that night the neighbors for miles around came to dance, which
welcomed the newcomers and helped them get acquainted. Most of
the cabins were one-room affairs; although sometimes there was an
attic under the roof where the children climbed up a rude ladder and
slept. Few early cabins in the Ozarks had any widows, because glass
cost too much and had to be brought too far. To admit light and air,
the door had a sliding board at its upper part. This could be opened
little or much. Through it, too, the owner could peer if he heard an
intruder, or he could shoot wild game in his vicinity. Mr. Ferguson
told of killing five wild turkeys this way one fall morning. The
latch string literally hung on the outside of the door, by which the
door was opened. Inside the door, over the door was the faithful
pioneer gun, resting either on a forked stick or on deer's antlers.
The walls usually whitewashed logs although occasionally a family
might cover the logs with boards. The plank floors gradually took the
place of puncheon floors. The housewife kept her floor white with a
cornshuck mop, and on Saturday she scrubbed it getting down on her
hands and knees. Only the higher-ups had rag-carpets. The corded
bedsteads in the corner were built into the house and floor, and had
great quilts which hung to the floor and hid the articles stored under
the bed. The trundle bed was pushed there too in the daytime, for
they needed every inch of space in that one room. A bench built into
the wall gave added seats at the table. The two spinning wheels - one
for wool, one for flax - stood by the fire place. The great stick
and clay fireplace served for heating and cooking, since a stove was
unheard of in those parts till 1870, and a luxury till 1875. No one
used matches, so the fire was never allowed to go out. If it did, one
had to borrow hot coals from a neighbor - which often meant a long
ride. Lighting was done by candles or by a rag twisted in a dish of
lard.

~~~~~~~~~~

WASH DAY IN OZARK PIONEER DAYS 
Narrator: Mrs. Wm. Irwin, 78, of Iberia, Mo.

We lived in the 60's in a clearing which father had made when he
and mother came to Miller County in a mover-wagon. Mother died of
malaria fever and as I was an older girl, much of the work on washday
fell on me. It was a mighty poor housekeeper who did not wash on
Monday. So I would crawl out of bed two hours earlier to get our big
wash done by ten o'clock. After I put on the ground grain (which
stood us for coffee) to cook at the fireplace, I hurried down to the
branch. There I dipped water into the great iron kettle which swung
over open fires. Some women near us heated the wash water by throwing
into it red hot stones from a fire but our way was easier. After the
breakfast work was done, we went back to the branch and poured the hot
water in tubs which were made of sawed off barrels. Then the clothes
were smeared with soft soap (which we made) and put into the tub.
This soft soap was made twice a year and answered for both laundry and
toilet purposes. After the clothes had soaked half an hour, we
stretched them on clean wide boards and vigorously beat them with a
clothes paddle or a clothes spanker as some call it. This took the
place of the wash board which we did not have. This was not as bad
for the clothes as it sounds, for all our things were made of a coarse
homespun which lasted a long time. As a matter of fact, I did not
have a store calico dress till I was eighteen. Next came the
wringing which was done by hand. A sheet was wrung by two people
holding the sheet and twisting in opposite directions. Our boilers
were either the big iron kettles or a regular copper boiler with a rim
but no handles. Usually we had three boils by the well established
rules that governed a wash. The first had the men's white shirts, our
Sunday white skirts and dresses, sheets and pillow cases. The next
had towels and underwear, the third dish cloths, dust rags and grimmy
things, all three boils boiled in the same suds. There was no
blueing, so we rinsed our clothes in three waters to take out the suds
and dirty water; and our clothes were very white. We had no
clothes lines and no clothes pins. We spread the wash on the grass or
bushes or even on the broad clean rocks. The sun whitened them all
day long. Our ironing day was Tuesday. The irons were heated red
hot in the fireplace and then lifted out by tongs and cooled a little
in a pail of water. The men's white shirts had stiffened bosoms and
often I spent a half hour on one.

~~~~~~~~~~

"CAVE" WILSON OF MILLER COUNTY 
Narrator: J.W. Waite, 68, of Iberia, Mo.

John Wilson was one of the first hunters in the Osage country of
Miller Co., Mo. He located 1822 on Tavern Creek and furnished that
county with a tale thrilling enough to be a legend but it was really a
fact. He was born in Ireland about 1776 and came with his whole
family into a very wild country to live. Almost from the first the
other settlers called them Uncle Jack and Aunt Nellie because of their
hospitality. He got the nickname Cave Wilson because he and his
family lived in a roomy cave till he had means and time to build a
house. This cave was near Tavern Creek at the mouth of Barren Fork.
He found a cave higher up on the bluff which he chose to be his tomb.
He frequently explained to his wife and his friends how he wished to
be put away. He made a coffin and kept it in the tomb. When he died
in 1855, his wife followed his directions. She had his entrails taken
out and his body filled with salt; salt was packed about his body in
the coffin. A demijohn of the best old liquor was placed inside the
tomb. The sepulchre was walled up and all who attended the funeral
were treated to dinner and drinks. After seven years his friends were
to met there, open the tomb and drink from the demijohn in his memory.
When the seven years had passed, the old timers say that the tomb
was opened but the whisky was gone, probably stolen by some wandering
Civil War soldier, for the story was widely known. Many Miller
County people declared that they have seen the concrete which sealed
up the cave-tomb again after the demijohn disappeared. They all
declared that Cave Wilson's body is still lying in the cave, probably
still well preserved in salt.

~~~~~~~~~~

THE CLAVES, GRUNDY COUNTY PIONEERS 
Narrator: Mrs. Wm. Shepard, 84, of Hamilton, Missouri

Mrs. Shepard, or as her husband tenderly called her "the old
woman" is a daughter of Alex Clave and Catherine Crawford both
Emigrants from Scotland before 1841. They lived for awhile in New
Jersey where Mrs. Shepard was born. Clave got a homestead in
Wisconsin and took up land there. Then followed a long list of moves
in various counties of Missouri. Finally they bought a Grundy county
farm home where Mrs. Shepard met her husband. Mrs. Shepard is
well known over the State because she and her sister Mrs. Jeanette
Briggs of Trenton are probably the oldest living twins (84) in the
United States. They are still quite similar and as young women it was
very difficult to tell which was which. She described the home
work of the girls of the sixties in Grundy County. Their father had
his own sheep. They used the wool for clothing and filling for
comforts and quilts. The girls carded the wood, spun it and wove it.
No wonder they wove their own wool and cotton for muslin those days
cost $1 a yard, other goods accordingly. The Mother was clever at
cutting out garments and that was her job. Styles of patterns were
not changed for several years. Five years was a medium time for a
style. The color of the wool was varied by dye. Maple bark made
purple and the purple thread mixed with the natural tan homespun made
a beautiful stripe. Every girl carried a starch bag around her
person made of a three inch square gathered together and filled with
starch. It corresponded to the modern girl's powder puff, and took
the shine off the face. The girls wore corsets and hoop skirts and
later bustles tied around the waist. Occasionly the knot would slip
and the bustle dropped down and made the wearer feel very cheap.
Mrs. Shepard said, "that in Grundy County days, Christmas did not mean
much." Pappy took a load of punkins to town and got toys with the
"punkin money." There were mainly sweet sugar candy animals made in
bright colors and put up on a shelf to look at but not eaten for
months. Most other candy was home made. Pop corn balls were nice
treats for Christmas. 

Interviewed July 1934.

~~~~~~~~~~

BILLY JONES FAMILY OF KINGSTON TOWNSHIP 
Narrator: Mrs. Mary Mahala Smith, 83, of Hamilton

Wm. Jones Family Very Early 
Funeral Customs 
Jones and Far West Graveyard

Mrs. Smith is the wife of Joseph Smith, retired farmer, and the
daughter of Wm. Jones and Martha Bailey, who was born in Kentucky but
came west to Buchanan County to live with Aunt Sallie Stout. Wm.
Jones was a brother of Mrs. Caroline Peddicord of Hamilton ("Aunt
Tomony" to Mrs. Smith), also a brother of Mrs. "Dilly" Goodman (mother
of Bert Goodman and Mrs. James Collins). Another sister was Mrs.
Rannels and a brother was "Cap" Albert Jones of Callaway Co. The old
Jones family had two homes - one mile south of Kingston, on the Polo
road (before the Civil War) and five miles west of Kingston, a farm of
160 acres where "Cap's" widow now lives. The Jones family came
very early into the county from Kentucky, in a wagon. The Grandfather
Jones was dead but Grandmother Jones came along and died in a bad
epidemic of small pox before 1850. To show how long the Jones
family have been here, Mrs. Smith says that when her father Billy
Jones used to go to the Mormon town, Far West (now utterly gone) to
take dancing lessons, he used to be scared out of his wits by screams
of panthers and howling of wolves. She herself can recall seeing
several buildings at Far West, stores and dwellings in the middle
fifties. Her father taught his children the dance steps he had
learned in that dancing class - the reel and French Four (quadrille)
and others. Billy and Martha Jones' children were Minerva Marino
Pollard of Kingston, John married Elizabeth McBeath (cousin of Bob
Morris), Millard Fillmore married a Haywood out of the county, Mahala
married Joseph Smith, Jeff Davis married a Taylor of Cameron, Lilly
and Annie died unmarried, Fronia married a Wyckoff, and two infants
died. It is not strange that the Jones clan can "claim relation" to
much of Caldwell County. The Jones graveyard is about in the
middle of the first Jones farm. Once enclosed by a fence in
timberland, it is now a cow pasture. Following the custom of the
times, they put up no permanent grave marker and now the graves are
lost. The dead there are Grandma Mahala Jones, died about 1850,
Peggy, sister of above; two small children of Wm. and Martha Jones,
________ Clark, the first husband of Aunt Dilly Goodman; Willie Jones,
son of Wm. Jones and his first wife, a McClelland; a colored slave boy
of the Jones family. Near by at the Far West Methodist Church is
another private graveyard, that of the Hill where J.T. Hill and family
are buried. Mr. Hill gave the site to the Methodists for a church
because his dead were there. The church is now unused except by bats.
Mrs. Smith recalls some of the grave-customs of her day. The
neighbors built the coffin; it was their sign of sympathy instead of
modern flowers. A grave was dug the depth of the coffin. At the
burial the coffin was set in this hole and the lid or boards laid on
top, on a level with the ground; then the ground was heaped high.
Often burials were made without a word being said over the body. This
memorial service might occur a week, a month or a year after burial or
not at all. 

Interviewed July 1934.

Back

This page was last updated September 24, 2006.