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WM. McCLELLAND FAMILY IN CALDWELL COUNTY 1845 
HUGH CHAIN, AN EARLY KINGSTON CARPENTER 
CALDWELL COUNTY POOR FARM 
F.D. CLARKSON FAMILY AT KINGSTON IN EARLY SEVENTIES 
FARM LIFE IN KINGSTON TOWNSHIP IN THE SIXTIES AND SEVENTIES
THE JACOB WONSETTLER FAMILY AS PIONEERS NEAR KINGSTON
EXCITEMENT AT THE COUNTY SEAT CALDWELL COUNTY 

WM. McCLELLAND FAMILY IN CALDWELL COUNTY 1845 
Narrator: Mrs. Hattie Hooker, 86, of Hamilton, Missouri

Old Salem Town

Mrs. Hooker is the widow of Sam Hooker, grandson of David and
Jane (Spurgeon) Snider orginial Mormon settlers in Caldwell County who
did not join in the generation migration to Illinois after the Mormon
wars. (David b. 1795 and Jane b. 1804 - lie in unmarked graves in the
old Duston graveyard.) Mrs. Hooker is the grand daughter of Wm.
and Elizabeth McClelland. He died 1854 and she died 1884, both are
buried in the old McClelland, which used to be considered McClelland
ground; but after the graveyard was started in was ascertained that
the first surveying was in error and it belonged to another. The
McClelland family came here from Virginia probably about 1845 or
earlier. The family themselves have been in the county so long that
they have lost the exact date. They settled just east of Kingston on
what was known later as the Jess Butts farm. They were not far from
the Sam Richey farm on the site of Salem, hence we find Aramintha
Richey becoming the wife of a son of Wm. McClelland. This couple were
the parents of Hattie Hooker and Jo McClelland of Hamilton. Wm.
McClelland built a fine house - a log house of three ground rooms and
two above. The kitchen was lower than the main part and formed an L.
There were three chimneys to the house and it was a famous landmark
along the road in the forties and fifties as the house with three
chimneys. On this account too Wm. McClelland got the name of being
very rich. Because her grand mother was Mother Richey of the old
Mill Mrs. Hooker was over to old Salem a great deal. The old road
from Salem to Kingston ran by Grandma Richey's home which was on the
site of the old town. As a small girl, she used to ride the sweep on
the old mill horse at the Mother Richey horse mill. Grandpa Richey
was dead by then. In fact, she still has a scar from falling off the
sweep while the horse went around. She recalled the terrible news
that her Uncle Alex Richey had been shot in the Civil War by the
Militia. Her story of the killing is some what different from that
found in the Caldwell-Livingston History. The Richeys sympathized
with the South but they were trying to get on good terms with the
Northern militia for the sake of their homes and lives. Mary Richey,
a sister of Alex and a daughter of Mother Richey had married Dan Baker
of the Crab Apple Southern sympathizers. The Richey men and the Baker
men had been to Kingston one day to swear not to harbour any bush
whackers; and the next day they were to start to Richmond to swear
allegiance to the Union; but hearing soldiers coming, they "laid out."
Their motives were mistaken and they were captured and killed as bush
whackers. Alex was buried in the Knoxville cemetery. 

Interviewed April 1934.

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HUGH CHAIN, AN EARLY KINGSTON CARPENTER 
Narrator: Miss Sarah Chain, 81, of Hamilton, Missouri

Miss Chain was born in Ohio but came to Kingston as a child when
her father Hugh Chain brought his family there 1859, shortly after the
Hannibal and St. Joseph railroad had started up new towns and a
building boom in Caldwell County. Hugh Chain was a carpenter and
had a good trade. He would often be gone from Kingston for weeks on
jobs, at times as far as Hannibal to build houses. An old freight
bill for lumber dated July 2 1860 involves his name. J.A. Brown owner
of the lumber yard at Hamilton consigned the lumber to A.G. Davis, the
freight agent at Hamilton--the nearest freight station for Paxton and
Chain. Its freight cost was $39.60 for one car of 2,000,000 pounds, a
charge which is less than the present freight rates from Hannibal.
Chain was building for Paxton of Mirabile, father of the well known
Paxton brothers of Hamilton. During the Civil War, Chain had a
narrow escape from death. He with Aaron Pfost and other Kingston and
Mirabile men were captured by the Thraillkill (Confederate) force, and
were in danger of being killed, but were released when Pfost showed he
was a Mason and threatened the Thraillkill force with Masonic enmity
if any was killed. When Miss Chain was a little girl, the Indians
occasionally used to roam in small bands through Kingston scaring the
children to death, but only wanting food. Miss Chain taught
school in the county for over thirty years beginning in the 70's. In
those days, you got a certificate by going up for examination on
appointed days. There were three grades lasting one, two and three
years. Later in the 80's the summer Teachers Normal was held for four
weeks ending with examination. Stephen Rogers of Kingston was County
School Commissioner 1874-83. The Chain family ran the Kingston
House (later Cadman) at Kingston for several years and in 1881 Mr.
Chain built the Chain House at Hamilton (now the Snyder Hotel). After
Mr. Chain's death 1884 the three Chain sisters ran the Hotel.

Interviewed February 1934.

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CALDWELL COUNTY POOR FARM 
Narrator: Mrs. Ada Dunn of Hamilton, Missouri

Mrs. Dunn is daughter of Sherman Minor Bassett and Elinor Fort.
The Bassetts came to Caldwell County in the late seventies from
Coshocton county Ohio and at their arrival at Kingston they landed in
the "poor farm" as they like to say. At any rate, they stayed for
some weeks with Eldert Fort and wife who for several years managed the
county poor farm. Mr. Bassett's new farm which he bought "sight
unseen" through Mr. Fort is the present Seth Hootman farm near
Mirabile. Mrs. Dunn was about thirteen when she came west to Missouri
and expected to see a very wild and wooly country - despite the nice
things the Forts had written back. Missouri had a bad reputation in
the East. Having lived in the Poor Farm, Mrs. Dunn knew something
of its history. A family by the name of Nixon owned the place which
is now the poor farm. He died and the administrator of the estate,
Mr. Orr sold it to the County 1873. At first there was a small house
on the place which is the back of the present large building. They
had a custom those days of keeping mildly insane cases there as well
as the aged poor. The above Mr. Orr's daughter said that hardly had
the Poor Farm started when they had two hard cases - Billy Blood who
was crazy and Ann McCollum who was so afflicted that she could not sit
in a chair and she sat hutched up on the floor. Both these old folks
are buried in the graveyard that is on the farm for the old folks who
have no friends to claim their bodies. 

Interviewed July 1934.

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F.D. CLARKSON FAMILY AT KINGSTON IN EARLY SEVENTIES 
Narrator: Mrs. Clara Brosnihan, 82, of Hamilton, Missouri

A Wagon Train of the Sixties 
Clarkson and Farabee Families
Frozen Mince Pies 
Early years at Polo

Clara Clarkson was born in Knightstown Indiana July 1852 and came
with her parents T.D. and Hannah Clarkson from Indiana to Missouri
1869. The Jacob Allee family, T.D. Fort family and T.D. Clarkson
family all started to Missouri with some six or seven covered wagons.
They had a safe journey and before reaching Missouri they were in
company with sixteen or seventeen wagons, not all stopping in Caldwell
County. They all stopped on Saturday afternoon, baked, bathed and did
their washing with no Sunday travel. She thinks their trip took over
a month. The Clarksons had once been prosperous but T.D. signed a
note for a relative and lost money, so in order to be miles away from
his mistake he decided on a new country. He came with a sick wife and
six children and settled at Kingston. Clara (a sister of Nathan
Clarkson once a Hamilton Post Master) helped in every way for the
comfort of the family. Her mother died a year after they cam to
Kingston. Her father edited a Kingston paper for a time and she
worked in the printing office. She says that work really was her
schooling; sitting on a high stool in a print shop. She became
the wife of Oliver Farabee in Polo 1872. They had a Hotel, Livery
Barn and a General Store in Polo, in fact they were about ALL Polo for
several years until the Milwaukee Railroad came through there. Mr.
Farabee died 1886, when the first ground was just broken for the
railroad. After that, she and the girls worked hard to keep going;
later they moved to Kansas City and she married Mr. Brosnihan.
She tells several interesting tales of the pioneer years when she was
Clara Clarkson. She used to ride from the Fort farm to near Bonanza
behind an ox-team. She used to go horse back to attend spelling
schools and singing schools and to attend dances in a sleigh - if
possible. When mince pie time came they always baked a lot of pies,
eight or ten, in the big oven the same day. Then came the problem of
storing them till all were eaten. Some people wrapped them up in
paper and kept them in a bin out doors. The Clarksons wrapped them
and put them in the frozen rain-barrel where the pies also froze.
Before a meal, they were re-heated in the oven. They were delicious.
The early home makers make their own bread, butchered, made soap,
dried fruits and vegetables, rendered lard, knitted sewed carpet rags,
and were always ready to help in sickness at the next neighbors.

Interviewed May 1934.

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FARM LIFE IN KINGSTON TOWNSHIP IN THE SIXTIES AND SEVENTIES
Narrator: Mrs. Margaret Kendall Burkett of Hamilton, Missouri

Railroad Land 
Neighbors 
Trading Cotton 
Roads and Vehicles 
Schools
Kendall Chapel

Mrs. Burkett was born 1862 in Davidson County North Carolina one
hundred miles west of Raleigh. Her parents were John Kendall and
Elizabeth Trice; the Kendalls by tradition being early colonists in
North Carolina. Her father stood for the Union in the Civil War;
and after the war things became unpleasant for him. One of the
daughters and her husband had already gone to Indiana. Hence John
Kendall took his family there while he came to Missouri to prospect.
He had been here several times looking around. Finally in 1867 with
two sons he came to Caldwell County and bought land of the railroad in
the northern part of Kingston township, this land being in the family
to this day, and now farmed by Mrs. Burkett's son-in-law Leonard
Snyder. Mr. Kendall built the first home, a four room house which
later was greatly enlarged. The land was to be paid for in ten years
and it took much savings on the part of the family to pay it off.
In February 1868 after he came Mrs. Kendall and the daughters Maggie
and Martha came out. Mr. Kendall died three years later and the
burden became greater. In those times, there was the well
travelled "State road" from Hamilton to Kingston. In coming from
Hamilton, the Burketts used this road as far as the present George
Burkett house (a little south of the half way house) then cut across
the field. At first they rode in a lumber wagon or horse back.
Finally Mrs. Kendall bought a two seated spring wagon from Columbus
Ohio which was about the best looking rig in the country. One
half mile to the south was the farm of Jacob Allee (half brother to
Taylor Allee of Hamilton) who had come into the county two years
before. Between the Kendalls and the town of Hamilton at first there
were only two houses as she recalled - the "old red house" on the
Whitt farm and the old Dodge house. In the fall of 1868 the country
began filling up rapidly. She got most of her schooling at the
West Prairie (Williams) school with Mr. Shelley as teacher. Her first
term was with Wm. Curp (also a singing master) who taught the Dillon
school. That district had no school house so Mr. Curp rented his
downstairs to the district for a school room. Mrs. Burkett then a
little girl learning her letters would be taken to his home Monday
morning and they would come after her Friday evening. Later she
attended a summer subscription (select) school at Kingston taught by
her brother-in-law Mr. Dayhoff. When they traded at Hamilton they
bought goods to the amount of their butter and eggs and chickens and
no more. That was real trading. Her father got his first cows by
buying a wagon load of apples cheap at Lexington taking them up to
Iowa and buying two cows with the money. Mrs. Kendall had brought
cotton seed form North Carolina which she planted on her farm. They
carded the cotton and wool and made bats for comforts and spun thread
for cotton and wool stockings, borrowing a spinning wheel from Mrs.
Jacob Allee. Kendall Chapel was built on land given by Mrs.
Kendall; the congregation was a result of a revival in 1887 by a
preacher named Bitner. He held services in the West Prairie
schoolhouse. 

Interviewed July 1934.

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THE JACOB WONSETTLER FAMILY AS PIONEERS NEAR KINGSTON
Narrator: Mrs. Sarah Wonsettler, 86, Kidder, Missouri

Mrs. Wonsettler is the widow of Jacob Wonsettler who came into
Caldwell County in the early sixties. She is the daughter of Wm. A.
Morrow, a pioneer in Daviess County 1854 coming when she was six years
old. (For those pioneer days, see paper of Mrs. Aurora Williams,
another Morrow daughter.) At the age of twenty she married Mr.
Wonsettler and came to Caldwell County where they rented of John D.
Cox three miles east from Kingston and stayed there five years. On
the place was a heavy body of hard maple timber, about one hundred
trees located south west of the creek bottom. They had a sugar camp
every year while there. She still recalls the whole process. You
make spiles of elm out of which you could pinch the pith, fitted them
into the sugar trees and caught the drip in troughs below. The
troughs were occasionally emptied into pails. Then you fixed up
an out door brick furnace with a chimney at one end and on it you
placed a twenty five gallon kettle with the drip from the maple trees.
You skimmed it occasionally and got syrup. If you wanted sugar, you
boiled it more and stirred it till it grained. They had square pans
about five inches across and sold the maple sugar cakes in stores for
10 cents a piece. Mrs. Wonsettler recalls how she used to make
with her own hands absolutely every inch of her clothes, back in
Daviess County. Her father kept sheep for wool. There was no big
older son, so she did boy's work in shearing and washing the wool.
Then it was sent usually over to Watkins woolen factory in Clay County
to be carded although at times she did it at home on small cards.
Then she spun it, wove it and sewed it up. And when the dress had
belonged to one or perhaps two members of the family and was out worn,
she would tear it up for carpet rags. Thus she said she could trace
material from a sheep's back to a carpet - all work done on the home
place by her own hands. She told of early dress styles. One mode
of trimming was cording. You used candlewick or twine and sewed it
into the seam, of course by hand. Her mother would hold up a length
of calico or home spun, from the neck to the waistline of the person
to be fitted. This person would hold the cloth in position while Mrs.
Morrow cut out the arm-holes and neck line. That was the way they
made waist patterns for many years. The skirts were full made of
straight breadths and hung to the ground. Hand sewing was an art then
and no rough seams were allowable. 

Interviewed August 1934.

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EXCITEMENT AT THE COUNTY SEAT CALDWELL COUNTY 
Narrator: Mrs. Fannie McLaughlin of Hamilton, Missouri

"Stealing the County Seat" 
The Hamilton-Kingston Railroad

Mrs. McLaughlin was born in Columbiana County Ohio. She came to
Caldwell County with her parents David Cannon and Mary Drake 1869 in
the boom days after the Civil War when the Hannibal and St. Joseph
railroad were advertising the county through which its tracks passed.
Mr. Cannon was a farmer and bought near Kingston. His son John Cannon
was a druggist in the eighties at Kingston. Soon after she came
to Kingston she heard the story of how Hamilton had tried to steal the
Court House from Kingston. The project was active in 1867 and it was
still much discussed with some rancor remaining against Hamilton
leaders who had backed the scheme. They had planned to take a tier of
townships from Daviess County and that would put Hamilton in a central
place in Caldwell County. Being a railroad town - which Kingston was
not - would make it a better County Seat. Kingston, knowing its life
depended on keeping that honor fought against the plan and it was
defeated in the Legislature but it left an ugly feeling between the
towns for years. It has been stated on good authority that Hamilton
was so sure of the plan that rock was hauled for a courthouse
foundation on land owned by A.G. Davis, one of the sponsors. (In Fact
Miss Minnie Ogden whose father bought that site, stated that their
foundation was made largely from rocks already on the lot for the
above purpose - Interviewer's note.) However in late years the
two towns joined together in a project for their mutual good - i.e.
getting a railroad for Kingston, which has always been a dream down
there. In 1890 the Haines, Hamilton and Kingston railway was
completed and Kingston had a big day. Haines was a capitalist from
away some where who soon got out of the deal. The railroad than
became known as the H. and K. It soon was a joke in this territory.
The road bed was poorly built, the engine was old and always to be
repaired. It might stop in the middle of a cornfield or even on top
of a forty foot trestle and the passengers would have to walk. D.G.
McDonald conductor and Tom Livick fireman were the crew. Finally it
went into bankruptcy in 1902. To-day nothing is left of the H. and K.
but the old right of way cuts. 

Interviewed February 1934.

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This page was last updated September 24, 2006.