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DAN BOOTH VETERAN HAMILTON BANKER 1881-1924 
COWGILL HISTORY IN CALDWELL COUNTY 
UNCLE CHARLEY DUNN - EX-SLAVE OF HAMILTON 
THE WEAVER AND BOWEN FAMILIES IN GOMER TOWNSHIP 
MRS. ELIZA BROWN OF VAN NOTE DISTRICT 
THE HARPSTER FAMILY OF GOMER TOWNSHIP CALDWELL AND DAVIESS COUNTIES 
THE DAWSON FAMILY IN THE SEVENTIES IN VAN NOTE DISTRICT
THE GURLEY FAMILY IN EXCELSIOR DISTRICT 
THE MURRELLS IN GOMER TOWNSHIP IN THE SEVENTIES 
THE WATSON FAMILY IN GOMER TOWNSHIP 1870 

DAN BOOTH VETERAN HAMILTON BANKER 1881-1924 
Narrator: Bertha Ellis Booth of Hamilton, Missouri

My father Dan Booth was born May 25, 1840 on a farm near
Radcliff, Vinton County Ohio. He was of pioneer stock. His parents
John Booth (1804-1892) and Elizabeth Radcliff (1805-1862) came as
pioneers to Ohio from Harrison County (West) Virginia and their
parents before them had moved "west." John Booth was a leader in
his community. He besides being a farmer was what frontiersmen called
a mechanic; he was an expert with the broad-ax, which work consisted
in squaring the logs for a log house and required special genius. In
house-raising, his job was to notch the logs and fit them at the
corners. The old Booth log house which he made is still standing,
made without nails - when nails were necessary he made them. He made
his own ox-shoes. He also rived shingles. Once he took a contract
from the county court to build a bridge over Raccoon Creek and he
searched all over the county to find two suitable oak logs. There the
forty foot sleepers of that bridge stand today-made of these two feet
square logs squared with his own broad ax-a monument to his work.
There is a later covered bridge on it which he did not build, but the
sleepers are his. His house was always open to travelers. The word
seemed to be "Go to Johnny Booth's he'll put you and your horse up."
The charge was nothing. The pack peddlers always stopped there and
Grandmother Booth bought from them her wonderful store of linens. He
had six boys and as each came to man's estate he told them to ride to
town and have a broadcloth suit made by a tailer, as a mark of
respectability, I presume. The neighborhood afforded little
schooling, yet the six sons somehow succeeded in picking up a fair
amount of knowledge. I have heard Father say that he never went to
school more than six months; but he had a practical knowledge of
arithmetic that guided me through my common mathematics. He was
careful of his grammar and noted other people's talk. His attitude
toward education was almost worshipful and he gave his children all
the education they wanted. One of my father's earliest jobs back
in Vinton County was to contract char-coal for iron furnaces. For the
work he used oxen. His first ox came to him by good luck. A cattle
driver in passing the Booth place had abandoned one ox that got mired.
Father somehow got it out of the mud hole and it was his. This work
as a contractor made him known over the county and helped elect him as
Democratic Sheriff. He was already making money as a cattle drover.
I have heard him tell of buying and driving cattle from Vinton County
to Baltimore. Then he married my Mother Helen L. Pugh and decided
to come west. It was in 1873 that he selected his farm three miles
west of Hamilton in Lovely Ridge district. He bought it of Altman who
had bought it from the railroad. Mr. Altman had planted acres in wine
rhubarb and other unprofitable crops and was ready to quit.
Father, there indulged his old love of raising cattle often going as
far as Hastings Nebraska to buy cattle. In these days his cattle like
others were on the open prairie or "outdoors" as they called the
unfenced land. He was a good horse swapper, being able to see
possibilities in run down horses which he would buy low and feed up
for a good sale. I have heard Mother say that he would never ride
these wretched looking speimen home but would send his cow-men Fred
Jones or Will Wells after them. While on the farm, the Democrats of
the county ran him for Sheriff and he barely lost the election by
sticking loyally to an Ohio friend now living neighbor to him - who
was his political supporter but whose habits were under sensure.
For further details of his life on the farm, see the paper which my
Mother gave of her life in Lovely Ridge. By this time, Father's
ability as a financier was beginning to be noted. When a vacancy
occurred in the youthful Savings Bank he was offered the place of
cashier. He sold the farm at a good profit to Mr. Pierce and moved to
town. About the only vacant house in town then was a small cottage
in the west end, now enlarged into the Charley Johnson house-south of
the tracks. There were few houses over there at that time. Then we
moved to the first house west of the old A.G. Davis house; and then
Father bought two lots of Wm. McCoy on Broadway and built our present
home 1882. Broadway was as well settled up then as it is now. At
that time we always owned a cow, and every evening the whole family
would march out over our back lot with Dad and go off to his cow
pasture back of Webb Conrad's house and drive the cow home for the
night. These days too, we always entertained the Episcopal Ministers
who came to preach in the little church over by Mr. Reddie's home.
Mother and Father belonged to a clique of friends - the Cowgill, Tom
George and Booth families. No Christmas Thanksgiving or New Years
went by without a big dinner for the three families. All this
time the Savings Bank was paying good dividends. In the early days,
it was located somewhere near the site of the McPherson Produce Store
but it was later moved to about the site of the Parrish building near
the Penny Store. There it was burned down and rebuilt about 1884.
His salary most of that time was $1800 but he had to pay $600 of it to
his assistant Finis A. Martin. Harry Lamson was another clerk. The
ordinary bank these days was handled by two men, for the checks and
drafts were less. The other bank in town was the older Spratt,
Houston and Menefee. Father was also a "silent partner" in two
Dry Goods Stores-Cash Cowgill and Company (Penny Store Building" and
McDonald, George and Company (Cash Building). The company also had a
store at Vibbard. In 1898, he resigned from the Savings Bank and
became President of the First National Bank which was then in a weak
condition. The shares soon rose in value and dividends were paid. It
was to this bank that he devoted the rest of his life. He kept going
down to the bank till within four weeks of his death. He was 84 years
of age when he died June 14, 1924. He loved Hamilton and gave his
money freely to its projects-the Tom Creek Mine, the Fair Association,
Church Buildings, the Library Building. Although not a church member,
I am told that at one time he paid on the salaries of every preacher
in town. It seems to me, however, that his best work for Hamilton lay
in his advice and help given to young men who came to him for advice.

Interviewed August 22, 1934.

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COWGILL HISTORY IN CALDWELL COUNTY 
Narrator: Mrs. Effie Cowgill Spratt of St. Joseph, Missouri

James Cowgill, son of William Cowgill was born April 2 1848 on a
farm in Henry County near the town of New Castle Indiana, where he
grew to manhood and where he married Pamelia Ellen Myers, September 22
1867. Pamelia Ellen Myers, the daughter of John C. and Leah
Brendle Myers was born on a farm near the town of Kingston and not far
from Mirabile, Missouri on March 20, 1849. During the Civil War
or what the Southerners prefer to call the "war of the States," John
C. Myers was sheriff of Caldwell County. He was a Southern
sympathizer. War feeling was keen and intense in that locality. It
was often worth a man's life to express an opinion on either side.
There were many untimely deaths not accounted for in open battle, but
by the "bushwhacking" method. One evening in November 1862
following an election, John C. Myers was called to the door of his
home, and in the presence of his family was shot to death from the
dark of the night. Some twelve or fifteen men in this locality at
different times met similar deaths. A number of these deaths are
accounted for at pages 216 and following in the Caldwell-Livingston
County History published 1886. The wife of John C. Myers was so
disturbed over the cold blooded murder of her husband, and not knowing
where or when the killing would end, she gathered her family together
and left the community. She took refuge in New Castle Indiana. There
it was that Ellen, her youngest daughter met and married James
Cowgill. After the war was over, in 1868, the Myers family
returned to reside in Caldwell County, and James and Ellen Cowgill
came along with them. This is the story of how lives came together
who were so forcible to impress themselves upon the development of
their community and who were to broaden out and become statewide
influences for good and progress. James Cowgill came from an
ancestral family of farmers and livestock raisers. In his new
Missouri location he at once rented a small farm and set up an
individual home, in which to reside and rear his family. From his
first forty acres he broadened and widened and extended his efforts
until at one time down in the southern part of Caldwell County he
owned and operated a farm of over 1500 acres of land. At the time of
his death he owned and operated, clear of incumbrance, a cattle ranch
at Garden City Kansas, containing over 20,000 acres of land, upon
which were over 1200 head of cattle. Nor did James Cowgill
confine his efforts alone to farming, and stock raising. In the
middle 80's he branched out into the Dry Goods and general
merchandising business. His first venture was on South Main Street at
Hamilton in a partnership with D.G. McDonald and Co. Then later he
formed another partnership with Robert S. Cash and started still
another store on North Main Street. These two institutions for many
years were the model stores of up-to-date progress. They were
successful financially. They were a credit to the town. They
attracted trade for many miles away. New buildings were erected to
house the stores. It was this kind of enterprises that eventually
changed Hamilton's entire building front of Main Street, and developed
a beautiful little city out of a theretofore country side town.
In 1888 after the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul railroad built
through the southern part of Caldwell County, leading into Kansas
City, James Cowgill, to a great extent, gradually concentrated his
efforts to that section of the county. The railroad passed through a
portion of one of his farms. A town by the name of Cowgill was
established there. He erected an elaborate brick hotel building. He
built and established a bank. He constructed an outstanding residence
and removed his family there. He gave land for a school and established
and assisted in building a Methodist and a Baptist Church. He was
elected as a Democrat to be Presiding Judge of the Caldwell County
Court in 1882. He was elected and served in the Missouri State
Legislature in 1890. He was elected in 1892 to membership in the
Missouri State Railroad and Ware House Commission for a term of six
years. This office required his residence in Kansas City, so it was
that in 1892 he and his family removed from Caldwell County. While
living in Kansas City he was nominated and elected Missouri State
treasurer and he served four years. He served two terms or four years
as Treasurer of Kansas City. He was serving his second term as Mayor
of Kansas City, when early one morning in the Mayor's office in March
1922, without warning, he was stricken with a stroke of apploplexy,
and died without gaining consciousness. His funeral was one of the
most largely attended of any ever held in Kansas City. Dr. Burris
Jenkins conducted his services. Prominent men from the wide
extremities of the State were in attendance. Throngs of people for
hours filed past his bier to bid a last farewell to a strong and
forceful man, who had so commendably implanted himself in the hearts
of those with whom he came in contact. The children of James and
Ellen Cowgill were: Effie Leah married William E. Spratt, Mae,
married Duncan M. Tait, Cora Frances married George A. McWilliams, a
girl baby who died in infancy, and James Cowgill, married Abbie
Winters. As an indication of the buoyancy of spirit, and of the
always optimistic disposition of James Cowgill, which crowned his
efforts all through life, it is related that when he first began
farming, he borrowed enough money to purchase a team. Nobody could
farm without horses. In those days there were great broad acres
of prairie land which laid "outdoors." There were no fences anywhere
except around cultivated fields. The farmers turned their stock out
to graze the commons. They would in the evening gather their cows and
such stock as they needed and then turn them out again the next day.
One evening Judge Cowgill caught up one of his mortgaged horses,
bridled and saddled him, and rode out to drive up their cow. The cow
was not easily detached from the herd. She didn't want to leave to go
home to be alone for the night in a dry lot. She broke back and as
the horse was spurred up quickly into a run to head her off, they came
unexpectedly upon a deep ditch. The horse strained to clear it but
fell back with his head under his body, with its neck broken, and
died. The rider was thrown clear and uninjured. The first thoughts
were those of distress for having lost a mortgaged horse. He
pondered, "How now will I ever make my crops with which to pay my
debts on these horses?" Distress gripped him all over. He was in
convulsions of fear and excitement. All at once he seemed to "come
to," all of a sudden he became aware of the really good luck which had
befallen him. It was the horse's neck that was broken and not his
own. He managed to get the saddle and bridle off the horse and
trudged off for home on foot, no horse and no cow. As he approached
his house his wife saw him from afar with his saddle over his
shoulders and she rushed out to meet him in wonderment at what had
happened. After relating the story, he said, "Well it is a good thing
it was the horse's neck that was broken, for if it had been my neck it
most probably would have been harder debt for you to pay alone with
both horses, than for both of us with one horse." No body ever
heard James Cowgill lamentingly relate a hard luck story.

Interviewed August 1934.

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UNCLE CHARLEY DUNN - EX-SLAVE OF HAMILTON 
Narrators: Mrs. H.D. Eldredge and Mrs. Sarah Haggerty of Hamilton

Charles Dunn, colored, Uncle Charley as he was known in Hamilton
for many years, was brought from Virginia with a lot of other slaves
when a boy of three or five years away from his own kin and came to
Ray County, Missouri. He was bought by a family by the name of
Thompson. As he grew old enough, his duties was to care for and act
as playmate for the Thompson children. In later years, he did other
work until he reached manhood. His master not needing his work,
allowed him to work for others and he had his wages to do with as he
pleased. Saving his wages, he in time was able to buy the freedom of
his slave wife, Aunt Harriett Dunn, as she was known to Hamilton
people. After his freedom, he came to Caldwell County, and lived on a
farm in the Duston District; later they moved to Hamilton where they
lived a useful upright life. Uncle Charley, dying in Hamilton at the
age (as he said) of over ninety years. Joe Thompson of
Breckenridge was his master's son and used to invite Uncle Charley up
every year. Thompson, the Kansas City photographer, was some kin to
his master and used to come and see Uncle Charley bringing money and
other gifts to the old family servitor. Uncle Charley lived in a
house east of the Tuttle-Eldredge home, which is now used for a
storehouse.

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THE WEAVER AND BOWEN FAMILIES IN GOMER TOWNSHIP 
Narrator: Mrs. Euphema Weaver Bowen, 80

Miss Weaver, the daughter of Samuel Weaver came into Caldwell
County 1872 with her parents, at the age of twenty one. They settled
three miles east of Nettleton. In 1875 she married S.L. Bowen and
they improved some land next to the Weaver farm, hence she has spent
most of her life in one community. She had four sons and three
daughters all of whom lived on a farm. The Bowens gradually fenced
their land from the prairie land on all sides, put down wells, planted
orchards, and laid the foundation for good farms. She knit all
the mittens and hose used on her own farm, made underwear, dresses,
shirts and pants, in fact had a complete clothing factory. She dried
fruit - the old fashioned way of drying of peaches and apples was to
split them, seed them and spread them out on tablecloths on a low roof
till they were sun dried. Then they were tied up in flour sacks,
against flies and worms. There was little canning done and mostly in
tin cans with sealing wax on tops. They dried peas, sweet corn cut
off the cob, navy beans and lima beans; gallons of cucumbers and green
tomato pickles and the kitchen was bright with dried peppers. Soft
soap was made at home and supplied all their need for general
purposes. Candles were made and molded at home in molds of twelve or
twenty four holes. A quilt was always ready to work on. Every wife
had a hop vine for yeast and bread. You can see that no woman these
days had time to spend foolishly in attending teas and card parties.
The old Bowen farm is now owned by Edbert Clarkson who married the
youngest Bowen daughter. Mr. Bowen died several years ago and Mrs.
Bowen lives with Egbert. The Weavers and Bowens bury in the Weaver
Cemetery near Nettleton. 

Interviewed July 1934.

~~~~~~~~~~

MRS. ELIZA BROWN OF VAN NOTE DISTRICT 
Narrators: The Sturgis "Boys"

Eliza Dixon was born in Alabama 1841. Her people decided to move
west and came in a flat boat 1849 over the very rapids where Muscle
Shoals are located. They were in a band of emigrants, some headed for
California gold fields, some for nearer points. The Dixons stayed in
Illinois then moved to cheaper lands in Kansas and lived near where
Emporia is now. There she saw the last ceremonial war dance of the
tribe of Indians who had come from near Neosho, Missouri. With Kansas
Civil War troubles the Dixons moved back to Illinois where Miss Eliza
married her first husband - Sturgis. In 1870 the Sturgis family came
to Caldwell County where kin-folks had already preceded them. They
settled on a farm east of Hamilton in the Van Note district beyond the
school where they lived over forty years. On the death of Mr. Sturgis
she married a Brown and was usually called Mrs. Sturgis Brown to
differentiate her from the numerous other Browns out there. She was
connected by marriage or blood with several prominent families of this
community; the Van Notes, Browns and Odgens. When the Sturgis
family came into the county, roads were in a poor state. Because
farms were unfenced people drove into the prairies to get around a
ditch and forded streams for there were no bridges. Sometimes the
beaten wagon road would look like this Lumber wagons were the usual
conveyance. Mr. Judd, Mr. Ira Houghton and another man several miles
to the south east were the only ones owning buggies between Hamilton
and Lincoln township. Later, spring wagons came to be common.
The Van Note school building was built 1871 and Mrs. Brown's two
oldest sons Charles and John began their schooling that day. The
first teacher was "old Man" (Geo.) Moffit, father of Will and Andy
Moffit - the cabinet makers in Hamilton during the 80's and 90's.
John received a large reward of merit composed of several coupons
which was a high honor. Another teacher was Anna Watson (Kaufman) of
Nettleton. Of all those early neighbors of 1870 only two women are
left: Mrs. Elizabeth Dawson and Mrs. Sarah Gurley. Mrs. Brown
herself died a few years ago. 

Interview taken March 1934.

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THE HARPSTER FAMILY OF GOMER TOWNSHIP CALDWELL AND DAVIESS COUNTIES 
Narrator: Mrs. James I. Murrell, 69, of Hamilton, Missouri

Van Note School and Head Marks 
Davies County Creeks

Mrs. Murrell was born in Ohio, the daughter of Amos and Loveta
Harpster and grand daughter of Jacob Harpster all of Ohio. They came
to Missouri for a better chance to earn a living. Twenty one of the
Harpsters unloaded at one time at Nettleton 1871 from a Hannibal and
St. Joseph train. At first they rented land of the railroad company.
That first rented farm now belongs to Willard Lankford. The railroad
land agent was George Lamson the depot agent at Hamilton and later a
popular banker. Another renter of the railroad land near Nettleton
was George Pickell later City Marshall of Hamilton. This land became
part of the Wm. Mapes land and part of the Schartzer farm. About 1876
Jacob Harpster owned his own farm of one hundred sixteen acres in
Gomer township, south of the railroad. He was neighbors on the east
to J.B. Sturgis on the south to Wm. Markwitz. His land lay south of
Wm. Paxton and he was near the farm of J.C. Penney Sr. Amos
Harpster came to Hamilton in the seventies. He and George Rymal ran a
butcher shop in about 1874 on Broadway near where O.O. Brown's store
stood. Later he ran a restaurant near or in the same place. Then he
moved to Daviess County and bought land between Dog Creek and
Marrowbone. His father Jacob owned the place north of Kidder College
where now Jim Hainsworth owns. The Harpster family is now identified
with Daviess County in the Kidder vicinity. Mrs. Murrell went to
school in the Van Note district east of Hamilton and learned her
a-b-c's from Anna Watson (Kaufman). She had as school mates all the
Sturgis boys, Maud Dawson, Nettie Judd, the Van Note children. She
spoke of the old head mark (head of line in spelling) a small card was
given and ten of these were exchanged for a big reward of merit card
to be kept forever. To get a head mark, one had to be head at the end
of a class period. Next day he went foot. The next person in the
line advanced to head but must stay there to the end of the period.
Some children never got a head mark. They just could not spell.
When Mrs. Murrell's father moved up near Dog and Marrowbone creeks,
she asked the old timers why these creeks had these names. They said
that the creeks were named by early hunters passing through the
unsettled country one hundred years ago. Marrowbone was named thus;
the hunters had killed many fat deer drinking in the creek. The
marrow out of the venison bone is supposed to be a great dainty. They
all ate heartily and then spent the night in agony with old fashioned
"belly ache." They named the stream from that event. A night or two
later, all the camp dogs who like-wise had eaten their full of the
venison began to show the effects also and so the stream by which the
dogs were sick was called Dog Creek. A near by stream was called
Panther because a panther was seen there once. Honey creek, also in
that general country, was named because a bee tree was there. Thus
the early hunters gave the names to these "cricks" which they thought
were fitting. Mrs. Murrell said that every one used to say "crick" in
those parts, that the pronunciation "creek" marked a person as putting
on airs or affected. 

Interviewed July 1934.

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THE DAWSON FAMILY IN THE SEVENTIES IN VAN NOTE DISTRICT
Narrator: Mrs. Elizabeth Dawson, 90, Hamilton, Missouri

Mr. and Mrs. O. Dawson came west in 1870 "to grow up with the
country." They came from Oil City Pennsylvania, where the first oil
well was put down by man-power used on boards. When the oil came up
they did not know what to do with it, and experimented. The first oil
lamp was burned in O. Dawson's father's home. It was not refined oil
and was really dangerous. Mr. Dawson had just inherited $3000
from his father and he wanted to buy a home with it. He invested it
in the present Dawson farm of eighty acres at $45 an acre. One and
one half mile east of Hamilton and the money which was left went for a
wagon and horses. The house on his land was a two room shack, really
one, for the back room was a lean-to. The front room was so small
that in getting out of bed one's feet almost went into the kitchen
oven. In that room, they cooked, ate, and slept. The lean-to was
filled with corn which the previous owner had "thrown in" with the
land as a bargain. There were two windows to keep clean. Next
fall the Dorr Judd family came out. Mrs. Judd was a sister of Mrs.
Dawson and also had a $3000 inheritance. They happened to be lucky
enough to buy the adjoining eighty acres for $25 an acre from a
home-sick settler. So they had more money left after the farm was
bought. They made a better house to begin with. Soon Jim and
Jeff Van Note bought eighty acres on the same side of the road. All
were young couples beginning life and bore hardships easily. The Van
Note district began with excellent people. Mrs. Sturgis (afterwards
Mrs. Brown commonly called Mrs. Sturgis Brown lived on the opposite
side of the road to the east). These were the near neighbors. A
well known character of the seventies who used to frequent these farms
was Mrs. Lee or "Old Mrs. Lee" as she was often called. She was a
demented woman who even before Mrs. Dawson came 1870 was known as a
tramp and beggar. At first she dragged her three young boys with her,
but as they grew older they were ashamed of her and refused to go.
Some where to the north she had a daughter who wished to care for her
but Mrs. Lee preferred to tramp and beg. She was seen in these parts
as late as 1883 still as subject of fear to children. This was
her appearance: an old frowsy gray haired woman, calico bonnet,
calico apron, worn dress; she carried a stick in one hand and carried
her worldly possessions (a sack of clothes) on another stick on her
back. She went from house to house begging food and shelter; she also
begged from stores. They would give her short lengths of calico to
get rid of her. She sometimes worked a few hours for farm women to
get them to sew for her. She picked gooseberries for Mrs. Dawson who
made a sunbonnet in return. But she never stayed long in a place.
After a nights rest in a barn or in a kitchen, off she went early to
the road, a crazy harmless soul. Occasionally she would ask for soap
to wash her dirty clothes. At one time the Caldwell County
authorities put her in the County Poor Farm as a poor and insane
person but she walked out the back door to freedom. If refused a bed,
she always quoted Scripture "The foxes have holes, the birds have
nests, but the Son of God hath no place to lay his head."

Interviewed January 1934.

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THE GURLEY FAMILY IN EXCELSIOR DISTRICT 
Narrator: Mrs. Sarah Gurley, 89, of Hamilton, Missouri

Sarah E. Raymer of Ontario New York was born 1845, the daughter
of Henry Raymer and Phoebe Mead. She married George C. Gurley January
1868 and in the same year the young couple came to Caldwell County.
He had met George Putnam of this county in the east and Putnam had
urged him to come out here. When they came they spent the first day
and night at the old Hamilton House south of the depot. The landlord
then was Mr. Brosius and his son was merchant here. Mr. Gurley
bought eighty acres of the railroad at $12 an acre from George Lamson,
agent for the railroad. While he was fixing up a home, Mrs. Gurley
lived in the home of George Putnam, who at that time lived just
outside Hamilton on the north which afterwards was the Lindley home.
George Putnam was an early character about Hamilton, a stockman and
farmer and later in charge of the scales at the stock yards. His
worst fault was drunkenness. He later lived on a farm east of town
near the Penney place and later in town in the present Dawson home.
His first wife was a sister of Myron Walling's wife. He died over
forty years ago. The entire family lie in the old cemetery. Some
of the outstanding events in the many years spent by Mrs. Gurley on
the old farm were the terrible winds; one night in 1876 their two room
house blew over; fear of Indians who yet traveled the roads in small
groups, Mrs. Gurley gathered switches and hung them over the front
door, the idea being that the Indians in fear of switches would stay
away; the James boys, who never came their way; great rattle snakes,
which appeared even in the door yards; the wild deer used to graze in
their neighborhood the first year or so. One morning as they awoke
early, there was quite a herd in the yard, but Mr. Gurley would not
shoot them lest they belong to some distant neighbor. Their
neighbors those first two years were rather distant - the nearest was
John Haigh, whose wife was a very eccentric and energetic woman,
walking four miles to Hamilton to wash for Mrs. T.D. George and then
walking back in the evening. Other neighbors were the Markwitz family
and Chas. Rook. They traveled much on horse or in lumber wagons.
Finally Mr. Gurley and Billy Mapes (brother of Mrs. Etta Naylor) built
a spring buggy, seating two people, which was quite a fine job. Often
as they forded streams the water came to the wagon hubs, but the
stream was so narrow that there was little danger. The Gurley
boys went to school first in a building on the Clampitt place, then
over to Van Note 1873 then to their own new school house in the
Excelsior district. Mr. Gurley shipped fine driving horses back east
besides farming and he had just returned from such a trip when he
died, over forty years ago. The Gurley farm has never changed hands.
Chas. Gurley, a son has it now. 

Interviewed July 1934.

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THE MURRELLS IN GOMER TOWNSHIP IN THE SEVENTIES 
Narrator: James I. Murrell, 76, of Hamilton, Missouri

The Murrell Farm 
Locust Grove School 
Easy Credit 
The O'Neil Home Country Schools

Mr. Murrell, now a retired farmer was born in Ripley County south
east Missouri of southern parentage. His father was Benjamin Murrell
and his mother Mary Everett Galpin, who with a daughter is buried in
McCrary cemetery in Daviess County. The father was a southern soldier
(as Mr. Murrell says "it was all the way we knew") and died in a
Little Rock Hospital. The Mother had four children to support and
they were lucky if they had corn bread to eat. In 1874, James I.
his Mother and the other children came to Caldwell County where he
worked on two farms east of Hamilton - on one he worked for J.C.
Penney Sr. (father of the Penney Store man) on the other for the
Paxton Brothers, farmers of Mirabile township and liverymen of
Hamilton. Then fifty two years ago he bought a farm without a cent in
hand, eighty acres at $30 an acre from Judge McMillan and paid off the
mortgage. Credit was easy then for every borrower paid his debts. To
be sold out was a disgrace. Later he bought forty more acres at
$87.50 which shows how land values increased. Those days farmers
did not need to use fertilizer, corn grew easily for the soil was
almost virgin. At first in his farming he used a walking plow. It
was in 1874 that he first shucked corn. Before that time in Ripley
County, they had pulled corn and stalk off together. His farm was
near the Locust Grove School four miles north east of Hamilton. An
early teacher there was Eva Glasener of Hamilton who got $20 a month,
did her own janitor work and walked out each day from home, a good
four miles. Another teacher was Jim Wilson of Kidder. They had big
country schools then forty two to fifty. Nowadays the same school has
seven to twelve. Families were large and the big boys and girls kept
on going even after they had finished their books, sometimes till they
were twenty, especially in the winter when there was little farm work.
There were two terms; winter ordinarily four possibly five months;
summer - three months. Pupils were ranked by the reader they used.
The remark "He is in the third reader" really showed his class. Each
country school was a law to itself. No rules existed to make it work
like some other school. Consequently the country pupils were in hard
luck when they came to town school. Mr. and Mrs. Murrell gave up
farming a few years ago and bought a home east of the Federated
Church. This house originally smaller than now is one of Hamiltons
old homes. They bought it of Mrs. H.B. O'Neil whose husband was in
the Dry Goods firm of O'Neil and Wilson in the seventies, located at
the Penney Store site. The O'Neils bought their home of Wm. Partin
and wife who inherited it from Mrs. Partin's father, Rev. Eli Penney,
who gave them the home for taking care of himself and wife in their
old age. 

Interviewed July 1934.

~~~~~~~~~~

THE WATSON FAMILY IN GOMER TOWNSHIP 1870 
Narrator: Mrs. Ida Watson Hargrove, 68, Hamilton, Missouri

Mrs. Hargrove is the daughter of Thos. Jefferson Watson (1827-1909)
and Abbie Frances Cole both of whom lived much of their lives in Rhode
Island where the Watson name went back to the colonial days. Thos. J.
Watson moved to Illinois in the sixties and to Caldwell County 1870
when Mrs. Hargrove was three years old. He bought a section of land
near Nettleton at $12 an acre and afterwards considered he had paid
too much since land near by had sold at $3 an acre and "Old Man"
(Fred) Pawsey had bought timber land for 25 cents an acre, but of
course that was earlier. When the Watson family landed at the
Nettleton depot (then called Gomer) there was a tiny depot, a store
kept by McIntyre and a house where the Camp family lived. This family
had three children, a daughter who became Mrs. Grimes (Mother of Joe
Grimes of Hamilton) Mrs. Sloan (mother of Tessie and Cassie) and a son
Wright. She recalls the ugly prairie grass, the prairie chickens,
but also the beautiful prairie flowers new to her; no bridges, no
roads, not a house between them and Shoal Creek. At first, the
two elder boys went to school at Mr. Pleasant school some distance
away, but soon a school was built at Nettleton and she started her
schooling there. Her sister Anna Watson Kaufman went back to Illinois
to school and then on her return taught in the adjoining Van Note
School. One of Mrs. Hargrove's teachers was Sam Scott father of Mrs.
John Finch. She has a vivid memory of grasshopper year 1875.
They had been hearing of the plague else where and two of the boys had
ridden to see the sights some twenty miles away. They brought some in
a bottle as a souvenir. The very next morning the grasshoppers came
to the Watson farm, like a heavy cloud, landing on fences, porches and
corn. The children drove them from the corn by beating the stalks,
but some of them fell on the throats of a big brood of young turkeys
and killed them all. The next day they suddenly rose and flew east.
The Watson family lost three members of typhoid fever within a few
weeks one summer in the seventies. It was said to be due to the dry
prairie grass. Whole families used to die of typhoid those days.
Funerals held in the school house and the services were often held a
week or more likely a month after the death, especially if the disease
was catching. The burial ordinarily occurred the next day after death
because they could not keep a corpse much longer and because it took
the neighbor men about a day to build a coffin. One of the
brothers was photographed after he died because he had never had a
grown up picture taken. T.H. Hare, the Hamilton Photographer came out
and fixed the body in a semi-sitting pose. Mr. Hare then had his
gallery east of the present Martin grocery. She recalled having
cabinet and tin types taken there. Her father used to tell of
traveling photographers who went thru this country taking pictures
right on the farms, so you would not have to go to town. The
Watson family was well fixed, yet the children never had much money to
spend. On Fourth of July they were given fifteen cents 15 cents (or a
quarter when older). Five cents of this in Mrs. Hargrove's case, had
to go for a ride on the merry go round, five cents for peanuts, and
five for taffy candy, or later when ice cream came out, a dime went
for that. Surprise boxes were always alluring but the old folks
always advised them not to buy for they had musty old candy or popcorn
in them, even if they did contain a ring. 

Interviewed June 1934.

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This page was last updated September 24, 2006.