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A GERMAN FAMILY IN CALDWELL COUNTY 
CHRISTIAN SCHNEITER, SWISS SETTLER IN CALDWELL COUNTY 1867
IN "GRAND RIVER COUNTRY" 
THE ESTABROOK FAMILY IN BRECKENRIDGE TOWNSHIP 1867
THE HALSTEAD FAMILY IN BRECKENRIDGE TOWNSHIP IN 1837 
DR. JAMES EARL IN BRECKENRIDGE TOWNSHIP 1937 
THE GOINS FAMILY IN BRECKENRIDGE TOWNSHIP - 1863 
THE TERRILL FAMILY OF BRECKENRIDGE 
THE SCANLON FAMILY IN BRECKENRIDGE TOWNSHIP - 1858 
THE TROSPERS OF BRECKENRIDGE 

A GERMAN FAMILY IN CALDWELL COUNTY 
Narrator: Mrs. Lottie Anderson of Hamilton, Missouri

Martin Christiansen, Mrs. Anderson's father was born in Germany
in the dyke and sea districts. In his later years he often told of
those early days when the family at meal time ate out of one dish,
each with his own wooden spoon. After the meal each washed his spoon
and put it up. They did not drive to town but in the summer they
rowed and in the winter they skated and pushed before them a skating
chair with an oldery one in it. At fifteen Martin ran away from home
to sea and served fifteen years and won the coveted iron cross.
As a sailor he came to New Orleans. He worked up the Mississippi on a
steamboat. In a boat trip to Ohio he met his future wife, also a
German. He came to Missouri 1866 and bought land in Caldwell County
of the railroad. His eighty acre place was part of the present Frank
Hooker farm. Christiansen held it till 1880 when he sold it to Col.
J.W. Harper (Hooker's father-in-law). When the Christiansens came
to Hamilton they boarded a few days at the Brosius Hotel (Hamilton
House) till he got ready for her to come out. They lived in a tent
for several months till he built a house. At that time and for years
after there were no fences. They fed hogs and cattle (all branded) on
the open prairie. His mark was M.C. The mother often had to walk in
the afternoon to bring home the cows to be milked and fed. After
Mr. Christiansen became established he sent money back to Germany to
bring on his old father and brothers and sisters because he wanted
them to have American comforts of life. One sister came to American
later and lived but he never saw her from the day he ran away till his
death. In 1880, having sold his farm he bought another near
Nettleton where he reared his large family. He often longed for boats
and the sea but never saw them again. He became naturalized in time
to vote for R. B. Haves as President. The couple always spoke
broken English. The Mother learned to read English as her young
children brought home their first readers. She learned also to write
the English script with them. At first, Mr. Christiansen being a
sailor was absolutely ignorant of farming but was eventually a good
farmer. In those early days of the sixties he also dug many wells and
built homes for the settlers. 

Interviewed April 1934.

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CHRISTIAN SCHNEITER, SWISS SETTLER IN CALDWELL COUNTY 1867
Narrator: Mrs. Sam Teegarden of Nettleton, Missouri

Christian Schneiter, father of Mrs. Sam Teegarden was born in
Canton Berne Switzerland 1831. He came to the United States 1867,
with a Swiss colony and settled in New York Township in Caldwell
County, Missouri. The next year he sent for his wife and five
children. He soon found out that there was good money to be made
digging wells for the settlers who were flocking into the prairie
land. He laid money and bought at first twenty acres and finally
owned one hundred sixty acres. With much well digging on hand, he was
gone quite a bit, leaving the farm work largely to the wife and nine
children. Mrs. Teegarden recalls how her mother would work in the
fields day by day and then go out on the prairies after the cows in
the afternoon to milk. Reminiscent of the 1934 drought, she
recalls the 1874 drought when the farmers instead of digging wells to
water their stock, as farmers do now, would turn them loose to find
their own water in water holes and creeks scattered over the prairies.
She could recall hearing the cows low in their great desire for water.
Her sister Mary married John Shaney; both Mrs. Shaney and Mrs.
Teegarden married farmers and settled in Gomer township.

Interviewed August 1934.

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IN "GRAND RIVER COUNTRY" 
Narrator: Dr. Libby R. Woolsey of Hamilton

The Woolsey Family 
At the End of the H. & St. Joseph R.R. 
Early Whiskey-Making 
The Irish Settlers at Breckendridge

The Woolsey family came very early into what is now Caldwell County.
Some of them were here in 1835 before the county was organized. Some
left and came back later on. Cardinal Woolsey, the father of Dr.
Libby Reynolds Woolsey, was a native of Tennessee (born 1818) of
Scotch Irish lineage. He settled in Breckenridge, Missouri before
Mormon days. His son, Dr. Napoleon Bonaparte Woolsey, was born there
in 1849 and Dr. Libby R., the youngest son, was born there in 1859.
Dr. Halstead of Breckenridge, who lived to be over one hundred years
old, was present at his birth. Being a doctor runs in the Woolsey
family for centuries. Dr. L.R. Woolsey was born on the old
Woolsey farm two miles east of Breckenridge in a house that was part
log cabin and part tent. That farm is now owned by Dr. C.B. Woolsey
of Braymer. His grandfather, Gilbert Woolsey, put up a
still-house one mile north of the above farm in the early days, but
when Berry Diddle made his still-house near Henkins bridge, the two
men fell out and Woolsey moved his still into fresh territory near
Hamburg, Iowa, where he and his wife are buried. Dr. L.R.'s parents
are buried in the old Gant cemetery near Breckenridge. Whisky
sold cheap then, twenty-five cents a gallon, for good pure stuff.
Often the distillers would sell it in this way. They would hear of a
harvesting or a barn raising or the like. They then would fill a
twenty gallon barrel with whiskey, put it on an axle (which might be a
round of a tree, for a fellow was might lucky those days if he had a
spoke wheel), put runners under this, hitched horses to the
contraption; and he himself sitting in the barrel, drove away to sell
the whiskey. When the twenty gallons were gone, he went after more.
He lived near the Jerome Terrill place, went to that school, and
played with the little Terrill niggers, for the Terrills were
slaveholders. The Terrills, who were a very proud family, thought it
was outlandish for a white boy to play with niggers, but it did not
hurt a Woolsey for they too held their heads high then. He
recalls hearing about the first store at Breckenridge. Sam Rial and
Billy (Daddy) Houghton put up a three room log cabin store where they
sold everything, even whiskey. That was when Breckenridge was at the
end of the railroad. The Hannibal and St. Joseph railroad started
from Hannibal and worked west; and there was a pause in the work for
some weeks at Breckenridge late in 1858, when Breckenridge was the
western terminus of the line. This was a little before Dr. Libby R.
Woolsey was born and his name was given to him because Libby was the
name of the first conductor who brought a train there. Afterwards
this Rial store was sold to Sidney McWilliams. He recalls that
his father, Cardinal, bought this land near Breckenridge from the
government at 12 1/2 cents an acre and sold it to old man Greenwood
for 25 cents an acre and thought he was putting over a smart deal.
The lumber for his permanent home was hauled by oxen from Brunswick
and that old house is still standing and in good shape. In the
days before Breckenridge started, all that country was known as the
Grand River country and the Post office was called Grand River Post
office which passed away with the birth of Breckenridge. The Grand
River country attracted people from far and wide in this U.S. and even
Ireland. He spoke of several Irish families who came to that
district. John Scanlon came over and built a big stone house and
bossed the railroad section work for forty-five years. Anthony White
was another, and Mr. Helm another Irishman. Some were Catholics.
Some came here, returned to Ireland and then came back here, realizing
that the Grand River country could not be beat. 

Interviewed August 1934.

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THE ESTABROOK FAMILY IN BRECKENRIDGE TOWNSHIP 1867

Edward Wilson Estabrook and his wife Mary E. Wagner came into
Caldwell County 1867 and settled on a farm near Breckenridge now owned
and operated by a son Wilson and a grand son Edward. E.W. was born
1827 in Massachusetts and was a cabinet maker by trade. First he
tried his work in Wisconsin but moved from there to Caldwell County in
the land and building boom of 1867-8. The father died in 1885 and the
mother 1900. The sons Elery and Wilson went to Wolf Grove school near
their home and Elery afterwards was a school director there. The
house occupied by the Estabrook family was built 1884. The sons by
the instruction of their carpenter father cut, sawed, and planed
native oak for the frame work and burnt rock to use in the plaster of
the house. It is still in fine condition and shows what people can
make out of materials already on their place. The Estabrooks now
own a stock farm of 540 acres near Breckenridge and are breeders of
Ramboulette sheep of which they usually have 600 head. This pioneer
Estabrook family has made a name for themselves far beyond the limits
of Caldwell County. When a family sees its fourth generation in one
community like the Estabrooks one can call it a well established
family.

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THE HALSTEAD FAMILY IN BRECKENRIDGE TOWNSHIP IN 1837 
Narrator: Mrs. Mary Halstead Alexander, 76, Hamilton, Missouri

Mrs. Alexander is a niece of Dr. J.L. Halstead of Breckenridge
who died a few years age over 100 years old. Her father a brother of
the doctor came one year and a half ahead of Dr. Halstead who came
1857 and brought with him the salves, building material and
implements. The buildings were all built by slave labor under their
father's supervision on the section of land south of Breckenridge
which Dr. Halstead had entered 1855. He also had bought 120 acres of
timber land making a total of 760 acres at a price of $2.50 an acre
for the prairie and $4.50 an acre for the timber, showing the
comparative low value in these days of prairie land. Dr. Halstead
paid for this land in gold coin and rode alone horseback with it
through a thinly settled frontier. For a year and a half 1855-7
Mrs. Alexander's father and his family lived in this newly built home.
They could see deer grazing on the prairies, and turkey, grouse and
prairie chickens scurried as men approached. They depended largely on
their own place for clothing-for they had sheep. At first they raised
cotton to give the salves something to do; but after the Missouri
river began to carry boats to Richmond, it was cheaper (especially
when you no longer had slaves) to buy it there. When Dr. Halstead
with his family came to take charge of the farm, Mrs. Alexander's
father moved his family to Breckenridge where he helped to build many
of the early buildings there. They moved in mid-day; that evening the
train passed by their home. The children had never seen a train and
were unprepared for its awful appearance. They ran shrieking into the
house. She recalls some of the closing events of the Civil War
about Breckenridge. She heard the shots which killed the southern
sympathizer Humphrey Weldon. (See his paper) Her own father was not
active as a Southerner but Dr. Halstead was one of those who helped to
raise the Confederate flag in Breckenridge and she recalls that Henry
Gist (later killed by the Union militia) was one of the Southerners
forced by the militia to dig up the stump of the Confederate
flag-pole. She recalls too that one night her father was called
out of bed to identify a man by the name of Ireland. He had delivered
some cattle and was caught riding at night by the militia as a
suspect. Before he was released, men who knew him and his calling as
a cattle trader had to identify him. She recalls hearing her
father say that when he first came to Missouri, small change money was
so scarce that he once had seen a dollar cut into quarters to make
change. His brother Dr. Halstead told of the days about 1841 in the
Richmond country when there were 6 1/2 and 12 1/2 cent pieces, for 5
and 10 cent pieces were not coined till about that time. The year
1858 was a memorable drought year (few can recall it and nobody seems
to be able to compare it to the 1934 drought). No rain fell from
April to September. Corn and all crops were an entire failure. These
few farmers who had sold old corn sold it easily at $1 per bushel;
whereas if the corn crop had been good, they would have received 10 to
20 cents. Families who used real coffee two or three times a week
were simply extravagant, for people usually used coffee
substitute-parched corn, dried sweet potatoes and the like for a
beverage. Everything was very high. Mr. and Mrs. Alexander
bought unimproved land north of Nettleton and made it into a valuable
farm and there reared a family of nine children. 

Interviewed July 1934.

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DR. JAMES EARL IN BRECKENRIDGE TOWNSHIP 1937 
Narrator: Mrs. Leta Earl Moore of Breckenridge

James Earl, son of John and Mary Earl, was born in New Jersey,
Sept. 25th, 1797. After growing to young manhood in his native
state, he became a sailor. Soon he was threatened with tuberculosis
and took up the study of medicine. After finishing his medical
course, he migrated west, making the journey partly by boat and partly
by ox team. He came in with the Mormons along the Shoal Creek and
settled in the extreme eastern part of Caldwell County in 1837 where
he homesteaded 120 acres of land. Later he bought hundreds of acres
of virgin soil in Caldwell and Livingston counties, much of which he
sold after there was a rumor that the government was contemplating
taking over much of the land of large land-owners to encourage
settlement. On his homestead in 1858, he built the first frame
house in that part of the country. The whole structure was built by
hand. Doors, window frames and all other frame work were planed,
grooved and mortised by hand. Weather boarding, doors, casings,
built-in cupboards, and clothes closets and all other inside woodwork
were made of walnut. The frame was of oak. Shingles were split or
rived and then planed. The lathes were also split. The plastering
was made of sand and lime with cow hair for fibre. The skill with
which the workmen finished the house equalled if not surpassed factory
work of to-day. The lumber was selected from the best timber
available and the woodwork was sandpapered and pumiced by hand. The
structure was fifteen months in the making. While James Earl
practiced his profession, (medicine) his hired help tilled the soil
with oxen and small walking plows and later with mule teams. The
ground was laid off with single shovels and the corn was cultivated
with double shovels, after being planted sometimes by hand and
sometimes with hand planters. Clothing was made from home made
materials-home spun and home woven. James Earl was married to
Martha Dennison Anderson June 12, 1854. Their two children were Mary
Earl who married Calvin Sergent and James Thomas Earl who married
Minerva Dye. Mary Earl died in 1926 and James Thomas Earl, April 28,
1931. His wife, Minerva Dye Earl, still lives on the farm homesteaded
by James Earl. James Thomas Earl's daughter, Mrs. Leta Earl Moore
collected the above facts.

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THE GOINS FAMILY IN BRECKENRIDGE TOWNSHIP - 1863 
Narrator: Bluford Goins, 96, of Breckenridge

Bluford Goins of Breckenridge was born 1839, hence he is now in
his 96th year. He was born at Cumberland Gap, Tenn., while his
father's family was on the road "west" from their home in Lee County,
Virginia. They were in a covered wagon, of course, with a company of
emigrants. Every wagon had its spinning wheel and home made
furniture; most of them had a package of cotton seed to sow in the new
homes. Much of the journey was over paths instead of roads and the
parents walked by the slow horses or oxen as the case might be, so
that the children might ride. They came by easy stages and the Gap
was a rest-stage on their road to Kentucky. In Kentucky, they lived a
few months, then to Texas County, Mo. and then on to Lexington, Mo.
From there Mr. Goin's father came overland to Caldwell County about
1863. He invested in a farm north of Breckenridge and lived there on
the farm till 1883. During the 60's and 70's, he often cut wood and
hauled it to Breckenridge for $1.00 a cord. During the Civil War,
he served in Co. H. of the First Mo. Cavalry volunteers under Col.
Whitman, Lieut. Col. Chandler and Gen. Steele. The family still has
his Cavalry sword. It is the old-fashioned long type with basket
hilt. Her served 2 years, 7 months and 19 days. One a year, he
with his son, makes a trip to Gallatin, Daviess County, to pay his
subscription to the Gallatin North Missourian to which he has
subscribed seventy years: he was a subscriber when it started in
1864. 

Interviewed December 1933.

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THE TERRILL FAMILY OF BRECKENRIDGE 
Narrators: Mrs. Sarah Haggerty, 70, and Mrs. H.D. Eldredge of Hamilton

These Hamilton women were well acquainted with Mrs. Mary Terrill
and her children since Mrs. Sarah Haggerty taught for years in
Breckenridge. Mr. and Mrs. Jerome B. Terrill and children came to
Missouri in wagons in very early days. She was only sixteen when she
was married. They came to the Breckenridge country when the place was
a mere settlement without a name, except the Grand River country.
She brought with her as a part of her dower her slaves who lived with
her many years. He brought among other things, his library, a very
fine one for those days. Before locating at Breckenridge, they
went to Westport Landing when it was only a steam boat landing, then
decided to come up to Caldwell County where a kinsman was located. He
bought land and it was on some of this land that the town of
Breckenridge was laid out in 1856. He was one of the Breckenridge
town company. He named the town after his friend, Col. Breckenridge
of Kentucky. From their home, before the town started, they could
see one vast expanse of prairie. The only trees in their vision were
those along streams and a cluster of poplars on a Foley farm north
west of Breckenridge. They built a log house which is yet
standing, as far as I know. I recall her saying that one of the
happiest days in her life was when finally she had a level puncheon
floor so she could rock a cradle. Groceries and other necessities
of life were brought from Hannibal but there were few trips taken.
Mr. Terrill was killed within a mile of his home by falling from a
railway train Nov. 1864. That left her to struggle on with several
small children. Her latchstring always hung outside, as a gathering
place for the young people. Camping parties to Trosper Lake and Grand
River frequently had her as a chaperon. Uncle Bob, one of the
Terrill slaves, was for years a well known character in Breckenridge.
The elder Terrills are buried in the Terrill private graveyard one
half mile east of Breckenridge. 

Interviewed August 25, 1934.

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THE SCANLON FAMILY IN BRECKENRIDGE TOWNSHIP - 1858 
Narrator: Patrick Scanlon of Breckenridge

Patrick Scanlon's father, John Scanlon, came from Valley Glass,
Ireland. In the party were his two brothers and one sister, his
father, Thomas Scanlon and John, Patrick, Michael and Anna McNicholas.
These were his wife's people. They came first to Indiana where they
worked on the railroad. At that time they had no steel rails, only
two by fours with strap iron fastened on them. They traveled to
St. Louis and then by boat to Brunswick. There, Bill Colvin moved
them by ox-team to land two miles south of Breckenridge. They were
due south of the log store, one mile east of Breckenridge, run by
Allan Rial. Then they moved into Breckenridge and lived in the
section house. They built their own big rock house in 1864. The
present members of the family live in this house. Patrick Keely and
Jim O'Toole did a great share of the work on the house. Here they
kept a boarding house and fed the train and section hands, buying
flour by the carload, and meat and potatoes from the farmers. They
herded cattle west of town on the prairies and the boys became quite
expert in cutting off the heads of prairie chickens with a cattle
whip. The wild geese were so thick they ate the grain in the fields.
They took their grain for grinding to the Ed. Groves mill at Lick
Fork. Across from the depot was the Ollie McMillan Store. Also, the
Rial Store. Early families of the times were Trospers, Bennetts,
Gants, Greenwoods, Terrills and McCubbins. The men all worked on
the section and John Scanlon was the whiskey boss, issuing the
allowance of whiskey to the men five times a day. During the Civil
War, prisoners were confined there in box cars. The guards made them
carry water from springs in the east part of town. One batch of
prisoners killed three guards and escaped. The men of the town served
as local militia to guard the bridges. It was a common practice of
the town to bury their gold in their gardens during the war. The
railroad was built by mules and wheel barrows. They hauled ties with
horses and hauled the steel rails along the roadbed on mule cars.
Trains only ran once a week and there was a large wood yard east of
the depot for they had nothing but wood-burning engines then. The
family did not have to do their own spinning and weaving but a lady
called Grandma Hershberger did this for a great many people of the
community. 

Interviewed July 1934.

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THE TROSPERS OF BRECKENRIDGE 
Narrator: Wm. B. Trosper, 75, of Breckenridge, Missouri

Home Work 
Kerosene and Whiskey 
Navigating Grand River

Mr. Trosper was born July 14, 1859 on a farm a mile north of
Breckenridge. His parents were Robert B. Trosper and Mary Rice Comer.
He was one of a family of eight children. His parents came into
Caldwell County from Knox County Kentucky arriving June 29 1837 in a
wagon. His grandfather Nick Trosper settled north of the present
Excelsior Springs Missouri 1826. Originally they had come from
Brunswick County North Carolina, moving to Kentucky on horse back.
His grandmother's maiden name was Rachel Brank. Family tradition says
that her father was killed in the Revolutionary War by General
Tarleton. Mr. Trosper was born in a log house, two rooms below
and one up. He first attended the public school in Breckenridge and
later a private school here. His first and last public speech was
given by him, when he was four years old, in a log school in the west
part of town next door to the broom factory. Sally Napier was the
teacher (She was the ardent Southern supporter who at the beginning of
the Civil War at a public meeting urged the men to drive off the
Unionists.) They used ox-teams to break up the ground for farming
and then laid off the corn rows with single shovel plows drawn by
horses. His Mother did her own carding, spinning, weaving and
dyeing for their clothes. They grew their own cotton and kept sheep.
They lived near the river and took their sheep there to wash them
before clipping the wool. She dyed the wood with walnut and white oak
bark. He lived in the day when kerosene cost 75 cents a gallon.
His older brother Nick worked in Ollie McWilliams store in
Breckenridge and while they sold kerosene at 75 cents a gallon they
sold whiskey at 35 cents a gallon. At one country school attended by
his brother Nick, the teacher brought a gallon jug of whiskey for the
last day and treated patrons and pupils with it. After the family
moved a mile further north, then they were living in Daviess County
where many of the Trospers now live. At that time, Grand River was
navigable part of the year. During the winter they built a large flat
and all co-operated in loading it in the spring with dried fruit, furs
and anything they could sell. When the river rose to flood, they
floated it down to St. Louis. When they came back, they could only
bring the raft to Brunswick and then travel overland to Breckenridge.
They brought back flour, coffee, brown sugar and like necessities
which they could not raise. 

Interviewed November 1933.

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This page was last updated September 24, 2006.