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Mrs. Clarke Writes Interestingly of the Early Times of the Windsor Community
I don't know whether I would be called a pioneer or not but I have lived within three miles of Windsor for 64 years this month (April). I was born in Todd County, Kentucky, my parents home was in Montgomery County, Tennessee a few miles from Clarksville, a little city by the Cumberland River 12 or 14 miles from the Kentucky line. My father, B. F. Williamson having met some financial loss, thought he would try a new country, so in the fall of 1850 came to Missouri and secured the land where James O. Sutherland now lives, part of the land in Henry County and part in Johnson County, and with the help of the neighbors raised the body of a two room log cabin. He then went back to Tennessee for his family, consisting of his young wife and four small children, and a few family servants. The true wife, being willing to leave mother and all kindred ties to share and make a new home in a new country with her dear husband. In March 1851, at Clarksville, Tennessee, fifty miles from Nashville, we embarked on a steamboat names The West Newton, a boat running from Nashville to St. Louis. It took several days and nights to reach St. Louis. From there we re-embarked on a Missouri river boat called the St. Atire for Booneville. It took 8 or 9 days to make the steam boat trip from Clarksville to Boonville, but we enjoyed it, the waters were high. We boarded in Boonville two weeks, when father engaged two men with their wagons and teams, one four horse team to bring our household goods, and one two horse wagon to bring the family, it took many days to make the trip. I was only a very small girl, but I can remember it was a lot of walking. I don't think we passed a single house, we thought it wonderful, we could walk for miles and see nothing but rolling prairie, green and bright with spring flowers, and sometimes a dark streak away off in the distance the men said was timber, but we reached what is now the city of Windsor in the dark and we were awfully tired. We spent the night on the place where George Shelton now lives. A man named Jeff Means then lived there, he was an Uncle of Louis Means. Father then a young man told the Means boys he brought some pea fowls with us, they wanted to see them. Father said "well climb up, they were in the coop on the very top of the mound of goods". The boys climbed up and just as they thought they were high enough to look in the odl pea cock stretched his head and neck through the slats of the coop and yelled ECHO! As loud as he could scream. It scared the boy so he let go all hold and fell to the ground, oh how the men laughed. The next morning we went out to what is now called the McKinley place, a friend of my father and mother, Col. James Gatewood then owning and living on the place. We spent two or three weeks there, our house not being quite ready for occupancy, but father with the help of his good neighbors soon had it ready for us. It seemd strange to us, nothing, but the house, not a rail or switch in sight, nothing but the broad prairie covered with green grass and bright flowers. Tennessee was an old settled country and every body had real nice homes, but we soon got used to our new home and were happy for you, "Tis home where e"er the heart is, Where e'er its loved ones dwell". We had good neighbors and everybody wanted to do something for us, there were no sewing machines in those days, every garment made by hand and where there was a family of any size the mother would cut out quite a number of garments, and perhaps put a quilt in the frames, and invite all the neighbors near enough to come help to sew and quilt. She would have a nice big dinner and at night, if the young folks wanted to, they would let them have a dance. Mother would let me go with her to the sewing, but I was too young to stay to the dance. The Gatewood's, Goodin's, Garrett's, Perry's, McPherson's, Cooper's, Uncle John Woodard, and his father, Ogan's, Douglass's, Add Draper, and father, Dr. W. T. Thornon, R. F. Taylor, Judge Berry, Fewell's, Wall's, Uncle Jim Patrick, Birch and John Owsley, father of our post master, and a better friend no one ever had, were our neighbors. Some lived several miles away, but yet our neighbors. All goods were freighted from Boonville or Warsaw by wagons, the neighbors frequently went to Warsaw to shop and buy groceries. For two years we had to go to Calhoun for our mail, but somebody went every week and it was a red letter day when the came back with letter and papers from our old home. No postage stamps then, the postage was five or ten cents on every letter. Two years later there was a post office established called Windsor. R. F. Taylor was post master, the office was kept in the home, no other boxes there then. The room in which the office was kept is still standing in the lot adjoining Mrs. Melvin's, near the well. We had no churches around then unless is was Sardis, but other denominations preached in the old Goodin school house, a big room near where Mr. Poncin lives now. We went to school in the Woodland School where Miss Carrie Wilkerson now lives. We went to two schools there, one taught by a Mr. Beaman and one by Uncle Amos Goodin, and at both schools we studied our lessons out luwd, the last lesson in the afternoon was spelling and when the teacher said "get the spelling lesson" I wish you could have heard the noise. I believe it could have been heard nearly a mile away. Sometimes there was preaching at the members homes. One Sunday afternoon mother looked out and told father there must have been preaching somewhere, she saw a lot of people coming across the prairie and they were riding one after the other. He came to the door and say, "Why, Mother, they are Indians" and it frightened her very much. We had never seen any before, my two little brothers had gone with one of the servants to get some wild berries about a quarter of a mile from the house. Mother was sure they would be taken by the Indians and feared for her children, but Father said, "Oh no, they are friendly." They rode directly up to our yard fence and we went out to see them. There were several squaws and a lot of children with them, several small enough to ride in their mothers laps and some riding behind, there were 20 or more braves, they were of the Delaware tribe from Indian territory out for a hunt, they camped near Mr. Ogan's several days, and some of the neighbor men went hunting with them down on Flat Creek. Just as they rode away from our fence my little brothers came home safe. It seemed to me like the winters were more sever in these days than now. I remember one severe drouth, very little raised and everybody was digging wells for water. Once we had been back to Kentucky and Tennessee on a vist and on our way home our boat landed at St. Louis in the night, No railroads then, everything shipped by river, next morning up and down the river it seemed for miles on the Missouri side nothing but steam boats. We landed by the side of a boat that had on it the first engine for the Missouri Pactic railroad. Father said to my little brothers, "well boys we will go and see the iron horse" they went on the boat and there was a barrel of yellow corn near the engine and Tom, a little fellow, said "Yes Papa there is a barrell of corn ready for him to eat", and Father said "Oh no Son, he eats fire". We used to think we had hard times, but we mad so many ups and downs during the way, my Father and oldest brother being confederate soldiers, to look back now it seems more like happy than hard times. While we have been off on visits several times our homes has been within three miles of Windsor since 1851. - Mrs. A. C. Clarke
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