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Advertiser, September 24, 1969 EDITOR'S NOTE: Early settlers of Howard County, as this historical account reveals, braved the savagery of Indians to carve out new lives in the wilderness. Howard County at the time first described took in much of northern Missouri, an "empire," as one history calls it, of nearly 22,000 square miles, one-third as large as the present state of Missouri and larger than Vermont, Massachusetts, Delaware and Rhode Island. The county was reduced to its present size in 1825. The author was formerly a member of THE KANSAS CITY STAR'S staff, now retired and living in Sarasota, Fla. He is a first cousin of Leslie Fisher and Mrs. Julia Naylor. The article is addressed to "The children of Elaine Frink and Sue Yeager." SETTLERS FACED INDIAN BATTLES By Dale Wilson. Your great, great, great grandfather was killed by Indians and scalped. He was John Myers, who lived between Fayette and Higbee, Mo. You know the place as Bunker Hill. In his day it was called Myers Post Office. Because this was so long before there were Rural Routes settlers from miles around came there to get their mail, buy supplies and have their plow shears sharpened at the blacksmith shop. John Myers was the leader of the community, a man to be proud of. He had at least three children: The oldest was James; another was John W., who was born in 1806 and is buried at Good Hope Cemetery; a third was Cynthia, who was born in 1820 and is a grandmother of your Grandpa Leslie Fisher. Scattered groups of Indians lived peacefully in Howard County where they hunted and fished in the summer but in the winter they shivered in their blankets and almost starved when hunting was poor. They put in no crops and often begged or stole from the white settlers. North of Howard and Randolph counties there were many Indians and no white settlers, but in 1824 the federal government made a treaty with the tribes of Sacs, Foxes and Iowas to cede their land north of the Missouri River to the United States. Many historians say the government's agents were unfair in dealing with the simple people. To get them to sign papers which they did not understand, the agents would give them gifts and whiskey, but very little money. The tribes agreed to move north into Iowa Territory. The Missouri land vacated was opened to white settlers. John Myers' son James, who had a wife and several children, heard about this free land and was restless to take some of it. His father tried to get him to stay in the Howard County settlement at Bunker Hill where the danger from Indians was less, but James was a determined man, even hot-headed, and together with five other young men moved over Indian trails and along the Chariton river bank about 60 miles to the north. There were no roads in 1828. They cut down trees to build three cabins, a mile or two apart, near the river about six miles west of the present city of Kirksville. These six men--in addition to James Myers they were Isaac Gross, Stephen Gross, Nathan Richardson, Reuben Myrtle and Jacob Cupp--were the first settlers in Adair County. The whitemen had no trouble with the Indians that winter. But early the next July, 65 or 70 Indians of the tribe of Iowas, with squaws, papooses, dogs and blankets, came back down the Chariton to their old hunting grounds where deer, elk and fish were plentiful, the place where Jim Myers and the others had built their cabins. The Indians' dogs killed some of the white men's pigs and the tribe had roast pork, probably the first they ever tasted. Jim Myers was angry. He and two other armed settlers demanded that the Indians pay for the pigs and leave at once to comply with the treaty. This land belonged to the white men now, he said. The Indian leader was a thick-necked sub-chief, who in broken English said he did not sign the treaty, said he had always lived there and told Myers: "You puck-a-chee", meaning "you go away." It is not clear what Jim Myers said or threatened but the meeting broke up with everybody mad. What happened that night was told to me by my mother, Martha Susan Fisher Wilson, who got the story from her mother Cynthia Myers, a sister of Jim Myers. PAINTED FACES, WAR BONNETS CREATED HORROR IN THE NIGHT Indians came with torches into Myers' cabin and held a war dance, beating drums and shrieking, their painted faces and war bonnets making a horrible scene. The Myers family crouched in the corner expecting to be chopped to death by tomahawks any minute. With charcoal the Indians marked the scalp lines around the heads of Myers' almost hysterical wife and children. The big-necked chief then held up three fingers. "Three days" he said, meaning that all would be scalped if they were not gone by that time. Some of the other settlers decided to leave. They set out at once, riding night and day to Randolph and Howard County settlements to spread word of the Indian uprising and get help. By the time the story had been retold a few times the number of Indians became 1,500 about to murder all whites. On the morning of July 24 the refugees from Adair cabin settlement got to Randolph County to the cabin of William Blackwell and a messenger rode on another 20 miles to Myers Post Office to rouse everybody. His exhausted horse fell dead when he got there, according to the story. John Myers rounded up all able-bodied neighbors, and on the morning of July 25 a troop of armed men from Randolph and Howard counties set out on horseback. Some accounts say there were 40 men; others place the number at 26. The first night they got as far as the southern part of Macon County, following whatever trails they could find. They reached the Adair cabins on July 27, after riding 44 miles the day before. The leader was Capt. William Trammell. Other members included John Myers, his son John W. who was 23 years old; James Winn, a Bunker Hill neighbor; and Powell Owensby. Some of their descendants may still be living in Howard County. Each man carried his muzzle loading Kentucky rifle, an accurate gun but with one great weakness for Indian fighting. Too much time was needed for reloading. After a shot it was necessary to ram powder, ball and wadding down the barrel, and adjust the flint before taking a second aim. For most expert marksmen this took 10 seconds. An Indian with a bow and arrow could shoot as many as seven times in 10 seconds. Capt. Trammell found the Indians had retreated up the Chariton river about 10 miles to a place shown on present day maps as near Connellsville, Mo. He could barely hold back the hot-headed white men, one of whom was Jim Myers. They wanted to kill Indians though it was seen they were outnumbered 2 to 1 or even 3 to 1. Trammell, backed by level-headed John Myers, ordered the men to the rear and started a parley. Chief Che Quesa (the Indian name of ‘Big Neck') was told that the white men had no objection to the Indians hunting and fishing there, but didn't want them living there. Trammell asked them to leave now as a penalty for damages already done. ‘Big Neck' seemed about to agree. But one white man--some accounts say he was Milton Bogarth--thought he saw an Indian looking at Jim Myers and loading his gun. Knowing how the Indians hated Myers he yelled, "Look out, Jim. That Indian's going to shoot you." Myers wheeled and shot the Indian, and then everybody started shooting. The blood-curdling war whoops of the Indians, and the noise of the guns caused a general panic. Many horses bolted and ran away, sometimes dragging riders with them. The whites were so frightened that some rode off without firing a shot. A number of Indians had guns--clumsy guns which the British had given them in the French and Indian war--as well as bows and arrows. The battle was one-sided and lasted only a short time. Indians routed the whitemen, hunted them down, killed the wounded, scalped them and built fires on their chests. Four settlers died. Seven others were wounded but managed to escape in the whitemen's wild flight down the Chariton, led by the wounded captain, Trammell. They stopped at the cabins, picked up two women and a few children and rode all night. By morning the party was five miles from present day Huntsville, a straight line distance of 52 miles from the battle place, and 42 from the cabins. Measured along Indian trails and river bank paths the distance was much farther. They were still 20 miles from Bunker Hill. When they got there, one man--John Asbell--still carried an arrow in his body. MISSOURI STATE HISTORY CALLS IT BIG-NECK WAR OF CABINS The fight is known in Missouri history as the "Battle of the Cabins" or "Big-Neck War." The Indians seemed almost as frightened as the whites. They fled north in great haste just as the panicky settlers fled south. But there was one story later that the Indians said they feared white reinforcements were on the way. Otherwise they would have pursued and killed all the settlers in the battle. When a troop of 75 white men a few days later hunted for the Indians they found the trail leading out of Missouri but saw no warriors. The known dead were John Myers, James Winn, Powell Owensby and Capt. Trammell. When the bodies were found that of John Myers had no marks of fire on his chest. According to my mother's story, an Indian who was in the battle testified in a St. Louis court sometime later: "Big man under hickory tree heap brave. . .He kill seven Indians. ..No fire built on his chest." Nobody knows how many Indians were killed. Bodies of three were left on the field and others were carried away by their companions. Jim Myers, who hostility to the Indians had brought on the battle in which his father was killed and his 23-year-old brother, John W. Myers, was wounded, escaped unhurt but he was so shaken that he did not go back to Adair County, and next year sold his farm and cabin to a man named John Cain. Cain's son once said that the price was "a pair of shoe uppers," which was certainly not much for fine land. John W. Myers lived only to age 45. His death in 1851 may have been hastened by his battle wounds. His grave in the Bunker Hill cemetery was marked by his son John T. Myers. In this same cemetery are buried John W. Myers' sister, Cynthia Myers Fisher (who is your ancestor and mine) beside her husband, John Fisher. The Fishers lived on the farm where Joe Willard and Sam Fisher now live. DALE WILSON |