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HALF CENTURY AGO
T. R. JONES GIVES SOME EARLY HISTORY OF THIS LOCALITY.
Sacramento, Cal., April 11, 1915.
Editor Times: Having read in a recent issue of the Times, my old
home paper, a letter from an old neighbor living away down in Texas, and
one from G. P. Wolfe a short time ago, which I laid away to answer, I
will now try to give your readers, as well as friends Wolfe and Hart,
some of my early history of Vernon county and especially of Metz
township. When I came to Vernon county there was no Metz township; it
was Henry and Osage.
I landed in Vernon county on the 18th day of April,
1858. We were making for Nevada, the county seat. But the rivers were
all up and the north side approach to the Balltown bridge had caved in
and was not safe so we camped at the widow Nelson’s place (Founty
Nelson’s mother) northeast of Balltown. While stopping there for the
waters to recede my father, in looking around for corn and forage for
the small family of sixteen he had to feed, he ran across Uncle Billy
Pryor, as we all called him later, but he was known in those days as
Little Bill. To make a long story short my father bought the land of
him that is now R. M. Handly’s home.
There is no use to tell you there was no house we could move into
until we could put in a crop. An old log cabin stood not far from where
the Metz depot is now located—a few steps west of it, near the Wilson
mill—belonging to Mr. Meek, Jack Meek’s father, and we moved some of our
things in and made the best of it, for it beat no house. We finally got
hold of a few hundred feet of lumber and struck camp on the Handly place
so we could get to breaking prairie and improving the land that spring.
Every spring and fall the Osage Indians came to Balltown to trade
their furs, buffalo hides and ponies for such things as they needed. R.
W. McNeil ran a large store there an did a big business with them. Some
two or three hundred Indians done their trading there. Uncle Newell
Dodge, as everybody called him, was the “go between” or interpreter for
McNeil. He could talk their language as good as the Indians, having
been made a prisoner in an early day and lived with them for a long
time. His fee was $10 per day, paid by McNeil. A nice little price for
those days.
Well, we can’t tell you half, and very likely it would not interest
your readers and you would not have room for it, so I will just hit the
high places.
In the winter of ’59 and ’60, if I remember right, the Kansas
Jayhawkers, as they were called, with John Brown at their head, came
over into Henry township and killed Cruse and then went over on Duncan
creek and killed Farous. They took their negroes over into Kansas.
From there they went to Iowa, and then on to Harper’s Ferry in Virginia
where John Brown was hung.
That is history, however, and has nothing to do with my story only
to show Mr. Wolfe, Mr. Hart, Anthony Sartorius, “Gabe” Hedden and
several others that they are only youths, looking back only about forty
years. I remember well when Anthony was born. Jack Alexander, “Bud’s”
father, was living near where Mr. Hart used to live and worked for J. A.
Sartorius at the time.
In the winter of 1860 the Kansas Jayhawkers got so bad along the
border that Claib Jackson, then governor of Missouri, sent a company of
state troops down and stationed them at Balltown in order to protect the
citizens. The remained all winter, but things having quieted down they
returned to Jefferson barracks, St. Louis.
About the 20th of June, 1861, the Jayhawkers again came
down in a body and took some men prisoners near the old Bartlett place
in Henry township. One of the men was named Joe Jones. After
questioning Jones, Jim Jennison, the leader of the Jayhawkers, took out
his pocketknife and cut the lobe of both his ears off. Jones said
afterwards that the knife was d—d dull at that. The gang came on until
they reached a point west of Pryor creek near where the Baptist church
now stands. I was riding the creek road that crossed the east and west
road near where the church is located and I carried a gun. They
commenced to shoot at me. I returned fire, but they were in the locks
of a high rail fence and I never hurt any of them. They had Sharp’s
rifles and the bullets cut the leaves and limbs six or eight feet above
my head. About this time Uncle Zeke Rhea and his two boys, Ralston and
Shet, came up with shotguns. They did not shoot as the men were too far
off, but I had a Minne rifle and could have easily picked them off.
Finally one of the men threw the fence down and rode out into an oats
field. As he was a plain target with no fence to hide behind I drew up
my gun twice to fire, but Uncle Ed Morgan rode up at that critical
moment and grabbing my gun said: “Really it is too far, don’t waste your
ammunition.” Afterwards I learned that it was Jennison and I never did
forgive Uncle Ed for not letting me shoot So you see I was the first
Vernon county man to have hot lead shot at him after the war commenced.
You see I can’t get to Brother Wolfe’s nor Brother Hart’s days in
this letter, but in two or three more letters I might get down to times
they are familiar with.
There was no Metz, Old Metz nor Rich Hill and but very little
Nevada in those days. There was no railroad nearer than Pleasant Hill
in Cass county.
If this is not bestowed to the waste basket I will come again.
T. R. Jones.
The Metz Times, Metz, Vernon County, Missouri; Friday,
April 30, 1915.
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