Beginning at the northwest corner of section 6, township 41, range 29; thence east six miles to the northeast corner of section 1, township 41, range 29; thence south six miles to the southeast corner of section 36, township 41, range 29; thence west six miles to the southeast corner of section 31, township 41, range 29; thence north six miles to the place of beginning.

The township is watered by Stewart's Creek and its tributaries in the southeast, central and southwest portions, by Hoggard Branch in the northeast, and by the headwaters of Cove and Peter Creeks in the north. The township is rolling, but the soil is good. Sufficient timber abounds throughout the township.

The pioneer who preceded all others to Spruce Township was James Stewart, who came as early as 1832, and located where Johnstown is now situated, in the southeast portion of the township. He, like many of the early settlers in Bates, came from Lafayette County, Missouri. He lived in Spruce several years, and then moved to Johnson County. He was a blacksmith and did work for a large scope of country surrounding him. His son James, came to Bates with him, and accompanied him to Johnson County. Stewart's Creek was named after James Stewart.

John Pyle, a native of Kentucky, was born in 1802 and married in 1828. Leaving his native state for the "far west," he came to the present site of Johnstown in 1834. (John Evans says that Pyle bought a claim, of one Steward, who preceded him, and of whom nothing else can be learned.) His wife, son and daughter came overland in a two horse wagon. He improved a farm and went through the usual experience of we pioneers in this locality. After eight years residence he died in 1842, while his neighbors were yet few and far between.

His oldest son, Simpson, died in the Confederate army. Another son, Samuel, was in the Union army. It often occurred that the same family furnished soldiers for both armies, but it is said of these brothers that they exchanged shots with each other at the battle of Lone Jack, but without serious results.

Samuel Pyle, a brother to John, was born in South Carolina in 1805. He married in Kentucky in 1836, and the young couple made their wedding trip to Missouri in a one horse wagon. They settled in Spruce Township, where Lewis McCombs now lives. Their nearest neighbor was John Pyle, at Johnstown. The nearest on the west was Evans, six miles away. No very noteworthy incidents of his pioneer life are related. In 1858 he was elected a member of the county court and, when the war broke out, was one of the very few of the county officers that favored the Union cause. Being too old for military duty he did not enter the army. His family lived in Butler during a part of the war and were the last to leave in obedience to order No. 11. They saw the smoke of their burning house before they were five miles away.

Mr. Pyle died in Linn County, Kansas, in 1878. Mrs. Pyle died in Arkansas, in June,1881. They raised nine children, of whom only three now live. Frank lives in Arkansas; Louisa married W. H. Combs, and lives in Denver, Colorado; Elbert M. lives in Appleton City, Missouri; Wesley was murdered while hauling goods from Fort Scott to Fort Smith, during Price's raid; Samuel was in the Confederate army and is supposed to have died of measles while a prisoner at Springfield.

James McCool was born in Pennsylvania, in 1802. Eleanor Van Lordstran was born in Pennsylvania, in 1805. Having both moved to Ohio, they married about 1825 and emigrated to Missouri, arriving at what is now Bates County in the fall of 1840. They started in a wagon but being overtaken by a severe sickness in Illinois they had to stop a while. They sold their team and wagon and came by boat to Boonville and hired a team to convey them to their location, one mile north of the present site of Johnstown.

Old Mrs. McCool now affirms, with great emphasis, that they had no troubles in those days -- better times than now. Chinch bugs, grasshoppers, drouths and all sorts of trouble comes now-a-days. There were Indians, but they did no harm, and it did well to trade with them. All the settlers were friendly and sociable, and ready to do others a kindness. They were not too proud to go ten or twenty miles to meeting barefooted and hear a preacher in his shirt sleeves.

Had no trouble with Kansas in 1856 to 1858.

The first United States troops ever seen in these parts were a company of soldiers returning east from Kansas in 1857. They had with them the body of their captain, he having accidentally shot himself while taking a gun from a wagon.

When the civil war came on the family all adhered to the Union cause except one son, Peter V. He went into the State Guards, organized by Governor Jackson, but never went into the regular army of the Confederacy. Mr. McCool lived at home until the issue of order No. 11, when he moved to Henry County and died there in 1865. Mrs. McCool still lives with her children in and about Johnstown.

The eldest son, John, lives one mile north of Johnstown. Second child, Ann Eliza, married James Harbert. He died in 1866, and she now lives in Johnstown. Third child, Peter V., lives in Johnstown. There were nine children, but only these three are living.

The first store in Johnstown was kept by Dan and Jim Johnson, in 1845. They were followed by Dick McClure and John Harbert and son. John Hull was the first blacksmith. Harmony Mission, West Point, Harrisonville and Clinton were the nearest of other towns. The first post office was in 1848 or 1849. Before that they went to Deepwater, in Henry County, for their mail.

Previous to the war there were at one time five stores, two saloons, three blacksmith shops, a good mill, a cabinet shop, a shoe shop and a harness shop. It did a much larger business than any other town in the county, but since the war it has never reached anything like its former importance.

One of the substantial citizens of Spruce Township is William B. Page, born in Kentucky, November 21, 1814. While yet single he came to Missouri with his brother Nicholas, in 1842. They settled in section 23 of Spruce Township. Nicholas, after a few years, moved to Grand River and built a mill near Suttle's Ford, and if he yet lives, is in Southwest Missouri. William B. lived with his brother until May 9, 1844, when he married Mary Ann Gregg, of Henry County, Missouri. He then settled in section 14, which has ever since been their home. Himself and a Mr. Ellis once loaded a wagon with hemp and dry hides, and drove along six hogs and took all to Boonville to trade. The trip occupied twelve days.

Mr. Page being once in Howard County on business, and needing some things not to be got in this locality, bought and brought home on a skittish mustang, a family Bible, a dictionary, a two-inch auger, a broad ax, and a cross cut saw. He united with an M. E. Church, organized at Humphrey Dickinson's, on Deepwater. On being asked if it was an era of general good feeling, he replied, "tolerably so, but human nature is about the same now-a-days as then, and broils, quarrels and lawsuits did arise, notwithstanding all that may be said to the contrary."

His sympathies were with the south during the war. Two of his sons, Simeon and John, are in California; William is in Warrensburg; Margaret is Mrs. Sessions, of Butler; Mary is Mrs. Starke, of Rich Hill; C. C. lives with his father.

Among other early settlers were George Cooper, Nicholas Payne, R. L. Pettus, J. B. Pettus, D. B. Pettus and George Ludwick.

George Ludwick and Susan, his wife, were of German descent and natives of Pennsylvania. They removed to Licking County, Ohio, about the close of the war of 1812. It was then a new country, and they went through all the labors and vicissitudes incident to clearing up a farm in that heavy timbered country. After a residence there of a quarter of a century, impelled by that restless and enterprising spirit that seems to pervade the hearts of so many pioneers that seek for "new worlds to conquer," they decided to make another move, and this time to the far southwest. Having heard favorable reports of the country about Deepwater Creek, in what is now Bates County, where a brother of Mrs. L. had already settled, they headed for that locality. They traveled by canal boat from Newark to Portsmouth, thence down the Ohio and up the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers to Boonville, by steamer, and then hired ox wagons to convey them to William Lutzenhizer's, on the place where Captain Newberry now lives. They were accompanied by two of Mrs. Ludwick's brothers, Henry and Jacob Lutzenhizer, and reached their journey's end in October 1839.

Mr. Ludwick soon selected a location a quarter of a mile north of where Johnstown now stands. A man named Pyle was living on the site of Johnstown, but no village was commenced for several years. The land had recently been sectionalized and Mr. Ludwick entered 120 acres. As timber was thought to be much the most valuable, he took eighty acres of timber and only forty of prairie, but afterwards secured more land adjoining. Finding a log cabin in the neighborhood they rented it for the first spring and winter, until they could build. The first year they broke twenty acres and raised a good crop of sod-corn; also built a hewed log house and log stable. Their experience as pioneers did not materially differ from that of others heretofore related. Mr. L. does not remember that their crops were cut short by dry weather until 1859. On the contrary, the greatest trouble they had about the weather was, that it was often so wet in the spring that they could hardly get their seed into the ground. He thinks there has been a climatic change, and that the seasons are not so equable as formerly. During the flood year, 1844, they succeeded in raising some corn. Their losses from prairie fires were frequent and quite severe. They went to Pleasant Gap for their mail.

The children boarded with their relatives and went to school at the school house, near where Captain Newberry's blacksmith shop now stands. They also went there to church, the services being conducted by the Methodists and Old Baptists. Although the settlers were widely scattered and but few had near neighbors, yet a very social and friendly spirit existed, and public gatherings of different kinds were usually well attended. There were many people among them of intelligence, worth and ability, and society was as good as could be found in any locality. A debating society was early organized and long continued in the Deepwater neighborhood, the meetings being held at private houses and were both entertaining and profitable.

There were seven children in the Ludwick family. Mary, married a Mr. Van Hoy, who died in the Union army during the war; his widow now lives in section 21, Deepwater Township. Washington settled in section 21, Deepwater Township, on the farm now occupied by Reese; he died in 1861. William settled in section 16, where he now lives. Martha married John E. Morgan; he was a member of the Missouri legislature, and his work in bringing about the organization of Bates County as it at present exists, will appear in another article; they now live at Warsaw, Benton County, Missouri. Esther, wife of Benjamin Combs, living near Warsaw; John lived until recently in Deepwater, but now lives near Adrian, in this county; Nancy is the wife of a Mr. Brownlee, living near Quincy, in Hickory County.

None of the family took any part in the Kansas border war. Mrs. Ludwick died in 1856, and her husband survived her only two years.

About 1855 or 1859, supposing the border war to be over, John Ludwick went to the neighborhood of Geru's trading post, in Kansas, to settle. He bought a claim, and in part payment therefor, gave a horse that he took from Johnstown. A. M. Odneal went with him, and also settled in the same locality. The trouble again broke out, and several men being killed in their neighborhood, Ludwick and Odneal concluded that that sort of atmosphere didn't suit them, and they rather hastily returned to Bates County. After a time the horse that Ludwick traded toward the claim strayed back to Johnstown, and the owner, coming on to look for him, was charge with being a Kansas spy and was in danger of being lynched by a mob, but was saved by John Ludwick and Odneal, who explained the matter, and he was allowed to take the horse and go his way. During the early part of the civil war, a party of Kansas men made a trip through the county, plundering the people. They stopped at William Ludwick's and looked the house over, but took nothing. They then went to John's and found him blind with the sore eyes. They took his gun, but disturbed nothing else, and told him that if they chanced to pick up any of his horses on the prairie that he could have them back. The Ludwicks supposed that the man whom John befriended was with the party, and returned the favor he had received by preventing his companions from robbing them.

When the civil war came up the family sympathized with the South. John enlisted in the Southern army, William and Washington belonged for a short time to an organization called "Cummins' Battalion," formed to protect the county from the Kansas men. William pronounced the doctrine that "a state had a legal right to secede from the Union" as absurd, but justified his sympathy for the south on the "right of revolution." During the war the Ludwicks met with only the usual experience and losses incident to the times. William remained at home most of the time. When General Ewing's famous order to vacate the county was issued, he moved to the neighborhood of Montrose. During the latter part of the war he was a member of the militia company stationed at Butler.

In 1865, after Lee's surrender and the war supposed to be over, William L. returned to his farm in Deepwater Township. Three soldiers belonging to the Union army came from Coldwater Grove, a post near the Kansas line, and took a yoke of cattle from the widow Odneal, supposing them to belong to old Mr. Price, then went to a herd of neighborhood cattle and selected a pair of oxen belonging to Ludwick, then went to his stable and took a horse and a yoke for the cattle, and went off with them. Mr. L. secured the efficient help of John A. Devinney and made a trip to Kansas City in search of them. After a prolonged search they found the oxen in Kansas City and recovered them, but the horse was never found.

Bates County Missouri MOGenWeb