Original Print-Good Way Print, College Mound, Missouri
I have been a man fond of fun, and now see how silly I have acted a great
many times. It might be interesting to one to hear of some of these silly
adventures, though I think so little of them that I do not care about relating
them now. I had a little fun once after I was a married man that caused me
to have a hard fight. There was a widow woman living in the neighborhood,
and there was a married man fell in love with her, or at least the man's
wife thought he had. One evening about dusk her and four other women came
up to my yard gate and called to my wife to come and go along and see a fight.
This injured woman whose husband was said to be in love with the widow, was
going to give the widow a good whipping, and wanted my wife to go along and
see it well done. She told she could not go and tried to persuade them not
to go. I urged the women all I could to go ahead. I told them I would slip
my wife's dress on over my clothes and go along if they would promise not
to tell any one, not even their husbands. They all promised they would not.
My wife said it was none of my business and it would be likely to get me
into trouble, and if she was me she would not go. I was not to be bluffed
off so easy as that. I told my wife there was no possible chance for it to
be found out and there would be no harm in going, and that I would not say
a word nor do anything but look on. She at last gave her consent, though
I knew it was against her will. She got me one of her dresses and I put it
on and it was so long for me I could hardly walk without holding it up. as
it was very low and she was a tall woman. I put on the bonnet next and was
ready to march to the battle. I felt as though I was out of my place; but
then I was determined to see the fight. I did not think that I would be
recognized, for the dress I had on was like all the rest of their dresses,
made out of home-made flax and cotton with strips running through it. The
women in those days were all dressed in uniform. A man could not tell his
wife by the dress she wore. We soon arrived at the battle ground, as it was
but one and a half miles from where i lived. The widow was at home, and the
woman that was going to whip her called her, and she came o the door, then
she told her that she had come to whip her; but that she should have a fair
fight, and those that were with her would tell her the same, as they had
come along just to see the fight, and would not touch either until one or
the other whipped and then only part them. They all told her that they did
not come to take sides but me, and it was unexpected to me, and awkward,
for I knew if I spoke she would know my voice. i said nothing but thought
a great deal. As soon as we got there the widow had told her little boy to
step out the door and run and tell her brother to come quick. He was a great
big fellow, and lived about a quarter of a mile off. The woman kep telling
her to come on, and the widow told her yes, as soon as she finished washing
her dishes. They kept parleying along in this way for some time. Finally
I heard the cornstalks breaking around at the corner of the house, and I
looked around and here came her big brother, and I and the women all started
in a run, and him after us. I had to hold up my dress as I run, and my legs
got tangled up and down I came. I was looking every moment to get a lick
on my head with the club, but I think he was just trying to scare us, for
when I fell he stopped and went back. I jumped up and never looked back until
I got nearly home. That was about the hardest foot race I ever run. I never
knew women could run until then. After we got to my house and rested up and
told of our adventure it was laughable, but there was none of the crowd that
felt much like laughing but my wife, and she had a good laugh by her self.
You know how hard a good joke is to keep, and it was not long until some
way it leaked out, and the widow's brother sent me word that he heard that
I was in the mob that had come to whip his sister, and as I had not succeeded,
and as I was so keen for a fight, he would give me a chance to fight a man.
He was a great big fellow, and I weiged only one hundred and twenty pounds
so you may know I dreaded him. He ws considered a dangerous man by all the
neighbors, and I sent him back as smooth an answer as I could, and told him
that I had no idea of taking a hand in the fight; but that the women had
come by, and I seen that they were determined to go ahead, and I thought
they might even kill his sister, and instead of wanting to whip her I went
along to keep them from hurting her, and that he was judging me wrong. I
had nothing against his sister nor him either. I was sorry that he had mistook
me for an enemy while I was trying to save his sister from the hands of the
women, proved they tried to injure her; that I intended that none but the
two should take part in the fight, and if either hurt the other too bad,
that I was going to part them. I thought that this would satisfy him, but
it did not.
The next time I saw him was at a reaping in the neighborhood, and him and
I were both at it. This was the first time that we had been together since
the occurrence. He was binding and shocking, and I was cutting with the
reap-hook. At noon he sat on one side of the table and I on the other, facing
each other. He looked at me and smiled, and asked me how I felt. "O very
well, how are you?" I said. "Very well," he said. "I want you to eat a big
dinner, for I am going to whip you after dinner." I told him that I guess
he was mistaken. He said I would see by waiting. I told him of course I would,
and that was all that was said. I kept my eye on him, for I knew that I would
have him to fight before we left the reaping or back down, and I did not
intend to do that. After we had eat and started to the field, he was ten
or fifteen steps before me, on a nice place at the side of a straw pen which
had been cleaned off to frail out wheat on and he stopped, and I knew the
time had come to fight or run, or to make him cry enough or him to make me
cry enough. I had my doubts as to which would whip. I walked up, and he said
"Gipson, here is as good a place as I can find to whip you on, and I can
do it on less ground than it will take to put you away in." I told him that
it was not decided yet, but I did not want to fight him. He said I need not
fight, but that he was going to give me a whipping. He came at me and I knocked
his lick off with my left hand, and let him have it at the bur of the ear,
and down he came, and I jumped my full weight on him with my boot heels before
he had time to raise up on his feet, and just before he got straightened
up, I let him have another blow, and knocked him down again, and jumped on
him and began to pound him. He finally got my finger in his mouth, but just
at that time I got both thumbs in his eyes, and let go of my finger to cry
enough. He hollowed it out in a hurry. They pulled me off of him. He was
badly banged up, while I was not hurt but little. My finger was bit so as
to make it sore for a while, but I tied it up and went on reaping. He had
all he could stand without doing any more work that day. Some of the men
got to running him about me whipping him. He said that little bow-legged
scamp was so small he missed him every time he struck at him. A fight settled
everything in those days, and we shook hands and parted as friends.from that
time on. It was the last time I ever dressed up in my wife;s clothes and
started to see another woman fight. The neighbors never got done laughing
at me about running and falling down and the women getting ahead of me, and
so on as long as I lived in North carolina.
It appeared to me that I had to do something about that time to keep my spirits
up, for it was not long after I was married, and if there ever was a man
went to keeping house with nothing but a wife, it was me. we had one feather
bed, one skillet and lid, one oven, two knives and three forks, two quilts
and one towe sheet, about two units of home made clothes apiece, and that
ended our household goods. I got an angur and bored holes in one corner of
the house and fixed up a scaffold and twisted in straw in such a way as to
make it stick together and laid it on my scaffold and put the feather bed
on, this with the sheet and two quilts made up our outfit for sleeping. I
went to the woods and made me some boards, and out of them I made a table
to eat on, and also two stools to sit on and our house was furnished.
I went to work making rails at twenty five cents per hundred. I walked a
mile and a half and two miles and made an average of two hundred rails a
day. The first fall and winter after I was married I made twenty thousand
rails. My wife was a splendid weaver, and she took in weaving and spinning,
and we soon got a start. I thank God from that time till this I have always
had plenty to eat and to wear. I often think of the scripture which says
"if you have food and raiment, be therewith content." I believe that a content
mind has a great deal to do with the length of a man;s life and good health
which I have always had. I thank god that I have never been too stingy to
enjoy the fruits of my honest labor.
About the year 1806 I left the state of North Carolina and moved to Kentucky.
I liked Kentucky very much, and I lived there for a long time, about eighteen
or twenty years.
Before I get through with North Carolina, I will tell you something that
looks unreasonable that happened while I lived in that state. It is true.
I am now over 118 years old and reason teaches me that I have but a short
time to stay here, and I would not tell a falsehood knowingly even to prolong
my few days in this world. There was a rich man there by the name of Murphy,
and I had done a great deal of work for him. He had several negro quarters,
as they were called, that is he had several large farms scattered around
the country and a lot of negroes living on them. He got some trusty white
men to live on these farms and oversee the negroes. He came to my house one
day and told me he had a negro quarters about fifteen miles from where he
lived, and that he had found out by trying me that I was a good hand to work,
and he could trust his negroes with me, and if it suited me he would give
me a good lay to go on his farm and work and oversee the negroes. This suited
me, and I went to the place with him and looked around, and we soon made
a trade. I took charge of the negroes, and took a team of horses back with
me, and the next day drove back to the negro quarters with my wife and plunder,
and we took possession of everything he had on the farm. Two big stout negro
men and their wives and one plow boy and a crippled negro that could not
walk, and five small children. The two men and the boy were given to me to
work in the field, and my wife was to oversee the women in the house, spinning,
weaving, etc., and he was to furnish everything, ground, plows, horses and
food, everything but our clothes, and give me one fourth of all we could
make. The house had six rooms, and we were to have all but two rooms, one
the negroes slept in, and the other they had for a work room. It was a two
story house with a hall running through it, and just across the hall from
our bed room the negroes slept. About nine o'clock we had everything fixed
up in the house, and my wife had laid down, and I set by the fire awhile
and in a short time I went to bed. Before I laid down I thought it was the
stillest time I had ever experienced. The negroes were all in bed. I had
juist laid down when all at once it appeared that a large rock had fell on
the floor up stairs with enough force to almost break through the floor.
My wife jumped and cried out "what in the world is that.." From that every
door in the house began to rattle just like some one was at the latches jerking
them. There were twelve windows in the house, and they all began to rattle
at the same time and you could hardly hear loud talking for the noise. I
lay and listened for awhile and got my wife pacified. I told her that it
was the negroes trying to scare us, and yelled out "hello there! if you are
trying to scare me you had just as well quit, for I am not afraid of you
nor the devil nor anything else." Everything kept clattering away. I thought
it might be the negroes and I got up and slipped along as easy as I could
to the hall and before they could possibly get back to their bedroom I could
catch them or I knew if it was them it took them all to be making a noise
at so many places of the house. Just as soon as my feet touched the floor
all was still. You could have almost heard a pin drop everything was so still,
but I ran and opened the door where the negroes slept, but could see nothing,
I got a torch and went back; and they were all sleeping soundly. :Has any
of you been up since you laid down" I asked. Old tom, the cripple, replied
"No massa, why?" Because I never heard such a racket as there was awhile
ago. "Oh Lord, massa, you've heard nothing yet. This house is awfully haunted
or witched; but we never see anything. I went back and set by the fire awhile,
and then I talked about the noise awhile, and then I went to bed again. As
soon as I laid down, down came the rock and the doors and windows began to
rattle. We slept no moe that night. The next morning my wife wanted to move
back. I told her I had a good lay and was going to stick to it until I made
a crop. We were not bothered any more until the next week. One night in each
week the noise began when the last one laid down, but no particular night,
keeping it up through the night. We lived there eight months and it never
missed a week. I never found out anything more than I have told you. There
were plenty of witches in the country at that time. There were lots of people
said to be witches, and stock also. There was witch doctors that went around
and would cure them, or claim they did.
As I have said I liked Kentucky, but all the good land was taken up and it
was high. I could see no show for me to get a home. There was flattering
reports of Missouri at that time. It was said to be the garden spot of America,
with its rich productive land for all kinds of grain, hemp, flax, and tobacco.
I soon got the Missouri fever, and I sold off my possessions, which was not
very much, and got a good span of horses and a wagon. I believe the first
wagon I ever owned, and about the year 1828 Istarted to move to Missouri,
I bade all of my friends and relatives good bye, for I did not expect to
see them any more on this earth. I rode the lead horse all the way to Missouri.
The first day I shed tears as I thought of leaving frinds behind and going
to a new country among the Indians. My family knew nothing of it, as they
were back in the wagon. I soon got over it. I landed in Missouri in the fall,
and was delighted with the country and soon found out it was not misrepresented.
There was thousands of acres of good land at one dollar and twenty-five cents.
per acre, a healthy climate and wild game in abundance. Wild hogs that had
nothing but the range to run on for years with out being fed and they were
fat. I stopped in Randolph County, near Huntsville. I had one hundred twenty
acres of land surveyed, and went on it as lots of others did, and run the
risk of someone coming in and entering it before they had time to make money
enough to pay for it. Most of the people were honest and accommodating. The
State was settled up in settlements, and some two or three days rides between
them. Each settlement had from thirty to forty settlers all within a few
miles of each other. I found one hog in the shape of a man in our settlement.
Now the country is full of such men. I built my house and got my family under
shelter, then I felt I was at home. There was a good corn crop that year,
and there were but few wagons to gather it with. One of my neighbors got
me to help him gather his corn. I told him that I would make no charge, but
I and one of the boys and team would help him and at night he could throw
as much corn in my wagon he thought I had earned. I helped to gather twelve
crops, and every night I hauled home a good load of corn. When I got through
I had a big crib of corn; plenty to feed on all winter and make our bread.
The boys and I made a thousand rails for a man and got eight hogs, about
half fat. We put them up and fed them awhile and had plenty of meat to do
until we raised a crop. I thought I would get a good start. We went to work
making rails and clearing ground. The next fall I had twenty acres fenced
in and in cultivation; a good crop of corn and enough tobacco in the barn
to pay for my one hundred twenty acres of land. We had good health, and I
was well pleased with everything. All of the improvements except my tobacco
barn was on the forty acres that my house was on. A man by the name of Biswell
lived near me. Several of the neighbors had told me to watch him, but he
had accomodated me in many ways, and I thought well of him, but none of my
neighbors liked him. He had a bachelor brother living with him. I had gathered
my corn and put it in some rail pens over at the tobacco barn, and was pasturing
the stock field which was near where Biswell's brother was at work. I went
out to the field after the cows and he called to me to come over. I did so,
and he said, "Bobby, I want to break the news to you as gently as I can,
for Dick, that was his brother's name, has gone to the Land Office to enter
that forty acres your house is on. He said it was laying here by him, and
if he did not enter it some one else would and he wanted it." Is that so?"
said I, "When did he go?" "He started yesterday morning, and is at the office
by this time." "I can't help it, he is going to enter my land." "He will
enter none of it but that forty you built on." I told him he need not tantalize
me about it as I had done lots of hard work on it. "Yes, it is worth that
much more and the work is partly what Dick wanted." He came back in a few
days and came over and told me he had entered the land showed me the deed.
"Well I reckon you will not be in a hurry about me getting out, will you?"
God bless your soul, no you can have plenty of time to build." A short time
after that I sold my tobacco and told one of my neighbors I was going to
the Land Office to buy the eighty acres that was left. He said "I don't want
you to be at home next Saturday night, and tell your family not to look out
after 8 o'clock." I told him all right. Sunday morning the smoke house, hen
house, rails and everything was over on the hill by the barn on the eighty
acres I entered Monday. When I got back he come over and said somebody had
stole his smokehouse and rails put them over on my land, if I had bought
it. I told him that I had bought it last Monday morning, ans asked him if
they was on my land Sunday. He said yes. Pulling out my deed I told him I
entered my land Monday and if they were on it when I bought they were mine.
You tried to steal a lot of my labor once, but some one has served you just
right, and you are sure to get none of the improvements but the house, and
if my wife had not been sick I expect the house would have been moved, though
I did not know who done it. He replied "I will give you ten days notice and
if you don't get out of my house then I will throw you out. I had a pitch
fork in my hand, and I took after him and he run like a towhead towards home.
The neighbors pitched in to help me, and in three days I had a good house
to move in.
I have lived in Missouri ever since, but it was much better then in some
respects than it is now. The range was better; the wild pea vines were so
thick that you could hardly get through the woods without going on a trail.
There were lots of trails made by deer and wild hogs and other game. It seemed
to me that the deer would never be scarce. They were so thick in some settlements
that they had to keep them scared out of their corn fields or they would
have destroyed nearly all their corn. Wolves were also very thick, and fifty
cents a scalp was paid for killing them for several years.
If there ever was a place where people could enjoy themselves it was Missouri
at that time. There were a few Indians in the state, but they were friendly.
All you had to do to have all the pork you wanted, was to buy you two or
three sows and mark them out on the range, and keep them gently by feeding
them a little, and then keep your pigs marked and this was about all the
trouble you need take to have all the pork and lard you wanted, and plenty
to sell. The price was very low $1, and $1.50 a hundred was considered a
good price for pork, and one and a half and two cents a pound was all lard
was worth. Cattle were as cheap as hogs in proportion. You could buy all
the calves you wanted at seventy five cents and a dollar per head, a good
milch cow for six and seven dollars, and stock of all kinds low, and no wonder
for they could live out all winter, except when the ground was covered with
snow. The dead grass and pea vines fell on the grass and protected it. You
could pull the dead grass and vines off of it and there would be plenty of
green grass in the dead of winter. We generallt fed our stock during the
winter, for we had plenty of corn and no other use for it. Corn was only
worth twenty five and thirty cents a barrel. Tobacco was our main crop for
money. It was worth from $1.50 to $3 per hundred. The farmers raised all
the tobacco they could. They would rather have missed raising a crop of corn
than a tobacco crop. After the tobacco was cut, then came the amusement of
hunting, fishing, trapping and cutting bee trees. It was as common in passing
through the country then to see deer as it is rabbits now. Not long after
I came to Missouri, there came a snow about three and a half feet deep, and
since that time it has been spoken of as the winter of the big snow. It was
the deepest snow I have ever seen. It was a hard time on wild game. Deer
got along slow and so did a man on a horse on account of the snow and wild
pea vines. It turned warm one day and in the evening it turned cold again,
and we had a few days of the coldest weather I ever saw. A horse could travel
only where the road had been broke. Hogs could travel on top of the crust,
but it was slow traveling. A man and dogs could travel on top. We had fine
sport killing deer then. A lot of us would start out with ten or twelve dogs.
The deer could walk on top in most places; but as soon as they began to jump
they would go through the crust; and they would hardly ever run more then
two hundred yards until the dogs would have them, and by making quick work
of it we always got three or four and some times more out of the bunch before
they got away. The crust laid on about two weeks, and we laid in a good supply
of venison. We only kept the hind quarters and hides. When we wanted a wild
turkey all we had to do was to go to a stock field and shoot them, or build
a pen out of rails on the crust, and than make a place for them to go in
by digging out a trench under the pen and throw corn in the pen, and cover
the pen with straw. All of the streams were full of fish. There was a fish
trap built on the Chariton River some years after I came to Missouri. It
did not pay anyone to tend to it as fish were so plentiful, and it was left
to the public. All you had to do was to go over to the trap and clean the
dead fish out, which sometimes was a big job and stay all night and you would
get all the fish you wanted. You could have a variety of wild meats with
but little trouble and lots of fun.
I have been a wild and wicked man, and can say with Paul, that "I have been
the chief of sinners," but I thank God that he has long since for Christ
sake forgiven me my sins. About seventy five years ago I was converted and
joined the Baptist church in which I lived in full fellowship until there
was a division in the church. I then left that church and attached myself
to the Christian Church, or Reformers as some call them, and I have been
a member of that church ever since. My testimony is, that I am now in a saved
condition, and the Spirit of Gopd bares witness with my spirit that I am
a child of God: and I know that I have "passed from death unto life, because
I love the brethren, and love all of God's children, high or tall, rich or
poor, black or white; no matter what denomination they belong to. If they
are Christians they all belong to the church of Christ, and their names are
written in the Lambs Book of Life. I love every body and have nothing against
anyone, and if anyone has anything against me I don't know it. 'Bless God'.
I am glad I have lived so long in his service. The way grows brighter and
brighter all the time. I am glad that over seventy years ago I put off the
old man with all his deeds and put on the new man, Christ Jesus my blessed
Saviour, who shed his blood and died on the cross to redeem me from all sin
and iniquity. I have often felt impressed to preach the gospel of our Lord
Jesus Christ to the peole, I have preached and exhorted some. I can not see
and hear but little, and all parts of me are fast failing, that is pertaining
to the flesh; what a blessed thing it is to be prepared to meet God at all
times. I am so old and infirm now, I think that perhaps when I lay down to
sleep that I may not wake up. How blessed to know that if I did not, that
I would awake in the presence of an all wise Creator, who will say "Well
done thou good and faithful servant. You have finished the work I gave thee,
so enter thou into the Kindom of Heaven."
The time is short that I have to stay here on this earth, but I can say to
all that I am resting, sweetly resting, and I am ready to go at any time
the Lord calls. I would say to all who chance to read these lines, prepare
to meet the God. You don't know when he is going to take you away from this
earth and if you are prepared to go, your spirit will never die. If you are
not I know your spirit will go to a place of torment; where the worm dieth
not and the fire is not quenched. What can you promise yourself while living
in sin; do you not know, oh man or woman, that God's work is not changed
about to suit decas and wickedness. Take the advice of one who is your friend,
and the oldest citizen perhaps in the world, and prepare to meet your God,
and stop your evil ways, and flee from the wrath to come to you, if you do
not make peace with your God. He says, "I have placed good and bad before
you, choose you this day which ye will serve:" but choose good that you may
live. You cannot serve God and mammon. Which are going to serve. Now is the
time you need not put it off one minute, but commence now. "Behold now is
the day of salvation." Yes, sinner let loose of the devil and his ways, and
accept a blessed Saviour instead. What a happy change you would make even
here on this earth, and ever lasting life and joy in heaven, by coming to
God in the right way and manner. He is calling, he is ready to receive you;
he is ready to forgive you, will you accept him? Don't put it off, remember
now is the accepted time: tomorrow may be everlastingly and eternally too
late for you. I am a very old man, 118 years. Would you like to be with me
and see me? You can, if not on the earth, in heaven. I say to the Christian,
the promise is to them that holds out faithful to the end. Then put your
trust in God, not man, not the things of this world, the love of the Father
is not in him." "What doth it profit a man, if he gain the whole world and
lose his only soul." May God be with you all, is my prayer.
THE END
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