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More
than 140 years ago in 1817 the first tracts of land to
be cleared of the forests were near Middle Grove in
Monroe County, which was still a part of Pike,
Randolph and Rails counties. The first permanent
settlements were made in 1820 when Ezra Fox and Daniel
and Andrew Wittenburg and others settled on farms
about three miles east of Middle Grove. At that time a
stage ran between Middle Grove and Hannibal about
twice a week, the road being about eight miles south
of Paris and three miles south of what is now Monroe
City.
The
historic town of Florida was settled within a few
years, and other settlements were made near Same Fe,
Old Clinton, and Madison. Our neighboring town, Paris,
was laid out in 1831 end was named for Paris,
Kentucky, the native town of Mrs. Cephas
Fox of the Middle Grove vicinity.
The
first settlers arrived in their covered wagons from
Virginia and Kentucky with very few necessities and no
luxuries of life. They usually brought enough grain
with them to plant crops. Wild turkeys, geese, deer,
elk and prairie chickens were plentiful so meat was
provided in abundance.
Their
first homes were very crude houses of one room with
perhaps a shed room the first few years. Inc floors
were of puncheon and a fireplace, which served the
double purpose of heating the room and providing a
means of cooking, was made of mud and stones. The
settlers later built two story log houses with a hall
in the center which contained the stairway leading
upstairs to the rooms. Many of the settlers were
accompanied by their slaves, who were put to work
chopping down trees and clearing the land for sowing
grain. The matter of water was a serious problem and
usually a search
was made for a spring on the land. The settlers from
Kentucky almost always settled in the timber, near
springs or along the rivers. The house and barn would
be built near the spring and a shelter was built over
the spring to keep the milk cool.
Their
furniture consisted of the four poster beds, curtained
off, with trundle beds underneath on which the
children slept, a chest of drawers, a home made table,
chairs, and in the more aristocratic families, a sofa.
Cooking
was done in iron kettles which were set on
tri-cornered iron holders. This was placed in the
hottest place in the fire in the fireplace. Skillets,
pots and tin pans were also used and every family had
a huge brass kettle in which they made their soap,
apple butter, maple syrup, and rendered out the lard.
Spinning
wheels were a necessity in every home They were either
purchased in Hannibal or else the handy householder
would make one for his wife. Most of the settlers
raised hemp and obtained their linen this way. They
all raised sheep which furnished the wool for clothes,
blankets and other clothing needs. The wool was washed
and then sent to the woolen mill near Paris to be
carded. After the carding process the wool was spun
into long woolen threads and then woven. Goods for the
women’s dresses was called linsey and the men’s
clothes were called jeans.
Staple
food for the settlers was the barn and salt pork
smoked by hickory log fire, dried beef, wild turkey,
wild geese and deer. There would also be dried corn,
dried apples, peaches and other fruits would be
preserved in huge stone jars. The famous johnny cake,
made of flour and corn meal and sweet-dried with
molasses or honey and baked in ashes, was used for
bread. The cacklin’ corn bread, served with hop jowl
and greens, was considered a feast.
The
houses were rarely plastered. Sometimes they would be
weather boarded inside. Very few homes had windows,
and when they did, the windows were square places left
in the logs and covered over with greased paper.
Sometimes, the settlers would whitewash their house on
the outside.
Fires
were made by striking a piece of steel against a flint
rock. Light was furnished by tallow candles which the
housewife made. There wire no sewing machines and
all garments had to be made by hand.
The
floors of the houses were made of the smooth side of
the logs and the “front room” or
“parlor" would usually have a carpet. The
kitchen would not have a carpet. The dishes were
usually heavy coarse ware with a design of flowers,
and sometimes the must treasured possession of the
housewife was a beautiful piece of pewter brought from
Kentucky or Virginia.
The
homes had no screens at the door and the flies and
fleas and mosquitoes were left to their own feast.
Most of the homes were without porches. The yards were
enclosed with a rail fence and in the front yard, was
the “stile block,” a wooden platform where the
modest women of the family were courteously assisted
to mount their horses or helped into the big wagon.
The women wore voluminous skirts and managed to
acquire side saddles and ride them. They wore “half
hands" or gloves that left the fingers free to
pick the berries or hoe the garden.
Dress
styles changed very little. The mother hubbard, a long
loose, full-flowing garment hanging from the shoulders
like a Roman toga, was the prevailing fashion and on
Sunday, there would be the wrapper, a curious garment
quite tight in front with as incredible amount of
goods gathered up tight and bunched in the back over a
bustle. In the 1,860’s came the amazing hoop skirts,
and wash waists and poke bonnets. Later on, there were
“tea jackets” and skirts and in the 1890’s, the
shirt waist was ushered in and held the style for many
years. Milk white complexions were considered the
height of beauty and our great-great-grandmothers
would be amazed at the “heat lamps,” suntan
lotions and “sunbathing” during the summertime
to get that dark tan. Petticoats were numerous and
starched stiffly with yards of tucks, ruffles and
lace.
Farming
Very Crude
The
farming of the early settlers seems very crude to us
today with all the modern farm machinery. Oats,
wheat, hay, and other crops were sown by hand, the
farmer simply walking through the field and scattering
the grain right and left. It was cut with a cradle, a
rounded sickle like affair with an attachment of
finger-like rods to a scythe for receiving the grain
and laying it evenly in swaths. A good man could cut
about 10 acres a day but the average was about 6 or 8
acres. Wheat and oats were then piled in the barn and
horses driven or led over it until the grain was
threshed. It was then put through a fanning mill and
the chaff fanned out. Six bushels to the acre was
considered a fair yield. The grain was stored in the
house as a preventive of mold forming, also to keep
the rats away.
Wolves
were thick in the woods when the settlers first came.
Their howls could be heard all night. Occasionally
panthers and wildcats were seen by the settlers. The
wolves would prey on young pigs and would run in
packs, giving chase to dogs, sometimes running them up
to the very door of the house. Trapping wolves became
a very profitable business after the state began to
pay for the scalps.
A
book, “View of the Valley of the Mississippi,” by
Robert Baird, written in 1831, the year Monroe County
was created, gave the following description of early
life, as follows:
“The
forest abound with deer, wolves, panthers, wild
turkeys, etc. The buffalo and elk have retired to the
region lying westward beyond the state. Hunting gives
employment and sustenance to a semi-barbaric
population, which is constantly pressing on the heels
of the retreating savages. These hunters settle on
either United States or Indian lands and cultivating a
little spot of ground, continue there until the game
has disappeared or the proper claimant of the lands
comes and warns them off. One of these hunters told me
he came from “Old Kentucky” many years since and
he had killed 1500 deer, 300 bears, a hundred buffalo
and other game in great numbers. These squatters are
most deplorably ignorant.” .
‘There
were gloomy years of financial depression and
sickness, but now in 1831 prosperity has beamed upon
the state and health and plenty exist throughout its
borders.
“A
vast amount of land in Missouri is for sale in 1831 at
the low price of a dollar and a quarter an acre.
Partially cultivated land may be purchased for very
reasonable terms.
“There
is a decided moral change going on throughout the
state. The increase of good men in counteracting the
influence of the reckless characters that come to this
remote country. An interest in awakening in the
subject of education. Next to Virginia, Missouri is
now the largest state in the union and is destined to
become exceedly prosperous and powerful.”
The
home remedies for disease were very primitive,
camphor, turpentine and liniment could be secured,
catnip tea was a tried and true remedy, goose grease
and skunk oil were given to croupy children.
Amusements
Were Simple
The
amusements were simple but were keenly enjoyed. There
were occasional quilting bees when the women of the
neighborhood would gather and help the housewife with
her quilts. The corn huskings where the huskers sat in
rows on the barn floor and ate apples and drank cider.
Weddings were occasions of feasting and merrymaking.
Distances were so long that frequently the guests
would remain overnight.
Families
were large, many having from 10 to 18 children. A
family of eight was considered a moderate sized
family. When a son married, he usually bought a
40-acre farm adjoining the old homeplace or else the
father gave the land outright to him. A cow, a horse
and a saddle were the usual presents given to each
boy. The neighbors came in, after the boy had cut the
logs, and helped to put up the house. The women folks
came in and served a huge meal out under the trees.
The usual house for the newlyweds would be a room 16
feet square with perhaps a shed room. The mother of
the bride would provide the feather beds, pillows,
dishes, quilts, chickens, and the newly married couple
would be ready to settle down. The whole outlay would
likely cost less than $50 and a man was economically
fitted for marriage by the time he was 20. The gun was
placed in a rack over the door in case of an animal
prowler by night and the newlyweds started their
honeymoon. Girls were married at 16 and would have
families of five or six children by the time they were
25.
Schools
in the area were one room log buildings with puncheon
floors. Hard long benches served as desks with no
backs to them. Sometimes the school was perched upon
pegs or stilts two feet or more from the ground. The
studies usually consisted of three R’s, Reading,
‘Riting and ‘Rithmetic, and the old blue back
speller. McGuffey’s readers were full of excerpts
from the classics and original stories containing a
very pointed moral.
Boys
and girls usually continued to attend school until
they were married. The teacher would give out stray
bits of information about physiology, astronomy,
geography, history from his own scanty knowledge of
the subjects. The arithmetic ‘studied was Ray’s
First, Second and Third part. When the Third part was
completed, the student was considered a graduate. More
than 70 to 80 pupils were enrolled and crowded into
the small log school.
Classes
were called to the front of the room to recite the
lesson. Members of the teaching profession usually
received about $25 per month. The teachers were nearly
always men and boarded around from house to house.
School
House Served as a Church
The
school house served as a meeting house on Sunday for
the religious groups. Itinerant
preachers brought the word of God to the God fearing
settlers. The women sat on one side of the house and
the men on the other. After the services the preacher
would be invited to accompany some member home. The
entire congregation would spend the rest of the day
listening to the preacher talk and getting the gossip
of the neighborhood.
Scattered
over the county were small stores or trading points.
Mark Twain’s description of his birthplace, Florida,
is so typical of those frontier posts that it is
hereby inserted:
“I
was born the 30th of November 1835, in the almost
invisible village of Florida, Monroe County, Mo. I
suppose Florida had less than three hundred
inhabitants. It had two ‘streets, each a couple of
hundred yards long; the rest of the avenues mere
lanes, with rail fences and corn fields on either
side. Both the streets and the lanes were paved with
the same material — tough, ‘black mud in wet
times, deep dust in dry.
“Most
of the houses were of logs —
all of them, indeed, except three or four;
these latter being frame ones. There was none of
brick, and none of stone. There was a log church, with
a puncheon floor and slab benches. A puncheon floor is
made of logs whose upper surfaces have been chipped
flat with the adze. The cracks between the logs were
not filled; there was no carpet; consequently, if
you dropped anything smaller than a peach it was
likely to go through.
“The
church was perched upon short sections of logs, which
elevated it two or three feet from the ground. Hogs
slept under there, and whenever the dogs got after
them during services the minister had to wait till the
disturbance was over. In winter there was always a
refreshing breeze up
through the puncheon floor; in summer there were
fleas enough for all.
“A
slab bench is made of the outside cut of a sawlog,
with the bark side down; it is supported on four
sticks driven into auger holes at the ends; it has no
back and no cushions. The church was twi lighted with
yellow tallow candles in lined scones hung against
the walls. Week days, the church was a school house.
“There
were two stores in the village. My uncle, John A.
Queries, was proprietor of one of them. It was a very
small establishment with a few rolls of ‘bit’
calicoes on half a dozen shelves, a few barrels of
salt mackerel, coffee, and New Orleans sugar behind
the counter, stacks of brooms, shovels, axes, hoes,
rakes, and such things, here and there, a lot of cheap
hats, bonnets and tinware strung on strings and
suspended from the walls; and at the other end of the
room was another counter with bags of shot on it, a
cheese or two, and a keg of powder in front of it, a
row of nail kegs, and a few pigs of lead; and behind
it a barrel or two of New Orleans molasses and native
corn whiskey
on tap.
“If
a ‘boy bought S or 10 cents worth
of anything he
was entitled to
half a handful of sugar from the barrel; if a
woman bought a few yards of calico she was entitled to
a spool of
thread in addition to the usual
gratis ‘trimmin’s;’ if a man bought a trifle
he was at liberty to draw and swallow as big
a drink of whiskey as he wanted.
“Everything
was cheap — apples, peaches, sweet potatoes, Irish
potatoes, and corn, 10 cents a bushel; chickens, 10
cents apiece; butter, 6 cents a pound; eggs, 3 cents a
dozen; coffee and sugar, 5 cents a pound; whiskey 10
cents a gallon.”
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