T. R. JONES

 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 18^th 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 20^th 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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