Fling 1
Holly Fling
Dr. Betsy Delmonico
English 498
Capstone Project
16 December 2010
Folk History from Down on the Farm in Shelby County
I grew up on a farm in Shelby County during the 1970s and 1980s. At that time, cable television was not available outside of the city limits, and no one had yet considered the possibility of owning technology, such as personal computers or VCRs. Instead, we relied on our imaginations and storytelling for entertainment. My father, who was born in 1921, was an animated storyteller and we spent many evenings riding in the farm truck through the countryside listening to him tell his tales. He was not the only storyteller though, as several of our elderly neighbors enjoyed nothing more than sitting with my father under the big maple tree in our backyard trading tales.
Given that my father and the other old storytellers are all gone now, it has been more than twenty-five years since I have heard them tell their tales, but I still hold many of them in my memory, some more fragmented than others. While these oral accounts were certainly fun to listen to as a child, as I grew older I realized that they probably had been embellished. Regardless of the level of truth however, these stories are oral histories that have been passed down by word of mouth and they should be recorded before they become missing pieces of times past.
In Folkloristics Robert A. Georges and Michael Owen Jones claim that “[i]n addition to being historical phenomenon themselves—whether conceptualized as survivals, continuities, or revivals—examples of folklore also frequently serve as sources of historical information” (84). They go on to explain that “[w]hen used as historical sources, folklore examples enable researchers to reconstruct past events and to supplement, corroborate, and challenge or correct existing historical records and interpretations” (84). As an example, Georges and Jones describe the work of William Lynwood Montell. In the absence of historical records due to fire, Montell gathered and analyzed historical traditions of local people to reconstruct the history of Coe Ridge, an African American colony in Cumberland County, Kentucky. Georges and Jones clarify that not every oral tradition is historical truth (85), but Montell asserts that “no historian who is aware of the ways of the people on a local level, especially in rural areas where ties to the land are strong, will question the importance played by oral traditions in the lives of the people” (xvii). Furthermore, Montell insists that “[a]ccuracy of local historical legends is not the most important question to be faced by the person who gathers and analyzes them, but rather the essential fact is that these folk narratives are believed by the people who perpetuate them” (xvii). Regardless of the level of historical truth, Montell worked “to preserve for the generations to come a bit of the area’s history which otherwise might one day be erased from the memories of the local people” (13). Like Montell, I too am working toward a preservation of the past. The past belongs to those who lived it, to those who remember it, and to those who will someday read about it, so it is of utmost importance to preserve it for the interest of the future generation.
My father was born and raised in Shelby County, where he lived practically his entire life, so all of his tales revolved around this area of Missouri. In fact, many were based upon our family farm. I have chosen to recall from memory and do further research on six specific tales that he and the other storytellers used to recount: the Honey Trail tale; the old cemetery; the men in the Blue and the Gray at Walkersville; the brick factory at Walkersville; the history of the Brick House; and the story of the big rock from the river. I have chosen these particular stories because they fascinated me most as a child, and for that reason they stand out more clearly in my mind than others.
The remains of what my father referred to as the Honey Trail run alongside Salt River and past an old cemetery surrounded by an iron fence and hidden in the woods on the west side of our family farm. My father had told me that our farm had once been several farms and the people who lived Back West, as he called that section, were buried in that cemetery. While working in the field, he would occasionally unearth artifacts with his plow. For instance, he once discovered a gold wedding ring, which probably belonged to one of the original settlers of Shelby County. I began my research of the cemetery by studying the names of the original Shelby County settlers, particularly those who settled in the Salt River Township on the west side of my family’s farm. There are maps at the Shelby County Historical Society Museum in Shelbina which show the names of the original land purchasers, as well as maps showing ownership of land in 1878 and 1902. At the museum I also found census records dating back to 1840 which noted who lived in the homes and included family, slaves, and servants. Next, I went through my family’s farm abstract, which is essentially a collection of legal documents, such as land patents, wills, and court records, which records actions with the farm. I found our abstract to be a number of combined abstracts, showing that the farm was, as my father said, originally several separate farms. The earliest abstract shows ownership of Peter Roff and dates back to October 20, 1835. According to an account archived at the Shelby County Historical Society Museum and written by Nicolas Watkins, one of Shelby County’s first settlers, Peter Roff actually settled this land in November 1832. Interestingly, Watkins reports that when he, Peter, and three other men arrived in Shelby County in 1832, they did not find any other white settlers to the west of where they settled on Salt River.
By the time I visited the cemetery I was familiar with most of the names I found. William Coard, his wife, Frances, and his daughter, Hester, are all buried in this cemetery. In the abstract I read William Coard’s land patent, as well as his will, which gave me a feel for the lives of these settlers. In A History of Monroe & Shelby Counties, Missouri, which was published in St. Louis in 1884 and according to the title page was compiled and written “From the Most Authentic Official and Private Sources,” I discovered that in 1831 Major Obadiah Dickerson was the “first settler in Salt River township [and] was also the first permanent one in the county” (875). The Coard family settled in Shelby County only seven years after Dickerson, as their land patent from the abstract is dated September 1, 1838 (Thomas, R.L. V. 113, P 554). Three of the headstones, dating from the 1850s to the 1860s, belong to the children of L. and T.J. Duncan. The Duncan family is not in our farm abstract; however, a map of the original land purchasers shows Levin Duncan to have settled a farm bordering William Coard’s farm in 1848.
The Honey Trail that runs between the cemetery and the river is mostly overgrown now, so it does not appear to be a trail until about forty feet into the woods. According to my father however, people used to drive their horse-drawn wagons up into Iowa in search of honey along this trail. He reported that the trail crossed our farm and forded the river at this remaining section. My investigations reveal both truth and distortion in my father's account. According to A History of Monroe & Shelby Counties, Missouri, prior to 1836 the only roads running north and south were called the ‘Bee roads’ (660-61). There were only two of these roads and they were “little better than trails” (661). These Bee trails ran through the central and eastern parts of Shelby County and they were made by the settlers of the counties to the south, who every fall traveled north in search of honey (661). Anywhere that the trail might cross a stream was called the Bee ford, so A History of Monroe & Shelby Counties, Missouri records the Bee ford of Salt river [sic], the Bee ford of South Fabius, and so on (661). Evidently the Bee ford of Salt River would be where the trail crosses Salt River on the western side of our farm.
The Callaway trail, “the route commonly pursued by the honey hunters of Callaway County” (661), ran north of Shelbyville. As our farm is south and west of Shelbyville, this is not the trail from my father’s story. Next, however, the 1884 book talks about the Boone trail, “made by the bee hunters from Boone County,” which “crossed Salt River above Walkersville” (661). Our family farm is located on Salt River above Walkersville, showing that my father’s Honey Trail was the Boone Trail and parallels the history books. The Western Historical Manuscript Collection-Columbia sponsored by the University of Missouri and the State Historical Society of Missouri makes reference to Bee Roads in both Knox and Scotland counties, the two Missouri counties north of Shelby. Additionally, this collection claims that Clark County, Missouri, just to the east of Scotland County, “was the terminus of the old ‘Bee Roads’ of pioneer days. Therefore, it is unlikely that these trails actually led north into Iowa.
Aside from my father, one of my favorite storytellers was our neighbor Melvin Snell, who passed away in 1982. Melvin used to recall his grandmother’s claims to having seen, as a child, the injured and dead soldiers in both the Blue and the Gray laid out in the front yard of a house that sat on a hill near Walkersville. I do not recall if Melvin ever stated exactly how many men were seen by his grandmother, so I hoped to find this information in my study. To begin researching this oral account, I searched for evidence of a dispute near Walkersville during the Civil War. In Civil War Day by Day: An Almanac 1861-1865 E.B. Long and Barbara Long, claim that on Wednesday, the second day of April 1862 “there was a skirmish near Walkersville” (192). Correspondingly, my great-grandmother’s copy of the General History of Shelby County, Missouri 1911, which was written by the citizens of Shelby County and published in Chicago in 1911, explains that on this date Col. H. S. Lipscomb, of the Eleventh Missouri State Militia, a union calvary, and a Captain Wilmont, along with thirteen other men who were in charge of a wagon load of supplies, started from Shelbina to Shelbyville (86). Approximately a mile downriver from Walkersville, confederate “Tom Stacy, with sixteen of his band, bushwhacked the party, killing two militia men named Long and Thomas Herbst and a prominent and worthy citizen of the county named Lilburn Hale” (86).
After finding proof of a skirmish, I next set out to discover the identity and whereabouts of Melvin’s grandmother at the time of the Civil War. Although I did not know Melvin’s grandmother’s maiden name, I knew that his Grandmother Wiggins had once lived on the eighty acres of our farm on which my mother’s house now sits. According to an 1878 map, J.H. Wiggins did own this particular piece of land. I then directed my research to the General History of Shelby County, Missouri 1911 to research the Wiggins family, where I found that John Wiggins was united in marriage to Shelby County’s Martha Cadwell on December 8, 1870 (489). The couple had four children, one of which was “Allie, the wife of Elwood Snell” (489). Allie Wiggins Snell would have been Melvin’s mother and her mother, Martha Cadwell Wiggins, would have been Melvin’s grandmother. As Martha was married in 1870, she would have been a young girl at the time of the Walkersville skirmish in 1862.
The location of the house from Melvin’s story is approximately one mile downriver from Walkersville and there is clear historical evidence of an 1862 skirmish in which two militiamen were killed. Because only three men were killed, two being militiamen and one a businessman, Martha Wiggins’ claim of seeing soldiers in blue and the gray may seem a bit questionable. Still, the men she allegedly saw lying in a neighbor’s yard would have included not only the dead, but also the injured. Although I have found no information on injuries during this minor Civil War event, injuries were common in the Missouri wilderness and perhaps merited little or no attention. In From Memory to History Barbara Allen and William Lynwood Montell explain how original actors of historical events become displaced through orally communicated history. According to Allen and Montell, even chief actors (Quote) “may be displaced by… better known or locally more prominent figure[s]” (36-37). As this incident took place during the Civil War, this could explain how two militiamen and one citizen came to be described as the men in the Blue and the Gray. While the facts reported by Melvin Snell as coming from Martha Wiggins may have been blurred by a young girl or even altered through recounts over the past one-hundred forty-eight years, Martha Cadwell Wiggins likely did see these dead and injured men which show that Melvin’s tale is likely true folk history.
Melvin also reported that his grandmother had handled almost every brick that built Shelbina. This intriguing hyperbole suggests that the Cadwell family was associated with a brick plant. Most of downtown Shelbina dates back to the 1880s and 1890s and local folklore says that there was once a brick factory at Walkersville. Because Walkersville was once “the biggest town in Shelby County,” as my father always said, land that is now associated with Shelbyville or Shelbina was, at that time, referred to as “the Walkersville area.” Unfortunately, there appears to be no information available as to where the brickwork for downtown Shelbina was made, however, according to the A History of Monroe & Shelby Counties in September of 1881a two-story brick building was constructed in Shelbyville with its brickwork done by William Moore (839). In 1838-39 several Moore families settled farms near Walkersville. Township 56 and 57 maps from 1878 and 1902 show William Cadwell as a land owner in the Walkersville area too, but on the opposite side of the river from the Moore farms. As clay is known to be found around this area, it is possible that the brick factory said to have been located at Walkersville could have been owned by William Moore, who was likely a descendent of one of the original settlers.