James Shank
Contributed by: Sara Hemp <cryssara@merr.com>

James Shank was a blacksmith and farmer.  He lived in Illinois until 1899 and moved to to Granby Mo. Prior to moving to Mo. He lived in Mound Station (Timewell, Il.)   James first left his family in Illinois and went to Missouri.  He took a threshing machine with him,.  Also the lure of the lead ore mines for work was the pulling factor to settling in Missouri. Granby is known as the "Oldest Mining Town in the Southwest" 1850. James wrote a letter to his wife and family, anxious for them to join him in Missouri.  He told his dear Maria, it is beautiful place and Shoal Creek is as clear as crystal!  He and son William Carson threshed wheat right off the ground at Dueneweg, Missouri, around the mine shafts. Another son Alvin operated a drilling rig.   When it quit operating, he went to Montana, where he and his wife Mathilda "Tillie",along with a son Fred who died when he was around five or six years old.
   Alvin also died in Montanta and it is believed tha Tillie remarried and moved to Oklahoma. William Carson wasn't as happy with Missouri and so he went back to Illinois.   He spent the rest of his life in and around Clayton where he and Anna raised their family. James along with his son Ora spent the rest of their lives in Missouri.
   Note: James Shank was born March 21, 1850 Brown County, Illinois, the son of William and Julia Emaline McCord Shank, died February 28, 1923 Diamond, Missouri, buried Diamond, Missouri, married August 14, 1871 Mound Station-Timewell, Brown County, Illinois to Maria Brandon, born October 13, 1853 Preble County, Ohio, the daughter of Aaron C. and Sarah Neal Brandon, died December 11, 1918 Diamond, Missouri, buried Diamond, Missouri.

BACK - MO Genealogy Trails Candi H. ©2006

---

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Richmond Conservator
Richmond, Ray County, Missouri
July 21, 1892

Ex-Congressman W.J. Stone, Democratic candidate for governor of  Missouri, was born May 7, 1848, in Madison county, Ky., and was the
youngest of four children by his father's first marriage. He worked on  his father's farm and attended school until 1863, when he went to live
with his sister at Columbia, Boone county, Mo. He attended the State  university three terms to which was added a thorough commercial
education at St. Louis. On his return to Columbia he entered the law office of his brother-in-law, Squire Turner, and two years later was
admitted to the bar. A partnership was then established with Judge A. H. Carleton, of Bedford, Lawrence county, Ind. In 1869 he moved to Nevada,
Mo., and engaged in the practice of his profession.

In 1884 Mr. Stone was nominated and elected as representative to the Forty-ninth congress from the Twelfth district of Missouri. He served
three terms in succession in congress. In 1890 he declined to be renominated to congress. Though not a candidate for any office that
year, he made over thirty speeches in Missouri and several other states. His record in congress was excellent. He took a prominent part in the
passage of the law by which the railroad land grants made twenty five years ago were forfeited and the land restored to the people.

Contributed by a "Friend of Free Genealogy".
BACK to MO Genealogy Trails - Candi H. ©2007

---

Oliver U. Hawkins

From "History of North Washington" Published 1904
Contributed by: Sara Hemp <cryssara@merr.com>
Transcribed by: Nancy Grubb <nancyg@theofficenet.com>

   Oliver U. Hawkins, editor and proprietor of the Springdale Record, Stevens County, has been an active and enterprising citizen of the town  since 1900. He was born in Schuyler County, Illinois, September 16,1868, the son of James and Martha (Kenny) Hawkins. The father was a native of  Illinois, the mother of Ohio. They located in Illinois at an early day. The father of James Hawkins served in the Black Hawk war, and James, himself, was a veteran of the Civil War, having passed three years in the service, during which time he endured many hardships. He was mustered out at Mobile August 12,1865. He died July 9,1903. The mother of our subject died April 22, 1876. Three children were born to them; Emmaletta, residing with her brother; John, living in Stevens County; and Oliver U., our subject.
    Having secured an excellent education in Cass and Morgan Counties,  Illinois, at the age of seventeen he began working with his father in the broom manufacturing business, which employment he continued eight or ten years. He then went to Missouri and published a newspaper, the only Republican organ in Shelby county. It is now called the Farmers' Favorite. This property he disposed of in 1889, and opened a broom factory, conducting the same but a short period.  Returning to Illinois he engaged in farming for two years, He then went to Macomb Illinois, where he was employed in different newspaper offices, and then moved to Brooklyn, Illinois, where for the following four years he drove stage.
    In 1900 Mr. Hawkins came to Stevens County, and in 1902 he put forth  the first issue of the Spingdale Record, a meritorious publication, now having a large circulation and other evidences of prosperity. On May 5, 1889, he was united in marriage to Miss Lieuvenia Hopper, daughter of Shelby and Emily (Simms) Hopper, natives of Illinois. They settled in Shelby County, where the father died in 1899. The mother is still a resident of that county. To them were born nine children, seven of whom are still living: Elisha and Matthew, at Kallispel, Montana; Minnie, in Omaha, Nebraska; Alice, wife of Levi E. West, in Sandusky, Montana; Amos, at Augusta, Illinois; Alfred, in Colorado; Jesse, in Shelby County, Missouri.
   Mr. and Mrs. Hawkins have four children, Monia, Harold, Hazel, and Chester.
   He is a stanch Republican, and as an influential editor, manifests a lively interest in the welfare of that party. He is a member of the M.
W. A., at present being V. C. of his camp; and of the I. O. O. F.  Mrs. Hawkins is a member of the R. N. A., of which she is Receiver, and of  the Congregation church.  

 

BACK - MO Genealogy Trails

 

George S. Park
Page 655-656 Magnolia Township
Record of Olden Times or 50 years on the Prairie, Spencer Ellsworth, 1880
Submitted by Nancy Piper - 2009


EARLY YEARS

Mr. Park is a farmer, whose homestead is on section 25 and 26, and was born in Windham county, Vermont, October 28, 1811. He came west in 1832 on a tour of investigation. He visited Missouri and Illinois and selected for his future home the neighborhood in which he now resides. He taught school in Sangamon county for a while and returned to Vermont in the fall of the same year. His father soon after came west and located near Pekin, while the son preferred his first selected location, in what is now Magnolia township. He purchased a claim of 160 acres from Cornelius Hunt for $300 which is part of his present homestead. He and his father then entered 800 acres more in the same neighborhood.

TEXAS FIGHT FOR FREEDOM

He attended the Illinois College at Jacksonville two years, where he was a class mate of the late governor of Illinois – Richard Yates. Being obliged to leave college in consequence of poor health, he went to Texas in 1835, and while there the war for independence began, so young Park volunteered in the army of General Houston. By treachery on the part of the Mexicans his division of 250 men were obliged to capitulate to the army of Santa Anna and were disarmed. The prisoners were to have been embarked on a ship for Galveston, but while on the march to the vessel they discovered preparations for their slaughter by their captors.

Young Park suggested an attack on their guards, but before he could get any concerted action of his men, the guard drew up and fired on the disarmed prisoners. He saw their movements and fell upon his face, the murderous volley passing over him. The next instant he was on his feet and flying for the river. It was a race for life; the treacherous guards loaded and fired again and again, the bullets flying thick and fast, but fortunately never hit him. When he thought himself safe and on the verge of freedom, he found himself confronted by a line of sentries along the river bank, but did not stop, and when without a few feet of the river two Mexicans crossed muskets in front of him. He then turned to one side and made for a single sentry, whose gun he turned aside and jumped into the river, bullets flying round him. He floated down some distance until he got under the bank, when he rested and recovered breath. He then ran along the shore under the protection of the friendly bank until he got out of range, when he again took to the river and swam to the other side.

He saw three of his comrades running for life the same course he had come, closely pursued by the Mexicans. He started across the prairie in the direction of Gen. Houston’s army, which was about seventy miles distant. He was soon intercepted by mounted scouts sent out to capture such as might have escaped, but being on the alert he saw them and hid himself in a hole concealed by long buffalo glass so the horsemen could not ride over him. They came close to him several times but gave up the hunt at night, when he started for his headquarters, which he reached safely.

MISSOURI – FOUNDER OF PARKVILLE

Texas gained her independence, the Houston troops soon disbanded, and young Park returned north, or rather to Missouri , where he located land. He married Miss Mary L. Holmes, July 12, 1855. She was born and educated in New York city. They have one child, a very accomplished young lady, Miss Etla, who was born in Missouri in 1857. Mr. Park located about ten miles above Kansas City, in Missouri, and was the founder of Parkville, Platte county Mo. He has donated a large tract of land and a suitable building worth $35,000, for the purpose of a college, in which young people of both sexes can receive a practical education – boys in the art of husbandry, and girls in the duties of perfect housekeepers, in addition to other necessary branches of education.

KANSAS – FIGHT FOR FREE STATE

Mr. Park has always been a consistent Republican, though not an Abolitionist. He maintained, while editor and proprietor of his paper, that the people of Kansas had the right to say whether they would have a free or slave state; and for boldly and fearlessly advocating those principles, he was mobbed, his press thrown in the river and his life threatened. In fact, he had to barricade himself in his house, determined to defend himself to the last against any odds rather than be driven from his home, having been guilty of no crime. He provided himself with firearms and laid in a good store of ammunition, with a keg of powder ready to blow up the building had the mob of border ruffians succeeded in breaking in, determined to die in the ruins rather than abandon his home.

When they could not persuade him by threats or otherwise to leave, they told his young wife that as they had passed resolutions in their “Blue Lodges” that he must leave on account of his Republican principles, they would be ruined if they did not carry out the resolution, and if he would promise to leave in two, three or six weeks, all, all would be satisfactory; but if not, that blood would surely be shed, as there were several hundred men waiting only for the signal to attack him. The reply of his brave young wife was that Mr. Park and she were going to Texas in the winter, but she was not in the habit of letting strangers and enemies set the day she should go; that she would go with Mr. Park and that he would go when he was ready. This was the end. He afterwards sued the ringleaders of the mob who destroyed his press and type, and they settled with him satisfactorily. He held his ground, showing the grit of a Napoleon, and was afterwards elected to the Senate.

BACK IN ILLINOIS

He moved to Magnolia in 1873, where he has the finest residence in the county, with 480 acres in his home farm; also 2,000 acres in LaSalle and other counties in this State, and large tracts in Missouri, Kansas and Texas.


BACK - MO Genealogy Trails

---

The Romantic Story of John Colter, First Frontiersman to Engage in the Fur Trade of the Upper Missouri;
How he Outwitted the Hostile Blackfeet

The outstanding man of the Lewis and Clark expedition, after the commanders, was John Colter, an adventurous spirit, concerning whose prowess and achievements many stories were told in the west of the old days.

When the famous expedition to explore the unknown northwest was being organized, Colter enlisted under Captains Lewis and Clark as a common soldier, and the heart-breaking trip across the continent by these intrepid explorers of a century ago was to him a great adventure.

He was a frontiersman of the Daniel Boone type, and because of his knowledge of woodcraft and his devotion to duty proved invaluable to the leaders of that undertaking.

On the return trip, when the expedition reached Fort Mandan, Colter applied to Lewis and Clark for his discharge.

The arduous part of the long journey to and from the Pacific was about over, and all that remained to negotiate the last leg of the journey was to float down the Missouri and Mississippi rivers to St. Louis. Colter's good record had won for him a high place in the esteem of his superiors, and although they were surprised at his request, it was granted. This was in 1806.

The upper Missouri river country then abounded in peltry wealth, particularly in beaver, the pelts of which went current for cash in all the western settlements.

Colter proposed to remain in this paradise of the trapper, with two frontiersmen who had followed up the expedition, and trap for beaver. And when they turned their backs on Lewis and Clark these three were the only men of the white race in all the northwestern country within the confines of what is now the United States.

Discovered Yellowstone Wonders and Helped Lisa to Build Fort Manuel

Much of the time alone and always on foot, carrying his arms and provisions with him wherever he traveled. Colter explored the upper Missouri country, always going where no white man had been before him, and in his migrations discovered the Yellowstone wonderland and the Big Horn river; was the first white man to cross the passes at the head of Wind river, or to see the country in which the Colorado river heads, and was first to penetrate the Jackson's Hole country.

When Colter and the two trappers separated from Lewis and Clark they went into the Yellowstone country. They took many pelts that first winter, and when spring came Colter decided to return to St. Louis. He built for himself a dugout canoe, fashioned out of a log, and, loading part of his furs launched his craft and started on his long journey to civilization.

Fur trading in those days was one of the first sources of wealth, and the stories told by the men of the Lewis and Clark expedition, when they returned to St. Louis, of the opportunities in the fur trade, had excited many, and among others Manuel Lisa, a man of some means, and who was afterwards to become a noted trader. Lisa organized a company and equipped an expedition to penetrate the upper Missouri country and establish trading posts. This expedition was on its way up the river when, at the mouth of the Platte, Lisa met Colter. Colter's fame had reached St. Louis in the meantime, and Lisa knew him for a woodcraftsman of ability. He persuaded Colter to return to the northwest. Colter led Lisa and his keel boats to the mouth of the Big Horn, on the Yellowstone, where on Colter's advice; Lisa built his first post, which he called Fort Manuel. This was the first habitation of a white man to be built west of Fort Mandan.

Fought With the Crows against the Blackfeet; His Prowess Won Victory

His post established, Lisa sent Colter out into the Indian country to advise the red men that the white traders were ready to do business, and would trade guns and goods and trinkets, all dear to the heart of the Indian, for pelts and furs.

With his pack on his back and carrying his gun and ammunition, and perhaps some samples of goods to excite the curiosity of the red men, Colter fared forth on his walk of a thousand miles through the wilderness, the pioneer commercial traveler of the northwest.

Out in the Jackson's Hole country Colter met a war party of Crow Indians, man-hunting for the Blackfeet. Colter had been with Captain Clark on the Marias River when he had to kill a Piegan, an ally of the Blackfeet, so Colter, who could not keep out of a fight, cast his lot with the Crows and in the battle that followed the Blackfeet were defeated. They attributed their defeat to the prowess of the white warrior who was fighting with their enemies. Perhaps this incident, following the tragedy of the Marias, helped to start the 70 years of warfare between the Blackfeet and the whites.

In this fight Colter was wounded in the leg, and although the wound was a severe one, he continued his journey in Lisa's interests, traveling several hundred miles, visiting various tribes, and finally arriving at Fort Manuel. It was on this return journey that he discovered Yellowstone geysers and lake.

There are many romantic stories of the exploits of Colter, and perhaps the most interesting one has to do with a thrilling adventure in which he figured with a narrow lethal margin, the scene of which was in the country where the Jefferson and Madison rivers, joining, form the Missouri. This country was claimed by the Blackfeet, who were always ready to fight trespassers. Colter and a man named Potts had established a camp there and were trapping beaver. They knew of the hostility of the Blackfeet, but the beaver was abundant and they remained. One morning the trappers were out on the river in a canoe when several hundred Blackfeet warriors appeared on the bank. A chief beckoned the white men to come ashore. Colter knew that it was useless to attempt to escape, and had just grounded the canoe when an Indian seized Potts' gun. Colter wrested the weapon from the Indian and handed it back to Potts. Potts shoved the canoe back into the stream, and as he did so was shot through the groin with an arrow. He called out to Colter to save himself. "I'll get one of them before I die," he said as he leveled his gun and shot an Indian dead. The next instant he was shot through and through with a dozen arrows.

A Marathon with Life for A Stake; Hid From Indians in Beaver House

The Indians seized Colter, who expected every moment to be his last. They stripped him stark naked, and called a council to determine the manner in which he should be put to death. Finally they decided that he should run for his life. A chief conducted him several hundred yards to the front of the Indians and pointing towards the Madison River, perhaps five miles away, in sign language, told him to run.

Colter, who was speedy on his feet, ran as he had never run before, and behind him over the flat prairie sped the fastest runners of the Blackfeet nation. Colter's moccasins had been taken from him, and his feet were bleeding from contact with the cactus. When he had made about half the distance to the river, and the blood was flecking from his mouth in his effort, he thought he could go no further.

He turned, and close behind him was a solitary runner, far ahead of the others. The Indian, who was also nearly exhausted, attempted to hurl his spear, and in doing so fell, the shaft of the weapon breaking under him. Almost instantly Colter had the spear and had driven it through the body of his pursuer. Colter, in telling of this exploit, said the killing of this Indian seemed to give him new life. He continued his dash for the river, now hopeful that he might escape. Behind him came the enraged savages, made doubly ferocious by the killing of their best runner. Finally Colter reached the river and looked about him. Close to the bank was a large beaver house. The beaver builds his habitation with the entrance under water. Colter, as a last resort, dived into the deep water, came up under the beaver house, found the entrance and was safe.

Walked For 11 Days Naked and Without Food to Reach Lisa's Fort and Safety

When his enemies came, he was out of sight, sitting tight in the beaver house, and though the Indians beat about the place for hours, did not discover him. Late at night he ventured forth, naked and without food, and started on his journey for Lisa's fort, which he reached, almost dead from exhaustion, 11 days later.

He had promised himself that he would never go back into the Three Forks country, but a short time later he joined the Andrew Henry expedition, which went to within a mile of the scene of this remarkable adventure, and built a trading post.

This was only just completed when the Blackfeet attacked it in force, killed most of the men garrisoning it, and drove the rest away.

After this fight in which he narrowly escaped with his life, he returned to St Louis, married and the northwest knew him no more.


Idaho Statsman - March 26, 1922
Copyrighted 1922 by the Cheely-Ratoan Syndicate. By: W. W. Cheely
Transcribed and Contributed by: Frances Cooley - 2009