100 Year Old Weblog ~ News From 100 Years Ago That's New to You from Vintage Kansas City.com

November 1, 1908

EXPECTED A VISIT FROM

GENERAL PRICE.

Forty-Four Years Ago

Kansas Cityans United

to Tender Him an In-

formal Reception.

Forty-four years ago last week Kansas City was in a turmoil of excitement. Citizens were in arms and daily expecting a raid from General Price. From the meager information that could be secured at the time, and always several days late, General Price was first at Jefferson City and then, a few days later, had left there and was marching West with his entire force.

Obviously, he was headed for Kansas City, the gateway to Kansas. The news brought with it a frenzy of excitement and military and civic authorities joined in a hurried fortification of the city. Bushwackers were still prevalent at that time and were causing considerable trouble. An idea of the general consternation that prevailed may be gained from the files of the Western Journal of Commerce under the date of October 15, 1864. Here are some of the items, most of which relate particularly to military matters:

The governor of Kansas has called out the entire state militia of that state. This is a most wise and necessary step, but it ought to have been done several days sooner.

Telegraphic communication was maintained with Jefferson City yesterday all day. Our forces still hold that place. There had been cannonading all day, some five miles out, at the front we suppose. The longer Price waits there, the less likelihood that he will get away at all. General Rosecrans, we may be sure, is not idle.

The telegraph dispatches to General Curtis show us what danger we are in. Are any efficient measures being taken to prepare for the storm which may suddenly burst upon us? If Kansas City falls, the whole of Kansas is open to devastation. What is done to meet the danger should be done quickly.

We learn that a gang of bushwhackers robbed Mr. Warnel, about four miles from Westport, living close to the state line, night before last. They took his watch, money and all his clothing, even to the coat on his back and his underclothing, also two horses. There were eight in the gang. Other parties were robbed near the same neighborhood.

Captain Greer of the Twelfth Kansas, stationed near Shawnee Mission, immediately sent out a scout in pursuit, who followed them some twenty-five miles, crossing the Blue at Bryan's ford, but were unable to overhaul them. A part of the horses they rode were shod and a part unshod.

We learn that intelligence was received in town yesterday that Price had abandoned Jefferson City and was marching West. Rosecrans, we will venture, is close on his track and he will have to make tracks lively if he escapes. We do not believe Price meditates coming here, but he may send a detachment up this way to make a diversion in his own favor. We should be on the alert for such a movement.

We do not wish to seem to obtrude suggestions upon our city or military authorities, but we are certainly of the opinion that no time should be lost in throwing up rifle pits and breastwork to guard the approaches of this town. If we should have the attack of any considerable body of the enemy to repel, such intrenchments would be most important. The whole experience of the war has shown that behind even hastily constructed intrenchments new troops will fight well and can repulse vastly superior numbers.

We ought not to wait until the enemy are fairly upon us before we attend to this matter. It should be done now. Even if this storm passes over with damage, the intrenchments will be good for the future. The town ought to have been permanently fortified three years ago.

The city presented a purely military aspect yesterday. All places of business were closed early in the day and the men were busily at work on the fortifications. The works are progressing finely, and are already very formidable.

A lot of artillery arrived in town last evening.

Theater - The excitement being somewhat over, the manager will reopen with a splendid bill tonight. Let every one attend, if it is only to get soothed.

Also see: The Battle of Westport, October 23, 1864

Labels: Civil War, Jefferson City, The Journal

October 24, 1908

JESSE JAMES USED TO

KEEP NEGRO SCHOOL.

J. M. TURNER, EDUCATOR, RE-

CALLS EARLY DAYS HERE.

Former Minister to Liberia Taught

First Negro School in Mis-

souri -- Addresses Negro

Hadley Meeting.

From slavery into the diplomatic service cost J. Milton Turner a life of effort, but he had time on the side to educate the negroes of Missouri and help 'em out in Kansas. Turner, who was the principal speaker at the negro Hadley meeting last night in the Rev. Dr. Hurst's church at Independence avenue and Charlotte street, came here yesterday for the first time in a great many years.

There wasn't any reception committee at the depot to greet him, so he strolled up to Ninth and Main streets to have a look at the site of the first negro school in Missouri. Turner taught that school. It was supported by Jesse James, and most of the legal advice and diplomatic stunts necessary to keep a Confederate school board from running Turner out of the community came from Colonel R. T. Van Horn.

Turner said last night that he came here in '67 to get the Republican separate school law into effect. There wasn't a negro school in the state when he landed, although the law provided that there should be in every district where there were over twenty pupils. The school board of '60 and '61 had gone off to join the Confederate army, and had returned and arbitrarily taken up their old duties and were then finishing up their terms in office. They got back to duty just in time to confront the separate school law, which Republicans had placed on the books and which the Democrats have been claiming credit for ever since.

JESSE JAMES CONTRIBUTES.

Turner wanted to start a school, but the Confederate school board here wouldn't recognize either him or the law. Turner said yesterday that Colonel R. T. Van Horn secured a carpenter shop for him at Ninth and Main streets and told him to get busy. Turner had a wife, but no furniture, and a generous storekeeper gave him cloth to make a partition and goods boxes to make tables. The board refused to pay his salary and he lived in the carpenter shop and taught school in a corner of it the entire winter without pay.

"Jesse James used to ride in and shoot up the town," said Turner. "He was in sympathy with the school. When he was ready to leave the town he used to ride up and demand to see the n----- school teacher. I would go out trembling and admit that I was the teacher.

"Are they paying you?" Jesse James would ask. When I told him no he would hand me a $10 bill and ride away. He was about the only cash patron I had."

In the spring, after his first term, the carpenter returned and offered to sell Turner his place, 200 feet on Main street and seventy-five feet on Ninth street, for $300, and offered to trust the negro for the money. Turner thought the carpenter was crazy and declined, taking a summer job as a bootblack in a hotel on the Kansas side of the border.

GETS HIS BACK PAY.

Getting into Kansas got Turner into more trouble. Susan B. Anthony and Mary Cady Stanton and Jim Lane and a bunch began to espouse woman's suffrage about that time, and the issue became woman's suffrage against negro suffrage. But Turner extricated himself and got back to Kansas City, where, he said yesterday, a Dutchman who had been elected to the school board settled up with him for all the back salary and rehired him for teacher.

Then Turner went down the river on a steamboat, and Joseph L. Stephens got him to stop off at Boonville and teach the second negro school in the state. Stephens paid the bill. Stephens afterwards got to be father of a governor of Missouri. Thomas Parker, then state superintendent of instruction, heard of the negro educator and sent for him. He appointed Turner second assistant, but said he did not have an y money to meet his salary. Turner worked for nothing until he was also named second assistant by the Freedman's bureau at Washington and assigned to Missouri and Kansas territory. This paid $125 a month. The Missouri Pacific railway gave the transportation and Turner began to travel about establishing negro schools. He put in 140, and then discovered there wasn't a negro in his territory who could read or write, and he was up against it for teachers.

News didn't travel fast in those days, and it was a long time before Turner learned that a negro regiment on the battlefield had voted to appropriate $5,000 to build the Lincoln institute at Jefferson City. Turner got busy and called a convention at the state capital, had 790 negroes there, and invited the general assembly to look on. That night members of the general assembly went down and donated $1,000 toward negro education.

A THAW GETS INTO THE GAME.

The outgrowth of Turner's Jefferson City convention was a bill in the general assembly to appropriate $15,000 to the negro educational movement, just as soon as the negroes themselves could certify to having a like capital in cash and real estate. The negroes sent Turner down East to beg money, and he got $1,000 in cash from a fellow named William Thaw down in Pittsburg, whose son afterward got into print for killing Stanford White on a New York roof garden. Begging did not suit Turner, and he returned to Missouri.

"This brings us to the convention of '70, when we Republicans got the balance of power in Missouri," said Turner with a chuckle, as he rubbed the rheumatism out of his aged joints. "That's where I met Carl Schurz of St. Louis. Mr. Schurz was in the senate. That's when the fifteenth amendment was put in operation.

"I was in that convention, backed up by 200 negro delegates, and I was in joint debate with Carl Schurz for three days. He wanted to enfranchise the Confederate veterans, and so did we negroes, but we kicked when Schurz wanted the bill to read for the benefit of white men only. With my 200 negroes I held the balance of power, and Mr. Schurs bolted the convention and the party."

This convention and the memorable three days' debate with Carl Schurz got Turner into the limelight. Colonel R. T. Van Horn of Kansas City recommended him to President Grant, and the negro was sent as minister to Liberia. He stuck it out there for eight years, and then returned to St. Louis, where he was born into slavery, and became a lawyer. For twenty years he has been an attorney for the negroes of Indian Territory, and secured for them their treaty rights there.

Labels: churches, Civil War, Colonel Van Horn, James Gang, Jefferson City, Main street, ministers, Ninth street, politics, race, schools, St Louis, veterans

September 27, 1908

DOMESTIC REFUSES PENSION.

$500 Has Accumulated, but Mary

Carpenter Refuses to Touch It.

Although Mrs. Mary Carpenter of 902 Central avenue, Kansas City, Kas., is entitled to a pension of $12 a month as the widow of a civil war veteran, she has steadfastly refused to sign the vouchers sent her by the national government. Mrs. Carpenter's husband has been dead four years and since that time pension vouchers have accumulated until now she has over $500 owed her by the government.

Yesterday morning Judge Van B. Prather, probate judge of Wyandotte county, appointed the Banking Trust Company of Kansas City, Kas., guardian of the pension money now in the company's vaults and of future payments. Mrs. Carpenter is employed as a cook in a Kansas City, Kas., restaurant, and refuses to give a reason for not taking the money which is coming to her.

Labels: banking, Central avenue, Civil War, Judge Prather, Kansas City Kas

September 27, 1908

MAJOR JOHN COON DEAD.

Former Kansas City Man Held Of-

fice During Grant's Term.

Major John Coon who, until three years ago, resided in Kansas City, died at Lyons, Mich., Thursday, aged 86 years. He was a civil war veteran, having served as a paymaster during the war and afterwards was first assistant secretary fo the interior under President Grant.

The burial will be in Cleveland, O. The widow will return to Kansas City and reside with her daughter, Mrs. C. H. Abney, 3223 East Tenth street.

Labels: Civil War, death, Tenth street, veterans

September 18, 1908

ELI W. FISH, MERCHANT, DIES.

Was in Business on Grand Avenue for

Forty Years.

Eli W. Fish, who, since 1867 until last year, conducted his feed and grain business at 1418 Grand avenue, died yesterday afternoon at his home, 3228 Euclid avenue, after an illness of over a year.

Mr. Fish was born in Bedford, Ind., in 1843 and passed his youth on a farm. He was one of sixteen children, many of whom are still living. At the age of 18 years, in 1861, the young man joined the Eighteenth Indiana infantry and marched away to war. He fought in many engagements and afterwards transferred to the Fourth Indiana cavalry.

After four years of service he was mustered out and returned to Bedford to marry a girl from his native town. He then moved to Des Moines, Ia., and engaged in the gain and feed business, but in 1867 moved to this city and took up his quarters where his business stood for the next forty years. The sign which he had displayed, a large fish, is known to many residents of the city. For many year she lived in the rooms above his place of business on Grand avenue, but several years ago he moved into the south side.

Mrs. Fish died seven years ago. A daughter, Mrs. Clint Schley, lives at 3228 Euclid avenue, where Mr. Fish had made his home for several years. A son, Philip C. fish, an electrician, also lives in this city. Mr. Fish was a Republican in politics and was a candidate for the office of county marshal in 1894.

The funeral services will be held Saturday afternoon at 2 o'clock at the home. Burial will be in Forest Hill cemetery.

Labels: business, cemetery, Civil War, death, Euclid avenue, Grand avenue, veterans

August 15, 1908

WILL FORGET THE PAST.

Union Soldiers Will Attend Reunion

of Quantrell's Men.

The annual reunion of Quantrell's men will be August 21 and 22, at Blue Springs. There will be a basket dinner on the schoolhouse lawn the first day and on the second officers will be elected and reminiscent speeches made.

The Quantrell men have broken over the long established rule and have this year invited Union soldiers to meet with them and forget the animosities of a half century ago. The people of Blue Springs are preparing to give the blue and the gray a reception . Many of the soldiers who wore the blue expect to attend the reunion and show their friendliness to the men who fought on the other side fifty years ago.

Labels: Blue Springs, Civil War, picnics, Quantrell, veterans

July 10, 1908

HE WAS HUNGRY FOR

THE COTTON FIELDS.

So Dennis Kane, 93 Years Old, Started

to Walk From Chicago

to Louisiana.

Dennis Kane, aged 93, who in six weeks had walked the entire distance from Chicago, arrived at the Helping Hand yesterday. Bound for Veanvior, La., where he will re-enter the Confederate Soldiers' home, he will again take the road this morning, and expects to have arrived at his destination within five weeks.

During the war Dennis Kane, then in his prime, served with a Confederate company and participated in several leading battles. While the war was in progress he became acquainted with and married one of the prominent women of New Orleans, who died within a year. At the close of the war he entered into the plantation business and for a time prospered Finally ill fortune overtook him and the business was lost.

Without funds the former plantation owner was compelled to seek employment in the capacity of an ordinary laborer of a man whom he had previously employed and trained. Finally this plantation was sold, its owner going North, Dennis Kane went to look for a job elsewhere. Years passed, and finally Kane made application and was admitted to the Confederate home at Veanvoir.

While in this home he heard from his former employe, former employer and friend. He was in Chicago and invited Dennis to come and spend the balance of his days with him. This invitation was accepted, and last February the two old friends were reunited.

Al went well until the death of the friend two months ago, and, although his family endeavored to persuade Dennis to stay with them always, he refused, saying he intended returning to the South. Without funds, therefore, he left them and started afoot across the breadth of the country for the scenes of his boyhood.

"I attribute my health to three things," said Dennis, speaking of himself yesterday. "First, I have never drunk liquor; second, I have never used tobacco, and third, because I believe in Christ and trust Him. There is nothing else to tell," said he. "I am going home and am sure to get there. I am well and strong. I can walk well and will be glad when I arrive once more where I can get a whiff of the cotton fields."

Labels: Chicago, Civil War, Helping Hand, Seniors, veterans, visitors

July 2, 1908

GENERAL H. S. HALL IS DEAD.

He Was Awarded a Medal for Bra-

very During Civil War.

H. S. Hall, brigadier general and veteran of the civil war, died at the home of his daughter, Mrs. Charles M. Kemper, 2914 Tracy avenue, yesterday morning. He was born in New York and entered the Union army as a private in 1861. He participated in many engagements and lost his right arm while leading his regiment at the battle of Petersburg. He was awarded a medal for bravery on the field by congress and raised to the rank of general on his retirement in 1866.

When the was was over General Hall moved to Missouri and settled in Carroll county, where he lived until 1888, when he removed to Lawrence, Kas. He came to this city four years ago. A widow and four children survive. The children are Mrs. C. M. Kemper Mrs. Dana Templin, 121 Olive street; J. G Hall, a teacher in the state agricultural school of North Carolina, and C. S. Hall, who lives at Lawrence, Kas. Burial will be in Lawrence tomorrow.

Labels: Civil War, Lawrence, Olive street, Tracy avenue, veterans

June 25, 1908

FORMER MAYOR HUNT

DIES IN LEAVENWORTH.

HE WAS QUARTERMASTER OF

NATIONAL SOLDIERS' HOME.

In 1879 He Served This City as Mayor

and Began Many Improvements.

His Experiences Here in

the Early Days.

After two weeks' illness from uraemic poisoning, Lieutenant Colonel R. H. Hunt, a former mayor of Kansas City, died at the Soldiers' Home in Leavenworth yesterday morning. Colonel Hunt was 68 years old, and up until his last illness he had been a man of marked vitality.

About one year ago Colonel Hunt was appointed from private life to the post of Quartermaster at the Soldiers' Home, and he was serving in that capacity when he died. Colonel Hunt was a widower and is survived by two nieces. They are Mrs. John Stearns of Kansas City and Miss Mamie Hunt of St. Louis.

Funeral services will be held Friday morning in the chapel at the Soldiers' Home in Leavenworth. The burial in the national cemetery will be attended with regular military honors.

Special cars will be run to the Soldiers' Home tomorrow morning to carry friends to the funeral. The cars will start from Tenth and Main streets at 8 o'clock.

Robert H. Hunt was born in Shannon, Kerry County, Ireland, in 1839, and came to America at the age of 10 with his father. Kansas City was reached even in very early days, and the spirit of individuality which all his long life afterwards made him conspicuous, asserted itself in the father and son, for they left Kansas City for Western Kansas to get where they could not see slaves. The father soon went on about his business, leaving the boy to make a living for himself.

This he first did by carrying the water pail on a section for the construction of the railroad. Twenty years later, he was working 2,000 men himself, one of the big railroad contractors of the West. Between the time of his carrying the dipper and building part of the Rock Island, the Santa Fe and the Missouri Pacific, young Hunt went to a college. He worked his passage through it, and got out in time to go into the war to serve with Rosecranz, Thomas and Grant; to join Ewing and to become chief of staff under General Samuel R. Curtis.

IN LOCAL BATTLES.

Most of his service with the colors was on the border between Missouri and Kansas. Hereabouts, with General Curtis, he directed the artillery movements of the fights of the Little Blue, Big Blue, Westport, Osage, Newtonia and Mine Creek. It was at this last battle that General "Pap" Price was crushed and General Marmaduke was captured.

Colonel Hunt enlisted in a Kansas regiment, but left it during the war and became a staff officer. Afterwards he got back into a Kansas regiment, the Fifteenth cavalry, of which he was Major. The regiment had two colonels, C. R. Jennison and afterwards Colonel Cloud, while George W. Hoyt, afterwards a brigadier, was the lieutenant colonel. Robert H. Hunt was the senior major of the command.

There is a book published on "The Battle of Westport" by Rev. Paul B. Jenkins, formerly of this city, in which no mention whatever, in the slightest word, is made of Colonel Hunt.

"But he was there," said Colonel Van Horn yesterday, "and directed the artillery. I was related by marriage to General Curtis, commanding the Union forces here. He appointed me to his staff and directed me to prepare fortifications for the city. In that way I located and had the rifles ready and the encroachments dug. I saw a handsome young officer riding in and about, coming frequently to general headquarters for orders or with supports, and, struck by his magnificent bearing, asked his name. I was told it was the chief of staff, Colonel Hunt. What began as an acquaintance has lasted until now. As there is no battle in which the artillery is not the objective point, and as Colonel Hunt was commanding the artillery at the Battle of Westport, as I know from my own observations then, I know that he was in the fight; yet Mr. Jenkins made no mention whatever of him in what he declared to be a record of the battle."

The obscuring of Colonel Hunt by the Jenkins book is not unique. Other leaders in the engagement were similarly treated by the local historian.

A PRIEST HIS TUTOR.

The end of the war saw Colonel Hunt located in Kansas City, to engage in contracting. When first young Hunt landed in this country the priest of the parish they settled in took him up and began training him for service on the alter.

The good priest in this way taught him Latin. To the last days of his life Colonel Hunt kept his Latin fresh and, by means of a dictionary he would read Latin books. He regarded it as an accomplishment and was proud of it. But he never boasted of it. Reading Latin, born a Catholic and Republican in politics though an Irishman. Colonel Hunt made the acquaintance of the Rev. William J. Dalton, native of St. Louis, child of Irish parents, a Latin scholar and a clergyman of the church of Rome. The two remained friends to the last.

Father Dalton is a Republican in politics. Father Dalton came to Kansas City just as Colonel Hunt was closing his term as mayor, "but I was here early enough," said Father Dalton yesterday, "to hear the whole town commending him for his tremendous strides. Energy had marked every week of his administration, and today we have substantial evidence of it. With but little to do anything at all with, Mayor Hunt did much. He was at the very forefront of everything, calculating on the future warranting all his energy."

HE STOPPED A HANGING.

"At the very forefront of everything," says Father Dalton, and so it would appear. There walks about town today a little old man with a scar on the back of his neck. He built the retaining wall which keeps Bluff street from sliding into the Missouri river. There was trouble one Saturday afternoon about the pay, and the men undertook to lynch the contractor. They actually got a rope around his neck and started with him to throw him over his own retaining wall.

The city hall then was where it is now, only in a one-story brick that might have been a country feed store. Mayor Hunt got word of the crisis, picked up a pamphlet he had in his scant library, jumped into a saddle that was not his own and soon was in the ob. He literally rode into it and from the back of his horse read the riot act. That constitutional performance made him a summary marshal and there was no lynching. If there had been there would have been a wholesale killing by the force of twelve marshals Kansas City then had, old "Tom" Speer their chief.

During Colonel Hunt's administration Kansas City was the head of the Fenian movement. "No. 1," a mysterious Irish patriot, and Captain "Tom" Phelan, well remembered here and today alive in a home somewhere, were to fight a duel with broadswords over the troubles of Ireland. Colonel John Moore and Colonel John Edwards, both newspapermen, were to act as seconds. The principals went into training in rooms in a store on West Twelfth street. The morning the duel was to have been fought Colonel Hunt personally smashed in the doors of the training rooms and arrested the belligerents. There was an encounter, but he mayor, being a peace officer and a fighter himself, won. There was no duel.

HIS RIOT ACT AGAIN.

The forum of Kansas City in those days was Turner hall, afterwards Kumpf's hall, standing as late as 1886 where Boley's clothing store now stands. A political row there sent Mayor Hunt to that place with his copy of the riot act. He would tolerate no mob law while he was mayor. He always asserted his authority to the utmost.

When the figures are all totaled up it will not be found that Colonel Hunt left much of an estate. He married a Miss Hoyne of Chicago. In the '70s Colonel Hunt was worth so much money that he was able to borrow $50,000 from the late Thomas Corrigan for a period of ten months. He was able to pay it back within two weeks. He might have been worth $200,000 or $500,000. Estimates made yesterday ran from one to the other of these figures. He built a mansion at Independence and Highland. The house is there now, a pastel in dull red of what it once was. The plot has been nibbled down to next to nothing.

BRILLIANCE OF HIS HOME.

Colonel Hunt's father had been a small farmer in Ireland. All of his days in this country had been spent in railroad camps or in the field with troops. When Colonel Hunt opened his mansion on Independence avenue he did so with the brilliance of an hereditary aristocrat. Handsome in person, he had handsome ways. There was a wine cellar where it ought to be, and the drawing room, and from one to the other of the Hunt mansion was complete. Kansas City has never seen brighter scenes than those witnessed while Colonel and Mrs. Hunt kept open house on Independence avenue.

Nobody knows where Colonel Hunt's fortune went. It went like the summer wind that sinks with the sun. There was no speculation, no wheat end to the story, no boom collapse, no expensive household bills. The fortune simply disappeared, though Colonel Hunt always, to his intimates, lately insisted that he held valuable securities which would in a few years put him on his feet. But he did not get on his feet.

Times did not prosper fast enough Colonel Hunt stood in need of a billet and Senator Warner gave it to him. He had him appointed quartermaster at the Soldiers' and Sailors' Home, near Leavenworth, a position he held for about a year. Within a year of three score and ten, Colonel Hunt walked like a youth. Almost six feet in height, no man in his forties and of similar physique walked straighter, faster nor further. His hair and long beard were merely turning gray. He could pass for a man of 55. He lived as he moved, energetically. He liked young people; old people with old stories troubled him. The young people would not take him up because they did not know about the things he knew most of, and the old ones -- his own years -- were too old to take anybody up. So Colonel Hunt was neither here nor there. That was why he had to ask an asylum at the hands of his old military, political, professional and personal friend, Senator Warner.

TOO SLOW FOR HIM.

"It killed him," said Father Dalton. "The life was too dull for him. He wanted to beat sixty times to the minute and he found himself in a clock which had a pendulum going twenty to the minute.

"Where he was accustomed to moving cannon, they set him buying buttons, and able to move troops all up and down the border with the celerity of Forest, they put him to watching veterans crawl across their parade ground. Mops and counting cases of blouses to the tune of a droning beat made Colonel Hunt settle back in a chair that most men look for at sixty, and conserve themselves till riper in years, and so he collapsed. I saw him on Monday, and then he showed he was going away.

"He entered the army at Leavenworth in his young life, left the Fort and the army in his middle age, and went back to Leavenworth and the army to die in his old age. May his soul rest in peace."

And so he is to be buried in Leavenworth, in the military grounds there. Only members of the home may be buried in the military cemetery, excepting by express permission, and that permission is granted sometimes in the instance of officers. Yesterday application was made to Senator Warner, one of the board of managers and it was promptly given. Internment is to be made on Friday, at ten o'clock. Those desiring to attend the funeral will have to leave Kansas City by the 8 o'clock trolley car. President C. F. Holmes has arranged to run a special car at 8:01 Friday for the accommodation of Senator Warner, Surveyor C. W. Clarke, General H. F. Devol, Brevet Brigadier General L. H. Waters and a number of other high officers of the civil war.

Labels: Bluff street, Chicago, Civil War, Colonel Van Horn, death, Father Dalton, Highland avenue, immigrants, Independence avenue, Leavenworth, Main street, ministers, railroad, Senator Warner, streetcar, Tenth street, Twelfth street, veterans

June 2, 1908

ELOPED FROM POOR

FARM TO BE MARRIED.

WILLIAM MEADS AND BRIDE DE-

FIED COUNTY COURT.

He is 66 and the Bride, Formerly

Mrs. Eliza Anderson, Is 76.

They'll Live in a

Candy Store.

Neither age nor circumstance can stand before the will of Dan Cupid. Among the twenty-one women in Kansas City who became brides yesterday, the earliest June bride of them allow as Mrs. William Thomas Meads, 76 years old, who, as Mrs. Eliza Anderson, eloped from the county poor farm with the groom in the early morning and was married at the court house at 10 o'clock by Justice Mike Ross. And among the twenty-one none is more happy or more thrilled with dreams of the future.

"The county court wouldn't let us marry at the farm," she explained last evening in the room at 727 Harrison street, which she and the groom rented for a week. "There is absolutely no sense in them not allowing us to get married, but since they wouldn't , we up and ran away. We were up at 5 o'clock, for it takes William a long time to get over the two miles to the station. The other women there bade me goodby last night.

"Now that we are here and married, we are ready to face the world again. We fled from it once. But William has saved his salary as librarian, and I have many friends in Kansas City. We are going to open a little confectionery store and live in a room in the back. We are certain that we can make a living and are never going back to the poor farm.

"They never treated William right out at the farm. He had charge of the library and had to be on his feet day and night to answer two telephones. And they only gave him $5 a month. He can make lots more than that in Kansas City."

The bride, who had been standing back of Meads's chair, here stopped her flow of talk to push her spectacles back on her forehead, stoop, put an arm around Meads's neck and kiss him on the brow. The old man petted her with his one able hand.

"She's a mighty good little woman," he put in. "Don't you dare to poke fun of her in your paper."

"No," interrupted the bride, straightening suddenly. "It is an outrage the way we have been treated. People seem to think our running away is a joke. I've just as much right to get married as I had fifty years ago. I'm an old settler in Kansas City. I have been here forty years. My husband died twenty years ago and I went to work for Bullene, Moore, Emery & Company. I was with them a long time until I got the asthma so that I couldn't work nor live in the city. So I went out to the farm where the air is pure. I know some of the finest people in Kansas City. Two members of the grand jury, who visited the home, recognized me and were astonished. I told them it is no disgrace to be on the poor farm. It's no crime to be poor, after one has worked hard for years and years, as I did. It's just inconvenient.

"William and I are going to start life all over again, aren't we, William?"

The groom gave a "yes" pat with his hand.

That is about all -- Oh, yes, there is the groom. William Meads is 66 years old and paralyzed on one side. He fought during the entire civil war under General Joseph Shelby. After the rebellion he was employed for fifteen years on a Kansas City evening newspaper During the latter part of the period he was foreman of the composing room. When he was stricken with paralysis he went to the poor farm. He has better use of his right arm and leg now than he had ten years ago, but his general health has been worn down by the passing of years. he did not attempt to rise from his chair either to greet or bid farewell to his visitor.

Labels: Civil War, courthouse, Harrison street, libraries, poor farm, romance, Seniors, veterans, wedding

May 19, 1908

IN MEMORY OF JEFF DAVIS.

Confederate President's Birthday

Will Be Kept -- It Is June 3.

With music, speeches and story rehearsing many now familiar incidents connected with the four years' strife between the North and the South, the Daughters of the Confederacy of Kansas City, and the Stonewall Jackson chapter of Independence will on June 3 celebrate the 100th anniversary of the birth of Jefferson Davis.

The Kansas City chapter met yesterday at the Hotel Sexton and perfected plans for the celebration. Budd park was selected as a suitable place, and an extensive programme, including music and speeches, has been prepared. The speakers selected were Mrs. George Gray, Mrs. B. L. Woodson, Mrs. J. M. Philips and Mrs. Hugh Miller.

Members of the Stonewall Jackson chapter met at the home of Mrs. W. D. Johnson, 3621 Belleview avenue. They decided to hold the celebration at the home of Mrs. Logan Swope, in Independence. Memorial day, May 30, will be observed jointly by the two chapters, by the placing of floral offerings on the graves of the Confederates and the unveiling of seven markers at Forest Hill cemetery. The Kansas City chapter will also place an offering on the grave of Orestes P. Chaffee, of Confederate fame, who died in this city a short time ago. He was a brother of Adna R. Chaffee, the retired head of the United States army.

Labels: Belleview avenue, Budd park, cemetery, Civil War, flowers, hotels, Independence, women

May 16, 1908

THEY WANT LONE JACK PICNIC.

Lee's Summit People Say Their

Town's the Proper Place.

A movement is on foot among the people of Lee's Summit to move the Lone Jack picnic thi syear to a point closer to a railroad, and they have suggested that Lee's Summit would be a good place to bring it. This has caused the farmers around Lone Jack, who have profited by reason of the picnic, to register an objection to the change. They claim that it would lose its significance to hold it anywhere else except near the battleground. The picnic has not been held on the battleground proper for the past twenty years.

Labels: Civil War, Lee's Summit, Lone Jack, picnics

March 22, 1908

MRS. MORASCH TELLS

STORY OF HER LIFE

REARED IN THE SQUALID PACK-

ING HOUSE DISTRICT.

Still Wears the Wedding Ring of

Bill Morasch, Her First Hus-

band, Whom She Loved.

Case Goes On.

MRS. SARAH MORASCH, ACCUSED OF MURDERING 4-YEAR-OLD RUTH MILLER.

"I did not send the candy. Who thinks I sent it? Not my associates in the West Bottoms, who have known me for years Not little Ella, the poison was intended for. Ask her; look her in the eyes and see if she doesn't tell you on the square she loves me, and will come back to my house to visit as she used to, when this dreadful trial is over. I am innocent, I tell you; I am innocent."

Mrs. Sarah Miller, better known as "Mrs. Morasch," said this yesterday to a reporter for The Journal. She is the accused woman in the case of the poisoning of little Ruth Miller, the 4-year-old daughter of Charles and Ida Miller, 634 Cheyenne avenue, Armourdale. Ruth sickened and died apparently from strychnine poisoning, ten minutes after eating bonbons from a package anonymously sent by mail to her step-sister, Ella Van Meter, 14 years old, at noon, Wednesday, February 12. The case is now being tried before Judge McCabe Moore, in the district court of Wyandotte county in Kansas City, Kas.

Mrs. Morasch spoke earnestly. At the mention of Ella Van Meter, who testified against her Friday, her deep-set gray eyes softened, and the lines about her mouth thawed visibly. All facial evidence of years of hardship, toil and companionship in the packing house district of both Kansas Cities became temporarily erased. She did not look the woman who could deliberately poison a 14-year-old girl and a family of little ones.

Mrs. Morasch is only 49 years old, but stooped shoulders and gray hair make her appear 60, at least. Two front teeth are gone, and this discrepancy makes sinister a smile which otherwise might be motherly and kind Her voice is a trifle harsh at times.

BEEN HERE ALL HER LIFE.

"Where was I born? In Dayton, O., 49 years ago. I was brought to Wyandotte county, Kas., by my father, Edward Davis, and my mother, Elizabeth Davis, when I was but 3 years old. My father was a veteran of the civil war and a farmer.

"Everyone loved dad. He was such a neighborly soul and so fond of children that he at once won the hearts of everybody who got acquainted with him. I think that if I have really gone to the bad, it cannot be justly laid at his door or my mother's. Good, kind souls, both of them.

"I remember when I was a little girl father took me on his knee and told me to grow up to be a good woman like mother. We were in the kitchen of the old farm house near Quindaro. Mother was knitting a pair of leggins for me by the fire. Father took the family Bible off of a stand near his chair and read some part of it which meant 'be a credit to the old folks that they may live long and die in peace and know in heaven you did the best you could.'

"I think he cried a little then, for I remember he took a big, red handkerchief out of his pocket and after wiping his own eyes, wiped mine as though I had been crying, but I hadn't After that he lectured me on how I should behave when I had grown up.

FORTY YEARS AGO.

"About forty years ago, father moved to what they call the West Bottoms now. It was known as Kansas City, Kas., then and was not a packing house district at all, but a little village of two or three thousand people. He had some money laid up and invested in a home and truck patch in the rear I was to go to school. I believe that was the object my father had in view when he moved into town Mother wanted to move in so as to be near a Presbyterian church, for she was an old Scotch woman.

" 'Come to church with me,' she used to tell me of a Sunday morning, as she tidied me all up ready for the service 'You be a wee bit Scotch and Presbyterian yourself, do you know it lassie?'

"Father seldom went to church or to Sunday school, himself, but believed in it. I think I must have been Sunday schooled to death in my younger days."

Mrs. Morasch laughed harshly at the recollection. She seemed for the moment to have forgotten the dreadful charge hanging its threat of life penal servitude over head.

"Sunday schooled to death," she repeated seriously, returning to the story of her life in the West Bottoms.

MARRIED BILL MORASCH.

"When I became 20 years of age," she went on, "I married Bill Morasch. I was a little wild at that time. Fond of boys and kiting around to parties and dances at my own free will, but Bill was a steady fellow and we settled down to housekeeping. I married again after he died three years ago, but I have never taken his wedding ring off my finger and like best the name he gave me."

Mrs. Morasch, as she prefers to be called, then crowded a thin, wrinkled left hand through the small opening in the door of her cell, through which her victuals are passed to her by the jail matron. On the third finger was an embossed gold band ring, which she turned reminiscently with her thumb.

"Oh, I can stand this murder charge," she assured suddenly, "if it pans out all right in the end. I'll tell you what I'll do. When the trial is all over, and Ella comes back to me, I'll take her up to your office, wherever it is, and let you see for yourself.

"I know what you think. You think she will not, but she will. Ella knows in her heart I did not send the candy, and when she comes back to me she will say, 'Mrs. Morasch, I thought all the time you didn't send it, and I was sorry for you all the time I was testifying against you.' "

The accused woman seemed to think most of the attitude of Ella Van Meter, whose testimony more than that of any other witness, according to the prosecutor, condemns her. Several times during the interview she pronounced the name, always following it with a statement that Ella was her friend and would come back to her after the trial.

Ella testified Friday that she knew no reason why Mrs. Morasch should try to poison her, but insisted she had been to the latter's home only twice and had not been more than ordinarily intimate with her. When Daniel Mahe, attorney for the defense, asked the witness why she did not refer to the defendant as "auntie," Ella had replied sharply:

"She's not my aunt!" and manifested in other ways that the law relationship existing between herself and the prisoner was a matter of repulsion to her.

SAYS SHE'S PREJUDICED.

Mrs. Morasch said yesterday that this attitude was affected and that Ella has been prejudiced against her by older persons.

It was said by her counsel last night that both Ella and her mother, Mrs. Ida Miller, would be recalled for further cross-examination before the conclusion of the trial.

Her lawyers profess to have suffered for the failure of the state in locating Ollie Jones, a 19-year-old half-brother of Charles Miller. Jones is said to have left Kansas City the night following the poisoning, and later it was learned he went from here to Indianapolis, Ind.

When County Attorney Taggart tried to subpoena him there a few days ago he could not be found. What use the state intended to put Jones to and why the attorney for the defense should be disappointed because he could not be found is studiously screened from the public gaze. It was stated by counsel last night that Jones was a close friend of the Millers. County Attorney Taggart, who is bending every resource of a fertile and brilliant mind toward the conviction of the prisoner, practically admitted the same thing in the same mysterious manner less than an hour later.

"We need him badly," said the prosecutor. "There is one important phase of this case he must cover with his testimony If he will not come when subpoenaed, then a bench warrant will bring him."

EXPERT WOMAN WITNESS.

Taggart further said that a woman witness, mother of thirteen children, would be employed by the state as a special witness tomorrow in proving Mrs. Morasch's physical condition prior to the time the baby is represented to have been adopted out of the U. S. G. Hughes maternity home, and that the handwriting experts would probably be called in the afternoon of the same day.

Attorney Maher said last night that a great deal of the defense would lie in showing up Mrs. Morasch's past.

"She is a poor woman in two senses of the word," he said. "Poor from the standpoint of health and means of financing her case. She has been a wanderer in the West Bottoms, without money and almost without friends, for years. Her first husband died three years ago, killed himself with carbolic acid. Her second husband likewise died. Children she has kept and mothered, from the Hughes home, have sickened on her hands. One of them died after it had passed to the care of others in the hire of the county and the revolting suspicion that she had killed it with drugs and slow poison was expressed in her presence. She was warned by Attorney Taggart to leave town. Haggard and worn, dogged by the law and shunned by her intimates because of her misfortunes, Mrs. Morasch hurriedly gathered up her few belongings and fled to Harrisonville, Mo. But the Nemesis followed her even there, strangely coincident with her flight the poisoned bonbons arrived at the Miller home, so she was arrested on the murder charge and brought back to face trial."

Labels: Armourdale, children, Civil War, County Attorney Taggart, Death of Ruth Miller, murder, poison, The Journal, women

March 13, 1908

SENTENCES ILLEGAL VOTER.

Two Years for Veteran Who Voted

Twice in Independence.

Stephen H. Powell, a veteran of the civil war, charged with voting illegally at the recent local option election in Independence, pleaded guilty before Judge W. H. Wallace yesterday in the criminal court and was sentenced to two years in the penitentiary. Powell will probably be paroled on account of his age and the conditions under which he violated the law.

He tells his story to the Prosecuting Attorney I. B. Kimbrell very frankly:

"I was drunk on election day," Powell says. "I don't remember whether I voted once or a dozen times If anybody saw me vote twice, I can't deny it, because I don't know what I did."

"Which way did you vote, for or against the local option" asked Kimbrell.

"I started out to vote 'wet,' but can't say what I did do."

Labels: alcohol, Civil War, criminal court, Independence, Judge Wallace, prohibition, Prosecutor Kimbrell, veterans

February 3, 1908

PROGRESS OF THE NEGRO.

Defined in Address Last Night by

W. T. Vernon.

In an address delivered to negroes at Allen chapel last night, W. T. Vernon of the United States treasury department said that the possibilities of the negro are encouraging to all those who desire a better era for these people. He claimed that the negro appreciates all the opportunities which may be opened to him. He declared that with the negro's freedom was made the most radical change in social order.

"The passage of the war amendments was necessary and just," said Mr. Vernon. "They prohibited peonage, defined citizenship, provided for the penalization of any state which should disenfranchise its citizens, and provided against this injustice on account of color. Then came the upward struggle of 4,000,000,000 people and as a result of such legislation and protection, the race has made achievements unparalleled in the world's history by any race similarly environed. From 1870 to 1900 the illiteracy of the face was decreased 43 per cent. At the close of the civil war the negro was without a home. In 1900, thirty-five years later, 372,414 were owners of homes of which 225,156 were free from incumbrance. He has nearly 30,000 school teachers, 500 young negroes pursuing special courses in the greatest institutions of learning in this and foreign countries, and he is paying taxes on quite $800,000,000 worth of property.

"Unbiased men will admit that such a record deserves encouragement, and gives just ground for the belief that he is daily becoming an appreciated, potent factor for good.

"The South today is struggling industrially with the rest of the world. The building up of this section can not be accomplished without the labor of the negro. These people, discriminated agaisnt, with thier schools diminishng, are not given an opportunity to do the best within them, and thus give to their country the splendid efforts which they could otherwise give. Blind indeed to right and justice -- blind to the best interests of our country is he who denies to any class of our citizens that which he asks for himself. As a race we must remember that education, sobriety, thrift and energy are the qualities which will give us success, permanent and lasting.

"While seeking industrial opportunity and progress in the business world, the spiritual side, which has to do with literature, art, science, culture and soul growth, should not be neglected. Here in the midst of a growing developing population, with less racial antagonisms and discriminations than are found elsewhere, I believe the race can rise to its highest possibilites. I would advice that we remain here and work out our destiny."

At Lincoln high school, Nineteenth and Tracy, Mr. Vernon addressed the colored Y. M. C. A. yesterday afternoon.

Labels: Civil War, Nineteenth street, race, schools, Tracy avenue, YMCA

January 1, 1908

HE RAN COLISEUM

MANY YEARS AGO.

HENRY D. CLARK, THEATRICAL

MANAGER, IS DEAD.

Came Here a Penniless Song and

Dance Man With Eddie Foy,

and Made Half a Mil-

lion Dollars.

Henry D. Clark, famous as the creator of the old Coliseum which he conducted throughout Kansas City's frontier days, died last night at his residence, 3300 Broadway. He had been ill for three weeks and succumbed to acute gastritis and bronchial pneumonia following grip. The phenomenal will power of the man enabled him to rise from his bed against the advice of his physician and family as late as Sunday, when he shaved himself and went about as he wished.

Mr. Clark was one of the youngest soldiers in the civil war. He enlisted in the New York heavy artillery when only 13 years 6 months old, and served throughout the war. New York was his birthplace, but he went in childhood to Wisconsin. Starting in a theatrical career in Chicago after the war, he came to Kansas City to locate in 1877.

He was the most picturesque and amazingly progressive theater manager Kansas City ever had. He came here moneyless, "opened" in a cellar and amassed over a half million dollars. Then he retired. That was ten years ago, after he had discovered that the things he knew about running a frontier place of amusement did not suit the public when taken out of the original setting and sold to them at uptown prices in a regular theater.

But the most Kansas City ever knew of Clark was far back of his retirement. It was thirty years ago when he first appeared here. He was a young man then and had been doing a song and dance with Eddie Foy. His working partner called herself Zoe Clark. She was the more thrifty of the two and decided that Kansas City would be a good place to open a theater. Clark's father lived here then and drove a one-horse job wagon. The elder Clark was not up on theatricals, but he was willing to help his son get into business.

So the old gentleman rented a cellar in Fourth street for Henry and Zoe and bought them a keg of beer. Business was good in the cellar, and Clark built the Coliseum at the corner of Third and Walnut streets with the receipts. The only "legitimate" shows "making" Kansas City in those days played in a hall over the present site of Arnold's drug store at Fifth and Walnut streets.

The Coliseum was a money-making venture too, and Clark soon quit "doing a turn" himself. Zoe started a boarding house to take care of the actors and actresses who played the Coliseum. And then came to Kansas City the embryo of advanced vaudeville. The Coliseum attracted the best variety performers in the West and Eddie Foy. McIntyre and Heath, Murray and Mack and scores of others played long engagements there.

And the best of all these performers were then destined to be plunged into the legitimate sooner or later. Clark realized this and built the old Ninth street theater. It burned and he rebuilt it, but he could never make it a financial success and he leased the property and during the last ten years he called at the theater at 10 o'clock on the morning of the second day of each month, rain or shine, to get the rent. It was the only time he was ever seen about the place.

Surviving Mr. Clark are the widow and five children. They are: H. D. Clark, Jr., and Palmer Clark, druggist and dry goods merchant respectively at Genessee and Thirty-Ninth streets; Miss Hazel Clark, Willie Clark and Mrs. J. B. Shinn of Seattle, Wash.

Labels: Broadway, Chicago, Civil War, dancing, death, druggists, Fourth street, Genessee street, New York, theater, Thirty-ninth street

August 16, 1907

HAS NO HOME OR FRIENDS.

Man of Talents and War Records

Found Lying in Weeds..

Thomas Dean, an old man without a country, was found lying exhausted in the weeds yesterday afternoon near Twenty-third and Washington streets.

To Dr. G. A. Dagg, ambulance surgeon from No. 4 police station, the old man said that he long been a physician coming to the United States when a young man from Berlin, Germany, and serving through the civil war with the rank of captain in the Twenty-second New York regulars.

But now I am past the age when accomplishments count," this veteran in more than one field of effort said. "Though I talk twenty-seven languages and was long a man of affairs, I'm wandering over the country when old and infirm, without money and without friends."

Dean gave his age as 78 years and said he had spent the last winter in California and came here about four weeks ago. He has been staying at various cheap rooming houses and sleeping outside when he had no money. He was taken to the general hospital, where the record states his case as "senile infirmity and general weakness."

Labels: Civil War, doctors, general hospital, military, No 4 police station, Seniors, Twenty-third street, veterans, Washington street

June 22, 1907

JEFFERSON BRUMBACK DEAD.

End Comes to Veteran and Jurist at
Excelsior Springs.

Judge Jefferson Brumback, prominently associated with the earlier history of Kansas City, died at Excelsior Springs this morning about 2 o'clock. He had shown a gain of strength within the last week and there were hopes he would recover. His advanced age of 90 years was the balance against him, and a collapse came last night.

Judge Hermann Brumback was notified by telephone of his father's death.

Because of having been on the bench in Ohio, Mr. Brumback was known as Judge Brumback, but he gained the title of general in the civil war, through which he served with distinction.

Labels: Civil War, death, Excelsior Springs, Judges, veterans