During the winter of 1864-1865, after the school closed I did quite a lot of trapping and caught a good many rabbits and quails. My rabbit traps Steve made of a part of a hollow log, one end sawed off a foot or so past where the hollow ended so there was no opening in that end and at the other end a trap door held up by a set of triggers on the end of one of which inside the trap was part of an ear of corn and when the rabbit entered the trap and tried to get the corn, it sprung the triggers, the heavy door fell through a slit in the end of the trap and the cottontail was a prisoner. The traps for the quails and other birds were made of pieces of split plank of various lengths, the construction of which is familiar to most all country boys.
During all of the time from my childhood days until some time after the Civil War I do not remember to have ever heard Father preach. I am sure that he had frequently held religious services, but I had never been present on such an occasion, but frequently after we returned to Dallas County in 1865 when the circuit preacher would preach Father would assist in the devotional exercises. Soon after we made our home near Buffalo, a Methodist minister, a stranger visited us who I learned was the Presiding Elder, part the Springfield district of the St. Louis Conference of the Methodist Church, of which Buffalo Circuit was a part. He was a tall dark complected fine looking man, whose name was Rev. Leroy N. Vernon, and he stayed at our home two or three days, all the time, except when he was conducting religious services in Buffalo, which was called the quarterly meeting. These meetings were held four times each year, every three months, and at each of such meetings the presiding Elder, Rev. Vernon, was the officiating minister, and he was always our guest an such occasions. He was the Elder for four years and then he was succeeded by Rev. Beggs, a very eloquent preacher, who also made our home his stopping place. After four years Rev. Beggs was succeeded by Rev. P. H. Hagerty, a very able and energetic preacher whom Father admired very much, and who always made his home with us when he came to the Buffalo Circuit. Later Rev. Jerome J. Bentley, one of the most eloquent ministers I ever heard preach, served as presiding Elder for four years. Father, Brother Dolph and in fact all of our families regarded him as the most able pulpit orator which we had ever heard.
The first time I ever heard Father preach, as far as I remember, was while religious services were being held in the old frame two-story building on the west side of the public square in Buffalo. He was not an eloquent speaker but a plain logical talker, and he was very earnest in his appeals to his auditors. I do not now recall what his text, or passage of scripture upon which he based his remarks was, but his subject was: man all immortal, and the theme of his discourse was, “The Salvation of the Soul and the Resurrection of tne Body". It was an able presentation of this doctrine set forth in the scripture. After that, during subsequent years, I heard him preach frequently.
In the fall of 1866 I attended the public school in our home district taught by Mr. Jesse Vanderford, a lame man who had a stiff knee and he was a brother of Mr. Asa Vanderford, who was resident of our school district and was afflicted with rheumatism from the effects of which he had been confined to his bed for several years. Mr. Jesse Vanderford was an old time teacher. He had spelling classes and reading classes but no arithmetic classes. Those pupils who studied arithmetic were not arranged in classes. Each pupil in cyphering, as it was termed, if he got "stalled," that is could not solve an example, went to the teacher and asked him "to do his sum." Sometimes two or three cyphers would be standing near the teacher waiting their turns to receive the teacher’s assistance. I am sure the teacher’s knowledge of arithmetic was very limited and frequently after trying the "work" some pupil's problem without success he would postpone its solution until the next day when after the opening of the school in the morning he would hand one or more pupils written solutions of their problems. Some of the pupils may have learned a little about arithmetic in this way of teaching, but most of them made poor progress. They depended on the teacher to do all of their hard sums, a bad practice, and as he never explained any of them they often did not understand the written solutions and they received no benefit from it whatever.
In the latter part of the winter and early spring of the year 1867 Mr. J. H Carper, who had recently came to Buffalo from some eastern state, taught a term of private school in a large frame building formerly used as a store building by Mr. I. N. Morrow. I attended that school until some time in March when I had to begin work on the farm. That year I again did most of the farm work.
During the winter of 1866-1867 Brother Bud was at home part of the time and while he did farming again at their Webster County farm during the spring and summer of 1867, he came home often on weekends and I observed that he would always dress up and ride off on his fine bay horse every Sunday morning. On investigating his movements, I found out that he was visiting one of our neighbor girls, Martha Frances Johnson. Although their Webster County farm was more than fifteen miles from our place he would make a homecoming almost every week. This continued until September and on the 24th day of September 1867, he and Miss Johnson were married. Rev. Bill, a Methodist minister, performing the marriage ceremony at his residence near Buffalo.
This marriage was very satisfactory I think to both families. I was delighted to have Matt, as she was usually called, for my sister. I had gone to school the previous spring with her in Buffalo and liked her very much. She was a large girl with blue eyes and light hair and was a very amiable young lady. After Bud’s and Matt’s marriage, Brother Dolph bought a home, a small farm adjoining Buffalo and moved from Webster County to his new home and engaged in the practice of medicine in partnership with Father, whose professional business had become so large that he needed an assistant especially as he was getting too old to make the night visits to patients. Then Brother Bud and his bride moved to the Webster County farm, where they lived for a year or more when he and Dolph sold the farm to Mr. I. N. Morrow of Buffalo, whose wife Mrs.. Minerva Stanley Morrow was a sister to Brother Dolph’s wife.
In the meantime there had been another marriage in our family, my sister Nancy Ann Hollis, widow of Col. Jesse Hollis, deceased, who had gone with her mother-in-law Mrs. Amy Pigg Hollis to Shelby County, Illinois during the last year of the Civil War, had become acquainted with Mr. John Price, a federal soldier who had returned after the war to his home near Oconee in Shelby County, and after a year or more they were married. I do not know the date of their marriage but I think it was either late in the year 1866 or early in the year 1867. We heard from Sister very often both before and after her marriage and some time in the summer or fall or 1867 she wrote that they intended to come to Missouri. She still owned her farm in Webster County and I think she had left most of her household goods with some friend, probably someone to whom she leased her farm when she went to Illinois.
Soon after she and her husband came to our home, near Buffalo, I think in the fall of 1867, they went to Sister's Webster County home, which was about a mile from our old home there, where they began housekeeking. Sister, at that time, was about 30 years old, and although she had a great deal of trouble during the Civil War, she still looked young and well. She was a small brunette, with very black hair and eyes, had a lively and very pleasant disposition and she was a woman of fairly good education, and was well informed on almost all topics of the day. Although she was a strenuous confederate sympathizer during the Civil War, after she went to Illinois and married she apparently discarded her allegiance to the "lost cause" and became very loyal to the federal government and politically a strong Republican, as we found after she and her husband came to Missouri. He was a tall, fair complected man, about 30 years old. He had served as a federal soldier throughout the war and often told us of many battles in which his regiment was engaged, but he came through it all unharmed. His education was limited, but he was a man of fair information.. He too was a staunch Republican, but rarely talked of politics.
After working on the farm during the spring and summer of 1867, I attended school again at our district school building known as the White Schoolhouse. The teacher was Prof. J. H. Carper who had taught the previous winter and spring in Buffalo. He was an excellent instructor. Several students from other sections of the country attended this school among whom were Jasper Loafman a one-legged er-federal soldier, who was a cousin of Dr. James E. Loafman, and who, a few years later became by election the clerk of the County Court of Dallas County; also John P. Andrews and Edwin P. Vaughan of Hickory County, both of whom were, several years later, prominent professional men of Urbana and vicinity. That was one of the best schools ever taught at the White Schoolhouse.. Many of the pupils were grown or nearly so, and in after years were prominent citizens of Dallas County.
I think it was in the summer of 1868 that I visited Brother Bud and wife and my sister and her husband who were still living at their homes in Webster County. On the way to their homes I fell in company with Matt’s young sister, Miss Josephine Johnson, a girl 12 or 14 years old. She was dark complected, had black hair and eyes and favored their mother. We traveled the same road until we got within about two miles of Bud's home when I turned into another road, a more direct route to where Sister lived; where I intended spending the first part of my visit.
This was the first time I had been in that neighborhood for three or four years and there had been considerable improvement though most of the farms and farm buildings were about the same as they were during the war. The old home farm was unchanged as well as the home of my sister. I visited Sister and her husband three or four days and Bud and wife about as long. When I went to Bud’s home Matt’s sister, Josephine, had returned home. I do not remember to have seen her again until years later when in company with Bud, I visited her and her husband, Rev. Joseph Powell, a Baptist minister. They lived on the O’Bannon Prairie, ten or twelve miles southeast of Buffalo. Soon after Dolph and Bud sold their Webster County farm, Bud bought a farm about three miles southeast of Buffalo, on the Buffalo and Marshfield Road, where they lived for many years, and where several of their children were born.
About the same time that Bud and Dolph sold their Webster County farm, my sister sold her farm there and later she bought Dolph’s small farm near Buffalo, and Dolph bought a residence and a store building in Buffalo. They all moved to their new homes in a short time. During the time Bud and Matt lived in Webster County, I think their first child, a daughter, was born. They named her Laura Louisa. My sister’s first child also a daughter, was born in Webster County and she named her baby Nellie Maude. Two or three years later Sister’s second daughter was born and her name was Etta. Both of her children were blonds. Nellie had light colored hair and blue eyes and Etta’s hair was red and her eyes were black. Shortly before Etta’s birth, I think, Bud’s first son was born, whom they named James William for his two Grandfathers. Bud's daughter Laura was fair complected, and she had gray eyes and dark hair. Jim, as their boy was always called, had dark hair and brown eyes.
Soon after Dolph and family moved to Buffalo he established a drug store in the brick one story business building which he had purchased and soon afterward he was appointed postmaster at that place. He was busy as a physician most of the time, and Irene his very efficient wife looked after the business in the drug store and attended to the post office. After Dolph established his drug store, he and Father had their office there and, as Dolph kept a good assortment of medicine, it was quite a convenience to them in their practice.
In the spring of 1869 I had my first serious attack of illness. I was working on the farm that spring and as well as I remember, it was a cool rainy season, and I was often at work when a spring shower would come up suddenly. I got soaking wet more than once, and as a consequence I took a severe cold which developed into pneumonia. A few days previous to this I was in Mr. Hutchinson’s store in Buffalo. He had been to St. Louis and had just returned and as he was entertaining us relating some of his experiences while gone, I sat on the counter near him. In a day or two Father on returning from town said it was reported that Mr. Hutchinson had the small pox. By this time my cold had grown worse and I had pneumonia, and hearing that I had been exposed to alleged smallpox, it scared me pretty badly. But the next day Father learned that Hutchinson ‘s ailment was measles. While I was still suffering from pneumonia, I also took the measles and I was a very sick boy. They had difficulty in getting the measles broken out. The eruption finally did occur and for several days I could hardly see, hear or smell, and part of the time they said I was unconscious. Then my eyes were so affected with the disease, I could not bear the light and they had to pull down all the blinds and exclude the light from the room.
I had hardly passed the crises of the two ailments before Mother contracted the measles, which she had never had and we were both bedfast at the same time. Sister came and attended us until we were both better. Mother recovered before I was able to sit up. It was three or four months before I was well again, but Mother only had a light attack of the disease and made a quick recovery considering that she was nearly fifty-three years old. As I was not able to look after the farm work that spring Father employed one of our neighbors to cultivate the farm that year.
By fall I had fully regained my health and I taught my first term of public school beginning the last week in August 1869. The school was at the Cheek Schoolhouse, in a school district about ten miles from Buffalo and two miles south of Long Lane, a village on the public road from Buffalo to Lebanon, Missouri. I boarded at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Jerry Cheek, very kind old people who took great pains to make my sojourn with them pleasant.
I think it was during the year 1868 that the brick court house, to replace the one burned during the Civil War, was built in the public square in Buffalo. Probably it was not completed until some time the next year. When ready for use it was an imposing structure and one much needed and highly appreciated by the people of Dallas County. Along about the same time a number of brick business buildings were erected on the east, north and west sides of the public square, by William L. Morrow, I. Newton Morrow, Albert and Riley Stanley Behrens, and Brother, P. Brownlow and George W. O’Bannon and Frank Furth. Previous to that there were only two small brick business houses in Buffalo and the new construction, replacing in most instances old, delapidated frame houses, added very materially to the appearance of the business part of the county seat. There had also been many new frame residences constructed since the close of the Civil War, greatly enhancing the beauty of the town..
Coincident with the erection of the business and residential structures, was the building of the first church edifice ever erected in Buffalo. It was a frame house called the "Union Church" and was built by the Baptist and Methodist Church organizations of the town, with the financial aid of the community in general. The membership of each of the two churches was small and neither one was able to build a denominational place of religious worship, and hence they decided to unite their forces and construct a church house to be owned jointly and to be used by the said congregations. The leader in the building of the church house were Mr. William L. Morrow and Father on part of the Methodists and Mr. William Lovan and Mr. Warren Hunt representing the Baptists. They were liberal subscribers to the building fund, actively solicited donations, working in conjunction with a soliciting committee of each church, who canvassed for subscriptions from church members and other citizens. They also gave much time in superintending the work at construction. The building was finally completed, paid for and dedicated, and was greatly appreciated by a community which never before, at least since they had been residents of Buffalo, enjoyed the privilege of attending church in a house which had been dedicated to the worship of God.
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