Charles Haden
Passing of a Pioneer
Leader-Democrat 30 Nov 1898 page 2
"Colonel Charles A. Haden, who has been at the point of death for a week, is no better, and while his wonderful vitality may carry him along for some time yet, it must be admitted that Greene County is soon to lose one of their most distinguished and beloved citizens.
"Colonel Haden can scarcely speak. The trouble seems to be in the brain, and, with his advanced age taken into consideration, it is no wonder that his large number of relatives and greater number of friends in Springfield and Greene County are alarmed.
"About three times a week the year round, through all kinds of weather, an old gentleman rides up to the city of Springfield from his home on the James River, near Galloway. The rider has the easy, firm bearing of a natural horseman, and though now 85 years old the stranger would judge him to be at least a score of years younger. It is eight miles from the home of this Greene County farmer to Springfield, and for nearly 40 years he has made his regular visits to the city, covering an aggregate distance in these trips that would perhaps lap the entire circumference of the earth four times.
"As a stock trader, this pioneer settler of the James River valley has ridden all over the Ozark country many times, being familiar with every public and private road that traverses the mountain slopes from the head of Wilson Creek to the second tier of counties in north Arkansas. There is not, perhaps, a man in all southwest Missouri who has spent so much time in the saddle or covered so many miles on horseback.
"This graceful old horseman, who always seems to feel the dignity of his mounted position, is Colonel Charles Haden, one of the most distinctive and popular characters of the pioneer group of southwest Missouri settlers. He has lived in Greene County for 63 years, and knows more about the early history of the section of the Ozark region south of Springfield than any other man. He came to Springfield with his father, Joel Haden, one of the first Christian preachers who expounded that faith to the Ozark pioneers, in 1835, and since that time has been a citizen of Greene County. Colonel Haden acquired his military title far back of the civil war*, when he was a conspicuous figure at the early militia musters, helping to drill many of the Missouri mountaineers, who afterward did service in Mexico under Generals Scott and Taylor.
"It was in the Springfield land office that Charley Haden, then a young man hardly grown, acquired his first knowledge of the Ozark region. His father was appointed the first register of the land office at Springfield by President Jackson in 1835, and young Haden acted as clerk and auctioneer in the disposition of a large part of the public domain of southwest Missouri. Much of the public land in the Ozark country was sold to the highest bidder after the homesteaders had made such entries as they were allowed to take under the law, and the son of the register stood up on a rude platform in front of the office and cried the bids of the crowd.
"The land office was opened in a log cabin near the present site of the Greene County court house. The town then had no other buildings, except the few log houses made of the native oaks, hickories and walnut growing near the head of Wilson Creek, when the founder of Springfield, John P. Campbell, cut the first sill that was laid in starting the little village on the summit of the Ozark Plateau. In this simple office, Register Haden and his son transacted a great deal of business, transferring tens of thousands of acres of the fertile prairies and rugged wooded mountain slopes from the government plate to homestead claims. It was a time of much excitement among the new settlers of the wild region when the land office opened and the home seekers flocked to the little cabin village to enter their claims. Immigration was then flowing into the country rapidly from Tennessee, Kentucky, Virginia, and North Carolina, and ponderous covered wagons, with great curved beds nearly 20 feet long, painted red or green, could be seen for miles away on the open plateau around Springfield, as they slowly journeyed toward the land office.
"Colonel Haden give the following story of his connection with the land office: 'The country was mostly wild then around Springfield. But few settlements had been made on the prairies, for the old Tennessee and Kentucky home seekers wanted timber and running water and preferred the lands along the streams to the claims that now have grown into the fruit farms near Springfield. The homesteaders from the Cumberland Mountains felt like they were in their natural element when clearing up the wooded hills and drinking the fine spring water on the 'breaks' of White River. They shunned some of the best prairie land in Greene County and went down south of the James, where there was plenty of firewood and fencing timber and 'living water'.
"'When I came to Springfield the town had but a few log houses, and what is now the north part of the city was our hunting ground. We never thought of going farther than where the Frisco depot now stands [on Commercial Street] to find deer. The buffalo had all left the Ozark country then, but the wallows could still be seen on the prairies around Springfield. Elk horns were also common at that time, though I never saw one of the animals in Greene County. Black bear abounded south of the prairie belt in the white river hills and now and then one of these beasts wandered through the country around the Springfield settlement. Wolves and wild cats were thick everywhere and the hunter had his choice of big game.
"'The Delaware Indians still had a village on the James River, 12 miles south of Springfield, at what is now the Gibson Ford. This was called Delaware Town and I believe there is now a post office there by that name.
"'Well, when the land office was opened at Springfield there was a big rush to get claims. All the settlers from Big Piney to the western line of the state and from the Osage River to the Arkansas border came to Springfield to make their entries or bid on the lands sold at auction. Such a sight will never be seen again in this country as we then beheld at the land office when all that throng of homesteaders came to town to attend the public sales. They camped around the office for days, waiting for their turn to take a claim or to buy some favorite tract of timber land. All the payments were made in 'hard money.' Silver being most in use then. During the day we stacked the money on a big, rough table in the office and sometimes had almost a bushel of silver dollars heaped up there, with no one to especially guard the coin. At night I slept in the office, with only a big mastiff from Santa Fe, N. M., called "Cash,' to help me protect the money. There was not a safe in all southwest Missouri then, and locks had not yet been put on the doors of the pioneer cabins. Nobody thought of robbers or thieves in Springfield at that time, and doors were only barred against wild beasts. I was not afraid, for the big dog could scare away the 'varmints,' and there was no other danger.
"'When the office had accumulated a wagon load of silver it was sent to the sub-treasury at St. Louis, guarded on the way by four or five good men. It took about two weeks to make the trip to St. Louis with the money over the rough country, and the guards camped out at night, sleeping around the wagon load of cash. There was never a dollar of the money lost in any way, so far as I knew. The men who had charge of that wealth were poor settlers, and the country was new and wild, and they might have divided the money and got hundreds of miles away with it before the fact would have been known at Springfield. Men were honest in those days and I suppose no thought of robbing the government of this treasure ever entered the mind of one of the guards. The early settlers of the Ozark country were used to all kinds of hardship, but they had a high sense of honor. A sneak and a coward found no favor among the southwest Missouri pioneers.
"'I sold thousands of acres of land a day sometimes during the period of public sales. The sales were all at the nominal price of $1.25 per acre. Settlers would not bid against one another, each one selecting the tract he desired and bidding it off when put up. The purchase of the lands took about all the money out of the country, and for a long time after the opening of the office cash was very scarce in southwest Missouri. It was difficult to get money to pay the small tax assessments then required to run the simple government of the new counties.'"
A brief mention in the December 29, 1898 newspaper reports that Charles Haden 'is about recovered', which must have been the case, as he did not die until March 11, 1905. He is buried in Hazelwood Cemetery. The Haden family photograph above, courtesy of the History Museum on the Square, shows the seated Charles Haden (left) and his brother Joel (right) surrounded by their family circa 1880.
*This sentence is as it appeared in the original article.
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