William Weaver's Christmas Wedding
Colonel Weaver's Recollections of 1848
Springfield Republican, December 31, 1893.
"'What a contrast between this Christmas and the Christmas of '48, just forty-five years ago,' spoke Col. W. M. Weaver to a Republican reporter on Christmas morning just past.
'You do not mean to say, Colonel, that you have spent forty-five years of your life in Springfield?' anxiously enquired the reporter.
"'No, but I will say that I have been in Springfield and Greene County almost sixty-five years.'
'Then you are the oldest living resident Springfield has.'
'Yes, that is so.'
"The reporter stood before the aged Colonel in deep amazement and wondered how father time had dealt so gently with this chosen one when scores upon scores of others had grown hoary and passed to the grave, thence to the great unknown, in the race for first place amongst the old residents of Springfield.
"Speaking of Christmas, I can tell you of a Christmas that was a Christmas,', said Mr. Weaver. 'It was the Christmas of '48, and I remember the exact date more distinctly because it was the week of my marriage. Springfield was a small place, it must be remembered. The court house, and a poor excuse it was, stood in the center of the square, and was built of hewn logs. It had been raining for several days preceding Christmas and everything was soaked with water. The day before Christmas it turned cold and began to sleet. Before night-fall the sleet in the public square lay six inches deep. Although it was my wedding day, I could not resist the temptation for skating, so, in company with a crowd of my young men companions, we put on the steel [skates], and such skating you never witnessed. In the evening of that day came my marriage to Miss Ester Clements, at Delaware Town on the James, ten miles from town. The wedding party consisted of nearly all the young folks in the neighborhood and the journey to Delaware Town was made under the greatest difficulties. The trees on either side of the road were wrapped and warped together with their heavy load of sleet and fell across the rugged roadway in such heavy clumps as to make the progress of the journey very slow. Axes were employed to cut a way through. The journey was completed and I was happily married on Christmas Eve night.'
"In 1868 Mr. Weaver, having lost his first wife, married Miss Jannie A. Catts of Mount Vernon, a most estimable lady. Three children were born of the first marriage and two of the latter, the oldest of whom is Charles Weaver of the Williams Stove and Hardware Company of this city.
"In 1847, being only seventeen years old, Col. Weaver went into the war with Mexico, enlisting in Company F, Third Missouri Volunteers, as a bugler, being under command of Col. Ralls, in Brigadier General Price's division. He took part in the battle of Taos, but his principal service was spent in quelling the disturbances among the Comanche and Navajo Indians in Mexico.
"In 1850 Mr. Weaver went to California and remained there through all the gold excitement period. In 1868 he returned to Springfield, where he has lived ever since, with the exception of a few short intervals. He took no part in the late war between the States.
"Mr. Weaver witnessed the first killing that ever occurred in Springfield. A lawyer named Charles Yancey shot and killed one Roberts. The affair came off in the center of the square. Yancey was afterwards elected circuit judge and served for many years. The second killing was done by a man named Shanks. He was incarcerated in an old log building used for a jail, which stood upon the spot where now stands the livery stable of Jimmy Hayes, on Boonville Street. The logs of the building were hewn twelve inches square and laid horizontally with a support of twelve-inch logs standing perpendicular.
"The first newspaper was established by a man named McKinney, who was a son-in-law of John P. Campbell, who laid out the town. Mrs. Rush Owens is the only member of the Campbell family now living.
"Mr. Weaver comes from that old North Carolina stock, famous for its valor in the conflict of the war for independence, and he shows it very distinctively. His father and grandfather and grandmother and their families were the first settlers of Greene County, having landed her on the 25th of April, 1830. The only inhabitants at that time were the Kickapoo Indians, now extinct almost. They were a friendly tribe, however, and no hostilities were encountered."
James Hayes Livery was listed at 310 Boonville in the 1894-95 Springfield City Directory. More biographies of local persons of note are available online in Past and Present of Greene County. Currier & Ives, "The Sleigh Race" and "American Homestead", courtesy of the Library of Congress.
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