William B. Coon
William B. "Uncle Billy" Coon
Springfield Leader, November 17, 1931, page 16
"'Uncle Billy' Coon, veteran educator who will speak at the St. Paul Methodist Centennial Sunday in reminiscence of Dr. James H. Slavens, the first minister who rode into Springfield 100 years ago, today recalled his association with 'the old doctor.'
"'Doctor Slavens gave me my first certificate to teach when I came out of the army and went back to Dallas County in 1865,' the 87-year-old Springfieldian related.
'That was down by Buffalo when he was school superintendent in addition to being preacher and physician.'
"William B. Coon, the speaker, a little hearty-bodied man with a silky white beard and a resonant voice, rocked back and forth in his chair as he talked. He was found in his neat little home at 717 West Walnut Street. 'Doc Slavens was about 60 I guess, then, and I just 21, but he lived a long time after that and I knew him well. I lived in the home of his son, Dr. Z. L. Slavens, at Buffalo one winter to teach school. Of course this was long after he had ridden into Springfield and preached the first sermon at Fulbright's house, and organized the first Methodist Church as a young man in 1831. He had married Uncle Buck Rountree's daughter and set up the practice of medicine.'
"According to 'Uncle Billy,' Doctor Slavens was a very positive sort of man and a very able talker. He never preached a sermon without preparing it, and he had his ideas about everything. 'There was a lot of discussion in those days about the woman's sphere,' Mr. Coon related,'The old doctor said it was to rock the cradle and get breakfast.'
"This dark-haired young man, who organized a church in Springfield a year after the town was settled, in late life was active and strong, with a chunky body and an alert mind, according to 'Uncle Billy,' who was one of his greatest admirers.
"Walter B. Coon of the Union National Bank, 'Uncle Billy's' son, recalls the old doctor's curing a boy friend of his with a poultice made of freshly cut green tobacco.
"'Uncle Billy' Coon, at 87, is still spry and interested in the world about him, the world of letters, and radios, and modern educational methods. He himself is closely identified with educational progress in Southwest Missouri.
"In 1865 he taught the first class in southwest Missouri by the word method. The parents all thought he was getting the cart before the horse, but he soon found that children taught by his method could 'read like a lawyer' at the end of three months, whereas those learning the A, B, C's sometimes couldn't read a word.
"For 40 years, Mr. Coon taught in the winter and farmed in the summer throughout this section. One year he was postmaster at Urbana. In 1904, when he was 60 years old, he and his wife went to western Oklahoma to prove up a claim. They bought a relinquishment on 160 acres, built a dugout, lived there two years (the homesteading requirement was cut down because he had served in the army) and then traded in the land and came back to Cassville.
"Then they lived in Republic for about 20 years before Mrs. Coon died, and now the old gentleman is living here, taking part in no activities except the Grand Army of the Republic meetings. He walks some every day, however, unless it is bad weather, reads newspapers, a few books and a number of magazines, attempting to keep up on current affairs.
"'The radio is like a great miracle,' he said. Airplanes are a wonderful invention, but one we would be better off without, in his opinion, and 'we could do with less cars and be safer,' according to Uncle Billy. He never has owned one. 'Used to be young people got married, call in the neighbors next day and built a cabin, started a gourd vine, got a yellow dog, and they had a family started,' the venerable man observed. 'Now they're not willing to work like they used to, not willing to live like they used to.'
"The veteran educator sees a great improvement in public schools, 'but I don't think children learn as much as they used to in a given time. They spend too much time in play and athletics. I think most of that is a waste of time.'
"Mr. Coon was in the Home Guard in 1861 and 1862 as a boy, and then served three years in the Union Army, first in the Fourteenth State Militia and later in the Fourth."
For more information about the Slavens family see Biography of Rev. James Hervey Slavens, M.D. and an autobiography by Luther J. Slavens.
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