Volume 5, Number 2 - Winter 1973-74
A PIONEER FROM THE OZARKS
by James Baynard Inmon
CHAPTER SIX
CALIFORNIA TO MISSOURI AROUND CAPE HORN
On April 10, 1850, left Independence, Missouri, for California to seek my fortune in the gold fields. Now on Tuesday. January 10, 1854, I was loading my buckskin-covered trunk, banjo, and carpet bag on the steamer Bragdon that would take me down the beautiful San Joaquin River to San Francisco, Jackson Street Wharf. There I would board the United States Mail boat and passenger ship, The New Falcon, for New Orleans.
The big new ocean steamer was loading when the Bragdon riverboat arrived in San Francisco Bay. People, mail, and gold made up its payload. Many nationalities were represented. No doubt a few were very rich, some were wealthy, and many were going home poor in money. Some had gone to California only to see the sights and experience the excitement of the Gold Rush.
My private room was small with a tiny porthole for shoreline viewing. I had bunk room with storage space underneath. Since it would be summer below the equator I could live on deck most of the daytime. Over twenty thousand in gold was in the trunk wrapped in skin of the grizzly bear I had killed in the Sierras. My money belt contained over two thousand. The balance of my gold was on deposit in New Orleans. If I could live a hundred years I would never forget my memories of beautiful and exciting California.
More than twelve thousand miles lay ahead of me between San Francisco and Springfield by going around Cape Horn. It was less than three thousand by dirt road across country. Knowing that I would never have another chance for the trip I decided to return home around Cape Horn and up the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers to Boonville, Missouri, where I could get transportation on a freight wagon to Springfield.
Passengers bound for St. Louis were moved directly onto the St. Louis boat. The St. Louis steamer was moored against the ocean steamer and passengers were transferred from boat to boat. Government agents from the Mint met the incoming steamer to check in gold carried by passengers who wished to leave their rough gold to be refined and coined. I requested full certification of my account which was on deposit. I also left directions for the shipment of my gold to Springfield. The amount of my deposit plus the amounts I was carrying in my trunk and belt constituted my earnings.
The trip from New Orleans to St. Louis was about twelve hundred miles. Up river this required ten days of travel. From St. Louis to Springfield was almost fifteen days on a freight wagon or if by stage coach about ten days in daylight hours.
Two days before I arrived in St. Louis I began to run a fever. My appetite was gone. I had dysentery that was by the hour draining my system of all my remaining strength. Vomiting kept me from taking new food or water. By the hour I was gradually losing my strength and was confined to my bunk. There happened to be a young doctor on board who was going to St. Louis to work in a hospital there for a year for additional training. By the time the riverboat reached St. Louis my skin color had changed to a muddy yellow and I was deathly sick--too weakened to walk ashore.
An ambulance was brought to the boat for me and my trunk, banjo, and tote bag. Chills, fever, vomiting, dysentery, and swelling of joints constituted my symptoms. The Lord war, with me in that I was so near to St. Louis and medical help before coming down. Medical men decided that I had been bitten by anopheline mosquitoes. while in the tropics and had contracted malaira in its worst form. Another Black Rainbow was now
[1]
hanging low over my bed in the hospital. Giant doses of quinine were given to me around the clock. Rheumatic fever set in and I remained in the hospital in St. Louis until August 15, 1854.
As my six-hitch stage pulled into Springfield a large crowd of people could be seen some distance from the road and down the Jordan River Valley. It looked like a political gathering under one of the mammoth walnut trees. Upon reaching the unloading docks for passengers the driver was told that a man from Taney county had just been hanged for killing his stepson. The man had denied his quilt but public officials disregarded his plea and carried out the first legal execution in Springfield. Some years later the crime was confessed to by the boy’s mother, so history states. Her death-bed confession could never be corroborated so the real truth was never known.
What a sight to witness and what a gruesome story to listen to as a reception home on August 25, 1854.
I stood with bowed head as I listened to the long story of the killing, the trial, and the drastic action just taken by the law officers in Springfield. These horrible stories reminded my tired mind of my early days in California where robbery, murder, and hanging were common incidents. I thought little about such lowbrow actions in the gold fields. Such happenings were considered as a part of pioneer life there where men became intoxicated with gold fever and whiskey. There they were little more than wild animals. I was saddened very much to arrive home and be confronted immediately with such a horrible experience in Springfield, my beloved home town.
Again the thought "Black Rainbow" raced through my mind. I wanted to find my home town as it was when I left it on April 1,1850—quiet, but bustling, peaceful, cooperative, growing. When I left Springfield for Calfornia the village contained about thirty log houses, some of which I had helped to build. There were Mr. Merchant’s trading post and two competitors; a blacksmith shop, a lumber mill, a new log school, and in the center of the public Square a new two-story brick-veneered courthouse. The brickyard was making bricks, but because of their high price few were being used.
The few primitive industries in Springfield when I left in 1850 had now grown in to big thriving and profitable establishments. The fixit men were now operating established businesses. The town now had a tailor, a gunsmith—both over-worked. The gunsmith was being overworked by sportsmen of the town and surrounding area who were bringing in firearms for repairs. Guns of every description known at the time could be found in the gunshop for repairs, overhaul or remodel.
Other skilled mechanics had come to town also. A wheelwright, millwright, bricklayer, and blacksmiths were far behind in their work.
The bank, which was a log house when I left, was now in a new frame building with a built-in stone fireproof vault. I was very glad to see this improvement for I would now have money to deposit as soon as shipments from New Orleans arrived.
Food stores had been established on the Square. In them were an abundance of wild fruits, berries, nuts, fish, and wild game. Barrels of wild honey were coming in from the bee-tree robbers. Hunting and cutting bee trees was considered a great sport. Men who knew the arts and sciences of the game reaped excellent profits from their labors.
A new hardware store was doing a thriving business. Nails for houses, wire for fences, horse shoes and nails, hand tools, and farming implements, stoves and wagon castings were now coming in from St. Louis in abundance.
Next door to the tailor shop was a new hat shop for men and women. Next came a new log building with a journeyman cobbler from Germany. He had so much business he had written to his brother in Germany to come to America to help him in his shoe shop.
Mr. Sawman’s lumber yard was now handling pine lumber and other building supplies for constructing frame houses. Pine lumber was coming in by wagon trains from Taney county and from Arkansas sawmills.
In all directions progress could be seen. The Public Square was jammed packed with wagons coming in from Boonville, St. Louis, Forsyth, Fayetteville, and other places. As I stood waiting for the liveryman at the livery barn to prepare a team and buggy to take me to the Wealthy farm, I could visualize that some day Springfield would become a big beautiful and highly successful business and residential city. My home town was growing up.
Kansas City, Boonville, St. Louis, Memphis, Little Rock, and Oklahoma formed a great commercial circle and Springfield was the center hub in the giant wheel. It was only fifty miles to Forsyth where steamships landed from St. Louis,
[2]
Memphis, and New Orleans with sugar, molasses, hardwares and cloth.
Homecoming was a happy time for me. Four years, four months, and twenty-five days had passed over the calendar while I was away. The Wealthy household greeted me with open arms. Dottie, the slave housekeeper, grabbed me and kissed my cheek then quickly apologized for having done such an uncontrolled act. I didn’t mind if a black woman kissed me for Dottie was a very attractive slave. She was young, happy, and always kind to everybody. She had a great sense of humor and was the pet of all. Many times we had spend an hour together on the patio—her singing with my banjo.
My first act at the farm was to visit the barn and love the necks of my two beautiful and spirited horses, Mexie and Sunday. I took both of them with me to visit the grave of John William as I had done many times before. Life seemed unfair to me. I was an orphan born to itinerant horse-training parents who displayed their abilities in horsemanship on the racing tracks and in circus rings before thousands of happy spectators throughout the year. John William was born to wealthy parents in the Bluegrass Country where Thoroughbred horses were the hallmark of wealth, sportsmanship, and social prestige.
The Wealthys had brought their one and only son, ten slaves, and their wealth to a new state where they had wanted their only heir to become a distinguished and dominating personality. Fate had changed their entire lives when their son had died in a fatal accident. And I, a homeless orphan, had become their son by their own choosing. It was my lucky day indeed.
As I stood at the sod-covered grave I wondered if John William would have been like me had he lived. Our compared ferrotypes showed predominent similarities. We both loved horses; were daring in nature; craved adventure, and excelled in whatever we undertook to do. Both played the banjo.
As I turned from the grave and looked across the green, wide pasture I could only think of the heartaches of the Wealthys which lay in the little grave. Again those burning words, "Black Rainbow," came to my mind. I swung slowly to the back of the horse I loved and we moved toward the big house I again called home.
Springfield was still surrounded by dense forests and wide fertile prairies. To the South lay the hills and valleys of James and Finley Rivers. Wild game was still plentiful over most of the region. Most of the Indians were gone from Kickapoo Village and the Delaware Town on James River. Wagon roads were being constructed in all directions deep into the hill counties.
Government surveying had been completed by 1854. County seat towns had been established and roads to these villages were rapidly being constructed. The Otoe Indian Trail from Springfield to Galena, county seat of Stone county, had been completed over the Otoe Ridge. The entire territory had been thrown open to squatters and purchasers.
Most settlers in and around Springfield were of a hardy, religious, and conservative type individual. By 1854 several of the various religions were getting well established in the area. The Methodists had been preaching their beliefs ever since about 1831 when a Reverend James H. Slaven preached his first sermon in the hamlet of Springfield. The Cumberland Presbyterians and the Baptists were all now well established by the time I returned. Mr. Ben Preacher was still preaching and teaching to a packed log house as he was before I went to California. Mr. Preacher’s biblical lessons and his teaching always drew a full house.
One week had passed. I had visited all of my old friends and had made many new ones in the new places of business. My visit to the bank was one of my important calls. I now had enough gold to start my own bank or would have when it arrived from New Orleans. Banking did not interest me, however. I only needed its services. Major decisions must now be made about storage of my gold until I was ready to use it improving my farm. Whatever my decisions were they must be kept secret for already pioneers were being robbed and murdered for money.
The newspaper in town, "The Ozark Eagle" which had been "The Ozark Standard" wanted the story of my experiences for the past four years. Since I had so many friends in Springfield and since everyone had done so much for me as a teenager I felt obligated to give my home town paper a story on my travels and experiences. When the reporter questioned me as to my gold I refused to discuss amounts saying that I made expenses and hoped to have enough money to get married and improve and stock my farm on James River.
By 1854 many men had returned from the El Dorado Country. News stories from them had ceased to be front page items. A very few men
[3]
had returned rich in gold. Many brought small amounts of gold home. Far the greatest number of men found little gold, but many disappointments. Some were bankrupt when they returned.
I had been quite successful and very happy about my four years in search of gold. My experiences and financial success was entered into the journals as one of my "Beautiful Rainbows" of life.
September spells fall in the picturesque Ozark Mountains. I was on my way to visit Jane and the farm. It had been more than four years since I had been there. At last I had plenty of gold to get married and do whatever I wished to do on our farm. The country was changing fast. In place of a pack-train trail four years ago there was now an open well-traveled wagon road. At almost every turn in the road the log cabin of a squatter could be seen. Some of them had already cleared fields and corn and other crops were being harvested. Cows, horses, hogs, and chickens were around many of the log cabins. Hay stacks and corn shocks dotted many of the tiny fields. Ah! At last civilization was coming to the hills and valleys of Stone County in the scenic Ozark Mountains along James River.
One thing had not changed in four years—the beauty of the hills and valleys in the autumnal months. Trees, bushes, brambles, and ground covers were rapidly taking on the mysterious chemical changes that come to all the wooded areas in the early fall in the Ozark Mountains. Greenery covering the terrain of this impressive geographical area turns into millions of botanical rainbows until the foilage is stripped of its heavenly beauty by winter freezing near the Christmas season.
As I rode the trail alone my weak body and tired mine were revitalized by the indescribable beauty of the "Flaming Fall Revue" which was climbing by the day to its peak of artistic botanical perfection. Leaves of the sugar maple trees were blistering red. Those of the soft maple resembled the pure gold pieces I carried in my pocket. Sassafras was as bright in color as the native oranges I had seen growing in California. By the roadside the wild persimmons emblazoned their dominant color of cerise and furnished a delicacy of food for the human mouth that no other wild fruit could duplicate. High on a big limb of one of the trees a mother possom was feeding her young marsupials the frost ripened stone-centered fruit.
Wild grape vines were growing high into many of the trees and their long high growing intertwined and heavy laden fruit limbs were drooping heavily with bounteous hands of dark purple grapes. the foliage of the dogwood and redbud trees flung their beauty into all directions as did the bittersweet with its millions of reddish orange berries handing in bucket-sized clumps on every vine in countless trees.
The blood red leaves of the generous patches of sumac bushes with their drupaceous red fruit reminded me of the richly colored imported red carpet my friend Major Weaver had brought from Hong Kong and placed in the foyer of his new hotel in Sacramento. The clusters of rose-purple blooms on the giant iron weeds and the golden yellow heads of the determined horse weeks added much to the vast natural painting of the outdoor landscape. It was truly a picture of joy to my travel weary body.
The natural autumnal extravaganza of the hills was a blend of many brilliant colors all coming from the palette of the Almighty as he mixed nature’s numberless pigments into a set and style of coloring that no human artist could duplicate on canvas regardless of how hard he tried.
Far into the distance millions and millions of deciduous trees were coving the hills and valleys with their colored folaige thereby creating the natural fall season beauty. Interspersed among the deciduous trees were countless millions of evergreen coniferous trees that added to the beauty of the landscape by forming permanent green year around frames for the seasonal foliage of the deciduous growth. The warm days and cool nights goaded on by jack frost had turned the hillsides and the valley lands into a colorful fiaryland.
At the confluence of the Finley and James Rivers Robertson’s mill was grinding out cornmeal that Jane could make into delicious Indian corn cakes and Indian pudding. We would cut a bee tree for some fresh wile-bee honey for the cakes and pudding.
The new road over which I was traveling had been laid out by the land office. It followed the ancient Otoe Indian Trail which extended from the Delaware Town on Wilson’s Creek and James River to the Delaware Town on the White River at the mouth of James Rover. It was now possible for wagons to come within one-half mile of the Great Stone Arch which was only one mile from Rainbow Valley. The last mile to my farm was a surprise to me for a new road had been constructed directly by my farm and a mile beyond to
[4]
a good neighbor, Calvin Cloud, who had moved to James River Valley in 1842.
Another neighbor who joined my land had died and the executor of the estate sold me the hundred and twenty acres of rich bottom land with improvements for $752.10—the highest price ever paid for farm land in Stone County to that date.
On January 24, 1849 Bounty Land Warrant number 42673 was issued by the War Department to me for serving eighteen months in the army during the Mexican War. This entitlement permitted me to purchase one hundred and sixty acres of government lands priced at one dollar and twenty-five cents per acre for only fifty cents an acre. The land pre-empted in 1844 by Mr. Wealthy, but in the name of Uncle Eli, had already been paid for by Mr. Wealthy. Two hundred dollars bought the one hundred sixty acres. The second tract of equal acreage cost only eighty dollars. Three hundred and twenty acres of the best land on James River had cost me only two hundred and eighty dollars.
But that was a lot of money in 1849 when I had spent eighteen months in the Mexican War for seven dollars per month plus food, clothing, and medical. I had earned the money, however, in the lumber yard in Springfield before I entered the Army so my land was clear of debt. Now since my close neighbor, Mr. Burchfield, had died I was to own the entire Rainbow Valley land—440 acres. A Beautiful Rainbow indeed for me. I was home at last with Jane, our farm, and our gold.
SON OF THE PIONEERS
CHAPTER SEVEN
ORPHAN JOHN MOVES TO RAINBOW VALLEY
The Big Valley was one of continuous sea of color from hilltop to hilltop. Early morning hours found a blanket of hoary frost covering the ground until the warm morning sunshine dissipated its white wilting elements from the plants and trees. Overhead wild geese and ducks could be seen moving South in giant V-shaped formations. Their spacing, speed, flight formations, and their loud clear honking notes were all as if their front leader was being directed in flight commands by Providence, then in turn passing the flight commands back to each migrating fowl.
Sloughs and ponds were overflowing with wild water fowls resting and feeding before taking flight to another feeding place farther south. All of nature was in the processes of changing from summer to winter. Waist-high Indian grass covered the big open field of the valley. There all winter long, deer, antelope, elk, and moose would be feeding. So many squatters were now settling along James River the big wild game animals would soon be consumed for human food. Scores of deer were yet in the valley but elk, moose and buffalo were about all gone.
Bright exhilarating October days with their warm sunshine, cool, quiet, and peaceful nights were just what I needed to help restore my physical body and peace of mind. The past four years of rugged living and very hard work had been very rough for me and I was showing physical deterioration even before I came down with malaria and rheumatic fever in St. Louis, I was yet very weak and under weight and was on crutches from the rheumatic fever. The summer of 1854 was truly a Black Rainbow over my life.
The once famous Otoe Trail through Stone county had by 1854 become a busy wagon route. It linked Springfield to the White River country through Galena, the county seat of Stone county. The Otoes, Delawares, Osages, and Kickapoos had no doubt walked the trail for centuries. Now they were all gone to the Indian Territory except for a few scattering individuals throughout the Ozark Hills who had married into white families or who were living secretly in unsettled territory.
The United States Mint in New Orleans had been instructed by me to ship my gold to Springfield in six shipments. Five shipments were each to contain ten thousand in coins and the last box was to bring twelve thousand, seven hundred, a total of sixty-two thousand seven hundred. I had already buried twenty thousand on Mr. Wealthy’s farm to spend on my farm. The method devised by me for the gold shipments was a safety measure in case a boat sank or was robbed on the Mississippi River. No boat company would guarantee delivery in case of robbery or accidental sinking. My gold was now too near home for me to suffer a total loss. Boat disasters on the Mississippi River in the 1850’s were many.
The date had arrived for my first shipment of gold to arrive from New Orleans. The box was labeled "nails." Each month for the next five a box of gold arrived carrying labels of "locks", "hinges", "tools", "bolts", "hardware." All were by freight. The gold coins were sealed in a copper box packed tightly in a wooden box. It came by boat to St. Louis then by wagon train to
[5]
Springfield. Each shipment was buried as it arrived. The State Bank in Springfield was given one deposit of five thousand but the rest was buried in the ground. Banks were unsafe because of fire.
Everybody who had extra gold buried it in the ground some place. Completely fireproof vaults were not yet known. Burning of buildings was quite common by lightning and carelessness of man. The gold was usually placed in Indian clay pots and buried deep in the ground, mostly under the floor of some building. If the building burned, the soil would not let the heat melt the gold. If it did melt, it could be made into coins again.
[6]
This volume: Next Article | Table of Contents | Other Issues
Other Volumes | Keyword Search | White River Valley Quarterly Home | Local History Home
Copyright © White River Valley Historical Quarterly
