POSITION AND DESCRIPTION.

     This is the central township of Linn county, the one first settled, and one of the three original townships.  It boundaries have been frequently changed, and are liable to change in the future.  The last alteration in the boundaries was made in 1881, and consisted in making range line number twenty-one the western boundary.  The area of the township is thirty-eight sections or 30,720 acres of land.  It is irregular in form, being in shape like a Roman capital letter "L," Thus,

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     The township is now composed of about equal portions of prairie and timber, some very excellent varieties of the latter abounding. The general surface is level. East and northeast of Linneus lies the finest portion of the township. In the northern part, among “ the white oaks,” or on Bear Branch, and along Locust Creek are the most broken parts of the territory. The greatest extent of timber is along Locust Creek, but perhaps the most valuable is on Muddy and Turkey Creeks. On the latter streams there is excellent oak and walnut timber in abundance.
     The principal streams in the township are Locust Creek in the extreme western part, and which until recently was the western boundary of the township; Muddy Creek in the central portion; Turkey Creek in the east central; Long Branch in the eastern part. All of these streams have a general southerly flow. There is an abundance of water supply, for what the streams fail to give the wells can be made to furnish. Living water can be obtained in most portions of the township at a depth of from twenty to thirty feet.
     A singular fact is to be recorded in this connection.  When the township was first settled it was very difficult to find living water.  Wells were dug to the depth of fifty feet or more without obtaining water.  Especially in and around Linneus was this the case, and this state of affairs lasted for many years.  Latterly this condition of things changed, and now where once water could not be found, it gushes forth as readily and abundantly as it did from the rock at Horeb upon the smiting of the great Jewish lawgiver.  Water-seers and well-wizards aver that the water is rising under all the surface of the earth in these parts.

ECONOMIC GEOLOGY.

     Underlying the surface of the earth, at a depth easily accessible, in many parts of the township, are large and valuable coal beds, some of which have been opened and are worked.  The most important of these are the mines of A. E. Ralph, on section thirteen, township fifty-eight, range twenty-one, and Mr. Harrison's, near the Linneus cemetery.  The coal beds of the township run in a general direction, north and south, and are identical with those at Laclede, Brookfield, St. Catharine, and other portions of Linn county.

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     There is an abundance of excellent stone in the township, much of which is utilized for building and other purposes.  The quarry of Mr. Beckett, in section eight, one and a halt miles southeast of Linneus, is considered the best in the county.  The stone here found is certainly very good, and much of it is in use.  Limestone is plentiful, and considerable quantities of lime have been burned.  The stone is easily reached, as much of it is exposed in locations easy of access.
     Brick clay can be found anywhere, and in parts fair qualities of potter’s clay can be found.

EARLY SETTLEMENT AND HISTORY.

     The first settlers in this township, James Pendleton, William Howell, and Joseph Newton, were also the first bona fide settlers of the county.  They located on section fourteen, township fifty-eight, range twenty-one, in the fall of 1831.  William and Jesse Boyer, with the former's family, and young Louis Tyre, came to section two about the first of January, 1832.  Very soon after came John Young, in February, 1833, to section twelve;  Wharton R. Barton to two miles north of Linneus; Judge James A. Clark, Thomas Russell, John J. Flood, and Dr. Nathaniel J. Dryden to the neighborhood of Barton; Silas, Peter, and Charles Fore to section twenty-nine, northeast of Linneus; John Cherry, David Mullins, John Kemper, Henry Bowyer, Colonel Augustus Flournoy, Colonel "Jack" Holland, _____ Daily, Robert C. Combs, E. J. Dennison, and others to different portions of the township, tough chiefly in the neighborhood of Linneus.  The early history of this township is so interwoven with that of the county at large that much of it is given on other pages of this history devoted to the latter, and to those pages the reader is referred.
     The first white child born in the township (and in Linn county) was Thomas Benton Bowyer, son of William and Martha (Tyre) Bowyer, who was born on Christmas Day, 1833, on section two.
     The first white female child born in the township was a daughter of Jesse Bowyer.
     Probably the first death in the township was a child of William Bowyer's named Henry who was six years old, and died in 1837.  He was buried in the Bowyer graveyard, the first burying-ground in the county.  Colonel Fourney's negro man Henry was killed in a well near where Linneus ow stands about the same time.
     The first school in the township, as remembered by Mr. J. M. Pendleton was taught by Mr. German Rorer of Howard county, three and a half miles southwest of Linneus, about 1838.  Some of the pupils were James and Elizabeth Beckett, James and Robert Tisdale, George, Kenneth, and Martha Newton, J. M. and Rebecca Pendleton, and James M. Paralee.  The next schools were taught in Linneus.  T. T. Woodruff taught a school in

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Bowyers’s neighborhood in the winter of 1842, which is the earliest country school that can be learned of.  This school was held in a log dwelling-house which stood about three hundred yards west of Mrs. McCormick’s residence, on the land owned by John Thomas.  The house has long since disappeared.  Woodruff had about twenty pupils, the children of Reuben Couch, William Bowyer, David Prewitt, George Taylor, and others.  He taught three months and recived $2.25 per scholar for the term.
     The first religious services were conducted by Rev. Alton F. Martin, of the Baptist Church, who preached in the school-house, two miles southeast from Linneus, in 1838; some claim that Rev. Wilhite preached at the McCowan school-house before Martin.
     Dr. Nathaniel Dryden was the first practicing physician in the township; after him came Dr. Iles, and Dr. Isaac Relph, both of whom lived at Linneus, as also did Dr. Cooper, another early physician.
     The first mill in the township was a “band-mill ” or “ horse-mill,” built by Mr. Bowyer, on section two, in the year 1834.  The establishment of this mill was a great convenience to the settlers.  Prior to this they were compelled to go miles and miles away to mill.  Keytesville and Old Chariton were their principal milling places and markets.  Sometime after the establishment of Bowyer’s mill, Henry Brown bought it and moved it about five miles further north on Locust Creek, where it was run for some time and known as Brown’s mill.  Up in the forks of Locust Creek Lot Lantz built the second horse-mill in the county in 1835 or 1836.
     There was very much game in the early days of the township, and nearly everybody was a hunter. Judge James A. Clark, William Bowyer, Mr. Dailey, Colonel Holland, and Colonel Flournoy were famous Nimrods. Judge Clark owned a pack of hounds, and caught a great many deer with them, and ran down many a fox and wolf.  William Bowyer was considered the most successful hunter.  Deer were very plentiful.  Elk and buffalo had disappeared. Turkeys were everywhere; on a clear, still morning their gobbling could be heard everywhere.
     Wolves were unpleasantly numerous, and made many a raid upon the settlers’ sheep-folds and pig-pens.  After the country got older, and schools were established they frightened the children on their way to and from school. The wife of Judge Carlos Boardman, of Linneus, when a little girl attending a country school, was chased by wolves on one occasion, and greatly terrilied by the keen-fanged, bloody-minded animals.  The wolves were hunted very vigorously, and at length hunted down and driven out of the country.  They were of the gray and the black species - none of the contemptible little sneaking prairie wolves or coyotes, so well known to everybody.  Hunting and chasing wolves was rare sport for men and dogs - not always for the dogs, however, for sometimes the wolves turned and chased them.  On one occasion some men and boys caught a wolf alive and

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brought it to Linneus where it was to be turned loose and run down again.  A young man carried it in front of him on horseback.  The wolf bad its jaws tied tightly together with a handkerchief.  As the young man was dismounting the animal freed itself from its muzzle in some way and, turning upon its captor, sprang at his face and seized him by the nose and upper part of the cheek.  It held its grip with such force and tenacity that the bystanders were forced to cut its throat in order to release the young man.  The wolf chase, so confidently looked for and so eagerly anticipated, was indefinitely postponed.
     The land of “the Locust Creek country,” while not “flowing with milk and honey,” contained meat and honey in the greatest abundance.  Of either there was certainly no lack.  Bee-trees were very plenty.  It was customary for the finder of a tree containing a swarm of bees to put his “mark” upon it, if he did not wish to cut it then.  At one time William and Jesse Bowyer had two hundred trees bearing their “mark.”  Every settler’s family table had honey upon it, clear and limpid, and nectar-like to the taste.   Honey and venison hams were often the commonest commodities of trade and barter, the former at twelve and a half cents per gallon, and the latter at twenty-five cents per pair.
     The settlers at first made their own clothing.   Every family had some sheep, which were preserved in spite of the wolves, and from these wool was obtained, which was “picked,” carded, spun, and woven, and cut and made into clothing by the “women folks,” without the aid of carding machines or factory looms.   Often and and often, “wool pickings” were held, on which occasions the matrons and the maidens of the settlements for miles away would assemble at the house from which invitations had issued, and attack a huge pile of sheared wool, and free it from burrs, small bits of wood, dirt, and other impurities.  And there would be a great time of swapping news while the work progressed, too; for in Locust Creek township, at that day, newspapers were few, scarce, and unenterprising, and the greater portion of the news of the county was conveyed to the people by word of mouth.  Flax was generally cultivated, too, and considerable quantities of linen were manufactured.  The thread was often mixed with woolen yarn, and woven into linseys, jeans, etc.  There was an old-fashioned hand loom in nearly every household, and every woman, as a rule, was a weaver, and did her own weaving.  There were ladies, however, who made a vocation of weaving, and chief among these was Mrs. Goodman, a sister of the Bowyers, who is still living.
     The social life of the early settlers was every whit as pleasant and agreeable as that of the people now-a-days, if not more so.   Every man realized that in a certain sense he was dependent, and must rely for assistance on his neighbors at certain times, and he always felt willing to do what he could for his fellow man, whether he was his brother, his neighbor, or a wayfaring

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man and a stranger within his gates.  When a house was to be raised it was understood that everybody that heard of it was invited, and expected to be present, if not unavoidably kept away.  Many a house has been raised in this township when there were present men from territory now in Sullivan county, fifteen miles away.  The first cabins were usually of small round logs, and could be put up by two or three men; but after a while, as people grew wealthy and high-toned (!) hewed log houses, a story and a half high, and sometimes double, came into vogue, and to put up one of these required the help of several men.
     There were house-raisings, and log-rollings, and corn-huskings in plenty; and while the men were at their work, often the women would have a quilting or a wool-picking in the house.  These occasions generally terminated with a dance at night, where the “old folks ” were not extra pious and did not hold dancing in abhorrence; and where it was that master and mistress “belonged to meeting,” and “did not believe in dancing,” there was a “play party” instead, with any amount of fun and lots of promiscuous hugging and kissing and jollity commingled.  Sometimes there was whisky - maybe often - but sobriety was the rule and drunkenness the exception.  Occasionally there was a fisticuff.  A ring was formed, the fighting was fair but spirited, the one that was whipped acknowledged it, both parties washed the blood from their noses, shook hands, and were as fast friends as before.
     As before stated, the first houses in the township were of round logs covered with clapboards, and very unpretentious affairs they were too; the cracks between the logs filled with chinking and daubing, the chimneys of mud and sticks, the roof kept on by “ weight-poles,” and the floor of split puncheons.  Then, after awhile, as the pioneer prospered, he built his pretentious hewed log house, with its shingled roof - not of pine shingles, but good solid oak shingles, rived and shaved in the woods, and lasting as slate almost; and the new house had a floor made of boards sawed either with a whip-saw or at some pioneer saw-mill; and the cracks between its logs were stopped with neatly cut chinks cemented with lime mortar and looking neat, and the whole structure standing ever so solid and comfortable, - and standing to-day, many of them.

ORGANIZATION OF THE TOWNSHIP.

     At the first session of the first County Court, in February, 1837, Linn county was divided into three townships, and Locust Creek was the name given to one of them.  Its boundaries are set out on another page of this volume.  The first election was at Thomas Barbee's store, and Thomas Russell and David Mullins were the first justices of the peace for the township.
     The township has been divided and subdived and its metes and bounds.

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changed so frequently, that it would be a task of considerable magnitude to hunt out and give all the changes in its boundaries, - so great, in fact, that the result would not compensate for the work.  Suffice it to say that from a township ten miles in width at the widest place, and running from the south boundary of the county to the Iowa line, it has shrunk to one very modest in size.  The present boundaries of the township are: Beginning at the southwest corner of section fourteen, township fifty-eight, range twenty-one, thence along the section line to the northwest corner of section fourteen, township fifty-nine, range twenty-one; thence east on the section line to he northeast corner of the northwest quarter of section sixteen, township fifty-nine, range twenty; thence south on the half-section line to the middle of the north line of section four, township fifty-eight, range twenty; thence east along the section line to the northeast corner of section five, township fifty-eight, range nineteen; thence south along the section line to the southeast corner of section seventeen, township fifty-eight, range nineteen; thence west along the section line to the place of beginning. (See map.)
     In 1845 the boundaries were: The south line was the same as at present; the west line was the middle of Locust Creek; the north line extended from Locust Creek due east to the southeast corner of section eight, township fifty-nine, range nineteen; the east line ran from the southeast corner of section eight, township fifty-nine, range nineteen, to the southeast corner of section seventeen, township fifty-eight, range nineteen, where the present southeast corner of the township is.

ORGANIZATION UNDER THE TOWNSHIP ORGANIZATION LAW.

     Under the State law of 1879, ratified or adopted by Linn county at the .November election, 1880, Locust Creek township was organized as a municipal township in the spring of 1881.  At the election held April 5, the following officers, the first under the township organization system, were chosen:
     Trustee and ex officio treasurer, G. K. Denbo.
     Collector, Beverly Neece.
     Justices of the peace, W. P. Menifee and T. T. Easley.
     Township clerk and ex officio assessor, S. D. Sandusky.
     Constable, T. T. Woodruff.
     The township clerk qualified April 6, and then notified the other officers that he had done so, and requested them to appear before him and take the oath of office, which, soon thereafter, they did.  The township was laid off into road districts at the first meeting, and road supervisors appointed.

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DURING THE CIVIL WAR.

     Locust Creek township took its full part in the civil war.  It furnished many brave soldiers for both armies.  Numerous organizations of Federal soldiers were perfected at Linneus, and the Confederate companies of Captain William Sandusky, and Thomas H. Flood contained men from the township.  In addition there were many men who took service on each side in foreign companies.
     At the breaking out of the war excitement ran high at Linneus.  Both parties held meetings in town.  Secession speeches were made by Hon. E. H. Richardson, then the member of the House of Representatives from this county; by Hon. Wesley Halliburton, and others.  The Union meetings had many local orators, the most prominent, perhaps, being Judge Jacob Smith.  On one occasion there came very near being a serious difficulty.  In the spring of 1861, Hon. E. H. Richardson, who was a tailor by occupation, had made a secession flag, which the secessionists proposed to raise in Linneus.  The flag was in Richardson’s shop, and was an object of much curiosity.  Many persons called to see it.  The Union men of the place declared that the flag should not be raised.  Judge Smith announced that he would shoot the man that attempted to raise it.  The secessionists persisted that it should go up, and matters for a time wore a serious aspect.  At last the secessionists were induced by certain peacemakers to forego their designs, and no blood was shed, and the affair passed off without disastrous results, winding up by many persons of different shades ol opinion calling and inspecting the flag and passing jocular remarks upon it.
     Shortly after the Federal troops occupied the line of the Hannibal & St. Joseph Railroad, a detachment of them came to Linneus one night and arrested L. W. Clark, a Mr. Grill, who was a merchant in the place, Judge Wesley Halliburton, Mr. Williams, editor of the Bulletin, and Williarn Sandusky.  Grill was charged with having on hand a large quantity ot musket caps to be furnished General Price’s State Guards; Sandusky, it was alleged, had a large supply of gunpowder hidden away intended for use against the Federal authority; Halliburton, Williams, and Clark were accused of being active secessionists, and were arrested on general principles.  The prisoners were taken first to St. Joseph, treated somewhat harshly, then conveyed to Quincy, Illinois, where they were eventually released by Colonel John M. Palmer, (afterward governor of Illinois,) nothing being proved against them.  Sandusky however, had several kegs of powder hidden away in the ceiling of the Odd Fellows’ Hall.
     Soon after the town was visited by a detachment of the Sixth Kansas - or "Kansas jay-hawkers.”  A great many horses were carried off, the chicken-roosts were quite vigorously attacked, and a few citizens in the country made prisoners, but no serious damage done.

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     At different periods during the war Federal troops were stationed at Linneus, but not regularly and continuously.  The companies were always home militia, except in the last days of the war when a company of the Seventeenth Illinois Cavalry, under Lieutenant Smith was quartered in the town.  No very pleasant reminiscences are held by the people of Linneus of this company.  The majority of its members were great thieves and pillagers.  They raided the smoke-houses, corn-cribs, and chicken-roosts of the citizens more frequently than the lairs and rendezvouses of the bushwhackers, against whose maraudings they were sent to protect the country.
     For some time the people of the town and township had no soldiers or militia furnished them to keep off bushwhackers and other marauders, and they were compelled to organize and protect themselves.  At one time some twenty-five or thirty men were under the pay of the citizens and stood picket on the roads leading into town and did other duty of a military character in defense of the place.  The company of “exempts,” composed of those not liable to military duty, and commanded by Judge Jacob Smith, had muskets furnished them by the State; but at last all arms were taken away from the citizens by some ill-advised military order, and the people were at the mercy of any prowling band of robbers and cut-throats.  Many of the citizens were detailed for and did duty in the construction of block-houses on the Hannibal & St. Joe, and performed other important services for the Federal cause.  Sometimes this duty was performed rather reluctantly, as the laborer was often a sympathizer with the Confederates.

GUERRILLA RAIDS AND RAIDERS.

     Bands of Confederate guerrillas or bushwhackers raided through Locust Creek township at different times during the civil war; but, as their numbers were always small, and their stay limited, no very considerable damage was done.  In August, 1862, a detachment of Col. J. A. Poindexter’s Confederate recruits passed through the southwest corner of the township, carrying oft a few horses, but doing no further damage.

FIRST BUSHWHACKER RAID ON LINNEUS.

     In April, 1863, a small force of bushwhackers, supposed to belong to Clifton Holtzclaw's band, entered Linneus, visiting the residence of Judge Smith, then in the southeaster part of town, where Mr. Purden now lives.  They made anxious inquiries for the Judge, but he was not at home.  A young man was encountered and robbed of a blue military blouse.  The militia were then in town, but quartered in the court-house, and before the alarm could be given the bushwhackers disappeared.

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SECOND RAID - ROBBERY OF PREWITT'S STORE.

     In November, 1863, four well-mounted horsemen, wearing Federal uniform with the exception of hats, rode into Linneus one evening about dusk.  They came in from the south, on the Laclede road. Riding straight to the store of Henry Prewitt, on the west side of the public square, three of them hitched their horses and entered, while the fourth man remained on the outside.  Mr. Prewitt had gone to his supper, leaving his clerks, John Hedrick and J. W. Colgan, in charge of the store.  After warming their hands at the stove a few minutes the three men suddenly covered Colgan and Hedrick with dragoon revolvers and ordered them to deliver up their arms.  One of the robbers stationed himself at the door; the other two robbed the cash drawer of eighty-six dollars and began to help themselves to such goods as they fancied.  The one on guard suffered all persons that passed by the door of the store to do so unmolested, but woe to the unsuspicious wight that entered!  He was ordered to march to the rear of the store and shell out with scarcely any ceremony.  In a few minutes some twelve or fifteen citizens had entered the trap and stood about the stove in the back part of the room, laughing at the consternation that fell upon every luckless victim that entered and found out what was the matter.
     Presently Mr. Prewitt, the proprietor of the store, returned from supper, bearing a cup of milk for the store cat.  He too was ordered to “march back there!”  Judge Jacob Smith entered, wearing a fine gold watch.  In a few seconds the watch had changed owners and the Judge was standing back among the other captives.  Grandison Payne came in.  “March back there!” Uncle Tommy Hayes had been to Brookfield and sold hogs to the amount of five hundred dollars, which sum he had in his pocket, when he was ordered to “march back there!”  In some way Mr. Hayes contrived to secrete his pocketbook between two bolts of domestic.
     In another room was a safe containing upwards of $1,000 in cash, but the bushwhackers were induced not to examine it by the assertions of Mr. Prewitt and Mr. Colgan that it was broken, not in use, and contained nothing of value.  They succeeded in getting about $500 in goods, watches, and money, and, walking backwards out of the store, with their pistols pointed at the captives, they bade the latter “good-bye,” and were soon galloping away unmolested in the direction of Laclede.
     The four desperate spirits who made the second raid on Linneus were supposed to be a portion of Holtzclaw’s band, although they represented themselves to some parties south of town as members of Colonel Hale’s regiment of Carroll county militia.  Had the citizens been allowed to bear arms they might have been captured or killed before leaving the place.

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JIM RIDER'S RAID - KILLING OF JUDGE SMITH AND MR. PENDLETON.

     In the winter of 1864-65 Jim Rider and his band of Confederate bushwackers, to the number of about fifteen, had an encampment on an island in the Missouri River, near the Carroll county side, not far above and on the opposite shore from the town of Waverly, Lafayette county.  The river was frozen over for a portion of the time, the weather being very cold, and Rider could easily reach either mainland when he wished.  From his retreat, which was a snug and secure one, the daring bushwhacker made frequent forays into the country on both sides of the river, in search of plunder more than for the purpose of shedding blood, and uniformly returned successful and in safety to his covert well hidden in the thick willows ofthe Missouri River island.
     On the night of the ninth of January, 1865, Rider at the head of about a dozen ot his band, made a raid upon Linneus.  It was about ten o’clock when the bushwhackers reached the town.  The moon was in the first quarter, and, save that it was occasionally obscured by flying clouds which scudded across it face at intervals, gave a fair light.  There was a light fall of snow upon the ground and objects could be seen with tolerable distinctness.  Rider and his men came into town from the west.  Stopping first at a place where whisky was sold they partook freely and then rode on the square.  Quite soon they had a bevy of prisoners, the most of whom they robbed.  They made earnest inquiries for Capt. T. E. Brawner, then of the militia, now the Democratic editor of the Bulletin.  Had they found him he would have been summarily put to death, for Rider bore him an old grudge.  Fortunately Brawner was in St. Louis.
     One of the bushwhackers was a young, man named John Lane, who had been born and reared in Linneus.  At the breaking out of the civil war he went south of the Missouri River, joined the State Guard, and fought at the battle of Wilson s Creek, or Oak Hill, where he was so severely wounded m the hand that he was discharged from the service, after which he returned home, took the oath of allegiance to the Gamble government, and lived quietly for some time.  Suddenly he disappeared and no one knew where he was until he made his appearance in Linneus with Rider’s bushwhackers, whose guide and pilot he doubtless was on this occasion.  Soon after entering the town, young Lane made his way to the premises of Judge Jacob Smith and appropriated a fine horse.
     Upon the appearance of the bushwhackers in the place the alarm was given, and there was great excitement and commotion.  Several shots were fired; some shouted “fire!” others cried “robbers!” and some made as little noise as possible.  The bushwhackers first made a descent upon the store of Messrs. Brownlee, Trumbo & Dillon.  They ascertained that Dr. Dillon had the key to the store sale, (in which was a considerable sum of

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money,) and sp some of them went to the Doctor’s residence after it.  The Doctor became suspicious and alarmed when his visitors knocked on the door, and slipped out the back way to avoid and escape them.  Just as he was climbing the fence at the rear of his premises the bushwhackers discovered him and tired upon him, one revolver ball striking him on the head, glancing off but knocking him down.  Presuming they had killed him, the bushwhackers returned to the square.
     Meantime Judge Jacob Smith, then judge of this circuit, had secured a musket belonging to a company of “exempts ” of the place, of which he was captain, and was on the lookout for the maurauders.  He was seated on a wood-pile in front of a house that stood about where the residence of Mr. Colgan now stands, near the northeast corner of the square, and a little west of the railroad track.  Along came John Lane, mounted on the Judge’s horse, and riding eastward.  Smith raised his musket, fired, and mortally wounded Lane, the charge of buckshot striking him in the leg, and severing or penetrating the femoral artery; one or two shot also struck the horse, and it galloped away.  Smith immediately started for the court-house where some of the arms belonging to the “exempts” were stored, shouting “come on, boys; rally at the court-house!”  As he reached the court-house fence the bushwhackers fired on him, shooting him through the bowels, and he fell.  He made his way, unassisted, to the residence of Dr. D. I. Stephenson, who lived in the western part of Linneus, and was afterward removed to his own house, on the east side of the square, now occupied by Major Mullins as a law office, and by S. D. Sandusky as his office, where he died on the eleventh, two days later.
     About the time Judge Smith was at Dr. Stephenson’s, Mr. William Pendleton, who lived in the northeast part of town, hearing the disturbance, siezed his gun and started for the public square.  As he reached a point opposite the M. E. church, two of Rider’s men met him and asked him where he was going.  Mr. Pendleton replied that hearing an uncommon noise in town he had come out to investigate.  He was taken toward the square and a few rods south of the church Rider and some others of his followers were met.  “Here ’s a man with a gun, who is out after us; what shall we do with him?” said Pendleton’s captors to their leader.  “Shoot him down!” replied Rider.  Pendleton started to run, but the bushwhackers put three balls into his body and he fell dead.
     By this time the town was pretty well alarmed.  John Lane was bleeding to death, there was no prospect of making a rich haul of plunder, and so Rider prepared to retreat.  Going to a livery stable the bushwhackers secured a horse and buggy, and into the latter placed Lane, whose life-blood was ebbing fast, and started out of town, going south.  At Ennis Reed’s, a mile and a half from town, they stopped and got some water.  At Mr. Cox’s, near the line of the Hannibal & St. Joe Railroad, they again stopped

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and by this time Lane was dead.  Carrying his body to the door, they said to Mr. Cox: “Here’s a dead bushwhacker.  We have been to Linneus and killed about a dozen men. You take this man’s body back there and have those fellows bury it decently, or we will come back and kill a dozen more!”  Then they passed on and away to their rendezvous, which was shortly afterward broken up by the Carroll county militia.
     The citizens did not pursue Rider.  Ammunition was scarce, and what arms there were in the place could not be considered effective.  The condition of Judge Smith and the dead body of Pendleton engaged the attention of nearly everybody in the town for a time.  Lane’s body was decently buried in the Linneus cemetery.  A company of the militia, the next day, made pursuit, but it was ineffectual.
     The bushwhackers carried away a few watches, (one gold,) some goods, a pistol or two, and a few dollars.  The loss by their raid in property was but trifling; but the loss of the lives of Judge Smith and Mr. Pendleton was irreparable.  Judge Smith was a valuable man to the county and country.  His death was greatly deplored throughout north central Missouri, and other parts of the State where he was well known.
     It is said that a few days before Rider’s raid, the town was visited and thoroughly invested by a well-dressed, handsome young lady, who was mounted on “a gallant steed” which she managed with great dexterity.  She visited among other places, Brownlee, Trumbo & Dillon’s store, and took in the situation very completely before leaving.  Wherefrom she came and whereto she went, no one in Linneus seemed to know; but it was charged that she was a spy for the bushwhackers.  The same lady was seen in different parts of the country at other times.
     Upon the disappearance of the bushwhackers a young man of Linneus, who had at different times enlisted in the Federal service and as often deserted, and who had been employed in a livery stable, also disappeared; and it was charged that he, also, was an agent of Rider’s raiders.  Not long after he was killed in Andrew county.

MISCELLANEOUS INCIDENTS.

     Farmers’ club - One of the first farmers’ clubs in the county was organized at the Woodview school-house, district number three, township fifty-nine, range twenty, in March, 1872.  It was called the Woodview Farmers’ Club, and resulted in much benefit to its members.  Samuel Thorn was the first president, and H. A. Trowbridge was secretary.
     Saw-mill explosion - On the twenty-seventh of November, 1873, the boiler of Peery & Talley’s saw-mill, three miles northwest of Linneus, exploded with fearful force, fatally injuring W. L. Kemper, and badly scalding George Shelton.  Kemper was blown thirty feet into the air; he died two days later after suffering greatly.  The mill was torn to pieces.

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     Wind storm - A heavy wind storm passed over the township on the first of August, 1874.  The house of Mrs. Cassity, a two-story brick building, two miles north of Linneus, was blown down.  None of the inmates were injured.
     The first reaper - The first reaping and mowing machine in Linn county was brought in by Col. A. W. Flournoy, in 185_, some years before the war.  It was the old “McCormick,” made under the first patent; it was painted blue, and was an enormous machine, which required six horses to draw it.  When it was first set to work in the Colonel’s field men came from far and near to see it operate.  It excited a great deal of comment.  Some of the spectators admired it, but the majority shook their heads disapprovingly and went back to their cradles and sickles, contented to “let well enough alone.”
     Fat cattle - In the spring of 1881 Mr. S. P. Bowyer sold to Joe Crain, a Brookfield stock-dealer, thirteen head of two-year-old steers whose average weight was 1,312 pounds.  Two steers were shipped from Linneus in the winter of 1878, one of which weighed 1,680, and the other 1,578 pounds.  They were three-year-old.
     Protesting against the railroad tax - On the first of February, 1878, a meeting of the taxpayers of Locust Creek township was held in the courthouse at Linneus to take action in resisting the payment of the railroad tax.  Mr. Silas Hale was chairman of the meeting.  Resolutions were unanimously adopted that the election in Locust Creek township “held for the purpose of voting a tax on less than four-fifths of the taxpayers (the one-fifth being exempt under the law by paid up stock previously subscribed to the railroad) was fraudulently conducted throughout,” and not carried in any sense by the legally qualified voters of the township; for the reason, as the resolutions stated, that “ the judges of the election carried two ballot-boxes, letting all illegal voters vote for the tax and depositing their ballots in the ballot-box, and causing those who voted against the tax to deposit their ballots in another box.”  Those composing the meeting pledged themselves, by resolution, not to pay the tax unless it should be compromised; and if their property should be exposed to sale in default of the payment of the tax, they would not bid themselves, or suffer others to, upon the property so exposed.
     A piece of patchwork - In the spring of 1879 Miss Cora Murrain, the twelve-year-old daughter of William Murrain, living east of Linneus, finished a quilt, the work of her own hands, which was composed of 8,000 pieces of material.  The young miss began her work when she was ten years of age.
     Suicide of Mrs. Ashbrook - On the twenty-eighth of October, 1879, the wife of Thomas Ashbrook committed suicide at her residence east of Linneus.  The lady had been in bad health for some time, and to such an extent that her mind had become affected.  She hung herself with a bridle-rein.

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THE NICHOLS TRAGEDY.

     On the morning of Feb. 10, 1867, Sid Nichols, a man some fifty years of age, with a good character for honesty, etc., living on a farm in the township, committed one of those horrible deeds of murder and self-destruction that sends a thrill of horror through the community in which it occurs.  Mr. Nichols was in good circumstances, sober and industrious, but with an ungovernable temper which made him feared by all who came in contact with him when in these fits of rage.  He had been married three times and it was this third wife and two sons living at home that he wreaked the horrors of his insane rage upon.
     On the date in question he rose in the morning and began quarreling with his wife.  Her children were awakened by the disturbance.  Mrs. Nichols had considerable spirit and would return word for word when assailed.  Presently Nichols shot the woman with a revolver, inflicting a terrible, but not a mortal, wound.  Mrs. Nichols’s two boys by a former marriage were present and started to run.  Nichols fired at and killed one of them, a lad aged ten; the other, about twelve years of age, continued to run and Nichols brought him down by a shot in the back, which was taken out in front, the ball being extracted by Dr. D. I. Stephenson, of Linneus, the next day, from near the sternum or breast bone.
     After shooting the boys Nichols caught his wife by the hair, dragged her into the yard, then, in the hearing of the wounded boy, he exclaimed, “you have been the cause of all this,” and fired again, killing her instantly.  Then he put the pistol to his own head, fired, and fell dead himself.  All four of the bodies were found in the same door-yard not twenty feet apart.  The wounded boy lived a year or more, and from him the particulars of the dreadful tragedy were learned.

DEATHS OF OLD CITIZENS.

     Mrs. Elizabeth Bowyer, relict of Jesse Bowyer, one of the very first settlers in Linn county, died Mar. 6,1879, aged seventy-five years.  Mrs. Bowyer was married in Howard county and came with her husband to this county in 1832.
     John Tyer, one of the pioneers of the township and county, who came to the county with the Bowyers, died in March, 1880, aged seventy-four.
     Reuben Couch died Jan. 9, 1881, aged seventy-six years.  Mr. Couch was born in South Carolina.  He came to Linn county in 1840, and built the house in which he died.

LIBERTY CHURCH - OLD SCHOOL BAPTIST.

     This church is one of the pioneer churches in Linn county.  It was first organized at the residence of Anthony Hine, in July, 1843, by Rev. George Baker.  Among the original members were John Reed, Reuben Couch, An-

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GEO. W. STEPHENS

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thony and Anna Hines, Susan Hines, Abijah Woods.  There were about twenty members in all.  The first church building was a log house, put up on Anthony Hines’s farm, not long after the church was first constituted.  This building was never completed.  Services were held in it during the summer for a time.  Afterward the congregation met in school-houses.  The present house of worship was built in the spring of 1875.  It stands on the northeast quarter of the northwest quarter of section ten, township fifty-eight, range twenty.  It is a frame, 40x30 feet in size, and cost about $1,000.  The first pastor of the congregation was George Baker.  Among those who succeeded him were Revs. Willoughby, William Elston, Martin Doty, and Wilson Thompson.  The latter gentlemen ministered for about fifteen years after the close of the war.  Rev. Walter Cash is the present pastor.  The church has maintained its organization since the beginning, but during the civil war services were suspended.  It is still prospering fairly.  It has no debt and its present membership is thirty-seven.  Connected with the church house is a cemetery, the two occupying a lot of two acres of land, generously deeded to the organization by J. P. Moore, Esq.

NEW GARDEN BAPTIST CHURCH.

     This church, one of the oldest in the county, was first organized in 1852, and its early or original members were the pioneers of the county, men and women of noble mind and energetic action, who settled the wilderness and wrought civilization and Christianity out of the hunting-grounds of the red man.  These pioneers came from Howard, Boone, and Chariton counties and located in what became known as the Morris and Ridgeway settlements and in the country round about, and its first meetings were held near the present site of St. Catharine.  The Rev. Thomas Allen took the lead in its organization and became its first pastor, as it was the first church organized in Yellow Creek township.  This position he held until the Rebellion, when a different feeling of a portion of the members and the different opinions existing causing some bitterness, he resigned his charge and removed to Texas.  The church met, as all of the pioneer churches of that day met, in the “old log” school-house.  This school-house was situated about midway between the present location of the towns of Brookfield and St. Catharine.  This continued until early in 1858, when the members commenced the erection of a large frame church building.  Want of funds and the civil war coming on the building was never finished, but was used for church purposes in its uncompleted condition until the year 1875.
     In the above year the church decided to erect a new place of worship and the point settled on was its present location in the Ridgeway neighborhood where they erected one of the handsomest country churches found in north Missouri, neatly and even elegantly furnished in all its appointments. The present membership now numbers 200.  The Rev. Alton F. Martin suc-

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ceeded after the resignation of Rev. Thomas Allen and he was succeeded by the present pastor, the Rev. G. C. Sparrow, of Macon City, in 1867, who for the past fifteen years has ministered to the wants of the church, and performed his sacred duties to the satisfaction of his large congregation.  On the completion of the church in 1876 it was dedicated by the Rev. Alton F. Martin, and among the pleasing incidents was the announcement that this church that day dedicated to the service of the Almighty God, was free from debt, its cost, something over $2,000, being fully paid.  It is one ofthe most beautifully located churches in the county.  Standing upon a handsome elevation of land lying upon a ridge, it commands a beautiful view of the surrounding country, while the members of the church have embowered it in an artificial grove of maples and evergreens, a shady retreat, a cozy picture suggestive of quiet, peaceful, and reverent worship.

END OF CHAPTER XVII - Locust Creek Township.

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