sequence up to the year 1818. But the mad whirlpools and the insidious eddies of the Missouri river tore asunder its foundations, and the inhabitants, bearing away the wreck of their domiciles, fled to the neighbouring hills, where they rebuilt New Franklin. Here health and rural enjoyment are in store for the diligent and frugal denizens of an unobtrusive corporate town, situate two miles from the river, on high ground, to which a railway will be constructed.

That part of the county of Howard commonly termed the hurricane-hills is rich and picturesque; and the track of the tempest and the whirlwind, marked by the bare and branchless trunks. of scathed oaks, lends a thrilling interest to the scenery; while harvest-fields and young forests are tastefully interspersed over the undulating surface of the township.

The county of Howard was a timbered tract of country, with only four exceptions; Spanish Needle and Foster's prairies, and two bottom prairies, Cooper's and the Weedy prairie. All other prairies in Howard are artificial, made by the manly exertions of its inhabitants, in active appliance of the celebrated KNOUS axes, manufactured at Franklin by the old gentleman and his sons, who work the cast-steel with great mechanical skill, in the forging and finish of all edge-tools, from a razor up to a broadахе. The early settlement of this portion of Missouri was attended with great hazard, and effected by individual exertion, or that of small associations in conflict with the untamed and untameable inhabitants of the forest. The old pre-emptioners were driven to the necessity of constructing stockade forts, to which they fled in cases of extreme emergency. Fort Hempstead, Cooper's fort, and Kincaid's fort were among the principal strongholds of Booneslick. The "old residenters" point out the sites of these stockades with evident pride and gratification. They deem them, and very justly, the monuments of devotion to their country and their rights, and the achievements of these early settlers furnish examples for the young men of the present time to imitate, when similar dangers threaten the country which their fathers conquered. The particulars of these wars, as furnished

by James Allcorn, Esq., who settled here in the year 1810, are as follows:

The first settlers of the Booneslick country emigrated thither in the year 1810. This colony consisted of about 150 families. The governor of the territory considered them beyond the jurisdiction of his government, and they were consequently thrown upon their own resources. During a period of about four years, the only control exercised over them, civil or military, was patriarchal. No punishments were inflicted, for the perfect purity and innocence of their lives called for none. They were not afflicted with judges, sheriffs, or lawyers, and Judge Lynch himself was unknown to them in history or tradition. Contracts were made, and the conditions fulfilled, without the coercion of laws or the agency of ministerial officers. The force of public sentiment, and the good disposition of the inhabitants of Booneslick, regulated society.

Marriages were celebrated in the primitive fashion. The parties paired off, and

"They, hand in hand,

Through Eaen took their solitary way."

There was no necessity for medical advice, for disease had not followed in the train of these frugal and temperate people. Festus said to Paul, "Much learning doth make thee mad." With the same regard to truth it might be said of the present generation, Much government doth make thee wicked. As early as the second year of the war between the United States and Great Britain, the Sacs and Foxes, Miamies, Potawatamies, Iowas, and Kickapoos, began on this isolated settlement a warfare of the guerrilla or exterminating character. For two years these gallant people, unaided by any government, unsupported, and surrounded by these numerous and warlike tribes, sustained the conflict, and defended their firesides and families with Spartan fortitude.

To guard against surprise, they erected five stockade forts: Cooper's fort, in the bottom prairie, near Booneslick salt-works; Kincaid's fort, a mile above the site where old Franklin was

afterward built; fort Hempstead, one mile north of Franklin; Cole's fort, two miles below Booneville, and Head's fort, near the present crossing of the St. Charles road, on the Moniteau. The garrison and inhabitants were withdrawn from Cole's fort as dangers thickened, so that their force should not be divided by the river. Col. Benjamin Cooper was made chief, or commandant, by common consent of the several volunteer bands, or rather the levee en masse; for every male inhabitant of this community who was capable of bearing arms enrolled himself, and his own sense of duty held him in readiness for field or garrison service, to fight or plough, as the common safety or interest required. There were other military leaders who consented to hold more subordinate stations, and were charged with the command of the several stockades; and who were leaders of detachments against the Indians, in offensive as well as defensive operations. It was not the practice of these citizen soldiers to confine themselves to their forts; for it was necessary for them to hunt, in order to procure animal food, and to plough their fields to secure bread-stuffs. Much of their stock was swept off in the early incursions of the enemy; and the terms "bear-bacon” and “hogmeat" were inserted in the provision-contracts made at the period to which we refer.

The fields situated nearest to the several stockades, in which the farming labours could be performed with comparative security, were not sufficiently extensive for their supplies; and it was therefore requisite to detail ploughmen and sentinels, who sometimes united in the same person both vocations. It could scarcely be expected that the same piece of metal on these occasions could figure as sword and ploughshare both; but it was literally the custom for a ploughman to sling his rifle at his back, and in this belligerant attitude tread stealthily along in his furAs he approached the termination of his corn-rows, where the adjoining woodland afforded cover for his treacherous foe, his anxiety may be more readily imagined than described; and when he had wheeled about securely, and was retiring from the dangerous border, his hazard and his anxiety diminished as he receded. The more secure mode of cultivation, and which was

row.

frequently resorted to, was to place sentinels on the borders of the field, and these would alternately exchange guard-duty with the ploughmen. When detachments were in the corn-field, and the enemy threatened the fort, the sound of a horn or a volley of small arms was understood as the signal of recall. When, in observance of such an alarm-signal, a detachment was observed retiring from their daily toil, the mingled mass of horse and foot, plough and chains, rifles and shot-pouches, presented to the observer at the gate of the stockade an unique and singularly imposing column. On one occasion like this, in the season of cornharvest, the husbandmen were hotly pressed; and one of the party, a slave of the commandant, who was charged with a team, in wild affright, put his animals to chariot-race speed, and was pushed to the very threshold of the stockade, where he saved his scalp by accurate as well as energetic driving. To use his own words, "De way I done miss dem gate-poss was no red man's business ;-I never drive trew, darefore, arter dis time, without hit one side, sometimes boss on 'em; den we wheel round and fire two or three pantaloons at 'em.”

The commanders of forts, and the partisan leaders for field and detached service, were Captains Stephen Cole, William Head, and Sarshall Cooper. The latter of these, a gallant and worthy man, came to a tragic end while sitting by his own hearth in Cooper's fort. It was on a dark and gusty night, when the vigilant sentinel was unable to penetrate the haze that enveloped the stockade, that a single warrior crept to the wall of Captain Cooper's quarters, that formed one curtain of the fort, and, through an opening barely sufficient to admit his firelock, discharged it with fatal effect. The assassin escaped. The prowess of the deceased was much dreaded; and he had previously run up a long account with the red-skins, which one life as valuable as his could scarcely balance. He is lamented to this day by a numerous list of relatives and friends, who speak of him in tones and accents of the deepest interest. Captain Cole lived through the war, and had the gratification of observing the budding greatness of the Booneslick country. But his love of wild adventure led him to court the early hazards of the New Mexican trade :

and in pursuing this he fell by the hand of the red-skin of the plains. Captain Head lived until he saw peace and plenty around him, and died leaving his progeny in the enjoyment of the fruits of his hazards and toil. Col. Cooper, with the respect and good-will of all around him, still lingers in the land he laboured successfully to defend, where a long list of kindred forms a very valuable portion of the citizens of Howard. In pursuance of their system of defence, in combination with their plan, the settlers fell back upon their own resources on all occasions, as a matter of choice as well as necessity. They manufactured their own salt, their saltpetre, and their powder; killed their own game, dressed the skins, and wore their own moccasins. In their manufacturing operations at Burckhardt's lick, several attacks were sustained. In one of these a negro was slain; and on another occasion, James Allcorn, Esq., Frank Wood (who was then suffering with a wound received from the Indians), and two wood-choppers, defended the works against the enemy. In another attack that the Indians made on the saltmakers at this lick, Mr. Austin, in reining up his horse, brought the head of the animal so as to cover his own person; his horse received the shot and fell. While the rider was disengaging himself from the dead animal, one of his comrades, Mr. Hoff, fired on the advancing warriors, and slew two at a single shot. This achievement turned the tide of conflict in favour of the whites, and they were victorious. The impression made by such skilful or fortunate shots, on such an enemy, is often deep and powerful. A French gentleman once marched as a volunteer with a party of rangers against the Indians. He was armed with a double-barrelled gun and a belt-pistol. In the midst of a battle, which was sharply contested, in open order, amid foresttrees and copsewood, four warriors rushed on the volunteer. He felled one at each discharge of his double-barrelled gun, and with his belt-pistol shot the third as he was lifting his war-club. The fourth, struck with amazement by his prowess, raised the yell for retreat. In justification of this movement, the warrior, în council, afterward asserted, in the most solemn manner, that his antagonist was one of the Great Spirit's own warriors; and it