Crowley's Ridge Is An Important Landform in Missouri

Original 1861 Stars and Stripes Newspaper

The Stars and Stripes Museum and Library

Let us transition from the swamps to Crowley's Ridge.  Moving in time from the early 1800s to the Civil War between 1861 and 1865.   Crowley's Ridge is a major regional landform of hills in Southeast Missouri and Northeast Arkansas, made of loess mantle and underlain by loamy, sandy, or gravelly deposits.[1] This Ridge extends from Cape Girardeau, Missouri in a wide arc of over 150 miles down to Helena, Arkansas. The sloping 200 to 500-foot elevation contrasts sharply with the surrounding delta bottomland.  Early settlers were attracted to Crowley's Ridge as it offered pasture lands well above the adjacent swamps.  About ten years after the New Madrid Earthquake, the government built a road on the ridge, because it was impossible to travel through the thick timber and marshy swamps.  

Few people today realize that of the 10,000 battles and scrimmages fought in the American Civil War, over 2,000 of those were fought in Missouri.  There is an invisible line in Scott County that separates not only the lay of the land, but also the thinking of the people who live there.  You experience a rather steep drop in the elevation at the end of the Benton Hills.  That is where the land flattens.  The land remains flat until you reach Memphis.  Where the land flattens, is the Mason-Dixon Line.   As a child, my father took me up to a point around Morley, where he showed me a metal stake with words on its side buried in the ground.  He announced, "This, Margaret, is the Mason-Dixon Line.  It divides people far more than it divides the land."  His statement meant little to me at the time; however, I now understand his statement completely. 

 In 1861, the state legislature passed an act authorizing the Missouri State Guards. The statue divided the state into military districts; Southeast Missouri was District One with N. W. Watkins of Cape Girardeau appointed by the Governor as Brigadier General to command the district.  Finding the work distasteful after his  Jackson home was pillaged and burned, by Col. Charles T. Marsh and his troops on Aug. 30, 1861. Watkins resigned shortly after than and moved to his Beechwood Plantation in Scott County.  He was replaced by M. Jeff Thompson who temporarily made his headquarters at Bloomfield.

Northern sympathizers who didn’t join the Union Army joined the “Home Guard.”   Between the Home Guard and the “Confederate State Guard,” there was constant hostility and warfare throughout the state.  The Bootheel was strongly pro-Southern, therefore, hostility was especially strong in Southeast Missouri.  I have a personal account of individuals who wrote their experiences in journals, similar to those written about the New Madrid Earthquake.  Sometime in the future, I will tell their stories.

The once pro-southern town of Bloomfield is the county seat of Stoddard County.  It is located on Crowley's Ridge, where it offers an excellent vantage point in all directions.  Both the Union and Confederate forces traveled through the town on their way to various battles.  From time to time, there was fighting between the two armies.  The town is famous for one particular event.  Three Illinois Union units camped in Bloomfield on November 9, 1861.  A few of the soldier went for a walk in the town and came to the local newspaper office.  The office was unattended so they decided to publish their own newspaper.  They wrote on their military activities and sent it back home to their family.  They named the paper The Stars and Stripes newspaper.  Although it is not directly associated with the current United States’ military newspaper, the title "The Stars and Stripes" came from that first newspaper published in Bloomfield.  Today, Bloomfield proudly houses the Stars and Stripes Museum and Library. [1]  One of the three original 1861 issues of that first paper is on display in the museum.

 My friend Doris Jean Arnold of Cape Girardeau, formerly of Dexter, sent me an article published in The Dexter Statesman.[2]  The story was based on her cousin Kathy Mooney Skelton’s presentation on the History of Evan’s Pottery to the Stoddard County Historical Society in 2014.   Missouri's first known pottery business started in Stoddard County by the Jacob Semmimon family between 1850 and 1858.  Jacob was a potter in Georgia who sent his son Thomas from there to Arkansas in search of clay soil suitable for the potter's trade.  On the advice of friendly Indians, Thomas Semmimon continued to the Bloomfield area.  He was joined later by his then-widowed mother and other family members, and they established themselves as “Jug Makers.”  They blasted clay soil out of the ground, then hit with a hammer until pieces were small enough to be ground up.  The pottery method and items produced were primitive and utilitarian.  Finished pottery included fruit jars, kraut crocks, milk pitchers, and whiskey jugs. The business was expanded by loading oxen-drawn wagons with pottery and peddling them along the Bloomfield to Cape Road. Upon arriving in Cape Girardeau, the family set up shop at a livery stable.  After they sold their pottery, the family then bought goods coming into Cape on steamboats.  They resold the goods on their return trip back to Bloomfield.

In 1882, Hugh Evans was working for Jacob Semmimon and married his daughter Lucinda.  Following the death of Thomas Semmimon, Evans took over the operation of the business.  Evans' son Randall also learned the potter's trade and continued the business under the name of Evans Pottery.  Evans Pottery ended production in the 1960's, and the last building was demolished for the widening of Highway 25 between Bloomfield and Dexter.  Family members in Nevada have remained interested in pottery, and Charles Randall Evans Jr. works part-time creating pieces in the Desert Sands style pottery.  Doris Jean Arnold, Charles Randall Evans, and Kathy Money Skelton are descendants of Hugh Evans.  The following is a summary of Ms. Skelton’s presentation on the history of Evan's History.

Although Bloomfield was burned three times during the Civil War, the pottery business was always spared, possibly because none of those involved wanted to see a shortage of whiskey jugs!

 There are many stories I could tell about the people and events in Bloomfield.  I will write about the Confederate Cemetery there next week.  I hope to have answers to requests about the Miller House in Bloomfield.  If I receive an answer to my query, I will tell the story of the Miller House next week.  If not, we will look at more of my family history.  Look for a combination of my family history and general history of the Southeast Missouri region in the future.  Thank you for joining me on this Blog.

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 [1] https://mdc.mo.gov/resource/current-river-geology-and-geomorphology
                [2] The Dexter Statesman, Dexter, Missouri, August 6, 2014, By Karen Peters

1811-1812 New Madrid Earthquake Formed Reelfoot Lake

According to the United States Geological Survey, Reelfoot Lake was formed when the region subsided during the 1811–1812 New Madrid earthquakes.[1] The earthquakes resulted in several significant changes in the landforms over a widespread area, with shocks being felt as far away as Quebec, Canada.  When I read this on the USGS website, I thought about how much damage such a quake would do today, and how many people it would kill.  Reelfoot Lake is a shallow natural lake located in the Northwest portion of the state of Tennessee, in Lake and Obion counties. Much of it is really more of a swamp, with bayou-like ditches (some natural, some man-made). The bayous connect to more open bodies of water called basins, the largest of which is called Blue Basin. Reelfoot Lake is noted for its bald cypress trees and its nesting pairs of bald eagles.  Few people today know how Reelfoot Lake came to be. Thus, I am writing about it to educate readers on the New Madrid region.  It is essential to understand our history, which is usually interesting, and at times, it is awe-inspiring.

Reelfoot Lake is said to be named after an Indian chief who had a deformed foot and was nicknamed "Reelfoot" by settlers in the early 19th Century. A Chickasaw legend states that the name originated from a prince of a Chickasaw tribe inhabiting West Tennessee, who was born with a deformed foot and walked with a rolling motion. So, he was nicknamed Kolpin, meaning Reelfoot. When he became chief, Reelfoot determined to marry a Choctaw princess, but her father would not permit it. The Great Spirit warned Reelfoot that if he attempted to kidnap the maiden, his village and his people would be destroyed. Reelfoot disobeyed the Spirit, and seized the princess by force and carried her to Chickasaw territory, where he arranged a marriage ceremony.

In the middle of the ceremony, the Great Spirit stamped his foot in anger, causing the earth to quake, and the Father of the Waters raised the Mississippi River over its banks, inundating Reelfoot's homeland. The water flowed into the imprint left by the Spirit's foot, forming a beautiful lake beneath which Reelfoot, his bride, and his people lie buried.[2]   This is just Folk-Lore, but it is a quaint way of explaining something supernatural that we are unable to explain otherwise.

Last week, I included a short excerpt from the journal of Mr. Godfrey Lesieur, an eye-witness to the devastation from the earthquake.  This Blog gives another eye-witness account of the earthquake.   Eliza Bryan wrote to Rev. Lorenzo Dow, on March 16, 1816, the following:[3]

“Dear Sir, On the 16^th of December 1811, at about 2 o’clock A.M., we were visited by a violent shock of an earthquake, accompanied by a very awful noise, resembling loud but distant thunder, but more hoarse, and vibrating, which was followed by a few minutes by the complete saturation of the atmosphere with sulfurous vapor, causing total darkness.  The screams of the affrighted inhabitants running to and fro, not knowing where to go or what to do, the cries of the fowls and the beasts of every species, the cracking of trees falling, and the roaring of the Mississippi, the current of which was retrograde for a few minutes, owing, as is supposed, to an eruption in its bed, formed a scene truly terrible.  From that time until about sunrise, a number of lighter shocks occurred, at which time one more violent than the first took place, with the same accompaniments, and the terror which had been excited in everyone, and indeed in all animal nature, was now, if possible, doubted.  The inhabitants fled in every direction to the country, supposing (if it can be admitted that their minds were exercised at all) that there was less danger from a distance than near the river.  In one person, a female [Mrs. Lafont], the alarm was so great that she fainted, and could not be revived."

Eliza Bryan wrote much more on the earthquake, but it will have to be presented in segments over several weeks.  You learned today that the Reelfoot Lake was formed directly from the result of the Great New Madrid Earthquake.   Next week we will transition from the swamps to Crowley's Ridge.   This Ridge extends from Cape Girardeau, Missouri, in a wide arc of over 150 miles down to Helena, Arkansas. The sloping 200 to 500-foot elevation contrasts sharply with the surrounding delta bottomland.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

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[1] Historic Earthquakes: New Madrid Earthquakes 1811–1812: Earthquake Summary. USGS

[2]  Wilbur A. Nelson: "Reelfoot — an Earthquake Lake" In National Geographic Magazine, Vol. XLV, January 1962, p. 103.

[3] Goodspeed's History of Southeast Missouri, 1888, page 304.

The Great New Madrid Earthquake!

Growing up in Sikeston, Missouri, I wondered why they called the Bootheel of Missouri "Swampeast Missouri."  I never saw any swamp.  The land was flat and dry, with some of the most productive farmland in the world.  My mother said the area was "boringly flat" from Benton Hill in Scott County to Pemiscot County, Missouri, and south to Memphis. The only exception to the flatness was Crowley's Ridge.  They grow mostly cotton, soybeans, and corn in the Bootheel.  The area is southern in its thinking, talking, and living.  It is hot and humid in the summer, and moderately cold in the winter.  Several friends who graduated from high school with me went to Ole Miss or Arkansas State University.  Most others attended Southeast Missouri State University in Cape Girardeau, thirty-two miles away.  It was not evident to me when I was growing up that the area was as southern as Mississippi.

I was blessed to have a good teacher in History at my high school.  For that reason, I find history fascinating.  It was not until I attended college for the second time that I became interested in my regional history.  I learned the reason why they called the Bootheel "Swampeast Missouri."  Hundreds of books are written on the subject of the great 1811-1812 New Madrid Earthquake, but  I was forty years old before I ever read one.  Some of the pioneers in the New Madrid area kept journals describing what it was like to endure the great quake.  In Goodspeed's 1888 History of Southeast Missouri, I found the following account of the great earthquake.

     "New Madrid, rendered famous by the great earthquake of 1811-1812, was, initially, one of the old Spanish forts, and lies about twenty miles below the mouth of the Ohio River.  It was settled immediately after the close of the Revolutionary War by families from Virginia and the Carolinas. It was growing rapidly in wealth and population when its progress was arrested by that frightful calamity which affected not only the county of New Madrid but also the neighboring country on both sides of the Mississippi (River).  Streams were turned from their channels or dried up.  Hills, forests, and plains disappeared, and lakes were formed in their places. Vast heaps of sand were scattered in various locations, and whole tracts of land sank below the level of the surrounding country."  One lake formed was sixty or seventy miles long and from three to twenty in breadth. Short extracts from the description of Mr. Godfrey Lesieur, who was an eye-witness  of the scene, and wrote his experience in a journal, is quoted below:

     "The first shock was about 2 o'clock A.M., on the night of December 16, 1811, and was very hard, shaking down log houses, chimneys, etc.  It was followed at intervals, from half an hour to an hour apart.  The shocks were comparatively slight until about 7 o'clock in the morning, when a rumbling noise was heard in the west, not unlike distant thunder.  In an instant, the earth began to totter and shake so that no persons were able to stand or walk.  This lasted a minute; then the land was observed to be rolling in waves of a few feet in height, with a visible depression between.  These swells burst, throwing up large volumes of water, and a species of charcoal, some of which was partly covered with a substance, which, by its peculiar odor, was thought to be sulfur.  Where these swells burst, large, wide and long fissures were left, running north and south parallel to each other for miles.  I have seen some four or five miles in length, four and one-half feet deep on an average, and about ten feet wide.  After this, slight shocks were felt at intervals, until January 7, 1812, when the region was again visited by an earthquake equal to the first in violence, and characterized by the same frightful results."

Mr. Lesieur wrote that, upon this second visitation, the inhabitants, excepting two families, fled the country in dismay, leaving behind their stock, and even many of their household goods, all of which were appropriated by adventurers and carried away in flatboats.  The last violent shock occurred on the 17th of February, 1812.

It Takes A While to Appreciate Our Own History and now I know why they called the Bootheel "Swampeast Missouri."  The earthquake caused a two-million-acre region of swamps that was also called the “Missouri Glades.”   The result of the New Madrid Earthquake produced the largest wetland in America between 1812 and 1928. Between 1907 and 1928,  the Little River Drainage District drained the swamps to make the Bootheel some of the most productive farmland in the world.  

Next Tuesday, I will discuss the swamps and why today's land is flat and dry. It is a fascinating adventure you will want to read.

Your Feedback Requested

I would like to thank those who continued the saga of Anna Eliza Blount through the entire six blogs.  After seeing the number drop significantly from the first to the second, then to a lesser degree from the second to the third blog, I reorganized the story and added more recollections from my father and cousin Sam Goolsby.  One benefit to blogging your family history is it helps you learn what others want to know about their families.

I would appreciate hearing from those that dropped out after reading the first blog.  What turned you off?  How could I have better presented the facts to have kept your attention?  The only way a writer can improve is gain feedback from readers.  Your time is valuable to both of us and I would appreciate your sharing your thoughts with me.  God bless you!

Margaret Cline Harmon  

Part 6 and Final Segment of Anna Eliza Blount

Part 6 of 6

Anna Eliza Blount Kline and Her Swamp Land Grant

I hope you have enjoyed learning about my great-grandmother Anna Eliza Kline.  She was an educated pioneer lady who enjoyed life to the best of her ability in the swamps of Southeast Missouri. 

In 1907, a group of men formed an organization called the Little River Drainage District to take on the swamp. They issued bonds and taxed landowners in the district for the benefits derived. From topographical maps, they knew that the elevation of the land falls one foot per mile from Cape Girardeau to the Arkansas border. They devised a system of levees and ditches that relied heavily on gravity.

By 1928, the district had built nearly 1,000 miles of ditches, more than 300 miles of levees and had drained 1.2 million acres of land in a drainage project that at the time was the largest in the history of the world. The district drains 750,000 acres upland of the drainage system and 1.2 million acres total.  Houseboats were home to many of the men and women who dug canals and built the levees.  My Dad remembered some of the children who lived on the houseboats parked not far from his house.   Land, once 95 percent covered in water and trees, is now largely cleared and free of water most of the year.  Draining the earthquake swamp became one of the greatest engineering marvels of the 20th century.  The project moved more earth than was moved in digging the Panama Canal. [1]

Sadly, Anna Eliza Blount Kline never got to enjoy the fruits of her portion of tax money spent on draining the swamps.  The money she invested in the Stock Market provided generous dividends for many years until the 1929 Stock Market Crash.  With the onset of the Great Depression and the loss of her money in the market, she was forced to use what funds she had on hand to support the family and see her last two grandsons through high school.  My father was very disappointed he was unable to go college as did his three older siblings.  He wanted to obtain a degree in the field of mathematics.  

  

In the end, the combination of Anna losing her money in the crash of the Stock Market, coupled with the fact previous customers could no longer afford to purchase dairy products from the family dairy farm, and Henry Cline’s siblings coming to visit, while expecting to be fed for weeks and months at a time, made Anna flat broke within three years.  My dad told my brothers and me that he recalled his father’s brothers and sisters coming to visit for extended stays because his family had a large garden, fruit trees, and dairy cows to feed them.  Some of his father’s siblings could not find work and had no food.  During the Great Depression, many people had no food and had to wait in bread lines to keep from starving.  Henry took care of his brother Bedford when he became elderly and had no means of support, in addition to raising his half-brother Sam.

Anna first sold off portions of her Swamp Land Patent, then by late 1932, she lost the land in total.  She and her son-in-law Henry had to move in with his son, and her grandson Ed Cline in McMullin, Missouri.  She took pride in the fact she saw all her grandchildren finish high school and three of the older grandchildren went to college.  People who knew her well said that even after she lost her money and property, she held her head high and entered a room like she owned it up until her death on 29 June 1934.  She was quite a lady, and I wish I could have met her.

Researched and written by Anna Eliza’s great-granddaughter, Margaret Cline Harmon.  Contact – mcharmon1@gmail.com, 225-788-5999.  Any reproduction of this article should give credit to the author, dated February 2017.

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1  The Little River Drainage District – Sam Blackwell article in the Sunday, November 4, 2007, Southeast Missourian, Cape Girardeau, Missouri.

Part 5 of the Saga of Anna Eliza Blount Kline

Part 5 of 6

Anna Eliza Blount Kline

And Her Swamp Land Patent

The relationship between Anna Eliza and Henry Cline was a complicated one.  First, they were first cousins.  His mother was Sophronia Tickell-Cline, and her mother was Elizabeth Tickell-Jones-Moore-Blount-Mosier, who were sisters.  Anna was born in 1846, and William Henry Cline was born in 1859.  Due to the timing of Elizabeth moving to Cheatham, Tennessee about the time Henry was born, Anna and Henry were not around each other as children, except for possible family trips to visit each other’s families.  Henry moved from Hickman County, Kentucky to New Madrid, after his father died in 1885.  His move was two years after Anna secured her Swamp Land Patent in Morehouse.  Secondly, at some point, he started dating Anna’s daughter Lena, and they married on 1888 at the New Madrid Methodist Episcopal Church, South.  Henry was twelve years older than Lena.  I don’t know what Anna thought about the marriage between the second cousins. However, we are aware she changed the spelling of Gazwell’s last name from Cline to Kline after the couple married.  I imagine that was to direct misgivings from the two of them being cousins.  Thirdly, we are not certain, but we believe Henry used some of his inheritance money to build the two-story home for his family on Anna’s Swamp Land Patent property.  This action starts to complicate the family finances.  We know Anna had much more money available than Henry; however, he had enough money to start a dairy farm shortly after building a house on Anna’s land, and he provided for the family with the dairy farm.  Grandma Anna was there for piano lessons, trips and other extras her grandchildren needed or wanted.  My dad said he thought his grandmother bought the beautiful furniture in their home from a firm in St. Louis and had it shipped down the Mississippi River to New Madrid.  Henry and Anna both dressed well and wrote expensive jewelry.  When it came to who had the last word, though, money usually won the issue, and Anna had the most money.  Henry was said to be overly strict, physically, to his children, like his father was to him, but Grandma protected them as much as possible.

Lena and Henry’s family had grown to include three sons and a daughter by 1904, Howard Dennis Cline, born in 1891, William Edward Cline, born 1899, Gazwell Harold Cline, born 1903, and Eula Cline-Goolsby, born 1895.  Henry and Lena had two more sons and two more daughters after Anna moved in with the family, Curtis Henry Cline, born 1911, Vera Daugherty Cline, born 1905, and Lena Grace Cline-Dye, born 1907.  Lena gave birth to her last child, Clarence “Cotton” Cline, in 1913.  My dad and his sisters often talked about the beautiful dining room they had, with delicate china, and a player piano in the parlor.  Many enjoyable times were held in the home with Lena playing the piano, and Henry playing the violin or fiddle.  She became very ill on 30 August 1914, and was taken to the nearest hospital in Cairo, Illinois, but died from a ruptured hernia on 31 August 1914.[2]  At this point, Anna had only her grandchildren left in her life.  She considered it her responsibility and honor to raise her grandchildren to adulthood.  Henry Cline never remarried, and my father told me that it was because he and his siblings hated their last step-mother, Susan, and he would now put his children through living with a step-mother.  The family always had domestic help. A couple of cousins, who wish not to be identified, told me there were rumors that Henry became very friendly with the domestic help and the family found it difficult to keep the same maid and cook for any length of time.  My cousins inferred he might have tried to get too friendly with them, but it is only speculation.

  Tragedy came to Anna and the Cline family again on 5 March 1926.  It was about 11 o’clock on a Sunday morning when the Cline home burned to the ground.  My dad told me that his Uncle Madison’s house was identical to their house, but he had a metal roof.  The Cline home had a wood-shack roof and embers from the fireplace landed on the roof and caused the fire.  The fire was reported in the Sikeston Daily Standard the same day.  It stated, “Fire broke out in the home of Henry Cline Sunday morning about 11 o’clock, two miles southeast of Morehouse.  Help calls took the men from the churches and streets of Morehouse, but in the high winds, the house was soon beyond control and was practically a total loss together with the contents.”  The eight children, Henry and Anna were devastated by the loss of their home.  They loved it and my dad often talked about it in a loving way.  A much smaller single-story, six room house was built to replace the large two story home.  The family managed to save a few pieces of furniture from the parlor, but it was mostly a total loss.  Two chairs saved are now in possession of two of Gazwell Cline’s children.  I am sure they will remain in the family for many years to come.

My father, Curtis H. Cline, told many warm stories about his grandmother.  Above all else, he remembered her as a loving grandmother.  He remembered that she enjoyed entertaining in an elegant way and was generous with her family.  One remembrance he shared was the time his father had instructed him to do a chore, and he continued to play up in the barn loft.  He was about nine or ten years old at the time.  He made a misstep and fell out of the loft and hurt himself.  His father came at him with a horsewhip ready to discipline him, but his grandma ran out and threw her apron over him and told his dad, “don’t you touch this boy, can’t you see he is hurt?”  Every time he told the story he got tears in his eyes and almost cried.  He thought the world of Anna Eliza Blount Kline.  Another thing he recalled was that Anna looked very elegant and aristocratic.   He also told my brothers and me that his grandma had the ability to look taller than she was, and she drew everyone’s attention when she walked into a room.  My cousin Sam Goolsby, son of Eula Cline Goolsby, is the only great-grandchild living that remembers Anna Blount Kline.  He was born in 1929, and what he remembers most is that she was a “lady” in every sense of the word, and that she was very aristocratic in the way she walked, looked, and conducted herself.

My dad also remembered walking on raised boardwalks around Morehouse when the Little River flooded the area every spring.  He also told me he remembers hearing panthers scream and it sounded a lot like a woman screaming.  He said the scream made his hair stand on end.  He remembered watching the workers digging up stumps and making the ditches related the Little River Drainage District when he was growing up in Morehouse.  Families working in the drainage district lived in houseboats, and a few children of the workers attended the Morehouse schools.

Plans to turn the swamp into farmland date to the 1840s, but the job seemed too big. Not even the government had ever undertaken anything of that magnitude before. But in 1907, a group of men formed an organization called the Little River Drainage District to take on the swamp. They issued bonds and taxed landowners in the district for the benefits derived.  In our last segment on Anna and her Swamp Land Patent we will learn if she benefited from the draining of the swamps.  How did this fine lady live out her life?  Come back tomorrow for the final part of the saga of Anna Eliza Blount Kline.

Part 4 The continued saga of Anna Eliza Blount's Life

Part 4 of 6

Anna Eliza Blount Kline

And Her Swamp Land Patent

We continue the story of Anna Eliza Blount Kline which revealed the saga of a well-educated pioneer woman who traveled from Obion County, Kentucky to Cheatham County, Tennessee, and how she arrived at New Madrid, Missouri in 1867.  We continue the story of her life in New Madrid.

Starting in 1886, Anna lost her husband, her half-brother Edward Jones in 1887, an aunt in 1890, her mother in 1892, a son in 1894, another aunt, Martha Tickell-Montgomery-Pierce in 1898, and her Uncle Madison on 25 December 1903.[1]  This period of her life must have been difficult for her.  After the death of her Uncle Madison, Anna moved in with her daughter and son-in-law down the road to their house, which sat on her Swamp Land Patent.  Madison Tickell’s daughter Mary Eliza “Mollie” Tickell-Hunter moved back to her father’s house after his death and the recent separation from her husband, Clay Hunter.  As Anna and Mollie were very close, I am sure it was a comfort to them at that time to live close to each other again, particularly in that sad time in both of their lives.

Anna and Mollie attended the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, also known as the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair, and often entertained their grandchildren with tales of what they saw and did at the World’s Fair.  Organizers of the fair erected nearly 1,500 buildings, including several grand “palaces” across 1,200 acres of a newly redesigned Forest Park.  That magnificent fairground equated America’s expansion westward since the Louisiana Purchase with the nation’s cultural and economic progress.  One excited writer noted in the World’s Fair Bulletin, the Exposition’s official journal:

“The heroes of Homer’s Iliad were engaged in petty achievements when compared with the work of the men who wrestled a vast wilderness from savages and wild beasts and made it the seat of twenty grand commonwealths in a single century.”

Attendees from across the globe experienced the highest achievements in technology, fine arts, manufacturing, science, civics, foreign policy, and education.  The World’s Fair boasted extravagant exhibits from fifty foreign countries and forty-three of what was then forty-five states.  Festival Hall, in the center of the  Colonnade of States overlooking the Hall, was the jewel of the fair.[2]  

This was all before television, telephones and before planes flew.  Electricity was new and one of the exciting and beautiful Palaces, along with other industries of the day displayed this new technology.  Of direct importance to us today, there were more new American foods invented and introduced at the 1904 World's Fair in St. Louis, Missouri than during any other single event in history. The list includes the hamburger, the hot dog, peanut butter, iced tea, the club sandwich, cotton candy, and the ice cream cone, to name just a few.[3]  This last item listed, the ice cream cone, related to a story my father told us hundreds of times.  Reportedly, his Grandma Anna and Mollie Tickell Hunter were on the train home to Morehouse when the train served dessert in an ice cream cone.  He told the story that she said, “Pond my word Mollie, do they think our stomachs are like goats?  This cone is made of cardboard, my stomach will not digest it.”  For some reason, this story made an impression on my father.  He remembers the tales of grand palaces and other things she told too, but he most remembered her telling of eating her first ice cream cone.  This tale was just one of many stories my dad told of Anna and trips she took with her cousin Mollie.  I am inserting three photos of the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition and World’s Fair to show the magical atmosphere created by the St. Louis World’s Fair.

[1] I have two obituaries of Madison J Tickell, including photograph, in my private collection.  One from the New Madrid Record, and the other from the St. Louis Dispatch.  
[2]  www.seriouseats.com/2016/01/food-history-1904-worlds-fair-st-louis.html

[3]  http://mohistory.org/exhibits/Fair/WF//HTML/Overview/

Part 3 of the saga of Anna Eliza Blount Kline

Part 3 of 6

Anna Eliza Blount Kline

And Her Swamp Land Patent

In the two previous segments of the story of Anna Eliza Blount Kline revealed the saga a well-educated pioneer woman who traveled from Obion County, Kentucky on the Mississippi River across from New Madrid, Missouri to Cheatham County, Tennessee and how she arrived at New Madrid, Missouri in 1867.  We continue the story below.

Siblings not noted in his bio were:  William P. (born 1813), Andrew James (born 1832-1882), Sophronia (1833-1871), and Mary E. (1835-1893).  I have not identified a ninth adult child as of this writing.  The Tickell siblings Elizabeth, Martha, and Madison lost their sister, Sophronia Tickell Cline, in 1871.  Sophronia still lived in Hickman County, Kentucky in the town of Moscow.  She was only thirty-eight years old and left five children twelve years old or younger and her oldest daughter, Molly Cline, was seventeen at the time of her death.  Her husband William F. Cline went on to marry two more times and to have more children by those wives.  Sophronia and William Cline’s children moved to New Madrid to be with the Tickell family after their father’s death in 1885.  If you take a ferry, to cross the Mississippi River, it is only thirty-six miles from Moscow, Kentucky to New Madrid, Missouri.  Henry was twenty-six at the time he moved to New Madrid, and he brought his nine-year-old half-brother Sam Cline with him to raise.  Sam was born to his father and his second wife, Mary Cromwell.  Henry did not get along with his father’s third wife and his second step-mother.  Family tradition states that is why Henry brought Sam with him, rather than leave his with his step-mother Susan Smith Cline.  After Henry married, he and Lena raised Sam to adulthood.  Later in life, Sam and his family moved to Hammond, Indiana.  I have communicated with descendants of Sam Cline and have genealogical information on his family for future publication.

I am not sure where Anna received her education, but I am somewhat sure it was in or near their home in Cheatham County.  What we know for certain is that she was well educated and a good business woman.  After moving to New Madrid, she met and married Gazwell Kline on 23 Jan 1868, in the Methodist Episcopal Church, South in New Madrid, Missouri.  His father, William Cline, was from Germany and they owned and operated a grocery and dram (liquor) store in downtown New Madrid.  Gazwell provided well for his family.

Anna and Gazwell Kline had two children.  Nancy Lena was born 7 Aug 1870, and her brother Robert Edward Kline was born 24 Jul 1872.  Their children we most likely educated at the New Madrid Academy, a private school.  Lena was fluent in French, German, English and she was an accomplished musician.  Her brother Robert Edward graduated from Kentucky University and Business College in Lexington[1].  The history of popular education in Kentucky, Missouri, and Tennessee, before the Civil War, was similar to that of public education in every southern state.  The institution of free public education, as seen by upper-class whites, was incompatible for their children.  They saw them as “pauper schools” and never considered letting their children attend them.   I bring this up because citizens today, in general, are unaware that the average citizens of the 1800s had little, or limited, education.[2]  In contrast, Anna Eliza Blount Kline was blessed with a good private education.  She made certain her two children also had a good education, and she was instrumental in the education of her grandchildren as well.

Little was told to me about Anna’s twenty-year marriage.  Gazwell was the only son of William Cline and Nancy (Cox) Cline.  They also had four daughters – Elizabeth Cline Verlaque, Sarah Jane Cline Curtis, Nancy Cline Whitmore, and Louisa Cline Frederickson.  Gazwell’s sisters married and moved to San Diego, California, the Chicago area, and Davenport, Iowa.  Anna’s husband Gazwell Kline died March 24, 1886.  The New Madrid Record[3] published a funeral notice that read: “Mr. Gazwell Klein died in this city at one o’clock p.m. Wednesday, March 24, 1886.  Aged 42 years, 11 months and 15 days.  Friends of the deceased are respectfully notified that the funeral will take place from the residence of Mrs. Mosier, in this city at 2 o’clock Thursday, March 25, 1886, then to the Klein graveyard.  Services will be conducted by Rev. Webster Full.”  We cannot locate Gazwell’s burial place because that section of what used to be New Madrid has been washed away in the ever-ceasing encroachment of the Mississippi River on the town of New Madrid.

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[1] Gleaned from the obituary of Robert Edward Kline glued in Anna Eliza Blount Kline’s Bible. My cousin Sam Goolsby has the Bible now.

[2] www.historynet.com/antebellum-period

[3] The article was pasted in Anna Eliza Blount Kline’s Bible.  It was undated but had to be the day or death, or the day of the funeral.