Caldwell County MO Archives History .....AN OLD ROCK QUARRY OF THE SEVENTIES AND CIVIL WAR STORIES 
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File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Karen Walker khw4@yahoo.com September 4, 2008, 1:59 pm

AN OLD ROCK QUARRY OF THE SEVENTIES AND CIVIL WAR STORIES
	Narrator:  David Dunham, 80, Hamilton
      
     David Dunham or Dave as commonly known, is a veteran barber of Hamilton.  
He came into the county 1875 to work on the rock quarry on the Foley farm near 
Nettleton.  It was run by I.E. King and brother, Dave being related to I.E. 
King's first wife.
     King had a contract with one Abercrombie, a tombstone man in the southern 
part of Caldwell county.  He furnished native limestone bases and slots for 
slabs for which he got 85 cents a piece.  Abercrombie's name may still be 
found on the stones of many stones of the 70s.  He had a big trade round these 
parts.
     Dunham retailed some interesting Civil War stories.  He was not in the 
county during the Civil war, but he came in soon afterwards when feeling and 
talk was still running high, people still remember striking things which 
happened.  Many stories were current and he told some of them as they were 
told him.
     He says it was generally known that John Henkins was the man who shot 
down Wm. Hawks, grandfather of Fred Hawks of Hamilton.  Hawks was thought by 
some to be a southern sympathizer.  A few years after the war, when Henkins 
was running for office, he (Henkins') heard that Capt. Noblett's son was 
telling this thing on him.  He hunted young Noblett down and asked why he did 
it.  Noblett replied that "Pappy" meaning the elder Noblitt always asserted 
that he saw Henkins do it.  Nothing could be said.  The story was always hard 
to "down."  Mr. Dunham also was told that old man Swindler (possibly the 
pioneer) was "taken out" as the saying was, as a supposed Southern 
sympathizer, but his daughter, fearing the worst ran out and hung about his 
body with her own body so as to be the one shot if shots should be given.  
Eventually the would be regulators perplexed as to the results, left the place 
and he escaped but soon after died as a consumptive.
     Another Civil War story (second hand as were the others) was told him by 
Capt. Mark Morton.  This story shows that there was a race track west of 
Hamilton just across from the farm, known for many years as the Mallory 
place.  Here Capt. Morton had his company in camp during the early years of 
the war.  One night after dark, the orderly told Morton that a man outside 
wanted to see him.  A man (whose name was given to the interviewer) came in 
and asked Cap to send men over to Bastian, a hamlet on Lick Fork beyond the 
Foley place grove, so that these men could get a man who owed him money and 
make him pay it in GOLD.  He promised Cap twenty dollars of it if he would 
kill the fellow to boot.  Somehow Cap Morton did not feel like doing it.  This 
story shows how some people in Civil War times tried to use (and often did 
use) the soldiers for private purposes and enmities.
     Interview  1934.


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