Caldwell County MO Archives History .....BORDEN FAMILY IN CALDWELL AND DAVIESS COUNTIES 
************************************************
Copyright.  All rights reserved.
http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm
http://www.usgwarchives.net/mo/mofiles.htm
************************************************

File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Karen Walker khw4@yahoo.com September 3, 2008, 6:41 pm

THE BORDEN FAMILY IN CALDWELL AND DAVIESS COUNTIES
	Narrator:  George Borden, 76, of Hamilton

	Railroad Land
	Farmer's Troubles in Early Days
	Early Roads

     Frank Borden, father of George, came into Caldwell County in 1869 and 
bought forty acres of railroad land, two miles south of Hamilton.  When the 
Hannibal and St. Joseph railroad went through the country, the railroad had 
been given every other section ten miles north and south of the tracks by the 
government in return for their risk.  Then they sold or rented this land to 
new settlers.  The Bordens sold this land and rented 160 acres south of town; 
later they moved to the south part of Daviess County where they bought land 
again.
     They had all sorts of bad luck common to the earlier settlers, chinch 
bugs, droughts (never any as bad as the present one of 1934), army worms, hog 
colera, grasshoppers in 1875; in fact, many a settler those days became 
discouraged and sold out at a cost below what he had paid, and went some other 
place hoping for better luck.  That accounted for the large number of mover-
wagons in the late 70's and early 80's, many headed east.
     Those days in the 60's and early 70's, few roads were laid out in these 
parts.  If one avoided creeks, he could ride over open prairie-land from the 
Borden home south of Hamilton to Dawn, near Chillicothe.  Mr. Borden traced 
the old road that led from the old Borden home to the very small town of 
Hamilton.  It came "cat-a-corner" from John Gibson's farm across the prairie 
and through the corner known as the Wilmot house, south of the Park.  Rev. 
Wilmot did not live there then but on his farm further south -- the present 
farm known as the Walter Whitt place.  The Wilmot 80 there was the last 
prairie land to be fenced in between Hamilton and Kingston.  He did it about 
1880.
     Mr. Borden has been boring wells around Hamilton for over fifty years.  
He is a practiced "water-witch" and believes thoroughly in the value of "water-
witchin'" in locating water by the time tried means of a new-growth fork from 
a peach tree.
     He recalled when the park was planted with trees.  It was given as a gift 
to the town by the railroad as long as it should be used as a park.  That was 
in 1856.  But little attempt to plant it with trees was made till about 1870.  
Then James Mapes, who died here a few years ago, brought in trees from the 
woods and planted them.  
     Interviewed August 21, 1934.

(Mrs. Komora Thornhill says she too knows that for a fact.  Mapes also planted 
all the trees in the present Thornhill-Cheshire yard where he once lived in 
the Baptist Church yard.)  Interviewer's note.  


File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/mo/caldwell/history/other/bordenfa149gms.txt

This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.org/mofiles/

File size: 3.2 Kb