Caldwell County MO Archives History ....."CAVE" WILSON OF MILLER COUNTY 
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File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Karen Walker khw4@yahoo.com September 3, 2008, 6:52 pm

	"CAVE" WILSON OF MILLER COUNTY
	Narrator:  J.W. Waite, 68, of Iberia, Mo.

     John Wilson was one of the first hunters in the Osage country of Miller 
Co., Mo.  He located 1822 on Tavern Creek and furnished that county with a 
tale thrilling enough to be a legend but it was really a fact.
    He was born in Ireland about 1776 and came with his whole family into a 
very wild country to live.  Almost from the first the other settlers called 
them Uncle Jack and Aunt Nellie because of their hospitality.  He got the 
nickname Cave Wilson because he and his family lived in a roomy cave till he 
had means and time to build a house.  This cave was near Tavern Creek at the 
mouth of Barren Fork.  He found a cave higher up on the bluff which he chose 
to be his tomb.
     He frequently explained to his wife and his friends how he wished to be 
put away.  He made a coffin and kept it in the tomb.  When he died in 1855, 
his wife followed his directions.  She had his entrails taken out and his body 
filled with salt; salt was packed about his body in the coffin.  A demijohn of 
the best old liquor was placed inside the tomb.  The sepulchre was walled up 
and all who attended the funeral were treated to dinner and drinks.  After 
seven years his friends were to met there, open the tomb and drink from the 
demijohn in his memory.
     When the seven years had passed, the old timers say that the tomb was 
opened but the whisky was gone, probably stolen by some wandering Civil War 
soldier, for the story was widely known.
     Many Miller County people declared that they have seen the concrete which 
sealed up the cave-tomb again after the demijohn disappeared.  They all 
declared that Cave Wilson's body is still lying in the cave, probably still 
well preserved in salt.


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