Caldwell County MO Archives History .....EARLY STORES IN KINGSTON MISSOURI 
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File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Karen Walker khw4@yahoo.com September 4, 2008, 4:29 pm

EARLY STORES IN KINGSTON MISSOURI
	Narrator:  Sarah Chain, 82, Hamilton

     Miss Chain's father, Hugh Chain came to Kingston 1859 as a carpenter and 
the family started a hotel, the well known Kingston or Chain House.  She had 
two decades of life there before the family moved to Hamilton in the early 80s.
     Some of the facts she gave she had heard of by the traditions centering 
the old sites in Kingston, sites which belonged to the 40s and the 50s, 
hearing about them from the children whose parents had been there longer.  The 
first shoe maker was Water Doak who moved the first house into town from Far 
West, and this Doak afterwards moved to Mirabile.  This house afterwards 
became the Baxter Store and a sort of hotel, on the present location (1935) of 
the Stratton oil station.
     Then Joe Hoard had a store in a shanty or shack, somewhere on Main.  
Ardinger and Woodson had a store in the 40 and 50s, and after Mr. Ardinger ran 
a store at Hamilton for a brief time in late 50s, he came back to Kingston and 
ran a store where the Southern soldiers gathered to organize.  Miss Chain a 
small girl then, recalls the Ardinger store on account of its Civil War 
association.
     The Kingston Hotel started in the late 50s by the Chain family, stood for 
almost half a century in almost continual use as a hotel.  It stood on the 
road to the school house on the site of the present Garney Puckett home.
     Augustus Mack, the well known harness maker of 50 years ago came to 
Kingston in the 50s, went away a few years, then came back satisfied to die 
there.  He was very German in talk.
     By the 60s, Miss Chain's brothers, Alpheus and Thos. Jefferson, were 
helping their father as carpenters, a third brother was learning the tinner 
trade with his brother-in-law Chas. Davis, who kept a frame hardware store on 
Main street.
     J.F. Heiser came to Kingston soon after the war and on west Main started 
a wagon shop which later turned into furniture and undertaking.  His place was 
near the Boucher home.  This Heiser was the father of Fred Heiser of Kingston.
     Miss Chain recalled the Northup-Lewis Store which during the war was 
rifled by the Confederate forces under Thrailkill.  That visit made a great 
sensation.
     During the war, a newspaper, called the "Caldwell Banner of Liberty" was 
published there with Buckington as editor.  Then Mills started the "Age of 
Freedom" after the war.  This shows the queer names of newspaper then.  
Jonathan Palmer was an early shoemaker and was still active at this work in 
the 80s.  Wm. Crawford who came there right after the war was another 
shoemaker.  He died 1872, and was the father of Kate Crawford of Hamilton.
     Milton Switzer had a livery stable in the 60s - 80s on the site of the 
present Houghton garage in Kingston.
     Interview  1934.


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