Caldwell County MO Archives History .....EXCITEMENT AT THE COUNTY SEAT CALDWELL COUNTY 
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Karen Walker khw4@yahoo.com September 1, 2008, 4:43 pm

EXCITEMENT AT THE COUNTY SEAT CALDWELL COUNTY
	Narrator:  Mrs. Fannie McLaughlin of Hamilton, Missouri

	"Stealing the County Seat"          The Hamilton-Kingston Railroad

     Mrs. McLaughlin was born in Columbiana County Ohio.  She came to Caldwell 
County with her parents David Cannon and Mary Drake 1869 in the boom days 
after the Civil War when the Hannibal and St. Joseph railroad were advertising 
the county through which its tracks passed.  Mr. Cannon was a farmer and 
bought near Kingston.  His son John Cannon was a druggist in the eighties at 
Kingston.
     Soon after she came to Kingston she heard the story of how Hamilton had 
tried to steal the Court House from Kingston.  The project was active in 1867 
and it was still much discussed with some rancor remaining against Hamilton 
leaders who had backed the scheme.  They had planned to take a tier of 
townships from Daviess County and that would put Hamilton in a central place 
in Caldwell County.  Being a railroad town - which Kingston was not - would 
make it a better County Seat.  Kingston, knowing its life depended on keeping 
that honor fought against the plan and it was defeated in the Legislature but 
it left an ugly feeling between the towns for years.  It has been stated on 
good authority that Hamilton was so sure of the plan that rock was hauled for 
a courthouse foundation on land owned by A.G. Davis, one of the sponsors.  (In 
Fact Miss Minnie Ogden whose father bought that site, stated that their 
foundation was made largely from rocks already on the lot for the above 
purpose - Interviewer's note.)
     However in late years the two towns joined together in a project for 
their mutual good - i.e. getting a railroad for Kingston, which has always 
been a dream down there.  In 1890 the Haines, Hamilton and Kingston railway 
was completed and Kingston had a big day.  Haines was a capitalist from away 
some where who soon got out of the deal.  The railroad than became known as 
the H. and K.  It soon was a joke in this territory.  The road bed was poorly 
built, the engine was old and always to be repaired.  It might stop in the 
middle of a cornfield or even on top of a forty foot trestle and the 
passengers would have to walk.  D.G. McDonald conductor and Tom Livick fireman 
were the crew.  Finally it went into bankruptcy in 1902.  To-day nothing is 
left of the H. and K. but the old right of way cuts.
     Interviewed  February 1934.


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