Caldwell County MO Archives History .....THE MORRIS FAMILY IN MIRABILE TOWNSHIP IN THE SIXTIES 
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Karen Walker khw4@yahoo.com August 30, 2008, 4:19 pm

THE MORRIS FAMILY IN MIRABILE TOWNSHIP IN THE SIXTIES
	Narrator:  Robert M. Morris, 74, of Hamilton, Missouri

	Mormon Community
	Early Schools
	Coffee

    Mr. Morris is the son of Henderson C. Morris and Nancy Kerr.  This couple 
came from Kentucky to Caldwell County 1858.He eventually had two hundred and 
sixty acres and became a rich man.  During the Civil War, although a Southern 
sympathizer by wise action he escaped the injury to life and property which 
came to many of his friends.  He was right in the midst of the Kingston-
Mirabile Federal center.  He lived near Captain Johnson's home where occurred 
the killing of the two Southern soldiers buried in the Morris cemetery.
     The Henderson Morris farm was on Goose Creek and the old Mormon road 
between Lexington and Far West ran through his front yard, through the fields 
and Goose Creek.  This same road ran between the Morris farm and the Peddicord 
farm and today is yet to be traced in some places by a hard depression.
     Near this locality was the old Fugitt Mill of the early day, one half 
mile east down the creek from Stoners Bridge, north of Kerr.  By the sixties, 
this old Mill existed only as a memory to the old timers and the name meant a 
fine fishing place to the youngsters like Robert Morris.
     This was an old Mormon community and a few of the old Mormons still lived 
there who did not go with the exodus of 1838.  Mrs. Bidwell, an Ohio Mormon, 
lived in an old cabin as a squatter on the Billy Jones farm, even in the 
seventies.  She declared that she would never die, being a godbead, but she 
did die in the county poor farm.  Another Mormon was Mrs. Sealy, and a third 
Mrs. Christopher Kerr (Sallie Whitmer, Aunt-in-law of Bob Morris).  She called 
herself a member of the church of Jesus Christ and not a Mormon.  She was a 
daughter of the witness Whitmer who saw the Mormon Revelation to Smith and she 
kept the gold plates for many years.  They were exhibited at the dedication of 
the Kingston Mormon church.  She had a son by her first husband Ticky 
Johnson.  This Nathan Johnson lives on the old Whitmer place at Far West.
     Another early Mormon character of that part was James (Jim) Richey now of 
Lamoni Iowa who was known those days as a wonderful trapper and hunter.  (See 
the Richey papers).  Still another Mormon was old Mrs. Smith (one of the 
original Smith family) grandmother of Jim Richey.  In fact it was his Mother's 
religion which he took.  His father was not a Mormon.
     The Morris family went to Mill at the Spivey mill near Kingston in the 
sixties and seventies and some went to the Crawford mill at Mirabile.  The 
farmer carried a two bushel sack of corn and the miller took a peck for toll.  
He would either sell this or feed it to his hogs.
     One of Mr. Henderson's sons is the narrator Robert M. Morris.  He married 
a neighbor girl Sallie Orr.  He first went to school to Mrs. Charlie 
Stevenson - step-daughter of Wm. Goodman of Hamilton.  This school was not tax 
supported but kept up by contributions of the patrons and held in an old 
building of Mr. Morris' aunt.  The teacher stayed with Billy Jones, a 
relative.  His next school was in a log cabin which was said by some to be 
a "nigger shanty" in the yard of Mrs. George Walters (great grandmother of 
Gene Morris and Louisa Kennedy of Hamilton).  This was taught by a man Johnson 
Boyd, who gave a great treat at Christmas.  It was apples; apples were scarce 
then, for there were few orchards.  His third school was the Pleasant Valley.
     There were no section roads in the early sixties and people rode and 
drove as they wished across the prairie to Mirabile and Kingston.  
     Mr. Morris well recalls the green coffee ear.  Farmers would bring home a 
huge package of green coffee for a dollar.  The Women parched it in ovens and 
the children ground it in mills every morning.  Coffee was cheap and people 
used it three times a day.  No coffee in bags was sold till about 1880, when 
the Arbuckle Coffee came, costing two pounds for twenty five cents.  He never 
saw a paper sack of any kind till about 1880.
     Interviewed  April 1934.


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