Caldwell County MO Archives History .....NOBLITT FAMILY AND THE HARRELL FAMILY ************************************************ 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 4, 2008, 4:23 pm THE NOBLITT FAMILY AND THE HARRELL FAMILY IN FAIRVIEW TOWNSHIP Narrator: Mrs. Sonora Harrell Mrs. Harrell is now 86, and is totally blind, but her senses are alert and memory excellent. Mrs. Harrell is the daughter of Captain Gallatin Noblett of Civil War fame in this county, so the material is choice. He was the son of Abraham Noblett, who was born in N.C. lived and married in Grayson Co. Va., and emigrated to Ray co. Mo 1839. Abraham died there a few months after his arrival of typhoid fever, which had followed a big flood that took many lives. Abraham is buried in some small country graveyard in Ray county. His wife Elizabeth Nichols died earlier before they left Virginia. Gallatin Noblett married three times. Louianna J. Davis and was his first wife and the mother of Mrs. Harrell. His second wife was Christine Mace and his third Mary Sconce. He and his three wives are buried in the old White cemetery. The Davis grandparents of Mrs. Harrell are buried in Butler Mo. It was in the year 1838 that Gallatin W. Noblitt came to Ray co. and coaxed his father Abraham to follow him. From Ray co., he came into Caldwell about 1850. He bought the present Harrell home (then Noblitt) from Father White (Robert White) getting the deed from him. It has a peculiar history. In Mormon days, this farm belonged to a Mormon Josiah Fuller, one of the men killed at Haun's Mill massacre, and buried in the old well there. At the Mormon exodus, often a Gentile would get the Mormon land very cheap, but would get no title for it, for most Mormons had not completed their titles. Mrs. Harrell said that her father used to say when asked about the history of the deed, "Ask Bob White, he sold it to me." Robert White was a Mormon Preacher once, but later became a dissenter and bought quite a few Mormon claims at a low price and sold them, thus becoming rich. Gallatin W. Noblitt and family lived in the Mormon house three years. She was 5 when they came up from Ray co., and remembers the old Mormon house well. A log cabin, with a front room, about 16 x 20, a lean-to kitchen with a dirt floor, two fire places, one in each room, so big that they took in 4 foot logs. The chimney was rock up to eaves, then stick and clay which sometimes fell in. There was a spring house for water and for cooling milk and butter. There was wild deer in profusion, venison was common fare. Often Mr. Noblitt would go out in his corn field and shoot a deer or two. They were pests to the farmer's crops. Wild turkey was no treat at all. Because of the abundance of wild meat, pork and beef were luxuries. Most of the farmers fed their hogs on the acorns falling from the oak trees, but Noblett believed it made the meat too greasy, so he shut his hogs up 2 or 3 months before butchering, feeding them on corn. In their neighborhood, the women and children gathered all kinds of wild fruits to dry, blackberries, strawberries, gooseberries grapes and plums. They did little canning, but made jams, preserves and butters. They spread a thin cheesecloth over the fruits drying outdoors. Not many apples were to be seen, most of the apple trees then grew from seeds. Not many farmers in that part raised wheat for bread. Mr. Noblitt occasionally did and took his wheat to Millville Ray co. Two or three times a year, the family went to Camden (Ray co.) to buy groceries - they bought huge quantities of flour, sugar, coffee and tea. It was a day's drive down there, they shopped and rested the horses a day, and returned on the third. They rode in the farm wagon, the first memory she has of a wagon was of a body shaped like a boat - curved sides - the Conestoga wagon. Their neighbors were fairly numerous, but all were located by timber which meant near a creek to provide wood, lumber and water. In the 50s, Richard Lane was one neighbor, others were Charley Woodbury, Uncle Charlie Ross, one mile and half east, who was the second man after the Mormons to run the mill at Mormontown ford. He was a Tennessean who settled in Livingston Co 1838 and crossed over into Fairview twp. Caldwell co., and bought Mormon land at the exodus. The Lane girl and the Woodbury girl married Mr. Elias Nichols who was another neighbor of the Noblett. The Waters family lived fairly near and Elmore Waters' second wife of Widow Bennett who was a Lane by birth. Social times in those early days, were usually coupled with work, like log rollings, for a new home, quiltings, harvests with big dinners. She attended the big trench barbeque at Hamilton where Tony Hudgins cooked the meat. The early church services down there were in homes, by chance visits of circuit riders, all Methodists. Her father always took the St. Louis Republic, altho he was a Republican. Incidentally reading that paper, made his son into a Democrat. He or his neighbors would drive over to Breckenridge once a week to get the paper. He was the first of his Va. family to be a Republican, being made so by the sight of slavery. He voted for Fremont and Lincoln (twice). Naturally, he fought for the Union and was prominent in the county warfare. Despite accusations to the contrary, he always said that he never killed a man in his life. At one time, he got orders to kill a Jim Bradley, but by choice he failed to do it, the next order he received was to bury the man (killed by some one else) in the White cemetery, where he lies yet in the north end. But the captain got the credit for the killing. She told of early grave burials. At the bottom of the graves, boards were laid in which the coffin was placed and more boards on top of that, to keep the dirt from rushing in. No rough box was known. Rawley Henkins was the neighborhood coffin maker. She told of the old White cemetery as undoubtedly dating back to Mormon times, and said the oldest graves were marked only by field stones and represented families now utterly gone out of the county. The first school in that neighborhood was a log built 1857 on the present Harvey Nichols farm (this turned into the Catawba school). It was a subscription school, 10 cents a day for two children or 5 cents for one. A man named Smith, nephew of Lane (Richard) taught it, Mary Haynes was another. Mrs. Harrell says they had no free school till after Abraham Lincoln became president and she gave him the credit for free schools. The Waters school also a subscription school was another log school. She herself never went to school a day as a pupil. Her father bought her a life of Napoleon, and she developed into a great reader. She was eight when the log school opened, and by that time she had learned much at home, to read, spell, figure as well as work. Interview October 1934. File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/mo/caldwell/history/other/noblittf247gms.txt This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.org/mofiles/ File size: 7.4 Kb