Caldwell County MO Archives History .....TO LOVELY RIDGE IN A COVERED WAGON April 1934
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File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Karen Walker khw4@yahoo.com August 28, 2008, 5:23 pm

TO LOVELY RIDGE IN A COVERED WAGON
	Narrator:  Mrs. Hattie Bennett Smith, 74, Hamilton, Missouri

     Mrs. Smith is the eldest child of Thos. Bennett born 1834 and wife Betsey 
Gibson Bennett.  They were both born in England but met first in America.  
Thos. Bennett was a poor man and came into Caldwell County 1871 to get a farm 
cheap.  His brother-in-law Fred Gibson had moved here and told him about the 
county.  At that time, the Bennett family was composed of man, wife and three 
children, the eldest boy being nine years old.  They came here in two covered 
wagons which held all they had.  Bennett drove one wagon, the little boy Jim, 
the other.  They had no extra horses so had to make frequent rests by the road 
side.

     They bought two miles west and one-half mile north of Hamilton in Lovely 
Ridge district.  It was a two room house with a lean-to.  They were so poor 
that they had no carpets at all which meant much scrubbing.  The girls and 
boys "worked out" for the neighbors.  The children set out hedge plants around 
the farm by the road and in a dry spell carried buckets and buckets of water 
to save them.

     The Lovely Ridge community had frequent revivals in the school house.  
After the service the host would treat the crowd to cider or apples, and 
people would try to beat each other in pealing an apple without breaking the 
pealing.  The Bennetts were Methodists; other Methodists there were the five 
families of the Jones tribe, the Bray family, Altmans and perhaps others.

     Going to church in town became quite common in the late 70's; when the 
big Bennett family would fill the lumber wagon with chairs (probably all the 
chairs they had).  If the horses gave a lurch at a whip or a passing train 
etc., the chairs were apt to land the youngsters backward.  There was a 
baptizing hole to the north where converts of all denominations from that part 
were immersed; in fact immersion was much more general those days than now; 
and a "baptism" drew big crowds as a mild diversion on Sunday afternoons.

     Interview taken  April 1934.


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