The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-08-15
that flew out of his knife when he touched A spring

that flew out of his knife when he touched a spring
 why, I had no idea it was city"
 Hadn't you? Oh, it's city"
 A fourishing city. too. An architectural city! There were banks, churches, cath edrals. mansions, wharves, an exchange, e theatre, public buildings of all kinds, down to the office oi the Eden Stinger q daily journal, all faithfully depicted in the view before them.
 Real Name "Marion City"
 Muldrow did not call his paper city "Eden." That name was invented for It by Dickens, as he invented the name or "Scadder' for Muldrow. Nuldrow called his dream city Marion City" and that Is It's name upon the plat.
 Colonel Muldrow opened an office in St. Louis and then went east to interest capitalists in his great scheme. By his indomitable energy and convincing per- sonality he sold lots to the amount of $50 OOO much of 1t the small savings of emigrants intending to settle in the new country. Hand bills and circulars were scattered over the country, flaming ad- vertisements appeared in the newspapers and when Charles Dickens, sick and dls- gusted, made his toilsome and peevish way across the continent to St. Louis, Colonel Muldrow was in the heyday Of his prosperity and the Marion City iand boom was at it's height.
 Almost daily the little scene described by Dickens was enacted in the company 8 St. Louis office. Groups of timfd immi- grants Cazed with wonder upon the pie tured semblance of the great city, and hesitatingly paid over their hoard, which seemed so pitifully small for even tiny slice of this grandeur and prosperity Truly 1t was "a spectacle calclated to make the British lion put his tail between his legs and howl"
 Every boat up the river now bore car goes for Marion City, and eager home seekers going forward to meet their su- preme opportunity. Cabins were puiit, shaky wharves and fiimsy warehouses were constructed, and for awhile It look cd as If something might come of Null drow's magnificent scheme.
 As Chuzzlewit Saw It.
 Dickens thus described Eden" as Mar tia Chuzzlewit and Mark Tapley saw It:
 'At last they stopped At Eden, too The waters of the Deluse might have left 1t but few weeks before, so choked with slime and matted growth was the hideous swamp which bore that name. There were a few log houses visible among the dark trees the best, a COW shed or a rude stable, but for the wharves, the market place, the public buildings.
 "There were not above a score or cabins in the whole half of these appeared un- tennanted; all were rotten and decayed- The most totterng, abject and forlorn among them was called, with great pro priety. the Bank and National Credit Or- Ace. It had some feeble props about IL. but 1t was settling deep down in the muo' past all recovery
 Here and there in Rails and Marion counties there may be found an old set Her who remembers Col. William Null drow and his great metropolis Muldrow was born at Muldrow's Mill. Marion county. Mo, in the twenties. and TOT sew eral wears he and his sons manufactured salt at Bonnets Spring. later caned Mui, , drow's Lick The family sold out Tn lS.o and settled in Marion county, Missour'' - +he srnall town now known as Phil adelphia.
 Dr David Nelson, the Kentucky clergy man writer on reieious topics, here came ,non the scene. recognized the posslplii- ties of the then unsettled Missouri ana was convinced that fortune intenoed TOT him to rear the greatest educational in- .t,+,,+ion of the west the Harvard Of the ,,,ast ahould be the Marion college he nroposed to build somewhere on the broad prairies of Marion county, Mis- souri,
 Start of Scheme.
 Muldrow quit his fathers farm, went east. and with seductive tongue soon had money pledged to erect two very sup stantial buildings for Marion college. He aid not stop at this; the funds were not sii. he Induced men of Influence and rep utation to come to Marion county. then in an unsettled state, purchase large tracts of land for speculation, and soon had some of the foremost eastern men of learning gathered about the college in embryo, nurturing the tiny spark. en- deavoring to fan 1t into great name which was to consume the unseemly ele- ments of the barbarous west
 pr. Ezra 6hires Ely. one of Phnadea-