The Close of the War 1865-1870

Population: U.S. Census 1860 8,932

U.S. Census 1870 19,565

The Battle of Westport, marking the Confederacy's last major effort in Missouri, took place on October 23, 1864. After that the fighting moved farther away from St. Joseph and the newspapers of 1865 show that business activity was beginning to recover. There were advertisements of:

Wm. M. Wyeth & Co. - Hardware and Saddlery

Talbot Fairleigh & Washington - Wholesale Hardware and Cutlery

R. L. McDonald & Co., Southwest corner, Fourth and Felix Streets

Black silk, Blankets, Flannels, Hosiery, Gloves

Frank Newby's Hoop Skirt Factory and Variety Store, 99 Felix Street

near Fourth

H. B. Ketcham - Queensware and China, Second and Felix Streets

Jacob Goodlive, Jr. - Watches, Clocks, Jewelry, and Cutlery

Albrecht & Huber - Goldsmiths, on Market Square

Traffic by wagon train from St. Joseph to Denver, the Pikes Peak area, and Montana was heavy. At the beginning of 1865 gold was quoted 204 in terms of greenbacks. Jay Cooke & Company, bankers, were advertising a new issue of the popular U.S. Treasury three-year notes bearing 7.30% interest (so that the holder of a $50 note would receive interest of one cent a day). These notes were convertible into Treasury bonds due in twenty years paying interest of 6%.

Abraham Lincoln was inaugurated for his second term as President on March 4, 1865, and a month later the city of Richmond, capital of the Confederacy, fell to Grant's army. The army of Robert E. Lee was surrendered on April 11. The governor of Missouri and the mayor of St. Joseph announced that Saturday, April 15, would be a Day of Thanksgiving. On the night before, April 24, President Lincoln was shot at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C., and died at seven o'clock Saturday morning. This recalled to the citizens of St. Joseph that John Wilkes Booth, the suspected assassin, had given a dramatic reading at Corby's Hall in St. Joseph just a year before.

Other developments in 1865: Thomas E. Tootle, president of the Farmers & Mechanics Bank, announced that the Pacific House, at the northwest corner of Third and Francis Streets, containing one hundred rooms, had been leased for five years. John Curd, president of the St. Joseph Branch of the Bank of the State of Missouri, at the southeast corner of Fourth and Felix Streets, announced a meeting for the election of directors. John Patee announced that he would raffle off the Patee House with its furnishings and seven other lots of land. Sale of the 70,000 lottery tickets at $2.00 each got under way, and up to April 26 the tickets could be purchased at the shop of Albrecht & Huber, licensed dealers, on Market Square. A barrel containing the numbers was on display in the street window of the jewelry shop. On the afternoon of April 26, 1865, several hundred people assembled at Corby's Hall for the drawing. Five hundred and twentyeight numbers were to be drawn, the early ones receiving prizes of pillows, hair mattresses, armchairs, marble-top washstands, and walnut wardrobes. The 528th number drawn would win the grand prize -- the Patee House itself. A little boy, blindfolded, drew the numbers out of the barrel and Mr. William F. Ridenbaugh announced them. The day ended before the drawing was complete, and tickets were still being sold when the drawing resumed on April 27. When the 528th number was drawn it was discovered that it was one of a block of tickets which had been returned, unsold, from Quincy, Illinois, and had been purchased by Mr. John Patee himself. Proceeds of the sales of the tickets had been deposited with the St. Joseph Branch of the Bank of the State of Missouri in trust for John Patee, and the Bank proceeded to pay off Mr. Patee's debts of approximately $20,000. The lottery had been fairly conducted, and no complaints were made. Also in 1865 the Ladies' Library Association was organized. Mrs. H. B. Ketcham was president, Miss Kate O'Neill was on the finance committee, and the committee on the selection of books included Mrs. Motter, Mrs. Hoagland, Mrs. Horton, Mrs. Bittinger, and Mrs. Weakley.

The Western Bank of Missouri had been organized in 1859 with Milton Tootle as president, and Bela M. Hughes as cashier. When Ben Holladay foreclosed on the property of the Pony Express in 1861, he sent his cousin, Mr. Hughes, to Denver to take charge. James L. O'Neill then succeeded to the post of cashier of the Western Bank. Mr. O'Neill died in 1865, and after two years the bank went into liquidation.

In 1868 Joseph Robidoux and John Patee died. On July 28, 1868, Generals U. S. Grant and W. T. Sherman arrived in St. Joseph returning from an inspection trip of the Union Pacific line then being built. Grant had announced his candidacy for the presidency and was urged to speak to the crowd from the balcony over the entrance of the Pacific House. The hostile elements of the crowd hissed the general down. In November Grant was elected president, and on December 15 the Pacific House was destroyed by fire.

In September 1869 the Reverend Charles Martin, M.D., from Hagerstown, Maryland, opened his Young Ladies Institute, a private school for girls, on the northeast corner of Fifth and Antoine Streets, making additions and improvements to the existing structure.

The Civil War had been a dark period in the history of St. Joseph. Real Estate assessments totaled over $5,000,000 in 180 and by 1863 the total had declined by nearly one-half, to $2,800,000. When the war was over, the value of real estate resumed its advance, assessments reading $7,200,000 in 1868. Population continued to increase, the census of 1870 showing the city more than twice its size in 1860. Railroad building resumed: in 1868 the St. Joseph & Council Bluffs Railroad was completed, making direct connection with the Union Pacific at Omaha, which was well on its way to completion to the Pacific Coast in 1869. The St. Joseph & Denver City (the future "Grand Island') Railroad was completed as far west as Troy, and the St. Louis & St. Joseph Railroad was under construction. The Missouri Valley Railroad was being built to Kansas City on the south, and to Des Moines on the north. The steamboat traffic was active with eighty steamboats plying between St. Joseph and the river points in 1868. Thirty-five steamers ascended the Missouri River to Fort Benton, over twenty-five hundred miles away, near the gold mines of Montana.

STATEMENT BY

MRS. ISABELLA ASHIBIROOK HARTER

‘When I graduated from the St. Joseph High School in the Class of 1871, the class consisted of six boys, two other girls and myself. The outstanding member of the class was Charles Emmett Miller who eventually became Principal of Central High School.

‘I have recently been reading of a party of trappers, bound for the frontier, who in 1820 started from Cincinnati, went down the Ohio River and up the Mississippi to St. Louis. It takes my mind back to the days when my father, Mahlon Ashbrook, feeling the lure of the West, took his family aboard the steamer Prairie Queen at Cincinnati, coming down the Ohio until we struck a sandbar opposite Cairo, Ill. Several boats tried to push us off, but they were unsuccessful. Although several of our occupants were thrown out of bed and part of the railing of both boats was broken, on the third night, we were pushed off the sandbar by a large New Orleans boat. We went on down the Ohio, crossed the Mississippi, and reached St. Louis, where we remained several days. Taking passage on a packet, we continued our journey to Hannibal. From Hannibal we came on into St. Joseph on the passenger train, the Hannibal & St. Joseph, Nov. 2, 1859. We were driven in a bus to the Milton House, which afterward became the Pacific Hotel.

‘For a year or two our home was the Pennsylvania House, located on what was then called Eighteenth and Howard, but since changed to Nineteenth and Howard. The Pennsylvania House was afterward converted into two small houses, which are still standing.

‘Later, my father built our home in the cornfield across the street, at present, the southwest corner of Nineteenth and Howard streets. At the close of the war it was enlarged into the Ashbrook House, which is still standing.

‘Across the road on the east was Highly spring, which supplied the neighborhood with water. Many times have I heard Doctor Banes say, “When I was a boy I drove my grandfather's cow to the pasture by that spring, and I would always stop and get a drink.” The spring finally gave out, and the hole filled with crawfish. Then my father dug a well on our place, striking a vein. During the war companies of soldiers drank from this spring and watered their horses, and for forty years it afforded a wonderful supply of water for all the neighbors far and near. Building a store on the corner of Eighteenth and Frederick avenue, another vein was struck in the cellar. My father walled up a square cooler for his jars of butter and lard, and then made a wooden trough to carry away the surplus water to the ravine, which was on the north side of Frederick avenue. This ravine crossed the avenue halfway between Sixteenth and Seventeenth streets and continued on down to Cargill's mill, where Hirsch's store now stands.

‘Well do I remember some of our childhood pleasures. James Main made rope in the backyard of his lot at Eighteenth and Union streets. He would take the hemp in his hands and walk back and forth, placing the hemp in position on the inside of the fence and we children walked with him, on the outside of the fence.

‘There were also funny characters, who furnished amusement for us children, such as “Laughing Harmon,” a farmer who came to the city occasionally. When he laughed he could be heard for blocks, and he always gathered a crowd. Then there was “Crazy Jane,” a Negress, who, coming from the South, said she would teach her race up North how to dress. Gaudy apparel was quite a thrill to her. Always decked out in bright and gorgeous dresses, with beads and bells on her neck, in her hands, and around her waist, she was always present when there was a parade, with a drove of boys following her.

‘Frederick Avenue was the main thoroughfare from the east. Thousands of cattle and hogs were driven through the streets, and loads of hay were always seen. Ox teams were often used, and occasionally a buffalo was taken through the streets. Frederick Avenue had no sidewalks and was very muddy. After a while half of it was macadamized and then came the first streetcar line -- Frederick Avenue mule car which announced its coming by a bell on the mule's neck.

A narrow gauge railroad which crossed the road about three or four blocks east of Twenty-sixth and Frederick Avenue was built from St. Joseph to Savannah, and the remains of it can still be seen in some places.

‘About where the Rivoli Theater now stands was a tannery, built and operated by Mr. Armour, who came out from Pennsylvania in 1857. East of the tannery was a soap factory, owned and operated by Mr. Fetzner. On the south side of Frederick Avenue, extending from Twenty-sixth street for several blocks west was a row of large cottonwood trees.

‘Black Snake Creek, where the Karnes road now is, was sometimes a scene of baptism, when the colored folk came down through the woods singing "John was baptized in the River Jordan.” Many who had come to witness the ceremony of baptism were seated on the hill to the north.

‘What is now Westminster Place was chosen as a good place to have the fairgrounds because of its proximity to the country roads leading into the city from the east. Floral Hall was built for displaying such articles as fruits, vegetables, quilts, fancywork, etc. There were other buildings for stock exhibits. After the fair ground was abandoned, all the buildings were removed except Floral Hall, which was used for some time as a boot and shoe factory.

‘For a while we had no public schools, but we had a number of private schools. Professor E. B. Neely had a private school on Tenth street, near his home, which still stands. Occasionally, Mr. Neely would entertain the pupils and their parents with “magic lantern pictures.’

‘Three brick buildings were then erected, as grade schools: The Franklin, which is now a residence; the Madison, which is the Humboldt; and another on Third street, which is a store building. Each of these had two rooms, one downstairs, one upstairs. The desks were like wooden boxes on legs and the lids were on hinges that opened up. In them were kept the books.

‘Then the High School was built on Tenth street. It consisted of one study room and one recitation room. Our first commencements were held in the High School building and, afterward, in the Academy of Music, a hall over a store building, southeast corner Fifth and Felix streets, with its entrance on Felix. We gave plays and bought a dictionary and encyclopedia for the school. The boys played football down on the open space between Edmond and Felix and between Ninth and Tenth streets. The girls played croquet on a discarded brick yard on Tenth opposite the school. After graduating from the High School, I taught at the Madison for two years. It was a two room building, and at that time Miss Nellie Wrigley was principal. The Madison was on the top of a hill, with the approach on Second street. When the snow and ice covered the footpath, we had to “watch our step,' after crossing the little bridge which spanned the creek. I was then transferred to the Webster School.

‘A picket fence enclosed the front yard with steps leading up to a small platform and similar ones going down on the other side into the yard.

‘In those days a ferry plied the Missouri River between St. Joseph and Elwood, Kan. The first captain of the ferry was S. S. Allen.

‘The Courthouse stood on the hill, with a long flight of wooden steps leading up the hill from the streets.

‘The southwest corner of Sixth and Felix was a hill, on which stood the home of Mr. Kay. This hill was not leveled until 1880.

Felix street, as now, was the principal business street, with Stix & Eckhardt Dry Goods Company and the Edwards clothing store between Fourth and Fifth streets, and the Garlichs drug store, Third and Felix. Brady's Hall, where the various entertainments were held, was on Felix between Third and Fourth.

This was “The City Worth While,” where the East ends and the West begins.