Second Annual Homecoming Edition – Mt. Washington News, Fairmount, Mo. 1927
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Old Timer Recalls Time When This was a Pasture
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Now Living within a Stone's Throw of Rock Creek Where He Wooed His Log Cabin Sweetheart, Veteran Recalls Incidents of History Which Left Notable Milestone of Mt. Washington Progress—Wounded in Battle of Lone Jack.
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Mt. Washington of the days when wild turkeys were as common as barnyard fowls, when deer came down from the hills to browse on the tender shoots of Rock Creek, when squirrels were so thick that farmers killed them to protect their cornfields and let them lay—such is the domain remembered by Solomon Reed, civil war veteran, covered-wagon freighter, Indian fighter. And one of Mt. Washington's very oldest inhabitants. He was born here in 1837.
But if the squirrels were hard on the corn-fields the resourceful pioneers had effective means of getting even with them aside from killing as many of them as they could. Instead of feeding the hard-won corn to their hogs, they merely turned the porkers loose in the woods to feed upon the squirrels' acorns. In the fall when acorns were in their prime, and when the hogs were fat, the farmers called their dogs together, hooked up three yoke of oxen to a big sled and fared forth to the river bottoms and went hunting for wild hogs. After getting the sled loaded with the “game” there would be a hog-skinning bee, and there were feasts in the Mt. Washington neighborhood. Every farmer would have his own recorded marking for his hogs before he turned loose to forage and the dressed carcases were returned to their rightful owners. Or if the owners already were plentifully supplied with meat they oftentimes would give the pork to the hunters. :We had real neighbors in those days,” Mr. Reed commented.
In sickness, the best that the rural community afforded was put to the disposal of the family, and in death, the whole community quit work and walked to the grave where the voices of all joined in sacred hymns. And all stood about in silence until the last clod was placed and the mound smoothed over. Funerals were not the speedy affairs they are today, the old pioneer remembers.
In the fall when the Kaw Indians came in from the forests and the plains to take up winter lodging in the valley of Rock Creek, a market was provided for acorn-fattened hogs. “ My father used to have me hook up the oxen and gather up great loads of dead timber, late in the summer,” Mr. Reed recounted. “Great stacks of it would be piled around our house, and we would build a big fire that would last all winter. It was a big attraction to the Indians who would come to buy our meat with the money they earned at trapping. They would rather do this than to gather their own wood. It may have been a shiftless habit on their part, but they were a good race of men in a good many ways. I lived with the Shawnees for three years and if I had my life to live over again, I could not ask to be associated with a more agreeable class of people.”
Mr. Reed's brother, Mathias A. Reed for many years was associated with the Rev. Johnson at Shawnee Mission, teaching classes in Manual training which were conducted for the Indians. Later, the two brothers engaged in freighting to Mexico, and they had their taste of Indian fighting. They became acquainted with such men as Kit Carson, Jim Bridger, “Peg Leg” Smith, Bill Williams, the Bents, Sublette Gerry, Doyle and others who have made history in the winning of the West. And to see none other than John C. Fremont lose a $100 bet was a mere incident in historical side-light.
General Fremont had a thoroughbred horse in which he had so much confidence that he bet $100 with Colonel Bent that one of his men mounted on it would bring down a buffalo before an Indian mounted on one of Colonel Bent's mustangs could bring down the meat. The race was on, and while Fremont's mount was much faster, it's rider could not get him to go near the buffalo. The native horse being used to such work, brought its rider within easier range, and Colonel Bent collected the money.
The two brothers with their train once were surrounded by Indian's on the Cimaroon river and had to fight their way out. “I found a low place in the ground and laid an ox-yoke up before me where I could take careful aim at the line of Indians as they were crossing over on their ponies. “ 'You got one of them,' my brother called to me as they turned and fled.
“As the Indians had lashed themselves to their ponies so that they would not fall into our hands in case they were killed or wounded, it was hard to tell how many of them we hit. Soon after that my brother and I were separated. Thirty-five years later I went to look him up at Gridley, Kas. I found a boy plowing in a field and I knew it was one of my brother's sons. I asked him where the old man was, and he pointed him out, a hoe over his shoulder on his way to weed out the watermelon patch.
“I went up to him and spoke to him,but he never was very friendly with strangers,and he went on with his work. Finally I told him to take a good look at me and see if he could remember me. He said he didn't know me,and he wasn't any too polite about it,either,for he always had a reputation for being a man of few words.
Plum Tree Camouflage
“Then I asked him if he remembered the fight at the Cimaroon,and the man who was shooting at indians from behind an oxyoke.”Well,so this is Sol,is it?”,he exclaimed,and from that time on brother Mat was ready to kill the fatted calf for me.”
One time when Mr.Reed's party was crossing the plains and was making camp on the Cimaroon,he saw some splendid wild plums across the river,and went after them.He had to swim a part of the way,and did not take his rifle along.He cut down a sizeable tree and was taking it back to camp when he heard indians only a few yards away.He flopped down to the ground,with the tree on top of him,only his face showing through the branches.The indians passed by him without seeing him,which failure on their part enabled him to take plums back to camp with him instead of a carcass full of arrows.Two of the party,young fellows from New York who were not familiar with indian fighting,were surrounded while they were gathering driftwood at the river,and were shot with arrows and scalped.The indians retreated ,leaving their victims more dead than alive.The young men were left at Ft Larned,where they recovered.
Mr. Reed was with the Federal army in the Civil War and took part in many of the engagements in this part of the country in which Company F of the 5th Missouri Cavalry commanded by Capt William Smith was identified.He still carries with him two bullets and several scars received at the Battle of Lone Jack,and he can vouch for the fact that the fighting was good in those days.And it was down at Mason's farm at Blue Springs where Tom,his faithful horse,had a bad taste of the fortunes of war.
AN UNLUCKY STEED
“Another fellow and I were popping at one another,when some more Confederates rode up and I thought I was done for”,Mr Reed relates.My horse wheeled around,and I saw blood running from his mouth.
“Well,Tom,they've got you”,I said,but he calmed down,and when some of our men came up just then,the others rode off.After the fight was over,I sponged out Tom's mouth,and found that a bullet had gone into one cheek and took out a tooth from his lower jaw,and another tooth from his upper jaw,and the ball went on out through the other cheek.He was still as good a horse as ever,as far as I could see,but the government condemned him,and I lost a good,faithful friend.But that is the way things go in war.”
So it is,with philosophy,a sense of humor,and a clear insight into the things he is telling,and aided by a clear memory that the Mt Washington veteran tells of his eventful life and the things that life has meant to him,with the many hardships and its' triumphs.To sit on the porch with him on a summer day and to hear him tell of time and change in the community,is to get unique inspiration. And it is a thrill to the narrator as well as in the listener.There at his picturesque old farm house by the side of the road,with bungalows and filling stations and barbeque stands encroaching on the domain he knew as a pioneer wilderness, the gray-haired,gray-bearded veteran dreams his dreams.
A rock road passes in front of his home, and not more than a hundred yards away,a big freight train,or a fast passenger roars by. And yet,just off of Independence road,where Kentucky avenue veers off toward the river road along Rock Creek, it is a neighb orhood removed from too much noise and traffic. Rock Creek meanders quietly by,and the willows and sycamores rustle in the sultry August breezes much as they did when he wooed little Mahalie Hall who lived in a cabin down the creek a hundred yards or so three quarters of a century ago.
A Backwoods Romance
It was at the Kentucky bridge over Rock Creek that aaron Overton built the first mill in this part of the country—the mill that was later sold to Hickman,who moved it farther inland where it added the name Hickman Mills to community geography.In the days when his father,Mathias Reed took up his quarter section of land from the river to where Mt Washington now stands,there were Rueben Johnson,Adam Hill and only three or four other families in this neighborhood.The oldReed Spring,near where his father built his cabin has figured Mt Washington history for years,and it's pure crystal waters have been bottled and sold from time to time.
But let us listen to this sturdy pioneer and grizzled warrior tell how he wooed and won Mahalie Hall who lived on Rock Creek down near where Kentucky bridges the stream.
“I used to ride my horse across the creek right there across the road.” She could see me there from the house,and would be waiting for me out in front and would call to me and wave to me as I rode up.We were promised to each other when we were sixteen,but she said we ought to wait till we were twenty.That seemed to me a long time to wait,but we waited.With my long travels and all,we sometimes didn't get to see each other for a year or more at a time.
“One day,I rode my horse over the creek,and there was Mahalie waving to me.I rode up and said,Are you going with me this time,Mahalie?” And she said 'yes,I'll go with you,Sol' and I said,'Well get on this horse with me and we'll go and find the preacher.' She told me to ride back across the creek,and she 'd cross over on the foot-log. I rode around to the other side,and there I helped her on behind me.
“We lived together sixty two years—with of course some time out for my service in the army and with my trips to the plains.We were living in the Ozarks whenshe died. They wanted me to bury her down there,but I was determined to bring her back home. She's out in Mt Washington cemetary now and it won't be so long now til I'll be there beside her.”
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