Cape Girardeau, Missouri

“ Uncle Mumford said that Cape Girardeau was the Athens of Missouri, and contained several colleges besides those already mentioned; and all of them on a religious basis of one kind or another. He directed my attention to what he called the 'strong and pervasive religious look of the town,' but I could not see that it looked more religious than the other hill towns with the same slope and built of the same kind of bricks. Partialities often make people see more than really exists.
Uncle Mumford has been thirty years a mate on the river. He is a man of practical sense and a level head ”

“ They consist of people from various parts of the United States and Europe. A large number are from Tennessee, Kentucky, New York, and New England. The original inhabitants were French and Spanish. There are few of the latter remaining; but the former constitute a respectable proportion of the population.
The principal towns of Missouri are St. Louis, St. Genevieve, St. Charles, and Franklin. Of a lesser size, are Herculaneum, Potosi, New Madrid, Cape Girardeau, Jackson, Chariton, Florissant, and Carondelet. St. ”

“ Cape Girardeau Co., Missouri. "I'se gonna be 83 cum nex' Nobember. Mah mammy's name wuz Easter. We belong to Ole Massa Henry Miller so we goes by de name o' Miller. Mah daddy's name wuz Israel an he belong to a neighbor name Brown so he go by de name o' Brown. Ole Missus name wuz 'Frohnie an dey had three boys whut went off tuh war. Dey live in a two-story frame house—dat down close to Bloomfiel'.
"De fust time we ever seed sojers, dey wuz a big crowd o' 'em cum up to our place. When us chillern seed 'em we crawl unner de house—white and black, all o' us. ”

“ Cape Girardeau, formerly the seat of justice for a county of the same name, is one of the oldest settlements in Upper Louisiana, having been for a long time the residence of a Spanish intendant or governor. Occupying the first considerable elevation on the western bank of the Mississippi, above the mouth of Ohio, and affording a convenient landing for boats, it promises to become a place of some little importance, as it must be the depôt of a fertile district of country, extending from the commencement of the great swamps on the south-east to the upper branches of the St. Francis. ”

“ While viewing this place, Captain Lewis heard a loud roar above him, and, crossing the point of a hill a few hundred yards, he saw one of the most beautiful objects in nature: the whole Missouri is suddenly stopped by one shelving rock, which, without a single niche, and with an edge as straight and regular as if formed by art, stretches itself from one side of the river to the other for at least a quarter of a mile. ”

“ The impressive scenery and bold picturesqueness all about attract many artists, who haunt the rocks and sea views of Cape Ann. The whole district is full of summer-homes, with flower-gardens and shrubbery amid the rocks and boulders, and the cliffs and ocean presenting an endless variety of changing scenery. The outer extremity of the Cape, long called Halibut Point, has been modernized into the Land's End, thus being rightly named as the termination of the great Massachusetts granite ridge, which falls away sharply into the sea. ”

“ The west, and north-west part of Missouri is capable of supporting a population larger than the whole present population of the State. It is a country superior in soil, climate, water, timber and other natural advantages, to any portion of the great Mississippi Valley, yet it is unsettled, and apparently will be for a long time, the current of emigration being turned into Iowa, Minesota and Wisconsin, simply because men raised in free states do not like the idea of settling in slave states. ”

“ With this purpose in view, societies were formed in anti-slavery communities, extending as far east as the Atlantic coast, to assist emigrants. From Iowa, Illinois, Ohio, Massachusetts, and elsewhere, emigrants poured into Kansas. But the slave party had the advantage of geographical location. The slave state of Missouri was only just across the river. It was able, at short notice and with little expense, to pour out its population in large numbers. This it did. Many went from Missouri as actual settlers. ”

“ This charming spot, enchanting in its aspect, was covered by scattered thickets, young trees, fat pasturages, and watered by many rills, which fell in all directions in silver cascades from the mountains, and finally lost themselves in the Missouri.
This unknown Eden, buried in the mountains, had been discovered by a hardy explorer, and already the hand of man was at work destroying its savage grandeur. In a word, the squatters were at work. ”

“ The bulk of the old population of the State was from Kentucky, Virginia, Maryland, North Carolina, Tennessee and Ohio, with a respectable number from Indiana, Illinois and New York. Up to 1855 and ’56 the types of social life existing in these several States were scarcely disturbed in Missouri. After the passage by Congress of the somewhat notorious “Kansas-Nebraska bill,” in 1854, and the organization of these Territories, the population of Missouri increased rapidly and became of a more general character. ”

“ For there was a time before the arrival of the Syrians, the Armenians, and the automobile, when New England was in a meditative mood. But Cape Cod is really a ridge of sand with a backbone of soil, rashly thrust into the Atlantic, and as fluent and volatile, so to speak, as one of those far Western rivers that are shifting currents sublimely indifferent to private ownership. The Cape does not lack stability, but it shifts its lines with easy disregard of charts and boundaries, and remains stable only at its center; it is always fraying at the edges. ”

“ Those who urge that slavery would not go into Kansas if permitted, wilfully shut their eyes to the fact that it has gone into Missouri, lying in exactly the same latitude, and is now strongest in that north-western angle of said State, which was covertly filched from what is now Kansas, within the last twenty years. ”

“ The true banks of the Missouri are from two to twenty miles apart, and two or three hundred feet in perpendicular height, sometimes rising in pinnacles and terraces studded with glittering fragments of gypsum, making a splendid show in the full blaze of the sun, and variegated with broad parallel stripes of red, yellow, and gray, where the stratas of different soils appear in their natural position laid bare by the heavy rains. ”

“ Sleeping of stormy nights in corn-cribs or under sheds, could not be by any stretch of imagination converted into a highly romantic or heroic mode of lodging one's self. The squalid manner of living of the few inhabitants of Missouri at this period, gave a forlorn aspect to the country which is lacking in the wilderness itself;—a thought which sometimes occurred to Joe like a hope for the future. ”

“ But the western parts of Missouri and Iowa were still very thinly populated. Excepting these towns and settlements west of the Missouri, the great rising plains between that river and the Rocky Mountains now forming the States of Kansas, Nebraska, Colorado, and Wyoming were, but for a few trading-posts, absolutely uninhabited. There was but one railroad then extending from the Mississippi to the Missouri, from Hannibal to St. Joseph, Missouri. St. Louis was connected with this line by the North Missouri road. Railroad building in Iowa had not yet reached the western part of the State. ”

“ Should each county in the State of Missouri only do its duty, the question will be decided quietly and peaceably at the ballot-box. If we are defeated, then Missouri and the other Southern States will have shown themselves recreant to their interests and will deserve their fate."
Western water transportation found its natural terminus where the Kaw or Kansas River empties into the Missouri. From this circumstance that locality had for years been the starting-point for the overland caravans or wagon-trains. Fort Leavenworth was the point of rendezvous for those going to California and Oregon ”

“ The Missouri is a doleful stream, shallow, with huge sandbanks in the middle, and great swamps at the side, but striking green bluffs rising above on the east bank under which we went; and behind them I saw the sun rise in great beauty. We just crossed the river to Omaha to say we had been in Missouri and seen the terminus of the Union-Pacific Railway, and a fine go-ahead place it is, like Dubuque, only twice as big and finely situate on hills above the Missouri River. ”

“ Missouri might now have been a peaceful and orderly region, inhabited by settlers as creditable to their country as those of the neighbouring free states, instead of being a nest of vagabond slavedealers, rapacious slavedrivers, and ferocious rioters. ”

“ In nothing except the freighting of bulky and imperishable products, like cotton, coal and cereals, was the river ever able to contest the monopoly of the railways. The mileage of these within the state rose from 3960 in 1880 to 6142 in 1890, and to 8023·94 in 1908; the Missouri Pacific being far the greatest system of the state. St Louis, Kansas City and St Joseph are ports of entry for foreign commerce.
Population.—The total population of Missouri in 1900 was 3,106,665 and in 1910, 3,293,335. The population in 1810 was 20,845 ”

“ There was already a line of small towns along the west bank of the Missouri, which were the starting points for transcontinental traffic, where freight was transferred from river steamers to wagons. Beyond the Missouri and a narrow strip of arable land along its western shore, lay the vast territory believed to be fit only for savages, wild beasts, and fur traders, a wide, inhospitable waste, which men were compelled to cross who would reach the Eldorado on the Pacific, or the mines in the mountains. ”

“ Along this wide level country the Missouri pursued its winding course, filled with water to its even and grassy banks, while about four miles above it was joined by a large river flowing from the northwest through a valley three miles in width, and distinguished by the timber which adorned its shores; the Missouri itself stretches to the south in one unruffled stream of water as if unconscious of the roughness it must soon encounter, and bearing on its bosom vast flocks of geese, while numerous herds of buffaloe are feeding on the plains which surround it. ”

“ Saint Louis was an early centre of German immigration, and the Germans still constitute over one-half of the total foreign born. In 1900 there was an average of 45.2 people to the square mile—a greater density than is shown in any other State west of the Mississippi. Missouri contains the largest centre of population located on the Mississippi River, and the percentage of urban population is therefore high. In 1900 the 35 places having more than 4000 inhabitants each contained collectively 34.9 per cent. of the total population. ”

“ By this act you have proclaimed to the world that the people of Missouri have risen above those prejudices and narrow-minded notions which are so apt to cloud the judgment of politicians, and that Missouri throws wide open her gates to all who have the heart and will and ability to coöperate in achieving the great destinies of the country, offering them a hearty welcome with full assurance of generous appreciation. ”

“ The first dwellings constructed by the white settlers are nearly similar in every part of the United States. Superior wealth and industry are indicated by the number and magnitude of corn-cribs, smoke-houses, and similar appurtenances; but on the Missouri, we rarely meet with any thing occupying the place of the barn in the northern states. The dwellings of people who have emigrated from Virginia, or any of the more southern states, have usually the form of double cabins, or two distinct houses, each containing a single room, and connected to each other by a roof ”

“ A number of thriving cities are located on the Missouri, including Kansas City, Leavenworth, Atchison, Omaha, Sioux City, Pierre, Bismarck, and Great Falls, the last being the centre of a great copper-smelting industry which utilizes the power of the Falls. ”

“ Grapes are mainly grown in the Ozark region, and wine is produced in Gasconade and other central and north-central counties in amounts sufficient to place Missouri, California aside, in the front rank of wine states in the Union. Indian corn and abundant grasses give to Missouri, as to the other central prairie states, a sound basis for her livestock interests. In 1900 the value of her live stock was $160,540,004. Two of the four remount purchasing stations of the United States Army are at St Louis and Kansas City. As a mule market Missouri has no rival. ”

“ It is a great place, and every thing about it is GREAT. The Missouri, than which a large or more dreadful river, (with its muddy face always scowling,) is not on earth, rushes rapidly from near the 49th to about the 39th degree of north latitude, hurrying along with it, its numerous relatives, and tributaries, from the vast prairies, that lay spread out like an empire, and passes into the State of Missouri, as the President of rivers. ”

“ In October, General Fremont's forming army rendezvoused at the capital of Missouri. From afar, Jefferson City is picturesque; but distance lends enchantment. Close inspection shows it uninviting and rough. The Capitol, upon a frowning hill, is a little suggestive of the sober old State House which overlooks Boston Common. Brick and frame houses enough for a population of three thousand straggle over an area of a mile square, as if they had been tossed up like a peck of apples, and left to come down and locate themselves. ”