the east fork of Grand river to the line of Grundy and Mercer counties, and thence northwardly to the Iowa state line.

There are several other coal mines in the county, of which we have been unable to obtain an account. Among them, we mention a new mine of J. S. Hughes & Co. on St. Joseph branch of the Wabash, St. Louis and Pacific; and the shaft of J. W. Shotwell & Co., on same railroad, in the suburbs of Richmond, sunk in the fall of 1880.

INCIDENTS.

In one (November) day Holland Vanderpool killed five deer. It was near Crooked river; he dragged them one by one to that stream; made a bark canoe, and floated them home.

In addition to the mortar and pestle, mentioned in another place, corn was reduced to meal by means of a handmill, made by the settlers, as follows: A circular stone was placed on anothee similar stone, except that the latter, called the "bed rock," was smooth. Through a small hole in the center of the upper stone, the corn was dropped, one grain at a time. A lever, four to six feet in length, was inserted into a cavity in the edge of the rock. By means of this lever the stone was turned and the corn ground. The nether mill-stone was stationary.

In the course of time horse power was used for operating the mill; and this was considered a wonderful advance in the matter of making breadstuff.

The mill just described antedates any other in the settlement, and for a long time was the only "mill" in use.

Winnat Vanderpool had a pet bear and a pet panther which played in the yard and were fondled by the children.

On the present site of Richmond, one day, in the year 1818, Winant Vanderpool and John Stone killed five bears.

Isaac Martin built the first horse mill; and the first brick house erected in Ray county was built by Jonathan Keeney, at Albany.

Store bills were paid off with wild honey, beeswax, coon, deer, otter and other skins of wild animals. Taxes were paid with fox and wolf scalps.

Soon after Richmond was founded, Billy Bales, a new-comer, went to Richmond and told Charles Morehead, a merchant, that he wanted to buy some honey; and in reply to the question, "What is it worth?" was answered, "Twenty-five cents a gallon." "I'll take all you got," rejoined

Bales. He was invited into the cellar, where, on finding 2,000 gallons, he said, "I only want a keg!"

The day after Holland Vanderpool was married, he and his wife rode horseback to Richmond to get their household goods. From a merchant named Slothard they purchased the necessary supply, and started home. Mr. V. carried the table-ware in a bucket, placed on the horse in front of him. When just out of town, the toe of Mr. V.'s horse striking a root, the animal fell; the rider and the dishes went over his head; the former was bruised; the latter broken to pieces.

Mr. V. lived in a log hut with one room; the latch-string hung on the outside, and at his hovel

"The richest were poor, and the poorest dwelt in abundance." People were very neighborly in those days, and visited each other frequently. Visitors and all slept on the floor.

One night Mr. Vanderpool and his wife were alone in their cabin. The former was asleep on the loom bench; the latter busy at her wheel. Mr. V. was suddenly awakened by his wife, who, greatly frightened, said a bear was trying to get into the house; that she had seen its paw through the latch-hole in the door. Mr. V., taking his gun and a butcher-knife in hand, opened the door-to be greeted by a negro woman, who, fleeing from her master, Jere Crowley, sought shelter from the snow storm. The weather was very cold and the snow deep. The woman's clothes were frozen stiff. Mr. Crowley was not the least unkind to the negress; she had a mania for running away.

The pioneer was a hard worker. He had to fell huge trees; clear his land, maul rails, built fences. Wives made their husbands pads of feathers to wear on the shoulders while carrying green rails and heavy timbers.

Sometimes crops were raised without having been fenced; corn, cotton, pumpkins, oats and watermelons were cultivated on the open prairie.

In the year 1822, a man from New England, who was engaged in buying furs, pelts, etc., from citizens of Ray county, for which he exchanged pins and needles, became enamored of a fair, bucolic damsel, living in the vicinity of the present town of Hardin. The Yankee sought and won the maiden's hand and heart. At the appointed time, the nuptial knot was tied by an old man, who was a justice of the peace. After the ceremony, the "coon skin man"-as the peddler was called-paid the justice for his trouble in pins and needles, and the twain, made one, went on their way rejoicing.

Ever afterward, the justice was known as the "pin and needle 'squire."

MURDER OF DORCAS CLEAVENGER.

It were more welcome reading if a complete series of historical events, pertaining to our county, contained no reminiscences melancholy in their nature. But, it is the province of history to relate every true story; and it becomes the annalist's duty, anon, to fill the interstices between agreeable recitals with naratives of more solemn interest.

On Sunday night, May 28, 1837, was perpetrated a nameless crime and the most atrocious murder ever committed in Ray county.

The victim was a Mrs. Dorcas Cleavenger, an amiable, inoffensive lady, the wife of William Cleavenger, who, it will be remembered, was one of the first settlers in Fishing river bottoms; the perpetrators were two fiends incarnate, named Ish and Henry, slaves respectively of Richard Cleavenger and Abraham Froman.

On the afternoon of the day mentioned-Sabbath as it was-Mr. Cleavenger went fishing, leaving his wife and two little children, aged three and five, alone at the house.

Mr. C. did not return home until late at night. The stillness of the midnight hour breathed not a whisper of the horrible disclosure awaiting him. He approached the door, pulled the latch-string, and passed the threshold, little knowing that he was entering the chamber of death! Silence prevailed. The little innocents, nestled closely at their mother's side-three cheeks pressing the same pillow-were wrapped in the happy unconsciousness of sleep; and so was the mother-but not to wake again on earth. The room was dark. The husband called to his wife, speaking her name, but receiving no response, stepped to the bed-side, and, doubtless rebuking himself for having stayed away so long, tenderly placed his hand on her brow; it was pulseless, and cold as marble! He again vainly called, and then, thoroughly alarmed, kindled a light in the fire-place. The blazing fagots threw a ghastly glamour on the pale face of a murdered woman-the mother of his children-she who had been the life of his life and the soul of his soul. There in the dismal glare of a waning light, the poor man stood-wifeless; and motionless with unspeakable woe. After awhile the heart-broken husband left the 'dead, and the unconscious living, alone, till he could go to the house of his father, happily living not far away, and make known his sad discovery.

The father and other members of the family, on receiving the information, repaired to the house in which the dead woman lay.

The neighbors assembled early next morning to ascertain the cause of Mrs. Cleavenger's death. The coroner was notified. He empanneled a jury, and such proceedings were had as are common in cases of mysterious death.

The jury, after having made some inquiry, but without, it appears, a

thorough examination, adopted a verdict that " Mrs. Cleavenger came to her death by an attack of apoplexy."

The same (Monday) evening Mrs. C. was buried, but the people were not satisfied with the result of the coroner's inquest. Dr. Mallet, a physician of the neighborhood, felt assured, upon post mortem examination, that death was not caused by apoplexy. Suspicion was rife that the unfortunate lady had been murdered, and the whole community set about to find the murderer or murderers.

Ish, a man of color, owned by Richard Cleavenger, father of the bereaved husband, was suspected. A party of men, armed with guns, went to the house of the slave's master, and demanded to see the former. Ish was brought forth, and in reply to questions, answered, with considerable trepidation: That Froman's Henry had come to him, and asked him to go with the former to William Hill's, a neighbor; that he assented, and on the way to Mr Hill's, Henry told him (Ish) that he (Henry) had killed Dorcas Cleavenger, and wanted Ish to go and help him (Henry) to put her on the bed. Blood was found on Ish's coat sleeve; and in reply to the question how it came there, he said it was the blood of Dorcas Cleavenger; that he had no other chance to get it. Ish claimed that he had no hand in killing his "Miss Dorky," but confessed that he helped Froman's Henry to put her to bed, and stated further, Froman's Henry had killed her.

Ish, however, implicated himself before the interview ended, and he and Henry were arrested.

Their preliminary trial was held June 1st, before justices of the peace, James Dickie and John Dozier. As a result, the negroes were incarcerated at Richmond, to await the July term of the circuit court.

The indictment found against the culprits at that term, will complete the story, and it is subjoined, as well on account of the quaintness of the document, as of its bearing in this case:

STATE OF MISSOURI, RAY COUNTY.

In the Circuit Court, July term, eighteen hundred and thirty-seven; Ray county, to-wit:

The grand jurors for the state of Missouri, for the body of the county of Ray, aforesaid, upon their oaths, do present:

That Ish and Henry, late of said county of Ray, men of color, and slaves, the said Ish the property of Richard Cleavenger, of said county, and the said Henry, the property of Abraham Froman, of said county, not having the fear of God before their eyes, but being moved and seduced by the instigation of the devil, on the twenty-eighth day of May, in the year of our Lord eighteen hundred and thirty-seven, with force and arms, at the county of Ray, aforesaid, in and upon one Dorcas Cleavenger, in the peace of God, and of the state of Missouri, then and there being, feloniously, wilfully, and of their malice aforethought, did make an assault; and that they, said Ish and Henry, with both the hands of each of them,

said Ish and Henry, about the neck and throat of her, the said Dorcas Cleavenger, then and there, feloniously, wilfully, and of their malice aforethought, did fix and fasten, and that they, said Ish and Henry, with both the hands of each of them, said Ish and Henry, so, as aforesaid, fixed and fastened about the neck and throat of her, the said Dorcas Cleavenger, then and there did violently squeeze and press; and that the said Ish and Henry, also, then and there feloniously, wilfully, and of their malice aforethought, with both the hands of each of them, said Ish and Henry, threw the said Dorcas Cleavenger down to and upon the ground, and then and there they, the said Ish and Henry, feloniously, wilfully, and of their malice aforethought, jumped and pitched their knees in and upon the belly of the said Dorcas Cleavenger, giving to her, the said Dorcas Clavenger, then and there, by jumping and pitching their knees in and upon the belly of the said Dorcas Cleavenger, as aforesaid, one mortal bruise; as well of which said squeezing and pressing of the neck and throat of her, the said Dorcas Cleavenger, with both the handsof each of them, said Ish and Henry, as aforoesaid, as all of the jumping and pitching of the said Ish and Henry, in and upon the belly of the said Dorcas Cleavenger, as aforesaid, she, the said Dorcas Cleavenger, then and there instantly died. And so the jurors aforesaid, upon their oath aforesaid, do say that the said Ish and Henry, her, the said Dorcas Cleavenger, in manner and by the means aforesaid, feloniously, wilfully, and of their malice aforethought, did then and there kill and murder. Against the form of the statute, in such case made and provided, and against the peace and dignity of the

state.

T. C. BURCH, Circuit Attorney.

And the jurors aforesaid, upon their oaths aforesaid, do further present: That Ish, late of said county of Ray, a person of color, and a slave, the property of Richard Cleavenger, of said county of Ray; and Henry, late of said county of Ray, a person of color, and a slave, the property of Abraham Froman, of said county, not having the fear of God before their eyes, but being moved and seduced by the instigation of the devil, on the twenty-eighth day of May, in the year of our Lord eighteen hundred and thirty-seven, with force and arms, at the county of Ray, aforesaid, in and upon one Dorcas Cleavenger, in the peace of God and the state of Missouri, then and there being, feloniously, wilfully, and of their malice aforethought, did make and assault, and that the said Ish, his left hand about the neck and throat of said Dorcas Cleavenger, then and there, feloniously, wilfully, and of his malice aforethought, did fix and fasten, and that he, said Ish, with his left hand, so as aforesaid, fixed and fastened about the neck and throat of her, said Dorcas Cleavenger, then and there did violently, feloniously, wilfully, and of his malice aforethought, squeeze and press; and that the said Ish also then and there feloniously, wilfully, and of his malice aforethought, jumped and plunged the right knee of him, said Ish, in and upon the belly of the said Dorcas Cleavenger, giving to her, said Dorcas Cleavenger, then and there, by jumping and plunging his, said Ish's, right knee in and upon the belly of the said Dorcas, as aforesaid, one mortal bruise, as well of which said squeezing and pressing of the neck and throat of said Dorcas Cleavenger, with the left hand of the said Ish, as last aforesaid, as also of the jumping and plunging of the right knee of said Ish in and upon the belly of said Dorcas Cleavenger,