Chas. Wells was a close business associate of Lewis Jones back in Western Virginia Territory and had purchased 700 acres of land along the Osage River in Missouri around 1842. Chas Wells was the owner of a fleet of boats on the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers. His boat captains purchased food from the Jones smoke and storehouse at the Thomas Jones Farm on the Ohio River near Sisterville, Western Virginia Territory. After Thomas Jones� death, Lewis Jones operated the smoke and storehouse. Following financial losses caused by the 1857 panic Lewis Jones moved to Missouri and found that Chas Wells was leasing his Missouri land. I have not determined what Lewis Jones� part in the Wells land development was. If he had the usual lease arrangement as described to my husband by Colonel William Wells he would have had a three year lease which required Lewis Jones to clear the land and fence the cleared land. During the first 3-year lease he would have received all the income from the timber he could cut and sell. During the second 3-year lease he would be required to divide the income and give one-half to Chas Wells as the owners share. Since this was the period of the railroad expansion most of this cut timber was made into railroad ties. Logs were also rafted down the river as far as New Orleans. (note: this association might provide clues to who the family of second husband of STACY WEST was. After Jackson Hill died she was remarried, in Missouri, to William Martin, said to have been �a riverboat captain� or �worker�. They had at least 2 children. -- SB) Regardless of how the two met we find the marriage certificate of Lewis Jones and Elizabeth Hampton on file in the Miller County Courthouse at Tuscumbia, Missouri. The record is as follows: �I hereby certify that I, Levi W. Albertson, a Justice of the Peace within and for the County of Miller in the State of Missouri, did solemnize the rites of Matrimony between Lewis Jones and Elizabeth Hampton of the said County of Miller on the 17th day of April A.D, 1859, Levi W. Albertson J.P. Filed 27th of May 1859. E. B. Farley, Clerk By W. M. Lampkin, D.C.� The family of Lewis Jones and Elizabeth Hill Hampton Jones remained on the Wells Farm for the next six years at least; both working hard to earn toward a home of their own. Soon after Elizabeth married Lewis her older step-daughters married and left home. On August 20, 1859 Margaret Jones 19 years of age married James Roark. On October 7, 1860 Lucy Ann Jones age 16 years married William Burrell. Grandma Jones, Betsy, had found security at last. Her new husband was educated, had business experience, was known for his benevolence toward his neighbors and his home was run in a systematic and well organized fashion. Lewis was older than her own father but he was �looked up to� and admired by her brothers. Her brother, John A. Hill, named his second son Lewis Jones Hill in honor of Lewis Jones. Grant Jones, my father, recalls that the men folks, relatives and friends, would be sitting under the large hickory tree in the yard listening to Lewis Jones tell of things he�d read and experiences he�d had. One story was well remembered by my father. Some man in Cincinnati, Ohio had written a so-called vision where men flew through the air like birds and traveled under the sea like fish. (note: perhaps this was in reference to Jules Verne books. --SB) Grant Jones said, �I can hear my father telling the men about this yet, and think, I�ve really lived to see these prophecies come true.� On March 17, 1860 a son was born to Lewis and Betsy Jones. They named him William Lewis Jackson Jones. Since it was customary to name the first son for the grandparents, the new baby, Uncle Billy to me, very likely carried Betsy�s grandparents name. He was named William for her grandfather, WILLIAM HILL, and Jackson for JACKSON KIZZIRE of Tennessee who I assume to be Betsy�s grandfather on her mother�s side and Lewis for LEWIS JONES, Betsy�s husband. Uncle Billy carried the Lewis for family identification and signed his cards W. L. Jones. The name Jackson was almost never used by him. Betsy had already named a son John for her father JOHN HILL and a daughter Polly Ann for her mother POLLY KIZZIRE HILL. Grant Jones, my father, wrote, �When I was three years old my father bought a farm on the Osage River down near St. Elizabeth or down about two miles from Capps Landing on the same side of the river. He owned 311 acres of land but only 100 acres was on the river bottom. The rest of the farm was woodsy and rough.� The deed is recorded in Tuscumbia Courthouse on June 9, 1869 and is dated May 9, 1869. The 1870 U.S. Census records taken on July 19, 1870 Osage Township, Miller County, Missouri gives the following record: Lewis Jones Age 68 M White Farmer Born in Virginia Estate $2000 Elizabeth Jones Age 38 F White HouseKeep Born in Indiana Lewis B. Jones Age 21 M White Farmhand Born in Virginia (b.1849) Calvin R. Jones Age 17 M White At School Born in Virginia (b.1853) Polly Ann Hampton 18 F White Living w/Jones Born in Missouri (b.1852) Lucinda Hampton 16 F White Living w/Jones Born in Missouri *died pre-1878 Nancy Hampton 13 F White Living w/Jones Born in Iowa *later married Abner Hathaway died pre-1878 fall from horse. 1 dau William Jones Age 11 M White At home Born in Missouri (b.1860) Ulysses G. Jones 5 M White At home Born in Missouri (b.1865) John Hill Age 12 M White Farmhand Born in Missouri *son of Jackson & Mary Hill The John Hill shown here is evidently Jackson Hill�s son who was later know as Wild John. (note: he married Emaline Burrell, dau of Geo and Minta (Kizzire) Burrell -- SB) In the same county on page 258 we find Elizabeth Hill Hampton Jones brother as follows: John A. Hill Age 30 M White Farmer Born in Indiana Estate $200 Frank Hill Age 11 M White At home Born in Missouri (b.1859) Lewis J. Hill Age 9 M White At home Born in Missouri (b.1861) Lucy Z. Hill Age 5 F White At home Born in Missouri (b.1865) William P. Hill Age 17 M White Farmhand Born in Kentucky (b.1853) Elizabeth Hill Hampton Jones� mother was also in Miller County, Missouri for the 1870 census. The record follows: (note: John C. Hill had died by this time.--SB) Polly (Kizzire) Hill 53 F White Widow lady Born in Kentucky Alex Hill 18 M White Farmhand Born in Missouri Zemineah ** Hill 16 M** White At home Born in Missouri (b. 1854) Nancy Hill 14 F White At home Born in Missouri *dau of Jackson & Mary Hill (**note: confusion about this child who has been listed as �Levi�, �Zemineah� and �Jemimah/Jemima�. It is unclear if Male or Female though Hazel Uthoff provides for male. This person is also thought to be a child of Jackson & Mary Hill, though Hazel Uthoff previously, perhaps erroneously, listed as a 10th child of John & Polly, after providing that eldest daughter, Elizabeth, was �one of nine children�. --SB) This last Nancy must have been a granddaughter, Zemineah�s first name was Levi. Polly�s age as computed from other census records should have been 57 years. Although the deed to the Lewis and Elizabeth Jones farm is dated May 9, 1869, it is very probable that the Jones family moved to the Sterling H. Berry farm in 1866 or the spring of 1867 because the owner of the Wells Farm, Chas Wells, came to Miller County, Missouri after the Civil War in 1866. He had lost his fleet of boats during the Civil War and his Missouri farm was the best prospect for regaining his fortune. Chas Wells was a slave owner and a southern sympathizer and used his river boats to further the cause of the Confederacy. When the Union Navy captured Mobile, Alabama, Chas Wells� boats were there and were confiscated. Shortly after arriving in Miller County, Missouri he purchased additional steamboats which now hauled freight on the Osage and Missouri Rivers. As they had on the Ohio, the captains of the steamboats on the Osage stopped at the Jones farm for meat and other products of the farm. In visiting the Chas Wells Farm in June of 1971 my husband talked with Colonel William Wells, Air Force Retired, and a grandson of Chas Wells. The farm had been sold at that time and the new owners had already moved in but Colonel Wells was there to move out any remaining personal property not included in the sale. He pointed out the foundation of the original house on the property, the spring house that was used for fresh water in the original house, the original location of the present farm house with the fountain curb still in place and one of the original log cabins that had served through the years, first as a home and later as a barn. He recalled for us some of his experiences as a boy while living with his father, Joshua Russell Wells, who had inherited the land and the steamboats from Chas Wells. Colonel Wells told how as a boy of 7or 8 his father would permit him to take trips with the steamboats. As the steamboat passed the Wells Farm his father would hand him up to the deck and he would ride the boat to its destination and return to the farm when the boat make a return trip in a week or so. Wells found real trouble when he returned to Miller County, Missouri and established his steamboat business. Although the Civil War had ended in the spring of 1865 a decade of violence would follow. Judge Jenkins of Tuscumbia, Missouri wrote of Miller County, �The fatal and ruinous warfare continued some years longer. It seemed as if the people, having become accustomed to fighting, did not know how to leave off.� Chas Wells brought his servants, former Negro slaves, but they soon disappeared becoming victims of the murderous element or of the element determined to frighten away all black people who attempted to settle in Miller County, Missouri. The blacks working on the steamboats were not permitted to enter Miller County, according to Colonel William Wells, and so were unloaded in a more friendly area on the way up the river and rejoined the steamboat again as it returned down the river. Grant Jones was unable to remember how profitable the smoke-house business was for Lewis Jones in Missouri but he left us a good account of the butchering. He said, �When I was a little boy my father had a farm down on the Osage River, right in the bend of the river. We cured meat. We ordinarily butchered forty or fifty head of hogs each year. We sugar cured the hams, shoulders and sides and sold the cured meat in town or to the men on the river boats. Sometimes we took meat to the larger towns like Jefferson City and St. Louis because cured meat brought more money than hogs on the hoof. The side meat sold for 7 cents a pound and the hams for 10 cents a pound. In those days there were plenty of deer so after they had butchered the hogs my brothers Lou and Cal and sometimes my father would go into the woods and kill as many as ten to twelve deer. They always had a stall fed steer that butchered out 1,000 or 1,200 pounds of beef. The hind quarters of the deer, the hind quarters of the beef and the sausage meat of the hogs were all ground together and seasoned with salt, pepper and brown sugar. To some of the sausage they added sage and other spices. This sausage was tied up in corn husks and cured. The corn husks had the ear and silk removed. The sausage rolls were put in the clean liner husks and the ends of the husks were tied tight. This kept all the dirt out.� The smoke-house must have been more profitable than shipping hogs to St. Louis because Grant Jones mentioned that a shipment of hogs sent to St. Louis did not pay the freight bill. Grandma Betsy Jones� life was not to be the secure and serene life she had anticipated when she married Lewis Jones, for the Civil War was fought viciously all over Miller County, Missouri during the years they lived on the Chas Wells Farm. Her life was normal in that she gave birth to four children during this time. WILLIAM LEWIS JACKSON JONES on March 17, 1860, ELIZA JONES in 1862, and ULYSSES GRANT JONES, my father, on September 3, 1864 the day Sherman marched into Atlanta, Georgia, VIRGINIA JONES in 1867. Her life was normal in the tasks that were labeled women�s work must be done; that is, cooking, gardening, milking, poultry raising, spinning, weaving, knitting and sewing of clothing for the family. Grant Jones never told stories about the Civil War in Miller County, Missouri. He was too young to remember but he did say that he had two brothers on each side but only Mark Jones has been identified with Confederacy leaning. Grant Jones did remember that his father, known in Miller County as �Uncle Lewis�, gave aid to his neighbors after the Civil War. Judge Jenkins wrote, �To add to the distresses which Miller County suffered from the conduct of soldiers, militiamen, confederates, and bushwhackers, there occurred a most grievous famine. Many people in the county were almost destitute in regard to the necessities of life. All able bodied men, subject to military duty, gone from their homes in 1864, made it utterly impossible for many citizens to raise corn or even a garden. The winter of 1864-65 was cold, snowy and miserable.� Betsy Hill (Hampton) Jones was very emotionally involved in the Civil War because her three young brothers, JACKSON, JOHN and WILLIAM HILL fought for the Union. Her step-son, MARK JONES, was associated with the cause of the confederacy. ROBERT HAWK, the man her sister ELIZA was to marry, with others from Miller County, Missouri, marched with Sherman through Georgia. The war between the states had been brewing for a long time but had been held in check by such leaders as Andrew Jackson and his close friends Sam Houston and James Polk who, although southerners, firmly declared that the Union must be preserved at all costs. By 1860 the radicals of both the North and South were in command and the age of reason had passed. In Miller County, Missouri it is recorded that Phillip Robinson of Glaze Township cast the first Republican vote in Miller County and nearly lost his life as a result. By November of that year, 1860, the presidential election records in the court house show that Breckenbridge, Southern Democrat received 495 votes; Bell, Constitutional Union, 193 votes; Douglas, Northern Democrat, 94 votes; Lincoln, Republican, 23 votes. Lincoln was elected and on March 4, 1861 in his inaugural address on the steps of the Nation�s Capitol said, �In your hands, my dissatisfied countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of Civil War. You can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors. You have no oath registered in heaven to destroy this government; while I have the most solemn one to preserve, protect and defend it.� Huge mass meetings were held in Miller County and often rough and tumble fighting broke out between participants. Judge Jenkins reports on one meeting, �Before the meeting could get started a fight broke between C. Wolf and W. B. Mansell. They commenced slashing at each other with cat-o-nine whips, the leather thongs cracking like a discharged bullet, then fists, rocks, whip handles and knives came into play.� The meeting was dismissed. April 13, 1861the Confederacy took the offensive and Fort Sumter fell. True to his oath and the promise contained in his inaugural address, President Lincoln issued a call on April 15, 1861 for 75,000 troops to preserve the Union. Governor Jackson was determined to take Missouri out of the Union. Captain Lyons, United States Army Commanding Officer of Camp Jackson Arsenal, remained loyal to Lincoln and began enrolling troops from St. Louis and surrounding area that were loyal to the Union. On May 10, 1861 Captain Lyons with 5,000 or 6,000 troops, made up mostly of German emigrants from St. Louis but with a few regular army troops, attacked the State Guard Troops loyal to Governor Jackson and captured them. The Union forces were now in command of the Camp Jackson Arsenal. The battle lines in Missouri were drawn. The Union cause was let by Francis Preston Blair Jr. and the Confederacy by the soon to be ex-governor Claiborne Fox Jackson. Each leader had his own Brigadier General. Nathaniel Lyons for the Union Forces under Blair and Sterling Price �Ol� Pappy Price� for the Confederacy Force under Jackson. In Miller County, Missouri, when the news of the fall of Fort Sumter reached Tuscumbia a few joyous citizens hoisted a rebel flag on top of a tall tree near Atkinson�s store and on the leeward of the ferry landing but the Stars and Stripes continued flying on the right side of the landing. Since the State Guard Companies in Miller County, Missouri, were �Secesh�, people upholding the Union were told either to join-up or leave the county. Since the troops in St. Louis were German emigrants, hatred increased against the minorities. The order was given by the Iberia Home Guard to hang or shoot all eastern people or Pennsylvanians who refused to take the oath of allegiance to the Confederacy. Many refused to take the oath and fled for their lives. The later part of June 1861 most of the State Guard Companies in sympathy with the Confederacy left Miller County and joined the new resigned Governor Jackson and Sterling Price in Southwest Missouri. This move of the State Guards was almost a fatal one for the cause of the Confederacy in Miller County. The Union Forces rallied to oppose the Confederacy. Reverend Jacob Capps, Baptist Minister from Capps Landing, one of the chief Union agitators joined forces with the Osage Valley Regiment to the South of Capps Landing and the Cole County Regiment to the North and the local war was in full force. These men armed only with knives, pitchforks, muzzle loading rifles, shotguns, pistols and rocks proceeded to round up ex-governor Jackson�s powder and shot that had been hidden in houses, barns, cellars and caves in Miller County. Then Colonel Emly Golden�s forces secured the south side of the county and Captain Jacob Capps forces with Captain Daniel Rice�s County Cavalry secured the north side of the county. The Golden and Capps Forces moved upon the courthouse at Tuscumbia and after a minor skirmish took tremendous quantities of the powder which had been stored n the courthouse secretly by E. B. Farley, County Clerk. --continued in Part 5 Sherry Balow balowmsg@earthlink.net