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Governor John Miller (a good soldier himself) called for a regiment of troops, and they were mainly raised in the counties of Boone and Callaway! aye, Callaway, the daughter-in-law of Boone!* With other troops they marched under the leadership of a citizen of my town, my warm personal friend, General Richard Gentry, a brave and gallant soldier, after whom the fine county of Gentry is called, represented by my friend over the way. Sir, it was in this hour of peril to the people living upon the northern frontier, when your women and children and old men were fleeing to the settlements for safety, when the wild yell of the Indian savage resounded across the prairies, and "the lightning's red glare was painting hell on the sky," that these troops marched to the rescue, and stood as a wall of fire for four long months to shield and protect your infant settlements from invasion, until the last Indian war-whoop that startled the sleep of the frontier had died away in the distance, and the merry voices of children proclaimed once more the return of peace within our borders. Sir, but for the assistance that Boone County gave to you then, when you were weak and unable to protect yourselves, some of these gentlemen who now honor me with their attention might not be allowed to hold their seats here to-day. It was during that expedition that I myself slept in an Indian wigwam, upon the very spot where now stands the beautiful and thriving city of Keokuk, when the deep solitude of the forest was broken only by the dash of the waters as they rushed wildly over the Des Moines Rapids of the Mississippi River. Sir, it is in no spirit of boasting that I speak of these things, but to vindicate the truth of history, to allay your prejudices if any still linger in your hearts, and to persuade you if possible to do justice not only to the people of Boone County but to the cause of education and of liberal learning in our State.

Sir, still later in our history, in the year 1837, when through the agency of our illustrious Senator [Colonel Benton] the Secretary of War called upon Missouri for a regiment of troops to march to Florida to the defense of the people there, against the savage Seminoles led by their wily chiefs Osceola and Sam Jones, the County of Boone was prompt to furnish onehalf of the number. Commanded by our distinguished fellow-citizen, General Richard Gentry, they marched to that distant part of the republic to save the inhabitants of Florida from destruction by the overpowering savage foes by whom they were threatened and surrounded. Hundreds of the same men who went out to meet Black Hawk volunteered again for this expedition. Sir, it was in Florida, on the 25th day of December, 1837, at the desperate battle of Okechobee, on the shores of one of its glassy lakes, that our noble patriot Gentry, at the head of his regiment, fell mortally wounded; there to-day the bones of one-third of the men composing this gallant regiment lie bleaching amidst the live-oaks and beneath the torrid sun of that distant State of our glorious Union.

*The person after whom Callaway County is named married a daughter of Daniel Boone. 26

Sir, I come to a still later period in our history, a period familiar and yet painful to us all. I refer to the rebellion. Sir, whatever may be said or thought in ignorance of the facts, I assert that the people of Boone County were not unfaithful to the obligations of patriotism and of duty. In February, 1861, when there was a trial of strength at the ballot-box betwixt those who were for the Union and those who favored secession, Boone County gave a majority of fifteen hundred for the Union and against the secession of the State. When the two sections became involved in war and the Government called for troops, how far the people of Boone County, first and last, responded to the call let the report of your Adjutant-General answer. I hold it in my hand; from it we see that Boone County furnished between eleven and twelve hundred white soldiers to the Federal army! Many of these young men joined regiments in other States, and marched with Grant, and Sherman, and Blair, and fought well upon nearly every battle-field in the Southern States. These young men, faithful and loyal and true, went to the wars but they never returned! There is scarcely a Southern State whose sands were not moistened by the blood of patriotic men from the County of Boone! Their bones lie all over the States of Texas, Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia, and on the route taken by Sherman in his splendid march to the sea:

The lightnings may flash, the loud thunder rattle,

They heed not, they hear not, they 're free from all pain;
They sleep their last sleep, they have fought their last battle,
No sound can awake them to glory again.

Far from their homes and their friends they perished, and were buried where the wild winds from the Gulf repeat daily their sad requiem and the beautiful magnolia sheds its perpetual fragrance upon their hallowed graves.

Besides these the County of Boone furnished between four and five hundred colored soldiers to the Federal Army, whose loyalty and fidelity will not be questioned, I presume, by any one here. Sir, with these facts in her history, I might well ask what county presents a better record than "Old Boone"? It is very true that many of her young men were led astray and went into the rebellion, and even of them I have heard it said, and I believe truthfully, that they made the best soldiers in the Southern army. The rebels from Boone all fought well, although in a bad cause, and since their return, according to the evidence of Governor Fletcher, are giving him less trouble than the people of almost any other county in the State.

Sir, the masses of the people of Boone County will compare favorably with those of any other county in this State, or any other State. They are a brave, liberal, intelligent, and hospitable people. As I have already

shown, they have done more for the cause of popular education than the people of any other county in Missouri having no greater population. In addition to the State University, which they built out of their own means, the two fine flourishing seminaries for females, under the guidance and control of able and distinguished professors, located at the county-seat, attest their praiseworthy efforts and their zeal in building up the educational interests of Missouri. Nor have they been backward in advancing the cause of internal improvements. The people of Boone County gave one hundred thousand dollars towards the building of the North Missouri Railroad, which barely touches the northern boundary of the county. More recently they have, without any external aid, begun to build, and in a few months will have completed, a branch twenty-two miles in length, connecting their county-seat with the North Missouri Railroad, at a cost to them of two hundred thousand dollars; and in addition, at a still further expense to them, they have devised a system of macadamized roads for the county at a cost of one hundred and fifty thousand dollars, exclusive of private subscriptions. Sir, such a people, so far from being opposed, ought to be encouraged in their noble efforts to develop the physical and intellectual resources of the State, and thus add to its wealth and to its repute at home and abroad. I trust I have not been wholly without success in removing from the minds of my Radical friends some of the prejudices lodged there against the people of my county. It is a public duty that we all owe to the cause of education, to sustain this State institution of learning. No limited or narrow views should control our action on this subject. The small appropriation asked for should be at once granted. The passage of this Bill is all I have to ask of you this winter, and I trust my Radical friends will not allow it to fail. It will be, as I truly believe, one of the best investments ever made by the State an investment like that made by the farmer when he sows his seed upon mellow and fertile soil, where it springs up and brings forth in due season a rich and abundant harvest.

Mr. Speaker, I must apologize to the House for the length of my remarks, as well as for the desultory manner in which I have addressed you. It has not been my purpose to give offense to any one, but merely to give expression to my own sentiments, and to do justice to those who sent me here. I feel much anxiety in regard to the passage of this Bill; I feel that I need the help of my Radical friends to aid me in its passage-to aid me in doing that which the old Democratic party failed to do for more than twenty-five years. Let me have it to boast of when I go home, that this Legislature, Radical as it is, is the only Legislature and the first Legislature that ever recognized the claims of this institution, or that has ever extended to it a helping hand in the way of making a fair appropriation for the purpose of sustaining it and promoting the cause of liberal learning in our State.

AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE FARM.

Letter to the Boone County Court.

JEFFERSON CITY, March 14, 1870.

TO HON. JAMES HARRIS, HON. James Arnold, AND HON. JOHN W. HALL JUDGES OF THE COUNTY COURT, BOONE COUNTY:

·Gentlemen: I understand that there will be a special term of the Boone County Court on the 16th instant, and I have been requested to be present at that time, but my duties here will prevent.

The recent action of the General Assembly in the passage of the Agricultural College Bill imposes certain duties upon your honorable body, and bearing the relation that I do to that measure, as one of the Representatives of the people of Boone County, I ask you to bear with me while I make to you a few friendly suggestions in regard to it. For four years past I have struggled under great disadvantages to obtain this great prize for my county. I do not think I over-rate its value to the people of Boone County now and for all future time, and I propose to enumerate in this communication some of these advantages as they present themselves to my mind.

Before doing this, it may be asked what was the necessity to put in the Bill a section requiring Boone County to give anything in order to secure this institution? The answer is, that other counties wanted it as well as Boone! Other counties offered to give large sums of money in order to obtain it, and therefore no man of sense can suppose for a moment that Boone County could obtain it without giving something for it; and in order that the Court may be well advised on this subject, I present the following facts:

Ist. Jackson County offered $150,000 in cash and 420 acres of land adjoining the city of Independence, to have the institution located there.

2d. Green County offered $100,000 in cash and 640 acres of land convenient to the city of Springfield, to have it located there.

3d. Pettis County offered 640 acres of land convenient to the city of Sedalia, and $35,000 in cash, to have it located there.

4th. Propositions were made to put it up to the highest bidder, and with the assurance that there were other counties in the State that would give a larger amount of money and of land than that offered by any of the counties named above.

How then could we expect to get this institution in the face of these facts, and at the same time with a strong political prejudice against our locality? This could not be, and I regard it as almost a miracle that Boone County was not required by the Bill to give at least as large a sum as was offered by any other county! But this was not done; in fact, we are required under this Bill to give a sum, in money and lands, not more than half as large as that offered by Jackson County; and Jackson County stood ready, as I have been informed by Senator Graham, who resides there and who represents that Senatorial District, to increase her cash subscription to $200,000 in addition to the lands offered. So much on this subject.

I proceed now to state some of the reasons why the people of Boone County cannot afford to let this prize be lost to them; and in order to be the better understood, I will state them in the order in which they occur to me:

Ist. Boone County thus far has been somewhat noted for the interest which her people have manifested in the cause of education; we have a good start, and our chief sources of prosperity in the future must spring from the success of this great interest.

2d. The Court will remember that not one dollar subscribed by the county will be taken from the county, but every cent of it will be expended there; the people of the county therefore are just as rich after the subscription as before they made it.

3d. But this is not all. We get most probably, in the long run, just four times as much, to be added to the wealth of the county, as we are asked to give. In other words the State, through the Legislature, says to the people of Boone County: If you will give $100,000 in land and money, and all to remain with you and to be expended amongst you, we will add $400ooo to it, the income thereof to be forever expended in the same way, and for your especial benefit. Suppose such a proposition were made to any of us individually, would he hesitate long in accepting it?

4th. But by the location of this Agricultural College in our county, we secure permanently all that we have heretofore obtained, and we secure all that which the State may have to give in the future, and which in time will amount to hundreds of thousands of dollars. But the other day the Legislature of Wisconsin appropriated $50,000 to aid in building a female department to the State University at Madison, having previously located the Agricultural College in connection therewith.

5th. Carrying out in good faith the provisions of this Bill makes Boone County the great educational center of the State for all time to come -a prestige that we have at last won, after a struggle of more than thirty years.

6th. Other institutions of a kindred character will cluster around the University, and the hundreds of young men and women who will come here to be educated will give to us an annual income of $100,000, which may be

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