ANDREW F. McCRAY
(8TH MSM)
FARM LIFE IN THE FIFTIES IN DAVIS TOWNSHIP Narrator: Andrew F. McCray, 91, Cowgill,
Missouri Subscription School Threshing Wheat Marketing Farm Products Mr. McCray was born
1843 in Calloway County Missouri. When he was five years old his parents Wm. McCray and
Nancy Carroll McCray came into Caldwell County. Wm. McCray had been up here first to look
around. He came on a Missouri River Boat as far as Camden and walked over from there to the
farm he wanted to look at. He finally traded for it. It was an eighty and lay five miles west of
the present site of Braymer in Davis township. His father was a blacksmith and was a bit asset
to the new country, the nearest shop being eight miles away. The first school that Andrew
Frank McCray attended was a subscription school (supported by money paid by the parents
so much per child and not by taxes). There was not yet any school tax or any organization of
districts in that part of the county. He was nine years old when it opened the spring 1852; it
was three miles from his father's house but the walk was nothing. The school house was
made of sawn logs and was quite large since it cared for children from a large territory. It was
called Black Oak School. His father raised wheat and corn. Wheat was a hard crop to raise
those days, because the severe winters often froze it out. It was threshed by hand and a flail
on a prepared floor on the ground or might be tramped on a prepared ground floor by horses
in the age-old fashion. Prior to the Building of the Hannibal and St. Joseph railroad through the
northern tier of townships in the County 1857 everything had to be freighted to or from
Lexington by teams of horses, mules or oxen. Lexington traders sent the stuff east and west.
A neighbor woman used to sell chickens in Richmond at $1.25 a dozen. The little surplus - if
any - prior to the completion of the railroad was consumed at home by neighborhood shortage
or by new settlers who had come in between crops. Since there was no market nearer than
Lexington; farmers had little inducement to raise large crops - just something above their
year's necessities. Of course after the railroad went through, farmers could ship their produce
easily at Hamilton. While Wm. McCray began his life in Caldwell County with eighty acres, he
finally acquired a thousand and twenty acres which shows the size of some of the early farms
when land was very cheap. Interviewed January 1934.
http://ftp.rootsweb.com/pub/usgenweb/mo/caldwell/misc/booth1d.txt
EPIDEMICS IN CALDWELL COUNTY Narrator: Emma Brown of Hamilton and Others Miss Brown
is the daughter of George Brown and Jane Wilkinson who lived in Vinton County Ohio till in
1873 they joined the Ohio immigration to Caldwell County. They bought a farm in the Lovely
Ridge District west of Hamilton. There were several Vinton County folks there: Dan Booth, Ike
Dunkle, Sam Bay, Hi Smith, Block Doddridge, and Henry Clark (father of Mrs. Elwood Rogers).
When George Brown died 1880, the family moved to Hamilton into the home on South
Broadway where Miss Brown still lives. She is a sister of the late Dr. Tinsley Brown who began
his practice here 1876, hence she has been interested in watching and hearing about various
epidemics which have gone through this community. One of the earliest epidemics of which
the oldest old timers mentioned by hearing is the typhoid epidemic of 1835. It broke out in the
southern part of Daviess County just over the line, among the McCrary family who had come
there about 1830 from North Carolina. In 1835 about seven or eight of the McCrary family died
of what was later found to be typhoid fever; but before the Doctor gave it a name, the
neighbors called it "McCrary fever" because of the large number of sick in that family.
Grandfather McCrary (then the head of the clan) died of it and his burial started the McCrary
Cemetery. There were several severe epidemics in the earlier years of Caldwell County which
took a heavy toll of children's lives; the older cemeteries show a large proportion of children's
deaths often belonging to certain years. There was a Small Pox epidemic in the 1840's
reported by the Jones family in which their grandmother died. In 1856-57 there occurred a hard
Scarlet Fever epidemic. In the summer of 1856 the family of Allen Tobban in Davis Township
was visited by it and five children died from July 28 to August 6th. The little graves in White
Cemetery tells the story. Mr. Andrew McCray (92) says that Dr. J.B. Gant of Knoxville was the
doctor. Mr. and Mrs. McCray (Andrew's parents) as neighbors helped care for the children;
being careful not to take it home to their own. By January 1857 it had spread up to Hamilton
and two of A.G. Davis' children at Hamilton died of it. All had it. In 1872 came a diphtheria
epidemic; there are many 1872 tombstones of children. In 1873 came another Small Pox
Epidemic. This run of Small Pox is reported to have started by some negroes who dug up
Small Pox clothes which had been buried. People yet living here lost children the R.D. Dwight
and son, Kenny had it and received resulting pocked faces. Little Ora Hare, son of T.H. Hare
died of it and was buried in the old cemetery. The old story is that he was privately buried at
night to prevent spread of the disease. A dog from a Small Pox home carried the germ to him.
In the Fall of 1873, black or virulent measles struck Hamilton and Dan Booth who had come
from Ohio on a prospecting trip almost died of them. In 1874 there was a bad run of typhoid
fever in the late summer. The people those days explained typhoid as due either to the poison
that came from newly turned virgin soil or to the dry prairie grass. Irwin Brown aged twenty
two brother of Dr. T. Brown died of typhoid 1874 and three members of the Watson family at
Nettleton. In 1875 Sarah Low and Leon Low were among the victims. In 1875 again Scarlet
Fever came and Dr. Stoller's own child was among the many victims. In 1879 Diphtheria came
and whole families were taken off. The Pittman children buried in Highland cemetery are well
known examples. Parents hung bags of asafetida around children's necks to ward off the
disease. In 1883 came Measles again, starting mildly but it acquired such virulence that even
grown up people died of it. There must have been a Small Pox scare 1881 for middle aged
people now can recall being vaccinated then as children and also the agony when it "took."
There was an epidemic of Chicken pox about the same time that caused serious illness but no
deaths as far as the narrator recalls. In April 1884 there was a epidemic of Seven Years Itch
here in town which caused the schools to close without final examinations. This was not as
serious as it was embarrassing to the very respectable people who had it. July 1934.
THE ANDREW McCRAY FAMILY IN THE COWGILL COMMUNITY Narrator: Frank Filson of Okla.
Mr. Filson is a life long friend of Andrew Francis McCray and gave these facts after the recent
death of Mr. McCray. Mr. Filson lived in Caldwell county himself much of his earlier life. A.F.
McCray has contributed many interesting facts to our D.A.R. research on the county and we
feel his loss deeply. Mr. McCray was born in Callaway county, Mo. 1843, the eldest of 11
children born to Wm. Martin McCray and Nancy Carroll (gr. daughter of John Carroll of the
Revolutionary War). His parents soon after moved to Caldwell county near the present town of
Cowgill where he experienced real pioneer life among the few pioneers of the county in the
early forties. He has written much of this down. He fought as a Union soldier in the Civil War
and lost a leg at the battle of Lone Jack, one of his unceasing hobbies was a dream of a
monument on the Long Jack battlefield for the Union soldiers who fell there. Such appeals
often appeared in the K.C. Star. He was prominent in G.A.R. reunions. The loss of a leg did not
daunt him in life for when the stump healed, he re- entered the army as a recruiting officer. In
1871, at Kingston, he was married to Hortentia Rhoades. She died 4 months before he did. Two
of his children had preceded him in death - Will McCray a millionaire oil man in Okla. who died
as a result of a mysterious beating, and Fran McCray who died 1934 as a result of a car
accident. The remaining children are Merle McCray of Cowgill, Mrs. Alice Denton of Tulsa
where the venerable couple died, H.B. McCray of Kansas City. Mr. McCray was an unswerving
Republican and for more than 70 years, he was active in Caldwell county Republican work,
but always clean and wholesome. He was postmaster at Cowgill for 21 years and had been
county assessor and recorder. He was an excellent campaigner both for himself and his party,
and his personality and ready laugh were strong assets to him. The original McCray family
was a large one, hence by intermarriage, they were kin to much of Caldwell county. At his
death Jun 15 1935, he was survived by one brother C.C. McCray of Calif. and one sister, Mrs.
G.B. Cowley of that original family. While the early McCray family had their own burial plot,
the old McCray graveyard near Cowgill, Mr. and Mrs. A.F. McCray were buried in the Cowgill
city graveyard. Interview 1935.
http://ftp.rootsweb.com/pub/usgenweb/mo/caldwell/misc/booth2.txt
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