In about three years after my father settled here, McCarties sold out and located on the bayou above Bakersfield. In 1844 there was a man by the name of Thomas Hall who resided about 10 miles southwest of West Plains, a man by the name of Cyrus Newberry resided about 10 miles from where West Plains now is, and a man by the name of Braudwaters resided near where Moody is now located.
There was not a settlement in all the territory that now includes Howell valley. There had been a settlement, by a man who was a hunter, made at what is now termed the town spring at West Plains who had cleared five or six acres, but had left it. All the valleys in Howell county were considered worthless on account of there being no water.
When the country commenced settling, there was no attention paid to congressional lines. As they settled on the streams, they would make conditional lines—blaze across the bottom until they would strike the table-lands; and the next men who might come in and settle would blaze his conditional line across, and for years there was but little land entered. Men only sold their improvements, and there was a fixed law, or custom, that prevailed among them—that no man should enter the land and take another man's improvements without paying him for them. A few such instances occurred to my knowledge. The man was at once waited upon, and informed of the rules and customs of the country; and besides the rules and customs, it was not right nor honest to take a man's labor without paying him for it; and that it was the intention and purpose of the people to see that justice was done every man; and he was therefore notified to proceed to the late owner of the improvements and pay him the value of the improvements; and if they couldn't agree upon the value, submit it to two disinterested neighbors; and if they couldn't agree let the third man be brought in, which finding would be final. In every instance if the man who had made the entry failed to comply with the terms, he was at once notified that his absence from the settlement and a speedy departure from the country would be satisfactory to the settlement; and that if he failed to comply, he would have to submit to the punishments that would be inflicted upon him. If the improvements, which were always reasonable, were paid for, the party would move off, blaze out another claim, and go to work to improve it; but if he didn't receive pay for his improvements, he remained on the land and the other fellow's whereabouts would soon be unknown; and when the land was sold for taxes, the man owning the improvements would buy it in by paying the amount of taxes and costs without an opposing bid.
When my father first located in this country, a large portion of the territory had never been sectionized. What was known as the old survey, including range seven and a part of range eight (now in this county) formed a part of the old survey. Congress passed a law graduating the price of land according to the length of time it had been upon the market. The government price was $1.25 per acre. The first reduction was twenty-five cents upon the acre; then they reduced the purchase price every few years until all the land included in the old survey went down to a bit an acre. The graduation law allowed each man to take up 320 acres by making actual settlement and cultivating it. But the land speculators took advantage of the law and hired men to go upon the land and make a few brush-heaps, and in the name of some man apply for the entry, until all of the graduated lands were taken up, and there was not a bona fide settler who had complied with the law in one out of every hundred.
Most of the land in Howell, Gunters, Peace, and Hutton valleys, and the land where West Plains is now situated, were entered at a bit per acre. After the entries, the valley lands commenced settling rapidly. When the time came to procure a patent to the land, speculators went to Washington and engineered a bill through Congress to allow the parties to prove up without making proof of actual settlement, and in that way fraudulently obtained patents to two-thirds of all the land above referred to. The next thing, the speculators went East, sold their lands (or mortgaged them) by representing that all of the table lands were bottom lands and covered with walnut, hackberry, box elder, and other bottom growths. They let the mortgages all be foreclosed.
The merchants, who procured title to the lands, sent out agents to examine the land, who went back and reported that the lands were valueless and were not worth the taxes and refused to pay taxes on them. With some few exceptions the lands were offered time and again for taxes, would not sell for the amount of the taxes and thousands of acres remained in that condition until a short time before the building of the Kansas City & Memphis railroad. All of the table lands were looked upon by the people as being entirely worthless and fit for nothing but range.
My father in the year 1849 sold out and removed from Bennett's river, Fulton county, to the North Fork of White river, in Fulton County but two miles from the State line, dividing Missouri and Arkansas. In the year 1852 father took the winter fever, died and was buried in the cemetery, three miles above the State line, known as the Teverbauch cemetery.
In the year 1854 my mother and one brother died with the bloody flux, leaving three sons of the family, William, the oldest one living, F. M. and James I. Monks. The author was married on the 10th day of April 1853 to Martha A. Rice, a daughter of Thomas and Nancy Rice. He continued to reside upon the old homestead and was a farmer by occupation. The country commenced settling up rapidly. All the land on the streams was settled, with very few exceptions, with a frugal and intelligent class of people, mostly from the middle states. In the year 1856 Howell county was created by taking a part of the territory of Ozark and a part of the territory of Oregon, to-wit: Ranges 7 and 8 and a small part of 9 were taken from Oregon county and the remainder of 9 and 10 was taken from Ozark county. Andrew V. Taber, —— Johnson (and the name of the other commissioner we have forgotten at the present time) proceeded to locate the county seat and purchased 40 acres near the West Plains spring and laid it out into lots, got the county seat near the center, as a sufficient amount of water was necessary, taking into consideration the town spring and then what was known as the Bingiman spring. The lots sold rapidly and the town grew beyond any expectation and the country was improving and settling up with the town.
In 1858 the author sold out on the North Fork of White river and moved into Howell county and located 11 miles southwest of West Plains upon sections 2 and 11, range 9, was appointed constable of Benton township and in the year 1860 was elected constable of Benton township, commenced reading law in the year 1858. In the year 1860 West Plains was said to be the best, neatest, prettiest town in South Missouri and contained about 200 inhabitants; had a neat frame court house in the center of the square, a first-class hewed log jail, had four first-class stores (for the country at that time) which kept continually on hand a general assortment of merchandise, had two saloons, tan yard and the county was out of debt, with money in the treasury; a county warrant then was good for its face value in gold, and the country was prosperous in every respect. The people generally were fast friends and their chief interest was to develop the resources of the country and aid and help each other.