PART 2
After viewing the original sign for the Trail of Tears some years ago, I wanted to get it repaired so that passing motorists would again know of Dent County’s role in this sad but important historical event.
It was not until 2010, after a presentation about Dent County’s 33 mines made by Stan Podorski, owner of KMSO radio, at the Dent County Historical Society Monthly Lecture Series meeting, that I figured out how to replace the signs.
During the presentation he requested the society place signs at the mines about their history, and he explained how funding the signs might be accomplished. After the presentation it occurred to me that the historical society was responsible for creating two signs from the past.
It seemed to me that these signs should first be repaired before any new sign project. When I informed the Dent County commissioners of my intent to replace the sign on Highway 19, still on county property, and asking for their permission to do the work, they had one stipulation. Would I also agree to repair and reinstall the 65 markers (as it turned out, plus another nine) along the trail? In a weak moment, I said; “Yes, after I get the signs replaced.”
Fortunately, the project was made a whole lot easier for me and the other two volunteers (then 90-year-old Al Hayman and one public service individual) when the Dent County commission provided 74 used grader blades to be swapped out for the ones from 1985. These blades, once painted, stenciled and placed, now guide visitors to within about a half-mile of where the trail came through the county, based on the 1844 maps using track, range, and sector information.
The replaced signs at Highway 19 North and Indian Trails Conservation Area and the one new sign at the White River Trace Conservation Area, tell the story of the Captain Peter Hildebrand Cherokee migration party. The Salem Plateau offered the Cherokees, as well as those settlers and Indians who came before and after them, excellent springs and an abundance of game. After all, in 1838, there were no restaurants or grocery stores like today to feed and refresh the weary travelers. The only public establishments at that time were Elisha and Elizabeth Nelson’s (my GGGG grandparents) grist mill for cracked corn and meal located just north from Dent’s Ford and south of Short Bend on the Meramec River and Ephraim F. Bressie’s Store, Tavern, and Trading Post (for furs and pelts) at Montauk Springs (i.e. Spring Creek) just two miles northwest of the then future city of Salem.
Conditions on the long march in late December 1838, no matter the route, were poor, as the three signs point out. One party through northeast Crawford County on the northern route had to stop at Osage Tavern (now Huzzah Community on Huzzah Creek, which was the turning point south for the White River Trace) in 1837 and attested to the conditions. G.S. Townsend, attending physician to this particular group wrote in late November, “I found the increasing number of cases (of fever) rendered it absolutely necessary…to discontinue…in order that I might have some chance to combat with the formidable and overwhelming disease that seemed to threaten the party with destruction.”
On the other hand, Honorable, William P. Elmer, a Dent County attorney and former member of the U.S. Congress, wrote in his history of Dent County that thousands of Indians had “camped around Mint Spring and Fishwater Creek (now in Indian Trails Conservation Area near the lookout tower) for a long resting period. The Indians wanted to stay in those happy hunting grounds,” but they were forced to move on.
Apparently, not all of the Indians moved on. Many Dent County families (well over 150 individuals over the years since 1830s) can trace their descent from displaced Cherokees. It is likely, according to presentations on the Cherokees made by Gail McElfresh of Dent County at the August and September 2011 Dent County Historical Society meetings, that some of the Cherokees migrated into southeast Missouri and Arkansas as early as 1782 long before the Trail Of Tears in the 1830s and settled a little west of the Missouri bootheel area.
Some later moved further westward and southwestward, penetrating northeast Arkansas in 1805. They moved yet further west around 1819 to Texas. She indicated some went to Oklahoma in 1828, some further into southeastern and southern Missouri; later some of the Texas or Oklahoma group went to Colorado. These early groups of Cherokees are referred to as Cherokees West, or now, Western Cherokees. There is also documentation that one Cherokee family, Samuel Watie or Watsu (Watson), shortly after arriving in Oklahoma with one of the groups on the Trail Of Tears, turned around and came back to southeastern Missouri settling in this area.
What do three signs and 75 markers (one marker at Dent’s Spring was not replaced) add up to? For me, it was the pleasure to work with so many people (52 or more individuals and groups) in the community to restore a bit of U.S. and Dent County history. I hope that because of this effort the people of Dent County, and many of the tourists who come to our community, will learn and reflect on this sad but important event in the nation’s history.
I hope to have maps and description of the trail for following the trail to be available at the SACC Visitors Center and to have some of the information placed on the Salem Area Chamber of Commerce web page by late spring. It will probably be under their menu options, “plan your vacation” and “maps and weather” sections via the existing Trail Of Tears paragraph.
All of my research material, maps, and genealogy chart of the Watsons in a three-inch notebook containing prior related published articles will be available in the Salem Library. The material will have to be requested from the librarian due to space limitations on the present library shelves.
If it was not for the time, money, and efforts of the following individuals and groups, this 2011 historic remarking project would not have been accomplished:
• Salem Area Chamber Of Commerce Committee (Director, Genie Zakrzewski, and past and present Board Members, Stacy Medlock, Willie Strader, George LaJoie, Carol Lacy, Tony Floyd, Sharon Tubbs, Julie Warren, Tressa Schafer, Melanie Wisdom, Mike McCluskey, Tracey Wood, Catherine Wynn, and Scott Roberts) for providing the up-front funding that was, upon completion, refunded to them by the Dent County Tourism Commission;
• Dent County Tourism Commission (Secretary/Board Member, Jo Ann Wells, board members, Sherman Odom, Rob Benowitz, Scott Blackwell, John Johnston, Mike Homeyer, and Dennis Purcell) for approving and funding the project after the fact;
• Department Of Conservation managers (Forest Manager, Indian Trails CA, Mike Farioni, Wild Life Biologist Manager, White River Trace, Justin Giley) for allowing installation of the historic signs on conservation property;
• Action Graphics Sign Co. (manager, Gary Washausen and staff) for the fabrication and installation of two signs;
• Kent Nichols Signs Co. (owner, Kent Nichols) for one sign fabrication and installation, two magnetic stencils and stencil paint;
• Robert-Judson Lumber Co. (owner, James Coffman) for allowing the project to run a tab for the paint and painting supplies;
• Whitaker Building Supply Co. (manager, Drew Whitaker) for allowing the project to run a tab for additional paint and painting supplies;
• The Dent County Road and Bridge Department (supervisors, Rusty Chamberlin, Sam Gorman), for use of their facility for painting and cutting the new used grader blades and providing the material needed to retrieve and return the old used grader blades;
• The Dent County Judiciary, Missouri Department Of Correction, Probation & Parole Officers (David Wynn, an “unnamed” Drug Court Probation Officer, and the Supervisor of the Probation Offices, Jon Kiser) for allowing a much appreciated public service individual to work on the project;
• Dent County Clerk Angie Curley for putting the project on the list of available projects the public service individuals could volunteer for in order to perform their public service;
• The 2011 Dent County Historical Society (Vice President, Ken Fiebelman, and Treasurer, Larry Morrison) for signing the memorandum of understanding with SACC and their support;
• The Western Cherokee Nation (council member, Lisa Thompson) for their support of the project;
• The Dent County commissioners (Presiding, Darrell Skiles, 1st District, Dennis Purcell, 2nd District, Gary Larson) for their support;
• RS Photography (photographer, Rick Shults) for helping relocate the White River Trace markers and photographing every marker site and new marker for the Chamber Of Commerce web site;
• TCRC personnel (Sherry Lea, Ray Walden, Charlie Pace) for their technical support and help with the web page addition;
• River Country Monuments LLC, (owner, Randy Stluka), for their stone sign proposal, which I believe was the best long-term solution, though it was not approved due to cost.
• The Salem Area Community Betterment Association and Gift of Time Committee (George Nash, Sherry Lea, Becki Godi, Liz Gruendel, Chris Welch, Sarah Massengale, David Massengale, and Judy Apperson) awarded me the 2011 Gift of Time for Historic Preservation award and recognition. I humbly accepted the award knowing 52 others individuals had just as much impact on this project as I did.
Today’s My Story is the second of a three-part series written by Dennis Hayman about the Trail of Tears. Submit a My Story on any subject to salemnews@thesalemnewsonline.com or P.O. Box 798, Salem, MO 65560.
