Scenes along the Mississippi 1848 and 2017

 Irish Wilderness, Lens & Pen Press, On the Mission and Fifty Years Ago, Uncategorized  No Responses »
Jan 272024
 

Hogan describes the scenery along the river as the tug pulls the clipper ship slowly toward New Orleans, 107 miles distant.

Once I looked out over the ship’s bulwarks and saw we were between what seemed to be two long, low earth-mounds, one on either side of the river; there was a bend in the river at the place. These mounds, on which there were trees and houses and gardens and people, were the first patches of elevated grounds that I saw since the tug took us in tow. I was told they were fortifications or land batteries, Fort St. Philip and Fort Jackson by name, guarding the approach to New Orleans from invasion by sea.

At the end of our day of exploring Passe a Loutre we took time to ride and walk through the remains of the two forts Hogan mentions.

Fort St. Philip on the eastern bank of the Mississippi, is only accessible by boat or helicopter. Despite its deteriorating condition, it was named to the National Register of Historic Places in 1960. “The earthen works fort was established in the 18th century. Fort St. Philip’s major engagements were 10-day naval sieges during the War of 1812 and American Civil War. The site is privately owned and deteriorating. Recent hurricanes like Katrina have added to the damage.” (Wikipedia)

Fort St. Philip is accessible by boat or helicopter.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fort Jackson (below) on the west bank, is a historic masonry fort, constructed as a coastal defense of New Orleans, between 1822 and 1832, and it was a battle site during the Civil War. It is now a National Historic Landmark. It was damaged by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, and its condition is threatened

Since 1970, The grounds of Fort Jackson have been the site of both the Plaquemines Parish Fair and Orange Festival. The fort was used to treat oily birds in the early weeks of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

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Bishop Hogan recounted his childhood memories and his voyage to America and to the priesthood in Fifty Years Ago: A Memoir, written in 1898 and published in 1907. His second memoir covered his early missionary years on the Missouri frontier, to his consecration as bishop of St. Joseph in 1868.  Our companion volume to Mystery of the Irish Wilderness contains both those memoirs plus additional biographical information I was able to learn from the archives of both the Kansas City-St. Joseph and St. Louis dioceses.

On the Mission in Missouri and Fifty Years Ago: A Memoir is available on our website for 10% off ($22.50), postage paid at www.beautifulozarks.com    Companion volume, Mystery of the Irish Wilderness: Land and Legend of Father John Joseph Hogan’s Lost Irish Colony in the Ozark Wilderness, is also available for $17.00, postpaid.

 

Billy Griffin of the Irish Wilderness

 Irish Wilderness  No Responses »
Jun 182021
 

One of the great rewards of researching, writing and publishing our books on the Ozarks has been learning more on the subjects from people who are personally connected with them. Such is the case with our two books on John Joseph Hogan and the Irish Wilderness in Oregon and Ripley counties.

We recently received emails from Juliana Billingsley asking for help researching Billy Griffin, her second great grandfather. Billy Griffin was among the original Irish settlers in Father Hogan’s community in the Ozarks just before the Civil War. Hogan mentioned Billy Griffin several times in his memoir, On the Mission in Missouri. We found Patrick Griffin’s name (Billy’s father) in correspondence with land agents and on deeds to land in the area we identified as areas of the settlement during research for Mystery of the Irish Wilderness.

Conversations with Juliana Billingsley and review of newspaper articles provided additional details on how Billy Griffin and his family came to Father Hogan’s settlement.

June 24, 1843, William (Billy) Griffin was born to Patrick and Elizabeth Delaney Griffin, in Newcastle, West Limerick, Ireland. He was the middle of three children, with older brother Thomas (b. 1838, d. 1914) and younger sister, Katherine (b. 1848, d. 1923).

In 1852, the family emigrated to America. Billy was about 9 years old. According to a substantial obituary in the Van Buren newspaper, the family was in Boston first, then Zanesville, Ohio, then Carondelet, Missouri (near St. Louis). No specific dates known for these different locations.

In 1857, the young Irish priest, John Joseph Hogan was exploring northern Missouri, looking for pioneering Catholics, when he met the railroad contractors, Griffin and Shea. They were from Madison, Indiana, which is on the Ohio River.

The following is pure speculation on my part: Consider that river travel was a major transportation method for settlers moving west in the first half of the 19th century, when railroads were just pushing into the interior of the country. Zanesville, Ohio is on the Muskingum River, which feeds into the Ohio River, a major watery thoroughfare to the West. Follow the Ohio west from Marietta, float past Huntington, West Virginia and Cincinnati, Ohio and the next stop is Madison, Indiana. From there the Ohio is a good conduit to the Mississippi and St. Louis for a family moving west. It is plausible that Griffin (Patrick and/or Billy) connected with Shea there in Madison and got a job, which took him to the prairies of north Missouri and a chance encounter with a traveling priest,

When Hogan visited the railroad camp near Breckenridge in Caldwell County, west of Chillicothe, Billy Griffin would have been about 14 years old. Perhaps he was there with his family. Some families were with the railroad contractors as Hogan noted baptizing two children.

“Returning eastward I stopped for the night near where Breckenridge now is, at a place then called Garryowen—the camp of Griffin and Shea—railroad contractors from Madison, Indiana, who with a band of good sober men were at work on the grade of the Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad. There, on the evening of August 12th, I baptized two children of the pious edifying railroad community. Garryowen and Billy Griffin had so many attractions for me, and were so intimately associated, in name at least, with places and persons dear to me since childhood, that I stayed there, though aside from the purpose of my journey, a day and night longer.”

 On the Mission, page 40

Imagine the nostalgic conversations around the evening fire as they shared memories of County Limerick and the Irish city of Garryowen .

Then a year later (1858), we find Patrick Griffin’s name listed in a report from the Land Agent, saying the acreage he had paid on was already sold to another:

“JACKSON, Mo., APRIL 30, 1858. I find from examination that the following tracts, applied for by you, have been sold, to-wit; application of James Murray, North West 1/4, and lot I North East 1/4, Section 6; application of Denis Sullivan, South West 1/4, Section 21; application of Denis Hurley, South West 1/4 Section 24, application of Thomas Mulvehille, South East 1/4, Section 22; application of Michael Mara, North 1/2, Section 22; application of Stephen McNamara, West 1/2, Section 23; application of Patrick Griffin, South 1/2 of North East 1/4, Section 36; application of Patrick Rowe, North West 1/4, Section 30. All these have been sold to others. Very respectfully, G. W. FERGUSON.”

On the Mission, page 64

The Iron Mountain Railroad, which would run from St. Louis to Texarkana, Arkansas, was under construction then, a possible source of employment for the Griffins. Billy was 15 by that time. In Mystery of the Irish Wilderness, we listed Billy’s father, Patrick Griffin, as a likely settler in Ripley County.

When the War came with its violent disruptions and savage ebb and flow of forces, Billy Griffin joined the Confederate Army, which would not have sat well with Father Hogan.  But wars make decisions for individuals.

Lens & Pen Press is having a warehouse sale and offering all titles for half price, postage paid.

Mystery of the Irish Wilderness: Land and Legend of Father John Joseph Hogan’s Lost Irish Colony in the Ozark Wilderness  and On the Mission in Missouri are available on amazon.com or discounted 50 percent on this website, postage paid.

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ANNOUNCING A HOLIDAY BOOK SALE!

 Beautiful Ozarks, Damming the Osage, Irish Wilderness, James Fork of the White, Lover's Leap Legends, See The Ozarks, Uncategorized  1 Response »
Nov 142020
 

The holiday season is upon us all and BOOKS MAKE SPLENDID GIFTS!

We are pleased to offer a 50% discount on our current inventory with free shipping.
Click here to visit our storefront to order now.

Lover’s Leap Legends Price now: $17.50
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Irish Wilderness – More on the Mystery

 Irish Wilderness  No Responses »
Jun 012020
 

While organizing our extensive collection of Ozarks ephemera we found this June 1952 issue of the Ford Times with an article on “Missouri’s Irish Wilderness,” by Don Cullimore. As the article seems to be largely devoted to the springs and stream (“The Narrows”) where aquarium plants were harvested, we didn’t reference it in Mystery of the Irish Wilderness. Cullimore mentions the lost colony of Irish immigrants founded by Father Hogan in the article. The purpose of the Ford Times, however, was to encourage folks to drive their Fords to new places, so this article focuses on the Morgan family’s “spring-water moss farm” (Myriophyllum harvesting, for use in home aquariums)  in a remote and scenic location, on the Eleven Point River in Oregon County, Missouri.

In 1951 and 1952, Cullimore and Dan Saults, editor of the Conservationist, with photographer Don Wooldridge, researched and published a series of 12 articles about the Irish Wilderness for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. They drove the roads with E. R. Barrow, step-grandson of original Irish settler, Billy Griffin, exploring the locations and recording the stories of that early settlement. The result of their deep dive into its history was a remarkable series of articles encompassing what was known or could be discovered at that time about Hogan’s settlement. Those articles we read and referenced in Mystery of the Irish Wilderness.

Their articles and the continued interest of Cullimore, Saults and a coalition of environmentalists led to the inclusion of these legendary forested hills in the national wilderness protection system: The “Irish Wilderness Act of 1984”. Sec, was passed by Congress, “2, (a) In furtherance of the purposes of the Wilderness Act (16 U.S.C. 1131-1136), certain lands in the Mark Twain National Forest, Missouri, which comprise approximately sixteen thousand five hundred acres, as generally depicted on a map entitled “Irish Wilderness”, dated March 27, 1984, are hereby designated as wilderness and shall be known as the Irish Wilderness.”

Today – the aquarium plant business is no more. The Morgan family opened the aquaria plant farm in 1951 and continued in business until 1978. The United States Forest Service purchased the area in 1972.

Mystery of the Irish Wilderness: Land and Legend of Father John Joseph Hogan’s Lost Irish Colony in the Ozark Wilderness is available on amazon.com or discounted on this website, postage paid.

To learn more about the remarkable Catholic priest who established this Ozark colony and later became the first bishop of Kansas City, our book “On the Mission in Missouri and Fifty Years Ago: A Memoir” reprints both of his memoirs in full. We included additional biographical information found in our research. Also available on amazon.com or discounted on this website postage paid.

The Mysterious Irish Wilderness – Rural Missouri March issue

 Uncategorized  No Responses »
Mar 242019
 

In recognition of everyone’s favorite saint–Patrick, the March issue of Rural Missouri carries a full page article (note – a full page in Rural Missouri is a big page at 10 x 14″) on “The Mysterious Irish Wilderness.” Jim McCarty weaves together the known history of its origin, its inclusion in the National Wilderness system in 1984, with a useful guide to trails for today’s hikers and campers. Jim also includes a list of all of Missouri’s designated wilderness areas (8 in all including “The Irish”) – from the smallest, Rock Pile Mountain in the St. Francois Mountains to the largest, Hercules-Glades in southwest Misosuri.

Irish Wilderness and Eleven Point River – 50 years a Wild and Scenic River

 Uncategorized  No Responses »
Sep 032018
 

This afternoon Google alerted us to an article by Andy Ostmeyer in the Joplin Globe: Worthy companions for a wild river: Eagles escort float down one of country’s inaugural wild and scenic rivers

In loving detail Ostmeyer recounts his float on the Eleven Point River, which flows through “the Irish.” This jewel of a river was among the first eight rivers designated National Wild and Scenic Rivers when Congress passed that legislation in 1968.

Ostermeyer’s musings as he floated the river  addressed the Eleven Point’s past (which brought mention of our research for Mystery of the Irish Wilderness), its present and future prospects. We appreciate his mention of our work as we too give thanks for the land, the people and the river than flows through it.

 

 

Mystery of the Irish Wilderness ($18.95, ppd) and other Lens & Pen books are available on this website, on amazon.com and at Barnes & Noble.

Thomasville, Missouri – then and now

 Uncategorized  No Responses »
May 092018
 

When John Joseph Hogan was looking for land for Irish immigrants in 1857, his second exploratory trip to the Ozarks took him from Shannon County as far west as Thomasville. He noted the “broad alluvial valley” spreading out around the headwaters of the Eleven Point River.

When Hogan and his friend Father Fox rode through tthis valley in 1857, it would have been planted in corn, not pasture grasses as it is today.

Just over a year ago, Thomasville was hit with the massive floods that affected the Irish Wilderness and much of the central Ozarks. Recovery is slow coming to the small town with a long history.  It was laid out in 1846 and named for George Thomas who settled there in 1817. Thomasville is the oldest settlement and first county seat of Oregon County.

Mystery of the Irish Wilderness is available on this website, on amazon.com and at Barnes & Noble.

APPOLLINARIS – not a name you hear every day

 Uncategorized  No Responses »
Jul 202017
 

Today’s soon-to-be parents research names for the next scion of the family from lists of  trendy baby names, popular fiction, rock/pop stars or the hottest chick flick of the season.  “Apollinaris” hasn’t made any of these lists for a long time. But in the mid-nineteenth century, naming sources were more limited. Family Bibles, occasionally Shakespeare’s characters, or – in this case – the early saints names were tapped.  Today, July 20, on the Catholic calendar is the feast day of Apollinaris, a Syrian saint of the second century, named bishop of Ravenna, Italy by St. Peter himself. He was the first of several Appollinarises who achieved sainthood over the early centuries of Christianity. An auspicious lineage for the name of a miller on clear stream in the mid-nineteenth century Ozarks

In the fall of 1857,  John Joseph Hogan made his first exploratory trip to the Ozarks in search of “land for people of small means” (poor Irish immigrants). He and a surveyor explored  from Greenville to west of the Eleven Point River and back. Near the Current River they came across a mill, owned by one Appollanaris Tucker:

Traveling by way of Brunswick, Jefferson City, St. Louis, Old Mines, Potosi, Iron Mountain and Frederick Town, I halted at Greenville, in Wayne County, where I hired a surveyor familiar with the country. I examined the lands on the head waters of Little Black River, Cane Creek, Brushy Creek, in Ripley (now Carter) County, and entered four hundred and eighty acres in a body on Ten Mile Creek, making arrangements at once to put men thereon, opening and cultivating it.

With the surveyor I rode westward, across the Current River, by Van Buren, up Pike Creek, thence southward over the great divide east of Eleven Points River as far as the head waters of Buffalo Creek, thence eastward along Buffalo Creek and its tributaries to a ford on Current River. At this place there was a mill and homestead owned and occupied by a man named Appollinaris Tucker; he and his family were the only Catholics known to be residing at that time in that district. At the time of my arrival, Mrs. Tucker was in the last stages of her mortal illness, in which it seemed God’s Holy Will that she should linger until her longings could be gratified to receive the last Sacraments; and, as it happened, from the hands, of the first priest known to have come into that region of country. After Mrs. Tucker’s death, I returned homewards, by way of Iron Mountain, St. Louis, and Hannibal, to Chillicothe.

Mystery of the Irish Wilderness

We tracked in our Jeep the areas that Hogan covered on horseback when we were working on Mystery of the Irish Wilderness. We did find record of the Tuckers’ land purchases, but little else.  One of the largest springs in Missouri is Tucker Bay Spring in Ripley County. Its average flow is 24 million gallons a day. Jo Schaper notes that “very little is known about this spring, either geologically or historically. The spring is a boggy, low area (locally known in the Ozarks as a ‘bay’).”

“Appollinaris and Ellen Tucker purchased government land in 1854 and 1856 in Ripley County.  . . .  There is no record of the mill after the Civil War or what became of Appollinaris. Tucker Bay Spring, large … but curiously unstudied, flows into the Current River.”

 Mystery of the Irish Wilderness, caption, page 25

 

Lens & Press Blog Moving to Word Press

 Uncategorized  No Responses »
Apr 182017
 

We’re moving our Lens & Pen Press blog from Blogger to Word Press and will consolidate the two current blogs into one for our books–the Beautiful and Enduring Ozarks, the James Fork of the White (coming 2017), Damming the Osage, Mystery of the Irish Wilderness and See the Ozarks–and many other favorite topics of discussion. The archive of L&P posts is still available at http://lensandpen.blogspot.com/ The posts on our separate Damming the Osage website remain available at http://www.dammingtheosage.com/the-blog/

To bridge this move from one platform to another, below is the most recent (Blogger) post about Table Rock and the pre-dam White River landscape:

TABLE ROCK – BLUFF AND DAM

Shortly after Empire District Electric built Powersite Dam across the White River, creating Lake Taneycomo, the big electric company announced plans to build a 200-foot dam upriver at Table Rock Bluff.

“Table Rock Dam will be built across the big sandbar,” reads the handwritten caption.
Real photo postcard, 1920s, by Payne Johnson, Branson, Mo.

Most bluffs along Ozark rivers are named. Table Rock Bluff had a relatively flat top and was accessible by road. A visit to this overlook was on many vacationers’ itinerary.  For decades locals anticipated seeing machinery in the valley below building a huge dam.  That this never occurred frustrated dam supporters and led them to question if the utility really intended to proceed. They didn’t.

The Army Corps would build Table Rock Dam many years later but the Corps didn’t build it at Table Rock. They moved the location two miles upstream to a more stable geological site, but kept the name.  Table Rock Bluff remains a popular scenic overlook, but is now fenced for safety – unlike the past as shown here.

COMING IN 2017: JAMES FORK OF THE WHITE: Transformation of an Ozark River.

Sample pages from this new book can be seen at www.beautifulozarks.com

Our earlier ‘river book,’ DAMMING THE OSAGE, can be seen at www.dammingtheosage.com