"The Cabin In The Woods"

By Gerald Ulmer

First settler cabin still standing but needing friends!

* It's 1819 and your name is William Asa Finley, but family and friends just call you Asa. You have left the security of the established farmlands of Kentucky, to travel to the unsettled wilderness of the Louisiana Purchase, to an area that is soon to be the great state of Missouri. If you find the land you search for, you intend to file your claim and build a small cabin that will give you and your family shelter from the elements until a larger home can be built. When that is done, you plan to return to Kentucky for your family, to bring them to this land of promise and establish a farm you can call your own.

The federal government has opened the area to settlement and soon there will be thousands of adventurous souls that will flock to these lands that can be homesteaded for little or nothing. Knowing that it could take years, perhaps a life time, to buy a farm in Kentucky, you have decide to do this and brave the hardships of the trail west. You and a few other hardy souls have arrived by Keel boat, at a small settlement along the banks of the Missouri River.

In a few years, it will be known as the town of Arrow Rock, but now, it's only a small river port. At this time in history, the river is the best way to bring supplies to the area, since land trails are scarce and dangerous to travel. It is at this small out post that already, a few brave pioneers have begun to gather.

Finding that land around this community has already been claimed to some extent, you decide to travel South, and West, going deeper into the wilderness to a place where no other white men, as of yet, have settled.

This is done at considerable risk to life and limb! There are several tribes of Indians that call this land their home, and some resent these strange new white people that have come among them. Where the Indian sees the land as belonging to all of the tribe, with no one area belonging to the individual, the white man has come to claim land that has been theirs for thousands of years, erecting permanent homes. The fences that the white settlers build obstruct free movement. They scar the land with strange tools that dig long furrows in the ground, and unlike the Indian who moves freely with the game, these white people build to stay in one area, hunting the game until it is scarce. It is because of these reasons that most Indians harbor resentment towards the white settlers. Along with the Indians, there is the added danger from black bear, wolves, and panthers. All have been known to attack the unwary traveler.

But Asa is a man, who has come to build a home and wants to be part of this great adventure, the settling of the Western wilderness. Determined to succeed, he walks with a purpose in his stride, across the gentle rolling hills that lay southward. Crisscrossing over the land, he finally comes to the spot he is looking for. It is on a small bluff, over looking the fork of two streams. The Black River, that flows from the west, (Now called the Black Water) and the Salt Fork, that joins it, as it arcs from the north.

The game is plentiful, and the streams will provide not only water to drink, but fish to eat, and the bluff that he will build his cabin on is high enough to keep his family away from the dangers of floods. To Asa, it looks like the garden of Eden, It is here he stakes his claim, and began building a small one room cabin that will provide shelter for his self and family, until a larger one can be built with the family’s help.

There are roaming bands of dangerous Indians that pass Asa's way, as he works at the task before him, but those that spot his camp, allow him to continue unmolested. So, he works from daylight to dusk, weather permitting, ever watchful for danger.

In this way, Asa spends his first winter, as his work continues. The snows are deep, and the rules of the game are harsh. If you get hurt or sick, there's no one to look after you, no one coming to check on you. But, at last, spring does arrive and he is ready to bring his family to their new home.

The journey to Kentucky and back could take months, perhaps a year, depending on the weather, river conditions, and hostile Indians along the way.

Catching a ride on a raft with some fur trappers that are happy to have another gun at their side, Asa helps pilot their craft down the Missouri River, and the journey to bring his family to their new home begins!

******

Is this story about how the cabin on the bluff, (above the forks of the Blackwater and Salt Fork rivers) came to be? We may never know for sure, but I can tell you this much. There is a very old cabin that still stands on the site mentioned. It was there when I was a child, visiting my grandparents, who ran the 'Nelson Cash and Carry' grocery, in the little town of Nelson Mo. I used to go there and look for arrowheads in the fields that surrounded it. This was in the fifties and sixties, and it had been abandoned for a long time then.

The old cabins simplicity and simple beauty was something that I greatly admired even then as a child. When you stand in front of it, or walk through it, you view the marks from each and every blow of the Ax that it's craftsman made. Each one, cutting and shaping the logs so that they would all fit tightly, giving strength to the whole of the structure. 0

Looking at each wall and the hand hewn logs that formed it, I could picture in my mind, it's builder standing over each one, ax in hand, calculating each blow, cutting and shaping the log so it would fit just right. All the while, his muzzle loaded rifle close by, and his eyes ever watchful for Indians or other dangers. Alone, and isolated from any immediate help should the need arise, the man that built this cabin was of strong stock, and committed to his purpose, in short, a pioneer.

There are those that do not understand why people like me find these old historic sites so fascinating. To them, their just old buildings that have seen better days, something that is past any usefulness. These people only look with their eyes. As in the case of this old cabin that I write of, historic buildings and sites are the doorways to our country's past. When viewing them with not only with or eyes, but using also our hearts and imagination, we can actually experience another time and place that has long passed. It is in this way that buildings like this old cabin provide a link to the life that our forefathers lived.

As to the old cabin, I hadn't been back to visit it for many years. I thought for sure that by now it would be long gone, but I had to go and see for my self. If it was still there, I wanted to see it again and maybe take some pictures. So, about three months ago, I climbed on my four-wheeler and set out to the place I remembered as its location. Driving across the small field that lay just east of where I thought the cabin should be, I saw nothing but trees with a thick under brush. There was still a lot of foliage at the time, and I couldn't see anything that looked like a log cabin. Was my memory about its location wrong? Things in the area did look different to me!

Deciding to circle north, and around the spot that I thought the cabin should be, I found the old county road that turned down the face of the bluff to the spot where the old 'Worthmore Bridge' had stood. The Worth more bridge was the first double span wooden bridge to span the river at that point. It was originally named the Marshall Bridge, after a man named Marshall, who had operated a ferry at that point. When the bridge was built, people started calling it after him. The name of the bridge was then changed by the locals after a Nelson banker bought the land the cabin and the bridge stood on.

The bankers name was J. T. Coleman, president and cashier of "The Bank of Nelson", which was also the site of the first brick building, I was told by it's current owner.

Mr. Coleman stated that the land was "worth more" than he paid for it, hence the name of the bridge, crossing where the property lies.

When the ice tore out the wooden bridge, the county later rebuilt it with one of the first iron bridges in the area. This bridge was still in use until about 1972, all though the bridge had been condemned for some years, in my time.

No matter to the locals, we kept using it anyway. The only catch to this was that the school bus was using it also, which opened the county to a lawsuit should the bridge fail under the intense weight of the bus. So at last, the county not only condemned the bridge, but piled rock and dirt at its mouth. To further the indignities to the bridge, and those of us who like to cross it, they took up the floorboards leaving only the iron shell.

I personally took this action as an inconsiderate thing to do at the time, as one of my favorite fishing spots was on the other side of the river and it was ten miles or so around to the other side with out the bridge.

But I digress, so back to my search for the cabin!

I was amazed to find that the replacement, iron "Worthmore Bridge” was still there. As I mentioned before, no longer crossable, with the floor boards all gone, but it still stretched out across the dark waters of the Blackwater River, some forty feet below. Like a bridge stretching through time, it ended on the other side among brambles and vines.

As fascinated by the bridge as I was, it was still the settler’s cabin that I searched for. Turning my four-wheeler around, I went back up the hill to a lane that turned south, at the top of the grade and bluff. Traveling only a short distance along this rutted path, I stopped beside some old large cedar trees to my left. I remembered cedar trees stood just west of where the cabin should be.

I peered through their thick cover, and there it was, the old cabin. I could only see a small part of it's West end wall, but it was enough to tell me that I had found what I was looking for and that it was still there.

Driving further up the lane, I circled around from the South West, where the brush was not so thick, and found my self looking once again at that magical old place, where, as a much younger person, I dreamed of standing watch into the night, with my black powder rifle, guarding against savage Indians that might threaten my family.

There is a saying that I'm sure all of you have heard, 'The only difference between men and boys is the price of their toys!’ The intended meaning being that grown men are just bigger boys. I guess it must be true, because as I walked towards that cabin, once again I found myself thinking about how it could of been me that crafted those logs walls, laying my claim to this spot that it stood on, defending it and my family against all that would harm them.

As it was when we were children, it's are imagination that allows us to have a better view and understanding of the lives our for fathers lived, by taking us places, for which there are no other means we can go.

The cabin is in far worse condition than it was some thirty years ago. The South wall is collapsed outward on the east end, exposing it's interior to the elements. The dug out basement at the West end is almost completely filled in with dirt, that has washed and blown in as time has passed, yet, it was still there! But, it is slowly disappearing, and I could see, that as time and the elements take their toll, it can only be a matter of time until it is just a pile of rubble.

Later, when I had returned home, I just couldn't put the old place out of my mind. As a child, I had been told by the old timers that had come into my grand parents store, that it had been used back in history, as an Inn for the stage line and wagon travelers. It was there at that spot, they would ford the river, heading westward on the 'Santa Fe Trail'.

There were other stories about the old place that had been discussed, but none could I say were true. For about a week I wandered about the house with the cabin in my thoughts. Finally, deciding that I would set out to find the truth about it, the research began to solve the mystery.

Deciding that the first thing that I needed to do was find the first documented owner of the land that the cabin sets on. I began by researching through an original copy of 'The history of Saline County' dated 1881, written by, what was probably the first chapter of 'The Saline County Historic Society'.

The book was one of three that I borrowed from 'Wanda (Waller) Smith. She was in possession of the 1881 printing, the 1967 printing, and the 1983 printing. All three came in handy with my research, as no two cover the subject of Saline County's history in the same way, giving me a different base of reference to research the area around the property.

Early in my research, the name William Asa Finley came up as the first settler to settle in the Nelson area, which is where the cabin is located, just about a mile or so North west of the town. On page 198, of the 1881 version of Saline County history, I found this entry. __________

The reference to the mouth of the Salt fork, places Asa Finley’s first home in the area where the Salt Fork joins the Blackwater River. Since that area is mostly flood plain, the best place that you could build a home in close proximity to the waters flow, was on the small bluff that lay just south east of the two rivers intersection. Exactly where the log cabin is standing today.

He could have built his home further away from the river, giving him safety from its flood stages, but there is a reason that I believe that he did not do this. The first settlers depended on rivers and streams for their water supply. Most did not dig wells or cisterns till many years later. Also, game followed the rivers, so that is where hunting would be good, not to mention the fish that would supply some of a settler’s dietary needs.

Add to this, the fact that the only timber that grew in the area was along the rivers, which was needed to build with, you have most of the first settlers staying close to their flow to build their homes. (This was because the area at that time was mostly prairie. The groves of trees we see today have mostly been planted by the settlers who needed the timber and fire wood.)

After I found the entry listing Asa Finley as the first settler at the two rivers forks, and most likely the builder of the cabin, I was now researching the man. It would be in this way that I would find the real story behind the old settlement home, if it were there to be found.

What was needed was documentation from any old records or text that would further prove whether or not Asa Finley was indeed the cabin's builder. So, my next step was to go to the Saline county Library, to check for anything that might help.

In their archives room, were several old county Platte books that I thought would surely tell me who the first registered owner of the property was, and if they had been in possession of the first Platte map, dated 1839, I would of probably ended my search then and there, as I would find that it clearly shows William Asa Finley as the owner of the property even at that later date, which is many years after he settled there around 1820. But it is good that I didn't, because not finding this out earlier in my research kept me digging further, which led me to other discoveries.

Once again, reading from the first printing of the History of Saline County, 1881 issue. On page 199 I found this entry. _________

When I first read it, I took this entry to mean that Asa had bought the land from Jarvis Smith, confusing me, because the other entry stated it was Asa Finley who was the first to settle on the Salt Fork and Blackwater rivers. But after thinking about it further, I realized that the books author was saying that Asa had settled on the property that had recently been the property of Jarvis Smith, in the author’s time, of 1881.

Once that was understood, I realized that the entry only further strengthened my belief that Asa was the cabins builder. Also, it made it clear that I would have to keep in mind that, at the time of the books writing, there were many people in the area who had known personally, some of the very first settlers. So, when the 1881 version was written, it was speaking to some people, who would of had friends or family that had told them much of the areas history as they were growing up. Because of this, and because of the time since the 1881 books printing, a lot of the references that the author made to the people and the area, would be about people and land marks that have also, long been gone, making it harder to understand some of it's text.

As when the author made many references to the settlement of 'Ridge Prairie, I had no idea where they were referring to. I only knew that it was somewhere south west of where the town of Nelson now stands.

When the book was written, ‘Nelson’, didn't even exist. It wasn't until weeks later, when I visited my aunt and uncle, who now live in Windsor, did I find that 'Ridge Prairie, was a small town that had stood just about a mile east and south, of where Stuckys now sits, (Stuckys along I-70 at the J road crossing). But curiously enough, both my uncle Don and my aunt Shirley had never been aware of the old cabins existence, even though they had both graduated from the Nelson school, just a couple of miles away from it. I guess they didn't get out much as teenagers. Talk about a sheltered life. (Sorry guys, I couldn't resist)

On page 483 of that same book, I found this entry about Asa Finley in connection with the 'Cumberland Presbyterian Church'. _______

The text goes on to tell, that at a later date, about two miles south of the area, a log structure was built to house the church, but it was lost in one of the many prairie fires of the time, about 1847. Another church was built about a half mile east of the Cooper county line in 1848, at the cost of about $1,200. This church, I remember myself. It was a very rustic old church in a very nice setting. The iron fence that that surrounded the churchyard then still surrounds it today. The graveyard is still used by families in need of it to this day, and it is well maintained.

Through more research, I found this text in the 1967 book, page 244, of the history of Saline County_______

There is a small field along the east side of the two rivers forks, at a point where the Salt Fork makes a bend from the north, to join the Blackwater. If I were to guess where the brush arbor had stood, it would be there, that I would place it.

Asa Finley was a man who was respected and liked by many. I believe this to be so because of his involvement in not only the founding of the Cumberland Presbyterian church, but in the fact that he was also elected as one of the first voting judges for the county, for Arrow Rock Township, in 1824, when Jonesboro was the county seat.

He was further listed as one of the first businessmen of the county, along with Dr. Sappington, Col. M. M. Marmaduke (who later became governor), Col. William Lewis, Judge Huston, and others.

I suspect that Asa was listed as a first businessman because of his involvement in not only the Alexander Galbreth mill, built in 1821, but also his own mill, which was on the Salt Fork not far upstream from the cabin, as listed in the 1967 history text.

On a more personal note! I new Don and Sarah Richardson well, when I were a small child. They both were quiet fond of me as I were of them.

There is a story that was told to me in later years of my life, that as a toddler,

I left my grandparents store "with out a stitch of clothing on", to travel up the street to their house to get me some cookies. You see, Sarah was always baking me cookies and she had made the mistake of taking me to her kitchen and showing me where she had made them. I guess I didn't want to wait for her next delivery, so I set out to fetch them on my own. (Fetch is an old word that I heard frequently as a small child in my family. I still like to use it occasionally just to remind myself of family and days that have long past.)

Asa Finley’s millstone that Don had in front of his shop has remained in the area. It is now in a field across from Danny Walkers, north of town, having been taken there after the estate sale of Lois Verts, who was a daughter to the Richardson's.

It was Don Richardson's grandfather, Dr. Joel Richardson, who bought the Finley land where the mill was located, and so brought the millstone into the Richardson's family property.

Dr. Joel Richardson had been a doctor with the army, and had traveled through the area around the time of the "Civil War". He was impressed with the community and returned to settle here in 1872.

Further into my research, I decided to go to the records office at the courthouse in Marshall. Thinking if I could find the first listing of land transfers from the federal government to the first settlers, I could further document the land that the cabin stands on, as belonging to Asa Finley.

There were sixteen listing of land transfers concerning Asa Finley, but after researching fifteen of those, I came to disappointment when I looked for the sixteenth. The listing was under the letter "I" in the first records book, but that book has been lost or misplaced, as it is no longer in the records vault.

Since Saline county has had four different county seats, and two major fires of it's courthouses, the fact that one book is missing does not surprise me. I only wonder that more are not lost from the passage of time.

0h but I didn't come away empty handed. There I found the first Platte map of the county. It was created in 1839, (or at least that was the most recent dated entry I could find on the map); on that map I found it showing Asa Finley as the owner of the property where the cabin stands.

Not only that! It also showed that Asa Finley owned a good piece of the land that the town of Nelson now stands on, with a tract of one hundred and sixty acres on the towns’ north end.

I would like to note, that unlike property listings that you see today, survey's of the land were in block tracts that did not show the minor streams that you might now see, marking the boundaries of our abstract maps. The odd shapes of some of the land abstracts of today are a result of owners selling off pieces of property up to a certain point of convenience, such as a stream or a road.

But, the first Platte Map of 1839 did show that the land the cabin stands on as belonging to Asa Finley, but due to the Salt fork and Blackwater rivers, the property was cut up and on different sides of the streams, with the cabin standing on what was actually a small south west corner, at the two rivers forks.

As Asa's Finleys home, this small cabin would have undoubtedly been visited by many of his friends and acquaintances, which would include the likes of Doc. John Sappington, (Col. M. M. Marmaduke who was one of Missouri's governors as I stated before), along with many others who were instrumental to this areas settlement, and indeed, the settlement of the state.

This small cabin also played a roll in the building of the railroad to this area. When in 1888, the cabin and land was owned by Lewis Richardson, who was in support of the railroad, allowed railroad workers to use the cabin as a place to lodge it's workers. In response to this, the railroad cut through only a corner of Lewis Richardson's land with “an” (S) curve. That curve is still with us today.

In conjunction with my research, I drove to the cemetery where the Cumberland Presbyterian church was, and searched the headstones there, looking for William Asa Finleys grave site, thinking that as a founder of the church he would surely be buried there. I didn't find his grave, but did find his wives, Ester (Gleaves) Finley.

I later found that he was buried in a Finley family cemetery, but as of the time of my writing this, I haven't located that site. I do wonder why Asa's wife was not buried with him there. I can only guess that she was into the church so strongly that she wished to rest there. (Asa died before her)

One further testament to the William Asa Finley family line, is that his grandson, who also had his grandfathers name, and was the son of James Washington Finley, was born in this area in 1839. William Asa Finley (the grandson) then left Saline county and went west to California in 1852. There he attended the "University of the Pacific" in Santa Clara for three years, and then attended the "Pacific Methodist College" for one year, also in California.

At a later date, he traveled to South Carolina, where “Wofford Collage” of Spartanburg, South Carolina also awarded him a D. D. degree in 1871.

Returning to the western states, he served as the first president of "Corvallis Collage" from 1865 to 1872. Then in 1884, Finley returned to 0Corvallis Collage to participate in the commencement ceremonies and give the baccalaureate sermon. William Asa Finley (the grandson of our Asa Finley) died in 1912 in California. Corvallis College later became the "University of Oregon".

I have found that researching this story has been more involved than I thought it would be. I started this endeavor, expecting to find a few lines of text that would simply state who owned the land that the cabin is setting on, and so, it's builder.

But I found much more than that. I found the first man known to have settled this area around the Blackwater and Salt Fork joining point and what is now the town of Nelson. Asa was a man who had a very large impact on this areas development.

In addition, I found that the cabin was probably one of, or ‘the’ first home to be built here.

Also, it was at the cabins site, that the wagons heading west, forded, and were ferried at the Salt Fork and the Blackwater rivers, on the road to Jonesboro to take up the Santa Fe Trail.

0 Plus, the road that the wagons used, was one of the first trails in this area, traveling right past the cabin. This is shown on an early Missouri map from 1825 that I was able to download from the Internet.

Further, I found the home of one of the first three voting judges in the county, in 1824.

That the same man that built the cabin, built one of the first Mills in the area, not far from the cabins site, and was also listed as connected with the building of "Gilbraith's Mill", which became the town of "Jonesboro", our second county seat.

I found the site of one of our first areas church's, and one of the men who helped form it, "The Salt Fork Presbyterian Church."

Add to this, the fact that it is quite possible that Asa Finley’s grandson, also named William Asa Finley, who was the first president of Corvallis College, (soon to be Oregon State University) could of been born in that small cabin, and you have a pretty good track record for a small abandoned cabin.

I also found something else! I found that I enjoyed the research and the hunt for the truth about the old cabin on the bluff above the Salt Fork and Blackwater rivers. In short, "The Cabin in the Woods"

Gerald D Ulmer