Bacon Chapel Neighborhood

Some Historical Events

1 November 1901

Clarence, Mo.

Editors SHELBINA TORCHLIGHT

Gentlemen:

William Moore, nephew of Judge Perry B. Moore, lives on a farm near Duncan Chapel. While Mr. Moore has lived on a farm most of his life, he is a brick mason by trade and has worked at his trade a great deal in Shelby and adjoining countries. Mr. Moore is one of our best citizens. Leven Moore, son of William Moore, lives on a farm near his father’s and is also a brick mason by trade and has worked on some of the finest buildings in northeast Missouri. He is a man worthy of the esteem of his acquaintances. They are members of the M. E. Church, South.

In 1841 Mr. Stanford Drain settled on a farm near the church known in those days as the Lacy Morris farm. He was one of the constituent members of Bacon Chapel. Mr. Drain left the farm in 1851 and settle in Shelbyville where he worked at the carpenters trade. His children are among the best and most noted citizens of Shelby county. Mrs. John W. Jacobs of Clarence and Attorney V. L. Drain of Shelbyville are two of his descendants. Mr. Drain died some years since and was buried in Shelbyville, where a monument marks the resting place of a good man.

Mr. John S. Duncan was among the first of Bacon Chapel members. He owned a large tract of land west and south of the church. Some of the best farms of neighborhood were carved out of this land. The James G. Glenn farm was owned by Mr. Prather, the Pollard farm owned by Mr. Edmonson, the Smith farm owned by Albert Kendall, the Dave Dunn farm owned by Mr. Alltoff composed this body of land. In the forties Mr. Duncan improved a farm one half mile south and a little west of the church where Mr. Prather lives. In 1856 Mr. Duncan sold his farm to James G. Glenn and moved to Shelbyville, where he conducted a board house. He was a merchant at one time. In 1861 he joined the militia and held an office in the commissary department. After the close of war he was circuit clerk by appointment of the Governor, for two years. He was postmaster at Shelbyville for seventeen years. Of late years Mr. Duncan has lived in Quincy, Ill, and is the oldest man living of Bacon Chapel neighborhood, being eighty-six years old.

George Duncan, son of John S. Duncan joined the militia when a young man. After the war closed he engaged in selling goods, which he followed for sometime, and is yet an honored citizen of Shelby county. Charles Duncan is a younger son, who when a boy, too young to enlist as a soldier, became a bugler boy in the army. After the war closed Charlie learned the jewelry trade and has continued in this business ever since. He lived in Shelbina for a number of years following his trade. He now lives in Quincy, having moved there a short time ago.

Sometime in the early forties a young man living in Cicero, New York, became desirous of leaving home and friends and all the comforts and advantages of a well developed country, to go to the far west (as Missouri was turned to called) where the wild Indian was the most numerous inhabitant and the bear and deer, the wolf and the coyote roamed at will to sack his fortune and grow with the development of the country. Like a prudent young man, he desired a helpmate, one in whom he could confide, counsel with, love and honor. One who would help him to resist and shun many of the temptations to evil that lie in the path of a young man. This young man married a worthy young lady and bidding farewell to loved ones. They started on their western trip. Arriving in this county they purchased a tract of land lying one half mile south of where the church now stands. Here they settled and commenced to build a home. Many a day this man could be seen with as and maul chopping and making rails to fence his farm. He was a natural mechanic and made the best as handle in all the country–it takes a mechanic to make a good handle. The nearest trading point was Shelbyville which was eight miles. Often did this man and his wife ride to Shelbyville in an ox cart with a supply of ax handles which they exchanged for goods at the stores. The gold excitement in California broke out in forty nine. This man catching the gold fever, sold his farm and crossed the plains to the gold field. After two years digging gold he returned and settled in Shelbyville. Having improved his leisure time by reading and studying, he entered the profession of law. The county court needing a man of his ability, employed him to plat the county and locate the swamp lands. This man known by all of the old citizen of Shelby county, as Col. John F. Benjamin, was a leading democrat and attorney up to the breaking out of the war, when he changed his political faith and joined the Federal Army. In ‘61 he was captured by Col. Martin P. Green, but released on parole. Col. Benjamin never reported to his captors, but took refuge in the Federal army and remained to his death a paroled prisoner of the southern confederacy. John F. Benjamin rose from a private to a captain then to colonel and finally to the brigadier generalship of Missouri Militia. In 1864 he was elected to congress, a radical republican from the first then the twelfth, congressional district and was re-elected in 1866 and again 1868 and was a candidate again in 1872 but was defeated by Col John M. Glover, the democratic nominee.

Col. Benjamin, at the close of the war settled in Shelbina where he built one of the finest residences in northeast Missouri, estimated to have cost $25,000. He organized and opened the first bank in the county, the First National Bank of Shelbina.

In the fall of 1872 he closed up his bank and went to Washington City where be re-entered the banking business. I don’t think Col. Benjamin ever returned to Shelbina til in March 1878. His body was shipped to Shelbina and buried in the yard a few feet south of his fine residence, where it remained until a few years ago, when it was removed to Shelbyville. Col. Benjamin, prior to the war, was a Mason and a member of the Christian church. Thus ended the life of a noted and brilliant member of old Bacon Chapel neighborhood.

J. H. Pollard