THE KINKADE FAMILY IN CLARK COUNTY, MO.

A Postscript to "Our Book" ....... 1932

By Ben F. Dixon

6008 Arosa St., San Diego, Calif.

SUPPLEMENT TO "OUR BOOK"

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The following chronology of the KINKADE FAMILY residence, from the time they left Stark County, Ill., until E. S. Kinkade took up residence at Waterloo, ancient capital of Clark County, is prepared to augment and correct the notes relative thereto in the pages of "OUR BOOK".

I have consolidated this material from notes given me by Charles A.Kinkade and Katherine Kinkade-Donnelly-Wadmore, in 1931-32; by E. S. Kinkade, Jr., in 1932; notes by Mrs. R. M. Dixon in 1939 and before; and miscellaneous notes including reference to dates in P. M. Dixon's Journal, written 11/24/1898,and before.

1868

From Stark County, Ill., to Clark County, Mo., enroute to the Indian Territory. The family spent two weeks enroute, and stopped at Joseph Cronin's, near Peakesville, for a rest. Here Jake Ball took a fancy to a team and wagon which Grandpa Kinkade owned. A deal was made. Jake Ball got the team and wagon. E.S. Kinkade got a little farm, a 1 room log cabin and stable. The cabin had a loft, a door in the south, a window in the north, and a large fireplace. The family lived in this cabin through the winter.

1869

To Sandusky, Iowa, in the spring. Grandfather (E. S. Kinkade) and the oldest boy, Charles Andrew, worked on the Government project of construction of a ship canal and locks for the passage of the Des Moines Rapids of the Mississippi.

1870, April 19

James Dorsey Kinkade was born at Sandusky, Iowa. The middle name was for James Darsie, of Toulon, Ill., a Campbellite preacher much admired by the Kinkades and Spilmans. During 1870, Grandfather worked most of his time away from home at his calling of stone mason. He worked on the new Iowa State Penitentiary, at Fort Madison. He helped build the old Brick church (Congregational) at Kahoka, Mo.

1870 was the year of the great typhoid epidemic at Sandusky. This was a terrible experience that took heavy toll in Lee County, Iowa and adjacent territory. Most of the Kinkade children had it. Perley Dixon, enroute from Northwest Missouri to Illinois and Troy, N. Y. in the fall of this year, visited the Kinkades at Sandusky while they were recuperating from typhoid.

1870

The Kinkade family moved back to the farm in Clark County, Mo., late in this year. They lived in the little house owned by a Mr. Knox until spring. The children went to school at Dumas.

1871

E. S. Kinkade worked on construction of the New Court House at Kahoka, Mo... Also farmed in Sweet Home Township, Clark Co.

1872

E. S. Kinkade worked on the Brick School Building at Kahoka. Cornerstone laid July 4, 1872 .... This building is now used as the Masonic Temple.

E. S. Kinkade, Jr., was born at Peakesville, on the Sweet Home Farm.... He died November 15, 1938, a sufferer from cancer in a hospital in Guthrie, Okla. He had been retired about four years from the Railway Mail Service.

1873

On the Kinkade Farm. This year the Kinkade children went to school at the Caldwell, known later as the McCabe School. It was here that our Mother, Rachel Kinkade, acquired her academic contact with the famous character, Berry Rebo, referred to on Page 101 of "Our Book".

1874, April 17

Grandmother Sarah (Spilman) Kinkade died at Peakesville. She was buried in the Peakesville Cemetery, by the side of Aunt Mary (Cronin) Kinkade - - Uncle Dave's wife.

1874 or 75

Sometime after Grandmother's death, the Kinkade Family went back to Sandusky, Iowa. Two of the children were already married and gone: Uncle Charley, the eldest married Cordelia Atwood Nov. 24, 1872. Aunt Kate had married at Sandusky, Pat Donnelly, on July 2, 1870, and now lived at Hope, Ark.

1875, Sept.

Grandfather Kinkade, with little Eben and Jimmy, went to Hope, Ark. where he spent four or five months of that winter with Uncle Pat and Aunt Kate. For this trip he invested in a suit of clothes that cost $25.00 -- "the only good suit of clothes I ever had, he used to say.

1875, April to December

P. N. Dixon, on completing his apprenticeship at Troy, N. Y. returned to Illinois to look for work, and was engaged to help cut masonry for the Rock Island Arsenal, then under construction. He succeeded in getting a job on the same project for Charley Kinkade, and they worked together through the summer of this year.

1876, May or June

Charley Kinkade was back in Iowa, at Montrose. He settled his family on the old Pohlman Place, in Lee County, north of Keohuk, near Sandusky.

1876, December, about Christmas

E. S. Kinkade brought his family back to Clark County from Sandusky, and moved into the upper story of the "Red House" in the middle of the D.G. Moore Block on Johnson Street, north of the railroad track. Charley Kinkade also came to Kahoka with his family, and he and Grandfather set up a marble shop in the ground floor of this same "Red House" . . . I believe this is the same house that was later used by old Fay Hammond (or Harmon) for a photograph gallery. P. N. Dixon also had a tombstone shop in this building in later years. The Kinkade Family lived in this house until the spring of 1878.

1877 - 78

This was the year, according to Mother Dixon, that Uncles Jimmy and Eben went to school to Miss Ludie Lehew.

In this year also, Rachel, Will and Mattie Kinkade attended public school in Kahoka.

In December, 1877, Uncle Ben married Susan Wadmore, and Aunt Em married James Wadmore - - both aided and abetted by old Squire Chappell of Williamston.

1878, Feb. 22

Aunt Cynthia married Ed Messnier. She took Uncle Jimmy and they went to Uncle Pat's place in Hope, Ark. (Aunt Cynt died at Dodge City, Kansas, May 29, 1938.)

Spring of 1878, Charley Kinkade moved his family into the old DeWitt Place, about two miles northwest of Kahoka. E. S. Kinkade broke up house-keeping, took three of the younger children, and moved in with Uncle Charley.

1878, May or June

E. S. Kinkade married Rosanna Green-Lewis, widow, whose daughters Clarissa and Emma married Tom Neal and Bill Otto. After this second marriage, he moved with the younger children of both families, into a house two blocks north of the Court House on Johnson Street, in Kahoka . . . This was later the George Young property, where Peck and Maggie Young grew up. This house burned on a cold winter day in 1878.

1878 - 9

E. S. Kinkade's fourth residence in Kahoka was the old Gilbert property by the railroad. This was the little cabin where Aunt Becky Spangler kept a little shop for so long.

1879

E. S. Kinkade's fifth residence in Kahoka was the second floor of a frame house that stood at the site of the present Montgomery Opera House block.

In 1880. Nov. 15. The sixth and last residence of the E. S. Kinkade family in Kahoka was a corner house on Commercial Street (a southeast corner) one block west of the public square. Whether this house still stands I do not know. When Ford Wayne married Gladys Crawford, he took the remains of this old Kinkade dwelling and remodelled it into a real home.

1880 - 90

In 1880 Rachel Kinkade married Perley Dixon, and they started housekeeping at 265 East Maple St. Charley Kinkade lived in Kohoka during these years. A part of the time Charley Kinkade and Perley Dixon were in partnership in the tombstone business. E. S. Kinkade was Perley Dixon's agent for a number of years. B. F. Kinkade, E. L. Kinkade, James D. Kinkade, and E. S. Kinkade, Jr., all learned the rudiments of stone-cutting in Perley Dixon's shop - - as did Tom Meeks, Bert Butler, and others. All of Charley Kinkade's children went to Kahoka Public Schools during these years.

1870 - 82

E. S. Kinkade, Sr., worked at his trade of stone mason most of this period. He helped put up most of the permanent buildings at Kahoka which required stone foundation work. He and Charley Kinkade both worked on the famous Spencer Monument (about 1878). I think both of them, and probably P. N. Dixon also, worked on the masonry for the college building, 1884-5.

1882, April 2nd

E. S. Kinkade, and the remnants of his family, removed to Waterloo, where a dozen years before he had said he hoped to live and to spend his last days. At Waterloo he farmed and served as Justice of the Peace, preached occasionally, and made himself handy generally as a member of this rapidly dwindling metropolis. In the latter years of his life, his family and friends gathered in on his birthday annually, for a great feast of felicitation. He died April 26, 1905, and is buried at

Waterloo.

E. S. KINKADE, SR.

He ended his active work as a stone mason as he grew older. But for years he acted as the agent of P. N. Dixon, and sold tombstones all over Northeast Missouri.

He also took agencies for the "Oxien Remedies" and for the George Rupp Company (Junk Dealers) of Quincy, Ill. With a little light covered spring wagon and a tem [sic submitter s note this is probably a typo for team ] of mules that become famous all over the four counties of Northeast Missouri; Clark, Scotland, Lewis and Knox. He bought bits of zinc, copper, brass and worn-out rubber goods. He sold Oxien pills, ointment, tablets and plasters for all manner of ills and ailments. And he dispensed a never-failing supply of neighborly good cheer and quaint philosophy.

Two stories that did not find their way into "OUR BOOK" when it was produced in 1932, should be preserved for the local and family history. I will incorporate them in this little sketch on the Kinkade Family in Clark County.

NO CONDEMNATION

Uncle Charley Kinkade told me this one:

The Sunday before Grandpa left Hope, Ark., with Uncles Jimmy and Eben, to return to the family in Sandusky, he went to church with Uncle Pat and Aunt Kate. Remember that this was away back in the spring of 1876, when every preacher still thought that he held the only solution for salvation. The sermon that day - - and it was a good one - - was on the text of Romans 8:1 --

"There is now therefore no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus."

The following Sunday he laid over in St. Louis, and went to church. He heard a fine sermon in a big city church, and the text was Romans 8:1 - - "Now no condemnation" etc.

Uncle Eben said he remembered a visit to a nice saloon in St. Louis - - a fine place to rest. But so many people were asking for a drink that Uncle Jimmy got thirsty and started clamoring for a drink. He made so much fuss about it that Grandpa finally had to seek out another place for rest and recreation.

The following Sunday they were back in Sandusky. Uncle Charley was preaching at a little church near there. He took Grandpa out to hear his sermon. It happened to be on the text of Roman 8:1. On the return to Sandusky he said, "Well, Pa, what did you think of my sermon?"

"I've had about enough CONDEMNATION!" said Grandpa. "I've heard it on three Sundays, and in three different states. I wish somebody would think up a new text for a new sermon the next time I go to church."

THE SANCTIFIED PREACHER

The last yarn that E. S. Kinkade, Jr. told me about his father was Grandpa's own version of his experience at the Holiness Meeting at Chambersburg, Clark County, Mo., back around 1870. Mother doesn't recall this one, but Uncle Eben remembered it vividly. He gave it to me in 1932, when we stayed over a weekend with his family on South Williams St., El Reno, Okla.

The quoted words of the Holiness Parson he repeated to me slowly so that I might take them down for word for word.

Pioneer Kinkade with his good wife Sarah Spilman, and a flock of little Kinkades, had just become the proprietor of a little farm in Sweet Home Township, in a strong "Campbellite" community. The Sanctified People (Holiness Association) were in a big evangelistic campaign at the nearby village of Chambersburg. The Holiness folk didn't think much of the Campbellites. They accused them of having a hump on their back.

"True" proudly admitted the Cambellites. "Our Hump is a hump of faith!"

One night Uncle Eben Kinkade decided to take Sarah to the Chambersburg Temple of Holiness to hear a good sermon. The Preacher - - what a shame we do not have his name - - recognized Grandpa and other Campbellites in his audience. He did not hesitate to take advantage of a Golden Opportunity to show them where they had laid hold of a Grievous Error in Theology.

After laying them out and bowling them over in ranks, platoons and battalions in good old-fashioned homiletic style, he proceeded to show, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that the doctrine of FAITH, REPENTANCE, CONFESSION, BAPTISM, AND the GIFT of the Eternal Salvation lay far short of the gentle beauty of Holiness. He closed his eloquent sermon thus.

PERORATION

"Although, My Brethren! A may [sic submitter s note this should probably have been man ] may have been converted, God may have pardoned his sins, and by acts of obedience this man may have been initiated into the Kingdom of Christ - -- this man, My Brethren! has a perfect right to call God his Father, and Jesus Christ his Elder Brother.

"Yet, My Brethern! This man has not had the Second Experience.

"We will liken him unto the man that was put into a cage with the lion. The lion was cross and wanted to eat him, But buy continually beating him with his cudgel, he could barely save his life. Nor had he time to look to the right nor to the left. By and By, my Brethren! there came along a lot of other lions, and they began to reach into the cage for the man!

"O. . . . what was to become of him?"

"He had but to say . . . . "Lord! Sanctify me! . . . .

"Then will the Lord come down! tear the roof off of the cage! grapple with the Old Monster Lion! . . . . and hurl him out! . . . . and in his place put a pitiful lamb!

"Sing! . . . . Brethren"

Uncle Eben heard Grandfather Kinkade tell this story many times. He remembered it so well that the closing words of the preacher's sermon were seared upon his memory. And Grandpa would close the story as follows:

"And I, says I, Come on Maw! Let's go! We're in a den of Lions!"

BEN F. DIXON

6008 Arosa St.

San Diego, California

This postscript completed 1939.

Provided by Betty Latta Kitchen

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