Patrick H
Lt. Colonel
- Joined
- Mar 7, 2014
I can only contribute a couple of stories. I grew up on farmland that was being developed into a post WWII suburban neighborhood. This land was on top of the Missouri River bluffs barely within the city limits of Boonville, Missouri. The land had been occupied since pre-historic times. We also knew that an earthen Civil War Home Guard fort had been built somewhere in the neighborhood, but we weren't really sure exactly where until just last year. I never specifically dug for CW relics, but every time a street was extended or a home basement was excavated, a wealth of old items would turn up in the exposed dirt. Most of my finds were stone tools and projectile points from the native Americans who had once lived there. I have a very nice fluted point about six inches long from a basement excavation--a real prize. It seems like we were always turning up horseshoes and bits of metal. It's impossible to know how many of these were left over from farming and how many were due to the presence of soldiers. I also have a very good minnie ball, but I vaguely recall that it was rolling around in a box of tools I bought at a yard sale. My father could never find the old family cemetery that was mentioned in the abstract to the property. Last year I discovered why: It was marked on a soldier map of the fort, which survived in that soldier's diary--which a few of us got to scan and examine a year ago. Also marked on the map was an Indian burial mound. Sadly, the family cemetery was disturbed by the soldiers building the fort. Later, it was completely lost. Still later, around the 1920s, that area and the burial mound were dozed away for the construction of a hospital, which has also been dozed away now. Between streets, houses, and the old hospital property, there is very little undisturbed ground out there these days. Fellow members Booner, Boonslick and I have been there recently. It has been private property for a long time. The great thing for me was that my extended family used to own a lot of it. Not any longer.