corpus' was and I was looking for it to overtake me before I could get to a place of safety." Biggs said that he was made a Sergeant of the company and a neighbor of his by the name of Guthrie, a Corporal. He said that he took orders from Guthrie for three months before he found out that a Corporal was inferior in rank to a Sergeant.

Another incident that occurred in Louisiana at the breaking out of the war was, to those who knew the parties, very amusing. E. G. McQuie was an old and successful merchant and extended credit to almost every one who asked it. He was a bitter and uncompromising secessionist, however, and had a great hatred for the Union men who had joined the Home Guards.

During the preceeding winter he had given credit to an Irishman by the name of Pat Burns for a half dozen "hickory shirts." Burns at the time was cutting cord wood on Salt River bottom and shipping it to Louisiana on a flat boat. He was a very short man and did not at his best present a very fine appearance. He joined a company of Home Guards called the "Salt River Tigers" which was armed with "Belgium muskets." The gun that Burns had was longer than himself and with a fixed bayonet on the end of it, at least two feet long, made Burns a formidablelooking soldier. With the gun on his shoulder he walked by McQuie's store. McQuie saw him coming and determined to humiliate him if he could. Said he, "Pat, hadn't you better pay for the hickory shirts I sold you?" Pat pointed the gun with the bayonet on the end toward McQuie and said, "You

d―d old rebel, if you ever mention hickory shirts to me again I will run this bayonet through you." This ended the controversy and Pat was not further disturbed.

Calhoun County, Illinois, is carved out of that portion of the State that lies in the fork of two rivers, Illinois and Mississippi. The topography of the county is very broken, consisting of great hills and deep ravines. It fronts west on the Mississippi River and opposite the lower part of Pike and the upper part of Lincoln counties, Missouri.

In 1861 the population of this section in a large measure consisted of an ignorant, uneducated class. The school-houses were scarce and the teachers employed were fair representatives of the parents of the children they taught. The vehicles used were carts and sleds and the motive power was oxen. These were also used in drawing the plows, the mould boards of which were made of wood. The inhabitants boasted of the fact that not a mile of railroad or a yard of telegraph wire was in use in the county, and they also boasted of the fact that no negro was permitted to live there. This was the character of the population in 1861 when the Civil War broke out. They were bitterly opposed to "old Abe Lincoln" and were in sympathy with the secessionists of Missouri. The topography of the county and the sympathy of its people made a safe refuge for the rebels of Missouri. This bit of history is necessary to fully appreciate the story I am going to tell about the "Hare-lip man."

A year or two prior to 1861 a man by the name of

Williams settled in Calhoun County. He came there from the State of Michigan with a family, wife and three or four children. He was a Republican in politics while his neighbors were Democrats. He was greatly disfigured by a hare-lip but was a man of intelligence and keen discernment greatly appreciating the ludicrous. He enjoyed a joke and perpetrated many himself. The telling of stories by him, in a voice that was controlled by the hare-lip, was greatly enjoyed by all who listened.

He was asked what induced him to come to Calhoun County to live. He said that he had entered land in Michigan and had made a comfortable home there; that while on this farm he was approached and asked to subscribe money for the building of a railroad through that part of the State. He signed a contract to pay $250.00 when the road was built. The road was built but no demand had been made upon him for the money. Finally a man came to the place and demanded possession, showng the contract, a judgment, and deed from a Master in Chancery. He said that he was so outraged that he determined to leave Michigan and go to a county where a railroad could not be built, and so he came to Calhoun County. He said that among the things he brought to the county, was a four-wheeled buggy, the first that was ever seen in the county. In speaking of the inhabitants at the time, he said, "They followed me for miles and miles, trying to see the hind wheels catch up with the fore wheels."

At the beginning of the Civil War there lived at Bowling Green, Pike County, Missouri, a noisy secessionist by the name of John W. Buchanan. Buchanan

went aboard a steamboat at Louisiana bound for St. Louis. On the way down the boat landed at Hamburg in Calhoun County. Here the Hare-lip man came aboard, and no sooner had he reached the clerk's desk before Buchanan accosted him. He asked him where he lived and what was the politics of the people. Mr. Hare-lip answered by saying, "I live in Calhoun County, and if you had ever seen the people you never would have asked the question. They are Democrats, of course!"

He turned upon Buchanan and said, "You fellows are like the man who was in a deep well and wanted to be drawn out. He got into the bucket and when about half way up, he cried out and said to the man at the windlass, 'Draw faster or I will cut the d—d rope!'"'

Later on many Missouri rebels took refuge in Calhoun County. They were supposed to be a menace to the steam boats that were plying the river between St. Louis, Keokuk, and St. Paul. The boat officers were continually on the watch as they passed along its shore.

John O. Roberts, who was one of the wealthiest men in Pike County, recently died in Clarksville, Pike County, Missouri. In 1861 he was a clerk on one of the boats of the St. Louis and Keokuk Line. His berth or bed was immediately under the clerk's desk in the office. He told a story of the Hare-lip man of Calhoun County that was very characteristic. On one of the trips up the river, the boat landed at Hamburg, Calhoun County, about midnight. Roberts was fast asleep under the desk. The Hare-lip man came aboard and proceeded to arouse the clerk by

severely pounding on the desk with the handle of a long, sharp knife about two feet in length, made for use in cutting up corn in the field. Roberts rolled out of bed, thinking that the boat had been captured by the rebels, and with trembling and fear faced the Hare-lip man, who, in a voice that can not be imitated here, said, “I want to go to Hannibal, and will you take this knife as security for my passage?" Robert said, "Certainly! certainly! Give me the knife!" The Hare-lip was a character in his way, and was always able to see the funny side.

In the seventies my old friend, Henry V. P. Block, a well-to-do farmer of Pike County, who was president of the Louisiana and Missouri River Railroad then under construction and now a part of the through line of the Chicago & Alton between Chicago and Kansas City, met the Hare-lip man while waiting for a train at Roodhouse. He accosted Block and wanted to know where he lived and whether he was not of Jewish descent. Block answered by saying, "I live in Louisiana, and am of Jewish descent, but what of that?" "Well," said Hare-lip, "if I come to Louisiana what will you sell me a suit of clothes for?" Block used to tell this story, and no one enjoyed it more than he.

I do not know what became of the Hare-lip man, but Calhoun County of today is greatly different from that of 1861. Now the population is most intelligent and the county itself is productive of great wealth. Barrels filled with the most delicious apples in the world are gathered and marketed each year, the old hills of the county are covered with the finest orchards and annually add to the wealth of its people.