Centenniel History of Missouri: Missouri Geography - Marion City
photocopy of page 88 of "Centenniel History of Missouri"
were those who believed that William Muldrow suggested to Mark Twain the
famous character Colonel Mulberry Sellers.
Muldrow was a main of extraordinary initiative and great expectations.
After carryinq several lesser schemes with success Muldrow conceived the
idea of creating a city. He had maps drawn, showing streets, locations of
banks, churches. hotels and wharves, a theater and a newspaper office. He
secured as the location a considerable tract of ground on the river. This was
about 1830. Muldrow took his maps east and told of Marion City with such
enthusiasm that many lots were bought. He urged eastern people to locate in
Marion City. The result was that not only did the intending settlers come in
numbers but they had prepared for them in eastern states the parts of buildings
to be shipped to Narion City in sections. For some months Marion City
grew very rapidly. A large warehouse was constructed by the river; the country
was cleared; there was considerable trade done by the business men.
Early in the spring of 1836 came an extraordinary flood in the Upper
Mississippi. Heavy rains and melting snow carried the river over the site of
the city. The exodus was as rapid as the influx had been. Muldrow promised
to build a levee, got some of the leading men together and used every possible
argument to stay the collapse. He succeeded in quieting some of the settlers.
Boats continued to land and several stage coaches made connections with Marion
City. But the flood was followed a few years later by a great fire and then a
cyclone unroofed many of the remaining houses. Gradually those who had
remained with Muldrow after the early disaster sought other locations. The
founder was overwhelmed with law suits. He stood his ground and for a
time was able to put up plausible defense. In the end the litigation went against
him. Gold was discovered in California and about 1849 Muldrow went there.
On the coast he attempted to establish another city and got into more litigation.
After his failure in California he returned to Missouri and was known as "Old
Bill Muldrow." When he died he left his estate so complicated that the administrators
were twelve years in settling it.
There seems to be good authority for the statement that the expression,
"There's millions in it," which Mark Twain puts in the mouth of Mulberry
Sellers, was original with Muldrow. Old residents of Hannibal held to this as
historical truth. Muldrow was a Kentuckian by birth, typical of that state in
his physical appearance. He was one inch more than six feet in height, weighed
200 pounds, and had an impressive bearing which would account for the wide
swathe he cut as the foremost Missouri promoter of his day.
Submergence of Marion City.
Marion City went under in the spring of 1836. That was the winter of
"the big snow." The Mississippi was so deep on the site of the "city," that, in
a measure, it justified a local artist who made a drawing of a boat with Muldrow
and Rev. Dr. Ely on waterscape without a tree or house in sight. Both men had
poles and were reaching down into the water as far as they could. Dr. Ely
was represented as saying: "I declare, Muldrow, I believe I have found the
top of one of the chimneys."
Marion City did not pass entirely out of existence with this visitation.
photocopy of page 87 of "Missouri Geography":
... of the eighties he said the Fabius river was so named by Don Antonio
Soulard, the Spanish surveyor. But when he concluded his researches for the
history of Lewis county, he said that "with more light on the subject" he
believed the Fabius was a corruption from the Indian name of Fabbas given to
English name of the stream is Bean creek."
The Two Kansas Cities.
For many years the dividing line between Kansas City, Mo., and Kansas
City, Kan., was utilized by law breakers. Missouri had a very stringent antigambling
law and Kansas enforced prohibition. The saloons flourished on the
Missouri side and the gamblers' lay-outs were many on the Kansas side. Bill
Lewis located his resort so that the line ran through the middle of the room.
He baffled the authorities for a long time. At last the Kansas City chief of
police, Thomas Spears, set a trap and caught him:
"For many years Bill had a deep-seated and chronic objection to paying any licenses
for the sale of liquor. His bar and dance house was a sort of a movable affair which
he had located on the edge of the city near the state line of Kansas. I made several
sorties on Bill's lay-out, as he was violating the law for selling liquor without a license,
but he always got wind in some mysterious manner of my coming and would gently
push his bar over into Kansas and he and his patrons would amuse themselves by
giving me the laugh. When the Kansas City, Kan., authorities got after him he would
baffle them by moving into Missouri again, and so the thing went on.
"I was not to be outwitted, however, as my reputation was at stake, and finally the
authorities of both states put their heads together and we determined to make a joint
attack on Bill. Bill at the time was raking in the shekels on the Missouri side, and I
swooped down on him. He started to move across the room over into Kansas, as usual,
but was surprised when he saw a posse of Kansas state authorities waiting to seize him.
This was a critical moment. What was Bill to do? He was fairly and squarely in a
trap, but he did not abandon hope. Suddenly a bright idea struck him. He pushed his
bar half over the state line in the floor and left it there. It was for us to do the thinking
now. Bill thought he had got us and indulged in a broad grin when he saw us scratching
our heads. Neither state could claim the bar, but we compromised matters in a way
which caused Bill's smile of delight to change into a look of dismay. We secured saws
and axes and actually cut the bar in halves, Missouri claiming one half and Kansas the
half. This settled Bill. He came to the conclusion that it was better to obey the law."
The Original Eden (in pen: William Muldrow*)
A promising metropolis of Missouri was located on the Mississippi about
half way between Hannibal and Quincy. It was named Marion City. The
found was William Muldrow who came from "Muldrow's Hill" in Kentucky.
In "Martin Chuzzlewit,"(in pen**) Dickens tells the story of an ambitious city
site scheme which he called "Eden" and which he located on the Mississippi
river. Martin Chuzzlewit put his money into city lots of Eden, having been
led to believe it was to become a place of great importance. He made the
journey to Eden and found instead of the business blocks, fine residences, parks,
churches and institutions of learning, a small collection of log cabins. Some
time after Martin Chuzzlewit appeared people who knew the history of Marion
City said that it was the original of Dickens' "Eden." At a later date there
in pen:
* Jeff's great, great grandfather
** Charles Dickens was in Missouri in 1842
photocopy of page 89 of "Missouri Geography"
Many moved away but some held on. The promoters had taken notes from
many investors. They issued a proclamation to these people offering more time
on the payment of the notes or even cancellation of them under certain conditions.
They went ahead with the development. A Presbyterian church was
built; also a tavern, mercantile houses, a wharf. Marion City became quite a
shipping point; hack lines ran to interior places. A railroad was graded, the
first west of the Mississippi. Marion City became the market for the hogs of
that part of Missouri. A packing house was built.
"The Metropolis of the West."
On one of his visits east, with Dr. Ely, Muldrow had taken in $150,000 in
money and notes for lots in Marion City, which was described on the plats as
"The Metropolis of the West."
The railroad was begun in the fall of 1835. Its route was to be westward
through "Railroad Street" in Marion City to the Missouri Philadelphia and
thence on to the Pacific. The day after Christmas, 1835, Muldrow wrote to
NMoses D. Bates:
"Our plan is to strike the Pacific Ocean wtih our railroad, thereby tapping the East
India Trade, the most important to us of any in the world. This will make a reduction
of three-fourths of the present route, and more than half of the expense will be taken off.
To complete this may require twenty years, though I believe it will be completed before
that time; and all will admit that our connection with New York will be complete before
that time expires. And if this be admitted, I ask you to say what the size of our town
will be, and what the value of our own lots, when we have this extent of garden land
drawing their products continually to us, together with the trade and products of the
Indies. Couple with this the fact that the great Mississippi makes one part of the
cross-road which passes through an extent of country, which, for length and fertility,
is unparalleled by any on the globe. Now, sir, I ask you, what may we not expect our own
city to come to? The man who could not see our just claims to a rivalship with any
of our western cities, must be blind."
The efforts to regenerate Marion City after the first deluge were not permanently
successful. Subsequent floods, in 1844, and in 1851 disheartened those
vho tried to make their homes on the low land and the "city" dwindled. Some
of the buildings fell into ruins, some were carried down the river. Marion, the
most ambitious of the boom towns of Missouri, became a reminiscence.
Muldrow's Variety of Schemes.
Several ambitious real estate projects grew out of the booming of Marion
City. A townsite called "Philadelphia" was laid out a few miles from Marion
City, and in the same vicinity was "Ely." Another city on paper called "New
York" was forty miles west in Shelby county. When Dr. Ely found himself
separated from his money he reproached Muldrow.
"Do I understand you to say, Dr. Ely, that you are worth nothing now;"
asked the Missouri boomer.
"No, sir, nothing," said Dr. Ely, "I am financially ruined."
"Well, sir," said Muldrow, "then you may just exactly return to Philadelphia
as soon as you please, sir, for we have no further use for you at all, sir."
Then Muldrow's attention was invited to the fact that Marion City was
photocopy of page 90 of "Missouri Geography"
situated on such low ground that in high water the river sent part of its surplus
around under the bluff back of his city, he replied to the criticism: "Why,
sir, that is one of the great advantages the city possesses. We will, just exactly,
sir, deepen the channel of the slough by cutting a channel in it a few feet deep
and then connect it with the river above and below, and then the city will, just
exactly, sir, have first rate navigation for steamboats all around it, and the
lots fronting the slough will be as valuable as those on the river itself! This
canal, sir, will be spanned by drawbridges, as in time will the great river itself,
and there will be no impediments on account of the slough or the river to either
steamboat navigation or wagon transportation."
Muldrow's Versatility.
Muldrow did not confine his big schemes to Marion county entirely. He enlisted
the support of New York capital in a plan to enter two townships in
Clark county. The plan was to establish seminaries which should be not only
self supporting but profitable through the manual labor of the students. In the
center of each township was to be reserved 4,000 acres to be held by Muldrow
and the parties in the East who advanced the capital. The college was to be
located in the center of the 4,000 acres. All income derived from the land was
to be handled by Muldrow and the capitalists as trustees of the college and to
be applied towards its support. Surrounding the campus, land to the amount
of 1,063 acres was to be divided into town lots and sold, it being argued by
Muldrow that the college would draw settlers and create a town. From the
sale of the lots Muldrow was to take for his compensation a one-sixth part
and ten per cent of the whole. The remainder was the profit to accrue to the
eastern capitalists for their investment in the education of young Missourians.
Three New Yorkers, who thought they saw a good thing in Muldrow's wholesale
educational plan, backed him to such an extent that one township was
secured in Clark county on the edge of what is now Kahoka. Muldrow received
$28,000, but before the plan could be carried out the New Yorkers got cold
feet and sued him. The litigation was settled by arbitration, Muldrow obtaining
title to the Clark county land. Success of the plan all depended on the
students who would come to the institution and cultivate the surplus land,
raising enough to pay their way in the college and something more toward the
support of the faculty. After he had closed his litigation with the three New
Yorkers, Muldrow put a trust deed on the Clark county land without having
his wife join him. The land was sold under the deed, but Kahoka had to wait
many years until the death of Mrs. Muldrow before the title to a considerable
part of Kahoka was entirely cleared.
The Lost Towns.
In the northwestern part of what is now St. Louis county was a community
called St. Andrews, which, tradition has it, was once larger than St. Louis. It
was an agricultural community of Americans who had come from the states to
St. Louis and had been given lands by the Spanish governors. The Missouri
river encroached upon St. Andrews as it did upon several other once promising
communities. Many of the people who first settled there moved to St.
