Marion City fragment

... would quickly increase in value to a par with expensive land in the East.
They did not realize that there was so much land in the West, and that the
endless frontier of cheap land would keep land prices in the West down for many
years.

The year 1836 brought a horde of newcomers to Marion City. Muldrow had
convinced many of his customers to move out to the new city and help develop
it. Tradesman, artisans, professional men, and even some very wealthy "men of
leisure" arrived in the steamboats coming into the new metropolis.

Many brought prefabricated houses with them. It is said that the "House of
Pilaster's", a prefabricated building on North Main Street, came originally
from Marion City.

A great number of the settlers took one look at the swamp they had been told
was to be a city, and left on the next boat. Some stayed a day or a week
before leaving. Many were driven off when they learned that cholera had
visited the community only a year before.

However, it can be presumed that the majority stayed. The climate was mild,
timber was plentiful, the building continued, business was as usual.

Then the river began to rise.

The winter of 1835-36 was unusually severe. Heavy winter snows and heavy
spring showers brought the Mississippi up to its high water mark, then higher
and higher.

Soon the whole city was submerged in the slowly rising river. Citizens moved
into second stories, into attics and garretts, and even onto rooftops. Food
and pure water became scarce. The streets resembled canals, and the residents
moved about in skiffs and rowboats. The slough became deep enough to "float a
man-of-war."

When the flood finally subsided it left mud, slime, and disease. Everything
was coated up to the water line with the dark, foul mud that present day river
campers know so well.

Disease followed closely behind the flood. Malaria was thick. Fevers and
agues also took their toll. Many of the []

... large packing house around 1849, slaughtering hundreds of hogs annually, and
keeping Marion City a principal shipping point. John R. Copelin operated a
hemp warehouse for years afterward, as late as 1854. Regular stage lines
operated between Palmyra and Marion City in 1855.