"I CAN SEE THE ANGLES," were the last words of 92-year-old Malinda Rogers Willsey, granddaughter of the
Boones, as she crossed the last frontier on June 23, 1923. The words were to her sister, Cynthia Ann McClintock,
who sat beside her, holding her hand. So passed this pioneer, who was born in 1830 in the Scott county town of
Williamport, opposite Montezuma, a town whose very site is now forgotten.
Malinda knew the hardships of Pike county pioneering. Her husband, James Gallett Willsey, had but $2.50 in money
when they were married in 1851. His father had landed in what is now Griggsville township in 1840 with 50 cents.
James G. and Malinda set up housekeeping in 1851 on a 40-acre tract given him by his father, south of present Fairview,
a place that later became the home of Robert S. Sallee. They were so poor they could not afford a "boughten"
tin washpan from the store, so Mr. Willsey hollowed out a sort of wooden trough for a dishpan. William Riley Willsey,
the son born in 1853, remembers washing many a time in this wooden pan.
It was a wild country, this upon which the young Willseys settled southwest of Pittsfield in the early 1850s. In
1852 a son, Oliver Willsey, was born but he lived only a short time. In 1853 was born another son, William Riley.
In 1854, the elder Willsey selected and purchased the northwest quarter of Section 34, Pittsfield township, the
ground on which he died in 1859 and in which he was buried. He had by that time acquired 400 acres of land.
How wild was this Fairview region in those days may be gleaned from a description of this particular settlement,
written by the historian of 1880: "At that time (1854) this land was in a perfectly wild state; not an improvement
of any kind had been placed upon it by the hand of man. It was a fine rolling prairie, interspersed here and there
with patches of scrub oak and hazelbrush. The first land cultivated on this farm was in the summer of 1854, when
Mr. Willsey employed a man to break 40 acres which he did with oxen. This he sowed in wheat that fall. The next
season he planted this piece in corn, and broke another 40 acres for wheat. This land, as fast as broken, was surrounded
with an eight-rail fence, Mr. Willsey hauled the rails for the same from the south part of Martinsburg township,
a distance of eight miles, with oxen and cart.
"In 1857, he (Willsey) erected a log cabin on the north part of his farm, 16 feet square. It contained two
rooms, one above and one below. Into this cabin he moved his family, and although rather tight quarters during
the busiest seasons, found room and accommodations for as many as nine hired hands besides his own family."
In 1860 Mr. Willsey built at this place what was then one of the finest farm homes in the county, with a greenhouse
in addition to his residence, in which he kept hundreds of choice plants including exotics.
Malinda Willsey was born 50 years after her great great grandfather, Neddie Boone, was killed by the Indians. Daniel
Boone had been dead ten years when she was born; his body still rested in Missouri, whence it was removed to Kentucky
in 1845.
Malinda's son, William Riley Willsey, in his younger days traveled far and wide, interviewing men and women of
the Boone line, gathering details of his family history. Among the Boone historians whom he has interviewed was
the late Jesse Procter Crump of Kansas City, descended from both Daniel Boone and William Scholl, who were first
cousins, their mothers, Sarah and Jane Morgan, being sisters. Mr. Crump, who has often been quoted in the history,
was descended on the paternal side from Daniel Boone's daughter, Susanna, and her son, Boone Hays, who married
Lydia Ann Scholl, daughter of Kentucky Peter Scholl and Mary Boone, the latter a younger sister of Charity Boone,
while on the maternal side he was descended from Joseph Scholl, a brother of Pike county Abraham, who married Daniel
Boone's daughter, Levina.
Mr. Willsey says that Jesse Procter Crump told him that he had been able to trace Neddie Boone's daughter Charity
only to her marriage with an Elledge but had never been successful in obtaining any clue to the Elledges or their
kin. This Boone lineage is being traced for the first time in the present history. Mr. Crump, now dead, contributed
a splendid sketch, "Daniel Boone, the Pioneer," to Mrs. Hazel Atterbury Spranker's book, "The Boone
Family," published at Philadelphia in 1922.
Mr. Willsey, now nearing 84, says the only person with whom he ever talked who had seen and talked to Daniel Boone
was "Major" Nancy M. Heath, Pittsfield's first school teacher, who taught a subscription school in a
log house on the south side of the early public square, in the winter of 1834.
"Major" or "Commodore" Heath, by which appellations this little pioneer woman was known in
the early settlement, as a little girl of seven or eight saw and talked to the old Indian fighter in the year 1797
(or 1799), when Boone was migrating from Point Pleasant, Virginia (now West Virginia) to Upper Louisiana (now Missouri),
where he died in 1820. The meeting was on or near the site of Cincinnati, Ohio, in which town Nancy was born the
first day of 1791, being reputed the first white child born at that place, which was then a mere cluster of log
cabins.
Major Heath remembered well the day when Dan'l Boone strode into the clearing and, leaning on his long rifle, engaged
her father in conversation. Boone spoke a few words to the child, who stood looking up at him in admiration. She
was attracted by the costume he wore, fringed buckskins, of the type worn by the early hunters. She remembered
particularly old woodcuts of the hunter. She remembered his face as a kindly one, but commanding. To her dying
day, this meeting with Dan'l Boone was a treasured memory of the old school teacher.
Nancy Heath, who was born Nancy Dunbar, was raised by Governor Duncan McArthur, American soldier and governor of
Ohio. In 1813 she married Dr. William Jackson Heath and settled at Urbana (then spelled "Urbanah") in
Champaign county, Ohio. He was born on the south bank of the Potomac, Morefield, Hardy county, Virginia. Following
her husband's death she came on horseback to Naples, then in Morgan county, in 1825, and taught a pioneer school
in that Illinois river port. An old Morgan county record reveals that while she was teaching at Naples she was
again married, on July 18, 1830, her second husband being Samuel Philips of Columbus, an early town near Naples,
he a member of the noted Philips Ferry family who had intermarried with the Elledge descendants of the Boones.
Nancy Heath's first husband was related to Peleg and Laban Carpenter Heath, who were majors under General George
Washington in the Revolution. Mrs. George Barcus of Peabody, Kansas, Nancy Heath's great granddaughter, has his
Masonic card issued in 1816.
Nancy Heath made at least six trips alone on horseback from Pittsfield, Illinois, to Urbana, Ohio, and return,
according to letters in the possession of Mrs. Barcus. One she was delayed several weeks, the mud trails across
Indiana being impassable even on horseback. Once she planned to make a return trip from Ohio with the outfit of
old Joseph Baker, grandfather of the late Colonel Elliott Baker, who had gone back to the old Ohio home on business.
While residing at Naples she also kept store there and rode horseback to St. Louis to buy her goods.
Nancy Heath's daughter, Rachel Heath, married Abner Vine wills, an uncle of Pike county Abner Vine Wills of the
present day, and they had a daughter, Ann Ada Wills, who married L. H. Crawford and settled in Lincoln, Illinois.
Mrs. Barcus, mentioned above, is a daughter of the Crawfords. Ann Ada Wills was also a teacher and her daughter
has her teacher's certificate, issued at Pittsfield on March 31, 1859, signed by Joseph J. Topliff and Jon Shastid;
also the teacher's certificate of her father, L. H. Crawford, signed by John D. Thompson and Jon Shastid.
Mrs. Heath had 14 scholars in the first Pittsfield school in the winter of 1834. She taught in a rented log house
which stood about where Karl Geisendorfer's Rainbow Restraunt now is, boarded herself and charged $3 per scholar
for 12 weeks. Among her known patrons were Jonathan Pike, Colonel Johnson, William Watson, Ephraim Cannon, James
McNary, Dr. Worthington, William Grimshaw, G. Y. Davis and John Turnbull. The log school house, which was also
the family's dwelling, was a small hewed-log affair which she rented from Mr. Turnbull. She had five daughters
and one son, all of whom preceded her in death. The daughter, Rachel (Mrs. Wills), taught school in Pittsfield
with her mother
Nancy Heath lived to a very old age in her home on East Perry Street, north of the East school building, in Pittsfield,
where she died of double pneumonia at 6 o'clock in the morning of November 16, 1880, aged 89 years, ten months
and ten days. She was buried at Naples.
Mrs. Heath, in her old age, recounting her meeting with Boone, spoke particularly of his long rifle, remembering
that her childish fancy was attracted by the glitter of its silver trappings. W. R. Willsey, in an old account
book, has jotted down this reference to his kinsman's rifle:
"Daniel Boone's rifle was five feet three and a half inches long, the barrel over four feet, carried a round
ball, that weighed 55 to the pound, or 130 grains, or 15 more than a .32 Winchester, caliber about .44; it weighed
11 pounds and is still in existence; some say it is at Arrow Rock, Mo."
William Riley Willsey was named for his mother's brother, William Riley Rogers, who was born in a log house on
the old John Hoskins place southwest of New Hartford, January 1, 1833, four months before the sale of the first
town lots in Pittsfield. He was the fifth child and second son of David R. Rogers and Fanny Alcorn.
William R. Rogers married, first, Melissa Stephens, in Missouri, and resided in Montgomery and Callaway counties,
Missouri. They had a numerous family of children:
Fanny Rogers, a daughter, became the first wife of William W. Kelly of Newburg township, son of Nathan Kelly and
Sarah Fuller, and a twin brother of George Kelly of Pittsfield, who died February 26, 1937, at the age of 82. Mr.
Kelly was born in Newburg township, November 23, 1854. He married Fanny Rogers, a great great granddaughter of
Charity Boone, in 1875, and they lived on the Newburg farm for 13 years when Mrs. Kelly died. They had four children,
namely: Charles Gallett Kelly, a Hannibal (Mo.) dentist, who married Ida Cole, a Cincinnati girl; Virden Kelly,
who married Margaret Gates, a daughter of Ira Gates, at El Dara, January 1, 1900, and who resides at Colville,
Washington; William Nathan Kelly, who died at the age of four years; and Flora Kelly, who married, first, F. Merle
Fenton of Newburg, and second, Walter Morgan of Pittsfield.
William W. Kelly married as his second wife, Mrs. Barbara Vollman Veihl, a daughter of German parents, Charles
Vollman and Barbara Kellar, the marriage occurring at Pittsfield February 24, 1895. On October 13, 1901, he again
married, his third wife being Ida C. Guthrie of Nebo, a daughter of Baldwin Guthrie and Elizabeth Hack.
Nathan Kelly, a brother of William, on October 7, 1888, married Fanny M. Varney, a native of New Hartford then
living at Griggsville, a daughter of Dr. F. G. Varney and Phoebe Rogers, the latter an aunt of William Kelley's
first wife, Fanny Rogers.
Other children of William R. Rogers and Melissa Stephens include:
Ollie Rogers, who married Harry Davis and lives in Quincy, Illinois
Almira Rogers, who married Eugene A. Gregory, son of Hiram Gregory and A. Noyes, at Pittsfield, November 6, 1889.
Alice Rogers, born in 1871 in Montgomery county, Missouri, married James G. Willsey, son of John J. and Margaret
(Nikirk) Willsey, of Greenwood, Jackson county, Missouri, October 29, 1891.
Nora Rogers, born in 1873, married Leonard Goodwin of Rockport, son of Benjamin Goodwin, at Pittsfield, September
21, 1893, and now lives with her husband in Quincy, Illinois.
Maud M. Rogers, born December 16, 1878, in Callaway county, Missouri, at the age of 16 married Willard F. Kealen
of Marblehead, Adams county, Illinois, a son of Wylie Kealen and Ella I. Jourden, the wedding being at Pittsfield
January 1, 1895. She died July 27, 1897 and is buried in Prairie Mound cemetery.
Ed Rogers, a son of William R., went to Kansas City, Missouri, and died there.
Mack Rogers lives at McKittrick, Missouri, on the Missouri river, where he is pump man for the "Katy."
This is in the old Callaway neighborhood.
Charles Rogers, a bachelor, resides in Quincy.
Floyd Rogers resides in Kansas City.
Riley Rogers lives near Mokane, Missouri.
Mabel Rogers married Tony Lenage, of Italian descent, whose father led the orchestra in the Kansas City theater
for 35 years. They have a beautiful home in Kansas City.
Melissa Stephens, first wife of William R. Rogers, died and he again married, his second wife being Lulu Callaway,
descendant of the historic Callaways of Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee and Missouri, and a relative of Polly Callaway,
who married Daniel Boone's brother Jonathan and became the mother of Dinah Boone Allen, early settler near Milton,
Lulu Callaway married William R. Rogers at Wellsville in Montgomery county, Missouri, bordering the county of Callaway,
named for her kinsman, James Callaway, son of Daniel Boone's daughter, Jemima.
William Riley Willsey says that Lulu Callaway was a relative of old Colonel Callaway whose son married Jemima Boone,
daughter of Daniel. Some of the Scholl family chroniclers have also inferred that Flanders Callaway, who married
Jemima Boone at old Fort Boonesborough on the Kentucky river, was a son of Colonel Richard Callaway. This, however,
is an error, Flanders being a son of the old Colonel's brother, James C. Callaway, and therefore a nephew of Colonel
Richard.
The Callaways were Virginians. We have glimpsed them frequently in the background of this history. They were closely
associated with the Boones, intermarried with them. The Pike county Galloways believe that Callaway and Galloway
were originally one family, the different branches adopted different spellings of the family name. The same given
names recur in both branches.
Colonel Richard Callaway it was who headed a party of Virginia emigrants to that part of old Virginia that is now
Kentucky, late in 1775, a party that included "three married women and quite a bevy of young ladies,"
among them the Colonel's own family and the family of Jonathan Boone, who had married Polly Callaway, sister of
the Colonel. In the family of Jonathan Boone was the girl, Dinah, then 17, who later, in Kentucky, married Zachariah
Boone Allen and early in 1822, with husband and children, came to what is now Detroit township in Pike county,
Illinois, where she died in 1823 and was buried in a wilderness spot in a now lost grave on the site of the present
French cemetery near Milton.
In that "bevy of young ladies" were also Colonel Richard Callaway's two daughters, Elizabeth and Frances,
the former grown, the latter about 13 or 14, who a few months later, July 14, 1776, were captured by Indians, along
with Daniel Boone's 14-year-old daughter Jemima, while canoeing on the Kentucky river within sight of Boone's fort.
Among those who rescued the three girls from their Indian captors was Flanders Callaway, a cousin of the two captive
Callaway girls, who later married Jemima Boone, the third captive. Samuel Henderson, who shared with Flanders in
the rescue, married Jemima's fellow captive, Betsy Callaway, theirs being the first wedding in Kentucky, with Squire
Boone, Daniel's brother, officiating. Col. Richard Callaway, uncle of Flanders, is said to have performed the ceremony
uniting his nephew and Jemima Boone. Colonel Richard was killed by Indians at old Fort Boonesborough in the spring
of 1780.
Flanders Callaway was born in Virginia December 9, 1758. He came out to Boone's fort on the Kentucky river with
his uncle, Colonel Richard Callaway, in 1775. Daniel Boone and Colonel Callaway later in the same year returned
to get their families, Boone bringing his family out to the fort in September, 1775, his wife, Rebecca Bryan, and
his daughter Jemima being the first white woman to set foot upon the banks of the Kentucky river. A few weeks later,
Colonel Callaway reached the fort with his own and other Virginia families, including Dinah Boone and the two Callaway
girls, heroines of the Indian capture the following July.
Riley Willsey says that Jemima Boone was only 15 when she married Flanders Callaway. Following their marriage they
continued to stay in her father's fort at Boonesborough. They were inmates of the fort during the memorable siege
of 1778. Her father, fleeing his Shawnee captors, into whose tribe he had been adopted, had reached the fort, after
a thrilling flight on foot through the wilderness, in which he covered 160 miles in four days, in time to warn
the garrison of impending attack. Jemima had supposed her father dead, and her mother, also believed him dead,
had left Boonesborough and returned to her father's cabin on the Yadkin in North Carolina.
In the siege that followed at Boonesborough, Jemima ran bullets to the men, taking them in her apron too hot to
handle and distributing them to the men and women defenders. She also aided in putting out the fires on the roofs
of cabins in the stockade, kindled by Indian arrowhead wrapped in fiercely burning flax and the oily inner fibre
of the shellbark hickory. She and the other women in the fort dressed in men's clothes and paraded around in view
of the enemy to make an increased show of numbers.
Mima, during the siege, was wounded by a bullet from the rifle of the renegade Negro, Pompey, who was with the
Indian besiegers and had climbed into a tree where he could shoot down into the stockade. Daniel Boone, seeing
his child wounded, climbed to a vantage point and spotting the sharpshooter who had shot Mima, at a distance of
"near 200 measured yards." tumbled him from his perch with a bullet through his forehead. Mima's husband
had the little finger of his left hand shot away during this siege.
Mima Boone Callaway, as recounted in an earlier chapter, rode over from her home in Montgomery county, Missouri,
in 1825 to visit her kinsmen in Detroit and Montezuma townships, among them Zachariah (Boone) Allen who died later
that year, Lewis (Boone) Allen, the early Baptist, Jonathan Boone Allen and Polly Callaway Allen who married Larkin
Thornton and was the youngest daughter of Zachariah (Boone) Allen and Dinah Boone.
The Callaways (Flanders and Jemima), forebears of Lulu Callaway Rogers, were early comers to the region that is
now Montgomery county, Missouri, originally a part of old Callaway county. The children of Flanders and Jemima
included John Boone Callaway, James, Susanna, Sarah, Frances, Elizabeth and Minerva. The son, James Callaway, identified
with the Rangers for whom Colonel John Shaw (founder of Pike's first county seat) scouted on the Missouri border
during the second war with Britain, was killed by Indians on Loutre Creek in Callaway county (now Montgomery county)
on March 7, 1815. He had married Nancy Howell. He was shot in the back while swimming a creek and his body was
not recovered for several days after his death. It was then wrapped in blankets and buried on the side of the hill
overlooking the creek. Callaway county was named for him. He had been second lieutenant of the Rangers in 1813,
and captain in 1814. He was born in Fayette county, Kentucky, September 13, 1783.
Flanders Callaway died in Missouri August 19, 1824, the year before Mima Callaway visited her relatives around
present Milton. Mima herself, 63 when she visited the Boone Allens in Pike county, died in Montgomery county, Missouri,
in 1829, four years after her Pike county visit. She was the second of Daniel Boone's four daughters, born in North
Carolina October 4, 1762.
William Riley Rogers had in all 18 children, several of whom died young. Returning to Pike county from Missouri,
he resided at New Hartford until about 1900, going thence to Adams county, where, at Marblehead, he dropped dead
on April 12, 1907, aged 74. The body was taken to the home of his sister, Malinda Rogers Willsey, near Pittsfield,
where his funeral was held, burial being in Prairie Mound cemetery.