From Along the Old Trail, Volume I: Pioneer Sketches of Arrow Rock and Vicinity, by T. C. Rainey, Published by Marshall Chapter, Daughters of the American Revolution, Marshall, MO., 1914., pp. 31-32.
THE HUSTONS AMONG THE PIONEERS.
Benjamin Huston was a brother of Judge Joseph Huston, and one of the commissioners who laid off the town of Arrow Rock in 1829. He lived three miles west of town on a farm he entered and improved, where he raised a large family of children, principally daughters. He was a large and well formed old gentleman, with particularly bright, dark eyes; modest, gentle and hospitable. I never heard him utter a sentence which might not properly have been spoken in the presence of ladies, and he did not relish coarse language in others. His two sons, Nicholas and Henry, were also large men, and both great hunters when wild game was plentiful. Judge Henry Huston is yet living in the town his father helped to found, and in many ways resembles his father. Nick told me that when he and Henry were boys, the ''draw" which passed through his father's farm had small pools along its course in which he and Henry caught abundance of fish, thus confirming a similar statement in an article of Judge Napton's. The little streamlet which made the pools was filled with drift fifty years ago, and the plow now passes over where the streamlet ran and the fish were caught. Nick also told me of some fun he and Henry had when lads. They had seen slim, tall saplings cut down for firewood, and had philosophised that if they could be in the top of one as it swung gracefully towards the earth it would be a splendid ride. Nick, very generously proposed that if Henry would climb to the top of one he would cut it down with an axe. Henry climbed as high as the branches would hold him and waited. Pretty soon the sapling trembled and began to fall, very gently at first, but speeding down faster towards the last. The ride was all right, but stopping so suddenly gave some pain, which would have killed any other boy except one of the Hustons or Townsends. Andrew Brownlee was a neighbor of Benjamin Huston, and spent his long life, as did Mr. Huston, on the land he first improved. He told me he built the first house ever erected in Arrow Rock, in 1830, I think. He was honest, good-humored old gentleman, well contented to make a comfortable support for himself and children; being like most of these old settlers, not at all concerned in making a fortune. After his death at a ripe old age, it was discovered that he had no deed on record to the farm on which he had spent his life. Searching in a bureau drawer the deed was found; it having been executed by Benjamin Huston, who probably entered it. In these shaky days of deeds of trust and abstracts such a fact would be remarkable. Mrs. Larkin Reynolds, a daughter of his, now lives in the town where her father erected the first house.
THE HUSTONS AMONG THE PIONEERS.
Benjamin Huston was a brother of Judge Joseph Huston, and one of the commissioners who laid off the town of Arrow Rock in 1829. He lived three miles west of town on a farm he entered and improved, where he raised a large family of children, principally daughters. He was a large and well formed old gentleman, with particularly bright, dark eyes; modest, gentle and hospitable. I never heard him utter a sentence which might not properly have been spoken in the presence of ladies, and he did not relish coarse language in others. His two sons, Nicholas and Henry, were also large men, and both great hunters when wild game was plentiful. Judge Henry Huston is yet living in the town his father helped to found, and in many ways resembles his father. Nick told me that when he and Henry were boys, the ''draw" which passed through his father's farm had small pools along its course in which he and Henry caught abundance of fish, thus confirming a similar statement in an article of Judge Napton's. The little streamlet which made the pools was filled with drift fifty years ago, and the plow now passes over where the streamlet ran and the fish were caught. Nick also told me of some fun he and Henry had when lads. They had seen slim, tall saplings cut down for firewood, and had philosophised that if they could be in the top of one as it swung gracefully towards the earth it would be a splendid ride. Nick, very generously proposed that if Henry would climb to the top of one he would cut it down with an axe. Henry climbed as high as the branches would hold him and waited. Pretty soon the sapling trembled and began to fall, very gently at first, but speeding down faster towards the last. The ride was all right, but stopping so suddenly gave some pain, which would have killed any other boy except one of the Hustons or Townsends. Andrew Brownlee was a neighbor of Benjamin Huston, and spent his long life, as did Mr. Huston, on the land he first improved. He told me he built the first house ever erected in Arrow Rock, in 1830, I think. He was honest, good-humored old gentleman, well contented to make a comfortable support for himself and children; being like most of these old settlers, not at all concerned in making a fortune. After his death at a ripe old age, it was discovered that he had no deed on record to the farm on which he had spent his life. Searching in a bureau drawer the deed was found; it having been executed by Benjamin Huston, who probably entered it. In these shaky days of deeds of trust and abstracts such a fact would be remarkable. Mrs. Larkin Reynolds, a daughter of his, now lives in the town where her father erected the first house.
From Along the Old Trail, Volume I: Pioneer Sketches of Arrow Rock and Vicinity, by T. C. Rainey, Published by Marshall Chapter, Daughters of the American Revolution, Marshall, MO., 1914., pp. 31-32.
THE HUSTONS AMONG THE PIONEERS.
Benjamin Huston was a brother of Judge Joseph Huston, and one of the commissioners who laid off the town of Arrow Rock in 1829. He lived three miles west of town on a farm he entered and improved, where he raised a large family of children, principally daughters. He was a large and well formed old gentleman, with particularly bright, dark eyes; modest, gentle and hospitable. I never heard him utter a sentence which might not properly have been spoken in the presence of ladies, and he did not relish coarse language in others. His two sons, Nicholas and Henry, were also large men, and both great hunters when wild game was plentiful. Judge Henry Huston is yet living in the town his father helped to found, and in many ways resembles his father. Nick told me that when he and Henry were boys, the ''draw" which passed through his father's farm had small pools along its course in which he and Henry caught abundance of fish, thus confirming a similar statement in an article of Judge Napton's. The little streamlet which made the pools was filled with drift fifty years ago, and the plow now passes over where the streamlet ran and the fish were caught. Nick also told me of some fun he and Henry had when lads. They had seen slim, tall saplings cut down for firewood, and had philosophised that if they could be in the top of one as it swung gracefully towards the earth it would be a splendid ride. Nick, very generously proposed that if Henry would climb to the top of one he would cut it down with an axe. Henry climbed as high as the branches would hold him and waited. Pretty soon the sapling trembled and began to fall, very gently at first, but speeding down faster towards the last. The ride was all right, but stopping so suddenly gave some pain, which would have killed any other boy except one of the Hustons or Townsends. Andrew Brownlee was a neighbor of Benjamin Huston, and spent his long life, as did Mr. Huston, on the land he first improved. He told me he built the first house ever erected in Arrow Rock, in 1830, I think. He was honest, good-humored old gentleman, well contented to make a comfortable support for himself and children; being like most of these old settlers, not at all concerned in making a fortune. After his death at a ripe old age, it was discovered that he had no deed on record to the farm on which he had spent his life. Searching in a bureau drawer the deed was found; it having been executed by Benjamin Huston, who probably entered it. In these shaky days of deeds of trust and abstracts such a fact would be remarkable. Mrs. Larkin Reynolds, a daughter of his, now lives in the town where her father erected the first house.
THE HUSTONS AMONG THE PIONEERS.
Benjamin Huston was a brother of Judge Joseph Huston, and one of the commissioners who laid off the town of Arrow Rock in 1829. He lived three miles west of town on a farm he entered and improved, where he raised a large family of children, principally daughters. He was a large and well formed old gentleman, with particularly bright, dark eyes; modest, gentle and hospitable. I never heard him utter a sentence which might not properly have been spoken in the presence of ladies, and he did not relish coarse language in others. His two sons, Nicholas and Henry, were also large men, and both great hunters when wild game was plentiful. Judge Henry Huston is yet living in the town his father helped to found, and in many ways resembles his father. Nick told me that when he and Henry were boys, the ''draw" which passed through his father's farm had small pools along its course in which he and Henry caught abundance of fish, thus confirming a similar statement in an article of Judge Napton's. The little streamlet which made the pools was filled with drift fifty years ago, and the plow now passes over where the streamlet ran and the fish were caught. Nick also told me of some fun he and Henry had when lads. They had seen slim, tall saplings cut down for firewood, and had philosophised that if they could be in the top of one as it swung gracefully towards the earth it would be a splendid ride. Nick, very generously proposed that if Henry would climb to the top of one he would cut it down with an axe. Henry climbed as high as the branches would hold him and waited. Pretty soon the sapling trembled and began to fall, very gently at first, but speeding down faster towards the last. The ride was all right, but stopping so suddenly gave some pain, which would have killed any other boy except one of the Hustons or Townsends. Andrew Brownlee was a neighbor of Benjamin Huston, and spent his long life, as did Mr. Huston, on the land he first improved. He told me he built the first house ever erected in Arrow Rock, in 1830, I think. He was honest, good-humored old gentleman, well contented to make a comfortable support for himself and children; being like most of these old settlers, not at all concerned in making a fortune. After his death at a ripe old age, it was discovered that he had no deed on record to the farm on which he had spent his life. Searching in a bureau drawer the deed was found; it having been executed by Benjamin Huston, who probably entered it. In these shaky days of deeds of trust and abstracts such a fact would be remarkable. Mrs. Larkin Reynolds, a daughter of his, now lives in the town where her father erected the first house.
