BEFORE THE DAYS OF BANK CHECKS

Narrator: Wm. Stinson, 73, of Hamilton, Missouri

Mr. Stinson was born in Illinois 1861 and came with his parents into Caldwell County in 1872. His parents were John J. Stinson and Mary Madden Stinson. They bought forty acres of land for eight hundred dollars from the Hannibal and St. Joe Railroad. The land lay two miles west and one and one-quarter mile north of present site of Braymer, Missouri. They were too late for the bargain prices of Missouri land. For instance the Turpin estate near by had six hundred and forty acres in one place alone while much of it was timber but some very rich soil bought from the government at twelve and one-half cents an acre. Joe Mayes bought some of that estate when it was settled in 1882.

Mr. Stinson, as well as several others older people interviewed, recalls the days when few or no checks were used even in big money deals. One case illustrates: On one occasion some men in the Black Oak country were sending twenty five thousand dollars to Chas. Schultz of Chillicothe for cattle. They did not dare carry it for the transaction was known and the road led through the Marshall Mill country between high crags and woods. It was not uncommon for robbers hearing of cattlemen's deals to lay and wait for the money on the route. So the cattlemen rode on ahead empty handed while two miles behind rode young Stinson - an unpretentious fellow with twenty five thousand dollars on his person in notes. He had a swift horse and at the least suspicion was to ride to Breckenridge. The money got through safely. A neighbor sent his fifteen year old boy to the Hamilton bank for two thousand dollars to be paid to him for cattle for the same reason. A woman carried two thousand dollars in her bag from Hamilton to Ohio for she did not know about checks.