HAMILTON IN THE MIDDLE AND LATE SIXTIES

Narrator: Mrs. Mary Jane Holliday, 94, Hamilton, Missouri

The Bowman Family

The Early Main Street

The Episcopal Church

Mrs. Holliday was born 1840 in Illinois. Her maiden name was Mary Jane Kendall and her first husband's name was Glasner, the second Holliday. In 1865 just after the war the Glasner family came to Hamilton, drawn here by the fact that her mother married Vincent Bowman and already lived here. The Bowmans were early settlers in this town. Alston Bowman had a lumber yard and his brother Vincent built many of the early houses here, the Art Lollis house, the old Cochran-Spratt house in the north west part of town, and the house formerly standing at the south west corner of the High School lot.

In 1865 Mrs. Glasner lived on the present Harry Lampton home and her closest neighbors were two ex-slaves who lived in white washed shanties across to the south east - Uncle Charley Dunn and Uncle Lewis Butts. The old Henry Thornton family lived near them on Mill Street. Much of that district was empty.

When she came in 1865, most of the business was done on the street north of the depot-now treated as an alley. On that street were: Kempers, Richardson, McAdoos (druggist) and later on there was a Jew, Lombosaky, who had a jewelry store there and hired a clerk named Mitchell. Mitchell had a store there later on. She recalled Marion Hines running a lumber yard on the Higgins property (now the Tooley Mill site). Some after this time, there was a yard on the Cash corner on south Main where the Witwers had a wagon store. At the north end of this block Mr. Davis had a one story frame (location of Bank today) where he had a office. Later he rented it to Squire Holliday his relative (no relative of her second husband).

In the early sixties Mrs. Glasner was cook for the Western Hotel kept by the Goodman family and located at the middle of the first block north of railroad on Main west side. When she was cook, Bill Kemper, Lee Cosgrove, Ben Langshore boarded there at times. It was quite a fine hotel in its day.

Mrs. Glasner-Holliday was a charter member of the Episcopal church which stood there on the site of the present Mrs. Harry Sloan home. It was sold some years ago and now is the Catholic rectory in the south end of town. Other early members were Mr. and Mrs. George Reddie, Mrs. Brosius, Miss Alma Clark, the Rook family, the Waterman family and a few others. The Tuttle family came in a little later. When the monthly services were held, outsiders who attended sometimes giggled when the rector came in with his white robes. The chant music too seemed queer and sometimes aroused a grin from those not used to the service; likewise the frequent "getting up and getting down" of the members. Some people then thought the Episcopal church was the Catholic church because they both used a prayer book and there was a cross on the church.