What was life like in Wilderness Missouri in the early 1800’s. Isaac E. Kelley my Great, Great, Great, Great Grand Father was born October 11, 1775 Died April 1837. In 1815 he was known as” Waka Theta” (lame man) by the Cherokees he did trade with on the old trail called the Virginia Warriors Path. By 1830 he owned the General Store at what later was named Chilton Mo. Though the store changed ownership over these many years and life evolved in the area, especially when the railroad came through here is a description of his store and life in the Current River area of Missouri remained much unchanged up to the time of this original telling in the early 1900’s.
Background for Issac E. Kelley’s store at Chilton , Missouri, 1836 From “The Current Local” Van Buren, Missouri September 6, 1973 as originally written by Lucile Masnor.
The kerosene lamp, low and squat, with years of accumulated dust and cobwebs, stood on the top shelf in the shed. Its burner had corroded, its chimney and reflector long since gone.
Silently the lamp turned time back and spoke of where it once hung on the wall and gave out its soft golden rays to light the little country store at Chilton.
Each evening Father took the lamps down, refilled them with kerosene, polished the chimneys with crumpled newspapers, trimmed the wicks, lighted them with a kitchen match and returned the lamps to their brackets – and the store was ready for evening customers.
The stick candy in the glass jars on the shelf reflected the soft light and glowed red, brown and yellow, so inviting to the children who came to the store with their fathers on payday night to pay the grocery bill.
Father would take the pay check which was often signed with a cross mark, add the account figures in the day book and mark it paid. Seldom was there any change back. Then he would take a red and white striped candy sack and fill it with yellow lemon stick candy, red-striped peppermint candy, and some horehound candy from the jars on the shelf and give it to the children.
Usually the man had worked all month for a dollar a day on the railroad section to pay for the necessities for his family charged at Father’s country store.
Life was simple back in 1902. Bacon sold for 12 cents a pound. The price had gone up considerably from two cents a pound for pork, according to Henry Clay whose father had had a store up the valley from Chilton in 1885.
Sugar, navy beans and coffee berries came in cloth sacks. The sugar and beans sold for 10 cents a pound and coffee for 12 cents a pound. Every kitchen had a coffee grinder. To speed up waiting on customers Father would weigh 25 cents worth of each into brown paper bags tied with white or red and white twine, and stack them on the counter.
Brown sugar, which was cheaper than granulated sugar, came in wooden boxes lined with oil paper. The sugar contained brown maple-flavored lumps which tasted better than candy.
As a sales-gimmick, Arbuckle Coffee Co. offered flowered china dishes as a prize with each 25 cent package of unground coffee. The platters, tureens, tea pots, and bowls were special prizes to be given to special customers. The packages that contained these numbers came wrapper separate. Father placed them on the shelf with the other packages of coffee. He told me which packages drew the big dishes. The customers learned that they had better luck when I picked the packages. When Father wanted a special customer to get a big dish he would tell me to see if I could pick a big dish. He would lift me up so I could reach the big dish packages. The crooked deal was a secret between the Arbuckle Coffee Company, Father and me, which I never revealed.
The store room was small and dark, with dusty windows up front.
Just inside the door, on the end of the counter, was the Chilton Post Office. It was a square box of pigeon holes, one for each letter of the alphabet, and was large enough to hold the mail for those who lived in the Chilton community. The Blanchards, Lowes, Pitmans, Kelleys, Partneys, Meadows, Hoskins, Woodards, and Campbells who lived across Current River. The Dorrises, Harrises, Yates, and Hankins lived up Aldrich Valley, The Kesters and Hollands who lived in Grassey Valley and the Robertsons, Balls, Chiltons, Jaques, Sweazeys, Voiles, Tounsands, and Stewarts who lived in Chilton.
At that time the fact that tobacco is detrimental to your health had not reached Chilton and about everyone smoked or chewed.
For the chewers Father sold Star and Horseshoe tobacco. They came in long slabs in wooden boxes separated by heavy sheets of tinfoil. The slabs were marked with indented lines into squares which sold for ten cents and half squares for five cents. A small tin star or horseshoe was centered in each square. The long handled iron tobacco cutter was an important piece of equipment and set on the end of the counter. Its sharp blade collected the thick juice from the many cuttings was brown and fragrant.
For the smokers Father had piles of brown twists of tobacco and cloth bags of Bull Durham smoking tobacco and stacks of paper-wrapped cigarette papers given free with the 10 cent Bull Durham. These were in the show case with long sticks of paraffin chewing gum.
In this showcase Father secreted his 38 caliber revolver in case some one tried to take his money. No one tried to take his money – they took the revolver!
The money drawer was under the counter and had finger pulls, a combination of which opened the drawer and rang a bell. Only Father and Mother knew the combination. Silver money was the order of the day and when Father came by paper money he put it in between the leaves of the McGregor Noe Hardware Co. catalogue, for safe keeping.
Behind the counter were shelves of family remedies – Feberline chill tonic, blue bottles of quinine and empty capsules to take it in, bottles of brown iodine, and bottles of red healing, black draught and wine of cardul, and turpentine. For the cook there were bottles of vanilla and lemon extract and boxes of pepper. Salt came in barrels.
Soda crackers also came in barrels and was given free with a 5 cent slab of cheese cut from the big yellow, round cheese on the counter which made a good lunch washed down with nickle bottle of red strawberry soda pop.
On the other side of the store were bolts of red, blue and grey printed calico and unbleached muslin, black muslin to cover coffins, all sold for about 10 cents a yard. Also on the shelves were long, heavily stayed corsets which sold for 50 cents each and black ribbed stockings. They sold for a dime a pair. On the counter were stacks of men’s blue denim overalls which brought a dollar a pair.
A good kerosene lantern could be picked up for75 cents. White china squatty pots a dollar each with lids, sat on the top shelf along with glass lamps and lamp chimneys.
In the back of the store was the counter which held stacks of Myer’s Model flour. Twenty five pounds for 65 cents. On the other end of the counter was big slabs of pungent, smoked bacon and thick squares of white salt pork, 8 cents a pound. The salt pork was delicious when par-boiled, sliced and dipped in flour and fried.
On the floor in front of the counter was the five gallon can of lard. Customers brought their own buckets and Father dipped the lard into them with a homemade pine ladle. Next to the lard can was the row of nail kegs. These made good seats for loafers.
Father called the back of his store the ware room. There was the big steel drum of kerosene. Without it Chilton would have had a continual black out. Beside it was the galvanized wash tubs, wash boards, rolls of bar wire, tin buckets. If it was hardware you could find it in back of Father’s store, form King heaters to money wrenches.
Father’s store was a supermarket of yesterday, minus the push cards – the music – the check-out girls – and the high prices.
Special thanks to Julian Kelley Smith and Patricia Kelley Lindren for this photo and putting together the Kelley family history in their book “Kelleys In Missouri 1800”