Straight From The Hart

  The development of one of the most beautiful areas around here could accurately be called “A Tale Of Two Families”. Our story starts when three different Bennett families migrated here in the mid to late 1840’s  from Virginia and Kentucky through Illinois down to Missouri. About the same time the Brice family migrated to Missouri from Illinois, in search of land which the U.S. Government was selling to settlers for $1.25 an acre. James Brice camped beside a clear stream of water that flowed from a large deep spring and eventually emptied into the Niangua River.  He filed a claim with the government for the 160 acres on which the spring was located and kept buying land as money became available until he owned all the land through which the stream flowed on its way to the Niangua.     He planted many different crops and built a mill on the stream between the spring and the site of the present day dam. In the late 1840’s Peter Bennett, Sr. and his family settled in the same valley but o

  I wrote this for the newspaper several years ago. Not political. Just history about the signers of the Declaration of Independence but extremely interesting. Not because I wrote it, but because it is history we have either forgotten, or maybe never learned it in school to begin with. Have you ever wondered what happened to the 56 men who signed the Declaration of Independence? Five signers were captured by the British as traitors, and tortured before they died. Twelve had their homes ransacked and burned. Two lost their sons serving in the Revolutionary Army; another had two sons captured. Nine of the 56 fought and died from wounds or hardships of the Revolutionary War. They signed and they pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor. What kind of men were they? Twenty-four were lawyers and jurists. Eleven were merchants, nine were farmers and large plantation owners; men of means, well educated, but they signed the Declaration of Independence knowing full well that