Intemperate wickedness along Wolf Creek

I've been trying to figure out which of my relatives might have been involved in this minor tale of intemperate wickedness along Wolf Creek, published in The Chariton Democrat of March 27, 1875. This neighborhood south of Chariton, sometimes known also as Otterbein because of the church that served it, was home to the Redlingshafers, Rosas, Schrecks, Sellers, Carpenters and many others.

If nothing else, the tale illustrates that operating while under the influence is nothing new although in these instances real horses were powering the vehicles involved:

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The moral and virtuous inhabitants of the romantic environs of Wolf Creek, in the southern part of this county, are very much given to playing practical jokes upon each other; the joke being frequently turned by the victim upon the malicious perpetrator of it.

As an instance a short time since, a good, worthy temperance farmer from that section of the country, who had been in town one cold day, thought it would materially add to his temporal welfare if he was well armed with a bottle of the over-joyful before starting home. Accordingly, he got a supply of "the best" and stowed it away in his sleigh, carefully wrapping it.

It happened that a good, pious neighbor saw him thus disposing of the necessaires of life, and feeling that his spiritual welfare needed regeneration, waited his opportunity and stole the bottle, quietly transferring it to his own sleigh.

Soon after, the parties all started home, and in his hour of need, the moral farmer sought for the bottle, but it was gone. Meanwhile, he observed his spiritual neighbor far in advance, and the persons with him were getting hilariously drunk; and the trick was transparent. It is said that a sleigh-load of Wolf-Creekers was unloaded that evening by the aid of the wives of the jolly teetotalers who had luxuriated to excess upon another man's whisky.

A few days after this event, another resident of that classical valley who had laughed immensely over the joke, came to town and a rare opportunity presented itself to him to appropriate a bottle of the seductive fluid from his neighbor's vehicle and transfer it to his own, which he did chuckling to himself at the success of his joke.

He started home in company with several young ladies who had accompanied him to town, and one or more of which he had at various times smiled upon with honorable intent.

By the time he had got half way home with his precious cargo, he had surrendered the lines to a lady friend for safety, while two more of them vainly endeavored to hold him up while he scattered the contents of his insulted stomach along the road. He told them that he had taken sick from reading too much of the Beecher trial that day.

The ladies pronounced it thin and he was left to chew the bitter end of reflection. There is splendid room for organizing a lodge of Good templars on wolf creek.

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The "Beecher trial" referred to a scandal that transfixed the United States during the early 1870s as Americans sought diversions from the grim aftermath of the Civil War.

The Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, pastor of Plymouth Church in Brooklyn, New York, was perhaps the most widely known preacher in the United States at the time, renowned for his socially progressive outlook and emphasis on God's love.

But during the early 1870s, he was charged with adultery by Elizabeth Tilton, a friend's wife. Although exonerated of the charges, Elizabeth's husband, Theodore, filed a civil suit against the Rev. Mr. Beecher and coverage of that trial provided a great deal of entertainment to the masses between January and July of 1875. The result was anticlimactic --- the jury was unable to reach a verdict and the case faded from collective memory.