Caleb and Dorcas James' Hill Crest Farm

I've been wondering this morning what Caleb and Dorcas James, who arrived in Chariton in an ox-drawn wagon during the late fall of 1851, would make of the 20th century developments in their old neighborhood just west of town --- an airport, a lake and a couple of major industrial operations.

The site of their 160-acre "homestead" --- called Hill Crest Farm during their tenure --- is circled on the maps above (from an 1896 plat book) and below (thanks, Google).

Here's a story about the property's sale during the fall of 1893 to French Whitmore, published in the Patriot of Nov. 1 that year:

A PIONEER FARM SOLD

Caleb James, of Whitebreast township, has sold his farm located three miles (actually two at the time, now more like a mile and a half) west of Chariton to French Whitmore and will shortly leave the homestead where he and his family have lived forty-two years. 

Mr. James bought the farm in 1848 from the government and came with his family in 1851 to take possession of the land. No improvement had been made thereon, and houses to rent were very scarce in Chariton at that early day. In addition, there came also the families of Alfred McFarland and E. Culbertson. All journeyed from Ohio together in the far-famed prairie schooner, which led the advance guard of civilization into the then comparatively unknown west in those pioneer days.

After a weary journey of weeks they arrived in Chariton in the fall of 1851. The only shelter obtainable was a one story house, partly log and frame, which stood where the Union Block now stands (Great Western Bank in 2019). There were two rooms only, about 16 feet square, and into these the three families moved and lived during the severe winter of that year.

In the spring he removed to his farm, having previously built a cabin for shelter, and then commenced the long and arduous struggle of converting the virgin soil of Lucas county into a well cultivated and productive farm. By frugality, good management and patient industry, he has made from the raw prairie one of the best improved farms in Lucas county, and now sells it for a price aggregating forty-four times the original cost of the land ($1.25 per acre).

The successful career of Mr. James has its counterpart in hundreds of the early settlers of the county. Wherever one of these original owners stuck persistently to the soil, was industrious and exercised good judgment they have been successful and prosperous. They fully demonstrated the splendid  capabilities of Lucas county soil and out of the wilderness have created comfortable and happy homes.

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The Whitmores, who were of what we would call retirement age when they bought the farm, lived there for only about five years before selling out in 1898 and moving into Chariton. The buyers were Isaac A. and Martha Victoria (James) Fain, son-in-law and daughter of Caleb and Dorcas James. So the old homestead was back in the family.

Isaac and Martha had married at Hill Crest Farm during November of 1876, but most of their married life was spent north of Lucas, in the neighborhood of Tallahoma, where Isaac farmed several hundred acres that were the remnants of big tracts acquired by investors from east Tennessee, including his own family, prior to the Civil War.

Isaac and Martha then moved to the farm where she had been born in 1853, then married, but she died there four years later, on Sept. 2, 1902, at the age of 49. Isaac continued to live on the farm until his own death on Jan. 9, 1917.

The property still was in the family, occupied by son Richard Rhea Fain and his family, when the big house on the farm burned to the ground during February of 1929.

Caleb and Dorcas James did live in Chariton briefly after leaving the farm, but eventually purchased a home in the new Highland Park neighborhood of Des Moines and moved there. She died in Des Moines during 1904; he died in 1910. Both are buried in Des Moines' Woodland Cemetery.