Individual Details

WHEN I WAS A BOY by J. C. [John Calib] Culley [ed. by Patrick Jay Cull ey] I was born in Johnson County, MO, on the 19th day of Sep t., 1852 , and have made my home in Chilhowee Township all m y life. My grandf ather [John Culley] came from Tennessee . He was in the war of 1812 . I remember when there were plenty of deers and wild turk eys in John son County. My father and uncle used to build tu rkey pens in the timb er and catch droves of them. I well re member the first wild turke y I shot. My uncle lived clos e to the timber, and one day when I wa s there, he said to m e, "Here, John, take this gun and kill that gobb ler," he ga ve me his gun and turkey caller and told me to go down t o t he old elm tree and call the gobbler a little closer. I di d a s I was told and I sure got the turkey. I thought I ha d done wonders . Uncle heard the shot and came down to se e what I had done. I met hi m and he said, "you think you ha ve played thunder," and I thought s o myself. That was in th e fall of 1861. I also remember the Civil Wa r in which I had 4 uncles an d several great-uncles, and I will mentio n a few of the thi ngs that happened in our immediate neighborhood. Th ere wer e plenty of good men on both sides and many people in Johns o n County were in sympathy with them. Some of the men wer e too old t o be in service and tried to stay at home as muc h as they could, an d many were shot down like hogs. The fir st man I saw, after he had be en shot down, was UNCLE DICK K ING, in the year of 1863 or 1864. Wor d had been sent out f rom Warrensburg to some of the old men in our ne ighborhoo d to go and look around and see if there were any bushwhac k ers in the timber, so six or eight of them went to see wha t they co uld find. As they were coming home, they were me t by a gang of bushwh ackers, who began to fire on them. The se old men began to run, but th e bushwhackers shot Uncle Di ck King and took the rest prisoners, wit h the exception o f one, who got away. They took these prisoners to m y uncle 's house and were getting ready to shoot them when two of t h e men in the gang came up and said, "don't shoot these men , we have k illed our uncle," so they turned the prisoners l oose. This all happen ed south and west of my uncle, W. R. [ William] CULLEY's house. My fat her's house was east of thi s place and the Culley schoolhouse was o n my father's place. There were four other men who were killed in th e Pisga h neighborhood. They were in the field plowing when they w er e attacked by the bushwhackers. The woman of that neighbo rhood send f or the old men of our neighborhood to come an d bury these four men, a nd while they were burying them , a bunch of men came out from Warrens burg, some of them we re drunk, and treated these old men badly, putti ng them und er guard and hammered my uncle over the head with their gu n s. The good women told my father and MR. DENTON to take a b ucket an d go to the springs after water, but when they reac hed the springs, f or them to leave the bucket and get away , as they would be watched fo r on their return. They did a s they were told and father did not ge t home until just bef ore day, and then went to the loft in the barn t o sleep, fo r he had been out all night. That day the soldiers cam e u p to our house hunting for the two men that went to the spr ings , and wanted their horses fed and their dinner. When mo ther told the m she had nothing to cook, they wanted to kno w if they could feed the ir horses. Mother told them there w as corn in the barn. When these me n started for the barn, m other told me to beat them to the barn and t hrow some oat s from the loft, for father was up there sleeping and th e m en might find him. I threw down all the oats they wanted, a nd the y left without finding father. These men asked me whe re father was an d I told them he was helping bury the fou r men that had been shot th e day before. That same day thes e bushwhackers burned a house east o f our place which belon ged to a man who was in sympathy with the sout h. That was i n 1864. I remember when a gang of bushwhackers came to o ur hous e and the captain, a neighbor boy, came in the house and wa nt ed dinner for 30 men. We did not have much in our house t o cook and m other told him she had quit cooking for soldier s. The captain had o n a false beard and thought he could f ool mother and threatened to bu rn the house. Mother looke d at him and said, "you can put on all th e false beards yo u want to, but your eyes, you can't fool me," and a t the sa me time, reached for an iron shovel that was by the firepla c e and said, "now, you get out of here or I will mash you r face." Sh e did not tell him but once, and he left in a h urry, for he knew wha t SUSAN would do. That same day thes e men burned several houses in ou r neighborhood, one of whi ch belonged to MR. DAY, the father of D. L . DAY, now livin g in Chilhowee, and they also burned the town of Corn elia t hat day. We had hard times during the war. There were not man y yo ung men at home and the older ones were in danger so they k ept h id most of the time, and what work there was to be don e was left to t he women and children. We planted corn for b read, as we did not rais e much wheat. When we had the cor n in the crib the soldiers would com e along and haul it awa y to feed their horses. They would also take o ur horses, le aving us with oxen to do our work. When these soldiers t oo k anything, they would never say a word and would not pay f or it , which made it pretty hard on the people. We had a yoke of oxen tha t I could haul wood and plow wi th. My aunt had a colored boy living w ith her but was young er than I, so I went over to their place with m y oxen and b roke up her field so she could plant her corn. When I fin is hed plowing she thought she could lay off the ground hersel f, bu t found that she could not hold the plow in the groun d and do the dri ving, so I laid off the ground and she drop ped the corn and covered i t with the hoe. We would put ou t about ten acres each. Oh yes; that w as the first pair o f boots I ever had. My aunt gave them to me for he lping he r put in her corn. These boots had red tops and copper plat e s on the toes and I sure felt big when I had them on. We had no railro ads in Johnson County at that time. Th e first steam car I saw was a t Sedalia, MO. About twice a y ear, mother and some of the neighbor wo men would go to Seda lia to do their trading, and of course I went alo ng to driv e the oxen. It always took three days to make the trip . W e would start early in the morning and camp out that night , go i n town the next day, do our trading and start for hom e, camp out tha t night and the next day would make it bac k home. I know you are thin king about what we had to trade . We had bacon and eggs and the wome n most always had a bol t of jeanes which they had woven and some line ns they had m ade. You know a woman can always find something to sell . Of course, it took work to make these goods. They had t o wash the w ool and pick out the burrs, then cord and spi n it before they could m ake cloth out of it. We had to pic k and jin the cotton to make the w arp. We used to raise cot ton for our own use. It's quite a job to pic k the seeds out , which was a job for the children. I have seen it cat c h a fire and burn up in a hurry. We have had it laying on t he floo r in front of the fireplace when one of the childre n would punch th e fire and a spark would fly out and fall o n the cotton, then we wer e through with that pile of cotton . We always had something to do. W e would raise flax to make cloth. In the fall we woul d pull the flax , tie it in bundles like wheat, then when sp ring came, we would tak e it to a low place and spread it ou t so it would rot. When the woo d rotted so it would break , we would gather the flax up. We had wha t we called Flax-b reak, which would break the wood, then we had a hac kel. B y pulling the lint through this hackel it would get all th e wo od out of it, then it was ready to spin. We had no machinery so we di d it all by hand. Cut our wh eat and oats with a reap hook and cradle , tie it by hand, l ay it on a tramping floor and take horses and go r ound an d round on it until the wheat was all tramped out. After th i s we would take a pitch fork, made of a forked stick, sti r the stra w a little and the wheat would be lieing on the g round. There would b e considerable chaff in the wheat, so w e would take a big pan full o f the grain and hold it up a s high as we could and pour it out on a s heet and let the w ind blow the chaff away. Later we made a wheat fan , which w as much better to clean the wheat with. We did not raise m u ch wheat for we had no market for it. After the war we rais ed mor e wheat, in fact, we farmed more land and put out lar ger crops. We di d not have good schools like we have now. We only h ad four months o f school a year, and small schoolhouses wit h poor seats. The first sc hool to which I went, had benche s without backs, for seats. That wa s in 1866. My father sold his farm after the war to a man by the na m e of SHIPP, who came from Texas. Father then bought the fa rm TOMMIE E VANS now owns, he bought it from G. B. THOMPSON , then father traded t his farm to W. R. JOHNSON for the far m that F. M. ALBIN now owns. Tha t was in the year of 1870 o r 1871. My brother and I broke out 40 acre s of prairie that th e town of Chilhowee is now on. We had three yok e of oxen th at we used in breaking up the land. The sod was so hard t ha t we hitched them all to one plow, and when night came, w e would t urn them loose to graze on the grass during the ni ght. In the mornin g we would have to hunt for the oxen an d put their yokes on and was r eady for another days plowing . In some places, in the lowlands, the s lew grass was as hi gh as our heads and when we would go through it w e would b e wringing wet from head to foot, but the sun would soon d r y us off. The old settlers of Johnson County thought these prairi e s would never be cultivated, they thought it would be too f ar to ha ul rails to fence the land, as we had to use rail s because we did no t have wire, so they located near the ti mber. When father bought hi s land in this neighborhood, al l the land south of his was prairie, a nd he thought he woul d have plenty of land for his cattle, but it di d not last l ong. In a few years this land was all bought up and lai d ou t in farms. My father and two brothers were among the first settl er s in Johnson County, father and his oldest brother entere d their l and together. Land was very cheap at that time, bu t money was very sc arce. I have heard my father say that h e had worked for thirteen doll ars a month, when he was a yo ung man. A little family history: My fa ther, T. J. [Thomas Jefferson] Culley, was born o n the 11th day of Fe b., 1823, and died on the 23rd day of F eb., 1896. Mother, Susan A. [A dline] WASSON Culley, was bor n in 1829 and died in 1896. They were ma rried in Johnson Co unty by Rev. J. R. WHITSETT, pastor of the Cumberl and Presb yterian Church, in 1850 and had quite a large family, four t een children, seven living to be grown and the rest dying w hen the y were small. I had one sister older than I [Mary Ja ne Culley CULL] . She married a man by the name of [George L .] CULL, he was a brothe r of J. I. [James Isom] Culley's wi fe [Don Martha Cull], and came fro m [b. Shelbyville] KY. M y sister's 2 children are now living in KY. S he [Mary Jan e Culley CULL] was born on the 18th of Sept., 1851, and d ie d on the 4th day of Oct., 1874. My brothers and sisters hav e lef t Johnson County. J. W. [James William] Culley marrie d FANNIE [Ella F rances] BURTON and they are living in [LA ] California; S. P. [Samue l Porter] CULLEY married MARY [El len] ALBIN and they are living in Ka nsas City, MO; J. L. [J oseph Leeper] CULLEY married JESSIE [Evelyn Je sse] MORROW a nd they are living in Arkansas; S. E. [Sophronia Eldora ] CU LLEY married C. A. [Charles August] CRUMBAUGH and they ar e livin g in Kansas City, MO; S. C. [Susan] CULLEY married J . A. [John] LAD Y and they are living in Idaho. My grandfather [John] Culley was bor n August 12, 1792 [E dgefield Co, SC], and died Aug. 15, 1876 [Johnso n Co, MO] . Grandmother [Jane "Jennie" Douglass Wright Culley] Cull e y was born July 18, 1789 [TN] and died Sept. 14, 1869 [John son Co , MO]. My grandparents had 5 children: three boys an d two girls. W. R . [William] CULLEY, T. J. [Thomas Jefferso n] CULLEY, J. I. [James Iso m] CULLEY, ELIZABETH [Nancy Eliz abeth] CULLEY and SARAH [A.] CULLEY . They were all early se ttlers of Johnson County and as far as I know , father's peo ple were all born in Johnson Co., with the exception o f the ir parents, and they came from Tennessee. [Jane Douglass Wr igh t Culley had been married previously to a man named WRIG HT, who disap peared on a trip back to Richmond, KY leavin g her with two sons Georg e Douglass Wright, b. 1810(08?), J ohn Angel Wright, b. 1812, accordin g to Frank Slaven, 10.20 00] Elizabeth Culley married WILLIAM JOHNSON , Sarah Culley m arried J. H. [Jeff G.] HARRIS. W. R. [William] Culle y marri ed CAROLINE [Louise Caroline Perry] PARRIE, J. I. [James Is om ] Culley married [Don] MARTHA CULL and T. J. [Thomas Jeff erson] Culle y married SUSAN A. WASSON. All of my aunts and uncles are dead now wit h the excepti on of my aunt MARTHA CULLEY, J. I. Culley's wife, and sh e i s making her home with her daughter, MRS. H. P. FOSTER, an d livin g in [Nevada] Vernon Co., MO. My mother's maiden name was Wasson and s he had 3 brother s and 3 sisters; S. C. WASSON, JIM ARCH WASSON, C. B . WASSO N, FRANCIS WASSON, EMMA WASSON, and R. J. WASSON. Susan A . Wa sson married T. J. Culley, Francis Wasson married SAMUE L BROWN, Emm a Wasson married BART BROWN, R. J. Wasson marri ed J. R. JOHNSON, Ji m Arch Wasson married FANNIE STEWART. I was born Sept. 19, 1852, and w as married to P. W. [Pau line W.] ASKEW the 6th day of Feb., 1873, an d she died Sept . 26th, 1875. On Feb. 6th, 1879, I was married to SUSA N T . MCLIN. She was born Oct. 10, 1863. We had 8 children, tw o die d in infancy. Eva died after she was married and the o ther five are s till living. Two in Oklahoma, two in Nodawa y Co., MO., and one in Win dsor, MO. My wife's people, E. A. MCLIN was born on the 15th of Apr . , 1817, and died on the 30th of March, 1892. ANN ELIZABET H MCLIN wa s born on the 9th of Jan., 1823, and died on th e 2nd of Oct., 1889. T hey came from Tennessee to Johnson Co . in 1875. My wife, Susan T. MCL IN Culley had three sister s and three brothers. ANN B. MCLIN marrie d JOHN HARRIS; FLO RENCE D. MCLIN married W. I. WITHERSPOON; MARY B. M CLIN mar ried W. H. BENTLEY, J. H. MCLIN married JENNIE SMITH of Ala b ama, and R. L. MCLIN married LOUISA HUTTON, his last wife' s name wa s MOLLIE HUET, JOHN B. MCLIN died in 1877. I will mention another fami ly or two who were early sett lers in this neighborhood. SOLLIE STON E had quite a family . His children and I used to go to school togethe r. RICHAR D DAY had quite a family and lived in the same district, a n d two families by the name of STEWARTs were in the same dis trict. T he town of Chilhowee was laid out in the year of 1895 . A number of ho uses were moved from the old town, which i s 1 1/2 miles north. S. S . SHOEMAKER was the first man wh o had a general store in the new town . He and W. P. POLLOC K went into business about the same time. Ther e has bee n a great many changes in the town in the last 15 years. C h ilhowee has always been a good trading place. There is, a t this wri ting, four general stores, two hardware stores, t wo drug stores, thre e restaurants, two produce houses, on e furniture store, one butcher s hop, one printing office, t wo banks, three garages and filling statio ns, two blacksmit h shops, three churches, three doctors, one dentist , one lu mber yard, one hotel, and Consolidated School district. W e b uilt a schoolhouse about 3 years ago, which is one of th e best schoo l buildings in a town of its size, in the state , and have good school s and the community surrounding us i s hard to beat. We have made Chil howee our home for 22 years, moving her e in 1900. Our family has al l grown up and married. Our old est daughter, S. E. [Lizzie] CULLEY ma rried A. L. ALSPAUGH ; MARY [Ella] CULLEY married J. W. VALENTINE, EV A CULLEY ma rried GEORGE VALENTINE, F. [Florence] ELDORA CULLEY marri e d J. LEE HALL, ANN ESTELLA CULLEY married STUART LEWIS, T . A. [Tom ] CULLEY our only boy, married MABEL MALSON. Now children, we want yo u all to keep in your mind tha t this life is a short one. You may liv e your three score y ears and ten, but that is short to compare with t he next li fe beyond. The thing is to be ready when you are called fr o m this life to meet your God, who has given you life, and s trength . Raise your children to be good and to love their G od and to honor t heir parents who have worked and toiled fo r them. We know what a bles sing it is to have children tha t love their God. When they have thi s love they will love t heir parents. Oh! What would this life be to u s if we did n ot have these loving children. Keep this in remembranc e of your parents. Susan T. Culley John C. Culley May 22, 1922 Susa n Tadlock McLin Culley [b. 10 Oct 1860, TN, d. 6 Apr 19 32, Windsor, H enry Co, MO] John Calib Culley [b. 19 Sep 1852, Johnson Co, MO, d. 2 1 Ma y 1923, Johnson Co, MO] [m. 5 Feb 1874, Johnson Co, MO] [ed. not es from Patrick Jay CULLEY, Memphis, TN, USA 4.16.2 001 based on wor k by Bonnie Flannigan CULLEY] ÓCopyright 2001. All rights reserved.

Birth	Sep 19, 1852	Jackson, MO, USA
Marriage	Feb 6, 1879	Johnson, MO, USA - Susan Tadlock McLin
Death	May 21, 1923	Kansas City, Jackson, MO, USA
Alt name		John Calib Culley

Spouse	Susan Tadlock McLin (1860 - 1932)
Child	George Culley ( - )
Child	Susan Elizabeth "Lizzie" Culley (1881 - )
Child	Mary Ella Culley (1882 - )
Child	Eva Culley (1885 - )
Child	Thomas A. "Tom" Culley (1889 - )
Child	Florence Eldora Culley (1891 - 1977)
Child	Ann Estella Culley (1894 - )

Father	Thomas Jefferson Culley (1823 - 1896)
Mother	Susan Adline Wasson (1829 - 1897)
Sibling	Samuel Porter Culley ( - )
Sibling	Mary Jane Culley (1851 - 1874)
Sibling	Sophronia Eldora Culley ( - )
Sibling	Joseph Leeper Culley ( - )
Sibling	James William Culley ( - )
Sibling	Susan C. Culley ( - )