By Erin Eddins,
Source Publications
As we march forward into what our fine city is becoming, we speak of change and development, marketing and positioning. The north end is ever expanding and the downtown is revitalizing. The city is growing without doubt and is changing without looking back. Or are we? It is often said that you cannot look forward without looking back and that you cannot know where you are going without knowing who you were.
“Where the Pony Express began and Jesse James ended …” Is that it? Those are two great claims to fame with incredible stories to be told again and again but certainly cannot encompass all that St. Joe was. What about the things that are just a part of our local memory? Not all great stories have to be of epic proportion. Some, but not all, of the tales that Old Joe would tell are of such notoriety.
These are the tidbits that Grandpa would repeat to you and the other grandkids while sipping lemonade on the old rickety front porch as his chair rocked to and fro. Okay, maybe that went a little far. But what this really means is a peek at the great events and small moments that create our local history. What unknown tale is out there? Not all unknown tales are completely unheard of. Our inaugural edition is focused on the unknown role of St. Joseph during an infamous time period.
Get your lemonade and your Grandpa….its time for Old Joe.
Joseph Houts is a Regular Joe down to the letter. He makes his home in St. Joseph. He works in St. Joseph. He really is just a Regular Joe, but what he spends his time doing is not average by any means. Houts has dedicated immense amounts of time researching and writing about St. Joseph during The Civil War. But his perspective is slightly different than what we are used to hearing. Sure the largest of the battles are among his list of interests and sure he can rattle of details of the key players much like a young boy can recall the details from his favorite baseball cards but it is the under appreciated roles that draw his interests.
Houts’ interest in the Civil War era spreads far beyond the boundaries of our city and even our state. But early in our visit he mentioned a side note that seemed to resonate with him.
“My grandmother gave me the bug,” Houts stated as he began telling me of his grandfather’s farm, on which still stands one of three slave quarters and the remaining foundations of the others. These were not the quarters or beliefs of his family’s but the evidence of a slave owning family from before the war.
Missouri was a key player in the events leading up to the war. We all learned in school about The Missouri Compromise, 1820, which allowed Maine to join the Union as a free state and Missouri as a slave state. Though the populations of the two states varied the political control between pro-slavery and anti- remained balanced with this agreement. However, this also made Missouri the northernmost state allowing slavery.
This decision was not as simple as it would seem and would later lend itself to situations that foreshadowed the coming war. In a letter following the Missouri Compromise approval, Thomas Jefferson wrote, “The Missouri question aroused and filled me with alarm…I have been among the most sanguine in believing that our Union would be of long duration. I now doubt it much.”
The tensions grew as Kansas was brought into the Union in 1861 as a free state. The Jayhawkers would attack and we would fight back.
Houts exclaimed with great vigor, “It started here on our boarder, in our own state.” He went on to timeline the events. Some were of common knowledge and others were far lesser known but the point that Houts reiterated is they all made up the war and they all attested to Missouri’s key role in it. There were an estimated 15,125 engagements during the war. Tennessee and Virginia hosted the majority of those but Missouri lists third in the number of battles and skirmishes.
Why is that? We were far removed from the “South” we learned about in school. Houts explained it was the guerilla warfare that had the greatest effects on our state.
“Much as the Viet-Con was nearly impossible to locate and defeat,” explained Houts, “the small bands within our state were also difficult to locate and defeat.” Our state saw hand to hand combat between neighbors, small bands of fighters and larger groups of guerillas.
As the war raged on around our state and beyond, the division between Missouri and Kansas was further widened by what Houts referred to as a strange act of nature. Kansas sank into a devastating drought, drought to the point of famine. Families on the west side of the river were starving as the families on the Missouri side flourished.
“Missouri was like the Garden of Eden.” Houts explained. The fields were plentiful and the mouths were full. At this point the Jayhawkers reemerged and began to take from Missouri in order to survive. But as time passed the fighting between the bordering states waned and as the third year of the war pressed on it was without much action in the Show-Me State.
Houts provides an interesting and focused perspective of the pre-war events in and around Missouri. But as he spoke of his involvement with the St. Joseph 150 Civil War Commemoration he brought to light yet another perspective.
“What was the role of the African American in Missouri’s part of the war?” Houts asks, truly hoping to hear an answer. He has focused his research on showing the role and significance of the African American in Missouri’s Civil War history. The Underground Railroad is at least touched on in middle school history lessons but what does it mean to fight for your very own freedom? What did St. Joseph mean to the people who fought for their right just to be called a human being?
Our shared boarder with Kansas became the crossing point for African Americans to gain their freedom. This was the literal truth in the winter of 1862 when the Missouri River, then much wider and shallower, froze solid. Entire families would run across the frozen river top by the dark of night.
“Second to Independence, we were the leader in places to escape and run across at the land that is now the casino,” said Houts.
The river was not only a boundary to freedom for the slaves but it is where the first skirmishes, pre-war, were happening.
The primary drive for Houts’ research is education of the public. He has taken a simple hobby and created something meaningful. After writing two well researched books Houts still has not quenched his desire to learn more of Missouri’s Civil War or the role the African American held in it.
“As we designed our logo for the upcoming sesquicentennial [in 2011] it was very important to me that we represent the African American. I wanted to show the arm of a slave reaching up towards freedom past the Confederate flag.” Houts went on to say that even after settling on the logo he realized it needed one last change. The arm reaching upwards to the American flag was shackled in the initial design. After second consideration Houts determined the shackles needed to be present but broken.
Houts has been a part of numerous educational efforts within St. Joseph and plans to continue to pursue his interests in showing the different roles and facets of our city and her people in the Civil War.
If you would like to make a submission or suggestion for Old Joe please contact us online at urjoe.com and help us tell our city’s stories.
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