Search Annals of Platte County, Missouri - Paxton

10 . THE MILITARY ROAD. Clay. But there was no wagon road. Platte River was often past fording. Bee Creek had no fords, and at that time every branch was a creek, and every creek a rivulet. In the rst settle~ ment of Platte, hundreds of mill-sites were selected on streams that now do not run three months in the year. In the summer of 1828 soldiers were detailed to open a good road from the Fort to Barry. A ford of brush and stone was made on Bee Creek, and a perfectly straight road from the Missouri to Bee Creek was cut out. twenty feet wide. At White1evs farm it rose to the top of the ridge. a11d followed the divide to within a mile of the Falls. After crossing the road, it followed another divide to Barry. It passed in front of Garrard Chesnuts. crossed Todds Creek at Ben Jacks. headed the hollows to Longpoint. and by a straight course went to Barry. The heavy work on the west end of the route was done by soldiers; but the people of Clay gave much assistance on the east end. FERRIES. But still two streams had to be crossed; and Zadock Martin was authorized to settle at the Falls and keep ferries over both the Platte and the Missouri rivers. Keel-boats were used on the .lissouri. and for the Platte gunwales were hewed, and plank ripped out by the whip-saw. ZADOCK MARTIN, In the fall of 1828. came from Clay with his sons and slaves. and built, of hewed lynn logs, a two-room house on the bluff on the eastern shore. below the Falls. Two shed-rooms were added, making a house of four rooms. Here he kept a tavern in the wilderness. His force was a half-dozen negro men and as many stalwart sons. Besides these, there were his good wife and three handsome daughters. He had no neighbor within fifteen miles. Martin was peculiarly fitted for his calling. Tall and brawny. he weighied about 175 pounds. He wore a broad-rimmed hat and carried a hickory cane. His eyes ashed lightning and his mouth reverberated thunder. He demanded instantaneous obedience of friend or foe. Yet he was just and charitable, and loved by his family and his servants. His sons and negroes formed a military troop that even the commander of the Fort hesitated to e.exasperate. He cultivated corn in a field opposite his house, in the bottom, and in a thirty-acre field where Tracy now stands. He also had a field of corn in Sand Prairie. opposite the fort and another in Fancy Bottom, above Weston. He had a sugar camp on the blutf, above the present mouth of Bee Creek. His hay was cut on the prairie, three miles southeast of his home. His cattle wintered on the rushes that then abounded in all the Missouri bottoms. His hogs ran wild. and fed upon the mast. that consisted of acorns. hickory-nuts. and pecans. His hog- killing was done with dogs and guns. When pork was wanted.