Information Sheet

 

 

R         Manning, C. A.

1207                Letter, 1902.

                                    One folder.

 

 

 

This is a letter dated 26 September 1902 from C. A. “Chess” Manning of Bagnell in Miller County, Missouri, to James E. Millstead at Montreal in Camden County, Missouri.  There is an accompanying letter from “Mollie” to “Josie,” presumably the wives of Manning and Millstead.  The letters concern sowing forage seed and household matters.

 

Bagnell, on the Osage River, was a depot for the Missouri Pacific Railway Company, on the letterhead of which Manning wrote his letter.  Presumably he worked at the depot, which at the time was a major shipping point for freshly-hewn railroad ties that had been floated down the Osage River.  After the completion of Bagnell Dam upstream in the 1930s, Bagnell lost its im­portance, and the railroad spur was abandoned in the 1960s.  In the letter Manning asks Millstead to sow some timothy seed on Manning’s pasture land.

 

In Mollie’s letter, written on the letterhead of the Pacific Express Company, she discusses domestic affairs, noting that they are wallpapering their house and that “Chess has so much more to do here than he did when he lived here before.”

 

Nothing further is known about the principals involved.  A Nancy Josephine Millstead Phillips (1850-1937) is buried in Buffalo Prairie/Montreal Cemetery in Camden County, along with what appears to be several of her Millstead children.  Perhaps this is the “Josie” Millstead to whom Mollie’s letter was addressed.

 

 

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