Information Sheet

 

 

R         Barnitz, Franklin Hoke, 1836-1910.

164                  Papers, 1860-1894.

                                    Five folders and two volumes.

 

MICROFILM

 

 

 

This collection consists of correspondence and miscellaneous papers of Franklin H. Barnitz of Lake Spring, Dent County, Missouri.  He was a native of Pennsylvania and freighter who op­er­ated from the railhead of the Southwest Branch of the Pacific Railroad in Phelps County before mov­ing to Lake Spring.  The collection includes letters from his family in York, Pennsylvania, and from friends and business associates in Arkansas, Kansas, and Missouri.

 

Franklin Hoke Barnitz was born on 13 August 1836 at York, York County, Pennsylvania.  His grand­fa­ther, George Augustus Barnitz, Sr., was a lawyer and county judge.  His father, George Augus­tus Barnitz, Jr., operated a coal yard at York.  The family was prosperous enough, young Barnitz in­cluded, to invest in ironworks near York at Wrightsville, Pennsylvania.

 

Frank Barnitz left York to settle in Kansas before the Civil War.  He established a cabinet-making shop, but had that career cut short by the war.  By 1862 Barnitz was at Rolla, Phelps County, Missouri. where he hired on with the army quartermaster department as a teamster or wagon master.  He might have been drawn to Rolla by friends from York, for he was ac­quainted with Judge Alexander Demuth at Rolla.  The Judge's son, Charles Demuth, was a visitor to York in April 1868.

 

When the Civil War ended, Barnitz continued in the freight business, hauling from the termi­nus of the Southwest Branch of the Pacific Railroad.  In 1867-1869 he loaded and un­loaded his wagons at Little Piney, now Arlington, twelve miles west of Rolla at the confluence of Little Piney Creek and the Gasconade River.  It was the base of operations for freighters until construc­tion of the railroad was resumed in 1869.  Barnitz and several employees made trips from the railhead to points in Arkansas, Kansas, Missouri, Texas, and Utah.  Although Barnitz came through un­harmed, he lost livestock to Indians in Utah and ran the same risk in Kansas.  His hauls to Arkan­sas and Texas appear to have been less hazardous.

 

Barnitz left the freight business by 1870.  He settled in Dent County, Missouri, where in 1868 he had purchased a thousand acres in the northwestern part of the county.  He replaced the original home, destroyed during the war, and developed the property as a successful stock farm.  He estab­lished several other businesses, including general stores and grist mills at Lake Spring, Lecoma, and Yancy Mill, and a tobacco factory at Salem.  He began as a partner in the latter with C. M. Hamill, but was sole owner by 1873.  He was well-known in the area through his busi­nesses and by hosting the annual reunions of ex-Confederates at Barnitz Lake.  Barnitz died in 1910 and is buried in the Lake Spring Cemetery.

 

The Barnitz collection consists of correspondence and miscellaneous papers from family, friends, and business associates, 1860-1894, and two account ledgers from his mercan­tile and to­bacco enterprises, 1871-1874.  The papers are in chronological order; inventories precede each folder.  The letters from his family, especially those from his father, comment on friends and mu­tual acquaintances, the coal trade at York, the affairs of the Wrightsville iron furnace, and busi­ness conditions in general.  There are also bits of parental advice concerning the perils of Indians on the Plains and yellow fever in Texas.

The business papers include printed wagoner's receipts for goods taken aboard the Barnitz wagons, bills for boarding employees and livestock, and letters from merchants, busi­ness houses, and colleagues in the freight trade.  The papers indicate close business ties with Fellows, McGinty & Co., Faulkner, McCoin & Co., and Coblenz & Co. in Missouri, with W. H. Grimes, Charles L. Duncan, and Charles H. Holbert in Kansas, and with Fuller & McKib­ben at Fort Smith, Arkansas.  There are also several letters by George Parton, a former partner or employee of Barnitz, written from Atchison, Fort Riley, and Ellsworth, Kansas, 1867-1869.

 

Volume One of the account ledgers includes a mixture of general store transactions and to­bacco business accounts.  Some of the pages bear the notation “Mill No. 1,” the location of which is unknown.  Volume Two includes additional accounts for the tobacco business.  Most of the to­bacco processed at the factory in Salem was produced by growers in Dent, Phelps, and Texas counties.  Indexes to the accounts precede each volume.

 

 

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