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The Life Story of Dave Ferguson
LIFE STORY OF DAVE FERGUSON IS A CHRONICLE OF
HARDY OZARKS PIONEERING.
Taken from an obituary compiled by Dave's
younger son, Jo Orval Ferguson, newspaperman and former
senator of Pawnee, Oklahoma.
BORN IN TENNESSEE
Born in Greene County in the mountains of East Tennessee,
a few years before the Civil War, of Scotch ancestry who
came to America before the Revolution, David Sanford
Ferguson's immediate forebears were farmers, traders,
hunters, pioneers and frontiersmen, who moved west
through the Carolinas into Virginia, Kentucky, Georgia
and Tennessee. His father, William Milo Ferguson,
was a farmer-blacksmith, married to Elizabeth Hogan,
November 16, 1848.
The Civil War came on. As a boy of 8 to 12, he saw
the armies of the Union and Confederacy pass and repass
his father's door. His father, a Union sympathizer,
was taken into the Confederate Army as a
blacksmith. Dave's education was neglected.
He has been heard to say on many occasions that his
entire schooling would not cover a period of more than
six months.
WESTWARD BY OXEN
A few years after the war, Dave took part in one of the
great adventures of his life. His father with the
spirit of the pioneer, determined to move further
west. In a caravan of wagons, horse drawn and drawn
by oxen, the Ferguson family came to the location of the
present city of Willow Springs, Missouri. In the
party were around sixty persons, including, Luttrells,
Hogans, and Medleys.
The trip required several weeks. The smaller rivers
were forded, the larger ferried. The Mississippi
was crossed at Green's Old Ferry, north of Cape
Girardeau.
Arriving at the side of Hutton Valley, the settlers set
about to make homes in the new country. The elder
Ferguson acquired the farm adjoining Willow Springs on
the northwest. Young Dave Ferguson helped to build
the log house that stands there. On a rock, in the
chimney are his initials cut there by him before the rock
was used in the building. The rock was so placed
that his initials are upside down.
FIRST THRESHING MACHINE
Dave helped to break the new ground in the valley west of
Willow Springs, using 16 oxen hitched to a plow to tear
up the stumps and roots. His father bought a
threshing machine at Marshfield, one of the nearest
railroad points of that day. They brought the
machine to Howell County, the first threshing machine to
come into this community, and Dave Ferguson and Bill
Luttrell operated it in the late summer and fall,
collecting toll wheat the following winter and hauling it
to Rolla. A week was required for each round
trip. On the return trip supplies were hauled for
Harris' store.
Having helped his father establish a home in the new
country, the young man sought to establish one for
himself. He traded a yoke of oxen for a homestead
relinquishment on a quarter section two and one-half
miles west of his father's farm. There he built a
log house.
TO PINE GROVE FARM
Dave had met and learned to respect a 17-year-old girl,
Miss Martha Isabelle Young, who three years before had
driven a team pulling a covered wagon loaded with
household goods into the county. When her father,
William Young, decided to leave his Sagamon County,
Illinois home and go to the Missouri Ozarks, with his
wife, Charlotte Ellen Everman Young, and their three
daughters, it fell to Belle to drive one of the
teams. So Dave Ferguson and Belle Young were
married September 3, 1876 and went to live on the Pine
Grove farm.
Together they cleared the land, fenced it, planted and
tended crops. With Uncle Phil Green, Eli Green, and
some of the other settlers, the young homesteader helped
to organize the Pine Grove school district which included
all the territory from the Texas County line to Dry Creek
and from Douglas county to Willow Springs.
HELPED SETTLERS
Dave helped the other settlers to cut and hew pine logs
and erect the first schoolhouse, with split logs for
bench seats. This building was at the site of the
Pine Grove Cemetery. He helped to dig the first
grave in the cemetery and to organize the first church, a
community organization. He served 26 years on the
Pine Grove School Board.
For years he and his wife labored to improve their farm
and living conditions. He hewed ties that went into
the building of the railroad when it came in 1880.
The couple built three houses on the Pine Grove
farm. The first two were log; the last, a large
farm house, remains on the farm. In 1902 they sold
this place and Mr. Ferguson bought his father's old home
near town. He owned this many years, selling it
after the death of his wife in 1914, and buying a small
tract north of town where he died.
LOVED NATURE
Uncle Dave, as he was known to all his friends, loved
nature. He loved to till the soil. He loved
the soil; he did not mistreat it. He never owned a
farm, a home, a piece of land, that did not improve under
his ownership. He saw the wonders of God in the
growing of corn, the ripening fruit, the flowing of clear
waters, the healthy cattle, the happy people. He
abhorred waste and laziness and believed that thrift and
industry would bring plenty.
UNCLE DAVE IS CALLED HOME
March 2 1936, death and eternity claimed another of God's
noblemen, but not until he had rounded out many
well-spent years beyond the allotted three score
ten. To the hour of his death no man or woman had
more true friends or fewer enemies in this community than
Uncle Dave Ferguson.
His long life was not one of glamorous color; rather it
was a life spent in helping in some way to make the world
a better place in which to live than it was when he came
into it. And none can truthfully deny that he
succeeded. To know him was to love him. His
cheerful disposition, his readiness to help those who
needed help, his industrious habits and, beyond all, his
fairness in all matters are the characteristics that
marked his life.
Uncle Dave didn't like to leave home, but now he has been
called down the long, long trail. He has had to
leave behind his plows and hoes, his chickens and cows,
his trees and vines. If the Supreme Ruler wants to
make Uncle Dave happy Over There, He should roll back the
years and give him a chance to start again on a little
farm like he did sixty odd years ago out by Pine
Grove. The farm needn't be very fertile. It
may be small and it can be rocky like the Ozark
land. But it should have plenty of timber on
it. There he will build a home, make a living, have
plenty, improve the land and be happy. Unite him
with his friends and family who have gone before.
Do this, god, and he'll be happy.
"Grandpa Dave also liked to save, and save he did in
the old homemade desk, where I found the letters,
postcards, Christmas cards, family photos, newspaper
articles, scraps of paper with lists, Road Overseer
lists, etc. After Grandpa died in 1936, the
desk was stored in his son Charles Ferguson's basement
for 30 some years. In the mid 1960s I was
given the desk and contents, and later, when I read the
letters, etc., I realized the genealogical treasure I
had."
--Bonnie
L Johnson
Back to Letters from
Grandpa Ferguson's Desk
This page was last updated January 12, 2001.
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