On Thursday last, 28 August 1890, Michael Wallace, another of Harrison County’s old settlers passed over the life line to death after a brief illness of about ten hours. He was taken with cholera morbus, subsequently follow, by a congestive chill, from which the grand old hero never recovered.
Mr. Wallace was born in Huntington County, Pennsylvania, 9 October 1823, was a collier by trade and was engaged in that business until he left and came to this part of the country. In the spring of 1855, arriving in Omaha, Nebraska, he worked there during the summer of 1855, and thence came to Clay township I Harrison county, in the fall, and started a wood yard on the bank of the Missouri River in Sec. 8, clay township, about one and one-half miles south of what is now known as Elm Point. It was here our grand old hero began the wood business, furnishing with fuel the steam boats that then ran on the river, and it was the captain of one to these boats, that gave the scope of land along the river about ten miles long and from two to six miles wide the name of “Sandy Point,” as our friend was a man of sandy complexion and the wood yard was called “Sandy’s Point.”
He continued in the wood business some two years, when he purchased the old Borum saw mill and located it in Raglan township, and it was here wooed and wed to a Miss Sarah McPete in 1861, and settled down to begin life anew. He toiled a long for a few years, when he again removed to Clay township taking a partnership in the mill of one of Harrison Counties old settlers known to all as Levi Motz and Burnet.
The mill was then known as the mill of Wallace, Motz & Co., the business kept up for about two years. When in 1862 was born to our old hero his first child, a boy who has grown to manhood and is known to every one as William Wallace, the old man moved down on the lost land and there he raised his family, all now living six sons grown to manhood, namely: William, F. W. , J. H. , J. C., R. B., and E. E. Wallace; before the old man passed away. His family is among the best and honorable of men in Harrison County and are respected by all who know them.
In 1883, the small pox visited the little family and the dreaded disease carried from this world one of the sweetest and dearest of all, the wife and mother of the family and one daughter. But this did not break up this little band” they clung together and the father was loved and cherished by every member of the family and by all who knew him, and his death is a sad thing to us all and to the hundreds of people who mourn with us the loss of our old hero.
As a raftsman he was a man of great courage and ability, and his equal as a pilot was seldom seen on our river. When 65 years of age he piloted a raft down the river, said by one raftsmen to be the largest one they had ever seen run, and he handled an oar stem with equal rapidity and nerve as any man aboard. He was 66 years, 10 months and 20 days old, was a citizen of Harrison County for 34 years, and was one of those who pushed out to the great west and took hold of the hardships that has built this country up to what it is today. Friends, do you ever think of what the first settlers had to undergo to make this country what it is today? When our hero came here there were no fences, no big farms or farm houses or barns, nothing but a vast prairie and a forest of timber. Did you ever stop and think that in those days there were no corn fields where now there are thousand of acres of wheat and corn. I would say to my very young friends that only for the push and energy of such men as this in our drama, our vast prairies and forests of timber would not be what they are today. But those men, fathers, and mothers, are fast passing away from life unto death, and we must consider that we will all sooner or later follow in their footsteps. On the 21st of the month was held the Old Settlers meeting at Magnolia. The writer was there and saw hundreds of those pioneers with hearty welcome shaking one another hands, a great many probably for the last time forever, for before they meet again God my touch the life cord and they will be no more, they will have passed away form earth to heaven, where no sorrow ever comes. Now my young friends, let us honor our old settlers, honor them for what they have done in their past life, and when we come to settle up with the troubles and trials of this world, we will feel better prepared to go, and can say that the country we have left was due to our old hero, heroes like the one that has passed away.
James McPherson