Thomas Clement Fletcher

Fletcher, Thomas Clement, Governor of Missouri, was born in JeflFerson County, Missouri, January 22, 1827, his father being Clement B. Fletcher, who came to this State from Maryland, in 1818. Thomas C, his second son, received a good common school education, and in 1854 was elected clerk of the Circuit Court of Jefferson County. He studied law while holding this office, and in 1857 was admitted to the bar. A zealous opponent of slavery, he became an active Republican on the organization of that party, and was sent as delegate to the National Republican Convention in 1860, and again in 1868, attracting attention by his fine personal bearing, pleasant manners, and his spirited and effective off-hand speeches. In the Civil War he espoused the Union cause, and was, for a time, assistant provost marshal in St. Louis under Colonel Farrar. Afterward he took an active part in raising the Thirty-first Regiment, of which he was lit i.' I, Ti..>i.ias (a ii'0:made colonel, serving with gallantry in the siege of Vicksburg and in the battle of Pilot Knob. In 1865 he was chosen Governor of Missouri, being the first native-born citizen of the State and the first Republican chosen to that position. At the expiration of his term of office he resumed the practice of law in St. Louis. In 1890 his professional duties made it necessary for him to remove to Washington City, and there he continued to reside until his death, March 25, 1899. Governor Fletcher was tall and commanding in person, and affable in manners; warmly esteemed by his personal and political friends, and respected by his political opponents for his sincerity and honor. As a public speaker he had few equals. He was married in 1851 to Miss Clara Honey, of JeflFerson County, Missouri. Their children are Mrs. Perry Bartholow, of St. Louis, and E. L. Fletcher, a civil engineer in the employ of the Missouri Pacific Railway.

Flitcrafty Pembrook Reeves, lawyer and ex-judge of the Circuit Court of St. Louis, was born at Woodstown, Salem County, New Jersey, January 8, 1847.

During the latter part of the year 1847 his parents removed to Ohio, and from thence to Indiana, where his father died. His mother then returned to Ohio, and there remained until 1858, when the family removed to Michigan, his mother in the meantime hav-. ing remarried.

The foundation of Judge Flitcraft's education was laid, as is common in the Northern States, in a country school. He prepared for college in the Quaker boarding school of Raisin Valley Seminary, near Adrian, Michigan. He entered the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, in the fall of 1867, and in 1871 graduated, receiving the degree of bachelor of arts, and, in due course, from the same institution, the degree of master of arts, in

Between the date of his graduation and the date of his admission to the bar in Kansas City in 1875, part of the time he was superintendent of schools at Charlotte, Michigan, and part of the time represented various large publishing houses, and was also devoting all his spare time during this period to the study of the law, the practice of law having been his sole object and aim.

In 1875 he formed a law partnership with

John T. Voss, at Girard, Crawford County, Kansas, where he remained until 1878, when he came to St Louis, which has been his home ever since. In 1882 he formed a law partnership with Henry E. Mills The law firm of Mills & Flitcraft continued until Judge Flitcraft was elected one of the judges of the Circuit Court of St. Louis, at the fall election of 1894, taking his seat in January,

In September 1883, Judge Flitcraft married Emma Belle Brenneman, daughter of Levi and Mary Brenneman, of Pittsburg, Pennsylvania. They have two children, Ada Virginia and Edna Belle.

Floods at Kansas City. The region about Kansas City and that now occupied by the city itself has within comparatively recent times been deluged by the waters of the Missouri and Kaw Rivers. Notable floods of this character occurred in 1782, 1826, 1843 and 1844. The greatest of these floods was that of 1844. On the 13th of June of that year the waters of the Missouri covered the bottoms from bluflF to bluff for several feet. On the next day the Kaw poured its flood into the valley and the land was covered to the depth of twenty feet. The houses of those who lived in the bottoms were overwhelmed, and the people needed the aid of their neighbors and friends to save them from water graves. Some were rescued but several houses and persons were swept away into the abyss of waters. The flood cut out new channels and twelve hundred acres of land below the mouth of the Kaw has since been gradually carried away. The process went on for thirty years, until in 1868 the railways arrested it by riprapping the banks. The Kaw ate into the land on the west and made. Turkey Creek, which had been an affluent of the Missouri, one of its own tributaries. Thus the floods plowed their way through the bottoms making new channels and proving an ever shifting boundary line.

T. R. ViCKROY.

Floods at St. liOuis.— The city of St. Louis, owing to its elevation above the river, has been, in the main, exempt from the ravages of floods, the occasional damage to houses on the river front forming hardly an exception worthy of consideration against the general statement. But indirectly the city

Google has suffered in various ways from the high floods. These usually occur at St. Louis between the 15th and 30th of June, and are caused by the heavy rains and the snows meeting in the mountains at the sources of the Missouri. In some seasons the Yellowstone hours out a flood which reaches St. Louis about the last of May or the first of June. According to Scharf s "History/* the first unusual rise of the Mississippi of which we have any record took place in 1542, and its effect on the lower Mississippi was observed by De Soto and his followers. The earliest submergence of the American Bottom of which there is any record was in 1742. In 1772 another flood came and covered portions of the Bottom. The next period of extreme high water was in June, 1785, when the river rose twenty feet above the highest known water-marks. Opposite St. Louis the overflow extended to the bluffs. Grain fields were submerged, cattle drowned and cabins washed away on the alluvial lands. This year was known in the annals of French history as Vannee des grades eatix. There were high waters subsequent to 1785, but none deserving of attention until that of 181 1, which resulted in part from the annual rise of the Missouri. The flood was much greater than any that followed until 1823, about the 8th of May, caused by the heavy rains on the Mississippi. The river continued to rise rapidly until the 23d of the month, when it came to a stand. The water entirely covered the American Bottom, and the residents of Kaskaskia, Cahokia and other French villages were compelled to abandon their homes and seek refuge on the bluffs and in St. Louis. The houses in the lower part of St. Louis were surrounded by water, and the river then rose to the lower floor in the store kept by John Shackford, at the foot of Oak Street. During 1826 there were tremendous rainfall, and from the isth of April the Mississippi was very high, and toward the close of May overflowed its banks and spread for miles over the country. By the 8th of June, the inhabitants of Cahokia and the Bottoms sought refuge either on the bluffs or in St. Louis. The river came to a standstill on the loth of the month, and by the 25th had reached an ordinary stage.

We now come to the great flood of 1844, when the water rose two feet five inches above the high-water mark of 1785. The winter of 1843-4 was one of unusual severity, with tremendous snow storms throughout the northwest By the loth of May, in the latter year, the river began rising, and by the 1 6th the flood began to create alarm in St. Louis. The river continued to rise until the 20th of May, reaching the doors of the stores on Front Street north of Pine, and the merchants were compelled to move their stock of goods into the second stories. The waters came to a standstill on the 21st, and the river was in its banks on the 7th of June. But from the 3d to the loth of that month there was a succession of terrible rain storms and the flood from the Missouri was coming down. The Mississippi began to rise again at St. Louis on the 8th of June. By the 15th the floods began to alarm the people, and "the geat flood of 1844" had commenced its devastations, and five hundred people were driven from their homes. The water was running into the lower stories of the houses of "Battle Row," on Laurel Street; a portion of the curbstones on Water Street were covered; and in Illinoistown the water rose above the first story of the houses. On the 20th the river was from three to six miles wide, and in many places nine miles. The water covered all of Front Street and the sidewalk, and along "Battle Row" it was nearly up to the door latches. The lower part of the city in the vicinity of Mill Creek was all submerged. All the lower lands in Soulard's Addition were overflowed. At Kaskaskia a large portion of the town was from ten to twenty feet under water. The water receded with great rapidity, until by the middle of June the river had reached an ordinary stage.

The next flood, that of 1851, was preceded by the rise of the upper Mississippi over its banks in many places. On May 30th the river at St. Louis began to rise rapidly, and by sundown it was fifteen feet eight inches below the high-water mark of 1844, as marked on the column in front of Center Market, and eight and one-half feet below the city directrix. A portion of the dike erected by the city between Duncan's Island and the Illinois shore was washed away. By June 23d the water had risen to four feet nine and one-half inches below the high-water mark of 1844, but then began to recede.

As printed in Encyclopedia of the history of Missouri (1901). See the original pages. Wording is the original; obvious scanning errors have been corrected, and a few may remain.