Cruising Callaway to Portland: Tour dives deep into Portland history

From left, Mike Boulware, Donnie Hinnah and Terry Smith get into character to reenact the 1888 preliminary trial of alleged murderer Robert Clanton.
From left, Mike Boulware, Donnie Hinnah and Terry Smith get into character to reenact the 1888 preliminary trial of alleged murderer Robert Clanton.

According to Barb Huddleston of the Kingdom of Callaway Historical Society on Sunday's "Cruising Callaway to Portland" event was an unequivocal success.
"We'd expected 30 to 50 people," she said.
Instead, at least 70 packed into Portland Community Center, munching home-baked cookies and waiting for the murder trial that would kick off the tour of the historic river and railroad town.
The day's start was somewhat less auspicious. One of the two buses scheduled to drive attendees from Fulton to Portland began belching smoke before it even reached the road. This proved only a small hiccup: Everyone split into small groups and carpooled instead.
Jim Buffington, who'd hoped to narrate the drive for those on the bus, instead delivered his spiel to a smaller audience in his car.
"I spent an hour and a half working on this last night," he said, sounding disappointed.
His hard work showed. It seemed like hidden behind every hill and treeline was a little slice of local history - history that Buffington knew.
Just before Ham's Prairie, he pointed out the sign for Poor Farm Road. That, he said, is all that's left of Callaway County's former "Infirmary for the Aged."
There was a small pile of rocks in front of the Ham's Prairie Store - Buffington knew who operated the store, and all the other businesses in town - which turned out to be a monument erected by the 4-H Club in 1967, using pieces of the old courthouse in Elizabeth.
Never heard of Elizabeth? Formerly located just north of Ham's Prairie, the tiny community served as Callaway County's first seat between 1821 and 1826. The courthouse was razed in 1856, according to the KCHS website, and Elizabeth no longer exists.
Other points of interest included a house built by slave laborers in the mid-1800s, the yard of a tractor collector and the Katy Lake, which once provided water for the steam engines on the Katy Railroad.
"Mokane would be a cruise in itself," Buffington said, hinting it might be one of KCHS's future destinations.
Then there was a ghost town. A standing stone. And that was just the drive down.
On the road into Portland, Buffington pointed out all the freshly mowed lawns and praised the residents for the work they'd put into preparing for the event.
The murder trial
Once the group convened in Portland's Community Center, the event officially began with the trial of Robert Clanton.
In 1863, during a court dispute over some farm animals eating another man's crops, one of the two Clanton brothers (Thomas and Robert) shot and killed three men. Both brothers left town, but the law caught up with Robert in Texas in 1888.
The reenactors acted out the preliminary trial, which was intended to decide whether, 25 years on, there was still sufficient evidence to prosecute Robert for murder. The skit was based on contemporary accounts printed in the "Callaway Weekly Gazette," a newspaper which ceased publication in 1926, according to Daniel Boone Regional Library.
"I won't let him get away this time," growled Sheriff Bennett (as played by Terry Smith), at least twice.
By the end of the trial, which featured the testimony of several townsfolk, it was decided that there was an abundance of evidence pegging the killings on Robert. But, in a twist ending, Robert escaped the jail before he could be sentenced.
"By then, Portland had had enough of the Clantons," said the narrator, Rev. Marshall Crossnoe. Robert lived to the ripe age of 83 in Texas.
The reenactors themselves were mostly Portland townsfolk, though some KCHS members from elsewhere also participated.
Joseph Holzhauser played his own direct ancestor of the same name. Various Holzhausers have operated Holzhauser's, a local bar and grill, for three generations.
"I grew up across from the Episcopalian church," he said.
This was his first time participating in a reenactment, and while he initially wasn't sure whether he wanted to be part of it, learning that his own ancestor had been part of the trial persuaded him, according to Buffington.
St. Mark's
Boys School
After the reenactment, the audience was free to explore the other sites on their own time. The group which would've been on the bus headed over to Bob and Judi Plummer's house first.
The elegant white house, perched above the Missouri River, was built in 1890 and housed the St. Mark's Boys School. At its peak, there were perhaps two dozen students, including a few girls who attended classes during the day. The school closed by the century's end.
"We weren't really buying the house, we were buying the river (access)," Judi said.
Bob persuaded her in the end by telling her she could do anything with the house she wanted which, in her case, meant decorating it with genuine 19th century furniture and memorabilia. (Except for the bathroom dedicated to Roy Rogers, America's favorite silver-voiced cowboy.)
The house is packed with interesting tidbits - tiny replica stoves, top hats, opera playbills, corsets - and decor that changes with the seasons. Right now, pumpkins feature heavily. And then there are the dolls: the Plummers inherited 700 of them from a family friend. Visitors either love them or hate them, Judi admitted.
Most of the furniture comes from the White House Hotel in Hermann, which the Plummers operated for more than 30 years.
"This is, like, your dream house, isn't it, Grandma?" one of the younger tour members asked.
"It is," her grandma said; she later admitted to having had a major crush on Roy Rogers when she was a kid.
Out on the front porch, Bob - in buckskin pants, a sailcloth shirt and Native American jewelry - displayed items related to the massive Lewis and Clark reenactment between 2003 and 2006. The reenactment was the largest in history, has been featured in several movies.
Bob built all the iron parts for the boats and logged about 10,000 miles on the rivers with the reenactment.
The reenactors retraced the expedition's route. They wore what Lewis and Clark wore, ate what Lewis and Clark ate ("Do you know what a fly tastes like?" Bob asked. "It's bitter.") and even experienced almost identical weather conditions, according to Lewis and Clark's diaries. They rode in nearly exact replicas of the expedition's boats.
Bob had scale models on display, built by local Larry Languell.
The keelboat, Bob said, weighed 10 tons, and each pirougue weighed five tons. When it hailed, the Lewis and Clark expedition would haul the boats out of the river and turn them upside-down.
"The men were getting knocked out by the hail," he said.
Bob also showed off authentic Native American beadwork, a jaw harp and more.
Read Part II in Wednesday's Fulton Sun.