Dudley
A small town in the northern part of Liberty Township. A post office was established in 1890 and the village incorporated in 1895. It grew out of a sawmill camp, and was named for an early settler, Mr. Dudley.
Carter St. |
Dudley Depot |
Dredge near Dudley, Mo
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Railroad bed east of Dudley, Mo
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Dudley General Baptist Group, July 18, 1915
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Church and parsonage in Dudley.
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The label for this pic is Dudley, Mo, but the background terrain tells me that that is probably wrong.
Italian Immigrants Settle In Dudley
Rosido "Rose" Cirrincione was one of five children of Ciro and Ann Cirrincione that immigrated to the U.S. from Italy in 1891. The family landed in New Orleans where her father worked first for a rice farmer and then for a cotton farmer. When the boll weevil took over much of the area he was farming, Ciro was unsure what to do. His son in law showed him an ad from the Connecticut Mutual Life Insurance Company of St. Louis which had purchased thousands of acres west of Dexter in Stoddard County. Seventeen Italian families came to Stoddard County in October of 1908. Ciro's family rode in a boxcar from New Orleans to Dexter where they met his son in law already waiting at the Cottonbelt station. The next day, the company representative, Duncan Steele, took young Rose Cirrincione to Dudley and then northwest of Dudley (Open Lake area), so that he would be able to lead the others to their land. The railroad companies first cleared the land on each side of their tracks, then they sold the land to the saw mill people who wanted the timber. When the timber men were through with it, they let the land go back to the county which is how the Connecticut Mutual became involved.
The Company alloted so much land to each family based on how many members were in the family. The largest allotment was eighty acres. It was up to the family to clear the land, build a house, and eventually begin farming it. The company bought a team and wagon for each family and turned them out on their own. The land, team, wagon, and other implements ordered to clear the land was added on a loan note that allowed the farmer twenty years to pay it off. Rose led a 17 wagon train through the rough and wooly timber twice a year to get supplies in Dexter. Timber was cut by cutting the smallest trees first and working their way up to the larger ones. Only the smallest limbs were burned, everything else was used. They had to wait until the stumps decayed before they could be moved. They could clear about a quarter an acre a day.
One of the problems they had were squatters who refused to leave the land they had settled on without an official proof of ownership. Sometimes they were moved against their will with help from law enforcement. At one point they were warned not to go out at nights for fear of attack by the squatters. One evening Rose decided to mail a letter and it became dark by the time he was getting ready to leave. Upon leaving the post office he was attacked with brick bats, the natives did not like Italians settling on land they believed was theirs. Rose retreated inside where the post man asked what the problem was and told Rose he would make sure no one bothered him on his walk home and no one did.
The Company alloted so much land to each family based on how many members were in the family. The largest allotment was eighty acres. It was up to the family to clear the land, build a house, and eventually begin farming it. The company bought a team and wagon for each family and turned them out on their own. The land, team, wagon, and other implements ordered to clear the land was added on a loan note that allowed the farmer twenty years to pay it off. Rose led a 17 wagon train through the rough and wooly timber twice a year to get supplies in Dexter. Timber was cut by cutting the smallest trees first and working their way up to the larger ones. Only the smallest limbs were burned, everything else was used. They had to wait until the stumps decayed before they could be moved. They could clear about a quarter an acre a day.
One of the problems they had were squatters who refused to leave the land they had settled on without an official proof of ownership. Sometimes they were moved against their will with help from law enforcement. At one point they were warned not to go out at nights for fear of attack by the squatters. One evening Rose decided to mail a letter and it became dark by the time he was getting ready to leave. Upon leaving the post office he was attacked with brick bats, the natives did not like Italians settling on land they believed was theirs. Rose retreated inside where the post man asked what the problem was and told Rose he would make sure no one bothered him on his walk home and no one did.