ThE Farwell Cemetery: Resting Place for Two Pioneer Women

by Roger B. Daniels 

Article originally published in Ancestors Unlimited Quarterly, Barry County (Missouri) Genealogical and Historical Society, Volume 34, Number 3, August 2023

            The Farwell Cemetery, located near what was the original homestead of Albert Moors (A.M.) Farwell, Sr. (1813-1862) and his wife Angeline (Wilder) (1817-1875), was spared from relocation when the White River was dammed in the 1950’s. It remains among the most historical resting places for early Barry County settlers to the Missouri Ozarks and represents an intersection of the Farwell and Pyatt families. The Cemetery began in April 1862 with the burial of A.M., Sr. who died during the Civil War just five days after the Battle of Pea Ridge.

           Following the recent publication of Ozark Pioneers: Images, Essays, and Old Genealogies, a number of the descendants of Angeline (Wilder) and Eliza Jane (Pyatt) Farwell (1855-1933) contacted the author and have added to the extant information about these two pioneer women. Far too often, histories about the American frontier focus on the men settlers and neglect to tell the stories of the women who were indispensable to accomplishing America’s 19th century idea of manifest destiny.   

Angeline Wilder Farwell (1817-1875)

                 Angeline Wilder was born in New Hampshire in 1817, presumably in New Ipswich. To date, her parents have not been identified despite a great deal of effort on the part of this author and a number of other researchers. While there are several online history and genealogical sites that have named her parents, those identifications are generally implausible. Until such time as more definitive facts come to light, speculation about the matter is unproductive and will contribute to extant false narratives.

            When Angeline’s husband Albert Moors (A.M.) Farwell, Sr. died unexpectedly in April 1862 during the Civil War, her family had barely been in the rugged Ozark frontier five years having moved there in 1857. They had relocated from Preemption, Illinois and claimed land on the Roaring and White Rivers in southern Barry County near present-day Eagle Rock. Both she and A.M., Sr. were born and reared in New Ipswich, New Hampshire. Angeline married A.M. on March 21, 1841 in Preemption, Mercer County, Illinois. While the Farwell family had lived briefly in New York prior to arriving in Illinois, it is not known whether the Wilder family travelled with them or if Angeline came directly from New Hampshire to Illinois to be married. Some have speculated that the Wilder family moved to Illinois around the time that the Farwell family arrived but that is unknown given that the identity of Angeline’s parents is lost to history at the time of this writing.

            The Farwell homestead, located near the settlement of Eagle Rock would have been in a precarious place during the Civil War as Barry County was on the boarder of Carroll County, Arkansas where the folks of Carrollton were generally Confederates. Defined by their New England heritage, the Farwell family were Unionists. Their oldest son, Wilder Jewett joined the Union Army in 1864. There is speculation that Wilder may have been an agent of the Unionists as early as 1862. The fact that he joined the Union Army in Arkansas rather than Missouri is interesting given that Arkansas was a part of the Confederacy. With their homestead situated in a strategically important and dangerous place, Angeline and her children would face horrific conditions that resulted in them temporarily abandoning the homestead in the 1860’s as the Civil War ravaged the Ozarks.

            Angeline had enjoyed a relatively privileged early life in New Ipswich. Photographs of her taken in Illinois show a beautiful well-dressed sophisticated young lady. It is unimaginable how she was able to cope with going from the safety and affluence of New England where she was born in 1817 to ultimately fighting for her survival and that of her children as a widow on the American frontier of the Ozarks during the Civil War.

            In 1862 Angeline was left to care for her family when Albert Moors tragically died as a result of his activities in assisting the Union Army during the Civil War. The story is that the Union Army seized wagons, horses and other provisions from the Farwell homestead in preparation for the Battle of Pea Ridge in Arkansas. As a Union sympathizer, he was allowed to go with the soldiers so that he could bring his wagons back. In returning home, the harsh elements that he encountered caused him to become ill and subsequently die. This story, retold among the family for generations does not provide more detail than this. 

            Given that he was buried at his homestead in the Farwell Cemetery suggests that he may have made it back and died in his house. It is possible that he was accompanied by other men who returned his body if he had died before reaching home. Perhaps, his 17 year old son, Wilder Jewett came along on the trip through the Arkansas Ozarks to help with the wagons but that detail is mere speculation. It is also likely that Wilder remained behind to protect his mother and younger siblings.

            There are letters and other documents from the 1860’s that provide details as to the hardships that Angeline faced after the death of A.M. The isolation of her place on the White River made it an easy target for bushwhackers that she reportedly fought off to retrieve her horse. Without the protection of her oldest son, Wilder Jewett who had joined the Union Army, Angeline moved the family to Cassville where she lived until around 1870. According to the census, living with her were her children Adelaide, Sarah, Albert Moors, Jr., and Otis.  Adelaide and Sarah are listed as school teachers. Soon after 1870, Angeline returned to the homestead on the White River where lived until she unexpectedly passed away in 1875.

            The dire conditions faced by Angeline during the Civil War years is best described in the 1876 eulogy written for her daughter, Adelaide: 

In the Spring of 1862, when the tide of the war had rolled back from the Gulf States and met the counter tide from the northern lakes, near the mountain home, and burst and threw its crimson spray over the beautiful hopes of the southwest, and threatened total annihilation to country and people, the angel of death crept into the bosom of this quiet and unsuspecting family and summoned the dear father of Adelaide to another better world, where the just are spared the horrors of war. His death and the fearful war almost drove Adelaide into a state of despondency... The war soon swept all the perishable property off the farm, and it was impossible to live there any longer, and the family returned to Cassville. A mortgage debt was hanging over the farm, and how it was to be cancelled was a serious question to those who had no means to pay it.

             Angeline’s tenaciousness got the family through the war years, although the period 1862 to 1875 took its toll on her. One story retold among the family was that Angeline fought bushwhackers who stole her horse that she had tied to her bedpost through a window of the homestead house. Awakened by the commotion of the theft, she watched through the window to discern the route of the thieves so as to know the general direction of their flight. As the deprivation of the horse would have created an impossible hardship, Angeline reportedly tracked them down and retrieved her animal.

            The last photograph of her taken around 1875 shows an aged women who was in stark contrast to the vibrant young woman of the 1850’s appearing in earlier photographs. How Angeline was able to support her family and keep the homestead from being taken by creditors is not entirely clear. In her daughter Adelaide’s eulogy, it is stated that Adelaide used her pay from teaching school to help with paying off the mortgage on the homestead. Other records indicate that Angeline may have been involved in profitable real estate transactions that provided cash to settle her own debt.

            A mysterious letter written to Angeline in 1864 during the Civil War suggests that she may have been involved in hiding something of value in a building in Cassville. The letter is cryptic but the writer whose signature is illegible wrote her from Fort Branch, Gibson County, Indiana on July 12, 1864 asking for help in retrieving the valuables:

We left there a large lot of Fan Castings, etc in a shop on west side of town near Brown’s Mill. I think the shop belonged to Mr. King.  Part of them were upstairs and part down. I merely wish to know the fact- But do not want any of the citizens to know that the inquiry is made—It could only be done through some friend who could be trusted. Can you give the post office address of Mr. Muncy or Esq. Meeks? Also of Thompson of the firm of Thompson & Hogue.

 If you think, madam, that you can collect any claims for one among the names I send you, I will send you the notes & allow you 10 pr ct for your trouble—Please write immediately.

            The use of the word “citizens” could infer that the writer of the letter was a Union Army officer. It would seem unlikely that someone would go to the trouble of reclaiming “fan castings.” The use of “etc” suggests that something more valuable was contained within what was left in the building. Further, the cryptic nature of the letter may have included language that would not allow persons without knowledge of past deeds to understand the details sufficient to find the valuables. What, if any, valuables that were hidden is lost to history, but the letter provides an interesting context for Angeline Farwell during the Civil War period.

            By 1872, Angeline and her family were living back at the homestead. The mortgage had been paid off and the place restored to a working farm once again. That winter, Adelaide left home to begin her studies at the University of Missouri in Columbia. An academically talented and intellectually curious person, she studied science and horticulture, according to her eulogy.  At some point, her younger brother, Albert Moors, Jr. joined her at the University where they shared living quarters.

            During her studies in March 1875, Adelaide received word that her mother Angeline had died suddenly. Heartbroken, Adelaide returned to the homestead in June 1875. Her eulogy provides the following details: 

June 28, 1875, when she with a sad heart bade farewell to teachers, friends and classmates, and wended her way homeward, which place she reached in safety; but oh, what a sad picture where she paused and then repaired the two lonely graves containing the sacred dust of father and mother, and turning toward the old cottage…

             Adelaide returned to teaching in Cassville in 1875. Tragically, as the spring 1876 term was ending, she caught typhoid fever that took her life. She was laid to rest beside her parents in the Farwell Cemetery. Soon after, her siblings placed the tall monument to the three of them that stands today to remember these pioneers.

Eliza Jane (Pyatt) Farwell (1855-1933)

             Those who knew Eliza described her as kind, hardworking, and deeply religious woman whose life revolved around her large family. It is unlikely that Eliza and Angeline (Wilder) Farwell ever met in person as Angeline died in 1875—nearly seven years before Eliza become a part of the Farwell family. Eliza married Angeline’s son A.M. Farwell Jr. (1852-1912) in 1882 following the untimely death of his first wife, Mary Ann (Gray) who left behind four young children. Eliza would eventually have eight children with A.M, Jr.—seven of which lived to adulthood. Her infant son Zephyr died at birth in 1896 and is interred in the Farwell Cemetery near his parents. Together with A.M., Jr., Eliza would be integral to the operation of the Eagle Rock General Store and their 160 acre homestead farm at Eagle Rock.

            Eliza’s mother, Mary Ann (Harris) Pyatt was the first of that family to be buried in the Farwell Cemetery upon her death in 1885. She rests next to her son, Thomas who died in 1927. Ruth (Fogg) Watkins (1922-2010), Eliza’s granddaughter, recalled that at Thomas’s funeral the members of the Pyatt family, dressed completely in black, knelt and prayed aloud as his body was lowered into the ground. Ruth commented, “I was only five years old but remember that well as I had never seen that in the Farwell Family. The Pyatt’s were very strict with their religion…” Ruth recalled that at Eliza’s burial in 1933 the scene was repeated by her Pyatt relatives as her body was placed was interred next to A.M., Jr.

            Eliza was born before the Civil War in 1855 in Montgomery County, Illinois. Her father, Cornelius Pyatt (ca. 1820- ca. 1865) was born in Illinois and owned and operated a sizeable farm at the time of Eliza’s birth. Eliza’s mother, Mary Ann (Harris) was born in Kentucky around 1826 and would follow the family to Barry County soon after the Civil war.

            Cornelius Pyatt, perished sometime around 1865 before the family moved to the Missouri Ozarks. The circumstances of Cornelius’ death are unknown. No record can be found that he served in the Union Army. The fact that his son born in 1864 was named Ulysses Grant would confirm the family’s sympathies to the Union which would have been assumed since Illinois was not part of the Confederacy. Neither Cornelius nor Cornelius, Jr. are found after 1860 on the federal census. There is a record of Cornelius Pyatt and nine family members living in Vandalia, Fayette County in the 1865 Illinois state census that was taken in July of that year.

            During the 1860’s, Cornelius would lose his property and the ensuing circumstances would leave the family without much except for each other. In 1850 and 1860, Cornelius owned real estate sufficient to generate a secure living for his family. By 1870, his widow, Mary Ann (Harris) was head of household in Bond County, Illinois and owned no real property. It is likely that the extreme violence brought to the area by the Clingman Raid in the summer of 1864 in addition to the hardships of the Civil War would have disrupted the family’s life in Montgomery County. Tingley (1963) observed:

During the Summer of 1864 the three counties of Montgomery, Fayette, and Bond in south-central Illinois were terrorized by an armed gang of desperadoes in a fashion that would gladden the heart of a producer of television westerns. This episode of the backwash of the Civil War has been known as the Clingman raid, so-called after the alleged leader of the band. The leader was said to be one Thomas L. Clingman, and frequently it was said that he was a Confederate officer. 

Rumors of an encampment of renegades somewhere between the area of Ramsey in northwestern Fayette County and Van Burensburg in southwestern Montgomery County became widespread…

            While news accounts of the raid are sparse, physical violence, murder, and robberies took place in the area which caused many to flee. The impact on Cornelius Pyatt and his family is not known with specificity. However, given that they lived where the violence and deprivation of property occurred, it would have been virtually impossible for them to have avoided the mayhem and destruction. The Pyatt’s as Union sympathizers would have been prime targets by revengeful renegade Confederates who had crossed into southern Illinois allegedly from Arkansas and Missouri. 

            With Cornelius dead, Silvester Pyatt, Cornelius’ oldest son moved his mother Mary Ann and his siblings to the Missouri Ozarks where they settled in the Roaring River Township of Barry County. The descendants of the original Pyatt family continue to populate the Arkansas and Missouri Ozarks today.

            Following their marriage, Eliza and A.M., Jr., established their homestead in Eagle Rock near Roaring River. On July 27, 1892, the final proof of the clamed was filed in Cassville. The original structure consisted of several rooms and a stone fireplace. The floors were pine plank and rested upon a foundation of cut limestone and other native rocks. The house had a number of four pane windows and was surrounded by outbuildings, including a smokehouse.

            Albert Moors Farwell, Jr., died unexpectedly in 1912 and Eliza was left to care for her family and the farm. Her daughter Clara (age 12) and son Zealous (age 16) remained in the home and were able to provide help with the running of the place. Clara married Frank Fogg (1895-1985) in 1919 after he returned from Europe having fought in World War I as a U.S. infantry soldier. Frank and Clara moved into the homestead house to care for the aging Eliza until her death in 1933.

About the author

Roger B. Daniels is the author of Ozark Pioneers: Images, Essays, and Old Genealogies published in 2023. He is a direct descendant of Angeline (Wilder) and Eliza Jane (Pyatt) Farwell and a native of the Ozarks. He currently lives in Charleston, South Carolina where he pursues his passion about preserving the history of the Ozarks and his people. He can be contacted at: RogerBDaniels@ozarkpioneers.com.

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