| Notes |
- 1860 Census:
Name: Leeman Hail
[Leeman Haile]
[Leeman Hale]
Age: 30
Birth Year: abt 1830
Gender: Male
Birth Place: Tennessee
Home in 1860: Shawnee, Cape Girardeau, Missouri
Post Office: Pocahontas
Dwelling Number: 2361
Family Number: 2374
Occupation: Carpenter
Household Members:
Name Age
Thomas Hail 64
Hannah Hail 54
Leeman Hail 30
Elizabeth Hail 25
Eliza Hail 17
Nichol D Hail 16
1870 Census:
Name: Leman Haile
Age in 1870: 42
Birth Year: abt 1828
Birthplace: Tennessee
Dwelling Number: 262
Home in 1870: Shawnee, Cape Girardeau, Missouri
Race: White
Gender: Male
Occupation: Machinist
Male Citizen over 21: Y
Personal Estate Value: 1200
Real Estate Value: 3500
Inferred Spouse: Mary E Haile
Household Members:
Name Age
Leman Haile 42
Mary E Haile 34
Hannah Haile 64
Nichols D Haile 26
1880 Census:
Name: Lumon Hail [Leemon Haile]
Age: 52
Birth Date: Abt 1828
Birthplace: Tennessee
Home in 1880: Shawnee, Cape Girardeau, Missouri, USA
Dwelling Number: 27
Race: White
Gender: Male
Relation to Head of House: Self (Head)
Marital Status: Married
Spouse's Name: Mary E. Hail
Father's Birthplace: Virginia
Mother's Birthplace: North Carolina
Occupation: Post Master
Neighbors:
Household Members:
Name Age
Lumon Hail 52
Mary E. Hail 45
- Familysearch.org 2 May 2013:
Civil War:
Brief History
The 56th Regiment, Enrolled Missouri Militia was enrolled between 29 July 1862 and 27 September 1862. They were ordered into service between 8 August 1862 and 7 October 1862. They were discharged between 1 December 1862 and 16 May 1863. They were reordered into service between 27 September 1864 and 12 October 1864 and discharged between 7 and 9 December 1864. The Colonel in charge was William H. McLean. [1]
Companies in this Regiment with the Counties of Origin
Men often enlisted in a company recruited in the counties where they lived though not always. After many battles, companies might be combined because so many men were killed or wounded. However if you are unsure which company your ancestor was in, try thecompany recruited in his county first.
Company A - Captains William H. McLane, Phillip Schreiner, Elisha Shepherd - Many men from Appleton, Cape Girardeau County
Company B - Captain William Regenhardt - Many men from Cape Girardeau County
Company C - Captain Leeman Haile - Many men from Appleton, Cape Girardeau County
Company D - Captain William N. Wilson - Many men from Appleton, Cape Girardeau County
Company F - Captain Samuel Whybark - Many men from Cape Girardeau County
Company G - Captains George H. Miller, Jacob Needhaus - Many men from Perry County
Company H - Captains Elisha Shepherd (Sheppard), William H. McLane - Many men from Cape Girardeau County
Company I - Captains Charles Mirly, Adolph Tacke - Many men from Cape Girardeau County
The above information about the companies with partial rosters is found in Kenneth E. Weant's book, Civil War Records: Missouri Enrolled Militia Infantry Regiments, volume 7[1]
- In 1949, The Southeast Missourian published a series of aerial photographs it called "From the Air" featuring area towns. While many of these features included articles about the towns, the one for Leemon, published Oct. 25, consisted only of the photo above and this brief description: "A few families gathered at various sports in Cape County many years ago and set up small villages. Some of these small concentrations remain, and one of those remaining is Leemon... Among the first to settle in the area was the McNeely family. Some time after the Civil War the place supported a post office, but the community is now served by a rural route. The photo, looking north, shows the Fruitland-to-Neelys Landing farm-to-market road running across the top of the picture, bisected by a rural crossroad. The building at the intersection is the Oscar Ward store, built by Charles Farrow, and the Wards have operated it for nine years. Other past store owners in the community were Logan Roberts and Earl McKee."
Courtesy SE Missourian: http://www.semissourian.com/blogs/fromthemorgue/entry/71660?rand=1830
- Leemon Haile in Missouri Legislature: He was elected in 1864 and served one 2-year term. Source: https://www.sos.mo.gov/archives/history/historicallistings/molegh.asp.
- Leemon—Picturesque Section of Cape Girardeau County
By JOHN G. Putz.
Twenty-one years ago, when the last authentic map of Cape Girardeau County was given to the public, the course of Indian Creek was omitted from the drawing. Rising as it does near Pocahontas, the headwaters of the creek are traced from the springs to theDoyle place within a half mile of Leemon, and then there is a break of about two and one-half miles, the tracing appearing again in Section 12. And yet this omitted part of the stream is the most remarkable, as therein lies a natural sportive act where "Nature wantoned as in her prime, and played at will her virgin fancies.
The wide basin of Indian Creek, above Leemon, with its fertile bottom fields, suddenly narrow when the foot of Mount Nebo on the south boldly steps in the way of the creek and the waters, as if fleeing from the jutting prominence of the bold knob, swerve northward, only to he met by a spur of the range of hills that borders on the basin to the northward. In this narrow aperture, which would, in Kentucky mountain idiom, be designated as "the gap" is the village of Leemon, a dreamy country place for small assembly of houses, clustering about the north approach of the bridge over the Indian Creek. The place is not old, as age goes, but it has quite a lot of local history remarkable for its origin and subsequent changeful progress.
Harking hack to the year 1849, we find a Tennessee pioneer, Thomas Hale (Haile) leaving his native (Bedford) county to come to this county which at that time was being populated by a diversity of people seldom found in a community. Settlers came from Tennessee, Illinois, Kentucky, Georgia, Carolinas both North and South, from Germany, Austria and England, and it had become known abroad that this part of Missouri was an Eldorado agriculturally. On Oct. 8. 1859. Thomas Haile purchased 200 acres in Section 9 west of the present site of Leemon, and there settled with his family, consisting of wife and six children. Among the sons of the family was one Leemon, who was later to establish the trading post and post-office to bear his name.
When President Llncoln called volunteers to arms during the war between the states, Leemon Halle offered his services to his country, and was made captain of a company of state militia, the main duty of which was to suppress roving bands of "bush-whackers" which had become a menace in this part of the state. Captain Halle, prior to his enlistment, had made his home in St Louis. had married Miss Lizzie Chambers of Illinois and had for a while lived in Neelys Landing. After cessation of hostilities, he engaged in the business of manufacturing lumber, and on Aug. 26, 1865, set up a saw mill on the lands of Anderson Mitchell. The hills and valleys were at that time covered with virgin forests, yielding choice lumber of a wide variety. On Sept. 14, 1874, Leemon Haile purchased from Maria L. Niblack 200 acres of land on which is now the village of Leemon, paying $540.00 for the two hundred acres. He then established his lumber manufacturing plant at the site near the present Leemon bridge, and applied fo
founder of the trading post.
Leemon Haile’s establishment and plant became widely known as a trading center and gathering place for the country round-about. His mills turned out the building material for many farm homes in the southeastern part of Shawnee township. People from the countryside would assemble there to exchange gossip, sit around and watch the steam-driven circular saw dig its whining way into the hearts of the forest giants and convert them into useful boards and beams. For the youth of the community the plant was a source of constant wonder and admiration. And when Leemon Halle erected an ice house on the bank of Indian creek, and stored therein tons of natural Ice packed in sawdust, it was the first time in the history of the community that ice was seen in the summer time, when be liberally gave his stores to neighbors and friends for their own use.
Many were the days when the owner of the lumber plant would sit on a convenient log where he could oversee the work of the mill, while he would spin yarns with his neighbors. Among them was one Joe Owens, the man with the wooden leg, who lived on the south side of Mount Nebo but spent many a day with his friend at the mill. The two would then out-do each other in the telling of "whoppers,” much to the edification of their listeners, of whom there was always quite a number. The Haile home, standing on a rise south of the mill, was the gather-
ing place for the gentle-folks and always open to the friends of the captain and his wife.
Later Leemon Hail had moved to Allenville and there engaged in the lumber business in a larger way, but met business reverses, and died there in 1894, his comfortable fortune swept away, and his widow in want, finally found refuge in the county home where she died about 10 years ago. There were no children.
Leemon, however, continued as a trading post and postoffice, and had the distinction of being on two rural routes, one going out from Jackson, the other from Neelys Landing. About the year 1900, Pinkney Morton opened a general merchandise establishment atLeemon, and was made postmaster, after the office had been housed In the Jacob Dole home, a quarter of a mile up the creek, for some time. Morton was succeeded by B. F. Sides in the operation of the store, who sold out to B. B. McNeely. McNeely was succeeded by Charles Morton, Henry W. Putz & Son, Lee Masterson, Gohn & Martin, and the Leemon Store company, the present owner.
The automobile and fine highways have practically eliminated Leemon as a trading post as they have so many other places of greater and of lesser importance in this part of the state. But the site is permeated by tradition and folklore as the sand is by water. The steel bridge, the only one spanning Indian creek for miles from Leemon, was built there in the year 1899, replacing a wooden structure which had become unsafe. John T. McNeely, a nephew of the founder, now owns the fine farm, and the Haile homeplace, wltb the original mansion re-
placed by a more modern dwelling.
Silently, slowly and peacefully the waters of Indian creek flow by Leemon, wind their way under the bridge in a devious, wandering, rambling, roving course down towards the east, while the nearby bills are aflame with the fiery scarlet of the sumac, blackgum and dogwood, blended with the amber yellow of the hickory, maple and elm, all colors overpowered by the dark green of the oak. While no frost has yet touched vegetation, nature, like an aged person not suffering from any particular fatal disease, is preparing to wrap its shroud around itself and to peacefully go to sleep. The corn in the nearby field rustles softly in the autumn breeze and the slanting rays of the setting sun glorify the luxuriant revelry of color on the slopes. dGradually the fiery orb sinks below the horizon, the cricket begins Its melancholy night
symphony, the clouds take on a maroon hue, turn to an ashen gray, "the evening star above the west, its vesper lamp has lit, the dusky curtains of the night are falling over it; and silently descends the night over the valley In a mantel of darkness, bringing peace and rest to all living things.
- Southeast Missourian, 16 Oct 1929, pg. 3.
- Part 1
LEEMON, MISSOURI
On Indian Creek
by K.J.H. Cochran
Leemon is approximately ten miles northeast of Jackson in Cape Girardeau County. The town is three miles east of Highway No. 61 on blacktop County Road J that joins the main highway at Fruitland.
The community lies along the bank of Indian Creek and extends north of Robert Side's General Store located on No. J; the houses, church and the old school all lying within a square, with a circumference of about two miles.
The social life of the town has been centered in the local church and school since the area was settled soon after 1800, and the residents are interested in each other and united in their feelings, in the manner of a large family.
The introduction of the automobile changed the economic conditions of the town. Unfortunately, some of the houses now are vacant, falling into decay, and the small business firms have relocated in more prosperous neighborhoods.
Once Leemon was a busy center of activity, the home of children who later became men and women or prominence in the state and the nation, who often alluded to the important influence the school and the church in Leemon had in their early academic and character-building training. John A. Hope, a prominent attorney in St. Louis, would refer to Indian Creek, as would Edward E. Alexander, and attorney and state senator in Arkansas; Judge J. C. McDonald, probate judge and for 22 years county superintendent of schools, Cape Girardeau County; Jacob Doyle, a well known educator, and Charles C. Oliver, State Representative, who was responsible for the presentation and passage of the Missouri State Flag bill, January 21, 1913; Arthur L. Oliver, a State Senator. 1909; John Oliver, a historian of note, presently residing in Florida, where he has been associated with the University; Burette and Allen Oliver, practicing attorneys in Cape Girardeau, Harry Alexander and Sloan Oliver, who were also attorneys, now de
The name Leemon was given the settlement after the Civil War when Captain Leemon Haile returned from the service and resumed the operation of the post office, general store and sawmill that he had started before the conflict broke. It was not until 1878 that Leemon Haile acquired the deed from his father.
Leemon Haile's family migrated to Missouri from Bedford County, Tennessee in 1849. His father, Thomas Haile, had met and married Hannah Woodfin there in 1827. Hannah had been born near Ashville, North Carolina, 1805, and had moved with her parents to Tennessee in 1810.
The Thomas Hailes came to Missouri with their family, in hopeful expectation of improving their well-being. The farm on Indian Creek was secured through the Jackson land office, and the deed was signed by General Zachary Taylor, then the twelfth president of the United States, soon after the organization of the thirty-first Congress.
A three room log house was erected by the family overlooking Indian Creek, near the spot where three small tributaries join and form the larger stream that flows eastward across the Clay Oliver property, and on the east, in the direction of the river, along the south boundary of the former August Litzelfelner farm, where Indian Creek empties into the Mississippi below Neely's Landing.
There were 11 children in the Haile family; many of them died in infancy. The mother, later called "Granny Haile", outlived all of the children except one son, Dick, a bachelor, who lived at the homestead, and one daughter, Mrs. Mary Wheeler, Plano, Texas, where Granny and Dick moved, 1896, when she was 91 years old. She died in 1900 at the age of 94 years, 4 months, 14 days and was buried in Texas.
The house in which she lived at Leemon was sold to the Tony Martin family, whose son, Elmo, became postmaster in Jackson; his death occurred less than two years ago.
Tony Martin had operated the general store in Leemon in the 1930's, purchasing it from, Henry Putz when the later moved back to Pocahontas. The family at that time lived in quarters at the store, but soon purchased the house on the hill.
The old Haile homestead still stands and has recently been sold. During the course of time it has been remodeled, rooms have been added, as have porches, and the house now faces south. Originally the entrance was on the north.
When Leemon Haile married Mary Elizabeth Chambers, September 10, 1857, he took his bride to a new house he had erected within the shadow of the Haile homestead. It was considered a palatial residence at the time, and quarters for the store and post office were included. The house was located on a rise of ground northeast of the hill along Indian Creek.
It was shaded by large maple trees. Many of them remain. One tree was removed July 19, 1966, because it obstructed the front porch and driveway of the house.
"Aunt Lizzie" remained in the home until she was 83, when in failing health, she sold the farm and the home to John T. McNeely, a nephew whose daughters, Mrs. C. A. Poe (St. Louis), Mrs. Ted R. Regenhardt, (Cape Girardeau) still own the property, that has been in the family 117 years. Lizzie Haile, who had no children, went to live at the County Farm, where she died before the year ended. She was fond of relating stories her husband had told her regarding the Civil War when he served as captain of a volunteer militia home guard regiment composed of men from the Indian Creek communities, who endeavored to rid southeast Missouri of bushwhackers, renegade soldiers who plundered the country side and horse thieves. He served during the entire war, enlisting a few months after the conflict began.
After Thomas Haile died the sawmill was purchased by Dave C. McKee who used a large steam engine to run the mill and also to operate a threshing machine and combine. David McKee belonged to one of the early families who had settled in the Indian Creek community. He married Rosilie Query, August, 1885. The couple rode horseback to the Shiloh Church for the ceremony. Rose was the sister of Dr. Charles Query, a successful veterinarian who moved to Jackson and remained in business for over 30 years before his death. Dave McKee assumed the operation and management of the Query farm in Leemon. The original house burned and a new dwelling now has replaced the old McKee homestead. The sawmill long ago disappeared from the bank of Indian Creek.
The general store and post office was moved after Leemon Haile's death to the home of Jacob Doyle. This house is still standing on No. J north of the highway. Clusters of black-eyed susans are growing in profusion near the driveway. Mr. Doyle continued the general store until 1900 when Pinckney Morton moved to Leemon, purchased the old Mizell home and engaged Edward Sides and his son, Charles, carpenters, to build a new general store north of the house.
For many years Bob Yancy delivered the mail to the post office, bringing it from Jackson in a jump-seat buggy. Later M. A. Short (Maurice) brought the mail to the Leemon store. He used a buggy until 1916 when he changed to an automobile, and his route was enlarged from 24 to 38 miles.
Both the Morton home and the store remain along the gravel street in Leemon. The house has fallen into decay. The north room is the original log cabin structure, built when the Indian Creek settlement was established. It has been covered with wood siding. the store was remodeled, the center entrance and front porch relocated on the north side of the building, that has been converted into a residence, and is occupied.
The blacksmith shop built by Lee Kahnert (Jackson) was north of the store. His home, a frame structure of six rooms, was across the road. There is no visible sign of either now. The house burned about 1937 and the new general store of Robert Sides occupies the site.
The blacksmith shops of John Wachter and of Joe Meyer have also disappeared.
John Wachter married Emma Clementz, whose father was a veterinarian in Leemon, and specialized in the treatment of horses. His home was next door to the old Leemon school, the ground having been purchased for a school from the Clementz estate. Both arenow the property of Edwin Kraemer.
The Morton General Store had a long and interesting history. Pinckney Morton remained in charge of the store for many years, selling it to Ben F. Sides, who in turn sold to B. B. McNeely. Charles Morton, John Putz, John McDonald, Charlie Farrow and Tony Martin where other owners of the business.
When the Kahnert home was destroyed by fire, Charlie Farrow purchased the lot and erected a new store, 1938, that has had the following owners since that time, Oscar Ward, Harlen Young, Richard Craft, who operated the store for 3 years and sold it last February to Richard Sides. The store is the only business in Leemon today.
Log schoolhouses were built throughout the area as soon as there were enough children to warrant engaging an instructor. The first log school erected in the Indian Creek community was the Dogwood School. Later the log building on the Daughterty farm was built. This school burned many years ago. No picture of it remains. Two trees grow near the old doorway. The building stood in front of the present home of Mr. and Mrs. Robert McDowell at Leemon.
The second school was located on land purchased from the Clementz estate. It was always referred to as "Hog Pen Academy". The term was one of endearment, and two versions for the name have been given; the first, it was thought Mr. Clementz at one time had a hog pen on the lot; the second, that the rival school of Dogwood, tauntingly christened the school, and instead of it provoking the students of Leemon, they adopted the name and it stuck.
The first building was a large room 30 X 40 feet. Jake Doyle was the instructor for many years. Later when it was necessary to add high school classes, a second, smaller room was built. It was not as well constructed, and after the high school students were transferred to Fruitland, the addition was removed. The original school room remained intact until the consolidated school district was organized out of Jackson. Students now attend the Fruitland school, and high school pupils come into Jackson for instruction.
Instructors at Hog Pen were Jake Doyle and his son, George, Lucius Reed, Jim Samuel, who was a barber on Saturday, with a chair in Pinckney Morton's General Store; Iva Seabaugh, William Crites, Maude Kurre, Carol Mercer, Katie Brent and Duke Abernathy. The list is not complete.
Old Charlie carried Ann Oliver and her sister, Helen, to school. Charlie had been trained as a race horse. He grew to know the school children well, and was adopted as a member of the community.
Footnote: Judge James McDowell of Charleston is now Circuit Judge of Missouri.
-from The Jackson Journal, 27 July, 1966.
- Postmaster of Leemon 1875, 1876, 1877, 1879, 1881, 1883,1885, 1887, 1889
- U.S., Civil War Draft Registrations Records, 1863-1865 about Leamon Haile
Name: Leamon Haile
Residence: Shawnee, Cape, Missouri
Class: All
Congressional District: 3rd
Age on 1 July 1863: 35
Race: White
Place of Birth: Tennessee
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1828 - 1894 (66 years)
