Evening Republican, Volume 22, Number 74, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 March 1919 — PRIZED OLD RIFLE [ARTICLE]

PRIZED OLD RIFLE

Weapon Long Preserved as Heirloom in Family. Belonged to John Ferril, .Who Used It With Effect in Indian Wars of Kentucky—Passive During Civil War. There Is a story of the American rifft* that has been handed down fn the hearthstone history and traditions -of those who for generations have lived in the West. It begins with the Greenbrier region of Virginia of colonial times, thence into’Kentucky,, to Missouri in the days of Upper Louisiana, thence to the great prairies of the far West and on to California. “TttF TiTOTTy~ri’ffeJi i aJ~(lear‘aad John and Margaret Ferril and their family were with a party of pioneers from the Greenbrier region who migrated to Kentucky fn the early days. Owing to the. hostilities of the Indians. they were armed and under the command of Capt Jacob Baughman, a brother of Margaret Ferril. They “packed” on horses over the Alleghany mountains and when in camp at or near Crab Orchard, Ky.. were attacked in the night by Indians. In the tight that ensued Capt. Baughman. John Ferril and others were killed, but the men held back the Indians long enough to enable some of the women and children to escape. Among the number thus saved were Margaret Ferril, a son, John Ferril, and two daughters; and also Mrs. Jacob Baughman, a son Henry of tender age, and two daughters. The Baughman-Ferril fight, or massacre. occur red in the fall of 1779.

John Ferril, then fourteen years old, who had escaped, swore an oath of revenge on his rifle. He kept that vow. and his rifle became a bloody one in I V the Indiun wa rs-of---Kentucky. —r—souri, now Howard county, in 1812, were built several forts for protection against Indians, especially the Sacs and Eoxes and the Pottawatomies. John Ferril and family were in one of them, known as Fort Cooper. He here still possessed his old Kentucky rifle. After the war of 1812, in addition to farming, he often engaged in hunting expeditions up the Missouri and Kansas rivers, and sometimes far out on the great prairies. , Over a century ago he’hunted bear and - other game on what is now the site of Kansas City. He and other frontiersmen then predicted that a great city would be founded on the confluence of the Missouri and Kansas rivers. The old rifle of John Fearil pas been preserved. During the Civil war. when the authorities were collecting all the guns in Saline county, Missouri, they seized the old Ferril rifle. Keziah Ferril, then about ninety years old, cried and begged that it be not taken. Her sons and grandsons were wearing the blue and gray and a compromise was effected. It was agreed that this old rifle should be hid away, and thus the old Ferril rifle became a noncombatant fn the Civil war. It later passed to the possession of Jesse Ferril. county judge, son of Henry ferril, who founded Miami, Mo. On the death of Judge Jesse Ferril the rifle was passed on as an heirloom to his brother, John Ferril, who had been a soldier from Saline county with Doniphan’s Missourians in the Mexican war. John Ferril died some months ago at his home in Exeter, Cal.