Jackson County (Mo.) Historical Society

Portals to the Past by David W. Jackson

Daughters of Old Westport Filled a Void

Nearly 50 years had passed since the Civil War Battle of Westport when the Westport Improvement Association resolved in 1912 to hold a weeklong Santa Fe Trail and Battle of Westport Reunion and Carnival. The goal was to obtain funds for a monument in memory of these two “monumental” events. Within days, all Westport was abuzz.

Miss Sara Heyl, chair of the entertainment committee, stopped in Dixon’s Grocery Store one day. Dora Dixon remarked that the pioneer women ought to have a share in the entertainment. Heyl, Dixon and Mary Elizabeth “Lizzie” Schoepf Mynatt were soon making plans on the front porch of the Mynatt house at 3948 Central--in the center of Old Westport. Their call for reinforcements resulted in the birth of the Daughters of Old Westport, a social, historical and memorial organization that turns 95-years-old on August 9.

Thirteen daughters of early settlers (Susan Yoacham Dillon; May Dillon Tinker; Jane Boone Fuqua; Maggie Boone Stephenson; Annie Charles Kruegar; Katie Stegmiller Gregg; Annie Allen Morris; Rose Becker Hahn; Emma Horning Sautter; Kizzie Emmons McConnell; Heyl; Dixon; and Mynatt) met at the abandoned Harris House Hotel on the northeast corner of Westport Road and Pennsylvania on August 9, 1912.

Interestingly, the Harris House Hotel had been saved from the wrecking ball to be put into service one last time. The reunion and carnival manager’s offices were stationed in the Hotel. And, during the carnival, luncheons were served in its dismantled dining room where long ago Daniel Boone, Jim Bridger, Kit Carson and other famed frontiersmen often dined.

Mynatt, first secretary of the Daughters of Old Westport wrote, “We were told a room had been prepared upstairs for the ladies meeting. A gentleman carried a candle to light the way. We followed him through a long, dark hall into the southeast front room. The room was dark and there were no chairs, so we waited in the darkness for chairs to be brought in. A coal oil lamp was placed on the windowsill. The ladies gathered up their skirts and sat down.”

The Daughters decided to have a doll booth, and vowed to accept no favors from the Improvement Association. Each member had less than three weeks to collect as many dolls as possible--and all they help they could muster--to dress the dolls in the costumes their mothers wore in the early days of Westport, when the Harris House (known today as the historic Harris-Kearney House) was the hub of life.

The big event took place between August 31 and September 8, 1912, at Mill Creek Parkway, south of Westport Road. An estimated 8,000 people attended the carnival grounds the first night . . .the Daughters of Old Westport drawing the largest crowd around their booth. The Daughters kept for a souvenir and mascot the doll dressed as Julia Ann Bushman Stinson, who had been born at the old Shawnee Indian Mission and married at the age of 15; Stinson gave a talk on pioneer days. After paying expenses, the Daughters banked $200, while the Improvement Association was in debt.

The first annual convention of the Daughters of Old Westport, by then 58-members strong, took place the following year in 1913 when more than 150 “old timers” of Westport shared first-hand facts, and dined together in the Westport Avenue Presbyterian Church.

Over the years, the Daughters’ contributions to community have been many. Their crowning achievement, however, might just be the placement and dedication in October 1920 of the granite memorial that still stands in the triangular parcel on Broadway where High and Washington Streets converge…dedicated to the “Pioneers of Old Westport,” and, “To the Pioneer Mother.”

Daughters of Old Westport were originally those born and reared within the precincts of the famous settlement, had lived there 40 years, or are descendants of those who made Westport famous in frontier days.

TEXT BOX ANNOUNCEMENT:

You are cordially invited to celebrate The Daughters of Old Westport’s 95^th Anniversary! An open-house reception from 1-3 p.m. on Saturday, September 22, 2007, at the Harris-Kearney House, 4000 Baltimore, Kansas City, Mo., will feature a display of the Daughters’ early records and artifacts, destined to be preserved in the Jackson County Historical Society’s Archives.

TAG LINE:
David W. Jackson is archivist for the nonprofit Jackson County (Mo.) Historical Society’s Archives and Research Library at 112 W. Lexington Ave. Suite 103, Independence, MO, 64050. Explore deeper into local history topics like those presented in this column through the Jackson County Historical Society JOURNAL, a scholarly periodical delivered to Society members twice annually. For more information, or to donate historical materials, visit www.jchs.org, call (816) 252-7454, or e-mail info@jchs.org.

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