Susan Burnes Mason

The family of James B. Burnes that moved from Indiana to Platte County, Missouri, in 1838 consisted of five sons and one daughter. Two of the sons came to St. Joseph in 1873 and their families have been prominent in banking and political circles since.

In July 1906 the one Burnes daughter, Mrs. Susan Burnes Mason, was visiting her daughter in Atchison, Kansas. She was then eightynine years of age but she was prevailed upon to grant an interview to the newspaper. The Atchison Globe reported the meeting as follows: "Mrs. Mason was the only girl in a family of five boys and she was born in Ohio eighty-nine years ago the 9th of July. The family moved to Indiana when she was a child, but her father, James B. Burnes, was not satisfied; he had been raised in Virginia, where everyone had slaves, and wanted to live in a state where he could be a slaveholder, so he gathered up his family in 1838, came overland to Missouri, and was one of the first to take up a claim after the opening of the Platte Purchase. Mr. Burnes didn't come empty-handed, as most pioneers came. His possessions strung along over the route they traveled for a mile or more. There were eight in his family, an endless array of household goods in wagons, and over 200 head of cattle, with five or six men to take care of them. They were five weeks on the way, and Susan Burnes, who was then a young woman, couldn't become reconciled to the change, and cried all the way from Ohio to Missouri.

"She recalls that the Indians had just left the country, and the hills and valleys were dotted with the ribs of their tents still standing. The long procession stopped at Green's Bottom, where the town of Farley is now located, and Mr. Burnes and his men soon had logs cut and built into a house. It was decided that the hardships were too severe for the only girl in the family and she was taken to the home of a neighbor named Elisha Green, where she spent a winter, teaching the children in the Green family.

"All of the Burnes boys who were old enough took up claims. The father took up his where the town of Buena Vista was established, which he founded and named. He opened a store there, and also a blacksmith shop and a postoffice, the mail being brought on horseback from the landing at Weston. He built the first brick house in that section of Missouri. A pretty girl wasn't allowed to remain single long in the early days and Miss Burnes was married within a year after her arrival to Samuel Mason, who had come from Kentucky only a short time before with William Reece Sr. and William Downey, all settling in the same neighborhood, Mason a mile and a half east of Iatan, Reece one mile north, and Downey right across from Reece. Mason had a store on his place, which still stands, now in use as a barn. There was a mania for laying out towns, and every man who had a piece of land hoped to build a town on it. Mason called the town of his dreams Mason Ridge, but it never grew, the only town that showed any prominence being the town of Iatan, which was started by William Shultz, who later accidentally shot himself and had to abandon his project and return East. The town seems to have stopped growing when Shultz went away, and is apparently waiting for him to come back before it begins again.

“Mr. and Mrs. Mason had eleven children, including triplets, but only five are now living. Mrs. Mason had the help of slaves in her housework, but did not escape the incessant labor that fell to the Wife of every pioneer. She had a record as a spinner of a dozen cuts a day; the thread went around the reel 120 times for a cut; she picked wool and wove it, and was busy all the time. The habit is still strong with her, and her fingers are never idle. Few young women can show as exquisite needlework as Mrs. Mason has made in recent years for her children. Bean Lake was a resort then, as now; the man who owned all the land surrounding it, and for whom the lake was named, had a boarding house on the lake and people drove for miles around to fish and have a good time. The names that drop from Mrs. Mason's lips in her stories of old times are familiar ones today. The doctor at Iatan then was Doctor McAdow, father of John McAdow, who still lives near Iatan, and judging from the number of boys in his family, the name will be a familiar one in that section of Missouri for generations to come. There was occasionally a camp meeting, which was Mrs. Mason's chief relaxation and joy. They took their families, bedding and cook stoves in those days and absorbed religious training while they ate and slept for a period covering ten days at a time. LouisBurnes was then at the head of a hemp warehouse and dry goods store in Weston, and a money-maker from the start.

The Masons had five slaves when the war broke out; two of them costing $1,500 each, were bought the day before war was declared All of them ran off during the troubled days that followed, one of those $1,500 bargains stealing a mule to escape on. The anti-slavery agitation was so strong, and the feeling against slave owners ran so high, that Mr. Mason was driven out of the country, and took refuge in California. It was thought that his family would be safe in their home, but later events proved that they were not and after Mrs. Mason had been called to the door a number of times in the night by bands of marauders, at one time escaping harm by dropping to her knees and begging for mercy, they sought refuge in Weston where Fielding Burnes was making his home. Here they lived for a great many years, and here Mr. Mason opened a store when peace was declared, which he conducted till his death in 1885.

“Mrs. Mason's recollections of the Platte Purchase go back almost to the time before Weston was founded. There was in the early days a boat landing at Rialto a few miles below Weston, which was regarded as a more promising location than Weston. Weston has not grown any since 1870, and that such a hope as Rialto ever existed, is known only to the old timers. Col. N. P. Ogden lived at Newmarket during the war, and walked to Weston at its close, seeking employment. The Republicans were in power then and had to have a Republican to collect taxes, which were four years back. The Burnes, who were a power in that section, though Southerners, selected Ogden, and it was while holding this position that he laid the foundation for his wealth. Weston was the gayest town on the river in the days before the war. Every home had its quarters in the rear for slaves, and the balls and parties given at Weston were not equalled in magnificence in any town on the river. The war wrecked the wealthy citizens, and after its close they returned to their homes in the South, and the splendor of Weston became a dream.

‘Good backing and a good start will help even the pioneers and the five Burnes boys had it. Their father was a wealthy man, and every one of the five boys was given a college education, some of them being sent back to Harvard, an outlay of money unheard of in a new country. James N. Burnes was a graduate of Harvard law school, and practiced in Buchanan County, always and forever buying land. Fielding Burnes became a speculator; Calvin Burnes practiced law in New York and St. Louis; Daniel, also a lawyer, practiced at Weston, and became a member of the state legislature, losing his seat during the war; Lewis practiced law in Leavenworth for a time, and this is a story of the Burnes thrift which is told on him. He took up his claim on Green's Bottom, and the flood of 1844 carried out all his crop. One morning, blue and discouraged, he happened to look across Platte River where he saw that a crop belonging to a widow had escaped the water. He promptly retrieved his lost fortune by rowing across and marrying her.

“It is Daniel D. Burnes in whom Atchison was most interested. On the 20th of July, 1854, five men left Platte City to pick up a location for a town on the Kansas side of the river. They were Dr. J. H. Stringfellow, Ira Norris, Leonidas Oldham, James B. Martin and Neal Owens. When they agreed to form a town company four of the Burnes brothers were received into the organization, and Daniel D. Burnes was an active member. The four brothers saw a chance to make money on land and they bought tract after tract in the new town; always buying and never selling. "If a piece of land is worth that much to the man who wants to buy it of you,' was the Burnes motto, "it is worth that much to you to keep it.” Land which they bought when Atchison was a baby too weak to hold up its head, they still own; and they bought with rare judgment. The Burnes estate holds lots in the best part of Atchison today, the brothers having looked ahead with unusual foresight. They did not decide that Atchison's future lay on the river, or a mile west of it, and didn't purchase to any extent in either extreme. Very little of this property has ever been sold. The five brothers are all dead and of the family of eight who came from Ohio so many years ago, Mrs. Mason is the only survivor.