Charleston Had It All #81
Russell Joins Joslyn Law Firm
By Mildred Reeves Burnett
THOMAS BECKWITH RUSSELL
Attorney Thomas Beckwith Russell, noted research lawyer, practiced with Danforth Joslyn beginning in the early fifties and for the remainder of his life. (Phillip Pruitt and Jeffery Vaughan also practiced law with the Joslyn Law Firm.) Russell became Probate Judge 1947-52.
In those early years, when in grade school, his daughter, Jane, and her friends, Joella Thurmond and Alice Lee Burnett, sometimes roller skated up town and inside the Courthouse to her father’s office, for a visit. 1
Russell went to Agriculture School at Missouri University and belonged to Farmhouse Fraternity. Ca. 1928, Mr. Russell moved his family, Mrs. Russell and sons, Thomas and John, to St. Louis. Sue was born there. In St. Louis he worked and read for the law and passed the bar the very first time. 2
“In those days you could study for law independently. After two or three years you’d take the bar exam to become a lawyer,” daughter Jane Russell Jackson said. “Afterwards he returned to Charleston and rented an office in the First Security Bank building.”
Robert Felker, O. D. said he bought the Joslyn building in August 1983. Marion Eye Center bought the building from Felker in October 2003, according to their records.
Crossing Main Street where city hall is located, once stood two clapboard rental homes on two lots, according to Jim Byrd. Apparently George Bridges owned them. They were eventually torn down. Hunter Raffety bought the lots from Mr. Bridges and sold them to the city to build City Hall, Elott Raffety said.
Charleston City Hall was erected in 1972. Mayor Charles R. Williams, Councilmen R. Wyman Beasley, T.P. Fenton, D.O., Lowell Nicholas, D.D.S., Sam E. Story, as noted on the hall plaque. The hall contains the Police and Fire Stations as well as City Government.
“The building style is a one-story Neoclassical Design,” said Joan Feezor, Certified Archivist.
“Clyde Swank had the job of City Manager during that time-frame and Shirley Staples supervised building of the city hall,” Paul Jackson, who was an earlier Councilman remembered.
(Clyde Swank claims that in 1948, shortly after he became City Manager of Charleston, an ordinance was passed permiting a right turn on red at stop-and-go lights, thus making Charleston the first town in Missouri to pass such an ordinance.) 3
Fragrant Hybrid T roses bloom in season on the north side of building tended by Molly French Garden Club members Shirley Collier (Mrs. Robert) Coon and Eleanor (Mrs. Jim) Moreton for the past twenty years.
City Hall Minutes— Record Book 18, Tuesday, October 3, 1967, Page 208. A delegation of numerous civic organizations met with the City Council …in regard to the preliminary plans for the new city hall.
January 12, 1971, Page 458. The City Council voted in favor of New City Hall.
August 24 , 1971 a special election Charleston voters overwhelming approved a $150,000 bond issue for a new city hall. See August 30, Page 497. The building was erected on the corner lot of North Main and Missouri Streets and was completed July of 1972.
CHARLESTON PLATTED
On May 11, 1837 Joseph Moore, assisted by John Rodney, surveyor of Scott County, laid out the original town of Charleston consisting of twelve blocks, then referred to as Mathews Prairie or St. Charles Prairie, Missouri, as recorded in Book B. page 118, in the Recorder’s Office.
Charleston was laid off on lands owned by Thankful Randol, Joseph Moore & wife, and Wesley P. Barnard. It covered an area of land sixteen and 35/100 acres and was laid out into twelve blocks, of ten lots each with streets sixty-five feet wide. Blocks 1, 2, 3, 4, 9, and 10, were owned by Randol, block 11 by Bernard and the remainder by Moore. 4
On May 13, 1837 Thankful Randol sold 22 ½ acres to Joseph Moore for $337 and Charleston was immediately laid out. Plat Book 1, Page 2. Its original boundary was 12 blocks—four north and south and three east and west.
The original town twelve blocks ran from Franklin to First Street and Marshall to Commercial.
The original plat of Charleston was filed May 20, 1837, when the area now called Mississippi County was the eastern part of Scott County. Those signing the document were Thankful Randol, Joseph Moore, Rebecca Moore, and Wesley P. Barnard. Plat Book 1, Page 2
The site was originally entered in 1830 or 1831 by Humphrey Warren, who built a log house at what is now the northwest corner of Center and Cypress Street. In a short time he sold the house and 40 acres of land to Thankful Randol, who continued to live upon it until after her death. After the town was established she kept a sort of hotel or boarding- house. 5
The Charleston Democrat, September 2, 1937. Charleston’s First Store
The first store was opened in the same house by John W. West and a man by the name of Neil. Other stores followed and the largest merchant in the town prior to the Civil War was Kieran Gorman, whose store was located on the corner of Main and Commercial Streets. He accumulated a large fortune and died about 1865.
1 Jane Russell Jackson, July 6, 2007. 2 Ibid.
3 History of Mississippi County by Betty Powell, P 128.
4 Goodspeed’s History of Southeast Missouri p. 465. Entered according to Act of Congress 1888 by The Goodspeed Publishing Company. (Library of Congress) 5 Ibid.
To Be Continued |