Note: The Peabody Gazette gives us some real insight into life in Plum Grove in the late 1870s and early 1880s. In this weekly newspaper, we find columns entitled “Plum Grove Items.” These columns were mostly submitted by two authors. The first contributor signs his name “A Star Cus,” It is easy to deduce from the style the columns are written and the similarity of the name that this is Starchus M. Spencer. The other contributor signs his name “Num Skull.” We are never given a clue as to the identity of Num Skull. In these bi-monthly columns, both of these authors garner a lot of information about the people, the area, and the climate of Plum Grove and its vicinity.
Only one week has elapsed since “A Star Cus” liquidated his business interests in Plum, Grove and gone where the woodbine twineth, but already his sterling reputation has been sullied with malice aforethought. The reader can pervue the evidence in the Plum Grove and Clifford townships columns penned by the “Great I. A” and “Num Skull” in the Peabody Gazette below. However, to understand the implications, the phrase needs to be highlighted for a more profound understanding.
The phrase where the woodbine twineth was a catchphrase in the 1870s and has a complicated meaning. It could be seen as a euphemism for going to the pawnbroker’s, up the spout, or more literally, some article or person mysteriously disappeared or vanished into thin air. It is true that “A Star Cus” did confess in his last writing that he would abscond to the pinnacles of the Rockies or possibly even the Green Mountains of Vermont. Still, I have drawn the intimation of a less than honorable individual with even less honest motives. Regardless of my prejudice, the knives have come out! Even the editor of the Gazette has thrown in the barbs.
THE PEABODY GAZETTE
FRIDAY, 16 JULY 1880
PLUM GROVE, BUTLER CO., KANSAS, FRIDAY, 16 JULY 1880
PLUM GROVE ITEMS.
DITOR GAZETTE:
The current hot weather is a dull time for items; even Garfield and Hancock cannot raise excitement. The burg has an embryo Hancock Club. Garfield isn’t represented as yet.
👉🏻 A Star Cus, S. M. Spencer has decided on the “land of wooden nutmegs” for his summer flight.
👉🏻 Legrand Martin, the engineer of blacksmith shop No. 1, has returned from a visit to his old home in Illinois. He looks as if he had had a real good time.
👉🏻 Rev. Watts, United Brethren minister, will hold three-day meetings at the Guinty School House this Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.
Well, I have decided, since reading the Cincinnati Platform,
that I don’t want to vote for Hancock, I won’t vote for Garfield, I don’t like the Dennis Kerney in Weaver, so I guess I’ll hold a convention and nominate a candidate of my own.
INDEPENDENT NUM SKULL.
Why don’t you join Susan B. Anthony’s party? We believe that would suit you .- Ed.
NUM SKULL
CLIFFORD ITEMS.
EDITOR GAZETTE:
Clifford is the Banner township in the three counties for sheep, so says Uncle Sam’s Assessor. Our county has about forty thousand hogs, and our corn prospects were never better. As for wheat, go and examine the thresher. A good-sized goose quill answers for a spout.
👉🏻 Corn and pork are King. I notice by the GAZETTE that the Chief Justice of Plum Grove has retired from the mercantile business and gone where the woodbine twineth. He has a great many good traits of character, but he has more cheek. He can sponge more free advertising of his business and future intentions, in the shape of a communication from an honest UNSUSPECTING Editor, than a government mule. He has advertised to sow 40 acres of wheat &c. &c ., in his communication. This reminds me of the LOYAL man who declared the rebellion should be put down if he sacrificed
all his wife’s relations. He has busted all the tenants he ever had, trying to put down the rebellion. Facts are stubborn things.
👉🏻H. B. Brindley, last Friday, paid a Clifford township man $589.75 for 77 shoats 9 months old. Show me a man south of Peabody and north of Eldorado that sold $589.75 worth of wheat. With Hancock for President, a crib full of corn and plenty of fat hogs to sell at three dollars & fifty cents. per hundredweight would please even a Republican.
I. A. Shriver
𝚨nything for A Quiet LifeΩ 