Excerpts from "Tales of the Amarugia Highlands"

Tales of the Amarugia Highlands of Cass County, Missouri
By Donald Lewis Osborn (1972)

"In the summer of 1894, Father bought the old school house and it was moved down to join our old cabin... The house was put on stilts and all of the children had the fun of helping push the school house down to our place."

"On the return trips, Indians would pile on the empty wagon for a ride. Frost tired of their bothering, so he purposely took the oxen and wagon over a stump and bumped the Indians off. Red men went tumbling and shouted, 'Goddamn a cow wow!' and wouldn't ever ride Frost's wagon again."

"Her grandfather Albert Osborn, a Floyd County, Kentucky native who felt at home in Amarugia, had a mystical power for stopping bleeding... He said he could teach his mystical power to another person - but only to a female. He attempted to teach his daughter-in-law Kate, but she couldn't get it through her head."

"One informant recalls the story about an Amarugian who had a garden hoe or rake that turned up missing. The law finally located the implement under neighbor X's bed. After that, whenever anything turned up missing, the popular saying was 'Go look under X's bed!' Author's Footnote: Names are omitted here, to help protect the name of the guilty, the informant, and especially this writer. X's descendants are legion."

"Of course, in order that peace and harmony (in hand with right and justice) be secured, some form of government soon became necessary. A council was accordingly convened, and the form of government adapted was that of an absolute monarchy, at the head of which was placed Owens himself."

"Weddington was bald-headed and the people concluded, after a serious consultation, that a man who was bald-headed could not serve as king unless he would submit to having the crown glued to his hairless state. Weddington refused, and therefore sacrificed the honors of a kingship for personal comfort."

"Saturday is court day. The king is both judge and jury, and from that court there is no appeal. At 9 o'clock every Saturday morning court is opened and the mill of justice begins to grind. No one is seldom fined more than a few pumpkins, a gallon or two of good cider, or a few twists of tobacco."

"Dr. Arnold says there is a man in Everett Township that can hold out 100 pounds at arm's length a half minute. The charge is denied by all."

"In other colonies as well as here,
The grippe seems terrible queer,
But of this disease we have no fear,
For our dear doctor, Andy Wear,
Is some relation of David Crocket's
And has a brand new set of saddle-pockets."

"WHEREAS, Our royal pleasure hath led us select as the central seat of our dominion, the good city of Everett, we hereby notify our loving subjects that all who seek our royal presence may find us there. We further announce our intention to speedily extend our gracious and benign authority over all those more distant regions of our happy realm, wherein some misguided and benighted persons have heretofore failed to render due obedience to our benignant sway. If there be any yet therein, any whose malignant hearts nourish the noxious seeds of rebellion against our mild rule, we warn them that only speedy submission can avert our just anger..."

"...and should the peace of these ever-smiling provinces be disturbed by stiffnecked and rebellious maligners of our royal self and slanderers of our good subjects and liege-men, we do empower and instruct our said High Muck-a-mucks to inflict upon each of such graceless offenders and baseborn varlets, the Bastinado, morning, noon, and night, daily for a calendar month."

"If I have rescued from a fast-gathering oblivion a few threads of Amarugiana that would otherwise forever elude us, and if I have woven them into a fabric that will give them a sort of immortality, I am happy. In our time, a published book survives better than oral tradition."

Matthew's Addendum: I also came across the grave of the last king, David W. Wilson, who is buried in Lee's Summit Historical Cemetery.