What is a Shivaree?

In the 14 century, people had a practice they called ‘belling.’ Often revelers tied bells to newlyweds’ bed springs. Belling was what they called any act of daring or risky deed – as in, ‘to bell the cat.’ Eventually, the name and tradition evolved, and became, no matter how you spelled or pronounced the word, shivaree.

The term, shivaree or charivari [meaning a severe headache], came into use in about 1681. They were rowdy events that climaxed wedding-night parties. In the 18th century, shivarees included a callithump, a back-formation of the adjective callithumpian. Those were noisy, boisterous bands or parades that welcomed newlyweds into the community.

Greek, English and French languages have a term for the noisy mock serenade to a newly married couple. Etymologists, in Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary, 11th Edition, show a Greek spelling for a similar tradition, karebaria. The Canadian-English language (1681) shows noun and verb spellings for shivaree; the French (1843) spell it charivari. Both French and English spellings are pronounced shiv` er ee.

 

Scottish, Scot-Irish, and French immigrants brought their traditions to the various regions of the United States and Canada in which they settled. For more information about the traditional shivaree, read the works of Robert Isbell, THE LAST CHIVAREE, University of North Carolina Press, 1996.   

Eastside Square

Southside Square

Zodiac Springs

Zodiac Springs, Missouri: What Happened to that Once Famous Town?

One mild winter day in 1961, Russell Kelley took his sixteen-year-old daughter, Frances, to see one of the most-discussed but least-known historical sites in Vernon County: Zodiac Springs, Missouri. Because the ruins of Zodiac, as it was known locally, was not public property, Russell contacted the owners for permission to enter. They agreed providing he assumed responsibility for accidents.

Frances loaded a thermos jug of drinking water into the back of their family’s pickup truck and climbed in, ready for the ride. But before they started, Russell recounted the history of Zodiac and the set of events that could have led to its demise.

Moses Isenhower founded Zodiac Springs in 1881. Like almost every mineral spring discovered at that time, it was touted for the health-giving powers of its water. If people had ailments back in those times and knew about Zodiac Springs, they traveled to that thriving health resort for a bath or drink of water from one of its twelve springs. Isenhower named the town after the twelve signs of the zodiac.

 In the 1920’s, when Russell was a young man, Zodiac Springs was a thriving little community, easily reached by horseback or wagon, a popular destination for area youth. Russell’s teen years were more than forty years behind him, but he still was fond of Zodiac and the memories its name evoked.

 The popular town was never advertised, but visitors came from near and far. They traveled by rail from as far away as New York State to Sheldon, Missouri. Once there, passengers hired a horse and buggy to take them to Zodiac.

In its heyday, Zodiac had more than one general store. In addition to a hotel and bathhouse there was a school, hardware store, blacksmith shop, and a mill. The post office was established in 1882. The main road ran along the south edge of town and, at one time, a saw mill operated across the creek. Isenhower only planned for three homes, presumably for shopkeepers and their families. He intended the town to be a health resort, not a residential community.

No one seemed to know exactly what happened to Zodiac Springs, or why it died out while other towns in the area thrived. One theory was that it deteriorated after Horse Creek Bridge failed. The bridge, built in horse and buggy days, connected Zodiac to the eastern half of Vernon County. They used oak planks for the floor. The weight of heavy motor vehicles damaged the bridge floor and made it unsafe for traffic. Not long afterward, they abandoned the road leading to it. Without a serviceable bridge or public access road, the town deteriorated. The post office closed in 1914 and before long – the school.”

Russell’s pickup bounced over the rough back roads and through open fields. Zodiac was in the extreme southeast corner of Vernon County, on the western bank of Horse Creek, about three miles northeast of the Kelley farm.

The road that ran through Zodiac sat on the Vernon/Barton County line, and what was left of it grew up in weeds. It petered out at an opening in the timber that hid the remains of Zodiac Springs.

The road failed near what was left of Zodiac School, a set of concrete steps. A number of old car bodies lay nearly hidden within the timber. A repair or blacksmith shop had been active there.

The old road showed up again as a dirt and gravel path separating the north half of Zodiac Springs from the south. Just ahead, the steel-truss skeleton of the old bridge straddled Horse Creek. When Frances saw the remains of the old settlement, visible among brush, briars and saplings, she groaned in disappointment. Russell patted her on the shoulder and told her not to worry. He would be the tour guide – but he cautioned her that he might not be able to identify everything. He had been gone from the area for over eighteen years.  

Russell opened a path through a patch of blackberry briars and led Frances down the road that used to be Main Street. He showed her how the ruins lay in rows and suggested she envision them as complete buildings on a grid of streets running north and south. The north/south streets were called Baker, Isenhower, and Main. The east/west streets were First, Second, Third and Fourth.

Russell walked around a pile of rocks, all that was left of the general store. A mill had been built on the east side of that store. The mill was a long-narrow structure, built in several levels, extending down the hill toward the creek. The store and mill sat at the junction of Main Street and the main road through town. Russell showed Frances where the post office once stood, facing east.

Zodiac only had a post office for thirty years – it was established in 1882, a year after Isenhower founded the town, and closed in 1914. It was the postal department that shortened Zodiac Springs’ name to Zodiac. Some old timers say the post office was on the north side of the road, others claim it was on the south. Both stories were true. At one point in history, they moved the post office from the north side to the south to accommodate the postmaster. Back in those day, postmasters often ran their office out of their homes.

Continuing the tour, Russell showed Frances where the hotel stood across from the post office. The bathhouse was east of the hotel, overlooking Horse Creek and the springs. It was built of local sandstone, covered with sweet-smelling honeysuckle and, as time went by, proved to the best preserved structure in town.

According to Russell, when the bathhouse was in its prime, workmen hauled buckets full of water up the hill from the springs to prepare for the baths. Frances found a roughly-cut path in the side of the hill. She used the path to clamber down the hill with her father close behind. 

Russell led Frances north along base of the hill to where it levelled out to form Horse Creek’s bank. The springs started just below the bathhouse and were found more or less in a row along the side of a steep limestone bluff. The springs flowed from the side of the bluff into Horse Creek. Russell and Frances tried to locate all twelve springs but only found seven. He showed her the swampy area overgrown by trees between the springs and the creek and reminisced about how the area used to be so well kept that it looked like a park.

They started to climb up the bank, when Russell stopped, turned around, and listened … off in the distance came a mysterious call, a deep throaty, “Hoot, Hoot-Hoot.” He studied the tops of the tall water oaks along the creek bank until he spotted a huge bird with dark-striped feathers, and horn-like feather plumage. A great horned owl hid among shadowy tree limbs, until, in a flutter of wings, it lifted from the top of a distant tree. Mystery solved. 

Back on the ridge above Horse Creek, Russell and Frances leaned against the truck and drank the cool water from the thermos. He reminisced about people who used to live in or around the little community.

Old timers, he told her, often mentioned John Brown. The John Brown they talked about must had been quite a character, but he was not the infamous abolitionist by the same name.

The parents of Zodiac’s John Brown were staunch Southern sympathizers who settled in the area before the American Civil War. Jayhawkers murdered his father early in the war, and John joined the Bushwhackers in retaliation. He joined Quantrill’s band in 1863, the same time as Frank and Jesse James, and was with the Raiders when they burned Lawrence, Kansas.

After the war, John’s name was cleared, but the James boys went on to rob banks and became notorious. Later, John moved back to Zodiac Springs and hunted in the woods that surrounded it. He’d brag, “I never done a day’s work in my life and don’t plan to start now.”

John died in 1940, but he spent so much time hunting in the timber along the banks of Horse Creek that people used to say – “John Brown haunts the woods of Zodiac Springs.”

Russell and Frances’ visit to Zodiac Springs was over forty years ago. Since then public roads have been constructed to that part of the county. With good roads came small farms and new homes. However, the ruins of Zodiac Springs remain private property, and unfortunately, the property remains posted – “No Trespassing.” For more information about Zodiac Springs, Missouri, call the Vernon County Historical Society, Bushwhacker Museum, in Nevada, Missouri, (417) 667-9602 or the Barton County Historical Society, County Court House, in Lamar, Missouri, (417-682-4141.      

****

Information for this article was supplied by the Vernon and Barton County Historical Societies, Gaylord Wallace, Frances (Kelley) Southern and others.