The Patee House Hotel knows how to throw a party!
By Bob Ford Special to
Articles and podcasts are complimentary from those helping preserve our history: Nodaway Valley Bank, Eagle Communications, Hughes Chiropractic, The Hearing Connection and Anonymous Buffs. To comment or join in supporting this 503©(3) organization, contact Bob at robertmford@aol.com.
It was to be the most lavish gala ever held in the West … and it was!
The first annual Ben Franklin Ball took place in the main ballroom of the Patee House Hotel on Jan. 17, 1860. It was Ben’s birthday and the St. Joseph Typographical Union wanted to honor the newspaper editor and printer, famed for his inventions, politics and wit.
It was a who’s who event never seen before in a frontier town. Among the dignitaries present were Gov. Robert M. Stewart, instrumental in the completion of the Hannibal-St Joseph Railroad a year earlier, Congressman and soon to be Missouri Gov. Willard P. Hall along with Colonel and future Gov. Silas Woodson.
On the military side there were U.S, Generals Bela Hughes, J M Bassett and James Shields, who after the war became the only person ever elected from three different states to the U.S. Senate in Missouri, Illinois and Minnesota.
St. Joseph’s flamboyant mayor was there. The honorable M. Jeff Thompson, who in his own right became a General but for the opposing side, received accolades from his counter combatant General U.S. Grant, earning the nickname, “Swamp Fox,” for his fighting and leadership of Confederate troops in southeast Missouri.
Everybody who was anybody got invited with the hefty price tag of $5 per person. Four-hundred people came for an evening and night of banquet delicacies and dance. This was John Patee and his Hotel’s finest night. The Patee House was the premier Hotel in the West having many amenities not found in St. Louis: steam heat and flush toilets … now that’s living!
Serving 400 today isn’t easy, but in 1860! People started gathering at 7 p.m. with dinner served at 9 p.m.. Offerings of the day may have included soup: potage or squash, fish: catfish or trout, boiled: leg of mutton, corn beef with cabbage or beef tongue.
Sides included pigs feet in sauce, calves head or chicken salad, Roast: Beef, Pig, Lamb, Goose or Turkey, Veggies: Irish Potatoes, Parsnips, Beets, Tomato Aspic, Hominy or Turnips, Pastries: Bread Pudding, Cranberry, Mince or Rhubarb Pie, Dessert: Nuts, Tapioca Pudding, Queen Cake or Lady Cake. Makes you wonder when Alka-Seltzer was invented?
The dress was immaculate, with the ladies in flowing gowns and the starched men trying not to step on them.
On Jan. 21, 1860, the St. Joseph Free Democratic Newspaper described the post dinner activities best.
“After supper, which occupied about two hours, the hall was cleared, when, under the influence of Professor Cruft’s excellent band, the company were soon lost in joy unconfined. Polka, schottische and quadrille followed each other in rapid succession, until the shades of night were expelled by the beams of morn.”
In other words they partied and danced till dawn.
St. Joseph, Missouri was about to explode. Rail came to town a year earlier, a dozen or more steamboats landed every non-winter day delivering passengers, livestock and products to settle the west. In three months the Pony Express would initiate service, with headquarters wonderfully preserved in the Patee House Museum.
Yes, St. Joseph was on the cusp of becoming a “modern” boom city but events locally and nationally derailed the city’s momentum.
January 1860 was a precarious time in America. Abraham Lincoln came by train to St. Joseph a month earlier, then crossed the Missouri River stumping in Kansas where that state’s efforts to join the Union were playing out. Three months prior, with much newspaper attention, John Brown and his band raided Harpers Ferry trying to launch a slave rebellion that failed. He was caught, tried, convicted and summarily hanged. Tensions were mounting as the Border War between Kansas and Missouri paused after years of violence, giving way to the national conflict.
Newspapers played a major role during this period. You had southern leaning papers and the northern press but in a divided city like ours you had both. It’s ironic the unequaled luxurious Ben Franklin Ball was presented by the St. Joseph Typographical Union. The gala turned out to be the city’s swan song until years later, after the recovery from the war.
In 1861, Missouri would become a flashpoint helping ignite the Civil War. A divided Missouri had a star on the Union flag and one on the Confederate Stars and Bars.
Because St. Joseph was a strategic and symbolic city, Union troops quickly moved to secure the town and the Patee House Hotel. Southern sympathies were high in the region, many homes lost their young men to the draw of General Sterling Price’s call to join his Confederate Army in Arkansas.
The South’s recruiting station in Andrew County signed up more than 1,500 men and boys in 1861 for “the cause.” Many southern leaning merchant fathers missing their sons were left outfitting wagon trains and selling their wares to occupying Union soldiers.
The Patee House Museum exhibits what life was like in those chaotic times better than any museum I have visited. Museum Director Gary Chilcote and his family have dedicated their lives to preserving our city’s fascinating history. We owe them a debt of gratitude that can’t be paid. The least we can do is support, visit, teach and pass on the importance of our history to the generations that follow.
I’ve heard visitors to our city say, “You don’t realize the history you have here!”
Some of us do … it’s on full display at the Patee House Museum.
