OLDn’NEWS FROM AROUND THE COUNTY
The village of Fairview was about a seven miles north of Allen and one mile west of the north/south railroad tracks going from village of Allen to town of Macon. About 1860, Thomas Dameron, who owned land near the track, donated 5 acres to the railroad for a depot. Another 35 acres was laid out in lots for a town. So Fairview moved to this new location a mile east. Thomas Dameron’s house was the first one in the new town and he became the first postmaster. Post offices were very important in the naming of a town. When the town was large enough for a post office, it was found that there was another Fairview in Missouri. So, at Thomas Dameron’s suggestion, the post office and the town was called Cairo.
I’ve wondered where Mr Dameron came up with that name? And, do you suppose that he pronounced it K-ro instead of Ki-ro? Well, the capital of Egypt since about 950 AD has been Cairo. Could that be it? Cairo, Illinois is a possibility due to its proximity to Missouri. The story is that Cairo, Illinois was named for it’s geographic similarity to Cairo, Egypt. Another possibility is that it was named for Cairo in Anson County, North Carolina. Mr Dameron came from North Carolina. Do you know? Someone may.
The 1884 History of Randolph and Macon County says that the first store building in Cairo was built by P G McDaniel. Others say the hardware store built in 1875 by John Baker was the first. This hardware store was bought by James T Boney in 1890. The recent Pioneer Days in Cairo was held, in part, at Boney Park, which is named for that same Boney family.
The Methodists built the first church around 1870. Four denominations used the building until the Christians and the Baptists built churches in the late 1880’s. School started the first time in 1863. B R Boucher was the teacher.
It is interesting to trace the development of towns. Cairo had two general stores, two blacksmiths, a drug store, a hardware store, a lumberyard, a hotel, one shoemaker, a sawmill and a woodworking shop in 1884. By 1971, in addition to the hardware store, there was a telephone office, a bank, a frozen food locker plant, a garage and machinery company, two gasoline filling station, a barber shop, one restaurant, a lumber yard, a phosphate company, two grocery stores, a dental laboratory and a building contractor according to a 1971 article by A E Skinner in the Moberly Monitor Index and Evening Democrat. Telephones, electricity, gas powered vehicles were only a dream in Randolph County in 1884.
Family Tree Climbing 104
Death certificates are one of the proofs that people use in tracing their ancestors. When a person dies, a Dr, coroner or the people at the funeral home fill out a death certificate. Someone called the informant gives them information about the dead person, such as the dead person’s age, birthplace and the names of his parents including the maiden name of the mother, if they know it. Though ’someone’ is usually a close relative, sometimes they do not know the correct information about the person who has died. So keep an open mind about the information. If the person died before death certificates were required you might have to rely on a will, an obituary from a local paper, a cemetery marker or a bible record. Also keep an open mind about the spelling of the last name. There have been some surnames spelled as many as 26 different ways.
If you were to trace your ancestors back only ten generations, you would have 1,024 different great great great great great great great grandparents – 1,024 last names. If you don’t want to count, that’s seven greats. So you see, there is no end to this project of tracing your family tree.