Jacob Fisher House, Caledonia

Methodist Cemetery, Caledonia

Irondale Slave Cemetery

"Little Africa"

Wingo Cemetery, Palmer, MO

Jacob Fisher built his stately home on Main Street in Caledonia in 1824. Originally an inn where the stage coaches stopped, the house later became known as the “Ramsey House” and was listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Today it serves as a B&B known as the “Wine Cottage." Several sources contain this description of the house:

Upon entering the Wine Cottage one is greeted by a three story continuous walnut staircase, possibly the only staircase of its kind in the Missouri Ozarks. In addition, the property is stated to have the second oldest persimmon tree in the State of Missouri. Originally, the house had twelve rooms and a dirt floor basement. The back of the house contained separate quarters for the slaves. A separate entrance to the rear side of the second story of this historic building allowed the slaves to enter and exit. Tunnels connected this and the two adjacent buildings on each side with a third tunnel (now under State Hwy. 21) exiting outside in the vicinity of a nearby creek. The slaves were at one time jointly owned by the families in these three buildings and used these tunnels to get from one building to another and as passage to work in nearby fields.

Apparently unknown today is the fact that a brutal murder occurred in or near this house in January of 1829. It was a murder that went unpunished but not wholly unnoticed, for buried in a file of family papers at the Missouri Historical Society is this contemporaneous coroner’s report:

I was summoned in the jury of inquest to take up the body of Patience, a black woman slave of Jacob Fisher and found her to have one bone broke in her left arm and both in her right arm and [a] cut above her right eye, apparently done with the stroke of a stick and her left ear mashed, and hinder part off and the back of her neck broke and a large bruise on her right hip, and I concluded that she was killed by her master. Signed by William Wood on January 6, 1829. [Wood-Holman Family Papers, F1, 1820-1829, Missouri Historical Society].

The master, Jacob Fisher, fled to the Natchez Trace after the murder. It is possible that he feared prosecution although criminal conviction would have been highly unlikely, since in ante-bellum Missouri, according to Harriet C. Frazier, “no felony conviction was ever imposed on any white person accused of any crime, no matter how heinous, against any African American, slave or free [Slavery and Crime in Missouri 1773-1865, p. 127].

More likely Jacob Fisher faced some discomfort due to the opprobrium of the community and thought it best to remove himself indefinitely. Three months after the murder, in April 1829, he appointed his brother-in-law, Jacob B. Eversole, to act as his agent, giving him permission to sell “negro slaves, horses, cattle, sheep, hogs, farming utensils, household and kitchen furniture” in his “absence” from Washington County [Washington County, Mo. Deed Book B, p. 427]. Jacob Fisher’s address in the court records is given as Adams County, Mississippi. By the end of the year, Fisher had sold his properties; it appears that he may have resumed residence in neighboring Franklin County.

An odd footnote to this story occurred several years ago when renovations were started on the house by its current owners. As Washington County historian Esther Carroll reports:

Since 2006 occupants of The Wine Cottage have experienced numerous paranormal occurrences.  People often hear the friendly voice of an elderly woman saying "Hello" on the first floor of The Cottage.  And one family who has brought their three year old son there numerous times says that he often waves at an unseen person in the corner of the dining room.  Another child whose family stayed in the Bed & Breakfast rooms on the third floor met a female playmate named "Erica" while staying at The Cottage, but there were no other children there at the time.  Mysterious footsteps have been heard in the cottage by people at varying times along with voices when no one else was there. Objects have been thrown or dropped by unseen forces. A shadow figure of what is believed to be a Civil War soldier has been observed on several occasions. Subsequently several paranormal groups have conducted investigations at The Cottage.

These occurrences brought the attention of paranormal researchers such as Greg Myers of Haunted America Tours, who speculated that the ghostly activity might be tied to the “tragic and brutal history” of the pioneers “who endured a variety of hardships and tragedies over time, including savage attacks from natives, various plagues, whatever mother nature could toss at them, [and] the violence of the great Civil War which pitted brother against brother in a State where loyalty existed equally for each side . . .”

No mention is made here of the tragic history of slavery, but this is not surprising given that the slave history of Washington County is virtually invisible. Yet it is interesting to note that it was in the slave quarters and in the tunnel that the paranormal activity was purported to have begun.  According to Myers, the “spark that ignited” this activity occurred during the renovations when the “door which leads to the old slave quarters” was opened:

Then in March of 2008, the basement took in an inordinate amount of water after the creek across the highway rose above its banks and somehow back flowed through the once existing tunnel that exited near it. It seems that this event somehow became the catalyst that invoked the recent and more significant unexplainable activity witnessed by many since then (Myers).

The tunnel to the creek may very well have been the place where Jacob Fisher beat Patience to death. However, in the end, one need not subscribe to theories of the paranormal in order to feel that this house is in some way a witness to a forgotten act, a silent testimonial to a woman named Patience.

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(left) Gravestone in the "Wingo Cemetery," an unmarked cemetery in Palmer, Mo. Rose Wingo, died 16 Mar 1872, 14Y 10mo 2d; d/o T. & Jane Wingo.  “Weep not father & mother for me; for I am waiting in glory for thee.” (Photo Credit: Barb Goodson)