This is from an article that Fred Long wrote. Fred was my father's half-uncle (my great uncle)."With some help (probably slave), the limestone slabs were quarried and dragged in by ox team, cut, chiseled into shape and place, all by hand. No bulldozers, high lifts, cranes, or buzzing electric tools went into this permanent work.
This is an eight-room, two story, 40' X40' building, with hall and full-sized basement. It was intended for a hotel because the stagecoach came down by Hillsboro, past the Tin House site, and over the same short road from what is Highway Y to this half-way spot between St. Louis and Potosi.
It might have been a paying investment had the stage continued, but the railroad through De Soto put an end to that kind of travel. Thus, two early businessmen lost. . .one because he did not invest [a previous story], the other because he did.
Of course this happened in pre-Civil War days. Grandfather and Grandmother Long (Milton) were living at the Stone House when the war came on.
Each place [his other grandparent's house---the white frame one down the road] was twice raided and the occupants terrorized and robbed of everything they had except for the clothing they wore.
No one at either the Wiley or Long homes was seriously injured but a man living in a cabin near the Stone House was killed because he refused to join the conflict. His name was Wall, and he was the grandfather of the late Frank Wall of De Soto
My father [Thomas H. Long] at this time was only 10 years of age, often in later life spoke of those dark days."
by Fred Long in Jefferson Republic Newspaper March 23, 1967
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