ONE day in the fall of 1823, Henry Andrews relates, there came two land-hunters to the cabin of Col. Barnes. These men were Joshua Moore and Levi Ellis. Barnes invited them in the the most cordial manner to make his house their headquarters while in the neighborhood, and the invitation was cheerfully accepted. Mrs. Barnes announced to her husband that the meat was out that evening, and that she did not know what she was going to do for something to eat. As meat and cornbread or hominy was about the extent of the pioneer bill of fare at that period, this announcement was received with some consternation. Barnes had no stock to kill, and had neglected hunting, from the pressure of his fall work.
George Matthews was at that time working at Barnes’s, and in the morning he undertook to find some game. He started out east of Barnes’s cabin, and had been gone but a few moments before the report of his gun was heard, and his halloo for help soon followed it. The whole family started for the scene of action, anxious to know the result. Matthews had shot and killed a fine doe within a short distance of the house, and was proceeding to skin it. This gave Mrs. Barnes relief, and she furnished her guests an abundance of venison during the balance of their stay.
Moore purchased land in what is now Joshua township, and gave the township its name. Ellis settled at Ellisville, which township was also named in his honor. He built a mill at the present site of Ellisville. Both of them were prominent and useful men, and possessed of great influence among the people at that early day.