Snippet of Black History Hidden in Familiar Panorama, Known as “The Boy on the Bluff” Picture

By Pauline Masson –

It’s not a very big building, sitting in the lower left corner of a 1919 panorama of downtown Pacific that is known locally as the “boy on the bluff,” picture. 

We’ve all looked at the much printed picture hundreds of times.

After Brenda Wiesehan enhanced it to be used as 11 x 17 end sheets in the Pacific Sesquicentennial book we can see a lot more detail than we could before.

I had previously noticed the Missouri limestone structure in the picture but I had no idea that it was the mythical stone chicken house that was home to a family that – in my mind – had come to symbolize local Black History and occupied a perennial presence in Pacific’s transition from the Civil War to the 20^th Century.

I rediscovered the structure a little over a decade ago when I was invited, along with two Pacific history museum volunteers – Janet Daniel and Therissa Schlemper – on a driving tour of the city to review architectural history.

The late Neil Brennan, lifelong resident who took particular ownership of the city’s history chauffeured and narrated the tour. 

We started inside the museum with Neil going street by street and telling us who had lived in each house and which business had been located in each business building. Therissa Schlemper took notes.

Therissa pulled out the Pacific Sesquicentennial book and opened it to the boy on the bluff panorama. 

“That spot right there is where St. Bridget’s church is now,” Neil said, tracing his finger over a  heavily wooded area on the south side of Union Street and fairly close to the bluff.

 “I had always heard that King William Adams and his wife Mary lived in a stone building that had formerly housed chickens and was located sort of behind St. Bridget Church,” I said.

“That’s it, right there,” Neil said, pointing to the stone building just over the left shoulder of the boy on the bluff.

We don’t have a date when King William and Mary Adams first came to Pacific. We know he was articulate, a non-stop talker who spoke in a soft cultured voice reminiscent of an educated white man.

King Adams was born in Arkansas and served in the Union Army during the last years of the war – 1864 and 1865. He was, in all likelihood, a member of the Arkansas regiments that were recruited after the Emancipation Proclamation freed the slaves in Southern States – who were required to learn to read and write before they could serve in combat.

King and Mary raised eleven children in that house and lived there from late 1860s or early 1870s until circa 1910 when local realtor Charles Clay “C.C.” Close helped their son Jesse buy a house on Orleans Street. Jesse was the first Black person to own a house in Pacific. He moved his family into his house and King Adams died there in 1925. 

Although he would never own the house that he lived in, with the help of C.C. Close, King Adams and his wife Mary acquired two lots at present-day South First and Pacific streets that they deeded to Historic Baptist Church in 1874. King Adams, his son Jesse and grandson Udell, would continue to support the church for the next 100 years.

Historic First Baptist is one of five active and historic Black churches in our area. The others are Pacific Temple C.O.G.I.C. in Pacific; Rose Hill Missionary Baptist in Villa Ridge; and Calvary Baptist and Robertsville Temple C.O.G.I.C. in Robertsville. Two earlier Black A.M.E churches in Pacific and Villa Ridge predate the existing churches.

The legend of King William and Mary Adams reverberates through Pacific history.  To earn a living, King did yard work for the white families in town.

When he wasn’t working he always dressed in a suit, white starched shirt and tie when he left home. He urged his children and grandchildren to do the same, saying they should pay the same attention to their appearance that they wanted others to pay to them.

I really felt I got to know King Adams after Neil Brennan took me to the Pacific Care in 1999 to meet Ella Adams Villery Miller, then 97 years old. She was the second grandchild of King and Mary, the daughter of their son Jesse. For the next three years, she poured out the stories of her grandfather, who never stopped talking. She was sitting at his bedside when he died.

The 100th birthday celebration of Ella Miller drew the largest gathering of both races the Center ever entertained. 

As a young woman, Ella Adams followed her grandfather’s advice when she worked for the white families. She would dress as if for church to walk the three or four blocks to work and change into a work dress. At the end of the day she would change back to her good clothes to walk home.

Ella’s brother, Jesse’s son Udell, inherited the family trait of talking often and softly, and carrier of the family mantel of self-respect.

Udell was the embodiment of his grandfather’s philosophy of hard work and good manners. He worked all the time, cutting trees for people and hauling away construction debris.

“My brother Udell was another one who always talked,” Ella Miller said. “He talked in a soft voice like my grandfather.” 

Udell would live to see his son Herbert elected the town’s first African-American municipal judge in 1980 at age 26, and the town’s first African-American mayor 12 years later in 1992. He would eventually serve 30 years in city government, 16 years as municipal judge and 14 years a mayor.

A revealing moment for me that local Black History had come into its own in Pacific involved this family. In July 2021 favorite son Prentice Cawley – great grandson of King William Adams –  was asked to come home to Pacific and offer the eulogy at his grandmother Marie Adams’ funeral.

He told a breathtaking story of a powerful matriarch who had been the guiding light in his life and the lives of all her children, grand children, great and great-great grandchildren..

I wrote about Prentice’s speech in Hometown Matters. Within five days 6,000 viewers had logged on to read the story. It was, and still is, the largest audience Hometown Matters ever attracted, which reassured me that Black History is part and parcel of Pacific History. 

It seems fitting that the photo of the original home of this family should occupy its place in our written history.