Area 17: Amarugia

Much of this area encompasses the highland area called Amarugia, an area of folklore tales of a King and his subjects who did not welcome outsiders. More rugged than much of the surrounding prairie, there seemed some tension between the highlanders and flatlanders.

Source for the following two stories: Caught Between Three Fires, by Tom Rafiner)

John and Rhoda Hammontree and their six sons lived five miles south of Harrisonville. Four of the sons, Elijah, Jesse, Jackson, and James, were married and lived nearby in 1860. The other two, Harris and Newton, still lived at home. The War tore this family apart.

Four sons joined the Confederate Army and served with Gen. Sterling Price. Harris and Jesse sided with the Union. Father John threw Harris out of the house. Both boys served the Union in the local Enrolled Missouri Militia in Harrisonville.

Early in November 1862, a Union forage team from Harrisonville raided the Hammontree farm. They took 400 bushels of corn and 15 tons of timothy hay. Not long after that, Jackson and James returned to Cass County from the Confederate army. In Feb. 1863, both were banished to Iowa, probably because of bushwhacking.

The Shipley family lived in the Amarugia area. William P. fought for the Confederacy and returned home in June 1865. He had enlisted at age 36 along with many neighbors. After Order No. 11, his wife Amanda took the six children to Harrisonville. According to the family’s oral history, Amanda was a strong and vocal southern sympathizer. She was thrown in the jail in Harrisonville for singing Confederate songs. While in jail, she caught a cold which caused her to die. William returned to find his wife dead and farm burned.