Hear the latest news!

Tom Stockton and John Osborn are remembered for their historic roles as communicators of community news. We learn their stories from scattered collections of Cape Girardeau memories.

In a memoir, "Sounds and Pictures of Yesterday" (1933), Clara Rider Hayden memorialized Tom Stockton as the "town's crier." Hayden's mid-1880s memories of red brick houses, locust trees, stone walls and brick sidewalks on Jackson Street (now Broadway) included a little, bent, old man walking in the middle of the graveled street, swinging an immense dinner bell. Tom was at work ringing and calling out, for the town's folk, news of sales, auctions, showboat dockings and circuses. Tom sometimes went house to house distributing handbills or funeral cards. "When old Tom Stockton's bell was heard afar-off, children and servants were sent to the front gate...to hear the news."

Hayden knew quite a bit about Tom and his mother, "old Aunt Patience," from stories shared by her mother, Mattie Leech Rider. At the age of 6, Mattie accompanied her father to a slave sale and "chose" 55-year-old Patience to be her family's slave. Captured as a girl in Ghana, Patience was brought to Virginia and sold into slavery. In 1858, Patience and her young son, Tom, were brought to Cape Girardeau and sold again, tragically into different families. Patience went to the Amzi Leech family, undertaking the household burdens of a family with four young children. Tom's wife, Harriet, was also mentioned in Hayden's narrative, revered as a skillful midwife whose presence attended the births of Cape Girardeau children, white and black, "by the hundreds."

When Tom's tolling bell was retired, the rat-a-tat-tat of a military drum took its place. At the turn of the century, John Osborn was Cape's "for-hire" advertisement agent. In the early 1900s, "when a merchant had a special sale, or there was an auction or a church supper, John Osborn and his drum gave the news." Osborn's walking marketing service required an assistant to carry a four-sided poster sign, displaying details of the promotion. An unidentified, undated Cape Girardeau newspaper clipping (from the Glenn House Collection) featured this photo and a brief feature article about Osborn, printed years after his death.

It was said Osborn's drumming skills were developed during the Civil War as a Union musician. Military records indicate John likely served in the 70th United States Colored Infantry, but under the surname of Dunklin (or Duncan). John applied for pension in 1914, but was not awarded a certificate, possibly due to difficulty in proving his identity. This often was the case when a formerly enslaved man adopted his last owner's surname at enlistment, but assumed another name in freedom.

Tom's tolling bell and John's drum are long silent. Ads in print, on radio, television and FaceBook take the place of town criers. But as you stroll the same old town streets, can't you imagine their engaging interactions, audibly sharing need-to-know news and attracting customers?