The Turnbo Manuscripts
by Silas Claiborne Turnbo
1844-1925
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HOW THE CALEB SPRING TOOK ITS NAME
By S. C. Turnbo
In the early settlement of Ozark County, Mo. a man of the name of Caleb Langston settled in the creek bottom on Little North Fork known years ago as the Elias Keesee Place. This farm is on the west side of the creek and is where John Graham sold goods in 1869, 70 and 71. Mr. Langston built his cabin on a high spot of land and cleared a few acres of land near the mouth of the hollow in which the Big spring is in. Soon after he had cleared this land and scratched it over with a very small plow he planted the ground in water melons and musk melons and raised a fine crop of them. Langston was from Calico Rock in Izard County Ark. and his father lived on White River near Calico Rock. He lived here only one year when he returned back to his father. After he left this bottom a black walnut tree growed up from among the rocks that Langston and his family had used for a fire place and when Elias Keesee was clearing this land this walnut was a pretty tree and Keesee cut it down and made an ox yoke out of a part of it. Caleb Langston was the first settler in this bottom and the hollow and the fine spring of cold sparkling water in this hollow which pours off of a ledge of rocks ½ a mile or more above the mouth took their names from him. Peter Keesee who furnished me this account said that Mr. Langston lived here in 1833.
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