All that remains of
Dover is the old stone school house standing on the
right-hand side of the road four miles north of
Donnellson. It all started when the Bonnell
brothers, wealthy apple growers out of New Jersey,
bought 880 acres of land in the area. They
started a store but after two years of operating it
decided they were more interested in farming.
Edmund Dickey established a post office in 1853 but
Edmund went to the Civil War and never came
back. His military record on the Net says he
died of disease and is buried in the National Cemetery
at St. Louis. His wife Barbara took over
the job as post mistress. The Lee County
directory of 1868 shows an E.C. Atkinson, a physician;
Barbara Dickey, post mistress; J.E. Kile, justice of
the peace; and Lew Walter, operator of the general
store. Later the Dickey daughters took over the
store and operated it for years. The store was
the center of the community.
Farm wives would bring their baskets of eggs and
pounds of butter to trade for soda, flour, sugar and
other staples. It was a place to visit and a
place to buy a nice length of fabric for a new
dress. If a child had a penny, he could buy a
sack of candy and if he didn’t, maybe if he looked
longingly enough, the Dickey girls would hand him a
sweet out of the glass jars up behind the
counter. The young men liked to shoot
rabbits and sell them for ten cents each at the
store. It gave them a little spending money –
and money was scarce.
Dover was a small community with a few houses, a
school, a tavern, blacksmith shop, and the store, but
the unique thing about it was the well in the middle
of the road. It was a well that everyone used
and no doubt provided water for the horses that
brought customers to the village. The well was
destroyed when Highway 218 was built. The
schoolhouse was built in 1867 or 1868 and was closed
in 1941. The school was the center of the
community for dances and get- togethers of all
kinds. Today, most of the windows are broken out
but it still stands.
In the 1880’s with Donnellson being established to the
south, people began to drift away; the post office was
closed in 1903, and now there is not even a sign to
show its existence.
Researched, transcribed and submitted by Erma Derosear
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