Several people from the community worked to repair the store and get it back in business as it was a vital service to the entire area. Mr. Perry, a neighbor, was attempting to drive a nail into the ceiling but hit it at an angle which turned the nail into a flying projectile. Young Sam was hit in the left eye by the object and sustained a severe injury. It was decided he would require treatment in Kansas City so his grandfather stood on the tracks with a white cloth on a stick to flag down the next train.
Incidentally, the last merchant to operate the general store and gas station in Brandon was D.V. Ferguson, son of Sam Ferguson. He was the merchant there from 1935 to 1948 when he sold the building to W.H.Hall of Hall’s Automotive Company in Windsor. Hall razed the structure and utilized the lumber for a building for storing used car parts.
In the glory days four passenger trains and several freight trains passed through Brandon daily. The last trains didn’t stop but there were two locals going into Windsor and other places that would stop and give passenger service to wherever they wanted to go. In one account, a Mrs. Lloyd Agee Harvey told of riding the train to Windsor to take piano lessons.
As mentioned previously the Posson School was about a mile from the town and was later named North Fairfield No. 19. Mattie Swisher, a doer and shaker in the little community, served as a teacher in the N. Fairfield in 1910. Brandon was where she would meet her future husband, Sam Swisher, who was one of the directors of the school.
Before she came to the Brandon Community she first taught at Yeager School in 1907-08 and was paid $23.00 per month. She did her own janitor work, walking one and one-half miles to the school from where she was boarding. The next year she taught at Rocky Ridge in Cooney Creek and then came to N. Fairfield. There she was the highest paid teacher of a rural school in Benton County, receiving $45.00 per month. The salary was good because the N. Fairfield district had a high assessment due to the fertile farm land.
Fortunately Mrs. Swisher, being an educated woman, recorded the history of the founding of the Brandon Methodist Church. According to her account, in January of 1916 a group of men and women met in the little northern Benton County community to build a Methodist Episcopal Church of Brandon. In the spring the men began digging the basement but they were farmers and the work went slowly as they were often busy with planting and harvesting. By the spring of 1918 the building was completed at the cost of $5,000.00
The women did their part too rolling up their sleeves, they hosted ice cream socials and chicken dinners. The ladies became quite well known for their efforts and these events coupled with selling eggs, homemade bread, quilts and rugs raised the funds to purchase the furniture for the church, such as a piano, rugs, pews, pastor’s bench, preacher’s stand and communion table. They served food at many auctions and their records show they served more than 40 sale dinners between 1917 and 1928, with more than 20 dinners during the 1940's, 50's and 60's. Undaunted they moved on to adding window blinds, a stove for the Sunday School room and years later they went to work on the basement. Making a dining room and a kitchen with two electric cook stoves, sink, cabinets, running water and many other accoutrements, creating a house of worship to make its members proud.
The stately original church was struck by lightening in 1985 and burned to the ground. It has been replaced by another structure and services are still conducted. The congregation, frequently doesn’t have their own Pastor and shares with the Windsor church. Most of the buildings in Brandon are now gone. No trains passing through anymore and no stock is shipped. Like so many country villages of the early 1900s, it lost its usefulness. Good farm roads, with modern trucks and cars lured the residents to larger shopping venues. Consolidated schools and the condensing of small farms into one large one has reduced the population in the old neighborhood. A poem by Jim Milks titled, Death of a Small Town, sadly describes Brandon’s plight.
A town dies in so many small ways,
Over months and years, not merely days.
It passes slowly with a whimper not a scream
Until nothing is left of a once glorious dream.
Another town fades into history
Where it went is sad but not a mystery.
Leaving behind an empty space
Of a land, a town, a place.
Source: Windsor, Missouri Historical Society
