Round Hill is located three miles north of Tipton in one of the richest farming sections of Missouri. It is a high spot, thus having the name, which is so fitting to the location. The view is beautiful; one can see far in all directions.  Nothing remains there today except an old foundation and memories.

The first mill was erected by a man named Howard and Judge C .H. Smith; an Englishman named Summers kept a store at that place.

William Tipton Seely built the Round Hill Store. It was supplied with dry goods, groceries, and general merchan­dise hauled from Boonville by wagon.

Round Hill also had a post office and a blacksmith shop.

The blacksmith shop was owned by William M. Martin. His daughter, Annie, delighted in climbing up on the rail fences, holding on to the gatepost to pet the stagecoach horses while her father shod them. (She was one of the first teachers in the Tipton public school.) It was an exciting time when the stagecoach arrived.

Daisy Ferguson relates this about Round Hill:

"It is strange and a bit sad that we, as children, pay so little attention to older people relating to us much interesting and valuable history. Had I listened more closely, I could tell much of the happenings connected with Round Hill as was told by my great-aunt, Mrs. Nan Robertson.

One thing I do remember vividly as my great-aunt told me this exciting and happy incident in her youth. My great-aunt who was lovingly known as "Aunt Nan" lived with her parents on the Price family farm near Hopewell Church in Morgan County.

She was so eager to have sugar to make her wedding cake, she and her 16-year-old brother, John, rode horseback to Round Hill to buy the sugar.

When she reached Round Hill one thing in the store she admired so very, very much was the irons used to iron clothes. She persuaded her brother to carry this purchase home for her in his saddle-bag. She had grown up with having slaves in her parent's household to do the work of cooking and washing, but she was determined to know how to carry on her work as a bride in her own home.

Little did she realize at that time she and her husband, George Robertson, would some day own Round Hill. Fortune was good to them in many ways and in 1900 they purchased Round Hill.

They never lived here, since they had established their farm home two miles south of Clarksburg known as the Robertson Place. However, trusted friends and neighbors did live there many years.

My mother was a niece of Aunt Nan and my father was a nephew of Uncle George, so I, Mrs. Claude M. Ferguson, the former Daisy White, fell heir to the historic site of Round Hill.

A big spring located northwest of the store site supplied much water until the severe drought years of 1934 and 1936. When it started to fail, no doubt the watercourse was changed during those years. Some of the old maple trees near the store site remain; but wind and ice storms have dealt rough blows to them. I enjoy just stopping there in the shade, watching cattle grazing and marvel at the changes history has made.

Excelsior School was first located in the east corner of the crossroads on an acre of land on the road Tipton and Boonville and old 12. In later years it was moved about one mile south on Smiley Creek." [Note: This is the way the sentence appears in the book]

Married

On Thursday, Dec. 1, at 3 o'clock p.m. at the residence of the bride's parents, in Cooper County, Miss Susie Pulley and Mr. J.K. Smiley, late of Helena, Montana. Services by the Rev. R. Scott of Cooper. A considerable company of relatives and friends were assembled to witness the ceremony.

The next day a wedding reception and feast was held at the house of D. Smiley, four miles from Tipton at which a happy gathering participated.

This marriage ceremony was remarkable for an amusing incident, which never before happened to any wedding party and probably will never happen again in the world. On the afternoon of the wedding, Messrs. Jos. Stephens and J. Draffen, of the immediate vicinity, were out with hounds on a foxhunt. It so happened that just as the happy couple came out on the floor, a fox was started not far from the house and just as the ceremony was half over, the pursued animal ran up a tree close to the open door where he remained until the close of the scene, a strange wild witness to this sacred rite.

Mr. Carlos Pulley, father of the bride, saw the fox through the open door as he ran up the tree and became so excited he could scarcely let the man of God get through, before he raised the hue and cry, and the whole party headed by the minister made a grand break for the outdoors.

Draffen punched the fox out of the tree and the whole party of men folks joined in the exciting chase, followed by the ladies who were "in at the death" and claimed the brush.

Sixty yards soon settled the animal who got caught between the fence rails and was instantaneously ripped into infinitesimal fragments by the ferocious hounds. He perished with heart-rending cries of agony.

Thus ended one of the most singular weddings upon record. The Times extends the proper congratulations hoping the newly married pair may lead long, useful, and happy lives.