Wardlaw Addition platted prior to Civil War’s start

Jim Hammock describes this as the “tiny” house where his grandparents raised their large family. Jim and his wife Wilma purchased this house at 1700 Booker in 1977, and following many remodels and expansion, he still calls this house his home. Photo contributed by Jim Hammock.

MARY LOU MONTGOMERY

Booker Street, a north-south corridor located at the peak of one of Hannibal’s highest hills, was platted in 1859, when the 80-acre Wardlaw Addition was first registered with the county as a subdivision by Judge Hugh Hutson Wardlaw, who later died at Hannibal in 1868.

Judge Wardlaw laid out the 80-acre track of previously undeveloped South Hannibal land, utilizing the topography’s idiosyncrasies, including land swells and gorged ravines, in order to best position roads and accompanying land parcels.

A key thoroughfare of this land division remains along Fulton Avenue, which, in Judge Wardlaw’s day, began at Clay Street and ventured southeast through the valley, culminating at Mount Olivet Cemetery, which was incorporated in 1866.

Another major route is Union Street, which commenced at Fifth (or Birch) street, and ventured southward up a steep incline in order to reach the summit’s peak.

A jig to the east at the top of and parallel to Union, (and located to the west of Fulton) is the aforementioned Booker Street, where a series of cottages - many still standing today - were constructed in the early years of the 20th Century.

Street names

Judge Wardlaw’s wife, a daughter of Maj. Hugh Fulton of Fleming County, Ky., was a presumed descendant of Robert Fulton, inventor of the steamboat. This is where Judge Thomas H. Bacon believes that the name “Fulton Avenue,” came from.

Bacon is author of “The History of Hannibal” which is contained within the pages of the recognized historical compilation,“Mirror of Hannibal.”

Judge Bacon writes that two streets with political sounding names in Wardlaw Addition were, in fact, named under more nonpartisan circumstances: 

“The name Union Street signified not a tribute to loyalty (during the post Civil War years,) but a memorial to harmony. Clay Street was not named for the statesman, (Henry Clay)  but on account of the material of the roadbed.”

Living on Booker

By 1930, Joseph Walter and Bessie Beulah Ferguson Hammock had purchased a small house at 1631 Booker St. (later renumbered 1700), from Claud R. and Viola E. Keith. It was located in Block 14, Lot 5, Wardlaw Addition, on the east side of the street.

Mr. Hammock was employed as a machinist for the Burlington railroad, and Mr. Keith, who previously owned the house, was a boilermaker for the Atlas Portland Cement Company.

When the census enumerator came to call in 1930, the Hammocks were living in this small house with five children, ranging in age from 1 to 12. Also at home was Octava Hammock, 58, Mr. Hammock’s mother.

Five more children would arrive as the years passed.

“That little house, that was my Grandma and Grandpa’s house,” Jim Hammock said during an interview for this story. “They had it in the 1930s. How they all made it in the little house I don’t know.

“My dad, Elmer Hammock, was one of the kids they had,” Jim said. (He was the first born son of  Joseph Walter and Bessie Beulah Ferguson Hammock.)

Elmer ultimately built a house next door to the south of the one he grew up in, and that’s where Jim and his brothers, Curtis Wayne, Daniel Joseph and Kent, were raised.

In the meantime, one of Jim’s uncles, Frank, got divorced, and he and his four children moved in to that tiny house with his parents.

“My Grandma and Grandpa went ahead and sold the house to my uncle,” Jim said, and the grandparents in turn moved into a trailer placed down the hill from the house occupied by Elmer Hammock’s family.

“Grandma finally passed away (in 1975) and Grandpa was still living in the trailer. One day he emptied his pipe coals into a trash bag on the porch. It caught fire, and burnt the trailer down,”Jim said. Rescuers pulled him out of a back room to safety. Mr. Hammock lived until 1984.

Jim’s uncle, Frank Hammock, ultimately remarried, and moved to Wyoming.

“When he put the house for sale in 1977, my wife (Wilma) and I bought that little house, and added on to it,” Jim said.

Third generation

Jim is still living in that house first purchased by his grandparents circa 1930. Jim’s wife, Wilma, died on the last day of March, this year, but he remains in this house. He is the third generation of his family to call this house, home.

“I’m living in my Grandma’s house, that little bitty house,” Jim said.

Upon first sight, one would never be able to guess that this is the same house his grandparents purchased circa 1930.

Expansion has been taking place for years.

First, his uncles, each in turn, played a role in the expansion.

“It has been added on to, all family members added on to it,” Jim said.

During his years of ownership, “I put in a lot of new widows, did a lot of interior work, built the addition on to the kitchen, and had a porch put on the side,” he said. “I did the brick work on the front of the house, and siding all away around it. It used to be a tapered yard going down to the front of house; I built it up and put in a circle driveway and car port.”

Except for the few years when he and Wilma were first married, he has lived his life on Booker Street. And he intends to stay put.

“I feel comfortable here, knowing my Grandma and Grandpa lived here. I’m comfortable with the memories of this house. They had 10 kids that lived here; all the family reunions, all family members would come back and Grandma would cook for them, Christmas and Thanksgiving, rejoin the family.

“I’ve thought about moving away, but there’s nothing more comfortable than Grandma and Grandpa’s house. I fall back on those memories.”

Today one of his sons lives next door at 1720 Booker, in the house which Jim’s father built in the 1950s, right next door to his parents.

Note: The Booker Street neighborhood where the Hammocks - past and present - live was slow to be annexed into the city limits. The 1800 block of Booker wasn’t annexed until 1952.