The Fiddler of Tabo

 Stainer Violin

John Armstrong Dudgeon came from a Missouri Southern family.  He was born in Howard County, Missouri on July 5, 1846 to Alexander and Matilda Dudgeon.  As a boy he attended the country schools near Fayette. At the age of 16 he wrote and presented a speech entitled, "The Past, The Present, and the Future".  He was very proud of this speech all of his life.  He could still recite it, verbatim, when he was 78.

Dudgeon was too young to join the army when the Civil War began in 1861.  But, when Confederate General Sterling Price made his raid through Missouri in 1864, the now 18 year old enlisted in his army as a private in Company E of Perkins Missouri Cavalry Battalion.   He joined Perkins' command at Glasgow, Missouri in October 1864 and served with it until the end of the war. He received his parole at Shreveport, Louisiana in June 1865 and returned to Missouri.

Upon his return home Dudgeon went to work on his father's farm, where he became a student of nature and an avid hunter and fisherman.  He also loved music and became an accomplished fiddler.  He owned an original violin that was made the famous Austrian violin maker Jacob Stainer in 1676. Stainer violins were very popular during the chamber music era when they were made.  Original Stainers in good condition are considered very valuable instruments today by collectors.

Dudgeon was a member of the Salt Creek String Band.  The band played at all the big social events in Howard County.  The young man was very popular with the ladies, yet he never married.  According to one story, he'd had a sweetheart at one time but she married another man.  So Dudgeon remained a bachelor all the days of his life. 

John Dudgeon was admitted to the Confederate Home in Higginsville, Missouri in February 1912 from Fayette and received the Southern Cross of Honor the following year.  He was known for two things at the Home - his fiddling and a strong work ethic.  He played the fiddle at all of the Home entertainments and was renowned for his musical talents throughout the local area.  He played at the Higginsville celebrations and was soon being referred to as, "The Fiddler of Tabo", after a nearby creek.  "The Arkansas Traveler" was a favorite tune of the old veteran. He also enjoyed playing "Fisherman's Hornpipe" and "Turkey in the Straw".  On many occasions some of the other old veterans would accompany him to events and dance a little jig while he played.  He was considered talented enough that the town of Higginsville wanted to enter him in the state's old man fiddling contest.

Dudgeon remained active almost up to very end of his life.  He continued to enjoy hunting and fishing.  He took "vacations".  In 1922 he went to Kansas City with two other veterans to see a parade and to visit with friends. He also insisted on keeping up with the farm work and frequently volunteered for farming work around the Home and on neighboring farms.  He was so involved with this work that it was said that no corn crop in the vicinity had been planted without his help.  He also lent a helping hand in the Home's kitchen.  He took an active role in politics as well.  In 1922 he was selected by his comrades to deliver the Confederate Home's election returns to the county seat at Lexington.  At this time the Home contained enough members that it formed an entire voting precinct of its own.  Despite the fact that virtually everyone at the Home was a loyal Democrat, on this occasion, by a two-to-one margin, the Home had cast its vote for two Republicans, Dr. William Porter and Frank Fulkerson.  Porter was the Confederate Home surgeon and Fulkerson, who owned a farm adjacent to the Home, had always supported the institution and its old veterans and widows.

Time finally caught up with John Dudgeon.  A long going battle with heart disease took its toll.  On August 22, 1925 "The Fiddler of Tabo passed away from kidney failure.  He was 79 years old.  The Reverend C. A. McEntire conducted the funeral service.  The Stainer violin, along with the rest of Dudgeon's otherwise meagre possessions, was given to a nephew, W. D. Settle of Fayette.