USA > Kentucky > Biographical cyclopedia of the commonwealth of Kentucky > Part 50
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1828-30; visited at Ashland and wrote the Life of Henry Clay, 1830; removed to Louisville, Sep- tember, 1830, and issued the first number of the Louisville Daily Journal, November 24, 1830, which he continued to conduct until November 8, 1868, when it was merged in the Courier, and the two issued thenceforth under the name of the Courier-Journal, Mr. Prentice continuing to aid in editing until the sickness which resulted in a few weeks in his death.
In college, Mr. Prentice was recognized as a fine scholar and distinguished as a writer of both prose and verse, his college essays exhibiting marked vigor of thought, beauty of diction, cor- rectness of style, and purity of English; some of his sweetest productions in verse were written while in the university. He relinquished the law because he liked Addison and Byron better than Chitty and Blackstone; there was too much of poetry in him for the dry formulas of the court room. His "Biography of Henry Clay"-much of it written in the home of the great statesman- was finished just ten days before he entered upon the great work of his life as editor of the Louis- ville Journal. It was written in a glowing and ardent style, reflecting the true life of one in the unalloyed admiration of the other.
During the thirty-eight years of editorial life in the Journal, he perhaps wrote more, and cer- tainly wrote better, than any journalist that ever conducted a daily paper in this state. He made the Journal one of the most renowned papers in the land, and many articles from his pen would have done honor to the highest literary periodical of the day. The Journal under his guidance made and unmade the poets, poetesses, essayists, and journalists who appeared in the West for the third of a century which preceded his death. His hu- mor, his wit, and his satire were the best friends and the worst enemies that aspirants to fame in his region could have.
In 1835 Mr. Prentice was married to Miss Hen- riette Benham, daughter of Colonel Joseph Ben- ham, a distinguished member of the Kentucky bar. They had two sons: William Courtland Prentice, who was killed while bravely leading his company of Confederate soldiers at the battle of Augusta, Kentucky, September 18, 1862; and
Clarence J. Prentice, also a Confederate officer, who was killed by the upsetting of his buggy, near Louisville, November, 1873. Mrs. Prentice died in April, 1868, at the family residence in Louis- ville.
In 1860 he published a book under the title of "Prenticeana," made up of his humorous, witty, and satirical paragraphs as they appeared in the Journal. To this style of composition, perhaps more than to anything else, Mr. Prentice owed his fame as a journalist. He was a paragraphist of unparalleled ability.
At the breaking out of the rebellion in 1861, Mr. Prentice took sides and used his powerful pen against the South, in the conflict which ended so disastrously to that section. And yet, during the war he performed numerous kind and generous acts to individual sufferers on the rebel side, and proved a friend to many in times of need.
The disease of which Mr. Prentice died was pneumonia, the result of violent cold taken in rid- ing in an open carriage, on the coldest day in the year, from Louisville to the residence of his son Clarence, some miles below the city. He strug- gled with it for a month, retaining his mental faculties to the last. Just before he drew his last breath, he exclaimed, "I want to go, I want to go." His grave at Cave Hill cemetery is yet without a becoming monument.
A eulogy of singular beauty and power was pronounced by Henry Watterson, editor of the Courier-Journal, by invitation of the legislature of Kentucky. His poems had been collected by his son, with a view to publication in a volume- to which, it is hoped, some of his most marked prose contributions will be added. As an author and poet Mr. Prentice had few equals; but he was a journalist of pre-eminent ability and versa- tility.
M AJ. PHILIP NORBOURNE BARBOUR, born near Bardstown, Kentucky, in 1817; raised and educated in Henderson County, Ken- tucky; graduated at West Point, 1834; made second lieutenant in Third Infantry; soon after made first lieutenant and became regimental ad- jutant until 1845; for bravery in defending Fort Waggoner in East Florida, made brevet-captain;
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and for services at Palo Alto and Resaca de la Palma made brevet-major May 9, 1846; and was killed in action September 19, 1846, while leading his company at the storming of the breastworks of the city of Monterey. He was a man of great amenity of manners and of much talent-reputed one of the most energetic officers of the war with Mexico.
W ILLIAM LYLE SIMMONS of Lexington was born in Frederick County, Maryland, October 9, 1829, and is a son of John E. H. and Martha (Lillard) Simmons. The family original- ly came to this country with Lord Baltimore. Brigadier-General Morris of Revolutionary fame, who contributed generously to the Continental Congress, was the maternal grandfather of the subject of this sketch. His grandfather Simmons and his father, John E. H. Simmons, were the owners of a large number of slaves in Frederick County, Maryland, and, about thirty years before the late war, foreseeing the inevitable conflict, they set their slaves free.
John E. H. Simmons left Maryland and went to New York City when his son, William L., was five or six years of age, and engaged in the whole- sale manufacture of whips, in which trade he made a national reputation. William attended the gram- mar and high schools of New York and obtained a good education. At the age of fourteen he entered the office of B. Wood & Company and was with them for twenty years, becoming a part- ner within a few years after entering the house. He operated in Wall street and quite largely at times, but not frequently, and laid the foundation for the large fortune which he very nearly lost by the panic of 1873. He paid out and quit, which afterwards proved a very wise conclusion.
While he was in the possession of large means he had established his noted stables of thorough- bred horses, merely for the pleasure he could find in the ownership of them. He had done this, as he said, for a "plaything," expecting it to yield him nothing but expense. But when the tide of fortune turned he found that he had an exceedingly valuable property in his thorough- breds, and in 1872 he brought them to Lexing-
ton, with a result that is well known to horse- men throughout the country.
Mr. Simmons, popularly known as "George Wilkes" Simmons, is in many ways a remarkable man. Besides being the owner of "George Wilkes"-champion in his day and progenitor of the greatest family of trotters the world has ever seen-he is the breeder and owner of Jay Bird, the sire of Allerton, the thrice-crowned king, who was also the four-year-old champion and was the fastest five-year-old of any sex; he bred Eagle Bird, sire of the two-year-old champion, Monbars; also bred and owns William L., the sire of Axtell, the three-year-old champion; bred and owns Betterton, sire of George St. Clair, the three-year-old champion of Michigan.
Such marvelous results do not come by chance. To breed the sire of one champion requires a vast amount of experience, intelligent thought and much more than ordinary ability. Few men have bred the sire of one champion. Mr. Sim- mons has bred and owned five or six champion stallions or sires, and in doing so became a pub- lic benefactor.
No mathematician is able to compute the amount of money the breeding establishment of Mr. Simmons has brought to this country. The commonwealth of Kentucky has gained untold millions by his enterprise.
PROFESSOR ARTHUR YAGER of George- town College, son of Dr. Frank J. and Diana (Smith) Yager, was born in Campbells- burg, Henry County, October 29, 1858. His father is a native of Oldham County, who re- moved to Campbellsburg in 1852, where he has ever since been engaged in the practice of medi- cine, and is still quite active for a man of seventy- eight years of age. He is a graduate of the Med- ical University of Louisville.
Daniel Yager (grandfather) was a native of Madison County, Virginia. He came to Oldham County in 1817 and resided there until he was eighty years of age, and died in 1860. He was a farmer on a very extensive scale. The Yagers are of German origin, but have been in this country for more than a century.
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Diana Smith Yager (mother) is a native of Oldham County, and she and Dr. Yager are mem- bers of the Baptist Church.
Fountain Smith (grandfather) was a native of Virginia. When he first came to Kentucky he located in Oldham County, but afterwards re- moved to Henry County, where he died in 1843 at the age of forty years.
Professor Arthur Yager received his primary education in his native town and entered George- town College in 1875, graduating in 1879, after a four years' course, after which he had charge of the College Academy for three years. He then spent two years in the Johns Hopkins University at Baltimore, graduating with the degree of Doc- tor of Philosophy in 1884. He then returned to Georgetown and was elected Professor of His- tory and Political Science, which position he holds at the present writing. He was for a time sec- retary of the Kentucky College Association and has been, since its organization, a director in the Kentucky Chautauqua at Lexington, and is a member of a number of historical and scientific associations.
Professor Yager was married in 1892 to Estill, daughter of Dr. James Lewis of Virginia. She was born in Louisiana, where her father was for a time located. They have one son, Rodes Es- till Yager.
T. FERDINAND BEYLAND, a prominent citizen and business man of Bellevue, was born in Gardelegen, Germany, October 1, 1847. His father and mother, D. G. and Caroline (Meyer) Beyland, were natives of Wurtemberg, Germany, who came to America in 1850 and located in Cincinnati; and in 1856 went to Kansas and set- tled within about fifty miles of Kansas City, Mis- souri, in a part of the state which was then con- sidered the western border of civilization. The inhabitants were principally Indians, and as they were not the most desirable neighbors, and as Mr. Beyland was a coppersmith, in which capaci- ty he found little to do in the new country, and being unused to the life and work of the agricul- turist, he remained there only about nine months and returned to Cincinnati, and finally took up his residence in Newport, Mr. Beyland was an in-
dustrious man and a good citizen. He and his wife were members of the Lutheran Church. He died in Newport in 1867, in the fifty-fourth year of his age. His estimable companion survived him until 1882, continuing her residence in New- port, and died at the age of sixty-six years.
After returning from Kansas, Ferdinand, now about ten years of age, joined a theatrical com- pany and traveled through nearly every state in the Union, gaining a knowledge of the country and of human nature which, together with a good primary education, has been of great advantage to him in business. This was supplemented by three years' experience in the army. At the beginning of the war, he enlisted as a drummer boy and served in the armies of Generals Buell, Rose- crans and Sherman; participated in the famous battles of Shiloh, Stone River, Chickamauga and Missionary Ridge and was in the Atlanta cam- paign, and was honorably discharged from the service at Fort Adams, Rhode Island, in 1864, when he was not yet eighteen years of age. By this time he knew something about his adopted country, but he felt that his education was not complete, and he became a sailor on the Gulf and lived on the water during 1866. During the fol- lowing year he traveled in Texas in a business capacity, and saw all that was to be seen of life in that state. He then became a commercial traveler for the George D. Winchell Manufactur- ing Co. of Cincinnati, covering the whole coun- try from the lakes to the Gulf and from the At- lantic Ocean to the Rocky Mountains. This oc- cupied his attention for ten years, when he con- cluded to settle down and put his education to practical use; and, in 1878, he became a citizen of Bellevue.
He at once interested himself in the develop- ment of that flourishing little city. He organized two of the most reliable building and loan asso- ciations; was president of one of them for a time and is, and has been, secretary of the Home Sav- ings and Loan Association since its organization, April 4, 1889. In 1883 he was elected president of the City Council and served two years, having served as a member for a term of two years pre- vious to that, and was City Treasurer of Bellevue in 1894. i
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In January, 1894, he became a partner of C. W. Nagel in the real estate business, in which they have met with gratifying success. He has ac- cumulated considerable valuable property in his own name in Bellevue and vicinity.
Mr. Beyland was married in 1874 to Clara M. Smith, daughter of M. V. Smith of Newport, Kentucky, and they have an interesting family, consisting of two sons and four daughters: Wal- ter, Agnes, Clifford, Alice, Dorothy and Beatrice.
Mr. Beyland is a member of the Granville Moody Post, G. A. R., and was the founder of the Bellevue Lodge of Knights of Honor in 1878. He is a Republican and a leader in local politics.
JOHN P. CAMPBELL, Secretary and Treas- urer of the Fowler Wharfboat Company, and one of the most prominent young business men of the flourishing city of Paducah, was born in Martinsburg, West Virginia, September 15, 1867; and is a son of John P. and Mary Boyd (Faulk- ner) Campbell. His father was educated for the legal profession and practiced law for some time; was a member of Congress for one term, imme- diately preceding the Civil war, in which he took no active part; and was not thereafter engaged in the practice of law, but interested himself in a number of large business enterprises. He was interested in the Henderson & Nashville Railroad from its organization, and was president of that company during the construction of the road. He organized the Mastodon Coal & Iron Company, which was succeeded by the St. Bernard Coal Company. Soon afterwards he retired and gave his attention to his large landed estates during the latter years of his life; and died in 1887, aged sixty-seven years.
John P. Campbell (grandfather) was born in Virginia in 1778, and removed to Hopkinsville, where he organized the Branch Bank of Ken- tucky, the first bank in Hopkinsville, of which he was president as long as he lived; and was also proprietor of a large tobacco stemmery and a dealer in tobacco, shipping large quantities to London. He was of Scotch-Irish descent.
Mary B. Faulkner Campbell (mother) was a daughter of Honorable Charles James Faulkner, a native of Virginia, lawyer, politician and diplo-
mat, who was minister plenipotentiary and envoy extraordinary to France under President Buchan- an, and was on General Stonewall Jackson's staff during the Civil war. He was a member of Con- gress for twenty years, representing the Martins- burg, Virginia, District, serving before and after the war; was chairman of the Commitee of Ways and Means and of the Committee on Foreign Re- lations, and served on various other committees. His death occurred in 1886, when in the seventy- sixth year of his age. Mary B. (Faulkner) Camp- bell (mother) is a sister of the present Senator Faulkner of Virginia.
John P. Campbell was named for his father and grandfather. He attended school in Hopkins- ville and finished his studies at Berkeley Academy at Martinsburg, West Virginia. He spent the first ten years of his business career in the Bank of Hopkinsville; and on May 1, 1892, removed to Paducah, where he became interested in the Wharfboat Company, of which he is now secre- tary and treasurer; in 1894 organized the Camp- bell-Mulvihill Coal Company, of which he is pres- ident; in January, 1895, organized the Merchants' Transfer, of which he is also the president. Later in the same year he established the general com- mission and grocery house of J. P. Campbell & Company, and is pushing to the front in a way that is surprising to the business men of Paducah.
John P. Campbell and Birdie E. Fowler, daugh- ter of the late Captain Gus Fowler, who was one of the most prominent citizens of Paducah, were married October 27, 1891.
H ENRY FIELD DUNCAN, Ex-Commis- sioner of Insurance, Frankfort, Kentucky .- The Reverend William Duncan, who was born in Perthshire, Scotland, January 7, 1630, was the progenitor of the Duncan family that settled in the colony of Virginia in 1690. Reverend Wil- liam Duncan lost his life for refusing to take the Jacobite oath in the reign of Charles II .; he mar- ried in 1657 Sarah Haldane. His oldest child, William Duncan, was born October 1, 1659; Charles, another son, September 6, 1662; Henry, January II, 1664; Thomas, January 28, 1665; Mary, February 1, 1667. William Duncan, born April 19, 1690, was the grandson of the Reverend
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William Duncan who left Scotland, accompanied by his two sisters and brothers. He arrived in Culpeper County, Virginia, on January 23, 1722. On February II of the same year he took to wife Ruth Raleigh, daughter of Matthew Raleigh, who was born in England of Welsh parentage. Ral- eigh Duncan, their eldest son, was with General Washington at Braddock's defeat in 1755; also at Point Pleasant in 1774, where he was severely wounded, and was in all attacks made by the colonial troops against the invasion of Virginia by the traitor Arnold in 1781. The old Scotch families thus settled in the northern neck of Vir- ginia were true to the cause of freedom during the great struggle for independence; no family was more true to the American cause than the children and grandchildren of William Duncan, who was the founder of this family in the colony of Virginia and the ancestor of the various branches of the Duncans who have scattered themselves over the South and West within the last seventy years.
Henry F. Duncan is the son of Joseph Dillard and Jane (Covington) Duncan, and was born near Bowling Green, Kentucky, March 13, 1854. Joseph Dillard Duncan was born in Culpeper Court House, Virginia, and with his father came to Kentucky in 1818. His father was a farmer in Warren County, and was for a number of years engaged in merchandising in Bowling Green in connection with his other interests. He is a mem- ber of the Baptist Church; has served as magis- trate, and has always taken an active part in poli- tics, and he is now chairman of the Democratic Committee of his district, although in the eightieth year of his age.
Edmund Duncan (grandfather) was a native of Culpeper County, Virginia, and made his settle- ment in Warren County, Kentucky, about the year 1818, where he was a farmer until the time of his death, which occurred in 1859. He had been a Whig in his political tenets in the old days of Whigs and Democrats, and filled the office of magistrate.
Joseph Covington (grandfather) was a native of Raleigh, North Carolina, who came with his father when a child and settled in Warren County, where his death occurred in 1858, aged seventy
years. The Covingtons were of Scotch-Irish ex- traction.
Henry F. Duncan remained on a farm until he was twelve years old, receiving his education in the public schools, which was supplemented by one year at Georgetown College and one year at the State University of Michigan. After leaving school he commenced the study of law, but in May, 1876, he received an appointment in the State Auditor's office when he relinquished the study of law. He remained in this capacity for three years, at the end of which time he accepted a position in the quartermaster-general's office, and continued there for eight months. On Jan- uary first, 1880, he was again appointed clerk in the state auditor's office under General Fayette Hewitt, and remained in that capacity for two years and five months. In June, 1882, he re- ceived an appointment of clerk in the Insurance Department and held the same until January I, 1888, when he was appointed deputy insurance commissioner. On November 1I, 1889, he re- ceived the appointment of insurance commission- er and held that important office until the expir- ation of his term in January, 1896.
Henry F. Duncan was married in 1876 to Sallie Childs Buford, a daughter of Temple Buford of Georgetown, Kentucky.
H AWES B. EAGLES, Assistant Cashier of the Owensboro Banking Company, son of Al- bert James and Kate Coleman (Hawes) Eagles, was born in Daviess County, Kentucky, Febru- ary 28, 1867. He received his education in Hop- kinsville, principally in Major Terrell's private school, and prepared himself for the occupation of civil engineer, which work he began in 1885, but was offered his present position as assistant cashier in the Owensboro Banking Company, which he accepted and has filled with efficiency for more than ten years.
He was married August 3, 1893, to Anna Belle Deane, an accomplished young lady who was educated in the best schools of Owensboro.
Mr. Eagles is attentive to business, of indus- trious habits and affable manners, obliging and courteous in business matters, and though quite popular, is unassuming and modest. He has
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made a good record as a banker and has a prom- ising future. He is a Democrat in politics, but does not seek prominence in his party; is a mem- ber of the benevolent order of Elks, and a con- sistent member of the Baptist Church.
His father, Albert James Eagles, was born in Kent, England, June 26, 1835; was educated in Oxford College, and came to America in 1854. He was for some years engaged in teaching in Missouri and Kentucky, and after his marriage to Kate C. Hawes, October 26, 1864, he engaged in merchandising in Yelvington, in which he contin- ued until his death, June 13, 1881. He was never naturalized as a citizen of the United States, but, being associated with the Southern people, he was an ardent sympathizer with the South in the Civil war. He was a man of superior education, highly cultured and was quite prominent and much respected in the community in which he lived. He was a member of the Episcopal Church and an exemplary Christian gentleman. He mar- ried Kate C. Hawes, and they had three children: Hawes, William, now with Fairleigh & Straus, attorneys of Louisville, and Marianne.
William Eagles (grandfather) was a gentleman of leisure, being very wealthy. He lived and died in Kent, England, his native place.
Kate Coleman Hawes Eagles (mother) was born in Kentucky, October 4, 1841. She was educated in a private school taught by Reverend Beckett, an Englishman and a minister in the Episcopal Church. She is a resident of Owens- boro, and a member of the Baptist Church.
Benjamin Hawes (grandfather) was born in Virginia, April 8, 1810, and was educated in Owensboro, Kentucky; was a farmer in Daviess County; married Mary Ann Taylor of Clarke County in 1832, and died October 17, 1861. His wife was a daughter of Samuel M. and Mildred Martin Taylor, and a sister of Jonathan Gibson Taylor. She was born July 3, 1813, and was educated in private schools in Lexington; mar- ried Benjamin Hawes in 1832, and died Febru- ary II, 1862. Mildred Martin Taylor was a daughter of Colonel John Martin of Clarke County, whose father was one of the early pioneers and was contemporary with Daniel Boone. He took part in all of the Indian wars of his day.
Samuel M. Taylor was born in Virginia in 1785. He married Mildred Martin in 1810. His father, Jonathan Taylor, lived in Caroline County, Vir- ginia, prior to the Revolution, and afterward came to Kentucky.
Richard Hawes, a brother of grandfather Hawes, was Confederate governor of Kentucky during the war between the states after the death of George W. Johnson, the first Confederate gov- ernor.
Richard Hawes (great-grandfather) came to Kentucky from Virginia in 1810, and located first in Fayette County, later in Jefferson County, and finally in Daviess County, in 1819; and at that time purchased large tracts of land in Daviess and Hancock Counties. He bought three thou- sand acres of land on the Ohio River in the Yel- vington precinct; one thousand acres adjoining the village of Yelvington and one thousand acres bordering on Hancock County, embracing the site of Hawesville, which town was named for him. He married Clara Walker, and was the father of eleven children. He died in 1829, ten years after acquiring his large landed estate. His wife's maiden name was Clara Walker, and they had seven sons and four daughters: Richard, Samuel, Walker, Albert, Aylett, Benjamin, Wil- liam, Ann, Kitty, Susan and Clara.
Albert Hawes was the first Democratic candi- date elected to Congress from the Owensboro dis- trict, as up to that time the Whigs prevailed in every election.
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