USA > Kentucky > Biographical cyclopedia of the commonwealth of Kentucky > Part 71
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Few men in Louisville have been more active in politics than John R. Pflanz, who has the repu- tation of always accomplishing what he under- takes. He is one of the charter members and was for a term president of the Bandana Club, an or- ganization which did valiant service for the Demo- cratic party during Mr. Cleveland's first and sec- ond campaigns; was a member of the city execu- tive committee for several terms, being chairman of the Seventh Legislative District Committee; was a member of the Board of Common Council for eleven years, and was easily promoted to the Board of Aldermen by election in November, 1893, and was a candidate for the presidency of that honorable body in opposition to Charles F. Grainger, who was finally elected after a dead- lock for twenty days and nights, during which time over eleven hundred ballots were cast. This
is probably the only instance in which Mr. Pflanz was ever defeated and that was not a contest before the people.
In November, 1894, he was elected sheriff of Jefferson County, receiving a majority of thirty- five hundred votes; and was one of two Demo- cratic candidates for county offices who were not defeated by the Republican candidates. He as- sumed the duties of sheriff January 1, 1895, and is one of the best sheriffs the county and the me- tropolis of the state has ever had.
Mr. Pflanz was married in August, 1879, to Ida L. Wilkes, daughter of Captain Perry Wilkes, a river captain pilot, who was also captain in the Union army during the Civil war. They have a family of four children: Virgie, Willie, Stanley, and Grace.
R OBERT C. TALBOTT of Paris, Kentucky, a member of the Bourbon bar, was born in North Middletown, Bourbon County, August 2, 1862. He began his education in the common schools of the county and when sixteen years of age was placed under the charge of Professor W. L. Yerkes of Paris, under whose efficient train- ing he formed a liking for study, and when at the end of the first year Professor Yerkes took leave of his school to spend a season in Europe Mr. Talbott attended Edgar Institute in Paris, then under the management of Withrow and Waddell, two scholarly gentlemen from Virginia. He con- tinued his studies there for two years and each year received the gold medal for the highest gen- eral average. He then entered Kentucky Uni- versity of Lexington, Kentucky, and at the close of three years graduated with the first honors of his class. He read the text books of law private- ly for a year and was admitted to the bar by the Court of Appeals of Kentucky. He began the practice of law in the fall of 1884 at Paris. Upon his twenty-first birthday he was elected superin- tendent of public schools of Bourbon County for a term of four years; was then re-elected, con- tinuing the practice of law during these eight years, and after the expiration of his second term devoted his attention exclusively to the practice of law. He is now associated with W. H. McMil- lan, under the firm name of McMillan & Talbott.
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Robert C. Talbott is a great-great-grandson of Samuel Talbott of Fairfax County, Virginia, who was a lineal descendant of the English family of Talbotts.' Samuel Talbott married Mary Mag- dalene De Moville, and from their family most of the Kentucky Talbotts have descended. He died December 31, 1777, and his wife in 1791. His old- est son, De Moville Talbott (great-grandfather), was born July 25, 1754, and married Lee Ann Mason of the Mason family of Virginia. After her death in Virginia De Moville Talbott mar- ried Margaret Williams, who was born in Vir- ginia, June 7, 1767. De Moville Talbott moved to Kentucky, and located in Bourbon County. He had in all sixteen children, a record of whose births, marriages and deaths were kept in the family Bible, which recites that De Moville Tal- bott died April 16, 1839. De Moville Talbott's third son, Samuel Talbott (grandfather), was born October 4, 1781, to his wife, Lee Ann Mason, in Virginia. He was twice married. His second wife was Miss Margaret Lauder (grandmother). Samuel H. Talbott, the father of Robert C. Tal- bott, was the son of Samuel and Margaret Lauder Talbott. From the early days when the settlers followed farming as a necessity, because little else was open to them, his forefathers continued this independent and honorable calling, which descended, like the lands, from father to son. Samuel H. Talbott married Anna McMillan (mother), daughter of Robert McMillan, late of Bourbon County, formerly of Clark County. There are but two children of this marriage: William F. Talbott and Robert C. Talbott, both of Paris, Kentucky.
Robert McMillan (grandfather) was born in 1813, and was a son of Colonel Wil- liam McMillan and Elizabeth Frame McMillan, of Clark County, Kentucky. Colonel McMillan in the early days of the commonwealth served his people not only in peace, having represented them for twenty-four years in the State Legisla- ture and in the Senate, but also in war; was en- gaged in the Indian war previous to 1812, and was colonel of the Seventeenth Regiment United States Infantry, in the War of 1812. He was a son of James McMillan and Margaret White, daughter of Dr. Robert and Helen White of Edin-
burgh, Scotland, a family made famous by Henry Kirk White, whose poetic genius attracted the attention of the literary world, although he died before arriving at the age of twenty-one years. From the union of James McMillan and Margaret White, besides Colonel William McMillan, were the following children: James and his brother, both of whom were killed in the Revolution; Robert was private secretary to George Wash- ington, and Mrs. Trimble, the mother of Judge John Trimble of the Court of Appeals of Ken- tucky, and Robert Trimble of the Supreme Court of the United States.
Mr. Talbott's grandmother, Matilda Barclay, wife of Robert McMillan, was the daughter of William Barclay and Nancy Shelton, daughter of Commodore Shelton of the Revolution. Wil- liam Barclay was a son of William Barclay and Nancy Ramsey of Pennsylvania. This William Barclay was a Revolutionary soldier, and after the war moved to Virginia. His son William was born in Virginia, but moved to Clark County, Kentucky, where he reared a family.
Robert C. Talbott was married in June, 1888, to Sara Grimes, daughter of William and Mary Hedges Grimes. Mrs. Talbott attended Hamil- ton College at Lexington, Kentucky, for four years, and was an honor student of that college of the class of 1887. While there she received three gold medals for proficiency in different branches. She is a great-great-granddaughter of John Grimes of Loudoun County, Virginia, who was a soldier of the Revolution in the Virginia State service. She is a descendant of the Scott, Shore, Stamps and Metcalfe families of Virginia, all of whom were descendants of English families of prominence, also of the Adams and Biggs fam- ilies of Pennsylvania, and the Hedges and Trout- man families of Maryland. Mr. Talbott is a Dem- ocrat; he and his wife are members of the Chris- tian Church. They have three children: Robert C. Talbott, Jr., Edna Cecil and Ethel Allen Tal- bott.
William F. Talbott, son of Anna McMillan and Samuel H. Talbott and only brother of Robert C. Talbott (whose sketch is given above) was born in North Middletown, Bourbon County, Ken- tucky, February 27, 1857; was educated in the
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common schools of the county, and was also un- der the charge of Professor W. L. Yerkes of Paris, Kentucky, but owing to bad health was compelled to leave school. He engaged in farming; con- tinued in this occupation until 1890, when he re- moved from his farm to Paris, and is now engaged in the livery business.
He was married in October, 1887, to Mattie Shipp, only daughter of Edwin T. and Blannie (Williams) Shipp. The Shipp family were former- ly of Fauquier County, Virginia, and came to Kentucky in 1795, where they engaged in farm- ing and were large land owners. Edwin T. Shipp was an old and prominent citizen of Bourbon County. The Williams family is of Welsh extrac- tion. Mrs. Talbott was educated in the private schools of Bourbon. They have three children, Dorothy L., Gladys C. and William McMillan Talbott. Mr. and Mrs. Talbott are members of the Christian Church.
W ILLIAM T. KNOTT of Lebanon, Ken- tucky, cultured gentleman and ripe scholar, son of Joseph Percy and Maria Irvine (McElroy) Knott, was born on Cherry Run, Washington (now Marion) County, Kentucky, October 10, 1822.
The genealogy of the Knott family begins with Thomas Percy Knott (great-great-grandfather), who was an Episcopal minister in Derbyshire, England. His only son, Thomas Percy Knott (great-grandfather) was educated for the minis- try and had pursued his studies with that intent, until he chanced to meet a young lady named Jane Hart, who was to be sent to Baltimore, Mary- land, to school, and the young man changed his purpose, or rather the young lady changed it for him, and after completing his classical course in England he came to America and married the same Jane Hart. The children of this marital relation were: Nancy, who married Anthony Bickett; Joseph Percy, married Frances Ray; Mary, married Richard Ray; Frances, married Stephen Briscoe; Thomas Percy, married Fran- ces Rayne; Samuel, married Elizabeth Ray; Lloyd W., married Martha Allen; Jane Hart and Ellen, who never married,
Thomas Percy Knott (grandfather) was a teach- er in Maryland before coming to Kentucky, and followed that profession in Marion (then Wash- ington) County. Among his pupils were Ben Hardin, Colonel C. A. Wickliffe, Martin Ewing and others, whose names illumine the pages of Kentucky history. He continued to teach-being especially devoted to the languages and to sur- veying-until the time of his death in 1826. His remains were interred at Raywick, Marion County.
Joseph Percy Knott (father) was born in Mary- land, near Elicott's Mills, March 31, 1794; came to Kentucky an infant, was educated by his father and was a teacher in Washington (now Marion) County, in the vicinity of Lebanon, and was also a teacher in Columbia Seminary, and on Cherry Run, near the place where he settled after his marriage. He was one of the contractors who constructed the famous turnpike over Muld- rough's Hill, one of the first improvements of that kind in the state; resumed teaching in Shelbyville in 1846 and 1847, and later at West Point, where he died in 1851. He served as magistrate in Washington County (now Marion) for some years; was a member of the Legislature from Washington County in the years 1833-34, when Marion County was cut off from Washington, and an active, public-spirited and scholarly gen- tleman. He was a member of the Presbyterian Church and an exemplary Christian. He mar- ried Maria Irvine McElroy, and the names of their children were: William T. Knott, the subject of this sketch; Samuel Cleland, who married Sarah Gates; Margaret Marion, married Robert T. Nes- bitt; James Proctor, ex-governor, married Sarah R. McElroy; Edward Whitfield, married Mattie McCoy, now living in Kirkwood, Missouri; Anna Maria, married Randolph Hudnall, and Joanna, who married Reverend Marcellus C. Gorin, a Presbyterian minister of St. Louis, Mis- souri.
Anna Maria Hudnall died in 1859, leaving a daughter, Anna Hudnall, who is the editor of a newspaper in Carson City, Nevada.
William T. Knott attended the schools in the county and in Lebanon; and is a graduate of Center College, in which institution he never spent
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a day or recited a lesson. He was teaching school in Lebanon and from some of his young friends who were attending Center College he obtained the curriculum, purchased the books and studied the full course at home. When the commence- ment was held and the graduates received their diplomas, Mr. Knott, who was in the audience, was called up by the faculty and presented with a diploma, and was thus placed on an equal foot- ing with other graduates. The college conferred upon him the degree of Ph. D. in 1894, being the third person to receive that honor from old Cen- ter College.
He had charge of the Lebanon Seminary for ten years, losing but two days' time in all those years. In 1852 he became interested in promot- ing and building the Lebanon branch of the Louisville & Nashville Railroad, and when, after much diligent labor on his part, the road was completed to Lebanon, he was made general agent of the branch and located at Lebanon, and it was his duty to appoint and superintend local agents. He was connected with the Louisville & Nashville Railroad in one capacity or another from 1858 to 1890, when he resigned his position to accept an appointment as superintendent of county schools, an office to which he has since been elected and re-elected, and is now serving his third term, and in which he is deeply interest- ed, having a fondness for children and being en- thusiastically devoted to the cause of education. His qualifications for this work are unusual. Hav- ing been a professional teacher for ten years and a lifetime student, few men in the state are better prepared to direct the education of the rising gen- eration than is Mr. Knott.
During the term of his brother, J. Proctor Knott, as governor of Kentucky, he was assistant state geologist under John R. Proctor, who was director of the geological survey of Kentucky. This line of study has always been of the deepest interest to him, and as a result of his researches he has one of the finest collections of geo- logical specimens, outside of the large in- stitutions, in the United States. He has made several trips to the Rocky Moun- tains, and his collection of specimens of the minerals and geological formations of that sec-
tion of the country is one of great interest and value. His library embraces the largest private collection of scientific works in the country. At odd times he has made a careful study of the botany of Marion County, and knows every plant scientifically in that section. Has made a careful study of the archaeology of the county and has worked up the conchology of the state, the great- er part of the land and fresh water shells and has them named and classified in his cabinet.
Mr. W. T. Knott was married (first) July II, 1847, to Marion B. McElroy, by whom he has four children living: Joseph McElroy Knott, cashier of the Marion National Bank of Lebanon, married Mattie Ruble; William Sneed Knott, at- torney at law of Los Angeles, California, married Lulie Pierce of Springfield, Illinois, a sister of William Pierce, ex-consul to Cuba; Kate Grundy Knott and Jennie Marion, who are at home.
Mrs. Knott died May, 1865, and Mr. Knott was married (second) January, 1867, to Mrs. Lydia McElroy, widow of Hugh Sneed McElroy, who was a brother of Mr. Knott's first wife. Her maid- en name was Lydia Harrison, daughter of George S. Harrison. She is a native of England. She had two children by her first husband: Rosa, wife of James B. Shepard of Denver, Colorado, and George S. McElroy, now of San Antonio, Texas, whose wife was Louise Phillips.
The genealogy of the McElroy family is meager but interesting. The first now known of the name were contemporaneous with John Knox of Scot- land, and they were the ancestors of the McEl- roys of Marion and Washington Counties. They have kept the tradition that their ancestors were active participants in the establishment of the "Solemn League and Covenant" of 1636. Being opposed in their desire to worship God according to the dictates of their consciences and being de- nied all offices of trust and all privileges, they be- came very bitter in their opposition to the British government. Consequently, early in the eigh- teenth century, they sought homes in the Ameri- can colonies, settling for the most part in Pennsyl- vania, New Jersey, Virginia and the Carolinas.
From the best information at hand, it was about 1730 when James McElroy and Sarah McCue (or McHugh), his wife, first located in New Jersey.
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They afterward removed to Pennsylvania and finally to Virginia, locating in (now) Campbell County, in 1760. All of their children were boys: John, Archy, Hugh, Samuel and James. The father was a farmer, whose principal crop was tobacco, which, for the want of money, was com- mon currency in Virginia in those days. The father and his sons were ever ready to respond to frequent calls to arms on account of the French and Indian wars and the greater war of the Revo- lution. They were in many battles in Virginia and campaigns on the Pennsylvania border. Samuel and several of his brothers were present at the surrender of Lord Cornwallis.
John and Archy, sons of James McElroy, re- moved to South Carolina, and were the progeni- tors of the McElroys in the Carolinas, Georgia, Tennessee and some of the southern counties of Kentucky. Three of the sons of James married three sisters, who were daughters of John Irvine. Hugh married Esther, Samuel married Mary, and James married Margaret Irvine. These women were daughters of a Scotch-Irish Presbyterian minister.
Hugh McElroy and John Irvine, his brother-in- law, with their families, removed from Campbell County, Virginia, to Kentucky in 1787. McElroy settled in Nelson (now Washington) County, and Irvine in Lincoln (now Boyle) County, near Dan- ville. In 1789, September 4, Samuel and James, with their wives, followed Hugh to the "wilder- ness of Kentucky," and settled in Nelson (now Marion) County, near Lebanon.
Of these Samuel (the great-grandfather of Wil- liam T. Knott) and his wife, Mary Irvine, had issue as follows: Sarah, born 1767, married Alex- ander Handley; John, born 1769, married (first) Miss Copeland (second), Mrs. Simpson; James, born 1770, died young; Hugh, born 1772, mar- ried Miss Gilkie; Margaret, born 1773, married James Wilson; Abram, born 1774, died young; William, born 1776, married (first) Keturah Cle- land, (second) Mary Kirk; Samuel, born 1777, married (first) Mary Briggs, (second) Jane B. Grundy; Mary, born 1778, married William Mc- Colgan; James, born 1780, married Esther Simp- son; Abram, born 1780, married Miss Redford (James and Abram were twins); Elizabeth, born
178 -- , married George Wilson, and Nancy, born 178 --.
The children of William McElroy (1776) and Keturah Cleland, his wife, were: Maria Irvine McElroy, born 1805, who married Joseph P. Knott, October 10, 1822 (parents of William T. Knott); Eliza, born 1807, married (first) Isaac Everhart, (second) T. P. Gibbs, (third) Isaac Withrow; Philip E., born 1809, married Lydia Gibbs; Harriet Paulina, born 1811, married A. S. Mays; Margaret, born 1814, married Samuel T. Ray. The children of William McElroy and his second wife, Mary Kirk, were: Paul Irvine, married Sue McElroy; Robert Lapsley, married Lizzie Hughes; Cecil Scott, married Fannie Brown; Lucy Ann, married Samuel T. Ray (after the death of his first wife, who was her half sister) ; William T., married Eliza Cassidy; James Frank- lin, married Mary Chapman; Samuel Rice, mar- ried Belle Reed; Keturah, married Dr. George Hubbard, and Sarah, who died young.
James Proctor Knott, son of Joseph Percy and Maria (Irvine) Knott and brother of William T. Knott -- the principal subject of the foregoing sketch -- was born in Marion County, Kentucky, August 28, 1830. After receiving a common school education, he was professor of natural science in the Lebanon Seminary; practiced law in Lebanon; removed to Missouri, where he prac- ticed law; was a delegate to the Democratic Na- tional Convention in 1860; was elected to the Missouri Legislature; was attorney-general of that state during the Civil war; returned to Leba- non and was a member of Congress from that dis- trict for twelve years, 1867-71 and 1875-83; was governor of Kentucky, 1883 to 1887; and is now dean of the faculty of the law department of Cen- ter College at Danville, Kentucky.
T 'HOMAS R. WELCH, M. D., an able and successful homeopathic physician and sur- geon of Nicholasville, was born in that city, Feb- ruary 4, 1860, and is a son of the late Dr. John Welch, who died in Nicholasville, February 2, 1887, and Lizzie (Downing) Welch. Thomas R. Welch received his primary education in Bethel Academy, under the training of that eminent teacher, Professor A, N. Gordon, who is now
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principal of an academy in Fayette County. He afterwards attended Kentucky Wesleyan College and received the degree of A. M. In 1882 and 1883 he taught in the city schools and then read medicine with his father and graduated from the Hahnemann Medical College, Chicago, in 1885, and in the same year he began the practice of medicine in his native city, where he has become known as one of the best physicians in the county.
During all of that time he has been and is still a member of the board of examiners for the common schools; is a member of the Nicholas- ville Board of Education; is a member of the Kentucky State Homeopathic Association, of the Southern Homeopathic Association and the American Institute of Homeopathy; is a mem- ber of the Baptist Church; an Odd Fellow and a Knight of Pythias, and has served in all of the offices in these two orders.
Dr. Welch is a most scholarly gentleman and a student of great industry; of quick perception, a retentive memory and a close observer, he can rapidly acquire knowledge of every kind, par- ticularly in the great science of medicine. As a physician and surgeon he has few superiors. He is faithfully devoted to his profession and has gained wide popularity by his prompt and cour- teous attention to business.
Dr. Welch was married in 1889 to Josephine Stanley, daughter of Elder William Stanley, a minister in the Christian Church, who is now liv- ing in East Aurora, New York. They have one daughter, Amanda.
John Welch (great-grandfather) was born in the north of Ireland in 1743, came to America and served under General George Washington in the Revolutionary war, after which he settled in Lin- coln County. He subsequently removed within the present limits of Jessamine County, where he raised a large family of sons and daughters, whose descendants in Jessamine County are very numerous and are of the highest respectability. He died one mile south of Nicholasville in 1836, and is buried on the farm which he opened in 1784. His oldest son, Alexander Welch, was born in Virginia in 1778. Nathaniel Welch, his second son, was born in Lincoln County in 1783, and John Welch, his youngest son, who was the
father of Dr. John C. Welch and grandfather of Dr. Thomas R. Welch, was born in Lincoln County in 1790, and died in 1842.
Lizzie Downing Welch (mother) was the oldest daughter of Armistead Downing, whose ances- tors were from England and settled in North- umberland County, Virginia, in 1726, where many of the descendants are yet living. The Kentucky family of Downings are descended from this Eng- lish branch, of whom three brothers, John, Thomas and Robert, are supposed to have set- tled in Virginia in the year above mentioned.
G EORGE HENRY MEADE, Circuit Clerk of Boyd County, son of Albert Gallatin and Elizabeth (Hornbuckle) Meade, was born Sep- tember 9, 1862, in Boyd County, Kentucky. His father, Albert Gallatin Meade, was born in Bedford County, Virginia, in 1803, and came to Greenup (then a part of Boyd) Coun- ty in 1828. He was a farmer and a promi- nent member of the Methodist Church and one of the most respected citizens of the county. He died at the age of sixty-nine in 1872, and is buried at McCormick's Chapel in Boyd County. His father was a native of Clay County, Virginia, and was a highly respected farmer of that county. The Meades are of Irish and German extraction.
George H. Meade's mother, Elizabeth (Horn- buckle) Meade was born and educated in Greenup County, Kentucky. She was a lady of noble Christian character, prominent and useful in the work of the church to which she and her husband belonged, and her death, which occurred on the twelfth day of March, 1864, was lamented by a large circle of loving relatives and friends.
Richard Hornbuckle (maternal grandfather) was a farmer in Greenup County, a man of great force of character and a gentleman of culture. He was an old-time Whig in his younger days, and later became a Republican of pronounced con- victions. He was a native of North Carolina.
George Henry Meade, the subject of this sketch, was educated in the Boyd County district schools, and at Marshall College, Huntington, West Vir- ginia, from which institution he was graduated in the class of 1883. He afterward took a commer-
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cial course in the Valparaiso (Indiana) Normal School, graduating in 1884.
He taught in the district schools of Boyd Coun- ty for two years and then went to Lebanon, Ohio, and took a teacher's course in the Normal School, after which he resumed his professional work as teacher in his native county, and was thus em- ployed until January, 1895, when he assumed the duties of the office of clerk of the Circuit Court at Ashland, to which he was elected on the Demo- cratic ticket in November, 1894. In this change from one department of public service to another the educational interest of the county was the loser, but the legal branch of service gained an efficient and faithful officer.
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