USA > Kentucky > Memorial record of western Kentucky, Volume II > Part 24
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Mr. Yates is not only a successful business man, but he is also popular in the Maccabees fraternity and in the social circles of the city. As a member of the Methodist church he lends his support to that body and takes part in its work, and no man in Paducah stands higher in public esteem and confidence than he, although he has scarcely passed his first quarter of a century.
CHARLES J. CLARK.
Charles J. Clark, at present occupying the position of mailing clerk in the postoffice at Paducah, Kentucky, was born in Florence, Kentucky, December 19, 1869, a son of Captain W. C. and Viola (Jones) Clark. Captain Clark, who is of Irish lineage, was born in Orange county, Virginia, in 1831. In 1857 he came to Paducah, Kentucky, and in the following year was married. By this union there were the following children: Mattie, Millie, Cora, Bettie, Maggie, Katie, Ellen, John and Charles J.
Captain Clark in early life had chosen the trade of carpenter for
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his life work and had followed it many years before he engaged in farm- ing, which he followed till a few years ago, since which time he has lived retired from active business relations. At the outbreak of the Civil war Captain Clark raised a company for the Confederate army and became its captain, and served with gallantry throughout the war. Ile has always been active in politics, and is an ardent and uncompromising Democrat, having done much for the local success of that party. Hle has held several public offices in the gift of his party, was a member of the state legislature and postmaster of Paducah. To this latter office he was appointed in 1886, and continued acceptably to fill that office until 1896.
It was during his father's incumbency of the position of post- master that Charles J. Clark rendered his first services in the postoffice. and, owing to his marked fitness for such work, has been continued in some department up to the present time. As mailing clerk he has won an enviable ' reputation for adeptness, and his duties have been dis- charged with entire faithfulness and credit to himself.
CHARLES II. BUSHI.
Charles HI. Bush is a prominent lawyer of Hopkinsville and en- joys a large practice in the town and county. He was born in Mont- gomery county, Tennessee, October 28, 1856. His grandfather, Zenas Bush, is supposed to have been of German descent. His father, How- ard B. Bush, was born in North Carolina and emigrated to Tennessee in the early part of the nineteenth century. He was a farmer and died in the latter state in 1862. He married Panthea B. Ellis, a native of Tennessee and reared in Humphreys county.
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Charles H. Bush was the only child and son of his parents, and he lost his mother when he was four months old and his father when he was six years of age. He was reared in the family of an uncle till he was fifteen years old, and at that age started out on his own responsibility. He clerked in a country store and attended school at what odd times he could find. He was a student in a West Virginia college for two years, and then entered the law office of Henry Bennett, of Paducah, where he read law for one year and was then licensed to practice. He remained in Paducah for about a year after being admitted to the bar, and while there was married to Miss Jennie Gary, of Christian county. He soon afterward located in Hopkinsville, where he has been engaged in constant practice for twenty-two years. He has certainly deserved all the success he has won, for he is a strictly self-made man, having been dependent on his own efforts for advance- ment since he was a boy. He has always been an active supporter of Democratic principles. He made the race for the Democratic nomi- nation for circuit judge, which resulted in one of the closest contests within the party ever known in western Kentucky. He is a director in the Bank of Hopkinsville and is interested in the Crescent Milling Company, and has been as successful in his business enterprises as in his legal career.
Mr. Bush has been a member of the Christian church for twenty- nine years, and holds the office of deacon. He lost his first wife after they had been married about six years, and in 1888 he was married to Miss Mattie M. Rives, of Montgomery county, Tennessee. Of the first marriage there were three children: R. Howard, of Texas, and Lillian and Lucile, at home. The children of the present marriage were Jennie and Florence, and Sarah, deceased.
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DR. THOMAS W. BLAKEY.
Dr. Thomas W. Blakey is one of the foremost medical practitioners in Hopkinsville, Kentucky, and has made a reputation for skill and pro- fessional ability that gains him the confidence and patronage of the rep- resentative citizens of the town and county. He was born in Russell- ville, Logan county, Kentucky, August 4, 1858. The family is of Scotch-Irish descent, and the earliest American ancestor came over contemporarily with the Mayflower Pilgrims. William Blakey, the great-grandfather of Dr. Blakey, was a native of Virginia and a soldier in the Revolutionary war, having crossed the Delaware on that mem- orable occasion with Washington. He was one of the pioneers of Logan county, Kentucky, and settled in the woods among the Indians and wild animals. His son, Thomas, who is supposed to have been born in Logan county, built the first brick house in that county.
Churchill H. Blakey, the father of Dr. Blakey, was a native of Logan county and followed farming as his life occupation. He married Mary Catherine Beckel, a daughter of Judge Theodore Beckel, who was a prominent pioneer of Kentucky. He had been a soldier with Bonaparte and was captured by the English and taken as a prisoner of war to Canada, whence, after his liberation, he came to Kentucky. He located in Russellville, where he was a leading business man and city judge. He was of French origin. Churchill H. Blakey and wife had nine children, six sons and three daughters, and eight grew up.
Dr. Blakey was the oldest of the family, and was reared in Logan county, receiving his schooling in Auburn. He formed an ambition to study medicine and entered Jefferson Medical College in Phila- delphia, and after his graduation located in Auburn, Kentucky. He
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practiced there five years, and in 1887 came to Hopkinsville, where he has built up a large patronage.
Dr. Blakey was married in 1884 to Miss Lucile Blakley, a daugh- ter of G. T. and Sarah E. Blakley of Logan county. They have two children, Sallie and Churchill. Dr. Blakey is a member of the Chris- tian County Medical Society, of the Southwestern Kentucky Medical Society and the Railway Surgeons' Medical Association. He is a Ma- son and a member of the Baptist church.
DR. EDGAR C. ANDERSON.
Dr. Edgar C. Anderson, a prominent and progressive physician of Hopkinsville, Kentucky, was born in Christian county, Kentucky, February 6, 1858. His grandfather was a native of Virginia and a farmer by occupation. He was of Scotch-Irish ancestry. Dr. M. W. Anderson, the father of Dr. Anderson, was a native of Virginia, and was a graduate of the University of Virginia and the medical school at Lexington, Kentucky. He had moved to Brownsville, Tennessee, in boyhood, with his father, and was reared there. After receiving his professional education he located in Gallatin, Tennessee, and thence went to Todd county, Kentucky, practicing near Trenton for a num- ber of years, and came to Christian county in 1853 and engaged in farming and speculating near Newstead. He died in St. Louis in 1863. His wife was Nancy F. Harris, who was born in Hanover county, Virginia, and died in 1872.
Dr. Edgar C. Anderson was the seventh of the eight children in his parents' family. He was reared in Christian county, and his first schooling was under George P. Street, and from there he went to Emi-
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nence College in Henry county, Kentucky. He graduated from the Louisville Medical College in 1879, and then located at Newstead, where he was successfully engaged in practice until 1895, in which year he located in Hopkinsville, where he has built up a representative practice and gained the confidence of the people by his ability and win- ning manners. In the year before locating in Hopkinsville he attended the Post-Graduate school in New York for four months, and thus equipped himself further by theoretical demonstration and study for the great work which he had undertaken.
Dr. Anderson was married in 1895 to Mrs. Susan S. Jones, of Hopkinsville, who died in November, 1896, without leaving issue. July 15, 1901, he was married to S. Belle Moore, of Hopkinsville. Dr. An- derson was bereaved of his second wife on January 30, 1902, and he has enjoyed married life altogether but one year and eight months." He is a prominent member and deacon of the Christian church, and in every public-spirited enterprise performs the part of a good citizen.
SAMUEL CASEY HUGHES.
Samuel Casey Hughes, of Morganfield, was born in Union county, July 5, 1826, and spent his entire life there. His parents were James and Rachel L. (Givens) Hughes, and his grandparents were Edward and Letitia (Reed) Hughes. His father served in the war of 1812, and for many years was clerk in the county and circuit courts in Washington county, Kentucky.
Samuel C. Hughes began his education in the common schools of Morganfield, which was afterward continued in St. Mary's College, of Marion county, Kentucky. He also spent two years in study in the
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Transylvania University, of Lexington, Kentucky, and read law under the instructions of his uncle, Willis G. Hughes. In 1856 he was admit- ted to the bar and for many years was an active practitioner in Morgan- field. He was especially successful as a criminal lawyer. He was a forceful speaker whose earnestness never failed to impress his hearers, while his masterful arrangement of the evidence and logical statement seldom failed to carry conviction to the minds of the judge or jury. As judge he performed his duties with a dignity that upheld the majesty of the law, while his fairness won him the unqualified commendation of the public.
Mr. Hughes married Miss Judith Martin, of Union county, a daughter of Husdon and Elizabeth Martin, both natives of Kentucky.
HOWARD BOONE DOUTHIT.
Howard Boone Douthit, a successful tobacconist and dealer in coal at Mayfield, Graves county, although not a native of this state, has lived here nearly all his life, and has been thoroughly identified with the to- bacco and business interests of western Kentucky. He began dealing in the fragrant weed on a small scale, but his business has grown to con- siderable proportions, and, together with his trade in coal, gives him a place among the largest business men of Mayfield. He has also done considerable tobacco farming, and all his endeavors have returned him good rewards.
Mr. Douthit is the son of Samuel and Margaret ( Pepper) Douthit, the former a native of North Carolina and the latter of South Carolina. Samuel Douthit enjoyed a fair common school education, and devoted his life to agriculture and cotton-raising, in South Carolina for the
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greater part of the time. He had a genius at mechanics, and was the inventor of a plow for cultivating cotton which was in use for many years throughout the cotton states, and its name is still remembered by old cotton men. He moved from South Carolina to Kentucky in 1869, and lived the rest of his life in Graves county, where he died March 12, 1874, at the age of fifty-four years. His wife survived him over twenty years, and died in Lynnville, Kentucky, in July, 1895, aged sixty-five. Samuel Douthit was a private in the Confederate army during the Civil war. He was a stanch Democrat, and was held in high regard in every community where he made his home on account of his excel- lent qualities of heart and mind. The following children were born to him and his excellent wife: Mary Josephine, the wife of Dr. R. A. Brown, of Cuba, Kentucky; James Washington, of Texas; Anna, who married Virgil Davis; Lawrence J., of Graves county; Sallie, who mar- ried R. D. Emerson; Samuel R., of Mayfield, Kentucky; Emma, the wife of P. O. S. Howard; Howard Boone: and Robert Lee Douthit, of Missouri.
Howard Boone Douthit was born November 25, 1868, in Missis- sippi, during a brief residence of his parents in that state. He was shortly afterward brought to Graves county, Kentucky, where he was reared and given his education in the public schools. He also attended Mayfield College, from which he was graduated in 1893. His boyhood was spent on the home farm, and he learned the details of farming, but he began his business career as a buyer in tobacco, and it is in this line where he has made his principal success. This business has been built up from small beginnings, and is now firmly established on a prosperous footing. In 1902 he added coal dealing to his interests, and has also raised tobacco with employed labor.
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Mr. Douthit is and always has been a Democrat, but with no as- pirations toward political preferment. Ile is a member of the Chris- tian church and of the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks and also the Independent Order of Odd Fellows. On February 14, 1895, he was married to Miss Susan Delong Andrus, a native of Graves county, and they have had four children : Vera, who died at the age of five months; Olea Christine, Leslie and Slayden D. Mr. and Mrs. Douthit are popular members of Mayfield society, and their home is one of the happiest in the city.
RICHARD E. KELLY.
Richard E. Kelly, who has been prominent in the farming inter- ests of Fulton county, Kentucky, for nearly a quarter of a century, is a native Kentuckian and a gentleman of all the graces and genial char- acteristics of the typical men of that Blue Grass commonwealth. In his younger years he was engaged in business in the state, but since has been a prosperous representative of the agricultural interests. The success which has come to him has been well deserved, for he began the battle of life early and has been a hard worker ever since. In his relations with his fellow men he has gained the reputation for solid integrity and unimpeachable honesty that are the best adornments for any man's life. While the best years and efforts of his career have been devoted to gain- ing an honorable place in the world and a fair degree of material pros- perity, he has also been attentive to the public welfare, and his ballot and influence have been cast on the side of progress and civic good. In his home, which is for all men the source of their best life and for whose welfare they give their best efforts, he has also good reason to be proud,
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for he has a family of bright young men and women, several of whom are already equipped, through their parents' care and wise provision, for the battle of life and give promise of useful and honorable careers.
R. E. Kelly was born in Calloway county, Kentucky, January 28, 1850. His father, R. T. Kelly, was a native of Virginia; came to Ken- tucky in early life, was one of a family of thirteen, seven sons and six daughters, who settled in Warren county, Kentucky, near Bowling Green and engaged in farming. He was married to a Miss Price at Russell- ville, Kentucky, and lived there several years. He had three daughters by that union : Annie E., Martha F. and Mary J. Annie E. was mar- ried to W. L. Harding, 'lived in St. Louis and Kansas City, where Mr. Harding died, and lives now in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Martha F. married W. G. Wilson, of Russellville, and Mary J. married a farmer in Logan county, Kentucky. After the death of his first wife R. T. Kelly came, in 1847, to Wadesboro in Calloway county and engaged in the mercantile business and buying tobacco. He was married to R. E. Kelly's mother, in that year. She was a widow at that time. She had married a Mr. Thompson and had one daughter, Lucy G. R. T. Kelly, lived about two and a half years and died in January, 1850. R. E. Kelly's mother was a daughter of Henry Brown, who was also a native of Virginia; and had settled near Bowling Green, Kentucky, where he married, then moved to a farm near Wadesboro in Calloway county, at which place Mr. Kelly's mother was born. Mr. Brown reared eight chil- dren, four sons and four daughters, and died in 1849. His wife, Mrs. Sallie Brown, was a daughter of Edmund Card, who was the government land agent for the Kentucky Purchase, with his office at old Wadesboro, where he lived until the land was taken up and the county divided into several smaller counties, after which he settled in the town of Murray,
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where he died. He was one of the very first settlers in western Ken- tucky, owned large tracts of land-over one hundred quarter sections according to the original entry, one of which is now Mr. Kelly's home, and which has never passed out of the family, but has been handed down from one generation to another. Mr. Kelly's mother was married to Mr. C. Owen, of New Concord, Kentucky, in 1856, and they had five children. All died but two, William C. and J. E., who are now mer- chants at Murray, Kentucky, and Buffalo, Kentucky. Both are mar- ried and have families, three children each. His mother died in 1892 at the age of sixty-five.
Mr. Kelly enjoyed the educational advantages offered by the schools of Murray, Kentucky, and of Eastman's Commercial College at Pough- keepsie, New York. After leaving school he became a clerk in the dry- goods store of his step-father at New Concord, Kentucky. He remained at that occupation two years, was in the lumber business one year, was a tobacco salesman in the state of Mississippi three years, and leaving that state returned to New Concord, the old home, and went into the dry-goods business at that place for two years. He closed that out and turned his attention to farming, near New Concord and remained at that place five years, and in the fall of 1880 he located on the farm in Fulton county, Kentucky, which has been his home since that time, nearly a quarter of a century.
March 31, 1874, Mr. Kelly was married to Miss Almeda A. Guer- rant, daughter of Peter M. and Maria L. Guerrant, formerly of Dan- ville, Virginia, but later a farmer near Fulton, Kentucky. Mr. Guerrant died in July, 1903. Mr. Kelly and his wife have seven children: Ed- ward O. Guerrant, the oldest, is a student at Kentucky State College at Lexington, Kentucky; William Cobb Kelly was a cadet at the United
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States Military Academy at West Point, New York, in 1902, and is now finishing his education at Lexington, Kentucky; Richard Henry is taking the mechanical engineering course at the State College at Lex- ington ; Mary L., Ed Brown, John Porter, and Carl D. are being edu- cated in the Fulton schools. The family are all members of the Metho- dist Episcopal church, South, and are stanch Democrats.
GABRIEL J. PURYEAR.
Gabriel J. Puryear is still one of the active and enterprising farmers of Graves county, Kentucky, notwithstanding the sixty-five milestones which he has passed on his life's journey. He has had a useful and worthy career, and is honored in his community not only for his present capable performance of the duties of citizenship but also for the part he has taken in the past as a patriotic citizen and a diligent worker in his private life. He was a Confederate soldier in his youth, but continually since that great conflict has followed the pursuit of farming, with such success that he is now in the front rank of agriculturists in Graves county.
Mr. Puryear, like so many of the inhabitants of Kentucky, was born in North Carolina, Person county, on Christmas day, 1837, the son of Harmon and Nancy ( Ford) Puryear, who were also natives of the Old North state, and the former is now living at the age of ninety-two, and the latter died when fifty-two years old. Mr. Puryear was brought to Christian county, Kentucky, in 1839 to Trigg county, and in 1851 to Graves county, which has been his permanent residence nearly all the rest of his life. He lived there engaged in the work of farming till he was twenty-seven years old, and in 1864 enlisted in the Confederate army,
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in Company E, Twelfth Kentucky Cavalry, and was with the command for thirteen months, or until the close of the war. He participated in several hard battles before the great internecine struggle was brought to a close, and as part of the command of General Forrest was in the battles at Guntown and Harrisburg, Mississippi, Athens, Alabama, and Sulphur Springs and Pulaski, Tennessee. For the two years immediately fol- lowing the war he lived in Christian county, Kentucky, and then entered upon his career of farming in Graves county. He now owns a farm of two hundred and seventy acres near Mayfield, and gives his personal attention to its working. He is robust and in good health, and will be able to carry on the responsibilities of life for some years yet. He is a Democrat in politics, but has never sought political favors.
In 1859 Mr. Puryear married Miss Fannie Pryor, who was the daughter of Jerry Pryor, son of Jonathan Pryor, one of the first settlers of Graves county, Kentucky. James H. Puryear, who is the oldest of the children born of this union, is a farmer and stock-raiser of Graves county ; Lenna is the wife of James B. Martin, a farmer of Graves county ; Cora is the wife of John Covington, a wealthy farmer of Graves county ; Maggie married J. U. F. Johnson, who is a minister of the gospel and a farmer; Imogene married W. A. Martin, also a farmer in this county ; Richard E. married Miss Hattie Rickmon and is a farmer in Graves county ; John, who studied at the Louisville Medical College, is a prac- ticing physician at Wingo; Samuel is a farmer in Parker county, Texas ; Hattie L. is the wife of Jacob Anderson, cashier for the Southern Rail- road at Greenville, Mississippi. Mr. and Mrs. Puryear, both in the even- ing of their lives, enjoy fully the respect and esteem of the community, and their activity in the past has made them entirely worthy of the con- fidence of all.
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HARRY MORGAN STANLEY.
. Harry Morgan Stanley, of Henderson, was born on the 17th of November, 1864, in Henderson county, Kentucky, a son of Nathaniel Green and Frances (Jenkins) Stanley. His father was a planter and early settler of this county, and was a representative of an old North Carolina family, whose establishment in America antedates the Revolu- tionary war. Mrs. Stanley-McAllister, who married a second time and is again a widow, was a resident of Buffalo, New York, where lived her father, Commodore Jenkins, an extensive owner of lake vessels, en- gaged in commercial and passenger service on the Great Lakes. They were descended from the Pilgrim fathers.
Mr. Stanley of this review was educated in the schools of Henderson and in his own home under private tutors. He was fitted for his pro- fessional career in Yale College and was graduated in the law depart- ment of that institution in the class of 1887, receiving the degree of LL.B. Ile was then admitted to the bar in New Haven, Connecticut, and upon his return to Henderson was licensed to practice in the courts of the state. In 1890 he was elected judge of the city court of Henderson and was re-elected and served in that capacity until 1894. His ad- ministration of the duties of that office included the enforcement of the city ordinances, and this task was most acceptably and faithfully per- formed, establishing a rule of order and producing a feeling of safety within the limits of the municipality that has made Henderson one of the most charming cities of the state. The appreciation of his ability to fill that office was shown by the fact that though he would not. again run for or accept the office, the mayor, though of opposite political
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faith, persuaded him to accept the appointment of judge pro tem to act in event of the sickness, absence or disability of the judge-elect.
Mr. Stanley's practice is of a general character, including both civil and criminal litigation, and although he is one of the younger members of the bar he is reputed one of the rising attorneys of the city, highly esteemed for his sterling integrity, his industrious habits and his attention to his clients' interests, which he cares for with all the energy of youth.
He is a Democrat in politics, but prefers his profession to political office, which he has never sought, though he was the Democratic cam- paign chairman of his county during the national campaign of 1896, and as such did splendid work for his party. His effective work led to his election to the position of chairman of the county Democratic committee, and also of the judicial district committee. Socially he is a member of the order of Knights of Pythias and of the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, and he is also a member of the college law fraternity of Phi Delta Phi.
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