A history of northeast Missouri, Vol. 2 pt 2, Part 1

Author: Williams, Walter, 1864- , ed
Publication date: 1913
Publisher: Chicago, New York, The Lewis publishing company
Number of Pages: 912

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Gc 977.8 W67hi v.2 pt.2 1385508 1

GENEALOGY COLLECTION

ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY 3 1833 01053 5653

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A History of NORTHEAST MISSOURI

Edited by Walter Williams

Volume2, part 2

The Lewis Publishing Company

Chicago 1913

New York

1385508

L. J. WarQuan

Vol. 2 pt. 2

History of Northeast Missouri

LAWRENCE I. MACQUEEN. That important institution for the higher training of girls and young women which is known as the Synodical Collège and is located at Fulton, Missouri, is the subject of a full his- torical account elsewhere in these pages. Its establishment, more than fifty years ago, through the efforts of Rev. William W. Robinson, D. D., and Rev. John F. Cowan, D. D., its sponsorship by the Presbyterian Synod of Missouri, as a school particularly adapted to the needs of the young daughters of that church ; its development under successive presi- dents; its qualities of high moral atmosphere, nonsectarianism of spirit, thoroughness of intellectual attainment and practical application of knowledge-these details are fully presented in the account of the col- lege proper, which these volumes contain. Our present interest is with the preparation and career of its present head,-president Lawrence I. MacQueen.

The ancestry and family of President MacQueen have been dis- tinguished for two predominant characteristics: that of courage and that of religious depth and character. His paternal ancestors-who were Scotch by birth and ancestry-were emigrants to this country soon after the War of the Revolution, in which, therefore they took no part. The MacQueen family contributed to the military energy of the Civil war in the gallant service of Lieut. Alex MacQueen, who was killed at Sumter, South Carolina, in one of the closing actions of the war, known as the battle of Dingle's Mill,-so late indeed that Lee had already surrendered, although the news had not yet reached the lieu- tenant's troops. Lieutenant MacQueen was a paternal uncle of Presi- dent MacQueen, whose maternal grandfather, Captain Robert Jones, also lost his life in the army service.

The place of Lawrence I. MacQueen's nativity was Milledgville, Georgia, and January 26, 1887 was the date of his birth. The courses of his higher education were pursued in Centre College, at Danville, Kentucky. In 1909 he was graduated from that institution with the degree of Bachelor of Arts. He afterward pursued graduate courses in the University of Cincinnati, where in 1912 he was granted his master's degree.

Mr. MacQueen had meanwhile taken advantage of theological train- ing in Lane Theological Seminary, and had moreover, gained valuable professional experience as the incumbent of the chair of Greek and Latin in Fredericksburg College, at Fredericksburg, Virginia. During this time successive circumstances had aroused his interest in the schools of Missouri. The president of Centre College, Dr. F. W. Hinitt, a graduate of Westminster College at Fulton, was yet more interested in that place because it was the girlhood home of Mrs. Hinitt, his wife, who was also a graduate of the Synodical College. Through him the

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young man heard much of the two schools, under Presbyterian guardian- ship, which were conducted at Fulton. At the University of Cincinnati Mr. MacQueen came under the beneficent influence of Dr. Charles Wil- liam Dabney, the president of the University of Cincinnati and for- merly president of the University of Tennessee, a son of Dr. R. L. Dabney, a noted theologian of the Presbyterian church. Both these men were able accurately to gauge the strength of mind and character of Mr. MacQueen. Both were also well known in Missouri, where each commanded the highest confidence. Through their instrumentality Mr. MacQueen formed his present connection with Synodical College. He assumed the duties of the presidency in May, 1912, and has already demonstrated his forceful personality, his high standards, his judicious points of view. His guidance of the school's ideals, its faculty and its methods, promises for it a most optimistic future. The task is not a light one nor one lacking many deep and complicated problems. . To keep the human and spiritual elements well blended and balanced, to keep the true poise that escapes asceticism on the one side and indul- gence on the other-this is a constant study in an institution such as Synodical. That the girls and young women of the state may grow into the noblest womanhood possible to them, appreciating the glorious possibilities of life and never missing the beauty of religious values, is the desire and purpose of the synod of Missouri. They are fortunate indeed to have found for the administrative office of the school such a man as Lawrence I. MacQueen.

CHARLES S. HUSTON. Among the most prosperous financial institu- tions in the state of Missouri is the Baring Exchange Bank, and this prosperity is due in a large measure to the untiring effort and ability of the cashier, Charles S. Huston. Entering upon his service in the bank shortly after it was established he has grown up with it and has given the people as well as the bank the best of service. A keen financier and an honest man, no one could be better fitted to hold this position than Charles S. Huston.

Charles S. Huston was born on a farm in Scotland county, Missouri, on the second of July, 1867. He was the son of John A. and Martha Allen Huston. John A. Huston was born in Kentucky in 1811 and came to Missouri in 1841, settling in Adair county. During the 'fifties he moved to Scotland county, where he became the owner of a small farm located near Bibb Grove. Here he and his wife reared a family of twelve chil- dren, five of whom are living, the father having died in 1888. Of these children, William D. lives in Scotland county, Mrs. S. B. Gillette is a resident of Chandler, Oklahoma, Mrs. Caroline Frogge resides in Mem- phis, Missouri, Thomas M. in Loveland, Colorado, and Charles S. in Baring. The mother of this large family was born in Kentucky in 1820 and died on the 17th of July, 1912, aged ninety-two years.

Charles S. Huston being a country boy, received his elementary educa- tion in the country schools, but he later had the advantage of study in the Kirksville Normal College. After leaving college he became a teacher and followed this profession in the counties of Knox and Scotland. While following this profession he made many warm friends who were later invaluable to him when he launched forth on a business career. It was in 1900 that he came to Baring and went into the banking busi- ness, in which he has been engaged ever since.

The Baring Exchange Bank was founded in 1896. The capital stock is $10,000 with a surplus of $2,000. The deposits amount to $150,000 and the total revenues are $165,000. The officers of the bank are: J. H. Myers, president ; C. H. Hayes, vice president; C. S. Huston, cashier and

This House was Erected in 1821 by Maj. Samuel Smiley, and was a Station on the Stage Line Between Troy and Bowling Green in the Palmy Days of Thomas H. Benton.

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Miss Catherine McKendry, assistant cashier. The bank draws its patron- age from a rich farming district and is doing an excellent business. It is housed in the finest bank building in the state leaving out of considera- tion those of the larger cities. This building, which is the property of the bank, is a two story brick building with marble trimmings and adds greatly to the beauty and prosperous appearance of the town. In size it is one hundred by one hundred and twenty-five feet in extent, and its cost amounted to fifty thousand dollars. Mr. J. H. Myers, the president, is a well-known capitalist of Kirksville, Missouri, and his belief in the land values of the surrounding country, a belief that very naturally affects the policy of the bank is shown by his ownership of two thousand acres of land. A further mention of the vice-president, C. H. Hayes, is given elsewhere in this volume.

In addition to his duties at the bank, Mr. Huston for the past two years has served as postmaster of Baring, having received his appoint- ment in 1910. Politically he is a staunch member of the Republican party and has served his party faithfully and well whenever he has been called upon.

On the 1st of January, 1902, Mr. Huston was married to Laura Symmonds of Scotland county, and they have one child, Leona, who is now fifteen years of age.

These few words can give no true idea of the hours of patient work which Mr. Huston has given to the upbuilding of the bank, and thus adding to the feeling of stability in the surrounding country. His reward must lie in the faith which his fellow citizens place in the depen- dability of this financial child of his and in the trust which they place in him as an upright and conscientious business man.

SAMUEL W. SMILEY. Not only is the life of Samuel W. Smiley one well worthy the attention of the biographer, but the lives of his father and grandfather have a close and vital connection with the early events in this state. He is a grandson of that Major Smiley, whose namesake he is, who added an item of interest to the history of Lincoln county as one of her first settlers and as a conspicuous factor in the citizenship of the Auburn community during the formative period of that section of the county. He came to Missouri in the year 1814, first spending three years near O'Fallon, in St. Charles county, and later moving to the Cottle grant, also in that county, now Lincoln county, which he made one of the historic places in the county. When in 1817 he built in that locality the cabin which-until he erected a double-log, two-story mansion-served both as family domicile and as wayside inn, his was the last house but one on the Troy and Bowling Green road. The commodious old log mansion which he constructed in 1821, stood by the road on the stage line leading to all the interior of this upper country between St. Louis and North Missouri. Major Smiley's place also marked one of the sta- tions along this historic Salt River road where horses were changed ; where travelers rested and sometimes were fed; and where politicians of state-wide fame held counsel and sowed seeds of harmony or discord among the cliques that supported their respective booms. Senator Ben- ton trod the soil of this estate in early times, and among the later historic characters whose memories cling about the spot, were John B. Henderson and Major Rollins.

This ranch of Major Smiley's was one of the old Spanish grants of several thousand acres to Tesin, who transferred it to Cottle. Mr. Smiley, who was a slave-holding frontiersman, managed it with three purposes in view-the employment of free labor, the growing of stock and the

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HISTORY OF NORTHEAST MISSOURI

obtaining of an income for his family. He was of old-school Virginia stock, his birthplace having been near the Kanawha salt works on the Ohio river, and the year of his nativity having been the early date of 1778. He was a man of qualifications superior to those of the ordinary citizen, trading in lands being but one feature of his business career. In Cabell county, now West Virginia, he had grown to manhood and had married there. He was a Whig and an admirer of General Harrison and Henry Clay. His chief public service was as a justice of the peace. Major Smiley was twice married, the children of his first wife having been named, married and located as follows: Cynthia became Mrs. Richard Womack, the wife of a man who was a leader in Lincoln county before the Rebellion and who was a prominent public figure; Virginia became Mrs. Daniel Emerson; George died without marriage; John mar- ried a Miss Bartlett and spent his life in the environs of Millwood; and Reuben removed to California, where he died leaving a family. The second wife of Major Samuel Smiley was Emily R. Nichols, of Harrodsburg, Kentucky, whose birth had taken place in 1809. The children of this marriage were three in number. The first, David Bar- ton Smiley (who became the father of the subject of this sketch) was named for one of the Major's political friends. William, his brother, married Eliza J. Ellis and died in Louisiana, Missouri, leaving a family. Dr. George P. Smiley, the third and youngest, who first married Ellen Flinn and after her death was united to Bee Casey, became a resident of De Soto, Missouri.

David Barton Smiley was born March 13, 1831, in the Major's fron- tier mansion on the "rock road," and his education was limited to the advantages of the country school of the place and period. Although his was the primitive era in things educational, he nevertheless made very practical use of his attainments along that line and during his active career carried on mercantile pursuits and other affairs requiring clear and strong intelligence. He sold goods in Troy before the outbreak of the Civil war. In 1861 he was elected assessor as a Republican, his ser- vice in that office continuing until 1865. Since the war, he has been active as a farmer and stock man. On May 14, 1851, he was married to Miss Mildred Welch, daughter of William Welch and his wife, nee Lucinda Martin. The brothers and sisters of Mildred Welch Smiley were as follows: Jane, who married William Crouch and died at Troy ; Mary, who died as Mrs. Isaac Springton ; Lemuel, who married Ann Pep- per and who died at Troy ; Dr. James W., who died in Elsberry, Missouri ; Landonia, who became Mrs. Peter Springston and died in Calhoun county, Illinois ; Susan, who died in Troy as Mrs. Tinsley Anderson; Richard H. and Joseph E., both of whom died in Troy. Mildred, the wife of David B. Smiley, was born while her father's family were still living in Virginia.

The children of David Barton Smiley and his wife were four sons and one daughter, Samuel W. Smiley being the first of the line as well as the eldest son. His sister, Emma Josephine, is next in the series. James Welch and George B. Smiley are both residents of St. Louis, where the former is a street-car man and the latter a civil engineer in the employ of the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railway Company. . Ben- jamin F. Smiley is city engineer of Hannibal, Missouri.

Samuel W. Smiley, the special subject of this review, was born Jan- uary 20, 1853, and in 1882 he became the owner of the historic house in which both his father and he had been born. The final stage of such education as he received was that of the Auburn academy. In 1886 he entered the railway mail service by appointment under the first Cleve- land administration and continued in the service for ten years, the first seven and one-half years of this time being spent on the Wabash road

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on a route extending from St. Louis, Missouri, to Omaha, for over four years he was clerk in charge of a mail car on this run; and the remainder of the time on the "Short Line" between Hannibal and Gilmore. He was one of the victims of the disastrous wreck between Whiteside and Silex, May 14, 1895, when Meyer, Woods, and Oglesby lost their lives and when he himself suffered injuries crushing his ankle and making him a hospital patient for two years.

In 1896 Mr. Smiley left the service of the government and returned to the farm, which is now his home. Although his father is a firm believer in the doctrines of the Republican party, Mr. Samuel Smiley has formed his own political theories independently and is an adherent of the Democratic party and its principles. He is popular in fraternal circles, being a Master Mason of Wentzville lodge, No. 46.

The marriage of Samuel W. Smiley was solemnized in 1896, when Miss Rachel A. Alexander became his wife. She was a daughter of James and Agnes (Shannon) Alexander, who came to Missouri from Kentucky. During the years of her marriage to Mr. Smiley, three chil- dren were born, a girl and boy dying in infancy. A daughter who was named Lena B., and who is now Mrs. James T. Gibson. Mrs. Smiley died on the seventeenth day of December, 1911.

JAMES WILLIAM ELLIS, the genial and capable president of the Knox County Savings bank of Edina, and a man whose career has been one of political popularity as well as of commercial success, is a native of this vicinity and a son of Walter Ellis, one of the makers of civic life in this section. So important was the life of Walter Ellis in those early days that some of the details of his life should be definitely noted.

Walter Ellis (1820-1860) was a son of William Ellis of Kentucky, and a native of the Bluegrass State. There he was reared and there he married Elizabeth Dawson, a daughter of James Dawson, of the environs of Lexington, Kentucky. In 1843 Walter Ellis came from Kentucky to Missouri, where he purchased nearly seven hundred acres of land east of Edina. He was appointed the first surveyor of Knox county and a large part of the farm lands of the county were surveyed by him. Of the nine children born to him and his wife, Elizabeth Dawson Ellis, three still survive, namely: Martha C., now Mrs. Bowen of Kansas; Lucy, of Edina, Missouri; and James W., the special subject of this review. Three died in infancy, and Spencer G., Mollie and Emma, grew up and passed away. A half-sister of James William Ellis is Josephine B. Morton of Quincy, Illinois.

The birth of James W. Ellis occurred on August 13, 1859, on the parental farm one and one-half miles east of Edina. As he was eight years of age when the family moved, in 1867, to Edina, he was sent to the public schools of that place, continuing his studies in that educa- tional system until ready to take up vocational life, in connection with which he improved his ability by a business course.

The first independent activities of Mr. Ellis were in the modest but worthy capacity of a delivery boy for the general and dry-goods store of Mr. J. B. Swartz of Edina. After four years' service to this firm, young Ellis went to Quincy, Illinois, where he pursued a course in the well-known and efficient business college of that place. Returning to Edina he was for a short time engaged in a clerical capacity in the drug store owned by W. J. Slaughter, after which he entered the dry- goods establishment of T. J. Randolph, where he remained for eight years. At the end of that time he took up work in connection with the Edina Roller Mills.

In 1884 Mr. Ellis' interests were temporarily shifted to civil service,

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due to political appointment. During the first presidential administra- tion of Grover Cleveland, James W. Ellis was made deputy postmaster. At the close of that term of public service, he accepted a position as bookkeeper in the Bank of Edina, where he served that commercial organization from 1888 until 1892.

A second time political preferment came to Mr. Ellis, this time by the vote of the people of the county. In 1894 he was elected circuit clerk and recorder. In 1898 he was re-elected. He subsequently served for eight years as deputy circuit clerk and recorder. He still con- tinued his interest in the Bank of Edina, of which he had become the vice-president. On March 1, 1910, he was elected to the administrative office of the Knox County Savings Bank, and as its president he still serves with distinctive efficiency, his farm lands having been disposed of some time ago. He owns residence property in the city of Edina, which has always been his home except for two years spent in La Grange, because of the educational opportunities of that place, where the older children of the family were students in the La Grange College.

Edina fraternal organizations claim the membership of Mr. Ellis in the Ancient Free and Accepted Masons and in the Independent Order of Odd Fellows. His political affiliations are Democratic and the members of his family are connected with the Christian church.

HENRY T. GANT. Identified with enterprises of an extensive nature in the livestock industry, as well as various other interests in Audrain county, Henry T. Gant, of Thompson, Missouri, occupies a prominent place in the business life of northeastern Missouri, where he is known chiefly for his activities as a partner in the Omaha Live Stock Com- mission Company, of South Omaha, Nebraska. He is well known not only in the vicinity of his home, but as far as Omaha, where he spends five months of each year in disposing of the sheep and feeding cattle of his firm at the Union Stock Yards, and has the reputation of being an able business man and an excellent judge of stock. Mr. Gant was born on a farm ten miles southwest of Thompson and two miles from the village of Gant, July 26, 1867, a son of E. G. and Lydia (Shock) Gant.

The paternal grandfather of Henry T. Gant, Thomas R. Gant, was born in North Carolina, and came to Missouri about 1835, being here married to Kittie Hurdle, whose father lived near Thompson. Mr. Gant settled three-quarters of a mile southwest of Gant village and engaged in farming, and some years later he and his son, E. G. Gant, built a store and rented it, naming the village Gant. This is inland some six miles southwest of Thompson, and in early days was of some importance as a commercial center. Thomas Gant continued to reside on his homestead for many years and passed away when he was eighty- seven, his wife having died some years before. Their sons were: E. G .; W. P., now a stockman of Monroe county; Thomas J., who died at the age of thirty years; Isom Hurdle, a stockman of Colorado; and James H., who died young.

E. G. Gant was married to Lydia Shock, daughter of Henry Shock, who came to Missouri about 1832 and settled five miles southeast of Gant, and they had a family of seven children, the four daughters all being deceased, while the sons are: Henry T .; E. G., Jr., residing at Wellsville, Missouri; and W. E., of East St. Louis, Illinois. E. G. Gant has continued to engage in farming and stock-raising, and still resides at his home two miles southwest of Mexico, having lived within twelve miles of Mexico during all of his seventy-one years. He is well known and highly esteemed throughout this part of the county, and has numer- ous warm friends.

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Henry T. Gant remained at home until he was nineteen years of age, at which time he engaged in farming and stock-raising on his own account. During the past nineteen years he has lived at Thompson, a station on the Chicago & Alton Railroad, five miles west of Mexico, where are located one store and two store buildings, both owned by the firm of Considine & Gant. Here he has engaged in operating a farm, feeding stock and buying and shipping grain and stock, and as the representative of the Omaha Live Stock Commission Company, visits the Omaha Union Stock Yards every year, spending five months in buying and selling all the sheep handled by the firm, as well as buying feeding cattle. During his absence, his son, Wheeler Gant, attends to all the local business, and is proving a valuable associate and successful business man. The firm handles the greatest number of hogs of any concern in the yards and its operations extend all over the west.

In 1889, Mr. Gant was married to Minnie A. Conklin, daughter of John M. Conklin, for twenty-five years an employe of the Chicago & Alton Railroad, and nine children have been born to this union: Edna, Wheeler, Ross, Mary, Hazel, James, Glen, Letha and Landon. In political matters Mr. Gant is a stanch Democrat, and has served as a member of the Democratic Central Committee. As a business man he has a well-established reputation for the highest integrity, and among ' his associates and acquaintances he has many warm friends, drawn about him by his numerous manly traits of character.

CHARLES WESLEY MULLENIX is one of the foremost men in the busi- ness life of Unionville, where he has resided for six years. As county treasurer and cashier of the Citizens' Bank of Unionville, his acquaint- ance is of a necessity wide, and his knowledge of business conditions correspondingly complete. He was born on May 23, 1884, near Grays- ville, Putnam county, on the farm of his father, James I. Mullenix, who was likewise born in Putnam county, his birth occurring in 1856. He was the son of the first James Mullenix, a native Kentuckian, of Vir- ginia parentage. James Mullenix, the grandfather of the subject, first settled in Indiana and later migrated to Putnam county in 1837, locat- ing there at a time when there were but eleven families in what is now Putnam county. He took up government land and continued to add to it by purchase until he was the owner of a considerable farm land in the county. He died near Graysville, a town which was built on land he formerly owned. His wife was a daughter of Jesse Gilstrap of Kentucky. He died at the patriarchal age of almost ninety years, and was the father of five sons and two daughters, of which number William, Miles H. and James I. are yet living.

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A history of northeast Missouri, Vol. 2 pt 2, Part 1

Author: Williams, Walter, 1864- , ed Publication date: 1913 Publisher: Chicago, New York, The Lewis publishing company Number of Pages: 912

Author: Williams, Walter, 1864- , ed
Publication date: 1913
Publisher: Chicago, New York, The Lewis publishing company
Number of Pages: 912