USA > Missouri > Jasper County > A history of Jasper County, Missouri, and its people, Vol. II > Part 72
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son of John S. Wilfley, he was born August 28, 1872, in Fulton, Calla- way county, Missouri, eoming on the paternal side of pure Holland Dutch ancestry, his grandfather, Joseph Wilfley, having immigrated from Holland to America when a young man.
A native of Callaway county, Missouri, John S. Wilfley was born in Fulton, in 1840. Reared to agricultural pursuits, he was engaged in general farming and fruit growing during his active career, continuing a resident of his native county until his death, in 1909. He married, in 1870, Lucy Combs, who was born in Kentucky, a daughter of Frank Combs and the direct descendant of a family that immigrated from France in colonial days and settled in Pennsylvania.
Completing his studies in the public schools, O. T. A. Wilfley at- tended Westminster College, in Fulton, Missouri, for three years. His natural inelinations and ambitions leading him to choose a professional career, he subsequently entered the Barnes Medical College, in Saint Louis, Missouri, and was there graduated with the degree of M. D. in 1895. Beginning the practise of his profession in Millersburg, Mis- souri, Dr. Wilfley remained there eight years, and was afterwards lo- cated at Auxvasse for four years, in both places meeting with good sue- cess. Coming to Webb City in 1906, the Doctor has here gained a large and lucrative general practice, his natural talents and skill classing him among the most successful physicians of this part of Jasper county.
Dr. Wilfley married, in October, 1896, in Callaway county, Missouri, Effie Sheley, a daughter of John W. and Aldine Sheley, of that county, her father being a prominent farmer and stock raiser. The Doctor and Mrs. Wilfley have one child, John Samuel, born in Callaway county, Missouri, April 2, 1902, and now a pupil in the Webb City public schools.
Politically Dr. Wilfley is a stanch Democrat, and fraternally he is a member of Webb City Lodge, A. F. & A. M., and of the Chapter, R. A. M., of Webb City. He is surgeon of the Southwestern Missouri Railroad. An ardent sportsman, the Doctor is especially fond of hunt- ing, and enters into the pleasures of life with the same vim and energy that he gives to his profession. At his attractive home, he and his wife entertain their many friends with a gracious hospitality. Mrs. Wilfley is a woman of culture and a member of the Baptist Church.
CLAUDE L. WATSON .- As head of the C. L. Watson Real Estate and Investment Company, Claude L. Watson is identified with one of the prominent business organizations of Webb City, and is widely known as one of the most active and intelligent promoters of this part of Jasper county, his dealings in city property and farm lands being extensive and of much importance. He is a native of Jasper county, having been born October 23, 1880, in Joplin, coming from English ancestry, his paternal grandparents having immigrated from England to the United States, locating in Virginia.
His father, Marcelhuis Hayden Watson, was born in Virginia, June 24, 1853, and was there bred and educated. Soon after the close of the Civil war he with his brothers came to Missouri, bringing with them the first steam threshing machine ever introduced into the southern part of the state, and with it pumped water from Shoal Creek ere there was such a place as Joplin named on the map. During the harvesting sea- son he subsequently assisted the farmers in threshing their grain, be- coming well known throughout this region, and accumulating both ex- perience and money in his labors. When the mining industry began to assume importance he and his brothers were in great demand as expert engineers, and served in that capacity in many of the larger mines of
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the county. Desirous finally of making a change in his occupation, Marcellus H. Watson was for a year engaged in the commission business in Kansas City, but not liking the work returned to this section of the state and engaged in mining. Having through industry and good man- agement acquired a competency, he is now living retired from active pur- suits in Webb City, an esteemed and respected citizen.
Marcellus H. Watson married, in Joplin, Missouri, April 6, 1879, Katherine Graham, who was born in Illinois, April 6, 1855, and came with her parents to Missouri in 1868. Six children blessed their union, namely : Claude L., the special subject of this sketch; Frank, born June 24, 1887, is a mine operator in Joplin; Ethel, born August 30, 1889, was graduated from the Webb City High School, and is now engaged in the real estate business with her brother Claude; Ray E., born October 6, 1891, is engaged in mercantile pursuits in Webb City; Dorsey, born September 15, 1894, is a pupil in the high school; and Valeria, born Oc- tober 16, 1898, is attending the grade school.
Brought up in Webb City, Claude L. Watson obtained his early knowledge of books in the first school building erected in this locality, entering it as a pupil when it was a one-story structure, containing four rooms. The number of scholars increasing, the committee decided to add three more rooms, all on the ground floor, and ere Claude was graduated the necessity for more commodious accommodations and bet- ter equipments had become so great that the old building was torn down and a fine large one was erected in its place. Being graduated in 1897, Mr. Watson taught school in the rural districts adjoining Webh City, for a time teaching in the old historical schoolhouse erected by Profes- sor Stevison, now of Kansas City. Finding but little real enjoyment in his professional labors, he embarked in the real estate business, but ere long became actively interested in political affairs, and having been nominated city clerk was elected by a handsome majority and served with evident satisfaction to all concerned for one term, from 1904 until 1906. Owing to ill health, Mr. Watson was forced to seek out-door em- ployment, and for a number of years was successfully engaged in mill work. On July 1. 1909, he organized and incorporated the Claude L. Watson Real Estate and Investment Company, which he has since man- aged most successfully.
On January 1, 1901, in Webb City, Mr. Watson was united in mar- riage with Lutie Creswell, a daughter of Judge E. and Mrs. Elizabeth Creswell, people of prominence, and they have one child, R. E., born October 26, 1909, in Webb City.
Politically Mr. Watson is identified with the Democratic party, be- ing an earnest advocate of its principles. Fraternally he is a member of the Knights of Pythias and of the Woodmen of the World. Scholarly in his attainments and broad and liberal in his views, he uses his influ- ence towards advancing the educational interests of his community, and is himself a close student of many subjects. He is now president of the Webb City Theosophical Society, and is fond of good literature, in his beautiful home having a well-selected library of upwards of a thousand volumes.
ELMER WEBSTER .- The insurance business is one that demands of a man certain traits and characteristics not entirely essential to other lines of work, and in order to succeed in this line, to be known as a first- class insurance salesman, a man must possess inherent qualities which some claim must be born in him. A genial, wholesome personality, un- tiring perseverance, absolute convincingness of speech, thorough reli- ability, all these must have a place in the make-up of the insurance man,
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and the degree to which he will succeed will be proportionate with the degree to which he has developed them. One of the most successful men in the insurance field of Jasper county, Missouri, Elmer Webster, of Joplin, is the representative here of some of the leading companies of the country. IIe has been the architect of his own fortunes, and for thirty years has been one of Joplin's most enthusiastic "boosters," working in behalf of the city's interests since it was founded.
Mr. Webster, whose baptismal name or patronymic was Long, was born in Bremer county, Iowa, near the town of Waverly, January 29. 1859, and is a son of Nelson and Mary (Lease) Long, natives of Mary- land. His mother died two hours after his birth, but his father still survives, at the advanced age of eighty-three years. An older sister. Mrs. Mary C. Webster, took charge of the helpless infant at the time of his and her mother's death, and afterward legally adopted him as her own child and reared him with all a mother's care and solicitous atten- tion. In adopting him she had his name changed to Webster. Ilis scholastie training was started in the public schools of his native county. and he completed it in Jasper county, Missouri, whence his parents moved when he was a lad of nine years. He lived near Carthage, Medoc and Georgia City, until Joplin was established in 1871, giving promise of becoming a great commercial center, and hither the ambitious young- ster turned his foot-steps. In 1873 he secured his first employment as office and general utility boy in the banking establishment of Messrs. Moffet and Sergeant, the original Bank of Joplin, but after several years became a clerk and salesman in the grocery store and J. E. Guthrey & Company, also in Joplin, with whom he passed a number of years. Dur- ing this time he bought the insurance agency of Newell, Waite & Will- iams, which was the nucleus for his present large business. After quit- ting the employ of Mr. Guthrey, Mr. Webster became a bookkeeper for the Lone Elm Mining and Smelting Company for a number of years. At the end of this period he felt irresistibly impelled to work out a business career for himself, and started a hardware and furniture store at the corner of Second and Main streets, which he moved a short time later to the corner of Sixth and Main streets, where he had more com- modious quarters and better facilities for his business. He carried on this store profitably and with continued popularity as a merchant until 1908, when he sold it in order that he might devote his entire time and attention to insurance, in which he had been engaged while keeping his store. The insurance business has become somewhat of a labor of love with Mr. Webster, and he now represents as resident agent the fol- lowing companies, who have stood the test and paid their losses in full throughout the thirty years that Mr. Webster has been associated with them : Home Insurance Company, of New York; Aetna and Hartford In- surance Companies, of Hartford, Connecticut; Liverpool, London and Globe, of London, England ; the Western Assurance Company, Toronto; and the Equitable Life Assurance Society of the United States, 120 Broadway, New York. He gives his personal attention to every branch of insurance, and is one of the best-informed men as to insurance condi- tions in this part of the country. His offices are situated at No. 216 West Fourth street, and his home at No. 723 White street.
Mr. Webster was first married January 15, 1881, to Mary Jane Nes- bet, daughter of Captain James and Mary Nesbet, a record of whose lives will be found in the sketch of Mrs. Mary M. Botkin, elsewhere in this work. Mrs. Webster passed away July 17, 1882, and her husband was married (second) August 15, 1886, to Frances E. MeFall, daughter of Francis and Sarah C. MeFall, of Chicago. Mr. and Mrs. Webster are members of the Episcopal Church, of which he is vestryman. He is a
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member of Joplin Lodge, No. 345, F. & A. M., Joplin Lodge, No. 287, I. O. O. F., and Joplin Lodge, No. 501, B. P. O. E.
WALTER COLLEY .- In the record of his ancestry in both the New and the Old World Walter Colley, one of the most successful school teachers and satisfactory public officials in the history of Jasper county, has much stimulus and inspiration for the exertion of his highest powers and most productive faculties. His father, J. S. Cooley, was born in Virginia, and belonged to families long prominent in the affairs of that state. He came to Missouri with his parents in his boyhood and found a new home in the Western wilds on a farm which they occupied in Ray county, where they were among the very early settlers. The fa- ther, although a Virginian, was loyal to the Union during the Civil war, and did what he could to aid in preventing its dismemberment. He served as a volunteer in the Home Guards and took an active part in helping to suppress the guerrilla warfare which raged through the state in the earlier period of the memorable contest between the sections of the country. He is now living at Iola, Kansas, in the full enjoyment of the high esteem and good will of the people around him, and is retired from active pursuits of every laborious kind.
His wife, the mother of Walter, whose maiden name was Mary An- derson, was also a native of Virginia, and an early arrival in Missouri, being brought by her parents to Lawrence county when she was but a young girl. She grew to maturity in that county, and there met with and married Mr. Colley. She was born in 1837 and died at Iola, Kan- sas, in February, 1909, having in the course of her useful life rendered good service to the general welfare in three of the great commonwealths of this country.
The progenitors of the family on both sides of the house were long resident in England, and prominent in the government and social life of that country for many generations. Some of them were in the peer- age, and many won distinction in industrial, mercantile or political circles. In the New World the standard and traditions of the family have been well kept up, and its record in this country is a repetition in the main of what it made in the land of its origin. Mr. Colley's grand- father, William Colley, was born in America during the colonial period, and his father was a valiant soldier in the Revolutionary wars, fighting in the immediate command of General Washington and among the favorite troops from that great commander's own native state. The mother was connected by blood with the Price family of international renown, and numbered among her relatives William Price, secretary of treasury under president Buchanan, and also General Sterling Price, commander of the Confederate troops in Missouri at the beginning of the Civil war.
Walter Colley was born in Lawrence county, this state, on February 1, 1871. He began his education in the public schools of that county, but before completing it moved with his parents to Carthage, Jasper county, and attending the high school in that town, leaving school as a pupil in 1889, and soon afterward entering it again as a teacher. He taught in Lawrence and Jasper counties four years, being in charge of country district schools. In 1901 he served one year as principal of the Miller school in Lawrence county, and this service he followed with three years as principal of Prosperity school in Jasper county. While teaching he pursued a course of special normal training and home study, and in this way secured a very good education and a considerable fund of general information.
His rank in the profession was high and his reputation as a success-
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ful teacher was widespread and well established. Therefore, when a vacancy in the office of county superintendent of schools for Jasper county occurred in the fall of 1906, Governor Folk promptly appointed him to the position for the unexpired term. At the succeeding election in the spring of 1907 he was elected superintendent by a majority of 743 votes, and in the spring of 1909 was re-elected for another full term by a majority of 1,666 votes, receiving more than two-thirds of all the votes cast in the election. At the expiration of his last term in April, 1911, he was appointed principal of the Central school in Jop- lin, a position which he is still filling with great acceptability to the people.
Mr. Colley was married to Miss Marguerite Bird of Dade county, Missouri, on June 2, 1897. Ilis wife is a daughter of William and Sarah (Sooter) Bird, well known farmers of Dade county, where they still reside, and whither they came from their native state of Tennessee. Both belonged to widely known and highly respected families of that state. Five children have been born in the Colley household, all of whom are living and all attending school but the last two. The children are : Lois Bird, born on May 7, 1900; Harvey Dwight, born on August 14, 1901 ; Claudia Ruth, born on November 14, 1903; Marion Cecil, born on September 1, 1905, and Walter Lee, born on September 21, 1910. All are natives of Jasper county.
In the public affairs of his county and state Mr. Colley has always taken an earnest and active interest. He trains with the Democratic party in politics and is zealous and effective in its service. Fraternally he is allied with the Masonic order, holding membership in the Blue Lodge and Royal Arch Chapter in Carthage, and also belongs to the Anti Horse Thief Association. Being something of an enthusiast in outdoor sports, he is, in addition, a devoted and valued member of the Carthage Tennis association. All proper forms of life in the open air are pleasing to him, and when he has opportunity he indulges his taste for it in hunting and fishing expeditions, and finds great enjoyment in superintending the operations of a large farm which he owns in Law- rence county.
Everything of value in the domain of public education enlists his ear- nest and helpful interest. He has been a student of economie and edu- rational problems, and is an expert on many branches of those sub- jects. Everywhere in the range of his acquaintance he is highly es- teemed as an upright, conscientious man, a capable and progressive educator and an excellent citizen.
LUDWIG H. STEBBINS .- Many of the more thrifty and prosperous of Missouri's citizens were born in countries far across the sea, promi- nent among the number being Undwig H. Stebbins, a successful agricul- turist of Jasper county, whose birth occurred February 22, 1842, in Denmark.
Ilis father. Ludwig Stebbins, was born, bred and educated in Den- mark, and there married Emma Buchr. Having taken an active part in the German-Austrian Rebellion of 1848-49, he was forced to leave the country, and fled to England. He subsequently served in the Foreign Legions, French Army, during the Crimean War, after which in 1856 he emigrated to America. Being joined by his wife and children late in the same year he located in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where he followed the carpenter's trade for a number of years.
At the ont-break of the Civil war, inheriting the spirit of patriotism that characterized both his father and his grandfather, Henry Stebbins, who served as a soldier under Napoleon Bonaparte, Ludwig H. Steb-
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bins enlisted in Company I, 37th Illinois Volunteer Infantry, in which he served three years and two months. He then re-enlisted and served in a regiment of light artillery until the war ended. The regiment in which he first served was assigned to the "Army of the Frontier, " and saw much hard fighting in the southwest. Mr. Stebbins fought under General Grant at the Siege of Vicksburg; took part in the second en- gagement at Jackson, Mississippi, then was sent to Port Hudson and thence to New Orleans, where after the regiment was reviewed and re- fitted it was sent to Morganzi Bend, Lousiana. In a skirmish at Sterling Plantation, Louisiana, September 29, 1863, Mr. Stebbins was captured by the enemy and held a prisoner for 298 days, most of the time at Camp Ford, Texas. . In the meantime he escaped and was recaptured five times in his various attempts to gain his freedom, travelling, he esti- mates, about two thousand miles, shoeless and almost naked. Re-en- listing in December, 1864, he fought at Fort Blakely and Spanish Fort, during the Siege of Mobile.
Receiving his honorable discharge from the Army at the close of the conflict, Mr. Stebbins was employed in steamboating on the Mis- souri for nearly two years carrying material to be used in the construc- tion of the Union Pacific Railroad. In the spring of 1867 he went by the way of the Missouri river to Montana, and for three years was en- gaged in prospecting in Montana, Wyoming and Idaho, clearing about $4,000 in his operations. In 1871 he resumed steamboating, and in 1872 rafted logs and lumber from Wisconsin to St. Louis. Marrying in 1873, Mr. Stebbins settled on a Wisconsin farm remaining there till 1880, when on account of the ill health of his daughter, Ella, he went to Colorado, where he resided three years. Returning to Wisconsin he followed farming till February, 1895, when he sold his farm there and emigrated to Jasper county, Missouri. Since then he has resided in Sarcoxie township, and in the intervening years has been most success- fully engaged in agricultural pursuits. As his means increased, he has bought additional tracts of land, obtaining title to two hundred and ten acres, of which he still owns ninety acres, of rich bottom land, the re- mainder of his estate having been divided among his children, to whom he gave forty acres apiece.
Mr. Stebbins, in the spring of 1873, married Margaret Carroll, who was born in Ireland, and at the age of two years was brought by her parents to Wisconsin, where she grew to womanhood and was married. Four children blessed the union of Mr. and Mrs. Stebbins, namely : Ella, born January 4, 1876, and died April 26, 1910; Fred W., born December 18, 1878, and who served three years and eight months in the Regular Service as a private in the Spanish-American war and the Philippine Insurrection in Cuba and the Philippine Islands and is now living in Sarcoxie, Missouri; Chauncey L., born in Colorado, Jan- uary 24, 1881 and resides in the West; and Chester F., born in Kansas City, Missouri, April 16, 1883, is a successful farmer and dairyman near Denver, Colorado.
A stanch Republican in politics, Mr. Stebbins has taken no very active part in public affairs, although he has rendered good service as public road supervisor.
CHARLES W. NUNN .- A good citizen of Joplin who has made his in- fluence felt in connection with public affairs and who has been called to various important offices of responsibility and trust in his particular field of activity, the railroad business, is Charles W. Nunn, general agent of the Kansas City Southern Railway, with offices at this place. Mr. Nunn is typical of the most successful type of railroad man,-progres-
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sive, energetic, optimistic and magnetic, and his fine executive capabil- ities for the high office which he holds have been amply demonstrated.
By the circumstance of birth Mr. Nunn is a native of Illinois, his birth having occurred in Morgan county. August 5, 1869. He received his early education in the public schools of the district of his nativity and as a lad he knew the many interesting and strenuous experiences which are the lot of the farmer's son. On his thirteenth birthday his father removed to Crawford county, Kansas, and there he continued his studies until his eighteenth year, completing a high school course. His first adventures as a wage earner were in the capacity of a generally use- ful person in the office of a country newspaper and he remained in this association for two years. He then left to take a better position with the Kansas City. Fort Scott & Memphis Railroad, as assistant station agent, his duties including telegraphy and clerical work. That was in 1888 and he was stationed at Lamar, Barton county. Missouri. There he remained for five months on the magnificent salary of thirty dollars a month and having proved faithful and efficient on this recompense, he was promoted to the office of night operator, a circumstance which at the time filled him with pride and satisfaction. After retaining the above position for some time Mr. Nunn was transferred to Weir City, Kansas, and being in line for the office of bill clerk and operator, he was eventually advanced to these, always advancing a step up the lad- der. In December, 1891, at Seammon, Kansas, he was made station agent and in June, 1897, he came to Joplin as local agent for the same company, remaining here in that capacity until the road was absorbed by the "Frisco." He had been with the Kansas City, Fort Scott & Memphis Railroad for thirteen years continual service, never having missed a pay day, and with an unsmirched record, but nevertheless, on May 29. 1901, he was given two days' notice by the "Friseo" of the dis- missal. He lost no time in regrets, but surveyed the field and was al- most immediately employed as contraeting agent by the Kansas City Southern Railway, assuming the duties of his office July 1, 1901. In 1902 he was promoted to the office of general agent, whose duties he fulfilled in most satisfactory manner until 1906, when he was appointed industrial agent with headquarters at Kansas City. When that office was abolished January 17, 1908. Mr. Nunn again came to Joplin as general agent and of this office he is the present ineumbent.
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