USA > Missouri > A history of northeast Missouri, Vol. 2 pt 2 > Part 107
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John Talbot received his education at Central College and Dart- mouth, and at the age of twenty-two years was married to Bettie Burk- hardt, daughter of C. E. Burkhardt. To this union there have been born five children, as follows : C. B., who is special agent for the New York
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Life Insurance Company, at Fayette, Missouri; Thomas, a resident of Broken Arrow, Oklahoma ; John, Jr., who is employed by the New York Life Insurance Company, at St. Louis; William Stuart, engaged in business at Columbia, Missouri; Wallace, representative of the New York Life Insurance Company, at Memphis, Tennessee; and Agnes, liv- ing at home with her parents. John Talbot is a well known figure in the insurance world of this part of the country, and is now general agent for the New York Life Insurance Company, at St. Louis. He has materially increased the business of his company in Missouri, and is widely respected by his business associates.
C. B. Talbot was born October 23, 1880, and received his education in Central College. Like his father, he is a representative of the life insurance company and, also like him, has numerous sincere friends. He was married in November, 1906, to Miss Essie Coleman, who was born, reared and educated in Fayette, daughter of J. P. Coleman, who was principal of the Fayette high school for a number of years. Two children have been born to this union: Elizabeth and Alice Daly. Mr. Talbot is a Democrat in his political views, but has not found time to enter public life. Fraternally, he is connected with the Knights of Pythias and the Masons, but gives the greater part of his 'attention to his business and his home.
PAUL P. PROSSER. Northeastern Missouri has many able members of the bar whose rise in their profession has been rapid, but probably none have exceeded the record set by Paul P. Prosser, of Fayette, county attorney of Howard county, and a man whose skill in the field of law and jurisprudence has been demonstrated in a number of hard-fought cases of important litigation. A man of fine address and dignified appear- ance, possessed of much more than ordinary oratorical powers, he has proven himself a worthy opponent for the leading members of the bar of his state, among whom he himself is numbered. Mr. Prosser was born at Fayette, Howard county, Missouri, November 7, 1880, and is a son of L. S. Prosser, for many years a well known merchant of Fayette. L. S. Prosser was born in Boone county, Missouri, and married Cathe- rine Davis, daughter of the Rev. T. Davis, an old pioneer Methodist preacher, whose family originally came from Virginia. Mr. and Mrs. Prosser had a family of five children, as follows: Paul P .; Joseph S., who resides at Watson, Illinois; Mrs. J. A. Benson; and Misses Catherine and Louise.
Paul P. Prosser was reared in his native city of Fayette, where he received his preliminary educational training in the public schools. After his graduation from high school, he entered Central College, Fayette, where he graduated with the class of 1902 with honors. In the following year he was an honor graduate of Washington University, where he received his degree, having spent the three years previous to this time in studying his chosen profession. He at once entered upon the prac- tice of law at Fayette, where he received admission to practice before the bar of the state, and the ability with which he conducted his early cases soon attracted attention to the young attorney and gained for him the confidence of the people of his native city. In 1908 he became the candidate for the office of county attorney of Howard county, to which he was elected, and in 1910 was again sent to that office by his constitu- ents, who appreciated the signal services he had rendered during his first term. A close and careful student, Mr. Prosser is not only well read in his profession, but has a wide and comprehensive knowledge of various subjects, and few men in the state are better posted on the important issues of the day. Except for years, he is much like the
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Hon. William J. Bryan in appearance, and like that great politician, is possessed of rhetorical ability that makes his services valuable to his party during state and national campaigns. In the summer of 1912 he was his party's choice for representative from the seventh congres- sional district, but owing to political conditions at the time failed to be elected. His career so far indicates him as one of his section's rising young legal lights and causes his fellow townsmen to prophesy great things for him in the future, while his many friends are outspoken in their confidence in his general worth. He has interested himself to some extent in fraternal work, being a member of the local lodges of the Odd Fellows and the Knights of Pythias, and of his college fraternity, but the greater part of his attention is given to his official duties and to the demands of his large and constantly growing general practice.
DEWITT MASTERS is the editor and proprietor of the Perry Enter- prise, a publication which he is popularizing as a weekly household newspaper, as a disseminator of local news, as a medium for the expres- sion of public sentiment, and as a barometer of economic conditions as reflected from the journalistic exponents of political parties. Mr. Mas- ters' service in his chosen field began in early youth and he has clung tenaciously to the profession for twenty-three years. His early inocu- lation was thorough and the disease has had complete mastery of him, to such an extent that he may be said to be locked within its embrace. He honors his calling, renders efficient service to his patrons and grati- fies a personal ambition. Mr. Masters was born May 12, 1874, at Frank- ford, Missouri, and is a son of Samuel C. Masters, one of the public school teachers during the early seventies and through the eighties, and for a long period deputy county assessor of Pike county. He was born at Staunton, Virginia, in 1848, and when still a youth entered the Home Guard of that state as a last resort of the Confederacy in repelling the invasions of the Union forces during the Civil war. He served in the Shenandoah valley and had almost a veteran's experience in real war before the climax and close of the conflict. He acquired a good education and became a teacher before his departure from Virginia, in 1868, when he settled in Spencersburg, Pike county, Missouri, Judge John McCune being instrumental in getting him an opening there as a teacher. He taught some fifteen terms and the vacation periods of the last years in the schoolroom were passed as deputy assessor of the county. He so demonstrated his efficiency in the work as to win the nomination for the office in 1892, but died in September before the election. Samuel C. Masters was married at Frankford, Missouri, to Miss Hila Anna Kirtley, daughter of Elijah Kirtley, who came to Mis- souri from Kentucky. Mr. and Mrs. Masters had the following chil- dren : DeWitt; Jennie and Lola, of St. Louis, the former the wife of George Carr; Elijah, of Endicott, Washington; Thomas E., foreman of the Enterprise office at Perry; and Anna, who married a Mr. Tryner, of Bowling Green, Missouri, where the mother of the family makes her home.
The childhood life of DeWitt Masters is wound around Frankford, Spencersburg and Bowling Green, and at the age of fifteen years he left the farm at Spencersburg with an intermediate education to accept the position of "devil" with the Bowling Green Times, working on that paper under the inspiration of its popular and successful editor, W. F. Mayhall, for nine years, and leaving the office with a practical news- paper education and training. During this time he had been assisting in the support of the other children of the family, his father having died some three years after he left home. The opportunity for him to
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become a publisher himself came to Mr. Masters in 1899, when the Perry Enterprise was thrown upon the market, worn out, broken and bankrupt in business and reputation. The paper had had five different proprietors in the six weeks before he took possession of its affairs and it can be said to have been a "waif," for nobody seemed to want it. Mr. Masters had no funds with which to dress it up or to provide for the daily neces- sities, but he wanted it and hypothecated his credit to the extent of $1,500 for the privilege of the editorial chair. It is difficult to under- stand the secret of success in a venture so far removed from the inter- est or sympathies of the public as the Enterprise was when he took possession of it. Its paraphernalia had been scrapped and junked until there was scarce enough material to get out a paper, but he somehow convinced Perry that he had come to stay and to revive the journalistic corpse they had been threatening to bury. Those who look into the home of the Enterprise now and behold its rows of make-up slabs, its numer- ous cases, its power plant of two gasoline engines, its two job presses, its cylinder press, its paper folder and its linotype, all housed in a splendid concrete fireproof building, would never recognize it as the Enterprise that DeWitt Masters rescued from oblivion less than fifteen years ago. There was nothing Mr. Masters could offer the public in exchange for their confidence when he first came to Perry but his labor. His "hours" suited the convenience of his patrons and darkness and daylight looked the same to him under an emergency call. During the first twelve years of his connection with the paper he got out the issue every week without a failure and he was in the harness for thirteen years before he felt warranted to take a vacation. But with the rehabil- itation of the paper came a flood of renewed confidence in it and the flow of business has long since equaled the desire of its owner and has yielded a revenue sufficient to justify his assuming financial responsibil- ity in other lines.
The Perry Enterprise, through all its vicissitudes and misfortunes, has maintained its politics Democratic, and has occupied an enviable place as a family paper. It is a six-column quarto without the patent side feature and it represents in its make-up the art and the ingenuity of its office force. While it stands for Democratic candidates for office, it refrains from harassing editorials and nagging paragraphs which in- vite hostility and ignite the fire of opposition among its political oppo- nents. Its editor is a member of the Missouri Press Association and belongs to the board of directors of the Peoples Bank of Perry.
De Witt Masters was married at Hannibal, Missouri, November 30, 1899. His wife was a Bowling Green lady, Miss Alma E. Tombs, a daughter of W. D. and Amanda (Williamson) Tombs, whose family comprised only Mrs. Masters and Miss Zona Tombs. Mr. and Mrs. Masters' household contains a daughter, Frances Madaline, born Janu- ary 20, 1901. Mr. Masters has served as city collector of Perry for many years. He is a Presbyterian and a deacon of the church and superin- tendent of the Sabbath school.
WILLIAM SMITH. One of the oldest living residents of Moniteau township in Howard county, where he has spent fifty-five years of his life, William Smith is a successful farmer and a man held in high esteem throughout this section of Missouri.
Madison county, Kentucky, was a source of a large proportion of the early settlers of this section of Missouri. William Smith was born in that county February 11, 1833. His grandfather, James Smith, was a native of Ireland and of a Protestant family, and came to Pennsyl- vania, where he married a widow named Marjory Williams Blakey.
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After his marriage he crossed the mountains to Pittsburg, and thence by: flatboat pioneered down the Ohio valley and through the wilder- ness to Boonesboro, Kentucky, where he resided until the day of his death. In that early day which marked his settlement in Kentucky, there were no church buildings and his own residence was used as a place of worship for those of the Baptist denomination in that locality. He was the father of four sons and four daughters, as follows: John, William, James, David, Virginia, Mary, Patsy and Elizabeth. Virginia never married. Mary; married Henry Anderson of Virginia. Patsy married Thomas Taylor of Kentucky. Elizabeth married a Mr. McCalip, the nativity of the latter not being known.
James Smith, Jr., the father of William, whose history we now record, was married to Nancy Howard, a daughter of Benjamin Howard and Rebecca Turner in Madison county, Kentucky, where they resided until 1857. To them were born ten children, as follows: Presley, de- ceased ; Mary, deceased; William; Jason, deceased ; James T., deceased ; John, deceased; Solon, deceased; Benjamin H., deceased; Eugene, de- ceased : and Katherine Grubbs, who was twice married, first to T. P. Baskett and then to W. K. Denny.
James Smith, Jr., and wife came from Kentucky to Cooper county in 1857 where they remained until 1858, when they came to How- ard county and spent their remaining days. He died at the advanced age of eighty-eight. She died at fifty-two. Their bodies were interred in the cemetery at Ashland church in Howard county.
William Smith, whose personal career we are now ready to take up, was reared in Kentucky, and came on horseback to Missouri, where he settled in Howard county and now resides. He was married in 1866 to Maria Louisa Robinson, a daughter of Richard and Sallie Ann (See- bree) Robinson. She died on March 4, 1912. To this union were born the following children : Sallie Ann; Bettie and Pensa (twins) ; Nan- nie May; Katherine; Emeline; Howard, deceased; and William Alexander.
Mr. Smith's farm is situated on the old state road nine miles from Fayette, and its two hundred and fifty acres comprise one of the best estates in the township. General farming and stock raising have been the source from which he has obtained his revenue for many years.
WALLACE ESTILL. The Woodland Stock Farm, which has a reputa- tion all over Missouri and in many parts of the United States, is an enterprise which reflects additional credit upon one of the best known of Howard county's families. The name Estill has been associated with stock farming in central Missouri for many years, and Wallace Estill, the proprietor of the Woodland Stock Farm, has enlarged upon a repu- tation which was first made by his father.
Wallace Estill was born April 6, 1849, on the old homestead of his father, Col. James R. Estill, in Howard county. Colonel Estill, who was born in Kentucky and came to Missouri in 1845, was one of the most prominent citizens of Howard county. His estate of 3,100 acres was one of the largest and best in the county, and he made it notable as a cattle farm, his herd of stock being among the best anywhere in the country. The Estills have been known in Kentucky history for gen- erations, and men of that name bore arms in the early Indian wars and were active in business and public affairs.
Colonel James R. Estill married Mary Ann Turner, who was born in Howard county, Missouri, of an old Kentucky family. The four chil- dren who grew to maturity were: Wallace; Mrs. Alice Nelson, the wife
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of Lewis Nelson, now of St. Louis; Ella E., the widow of W. B. La- Force, of Kansas City, who was killed in an accident; William Estill, who died in 1895 at the age of twenty-eight, leaving a widow and four children. Colonel Estill died at the age of eighty-two and his wife at the age of seventy-five.
Wallace Estill grew up on the old homestead in Howard county and received a liberal education, attending Kemper school at Boonville, Missouri, and the Transylvania College of Lexington, Kentucky. At the age of twenty-two he married Marietta Forbis. Her father, James B. Forbis, was a resident of Independence, Missouri, and moved to St. Louis in 1869, where he died at the age of ninety-two in 1911. Mrs. Estill received her education at St. Louis. The children of their mar- riage are: Florence, wife of Odon Guitar, Jr., son of General Guitar of St. Louis; Wallace, who is president of the National Bank of Com- merce at Shawnee, Oklahoma; Rodes, a resident of Howard county ; Etta Lee, wife of Dr. Alden, of Los Angeles; Alice, who died at the age of twenty years; and James R., who died aged two years.
The Woodland Stock Farm contains six hundred and seventy acres of fine bluegrass land, with the brick homestead set in the midst of fine shade trees, with fine barns and all the improvements of a modern coun- try seat and stock farm. It is a beautiful rural home and the railroad station of Estill is on the farm. Mr. Estill has been an exhibitor of his stock and at the Chicago World's Fair took first prize on both his Angus cattle and his mules. His stock has commanded some fancy prices and to say that an animal came from the Woodland Stock Farm is of itself a better guarantee as to quality than a pedigree and long description.
Mrs. Marietta Estill, the mother of the children, died in 1906. The present mistress of the Woodland Park home was formerly R. L. Yeager, of Kansas City, and was a sister of his first wife.
DR. C. F. SCHRIVER. For twenty-four years a member of the med- ical profession, Doctor Schriver is one of the leading physicians and surgeons of Sullivan county, and with his office at Harris, Missouri, has built up a large practice, both in that town and over a large part of the surrounding country.
Dr. C. F. Schriver was born in Adams county, Ohio, March 3, 1856, and of a family which has always been noted for its integrity and for its courage in the war times of United States history. The doctor is the son of a wholesale hardware merchant, J. M. Schriver, who was a native of Kentucky, but during the Civil war served as a soldier in an Ohio regiment. The paternal grandfather was a native of Pennsylvania, of German ancestry, and was a relative of Admiral Schley. The mother of Doctor Schriver was Miss Catherine Coppel, who was born in Ohio. The parents had eight children, five sons and three daughters. Two of the sons served as soldiers in the Civil war. Capt. Daniel R. Schriver attained to his rank by reason of gallant service in the Thirty-third Ohio, and for eighteen months was a prisoner of war in the notorious Libby and Andersonville prisons. He died from continued ill health after the war. William Schriver, another son, was also a captain in the Union army and he now lives at Manchester, Ohio.
Dr. C. F. Schriver was reared in his native state, where he obtained a good literary education in the local schools and college and read medi- cine under local preceptorship, but subsequently entered the medical colleges at Cincinnati, Ohio, and Lexington, Kentucky, where he was graduated in the class of 1889, being among the honor men in his class, with three honorary diplomas. He is also a graduate of pharmacy and an oculist. Throughout his practice he has always been ambitious to Vol. III-46
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keep up with all developments in the science and has supplied himself with the books and other sources of information which are both stimu- lating and essentially valuable to the practical work of the profession.
Doctor Schriver was married at Trenton, Missouri, to Miss Ida Bell Price, a member of an old and substantial family of that vicinity and a daughter of John W. Price, who served three years in the Union army. The doctor and wife are the parents of two sons, George P. and Paul P., both of whom are now attending school and receiving the best of ad- vantages, both at home and in school. Dr. Schriver is a member of the county and state medical societies, also the Medical Association of the Southwest, is examiner for many of the leading old-line insurance com- panies and is registrar of vital statistics in his and surrounding dis- tricts. He is a man of fine physique, six feet tall and weighing 190 pounds, and is of genial personality and wholesome presence, which in themselves are important factors in a successful physician's work.
J. B. ROBERTSON. Recognizing the fact that on the journalistic field there is plenty of room for men of brains and vim, J. B. Robertson early in life entered upon a career that has brought him to the forefront among newspaper men in Northeastern Missouri, and as editor and pro- prietor of the Brunswicker, one of the oldest newspapers in the state, he is giving the reading public a clean, newsy and strictly reliable pub- lication, the influence of which is felt over a wide territory of country. It is often the case that the men of a family will follow the same voca- tion or profession, and especially is this so in literary work, and in the career of Mr. Robertson this statement has been satisfactorily proven, for he is the son of J. K. Robertson, himself a newspaper man of many years' standing. J. B. Robertson was born at Salisbury, Chariton county, Missouri, November 6, 1878, and is a son of J. K. and Griselle (Dameron) Robertson.
J. K. Robertson was born March 26, 1842, near Roanoke, Randolph county, Missouri, and is a son of Wiley and Jane Collins Robertson. . He lost his father when still a lad, so that little is known of his father's life. From earliest boyhood his life was one of constant industry, and in 1893, with his son, James W., he established the Keytesville Signal, which they conducted until 1905, then disposing of it to Homer P. Mitchell, who changed it to the Chariton Recorder. Mr. Robertson is now living a retired life at Keytesville, while James W. Robertson has also left the journalistic field and is engaged in agricultural pursuits ten miles north of Keytesville.
J. B. Robertson was given the educational advantages to be obtained in the country schools of Chariton county and North Missouri Academy, at Salisbury, and as a lad entered the office of the Keytesville Signal, where he spent eight years at the case. In 1903 he made removal to Brunswick, here purchasing the Brunswicker, in company with D. R. Patterson, Jr., whose interests he purchased one year later. Through Mr. Robertson's untiring efforts, the circulation of this paper has been materially increased and is now regarded as an influential molder of public opinion and a periodical that is a credit to its editor and pub- lisher. Himself an active, earnest Democrat, Mr. Robertson has built up his paper on the fundamental principles of that great party and it is recognized as an organ of no mean ability. It was established as early as the year 1847, and is known as one of the leading and oldest newspapers in the state. Mr. Robertson is possessed of literary ability of a high order and is a valued member of the Missouri State Editorial Association.
On October 31, 1908, Mr. Robertson was united in marriage with
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Miss Fanny Gilliland, of Brunswick, and to this union there has been born one son, John B. Mr. Robertson has interested himself in frater- nal work to some extent, holding the rank of worshipful master in Eureka Lodge, No. 73, A. F. & A. M., and in 1912 represented his lodge as delegate to the grand lodge of the state. During the past fifteen years he has been a member of the Baptist church. Mrs. Robertson is a mem- ber of the Christian church and both have many friends in the congre- gations at Brunswick and in social circles of the city.
JUDGE JAMES GRAY ADAMS, a retired farmer of Holliday and presi- dent of the Monroe County Exchange Bank of Holliday, which was organized on June 10, 1901, has lived all his life within the confines of this county. He was born on May 3, 1843, near the city of Paris, Mis- souri, where his father, George Adams, had settled when he came to the state in 1830. The latter came from Harrison county, Kentucky, and he was born of Virginia parentage. He was one of the eight children of his parents, who were William and Margaret (Palmer) Adams. They were married in the year 1786, and the following record of the names and births of their children is copied from their family Bible, published and bought by them in the year 1789:
"James Adams, born June 28, 1787; William Adams, born February 15, 1790; John Adams, born September 18, 1793; Jennie Adams, born September 13, 1796; George Adams, born March 9, 1799; Otho Adams, born February 24, 1802; Indiana Adams, born December 15, 1804; Ovid Adams, born June 16, 1807." The first two named, James and William, fought in the War of 1812. James passed his life practically in Macon county, Missouri, and at his death left a family there; William remained in Kentucky and died there; George became the father of James Gray Adams of this review; Otho and Ovid died in Monroe county, Mis- souri ; Jane married Joseph Smith and spent her life in Monroe county ; Indiana died as the wife of Robert Caldwell, and John died in Kentucky.
George Adams came by wagon across the states of Illinois and Indi- ana on his journey to Missouri, and on his arrival here he entered land near Paris, where he died at the age of sixty-six years. He admitted his sympathy with the South during the war, though he was not a par- ticipant, and politically was first a Whig and then a Democrat. He and his wife were charter members of the Pleasant Hill Presbyterian church, which was organized in about 1835. His wife was Eleanor Randal, the daughter of John Randal, and she was born in January, 1808, and died in 1890. They were married on January 29, 1827, and to them were born seven children, as follows: Eliza, the eldest, born in 1828, married William Phelps, and died in Boone county, Missouri; Sarah, born in May, 1831, married William Callis and died in Monroe county in 1901; Mary Emily, born in 1833, died as the wife of James Ellis, of Monroe county, in 1898; John, born on November 3, 1835, was a farmer of this district and served in the Confederacy as a member of Colonel Porter's regiment; Samuel W., born November 17, 1837, died in 1907, near Paris, Missouri; he was a Confederate soldier in General Cockrell's brigade and served throughout the war ; he was twice wounded, was twice captured and died with a minie ball embedded in his thigh; Thomas Henry, born August 9, 1840, was a member of General McCul- loch's Confederate command and served for four years in the Army of the South, in the trans-Mississippi department; James Gray Adams, of this review, is the youngest of the family.
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