USA > Missouri > A history of northeast Missouri, Vol. 2 pt 2 > Part 117
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Mr. Gantner married in Boonville, in 1888, Miss Lena Hoffman, of Boonville, Missouri, and to them six children have been born, namely : Henry L., who is engaged in business with his father, being junior member of the firm of J. F. Gantner & Son; Sylvester J., Philip J., Anna C., Andrew J., Rosa M.
PROFESSOR ERNEST H. HAMILTON. Under the modern conditions of American society, there is no more important factor than the teacher, the head or the instructor in the great public school system. The public school has been an institution of American society almost from the beginning of government, but never until within the present era has its scope of importance and usefulness reached out so far and broad as in the present generation. One of the able young educators of Sulli-
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van county, who has begun his career in time to reap to the full the best advantages of the new stock and ideas of the profession, is Prof. Ernest HI. Hamilton, superintendent of the public schools of Humphreys in Sullivan county. Mr. Hamilton's assistant is Charlotte E. Hill, and the school has four large rooms and its enrollment is ninety pupils. It has become, under Professor Hamilton's management, one of the best schools in the county, and its pupils are every day learning those les- sons which will give them efficiency in the next generation of citizen- ship and business industry.
Ernest H. Hamilton represents one of the old families in Sullivan county, and he was born on a farm in this county March 5, 1891. His father, Ralph H. Hamilton, one of the prominent citizens and farmers of this section, was born in Ohio, and his family is of Scotch descent. The mother is a native of Missouri and the settlement of their respective families in this state was made during the early years, when much of the country was in its condition of wilderness.
Professor Hamilton grew up on the home farm, and after the local district school attended high school one year at Seymour, Iowa. He next entered the Kirksville Normal College, where he was thoroughly prepared for his profession as a teacher. Since taking up the active work of school management he has shown himself to be one of the ablest and most progressive in the ranks of local educators. He is well trained in knowledge of books, is thoroughly fitted for the important task of disciplinarian and as counselor among his pupils and is exceedingly popular among his young charges, and with the members of the com- munity who support the schools. He is one of the active members of the Southern Methodist church and a worker in the Epworth League. In 1912 he was delegate of the Kirksville Y. M. C. A. organization to the convention held at Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. He is one of the ablest and most enthusiastic workers for the cause of his order, and a believer in religion, education and morality, he gives all the force and energy of his character to the promotion of the best ideals in these important departments of life.
B. D. FLAGG. Since his appointment in 1897, B. D. Flagg has con- tinued in an unbroken period of service in the office of postmaster of New Town, and his has been a service of the highest order, marked by the greatest efficiency and the most painstaking attention to detail. His is a fourth class office, with four rural carriers, and other clerks employed in the conduct of its affairs.
Born in Paulding county, Ohio, on September 21, 1864, B. D. Flagg is the son of a farmer, Gershom James Flagg, and the grandson of James G. Flagg. The father of the subject was born in Marietta, Ohio, in 1808, and the family is one of the oldest in that state, of English ancestry. The Flaggs settled in the Massachusetts colony when it was but a small settlement, being among the first inhabitants, and members of the family were gallant soldiers in the Revolutionary war, serving both as officers and in the ranks. One of the next generation, Col. James Flagg, was prominent in the War of 1812, and won distinction for his services in that war. Gershom James Flagg, the father of the subject, died in 1885, and his mother was killed in a cyclone in Missouri in 1899. She was born February 19, 1825, and when she died she left three children to mourn her loss.
B. D. Flagg was reared on his father's farm and received his educa- tion in the public schools of his home community. He learned the trade of a carpenter in his boyhood, and followed that for some years, until he was appointed to his present office.
In 1885 Mr. Flagg was married to Hattie Lichty, the daughter of Vol. III-50
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William Lichty, a native of the state of Pennsylvania, and his wife, Ella Breece, born in Ohio. The father, who was a soldier in the Civil war, died at the age of forty-four, and the mother is now a resident of Pasadena, California. Mrs. Flagg is one of their seven children.
Two children have been born to Mr. and Mrs. Flagg-Ford Dix and Cecile M.
Mr. Flagg is a member of the Methodist Episcopal church and fra- ternally is identified with the Independent Order of Odd Fellows. He is a Republican and is something of a leader in his party in this county. He stands high in citizenship and enjoys the hearty good will of all who know him, and his family is one that merits and is accorded a popular place in New Town and vicinity.
DR. W. J. MAIRS, retired physician and surgeon, and later identified with the banking interests of New Town, Missouri, from which he is also now retired, has for a number of years maintained a prominent place in the more telling activities of the place, which has seen much of its growth and prosperity as a direct result of his operations in the com- munity. He is one of the best known men in Sullivan county, and bears a high reputation and is esteemed of all who share in his acquaintance. Born in Jackson county, Virginia, on July 22, 1855, Dr. Mairs is the son of an old pioneer family of that state, his father being Mark B. Mairs, well known in farming and stock circles in Virginia and at one time judge of Sullivan county, Missouri.
Mark B. Mairs was a son of Joseph Mairs, who was born in London, England, and was a noted physician and surgeon in his day. He was educated in the Jefferson Medical College of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and lived a highly useful life in the practice of his profession. He was related to the great Scottish chief, Sir William Wallace, and the family today carries a pure strain of Scotch blood in its veins. Mark B. Mairs married Levine Fowler, a Virginian, and the daughter of John B. Fowler. He and his good wife are yet living. each at the age of eighty- four, and they have three sons and one daughter. John B. is located at Rogers, Arkansas, where he is engaged in the real estate business; Dr. H. T. is a leading physician of Marshalltown, Iowa; W. J. is the subject of this review; and the daughter is the wife of Wade H. Jones, of Sullivan county, Missouri. All have come to fill high places in their various communities and their lives have distinctly honored their aged parents, who gave of their best in preparing them for the activities of life.
W. J. Mairs was raised on his father's farm in Virginia and attended the public schools in his native community, later attending the nearby academies and still later entering Lexington Medical College, from which he was duly graduated. He is also a graduate of the state university at Columbia, Missouri, and of the Louisville (Ky.) University, hav- ing finished his studies in the year 1880, and his college career being one that reflected high honor upon himself and the schools with which he was identified. For thirty years thereafter Dr. Mairs practiced medi- cine with all success and has but recently retired from that field of activity. He gained a worthy name in the medical profession and earned the high regard of his brothers in the fraternity, as well as that of the laity. Some years ago he became identified with the banking interests of New Town and for years was president of the New Town Bank. Real estate also has claimed a share of his attention, and he has bought and sold farms in Sullivan county for years past, his activities in that re- gard being a source of both pleasure and profit to him. He is the owner of a model farm where he conducts a general farming business,
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being interested in the breeding of thoroughbred stock to some extent, and his operations in this line have placed him among the most suc- cessful farming men in the community.
Dr. Mairs has lived a life of the most upright and praiseworthy order in New Town, and is in every way deserving of the high regard in which he is held. He has long been a member of the Christian church and an elder in its body, and has been prominent and popular in all departments of its works.
On December 24, 1880, Dr. Mairs married Miss Minerva Johnson, a daughter of Mayer Johnson, and one of the leading young women of her community. They have two children: Dr. Edgar Joseph, of Loredo, is a graduate of the University of St. Louis of the class of 1904; Raymond M. is a prominent farmer and stockman of Putnam county, Missouri.
Dr. Mairs is a thirty-second degree Mason of the Scottish Rite body, and his politics are those of the Democratic party.
F. W. BUSH, M. D. In the settlement and development of the country about Hannibal and in Marion county, the Bush family was an active factor practically at the beginning of things civilized. Several genera- tions of the name have been identified with this vicinity; there have been men and women of the name with distinction of character and of activities, and local history would be defective without some mention of their lives and careers.
The founder of the Bush name and fortunes in the valley of the Mississippi had first become identified with the west as a soldier of the American Revolution. It is a grandson of this American patriot whose name introduces this article. One of the most familiar chapters in the story of the Revolution is that dealing with the conquest of the Ohio valley by George Rogers Clark and his Virginia troops. But for the daring adventures and enterprise of that leader in this region, the do- minion of the American colonies, at the close of the war, would have been bounded on the west by the Allegheny mountains instead of the Mississippi river, and the American possession of the great middle west, including Missouri, would probably have been delayed many years. Hence, for the posterity that now enjoys the vast domain drained by the Mississippi and its tributaries, the followers of Clark in his west- ern expeditions rendered a service that should never be lightly valued. With these facts in mind it is better possible to appreciate the career of that old pioneer, John Bush, of Marion county.
Of Irish descent, Grandfather William Bush was probably a Vir- ginian during the Revolutionary period, as he enlisted from that colony. The date of his enlistment in Capt. John Baley's company for services in the second of George Rogers Clark's expeditions to the west was May 10, 1779. He was with Clark in battling for the western frontier against the combined forces of the British and Indians and spent con- siderable time in the stockade and camps along the Ohio river and Ken- tucky border. After his first term of service, which continued three years, until his discharge on March 4, 1783, he at once re-enlisted, this time under Lieut. Richard Clark. His name is the last borne on the muster roll of a company which came into southern Illinois to garrison the frontier posts at Cahokia, Vincennes and Kaskaskia. His second en- listment had occurred in the American post at Cincinnati. Among the incidents of his eventful service, he was one of eight men' who were captured by the Indians near Detroit. All were bound to trees and were to be killed on the following day. During the night the guards went to sleep, the prisoners managed to burn their bonds and make their stealthy escape from the camp, subsisting for several days on fish from the streams.
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It is shown by the records of the adjutant general's office at Wash- ington, D. C., that one William Bush served in the Revolutionary war as a private in Capt. John Baley's company, Col. George Rogers Clark's Illinois regiment, Virginia state troops; that he enlisted May 10, 1779, to" serve three years, or during the war; that he was discharged March 4, 1783, and that he re-enlisted on the same date to serve during the war. His name is last borne on muster roll of Lieut. Richard Clark's company, same regiment, covering the period from November 1 to December 31, 1783, which shows him "absent with General Clark." The entry, ex- cept remark on this roll, is cancelled.
The present state of Kentucky was included in the state of Virginia at the time of the Revolutionary war.
This is signed by F. C. Ainsworth, Adjutant General. Per H.
With the close of the hostilities that marked the Revolutionary period in the west, William Bush took his reward for his military service in a tract of land south of Cincinnati, in Kentucky, where he was granted a survey of about three hundred acres. There he spent the rest of his life, and became the father of a large family.
It was on that soldier's homestead where John Bush, the father of Doctor Bush, was born on October 8, 1799, and where he spent the first twenty years of his life. In 1819, the year of the Missouri Compromise, he went to St. Louis, where he spent a couple of years, and then came up the river to Hannibal. That now flourishing city then was marked by only one house. Soon after his settlement in this vicinity he married a Miss Margarett Garner, who became the mother of fourteen children. She died in 1847, and for his second wife he married Mahala Worthing- ton, November 1, 1848, then the widow of a Mr. Davis, and she was the mother of one daughter by her first husband. Her parents were also of Revolutionary stock, and her father a native of North Carolina, born 1788, came to Kentucky with his father in 1798. Mahala Bush was a granddaughter of Joshua Wayland, who was raised in Virginia. He served eight years in the Revolutionary war as a musician under General Washington. His father, it is presumed, was born in Germany. His wife's name was Otts or Utts or Uttz. She came from Holland. John and Mahala Bush were married at Alexandria near Keokuk, where she was living at the time, and they became the parents of four children, two sons and two daughters. Of these Dr. F. W. Bush is the only survivor, and of all the eighteen children of his father he and a half-sister, Mrs. S. H. Baynum, of Monroe City, are the only living representatives. After their marriage the parents located on the farm now occupied by Doctor Bush, and which has been in the possession of the Bush family now for more than ninety years. The father moved to Palmyra in 1873, and died there in 1877, while his widow, who had lived awhile in Palmyra, and later with a daughter in Ralls county, passed away in 1889. The father was an energetic and public-spirited citizen and one of the most pros- perous men in this part of the state, having accumulated through his industry and good management an estate of over fourteen hundred acres.
Dr. F. W. Bush, whose home is located half way between Hannibal and Palmyra, in Marion county, was born in the house he still occupies as his residence. While most of his career has been spent in the quiet scenes of this old country estate, he has been a useful and busy man and for nearly forty years has been a member of the medical profession.
During his boyhood he attended the district school and then the Christian University at Canton, Missouri. While at the latter place he began the study of medicine with a local physician and altogether did four years of reading. His preparation for professional life was then
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interrupted, first by three years' work on his father's farm and then for a year as clerk in a Palmyra drug store. In 1874 he entered the med- ical department of the University of Michigan for his final courses, and in 1875 attended the Missouri Medical College at St. Louis, now the medical department of Washington University. In 1876, having gradu- ated a doctor of medicine, he returned to his home neighborhood to take up the active work of the profession.
A physician of skill and broad experience, Doctor Bush has made the unpretentious but none the less valuable record of service which is characteristic of the successful doctor. Besides the duties of attend- ing to a large practice during the course of more than thirty-five years, he has also been one of the prominent men of the county medical society. Most of his professional residence has been at his country home, but in 1882 he located in Palmyra for two years, and then was in Hannibal two years, but the conditions of town practice have never satisfied him so well as in the country. In the division of his father's large estate he received as his share a farm of 240 acres, and in the care and man- agement of this he finds a pleasant recreation from his professional responsibilities. He is also owner of stock in the local telephone company.
Doctor Bush was married in 1881 at Palmyra to Miss Harriet V. Ealy, whose father was a well known physician of that town. Mrs. Bush was born in Iowa City and came to Palmyra about 1870. Doctor Bush and wife are the parents of four children, namely: Marie R .; Worth W., assistant city engineer of Hannibal; Mabel E., who is a student of elocution and reading at the Valparaiso University in Indiana; and Hubert L., who also has manifested considerable talent and was a stu- dent of cartooning and art work at Valparaiso, 1911-12, and is now, 1912 and '13, a student of the Cleveland Art School, Cleveland, Ohio.
WILLIAM H. HATCH. The patent of nobility that rested its honors and distinctions in the person of Col. William Henry Hatch came from high authority since it was based upon exalted character and distin- guished ability. Looking into the clear perspective of his career there may be seen definite courage, persistent determination and self-con- fidence which, as coupled with integrity of purpose, are the factors that conserve success and make it consistent. A gallant soldier and officer in the Civil war, although he was aligned with the Confederate forces, he served the cause he believed in to the best of his ability. In later life he was able to do much for his home state of Missouri as an illustrious congressman. He passed to eternal rest December 27, 1896, aged sixty- three years.
Col. William H. Hatch was born in Scott county, Kentucky, the date of his nativity being the 11th of September, 1833. He received his edu- cational training in Lexington schools and was admitted to the Kentucky bar in September, 1854, just after he had reached his legal majority. He initiated the active practice of his profession at Harrodsburg, Ken- tucky, whence he removed to Hannibal, Missouri, in 1855. Here he im- mediately turned his attention to building up a law practice and prior to the outbreak of the Civil war he was well known as a legist of un- usual ability throughout Marion county. In October, 1858, he was elected circuit attorney for the sixteenth judicial circuit of Missouri, and he was re-elected to that office in 1860. In December, 1862, he was com- missioned captain and assistant adjutant general in the Confederate army. In March, 1863, he was assigned as assistant commissioner of exchange under Col. Robert Ould, and he served as such until the close of the war. He received his honorable discharge from the Confederate forces after the surrender of General Lee, at which time he was sta-
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tioned in Richmond, Virginia. His duty as assistant commissioner of exchange was to effect the exchange of prisoners and in that con- nection he often visited City Point and Fortress Monroe. Many appeals were made to him to effect exchanges and thus alleviate suffering, and never were those appeals in vain.
In 1878 he was honored by his fellow citizens with election to con- gress to represent the first Missouri district. He subsequently sat in the forty-seventh, the forty-eighth, the forty-ninth, the fiftieth, the fifty- first, the fifty-second and the fifty-third congress, to which he was elected as a Democrat. While in congress he effected a great deal of good legislation for Missouri and he devoted special attention to agri- culture and the farmers' interests. During all his spare time from his legal and congressional work he resided on his finely improved farm of 150 acres, eligibly located just outside the city limits of Hannibal. He owned that estate for some forty years and was deeply interested in the breeding of Jersey cattle and trotting horses.
Colonel Hatch was twice married, his first union having been with Miss Jennie L. Smith, a native of Scott county, Kentucky. Of this mar- riage there were two children born. The elder, a son, Llewellyn L. Hatch, lives in New Orleans. The other, a daughter, died in infancy. The mother died April 15, 1858, and three years later Col. Hatch was united in marriage to Miss Thetis Clay Hawkins, a daughter of Jameson Fielding Hawkins, a sketch of whose career appears on other pages of this work. Of the second marriage one daughter survives and she lives with her mother on the farm.
Colonel Hatch exercised a commanding influence over men, not as the result of a conscious ambition or a studied purpose, but rather from an instinctive homage the world awards men of exalted character and incorruptible principles. His convictions were as solid as adamant and neither fear nor favor could shake them from him, yet he tried to estimate human conduct in the light of that charity which "hopeth all things, which beareth all things, which is not easily provoked, which thinketh no evil." He was ever considerate to younger men, giving an encouraging word and a helping hand when possible, always desirous that credit should be given where credit was due.
PROF. J. B. W. JACKSON. Forty years in the teaching profession is the record of Prof. J. B. W. Jackson, superintendent of the public schools of Regger, Missouri, of which he assumed charge on September 1, 1912. Beginning the work at the age of sixteen, he has continued in the educational field with unbroken zeal, and among the youth who have received their early training in his schools are to be found many of the prominent, popular and successful men of the state today, among which are representatives of all the professions and of every line of com- mercial and industrial activity. Professor Jackson is a man who has ever held a high opinion of his field of work, being ever alive to the re- sponsibilities of his position, and the results of his noble attitude toward his profession is everywhere evidenced in the lives of his students.
Born on June 8, 1856, in Sullivan county, Missouri, he is the son of farming people, Branson Jackson being his father, and that worthy gentleman, who spent the latter years of his life in Trinidad, Colorado, died at the fine old age of ninety-three years. The mother of Professor Jackson was Elizabeth Yardley, who was born in St. Charles county, Missouri, and who died at the age of sixty-eight years. Branson Jack- son is a veteran of the Civil war, having served throughout that long struggle in the Union army. The mother was a life-long member of the Methodist Episcopal church, and one of the finest women of her day
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and place. They were the parents of nine children-three sons and six daughters.
J. B. W. Jackson was reared on his father's farm and he early learned lessons of honor, integrity and helpfulness that have been of inestimable value to him in all his subsequent life. His training in the schools of his native community was supplemented by a course of study in the Kirksville Normal, and he was but sixteen years of age when he em- barked on his career as an educator, a career that has continued through forty years of the most decided usefulness to the state. The greater part of this time he has been occupied within the confines of Sullivan county, and he has been directly instrumental in raising the educational stand- ard in this, his native county, in the most praiseworthy manner. Put- nam county, too, has shared in his efforts, and he is recognized in both these counties for one of the most efficient, conscientious and successful educators to be found in the state.
With him, his work has ever been his first and last consideration. No sacrifice has been too much for him to make in the interests of the ad- vancement of the cause of education in his schools, and he is loved and respected by all who come within his influence in the exercise of his duty. Patience of the highest order, combined with a quiet determina- tion, has been a potent force in the carrying out of plans inaugurated by him for the growth of his work, and results of no mean order have characterized his activities in every community with whose schools he has been connected. Always a student, he has kept pace with the most approved methods in public school education, and his schools have always been models of system and advanced idea.
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