A history of northeast Missouri, Vol. 2 pt 2, Part 14

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

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ENOCH G. MATSON. Among the notable Northeast Missouri families, none has been more conspicuous in the sphere of practical affairs nor has borne the responsibilities of citizenship with greater dignity and social service than have the Matsons during their residence of almost a century in this part of the state.

Of this family a representative was Enoch G. Matson, of New Lon- don in Ralls county. He was a connecting link between the pioneer

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past and the progressive present. His life spanned the most wonderful era in the history of American progress, the story of which came to him with the actual happening of the events. It is not so much to be a spectator of events as to be a unit in the humanity which does things reckoned among the important achievements of mankind, and Mr. Mat- son both "looked on" and "helped." The fact that he lived far beyond the Biblical allotment of life in the state of his birth, having been born August 2, 1831, shows that he came from no common origin, and the character and achievements of his ancestry are pertinent subjects for this brief sketch.

The Matson family has been established in Missouri since 1816, sev- eral years before the Missouri compromise admitted the territory into the Union. Those responsible for the presence of the somewhat numer- ous bearers of the name in this state were Enoch and Richard Matson, who came to Missouri from Bourbon county, Kentucky, in the year just mentioned. Enoch was born in Kentucky in 1787. He was descended, a grandson, from Abraham Matson, one of two Scotchmen who settled in Virginia colony before the American Revolution. Abraham's son, James, like many Virginians of the time, passed over the mountains to the west and settled in Kentucky, where he was one of the pioncers, since his son Enoch was born there while Kentucky was still a district under the government of Virginia. He was a Kentucky farmer of the times, and it is believed his son Enoch was one of the first white children born in Bourbon county. James married a Miss Payton, and three of their sons took part as soldiers in the War of 1812. John, a brother of James Matson, married a sister of General Harrison, the hero of Tippecanoe and the ninth president of the United States.

The career of Enoch Matson, the father of Enoch G., is a chapter that should never be omitted from the story of early development in Northeast Missouri. He was a product of the slave-holding aristocracy of pioneer Kentucky, and he was well trained in mind as in body. During his youth he also served an apprenticeship with a miller, and was expert in that trade when he left his native state and brought with him in a wagon, when he came to Missouri, some of the machinery for making meal. He expected to be able to lay some "New Madrid claims" which he had acquired, and selected the location where Clarksville now stands for his future home. His claims, however, were disallowed, and he then changed his place of settlement to Peno creek in Salt River township of Ralls county, where he purchased land, with nature undis- turbed, and began his career as a permanent citizen of Missouri. That was nearly a century ago.

In 1817 he built a dam across Peno creek, a short distance above its mouth. The grist mill which used this water power was the first in all that section of the country, and was a pioneer institution with a long history of its own. In the early twenties he changed in location to Salt river, and in 1826 started the erection of a "tread mill," which was completed the next year. He then began the raising of wheat, which he ground into flour, sold some of it among his neighbors and also hauled it to Palmyra and shipped a boat load to St. Louis, selling it to one of the local bakers of that city. After this mill had become inade- quate Enoch Matson, having thrown a dam across Salt river below the mouth of Peno creck, erected a large mill on the bank, also installing machinery for fulling wool and other machinery for sawing lumber and dimension timbers. For a number of years this institution was the busiest center in all the country round, and the whirr and grind of the wooden gearing were the calm music of industry before it had attained its modern clamor. In 1855 the dam was weakened by the high waters

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so that the mill was abandoned, and it was subsequently torn down, some of its heavy timbers going into a barn on the farm of Enoch G. Matson and other parts were used in a barn on the old Matson home- stead.

'In the construction and operation of this pioneer mill Enoch Matson was associated with his brother Richard, and the two were partners in this enterprise and also in the manufacture of salt at Saverton for many years. The salt at times brought its makers the remarkable price of three dollars a bushel, since at that period salt was one of the rarest products in this region and often had to be imported from long distances. Enoch Matson acquired title to some eight hundred acres on the north side of Salt river, and lived there until his death on July 18, 1863. He was a Whig in politics and once held the office of justice of the peace, but the experience of the first trial satisfied his ambition for judicial office, and he resigned and subsequently held aloof from public life. As a miller and farmer he made his largest contribution to the early develop- ment of Ralls county. In making his farm he had cleared away the heavy forest, a labor which would daunt many modern farmers. He brought.to Missouri a fine bull of the English shire breed, and subse- quently secured a Hereford bull, so that it can be claimed with truth that he was also a pioneer in the Short Horn and Hereford cattle busi- ness of this part of the state.

Enoch Matson married Jane Shobe, a native of Hardy county, Virginia, where she was born August 17, 1794, and her death occurred March 12, 1874. Her mother was a sister of Robert and Isaac Cun- ningham, noted Short Horn breeders of Kentucky. Of the thirteen children born to Enoch and Jane Matson, ten grew to maturity, as follows: Valentine P., who met death by lightning; Abraham S., who settled in St. Charles county, this state; Jemima, who became the wife of Joseph Tapley, was the mother of the "brothers with the long beards," her four sons having beards from six to twelve feet long, "Tine" Tapley growing a beard twelve feet in length; Harriet A., who married Walter McFarland; James; Richard H .; Frances, who married Capt. Neal Cameron; Enoch G .; and Archibald M.

The wardrobe of his family was filled with clothing made from wool, flax and cotton grown on the home farm; the shoes were made from leather tanned in the local tanneries (with a toll of half the hide for tanning) ; and the table was supplied with pork fattened on the acorns in the forest and with bread from the flour and meal ground in the Matson mill. That was a time when people lived at home and sub- sisted on the produce of their own farms. Schools were few and of short duration, and among the teachers of the early day were Judge Stout, John and William Steers, a Mr. Hemphill, and Mrs. Stebbins (said to have been the meanest of them all), and the subjects of read- ing, writing and arithmetic constituted the curriculum. The school- house was built of the logs of the forest, greased paper admitted the light through the windows, and the furniture was all hand-made and crude, consisting of puncheon bench, and a broad plank supported on pins in the wall for a writing desk. In spite of these now apparent inconveniences, some strong men were developed in these schools and their characters are seen in the things accomplished in a later day.

Through such environment Enoch G. Matson was reared to mature years, and then took up the vocation of farmer, which he followed with conspicuous success. In 1855 he purchased about six hundred acres of an old Spanish grant, and on the 28th of August of the same year he married Mary E. Parsons. Her parents, James and Elizabeth Parsons, the former a Virginian, were married in St. Charles county and

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became pioneer settlers of Gasconade county. After their marriage Mr. Matson and wife worked hard to provide the comforts and resources of life for themselves and their children, and spent nearly twenty-three years of happy wedded companionship. The wife died on May 25, 1878, leaving one child, Athelia, who married Thomas Frazier, and who died July 6, 1884. As an incident in the early life of this daughter, it is related that during the war several gentlemen of southern sympathies but never active as soldiers of the south were stopping at the home of Mr. Matson. They were Tom Harris, Sam Clemens (Mark Twain), John Cleaver and Sam Bowen, and they were there to escape the Federal soldiers who were scouting the country picking up men of their class. One day little Athelia called out "the Yankees are coming," and all four of the refugees scooted for the timber, much to the amusement of the child and the subsequent discomfiture of the guests.

February 17, 1879, Mr. Matson married Mrs. Julia A. Rose, widow of Asbury Rose and a daughter of Robert and Frances (Furr) Chinn, who came from Virginia to Missouri in 1870. The other children in the Chinn family were : Robert D., of Vandalia, Missouri; Julia A., deceased ; Samuel C., of Vandalia; James B., most of whose life was spent in Mississippi, where he was a leading politician, dying at Biloxi in 1912; William D., who also died at Biloxi.

The children of Mr. Matson by his wife Julia were: Enoch G., of New London, who has a son, George D .; Fannie, wife of William Holman, a farmer of Ralls county, and she has four children, Glen Hostler (by first marriage), Earl M., Enoch W., and Julia; Valentine P., a far- mer, who married Ethel Flowerree and has a son, Campbell ; Robert C., who married Ethel Brown and has children, Margaret E. and James Edward; Maggie D., who is the wife of George E. King and has a young son named Vern Russell.

As a farmer few men of Northeast Missouri equaled the success of Enoch G. Matson. During the war he was harassed by the foraging par- ties of Federals, who confiscated much of his stock and provisions, but despite these and other inroads of misfortune during his many years of activity he took from the soil a generous abundance of material wealth, and at the same time became one of the most influential figures in the business affairs of his county. The farm of more than eight hundred acres of itself bears witness to his ability and is one of the finest estates to be found in this part of Missouri. The modest mansion, which served as his final country home, rose from his hand, and the tenant house and barns which add much to the substantial appearance of the place were all cash creations by him before they took the shape of improvements there.

Mr. Matson was one of the original promoters of the St. Louis & Hannibal Railroad, commonly called the "Short Line," and he was a director during much of the construction of the road from New London to Perry, and until a new company assumed charge of the road. He was also a charter member of the Ralls County Bank and was one of its directors all through its business history. His death occurred Octo- ber 11, 1912.

ED. A. GLENN is a citizen of Louisiana whose career in business and politics has been both successful and spectacular. He is of pioneer posterity and is a grandson of James E. Glenn, whose entry of Missouri dates back to 1818, and who was mostly identified with tobacco business until the time of his death in 1880. The latter was born in South Caro- lina in 1792, was a soldier in the War of 1812, and fought the final battle of that war in New Orleans under the command of General Jackson.

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After the war he went into Kentucky where he remained for three years, and then came on to Missouri. James E. Glenn's family record is as follows: It dates back to the time of William the Conqueror. Richard de la Glenn came over with the Normans with William, the Conqueror. The family remained in England for several centuries, finally emigrat- ing to Scotland where they inter-married with the Robert Bruce family. Part of the family later moved to the north of Ireland, and in 1690, three brothers came to the United States and one of them settled in Pennsylvania, one in North Carolina and one in South Carolina. James E. Glenn was married three times. The children of these unions are Mrs. Mary Chilton, who still survives at the age of ninety-one; Mrs. John W. Gunn, wife of Captain Gunn, for many years a boat captain on the Mississippi river, then a wholesale grocer in St. Louis; William H., the father of our subject; John W. and Henry C. and Sarah C., who resides here; and Margaret, who died single.

William H. Glenn successfully followed the tobacco business for a number of years. He was a member of the firms of Glenn, Overall & Company, and Glenn, Prettyman & Co., both concerns being prom- inent, industries of Louisiana. When he left this field of activity he entered politics, and was elected sheriff and then collector of the county. Having satisfied his political ambitions, he engaged in farm- ing and live stock for some years, and finally went into the livery busi- ness in Louisiana, which business he carried on until his death in 1905. He was born in Louisiana in 1838. He was residing in St. Louis tem- porarily during the war between the states and he was a stanch sym- pathizer with the South. He was a Mason and Odd Fellow, and one of the oldest members of the A. O. U. W.

William H. Glenn married Mary Thurmon, a daughter of Captain Clabourne M. Thurmon, who pioneered to Missouri in 1818, from Kentucky, where he began operating a number of steamboats and be- came one of the largest land and slave owners of Pike county. Mary Glenn died in 1879, leaving a son and two daughters: Ed. A .; Mrs. Robert L. Hill, of Lake Providence, Louisiana ; and Mrs. E. B. Rule, of Louisiana, of whom mention is found on other pages of this volume.

Ed. A. Glenn is a product of the times immediately following the Civil war. He began life with only an elementary education, being prevented from acquiring a higher and collegiate education by early entry into business. When only a child he learned to use money as an investor in small matters, and when he reached his early 'teens he had already accumulated a few hundred dollars.

At the age of seventeen he entered the mercantile business as a dealer in tobacco, salt, lime, cement and fuel, and he made such a phenomenal success of the venture in such a short time that it was decided that in- stead of breaking the spell and entering college he should continue. Within a few years, comparatively, he acquired a competency which, invested in farm lands, sufficed to satisfy his craving for merchandise and he abandoned it in 1902.

About this time he entered the real estate business and in 1902 he formed a company, which sold in ninety days, a million dollars worth of land. However, the demand for land in this section soon became somewhat slack but Mr. Glenn continued the business of selling farms over a widely separated region, handling some Canada property, which, together with his personal holdings, constitute the bulk of his business responsibilities. He is engaged extensively in farming, having twenty- seven hundred acres of his own, and farming leased land, generally, to a total of four thousand acres.

The sphere of his activity in which Mr. Glenn has achieved his wid-

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est reputation is politics. He became enamored of the game while his father was making his political history, and when yet a boy, his apti- tude for such work was discovered and encouraged by his co-workers, and he was soon made chairman of the Pike County Democratic Com- mittee which position he has held for twenty years. In 1896 he was made a member of the State Committee. He managed Champ Clark's campaign for congress from first to last, and took charge of the in- terests of his own townsman, Mr. Ball, in his campaign for the gover- norship and became personally responsible for the conduct of the 1908 campaign when Mr. Ball is believed to have been the choice of the voters at the primary for governor of Missouri. His faith in Champ Clark has always been great and he has been among those who believed the speaker to have greater work before him than that of a mere congressman. When the 1912 presidential campaign approached, he was assigned to the western district as manager by the National Clark Bureau. He won Clark delegates to Chicago from Illinois, Missouri and Arkansas, and made a close fight for the Texas delegation in the primaries. While Mr. Glenn is in no sense a speaker, he is an organizer of no small note, who reaches the voter and wins his interest by direct methods. His re- lations to state conventions of his party in the past have been close, and he was a member of the state committee and a delegate to the Baltimore Convention in 1912.

Mr. Glenn was married in St. Louis, September 4, 1909, to Miss Alzada Boyle, a daughter of John Boyle, formerly of Camp Point, Illi- nois. Mrs. Glenn was one of five children: Charles, of California ; Richard, of Woodland, California; William, a farmer of Dent county, Missouri ; Mrs. Glenn, and Miss Martha Boyle of St. Louis.

Mr. and Mrs. Glenn have a son, John Edward, born in November, 1911. Mr. Glenn is a member of the Masonic lodge.

W. S. MCILROY is the youngest son of the late Thomas F. McIlroy and a brother of Judge John W. McIlroy, whose sketch occupies a place in historical and biographical work. Mr. McIlroy occupies the farm upon which he was born and where his life has been passed. He was born January 4, 1864, and his advent marked the first birth in the new brick farm residence which his father erected during the war.

No educational advantages beyond those of the district schools came to Mr. McIlroy and soon after attaining his majority he came into possession of the parental estate and assumed its management there- upon. He has since devoted himself to diversified farming, and has manifested the thrift suggested by the feeding and marketing of his own stock, and follows the trend of progressive methods in the general improvement of his holdings.

The movement to promote the Farmers' State Bank of Louisiana ex- tended to the substantial element of the rural business men and Mr. McIlroy became a stockholder of the institution with the granting of its . charter, and is a director of the bank, as well. His activity in the matter of things which relate to citizenship is represented by his participation as a voter in the affairs of the dominant party of his county. His an- cestors in Missouri ever held to the principles of Democracy and Pike county has been favored largely with the services of some of this well known family in a public way. Reared in the faith of the Corinth Pres- byterian church, he has brought up his children in that faith, and is himself an elder of that church.

November 20, 1889, Mr. McIlroy married Miss Annie Pickens, a daughter of William Pickens, one of the conspicuous farmers of Pike county. He was born December 24, 1827, in Kentucky, and came with

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his father, William Pickens, to Pike county, Missouri, in 1832. The elder Pickens settled the farm owned by Squire Jett in the vicinity of Cyrene and there died and is buried at Buffalo, one of the oldest ceme- teries in the county. His son, William, was one of five children, the others being Louallen, Andrew; Rebecca, who married Ben Hawkins; and Emily, the wife of William Kelley.

William Pickens, Jr., came to mature years with but a meagre educa- tion, and in 1849 he crossed the plains to the gold fields of California and was absent from Missouri for four years. He engaged in mining and he made some success of the venture, returning to Missouri with about ten thousand dollars in gold. On his return to Missouri, Mr. Pickens turned his attention again to farming in the Buffalo valley and there passed the remainder of his life. He married Miss Mary Campbell, a daughter of Rev. Campbell, one of the far famed Presbyterian preachers of Pike county. She died in 1873, the mother of five children, as follows: Elizabeth, the wife of J. M. Jump, of Oklahoma; Julia, the widow of T. B. Gatewood, of Louisiana, Missouri; Mary, the wife of Claude R. Ball, of Montgomery City, Missouri; Mrs. W. S. McIlroy, and W. H. Pickens, ex-county recorder of Pike county, and a resident of Louisiana, Missouri. William Pickens, Jr., took an active part in the affairs of the community in which he lived, and was an active member of the Presbyterian church and an officer of it for several decades. He was a Democrat, content to subscribe to the policies of the party without entering into politics with a view to personal gain, his son being the only member of the family to enter politics as an office holder. Mr. Pickens died in 1906.

Two children were born to Mr. and Mrs. McIlroy: Mary E. and Thomas W. Mellroy.

ADNIRON JUDSON MCCUNE. One of the old families of Pike county, Missouri, is represented in the person of Adniron Judson McCune, who is president of the Mercantile Bank of Louisiana, Missouri, a man of large estate, public spirit and personal rectitude. He was born near Clarksville, Missouri, November 12, 1837, and is a son of Joseph P. and Martha C. (Edwards) MeCune.

Joseph P. McCune was born in Kentucky, in 1815, and was a son of John S. McCune, who spent his last years on Peno creek, between Bowling Green and Frankford, in Pike county. He was a cousin of Captain Jack McCune, a noted river man prior to the Civil war, and other members of the family were: William P. McCune, who died in Clarks- ville. Joseph P. McCune, who was a farmer during all his active life, died in 1845, and was survived by his widow, Martha C. (Edwards) Mc- Cune, and two of his three sons, James having died in early life, and the others being A. Judson and John J., both of whom are able financiers and prominent citizens of Pike county. The mother of these children was of Virginia parentage. She subsequently married Newton McDon- ald, a leading man and old pioneer of Pike county, and three children were born to them, namely: A. Hurley, who resides at Louisiana, was formerly county treasurer; Mary, who died unmarried; and Emma, who is also deceased, having married J. M. Givens.

Adniron Judson McCune remained on the farm until 1870, in the meanwhile attending the country schools and assisting his mother finan- cially, and was twenty years of age when he becanie the manager of his step-father's business affairs. A few years later he joined his father- in-law, who was a tobacco grower near the present site of Edgewood and found the business so congenial that he subsequently purchased an interest in the tobacco farm and continued the industry for several

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years longer, but in 1870 joined his father-in-law. Addison Tinsley, in the manufacture of tobacco, in which he was engaged at Louisiana, where he had founded the Addison Tinsley Tobacco Company. Mr. McCune was made vice-president and later became president of the con- cern and continued the business until the factory was purchased by the tobacco trust, since which time Mr. McCune has given his active atten- tion to banking and farming. He is president of the Mercantile Bank of Louisiana, Missouri, one of the chief financial institutions of Pike county and the largest one in this city.

Always affiliated with the Democratic party, his interest in politics has not extended beyond the demands of good citizenship and the honest performance of such public duties as his compeers ask of him. He was a neutral factor in the conflict between the states, sympathizing with the South as was natural but remaining out of the ranks of either party. His evident success as a man of affairs, as one of diplomacy and good judgment, so manifested itself to his ward in Louisiana, that it not only sent him to the city council but kept him there for eight years, his serv- ice ending when he was chosen mayor of the city. In this position his administration of two years was one of economy and of the application of approved business principles to the city's affairs. While a mem- ber of the city council he was one of the number selected to engineer the compromise of the debt of three hundred thousand dollars, a pre- vious gradual accumulation of indebtedness, and it was Mr. McCune who gathered up old bonds and exchanged new ones for them at the rate of forty-eight cents on the dollar and when he became the chief magistrate the outstanding indebtedness was provided for.

On January 8, 1860, Mr. McCune married Miss Mary Frances Tins- ley, a daughter of Addison Tinsley, who came to Missouri from Bed- ford county, Virginia, and who is a brother of James Rodney Tinsley, whose family history is more fully set forth in the biography of Dr. Gabriel N. Tinsley, in this work. Addison Tinsley married Miss Cas- sandra D. Milliner and Mrs. McCune is the eldest of seven children and the only survivor. Annie married Samuel Reid. Sallie and Henry A. died unmarried; three died in infancy. Mr. and Mrs. McCune have but one child, a son, Joseph Addison MeCune, a farmer residing at Louisiana, and assists his father in looking after his estate.

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A history of northeast Missouri, Vol. 2 pt 2, Part 14

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