USA > Missouri > A history of northeast Missouri, Vol. 2 pt 2 > Part 15
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Mr. McCune has been one of the active factors in the work of the Missionary Baptist church and this body has frequently delegated him to represent it in associations and conventions when important matters affecting the welfare of the church have been in the balance. Among the matters of moment in this connection may be mentioned his activi- ties in a helpful way for the preservation of the Baptist College of Louisiana. His interest in the permanence of the school manifested itself when he was made a member of its governing board and the burden of planning and financing the institution was gradually shifted to his shoulders. The effort to reorganize the college and place it upon a plane that would insure its future was not a success and the school eventually closed its doors despite Mr. McCune's interest.
Joseph Addison MeCune was born on his father's farm near Edge- wood, Pike county, Missouri, in 1864, and came to Louisiana with his parents when a boy of six years. He was liberally educated and after- ward devoted a number of years to agricultural pursuits but is now retired and resides at Louisiana.
In 1888 Mr. McCune was married to Miss Roxanna V. West, who is a daughter of Captain Thomas J. and Susan (Middleswart) West, who were ante-bellum settlers of Pike county, Missouri. Captain West was born within five miles of Marietta, Ohio, August 7, 1834, a son of
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Colonel William West, who spent his early life in what is now West Vir- ginia, and was an officer in the Virginia militia and drilled the state troops at Parkersburg in the old militia training days. Colonel West was a soldier of the War of 1812 and during his service was stationed near Norfolk, Virginia, and this, coupled with a natural inclination toward a military career, fitted him for a drill master in after life, and on all patriotic occasions he commanded the dress parade and other semi-military features at community gatherings. He was born in Fair- fax county, Virginia, February 23, 1796, and died on his farm in Ohio on which he reared his children, in July, 1866. His father was William West, who was accidentally drowned in Wood county, Virginia, and left three sons, Newman, William and Russell, and a daughter, Susan, who married Tunis Middleswart. Colonel West married Elizabeth Compton, a daughter of James Compton, who came to the United States from Cork, Ireland, and they had four children: John A .; James, who died in Washington county, Ohio; William, who served in the War of 1861 as captain of Company B, One Hundred and Forty- eighth Ohio Volunteer Infantry; and Thomas J.
Thomas J. West came to Missouri by wagon in 1857 and landed at Louisiana on April 5, of that year, coming with his wife and in com- pany of Lemuel M. Wells and family, who had been visiting in Wash- ington county, Ohio, and had so exploited the possibilities in Missouri for a young man that Mr. West had become interested. After reaching Pike county he selected land near Mr. Wells' large holdings in Hart- ford township, and, save for a period of five years during the Civil war, when he was in his old home in Ohio and during a part of the time was in the Union army, he has been a citizen of the community where he first settled, carrying on extensive farming and stock raising. He was married May 18, 1869, to Susan Middleswart, who died in 1908. Their children are: Rolland, of Bellflower, Missouri; William B., of Columbia, Missouri; Mary E., wife of H. Perry King, of Pike county ; and Roxanna, who is the wife of Joseph A. McCune.
Mr. and Mrs. McCune have one son, Tinsley West, who was born September 9, 1889, and married Miss Bertha Chilton, and they have a daughter, Mary Virginia, who was born August 7, 1911. Tinsley W. McCune is an accountant in the Mercantile Bank at Louisiana, and his residence is far out on Georgia street, on which pleasant thoroughfare both his father and grandfather also reside.
JOHN BYERS CARROLL is the representative of a pioneer family whose posterity has spread over Pike county until its ramifications are to be found among many of the leading homes of the county, in which he was born September 4, 1848, in Buffalo township. Not alone is the family one of long standing in Pike county, but it is one of the oldest in America, with whose fortunes it has been identified since the early days of the eighteenth century. The Carrolls are of Irish origin and the first of the name to cast his lot with the new world was Joseph, the great- great-grandfather of John B., of this review. He was born in County Tyrone, Ireland, on September 15, 1699, and in 1749, because of serv- ices rendered to the Crown by his father, John Carroll, Joseph was granted a tract of land of 5,640 acres in South Carolina. The activities of John Carroll were in the cause of the Protestant Dissenters, and he was a personal friend of the Duke of Schoenburg, under whose banner he served, and he was present when the Duke fell upon the field of the battle of the Boyne, on July 1, 1690. John Carroll was born in the lowlands of Scotland in 1664 and embraced the faith of the Dissenters, or Cove- nanters, in early life. Settling in Ireland he joined the forces of Wil- Vol. III-7
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liam, Prince of Orange, under the Duke of Schoenburg, and took part in the great battle previously mentioned.
Joseph Carroll, son of John, was the father of a son of the same name, born in Chester county, Pennsylvania, January 15, 1746. He served in the Continental army during the Revolutionary war from 1779 until the close of hostilities, and died February 17, 1803. His son, also Joseph, was born in York District, South Carolina, September 25, 1771. He learned the trade of a blacksmith and followed that occupa- tion with success until he was in advanced years, and from 1840 to 1854 he lived a practically retired life on his farm in Missouri, he having come to this state in 1816 and located on a tract of land four miles south of Louisiana. He was the first representative of the family to emigrate to Missouri, and Pike county since that day has known the strength and purpose of the men of their name in many walks of life. In 1854 Mr. Carroll moved from his farm into the city of Louisiana and in 1860 he passed away, the date of his death being August 18th. On February 5, 1810, Joseph Carroll married Isabelle Henry, the daughter of Major William Henry. She was born in Lincoln county, North Carolina, on July 5, 1778, and died at the old homestead in Pike county on Novem- ber 17, 1840. Her father was born in South Carolina in 1753, and together with three brothers served under General Morgan in the Revolutionary war, and fought at the battle of Cowpens on January 17, 1781. Major Henry died September 12, 1807. He married Rosanna Moore, a native of Chester county, Pennsylvania, and died January 24, 1813. Her father and brothers were murdered by the Indians in the massacre at McCord's Ford in 1764. One of the brothers was General John Moore, a soldier of the Revolution. William Henry, the father of Major Henry Moore, was born in County Down, Ireland, in 1715, and died on October 22, 1819. Thus it will be seen that the Carroll family, on both paternal and maternal sides, is one that has been from the earliest days prominently and effectively identified with the progress of the nation, from the time of the struggle for Independence down to the present day, when the sons of the house of Carroll are contributing their full share to the world's work in their capacities as tillers of the soil and producers on no small scale.
Joseph and Isabelle (Henry) Carroll had, among other children, one son, Elias Llewellyn by name, born on the farm home just west of Stark on October 20, 1817, where the parents had settled the previous year. The other children were as follows: Louisa, Cynthiann; William A .; Martha R., who married John V. Woods and died in California; Edward B .; Thomas M .; Joseph; Isabella married Conrad Smith and Elizabeth became the wife of William Pew.
When Joseph and Isabella Carroll came into Missouri across the mountains of Carolina and Tennessee, their family comprised four chil- dren, all of whom, but for the protection afforded by the scoop of the wagon box, would have lost their lives on the journey, for in driving along a steep incline the wagon turned over and caught the wife and children underneath. After the location of the family on Missouri soil, Elias L. Carroll was the first child born into the newly established home, and he died within a mile of his birthplace in 1862, when he was forty- five years of age. He was a strong Abolitionist, supported the side of the Union and was a member of the state militia, notwithstanding the fact that his brother Joseph was a staunch Confederate and gave bril- liant service in that cause. Elias married Elizabeth Stark, a daughter of Judge James Stark, the pioneer founder of that important Pike county family, of whom mention is found on other pages of this work. She died in 1902, after forty years of widowhood. Their children were :
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Henry, who passed his life near Clarksville; he gave service in the Union army as a soldier in Company D, Thirty-third Missouri Infantry, and was severely wounded in action while on march. He died in 1907, leaving a family; Edna J., the widow of Walter Hunter, who makes her home in Louisiana, Missouri; John B .. of this review; Laura, who died in Seattle, Washington, in 1910, as the wife of Professor A. W. Riggs; Calvin L., cashier of the Clifford Banking Company, of Clarks- ville, Missouri; Hannibal D., a farmer living in Pike county and the owner of the old Carroll homestead; Joseph L., of Springfield, Missouri ; and Augusta, who died as the wife of W. J. Mackey.
John B. Carroll came to mature years on the place where his father was born and where his grandfather passed years of his busy and fruit- ful life in the development of a home. He received his education in the nearby schools, and when he was twenty-one years old made his first venture away from the old home place. He went to Texas, there pass- ing a few months' time in the wilderness, but the conditions of society existing there at the time rendered the district unfit for human life, and he returned to Missouri, where he resumed his rightful place as a citizen of his home community. When he married he settled where he had been reared, and lived there for twenty years afterward. He then purchased the old home farm of Rev. James Campbell, a man much beloved and widely known as "Father" Campbell. He took possession of this place in 1892 and its cultivation and substantial improvement have afforded him ample occupation since that time. During the first years he spent there Mr. Carroll ran a dairy, a business in which the winning of success worthy of the name depends largely upon the tenac- ity and powers of endurance which the proprietor may possess, and it is a worthy commentary to the character of the man that his experience in that business was so productive of tangible results. During the fifteen years he was thus engaged Mr. Carroll built up his farm to a splendid state of cultivation and production; he erected barns, built silos and otherwise inaugurated improvements which resulted in making his farm one of the valuable tracts adjacent to Louisiana. His fine residence, erected in 1911, is the climax of all his improvements, and is the chief and conspicuous feature of his handiwork.
On December 5, 1872, Mr. Carroll married Mildred F. Varnon, a daughter of Judge and Emeline (Jump) Varnon, who were the parents of five children. Mr. and Mrs. Carroll became the parents of eight children, as follows: Orra E., who is one of the assistants on the staff of the State Normal School at Natchitoches, of Louisiana; Emma, the wife of Albert Ruffin, of Pike county; J. Mert, last heard of in the service of the United States army in the Philippines; Clayton C., a merchant of Stark, Missouri; Miss Ruth; Malcolm H., of Frankford, Missouri ; Allie L., the wife of Harry Sisson, of Frankford, and John, Jr., of Louisiana.
Mr. Carroll is a Republican, coming from a family widely known for its fealty to that party. His churchly relations are maintained by his membership in the Presbyterian church, an association which has con- tinued for the past forty years.
LEMON H. RUFFIN, known as "Lem" H. Ruffin, has been a resident of Pike county since 1857 and the owner of his present well developed farm since 1866. He was born near Springfield, Robertson county, Tennessee, on December 23, 1833, the son of Edwin Ruffin, Jr., who settled in that locality from Buncombe county, North Carolina, where his birth occurred in 1806. He accompanied his father, Edwin Ruffin,
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Sr., to Tennessee as a child, and both possed their lives and are buried in Robertson county.
The senior Ruffin was born in Ireland and married a Miss Draughon in that country. Their children were Edwin, Jr .; David, who moved to Green county, Missouri, and died there, as did his brother, Wells; and Amanda, who married Jesse Gleason and spent her life in Tennessee.
Edwin Ruffin, Jr., gave his life to the farm. He controlled slave labor and held to the doctrine of Secession when the Civil war issues were precipitated. He supported the cause of the Confederacy and two of his sons enlisted under the "stars and bars." He lived to see the new South as she came forth in all her strength from the caldron of rebellion, and has seen real betterment of conditions arise from a move- ment which seemed to harbor naught but evil.
Mr. Ruffin married Miss Elizabeth Eddings, from the state of his birth. She was a daughter of Joseph Eddings, a farmer. She lived to be eighty-three years old, while her husband passed away when eighty- six years of age. Mr. Ruffin's early political affiliations were with the Whig party, but the war made a Democrat of him, even as it made a Republican of one of his sons. He allied himself with no church, but he passed the years of his wedded life in the company of a devout Christian woman of the Methodist faith, and shared in the good works she carried on in her community. Their children were Martha Jane, who died in Tennessee, as Mrs. William Draughon; Henry served in the Confederate army and died at Lebanon, Missouri; Meredith moved to Pike county, Missouri, before the war and passed his life as a farmer. His sympa- thies were with the South during the Rebellion, but circumstances prompted him to enroll in the Federal cause. Joseph died in Tennes- see ; Lem H., of this review; Robert served in the Confederate army and died in Tennessee; John passed his life in his native state, Tennessee, and Monroe is a resident of that state at the present time; Elizabeth married Washington Jones and passed her life in her native state.
Lem H. Ruffin has passed his life thus far as a farmer. He scarce made the acquaintance of a school-room in his boyhood, and his educa- tion compared very unfavorably with that of the average farm youth of today. He began his active career as a farm hand in the old home state. He reached his majority unendowed with capital save that which na- ture vouchsafed him in a generous share of industry and thrift, and he came west to be nearer to real opportunities for a man in his circum- stances than Tennessee then afforded. He worked a year in Pike county for wages, settling in the neighborhood of Louisiana. One year after his advent into Missouri he was married, and he made his home in the location known as the "Squire Templeton Community" until after the war.
Unlike the Ruffin family as a whole, Lem H. Ruffin always supported the Union in its war policies, and he joined the Missouri State Militia, performing what service was required of him with an earnestness that might have won him laurels in a more active field, always in the hope and belief that the rebellious states would be subdued. His company was called out a few times on scouting expeditions throughout that region in the chase of bushwhackers and other disloyal clements, but nothing approaching an engagement with the enemy was encountered.
In 1866 Mr. Ruffin came into possession of the nucleus of his present farm. He purchased forty acres of timber land from Squire Templeton and began clearing up a tobacco patch. He eventually found himself reaching the dignity of a farmer, and when conditions for the growth and marketing of tobacco in a small way were no longer favorable, he turned his attention to grain and stock raising. More than a hundred
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acres of wild brush land has yielded to the grub hoe under his strong and industrious arm and the farm which now sustains him and which reared his family lies along the Louisiana "gravel" four miles south of town. Its improvements reflect the independent and determined character of its owner and the forty-six years of his residence and activity upon it are eloquent in results of the strenuous toil and costly sacrifice which have marked the lives of himself and his faithful wife.
On February 24, 1858, Mr. Ruffin married Miss Mary Ann Carroll, a daughter of James and Mary (Gibson) Carroll, from North Carolina. Mrs. Ruffin was born April 22, 1840, and died in 1876. They were the parents of children named as follows: Monroe, of Louisiana, Missouri, married to Lulu Pickens; Joseph, of Yamhill county, Oregon; Beniah, of Pike county; Elizabeth, the wife of William Page, a farmer of this county ; Albert, a farmer near the home place, married to Emma Car- roll; Henry, a machinist of Clarksville, who married Mollie Joslyn; Miss Hattie, who manages her father's household; and Orr, of Spring- field, Missouri, who married Hattie Scott.
Mr. Ruffin is a Presbyterian and a Republican, and a lay member of . both church and party. He is a quiet, unpretentious man, who has won and retained a high reputation in his community as well as the respect and esteem of his fellow citizens.
JAMES RICHMOND LOWELL. It has been said, and truly, that in the allotments of human life few attain to eminent positions. It is a curious and interesting study to note how opportunity waits on fitness and capacity, so that all at last fill the places for which they are qualified. In the field of journalism there is no "royal road" to promotion. Its high rewards are gained by diligent study, and long and tedious atten- .tion to elementary principles, and only are awarded to those who have developed in the public arena characters of integrity and moral worth. In this connection attention is called to the career of James Richmond Lowell, editor of the Moberly Daily Democrat, who has risen to a place of prominence not only in Missouri journalism, but in the legal pro- fession as well.
Mr. Lowell belongs to a family that has contributed materially to American letters. Percival Lowell, the common ancestor of all the Lowells of America, was born in England in 1571, and came to New- bury, Massachusetts, in the ship Jonathan with his two sons, John and Richard, in 1639, being then sixty-eight years of age, and his death occurred at Newbury, January 8, 1664, at the age of ninety-three years. James Lowell, the paternal grandfather of James Richmond Lowell, was born August 3, 1766, at Amesbury, Massachusetts, was reared in that state and Maine, and became a shipyard owner and ship builder. He died February 21, 1849, at Farmingdale, Maine, in the faith of the Episcopal church, of which he had been a life-long member. On Decem- ber 21, 1800, he was married at Gardiner, Maine, to Miss Olive God- frey, who was born at China, Maine, and they became the parents of eleven children. Alfred Lowell, father of James Richmond Lowell, was born July 6, 1810, at Gardiner, Maine, and was reared in that state and in Illinois. He came to Randolph county, Missouri, in 1869, and engaged in farming and stock dealing, in which he continued up to the time of his death, which occurred January 24, 1887, at Kansas City, Missouri. He was, like his father, an Episcopalian, and his politi- cal belief was that of the Democratic party, although he was never a seeker after public preferment. On December 1, 1841, Mr. Lowell was married at Tremont, Illinois, to Laura S. Richmond, who was born April 24, 1822, at Canandaigua, New York, daughter of Horace Rich-
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mond, of that place. Three children were born to this union : one who is deceased; a son living at Moberly ; and James Richmond.
After attending a private college in Illinois, and Mount Pleasant College, Huntsville, Missouri, James Richmond Lowell was admitted to the Missouri bar in 1888, following which he immediately entered upon the practice of law in Moberly. He so continued until 1898, when he became editor of the Moberly Daily Democrat, and has held this position with this live, modern and newsy sheet, which, under his able direction, has become one of the foremost Democratic journals in the state. In 1909 and 1910, Mr. Lowell served as president of the Missouri Press Association, and he now holds membership in the Past Presidents Association of that body. For eight years he served in the office of circuit clerk, was for eighteen years a member of the board of school directors of the city and subsequently became the first presi- dent of the Moberly Commercial Club, and at all times has manifested a desire to assist all movements for the benefit of his city. He is a Democrat in politics, an attendant of the Presbyterian church, and is . fraternally connected with the Masons, the Elks and the Knights of Pythias.
On June 17, 1880, Mr. Lowell was married at Paola, Kansas, to Miss Eva Moore Mcclellan, who was born August 25, 1854, at Altoona, Pennsylvania, and to this union there have been born three children: Alfred Richmond, Edward Lowery and James Russell. Mr. Lowell is very active in his habits, and a tireless worker. He is enthusiastic in whatever engages his attention, and takes great interest in the friends and attachments of his earlier life. He has great confidence in Moberly, and has invested his means in realty holdings, thus sharing in the com- mon increase in values. Moberly has no more valuable or valued citizen.
JUDGE JOHN WISELY MCILROY is one of the capable business men and successful farmers of Pike county. He comes from one of its pio- neer families whose advent into the county dates back to 1831, when his father, the founder of the family in Missouri, came from Fayette county, Kentucky, and settled in the vicinity of Bowling Green.
Thomas F. McIlroy, the father of Judge MeIlroy, was born in Fayette county, Kentucky, in 1820 and acquired his education as the result of actual contact with life in the primitive times of his youth. He attended school only a few days in his childhood and his natural endowments developed a master mind in a vigorous body. His father was Daniel McIlroy, born in Belfast, Ireland, in 178-, who married Jane Wisely, a lady of Scotch birth and antecedents. He died in Pike county, Mis- souri, in 1836, and lies buried in Bowling Green cemetery. His wife died in 1878 and is buried at his side. Their chldren were Thomas F .; Mary, who married John Benning and died in Miami, Kansas; Margaret, who married Henry Pettibone and died in Butte, Montana; Jane, who died the wife of Marion Mackey in Pike county ; Robert, who passed his life in Pike county ; Elizabeth, who married David McClure and died at Mexico, Missouri ; and John P., of Bowling Green, Missouri.
In his physical and mental vigor and in the character of his citizen- ship and private life, Thomas F. MeIlroy was excelled by few men of his time. He was the author and architect of his own fortune, save as he was guided by the divine mind, and he let his light so shine that others might see the works of God in one of their fellow men. He was a mem- ber of the Cumberland Presbyterian church practically all his life, and bore his full share of the duties and responsibilities attendant upon such membership, as well as receiving the benefits accruing therefrom. He was a large man physically, more than six feet in height, and weighing
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fully two hundred and forty pounds, always presenting a striking figure among any group of men.
It was in his domestic life that Thomas F. MeIlroy was unique. He was four times married and celebrated his golden wedding anniversary with his fourth and last wife. He first married Letitia Henry, a daugh- ter of Alexander Henry and Elizabeth (Allison) Henry, the father being a South Carolina man who married in Tennessee, later removing to Missouri. Mrs. McIlroy died in 1854, aged twenty-seven years, leav- ing three children, as follows: John Wisely; Edna Alice, born in 1849, who married Samuel F. Mackey and resides in Marshall, Missouri; and George C., of Clarksville, Missouri. Mr. McIlroy's second wife was Lucretia, daughter of Josiah Henry, and a cousin of his first wife. Their wedded life was but of brief duration, terminated by her death, and soon thereafter he married Jane Martin, a daughter of Judge James Martin, of Frankford, Missouri. She lived but a short while, dying without issue, and several months subsequent to her death Mr. MeIlroy married Miss Margaret Stark, a daughter of John W. Stark, and with her, in February, 1909, he celebrated his "golden jubilee," dying a few months later in the same year. The issues of this marriage were : Henry T., who died in 1905, leaving a son; Ella, the wife of Robert Fry, of Perry, Missouri; William S., a farmer and stock man, and the present owner of the old McIlroy home; and Lizzie, the wife of Dr. Hope, of Chattanooga, Tennessee.
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