A history of northeast Missouri, Vol. 2 pt 2, Part 23

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

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chant and auctioneer. Later his son Elizemond built the first home where Indianapolis now is. Another son, John Walter Basye, grandfather of the subject of this review, came to Louisiana territory January 1, 1791, and that year went up the Mississippi river to where the city of Louis- iana now is. He probably was the first white man in Pike unless it be some French with M. de la Motte, or Crozot in 1712. He returned to St. Louis where he lived twenty-seven years, frequently taking trips far up the river. It is said he was with Lieutenant Pike in August, 1805, when he sought the source of the river, but returned to St. Louis after reaching Hurricane Island. In March, 1818, he came with his family to live in Pike county, before it was organized. In 1820 he moved to his lands at the "top of the hill," and three years later about 1823 the town of Bowling Green was laid out by him on ninety acres of his farm. The news of the Louisiana Purchase reached St. Louis where he then lived, March 10, 1804, and to him and his friend, John Allen, was given the honor of raising the first American flag west of the Mississippi. The next morning they pulled down the French flag. It was the practice then to keep a flag raised at forts and trading posts. St. Louis at that time contained less than nine hundred people, mostly French, and in what is now Missouri there were only about two thousand people and he is said to have known them all. An exchange of visits to his brother Elizemond in Bowling Green, Kentucky, resulted in quite a number coming from there to Pike county. They were the Pikes, Thorntons, Readings, Culbertsons and others, and were known here as the "Bowling Green crowd." They gave the name to the new town in Missouri.

I. Walter Basye's childhood and early youth were spent in Bowling Green and on the farm. He attended the village school and at the age of eighteen entered Platteville (Wis.) Academy. Returning he taught in Pike Academy for nearly two years, then entered Allegheny College, at Meadville, Pennsylvania. Concluding to become a teacher, he attended the State Normal School of Wisconsin one year. He never graduated from any of these schools. In 1867 he married a classmate, Miss Laura Emma Avery, of Platteville. She, too, was a teacher. They opened a private school of high grade on the site of the old fair grounds in Bowl- ing Green. The school house was burned January, 1868. In 1870 he erected another commodious building and continued the school as a normal and teachers' training school. In 1875 Mr. Basye was elected superintendent of city schools, which position he held one year refusing re-election and abandoning teaching. His wife died in 1883, leaving two children,-Otto, now an attorney in Kansas City, Missouri, and a daugh- ter, Nellie. In 1884 he married Miss Vie Sarah Higgins, of Albion, Michigan. Of this marriage there was born I. Walter, Jr., and Marie Louise, both in Chicago.

In 1876 Mr. Basye founded the "Missouri School and Church Fur- nishing Association" which did a large business for many years. Later he was a merchant, farmer and stock raiser, manufacturer, real estate broker and trader, all of which lines of industry were pushed to success by the energy which was characteristic of the man.

In politics Mr. Basye had always been an independent Republican. In religion he is a Methodist as were most of his ancestors since the founding of that denomination. At various times he has held all the offices of the local church and for many years was superintendent of the Sunday school. He has been a sturdy worker in the temperance cause, and in that work and the Sunday school activities he has a more than local reputation. In other years he was a member of many secret and fraternal societies. He "passed the chair" in all of them and was usually sent as delegate to grand or supreme lodges, in which he held

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important offices. In later years he is giving his attention to historical research and the preparation of the genealogy and history of the Basye family since their coming to America. A recreation in which he finds much pleasure is the collecting, growing and studying of rare trees and shrubs gathered from all parts of the world. He is in close touch with the Bureau of Plant Industry at Washington, D. C., which he rep- resents. A real student of the arboretum makes him an authority in this delightful field. He and his deceased wife, Laura, were devotees in the study of astronomy, and one of the chief delights was their joint revelry in stellar worlds. He has never been an office seeker, has not accumulated a big fortune, and makes no claim to great accomplishments, even though he has led a varied and strenuous life. He is warm in his attachment to friends and equally warm toward his foes, but not the same kind of warmth. He is the author of the history of Pike county found in this series of histories.

ANDREW WALKER MCALESTER, A. B., A. M., M. D., LL. D. Among the eminent members of the medical profession of northeastern Mis- souri, none have ranked higher than the distinguished Dr. Andrew Walker McAlester, late dean of the medical department of the Univer- sity of Missouri, now living a retired life after a career of the widest activity, as well as the most beneficent, as a physician, lecturer, writer, and reformer in medical education. The work accomplished by Dr. Mc- Alester during the years of his active practice fills an important chapter in the history of the medical profession in Missouri. His remarkable skill in combating disease and relieving suffering made him known as one of his state's greatest practitioners, and the labor he performed in the interests of medical science was marked by the same earnestness which entered into his methods of conducting his private practice. Al- though Dr. McAlester has retired from the active practice of medicine, he has made his influence felt, both directly and by his stimulating ex- ample, in other fields of endeavor, while his career furnishes an example of sterling citizenship well worthy of emulation.

Dr. McAlester was born in Rocheport, Boone county, Missouri, Jan- uary 1, 1841, and is the son of B. McAlester, a pioneer lumber dealer of Columbia, Missouri, to which city the family moved in 1845. After graduating from the public and high schools of Columbia, he entered the University of Missouri, from which he received his diploma in 1864, and at once took up the study of medicine under Dr. Norwood. Subse- quently he attended the St. Louis Medical College, where he was gradu- ated in 1866; Rush Medical College, Chicago ; and Bellevue, New York. In 1873 he took a trip to Europe that he might further pursue his medi- cal studies in London and Paris, as well as visiting a number of eminent German universities, and in 1885 he revisited the European countries with the same end in view. In 1872 Dr. McAlester had been tendered the chair of surgery and obstetrics at the University of Missouri, and on his return home from foreign parts, he eventually became dean of the medical department, in which he continued until 1909.

Between the years of 1901 and 1905 Dr. McAlester was president of the state board of health. On June 3, 1909, the board of curators of the university conferred upon him the title of "emeritus professor of surgery," and on June 5th of the same year the board prepared suitable resolutions referring to him as "the founder of the medical department and recognizing the faithfulness and ability with which you have dis- charged your duties."

For a long period of years Dr. McAlester carried on an extensive practice in a private way, and his patients were not only given the bene-

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fit of his skill, but the advice of a friend and the condolence of a com- forter. Since his retirement Dr. McAlester has interested himself in the breeding of thoroughbred horses, and has more than one hundred ani- mals on his magnificent farm just to the northeast of Columbia, where he resides in the style of an old Kentucky horse lover. He has been instrumental in inducing the United States government to take up the breeding of saddle horses for the army, himself presenting the govern- ment with a stallion valued at $5,000. Alert to and interested in all the live issues of the day, he has done much to advance the cause of educa- tion, progress, morality and good citizenship, and has justly earned a place among those who have materially contributed to their country's advancement. Dr. McAlester is a valued member of the American Medi- cal Association, and at one time was president of the Missouri State Medical Association. He is an active and prominent Mason, and his religious connection is with the Methodist Episcopal church. In politi- cal matters he is a Democrat.

Dr. McAlester was married first December 21, 1869, to Miss Iza Berry, of Springfield, Missouri, and she died in 1870. In 1873 he took as his second wife Miss Sallie McConathy, of Boone county, and to this union three sons have been born : Andrew W., Berry and James.

WILLIAM W. CARPENTER. Progress is man's distinctive mark, and in this twentieth century individual initiative and constructive ability have found their apotheosis. One of the progressive and popular citizens who have contributed most definitely to civic and material development and advancement in Howard county, Missouri, within the past decade it may safely be said that none has been more prominent and influential than Mr. Carpenter, who is the present mayor of New Franklin, one of the thriving little cities of this section of the state. Aggressive and far-sighted in his business policies, liberal and public- spirited in his civic attitude, he has utilized his splendid powers in for- warding the best interests of his home city and county, and his opera- tions in the handling of real estate and the improving of the same have been extensive and well ordered. He is essentially one of the repre- sentative citizens of Howard county and his efforts in behalf of social and material progress within its borders have not lacked popular appre- ciation, as is measurably indicated by the official position which he now holds and to which he was elected in the spring of 1911, for the regular term of two years. He received a majority which was an emphatic voncher for the confidence and esteem reposed in him in his home city, and his administration as chief executive of the municipal government embodies the same progressive and wise policies that have conserved his individual success along normal lines of business enter- prise. Mr. Carpenter has been a resident of Howard county since 1894, and is here engaged in the general real-estate and loan business, of which lines of enterprise he is one of the foremost representatives in this section of the state.

The mayor of New Franklin claims the Old Dominion as the place of his nativity and is a scion of stanch southern stock. He was born in Madison county, Virginia, on the 11th of December, 1870, and in the agnatic line his genealogy traces back to the fine old Holland Dutch stock that played such an important part in the early settlement of New York and New Jersey, representatives of the name having served as valiant soldiers of the Continental line in the War of the Revolution and others having participated in the War of 1812. Mr. Carpenter is a son of Andrew J. and Mary A. Carpenter, both of whom were born in Madison county, Virginia. The father devoted his active career to

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the basic industries of agriculture and stock-growing and through his well directed efforts attained to success worthy the name. He was a son of Andrew Carpenter, who likewise was a native of Virginia, and who became a prominent and influential citizen of Madison county, that state, where he continued to reside until his death. He was a stalwart Democrat and did much to further the party cause, both in Virginia and after his removal to Missouri. He removed to Missouri in 1894 and established his residence in Howard county, where he con- tinued active and successful operation as an agriculturist and stock- raiser until his retirement in 1912, his cherished and devoted wife, who was a daughter of Nathaniel F. Mayland, died in 1897, both hav- ing been consistent members of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, at the time of her death, though the father had previously been an adherent of the Lutheran church. Of the six children, Nellie died at the age of twenty-four years and Jesse at the age of twenty. Of the four surviving the eldest is he whose name initiates this review ; Miss Mary L. resides in New Franklin; Ray J. is engaged in contracting in New Franklin, Missouri; and Genevieve E. is a resident of New Frank- lin. Andrew J. Carpenter was a valiant soldier of the Confederacy in the Civil war, as a member of the Tenth Virginia Infantry, and was under the command of General Lee at the time of the final surrender of that gallant and honored leader. Five of his brothers also were soldiers of the Confederacy, and three of the number were killed in battle. In politics Andrew J. Carpenter gave unwavering allegiance. to the cause of the Democratic party, and he did effective service in behalf of the principles and policies for which the party has ever stood sponsor in a basic way.

William W. Carpenter was reared to maturity in his native county and his early educational advantages were those afforded in the schools of that section of Virginia. He was fortunate also in having the environment and influences of a home of distinctive culture and refine- ment, the while the principles of integrity and honor were instilled in him in his youth,-to become a very part of his nature. At the age of nineteen years he engaged in the real-estate business at Roanoke, Vir- ginia, where he remained until 1894, when he established his residence at New Franklin, Missouri, where he has since maintained his home and been a prominent factor in the same line of enterprise.

Among the early undertakings projected by Mr. Carpenter was the promoting of the local telephone plant, which he constructed and placed in effective operation. In connection with his rapidly expanding real- estate business Mr. Carpenter platted the village of Franklin Junction, which had not a single house at that time and which is now well and substantially built up. His faith in the future of New Franklin has been unwavering, and he has contributed liberally of his time and money to further its development and upbuilding. Here he has erected a substantial and modern business block and numerous private residences, and he has controlled a large and important real-estate and loan busi- ness, in which he handles both town and farm property and makes a specialty of extending financial loans on approved real-estate security. Scrupulous fairness and honor have characterized all of his operations. and thus he well merits the high esteem in which he is held in the community. He is genial and buoyant of temperament, tolerant in judgment and ever ready to extend a helping hand to those in affliction or distress. As mayor of his home city he insistently advocates due conservatism in municipal expenditures, but is equally determined in furthering measures and enterprises which tend to advance the best interests of the community along the line of permanent public improve-

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ments and the encouraging of business and industrial enterprises. In politics he is aligned as a stalwart and elective supporter of the cause of the Democratic party; he is affiliated with the Elks, Lodge No. 125, Sedalia, Missouri; Independent Order of Odd Fellows, and the Knights of Pythias, and both he and his wife hold membership in the Baptist church in their home city, where Mrs. Carpenter presides graciously over their attractive home and where she is a popular factor in the representative social activities of the community.

In the year 1895 Mr. Carpenter wedded Miss Maggie Cox, a daughter of Benjamin H. Cox, of New Franklin, and she was summoned to the life eternal in 1911, being survived by one son, Winfred W., Jr. On the 4th of August, 1912, was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Carpenter to Miss Ella Cox, a niece of his first wife. She is a daughter of William O. Cox, an influential and honored citizen of Howard county, and in her home city her circle of friends is coincident with that of her acquaintances.

REV. RANSOM HARVEY, D. D., president of La Grange College, at La Grange, Missouri, was born on May 18, 1851, in Conesus, Livingston county, New York state. He is the son of a farmer and the grandson of a Baptist minister, who was educated at Harvard and passed his life in the Baptist ministry in New York state.

Dr. Harvey passed his early life on the home farm, receiving his pre- paratory education in the common schools of his community, the Ber- gen graded school and later entering the Cortland State Normal school and the Rochester Collegiate Institute. He was graduated from the latter institution of learning in 1874, from Rochester University in 1878, and from Rochester Theological Seminary in 1881. He was a brilliant student throughout his college career, and took prizes in declamation and Latin and two in mathematics in different years. He has the degrees of A. B., B. D. and D. D., and after his college course was admitted to membership in the Phi Beta Kappa.

In 1882 Dr. Harvey was ordained to the Baptist ministry and set- tled as pastor of the First Baptist church of Jamestown, where he remained for some six years. He was then six years in the service of the First Baptist church of Poughkeepsie, New York, and was a similar period of time with the Third Baptist church of Germantown, Philadel- phia, Pennsylvania. In 1901 Dr. Harvey came west to take a position as teacher of theology and church history and dean of the divinity school in Shurtleff College, at Upper Alton, Illinois. He was pastor for more than a year of the Vermont Street Baptist church at Quincy, Illinois, and came to La Grange College as teacher of Biblical, theological and philosophical subjects in September, 1904, having since continued in that work, with the greatest of success. In 1911 Doctor Harvey was elected president of the college.

JOHN EUBANK SANDERSON. As the founder of the leading mercan- tile house of Bowling Green, John Eubank Sanderson was up to the time of his death one of the leading men of the town. Like many men of his generation his fortune was swept away by the Civil war, and the courage and energy with which he set to work, with a heart sore over the loss of the cause for which he gave not only his fortune but his personal services, adds but another tale to the long list of brave stories of the days following the surrender of Lee at Appomattox. In his death Bowling Green lost one of her finest citizens, a man who was not only successful in the business world, but who succeeded in winning the regard and friendship of all with whom he came in contact.

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John Eubank Sanderson was a native of Bedford county, Virginia. He was born October 13, 1821, and his environment as a child denied him an education of more than a very meagre order. In fact, he is said to have attended school only a few weeks, such book knowledge as he acquired being outside of the usual avenues of training. He was the son of John Eubank Sanderson and Belinda DeWitt Sanderson, whose lives seem to have been devoted to the farm. Among their several chil- dren were Ann F., who became the wife of M. N. Hogue, who died in Pike county, leaving a family in Bowling Green; George W .; Thomas N., a resident of Pike county, who died there and left a family ; John E., whose life achievements form an important link in the commercial his- tory of Bowling Green; Robert M., who died at Cave City, Barron county, Kentucky; James A., who is the one survivor of the family today and is a resident of Bowling Green; Pauline, the wife of Samuel Rice, spent her life in Bedford county, Virginia, as did Mrs. Sallie Left- wich, the youngest child of the family.

John E. Sanderson began his career as a merchant's apprentice vir- tually, although he was not actually entered as such. He was fifteen years of age when he entered the store of Davis, Logwood & Company at Big Island, Bedford county, Virginia, and with that firm he mastered the business of a general merchandise establishment. He first became a partner and then the successor of his employers and continued business until the outbreak of the Rebellion in 1861. He demonstrated his faith in the permanency of the Confederacy by selling his business and invest- ing the proceeds in Confederate bonds, laying down $30,000 in silver for the "promise to pay" of the Davis-Toombs-Stevens government. He not only gave up his life earnings, but he gave his services for four years, becoming a quartermaster in the army of northern Virginia.

Having witnessed the final destruction of his hopes with the fall of Lee's army at Appomattox, he accepted the decree of the fates and returned to a home, once affluent and independent, but now one of pov- erty. As a means of rescuing himself from this financial situation, he "share cropped" for two years, as the process of farming on shares was called, and from his labors saved sufficient to bring his family to St. Louis, Missouri. There he rented a building and kept a rooming house from 1869 to 1874, when he came to Bowling Green. Here he made his second start as a merchant. He rented a three story brick building and used the upper floors as a hotel called the Hendrick House, and the lower floor, with a space of eighteen by sixty feet, he filled with mer- chandise. In 1879 he was able to purchase property on the south side of the square and there erected a two story brick business house, which now houses two important departments of the firm. The need of more room eventually caused him to lease first the adjoining building and later on, the house adjacent to that, until he had three ground floors with a frontage of one hundred feet and the same depth, and his wares so arranged as to form four departments,-carpets and tapestries, dry goods, clothing and shoes, the latter department being added in 1909, when he purchased the stock of one of his mercantile neighbors.

Having thus witnessed the achievement of his ambition, John San- derson remained in the business until June 1, 1911, when the infirmi- ties of age made his retirement expedient. Although ever a man of great strength and vigor, disease, attacking him late in life, made rapid inroads upon his constitution, and on October 18, 1911, he passed away. He was a man whose life demonstrated the highest principles of progress. He ever felt the lack of a proper schooling in his youth, although he sup- plemented that lack largely by a course of reading and study which made it possible for him to successfully cope with his educational peers.

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He became an expert accountant and was regarded as a local historian in this section of the state. He gathered together a library of several hundred volumes of history, biography and works on economics, and these he made his companions outside of business hours. He had little interest in fiction but was a great student of the Bible. At the age of fifteen years he united with the Hunting Creek Baptist church and shaped his life ever afterward in conformity with the teachings of the Master in his Sermon on the Mount. He was an officer of the church, and seemed in his element while attending church associations and taking part in the deliberations of the Bowling Green congregation as one of its representative members. He was ever a stickler for the best in education for the young. He urged the limit of school tax when neces- sary to support the public schools upon a high plane, and was the friend of advanced methods in instruction. He entered heartily into the county fair movement and aided the organization of the Bowling Green Fair Association. He was one of the founders of Pike County College, and its enthusiastic supporter until the time of his death. He was a Democrat and cast his first presidential vote for James K. Polk. Upon the question of slavery, which divided our country in 1861, he held the principle of slavery to be a wrong one, but felt that the owners of slave property should be compensated by the government which emancipated that property. He never joined a fraternity.

On December 15, 1852, Mr. Sanderson married Miss Katherine Wharton Thompson, a daughter of Jesse Thompson. She died in St. Louis in 1873, leaving eight children, here named in the order of their birth : Elizabeth, the wife of T. P. Cook of Chicago; Alice, the widow of B. H. Cowgill, living in Bowling Green; Miss Ella W., of Bowling Green; Waller H., of the firm of the Sanderson Company ; Miss Jessie, a teacher in the public schools of Kansas City, Missouri; Miss Minnie, of Bowling Green ; Miss Laura, also teaching in Kansas City, and Lewis T., the junior member of the Sanderson Company.

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A history of northeast Missouri, Vol. 2 pt 2, Part 23

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