A history of northeast Missouri, Vol. 2 pt 2, Part 44

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

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Five sons have been born to Mr. and Mrs. Thurmond: William R., a well-known attorney of Kansas City, Missouri, who is now counsel for the Long-Bell Lumber Co. of that city; Philip, street commissioner and city engineer of Fulton; Ben B., postmaster at Auxvasse, Missouri; Edwin W., who is engaged in farming and fruit culture, with an ex- perimental station at Morrill, Texas; Robert H., R. F. D. carrier out of Auxvasse; and one daughter, Nellie, who married C. C. Collett, superintendent of schools of Gallatin, Missouri.

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FORREST O. LINK. It is pleasing to record that in his native county of Callaway Mr. Link is one of the prominent and successful repre- sentatives of the agricultural and live-stock interests and that he is a young man of progressive policies and much energy and enterprise, besides which he is a scion of a family whose name has been identified most worthily with the industrial and civic history of Callaway county for more than sixty years.

John Link, grandfather of him whose name initiates this review, was a native of the Old Dominion commonwealth of Virginia and came from Halifax county, that state, to Missouri about the year 1848. He ob- tained a tract of most fertile land along the river hills about eight miles south of New Bloomfield, Callaway county, and there he developed a productive farm. He brought with him from Virginia a number of slaves and on his farm he gave considerable attention to the propagation of tobacco. He was a man of sterling character and was held in high csteem in the community in which he thus established his home and in which he continued to reside until his death, when about forty-five years of age. He died while the Civil war was in progress and his wife, whose maiden name was Elizabeth Lawson and who was a daughter of John and Annis (Brandon) Lawson, survived him by several years. Both were earnest and consistent members of the Baptist church. They be- came the parents of eight sons and one daughter, the latter of whom, Anne, died at the age of two years. All of the sons attained to years of maturity, and after the death of Bird, who passed away when twenty years of age, there was not another death in the immediate family circle for more than a score of years. The names of the children are here given : William J., Robert J., Thomas L., Smith E., Abner S., Bird, Richard H., Samuel K., John Booker, and Anne.

Abner Silas Link, father of Forrest O., was born on the old home- stead farm mentioned and the date of his nativity was June 6, 1853. He devoted his entire active career to farming and stock-growing and is now living virtually retired in the village of New Bloomfield. He re- claimed about two hundred acres of the fine bottom lands of the Mis- souri river, in Callaway county, and his homestead, upon which he made excellent improvements of a permanent order, is located about three miles east of Jefferson City. This property he sold in 1906, and he now has an attractive home in New Bloomfield, where he is enjoying the well earned rewards of former toil and endeavor, the while he holds secure place in the confidence and esteem of the people of the county which has ever been his place of abode and in which he gained definite success and prosperity through his own energy and ability. He is a staunch Democrat in his political proclivities and both he and his wife hold membership in the Methodist Episcopal church, South, in which he has long served as steward and trustee. Abner S. Link first wedded Miss Ella Oliver, who did not long survive and who left no children. In December, 1876, he wedded Miss Jennie Oliver, a cousin of his first wife. She was born in Summit township, Callaway county, on the 10th of September, 1846, and is a daughter of Thomas H. and Mary (Irwin) Oliver, honored pioneers of this section of the state. Of the three children of the second marriage the first died in infancy ; Forrest O. was the next in order of birth; and Thomas Booker died at the age of fourteen years.

Forrest Oliver Link was born on his father's farm, on the 21st of August, 1881, and after availing himself of the advantages of the dis- trict schools he continued his studies in the Jefferson City high school. He has never wavered in his allegiance to the great basic industries of agriculture and stock-growing and his present homestead, lying con-

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tiguous to the village of New Bloomfield, is one of the fine places of Callaway county. In the ownership of the same he was associated with his father and the home is likewise that of his parents, with whom he has remained from the time of his birth. Since 1907 he has had the entire management of the farm. It then contained only one hundred and twenty-five acres, but he has bought and added thereto three hundred and twenty-five acres of adjoining land, which is all under a high state of cultivation. The present farm of Mr. Link comprises four hundred and fifty acres of excellent land and the permanent improve- ments are of attractive order and all lie in New Bloomfield. The farm adjoins the town on the north and lies along the Chicago & Alton Ry. on the east and north sides for one and one-half miles. Mr. Link is alert and enterprising in his operations, has given his at- tention to diversified agriculture and to the raising of high-grade live stock. He feeds each year about two hundred and fifty head of cattle and five hundred head of swine, and in both departments of his farm enterprise his success has been on a parity with his industry and good management. He takes a loyal interest in all that touches the general welfare of the community, is a staunch Democrat in his political ad- herency and both he and his wife are zealous members of the Methodist Episcopal church, South, in the village of New Bloomfield. He is serving as steward of this church at the present time.

On the 30th of December, 1903, was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Link to Miss Letha Trigg, who was born at Fulton, the judicial center of Callaway county, on the 13th of December, 1880, and who is a daughter of M. R. and Lyle (Adams) Trigg. Mr. and Mrs. Link have a fine little son, Thomas Forrest, who was born on the 19th of April, 1905.

ROBERT GREENE TERRILL, county clerk of Randolph county, and a resident of Huntsville, Missouri, is a native son of the state, born on a farm near Moberly on October 12, 1866. He is the descendant of a most interesting family on both the paternal and maternal sides, and such brief data as are at hand are thus here incorporated, with rela- tion to the respective families of the subject, in writing briefly on his life and work.

The Terrill family was founded in the United States by William Terrill, the descendant of the house of Tyrrell, as it was once known, of Buckhamshire, England. He came to Virginia in 1657, first settling in King William county, then Gloucester county, and later in Han- over county. He was graduated from Oxford, prior to his removal to the New World, and while yet in college transferred his allegiance from the Roman Catholic to the Episcopal, or Church of England, faith, for which act of infidelity he was banished to America, where his father was already established and was the owner of large landed estates. William Terrill was born in 1635, and died in 1729, full of years, leav- ing to his family a name untarnished by act of his, and one which has ever been well maintained in the land in which he established it. He married Susannah Waters, of England, and the daughter of the Earl of Waters, and the direct line of ancestry from the time of William Terrill down to the subject is briefly given as follows:

Timothy Terrill, the son of William and Susannah (Waters) Ter- rill, was born at New Kent, Virginia, in 1668; he married Elizabeth Foster, and they became the parents of Robert Terrill, born in Orange county, Virginia, in 1697, and dying in 1786. He married Mary Foster. Their son, Edmund Terrill, also of Orange county, Virginia, born in 1740, and dying in 1784, married Margaret Willis, a daughter of Col-

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onel Willis, whose wife was Mildred Washington, an aunt of General George Washington. Robert Terrill, the son of Edmund and Margaret (Willis) Terrill, was born in 1777 and married Mary Lacy, and they became the parents of William Terrill, born in 1807, and he married Ann Calvin, dying in 1869. Their son, John Robert Terrill, born in 1829 and dying in 1911, married Anne Roberts, and these parents gave to the world Robert Greene Terrill, the subject of this review.

Of the life of John Robert Terril but little may here be said for lack of space, but it may at least be set down that he was born in 1829 in Greenup county, Kentucky. His wife, Anne Roberts, was the daughter of William Roberts, and she was born in 1839. The father, John R. Terrill, was a farmer and a staunch adherent of the Mis- sionary Baptist church. He was a Democrat in his political allegiance, and ever a highly respected citizen in the community which so long represented his home and the center of his business activities. His death in 1911 was a distinct loss to his district, and he will long be remem- bered among a wide circle of friends and acquaintances.

Their son, Robert Greene Terrill, was educated in Moberly high school, after which he attended Winchester Normal at Winchester, Ten- nessee. He thereafter devoted his attention to farming interests, in which he met with a splendid degree of practical success, and con- tinued to be thus employed, until he was elected to the office of county clerk of Randolph county in 1911, as the candidate of the Democratic party, in whose interests he has ever taken a wholesome action. His regime thus far has been marked by worthy service, and it is evident to all that his election was the result of excellent judgment on the part of the voters of the county.

On April 22, 1897, Mr. Terrill was united in marriage with Miss Lena Horner, of Huntsville, Missouri. She was a graduate of Shorter College, in Rome, Georgia, and took a postgraduate course at Wesleyan College, Macon, Georgia. She is the daughter of James S. and Louisa (Kingsbury) Horner. Her paternal grandfather, Major Horner, was made lieutenant-colonel of the Tenth Regiment, First Brigade and First Division of the Missouri militia under Governor McNair in 1822, and became colonel of the same regiment in 1824. He was commissioned paymaster-general of the Missouri militia in the Mormon war by Gov- ernor Boggs in 1837, and was also appointed to the same office in the Black Hawk war, by Governor Reynolds. Before coming to Missouri he had served in the War of 1812 as orderly sergeant. He was a member of the Missouri legislature during the war which met at the call of Governor Jackson in Neosho, when the act of secession was passed. He was at one time county judge of Randolph county, and was in many other ways prominent in the public life of the district.

Two children have been born to Robert Greene Terrill and his wife, -Louisa Rubey, born in Huntsville, Missouri, October 3, 1899, and John Vincent Terrill, born June 6, 1901, at the same place. The fam- ily are members of the Methodist Episcopal church, South.

JAMES D. PITT is a representative of a family founded near Frank- ford more than eighty years ago, and during the past half century he has been a factor in the conduct of some of the commercial and indus- trial affairs of Pike county. He was born four miles west of this city, on December 26, 1836, and within the echoes of his childhood he has spent his strenuous life.

The founder of this family was William Pitt. the father of the sub- ject, who was born in Liscard. Cornwallshire, England, in 1799, a son of Joseph Pitt, who was the great-grandson of Thomas Pitt, governor

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of Ft. St. George in the East Indies in the reign of Queen Anne. Joseph Pitt brought the family to the United States. In 1815 Joseph Pitt went to New York City, where he spent a year, going to Philadelphia in 1817, where he remained about two years then went to Charlottes- ville, Virginia, remaining there until his advent into Missouri in 1831. Joseph Pitt married Margaret Rowe, both of whom died on the old Pitt farm near Frankford, the former in 1835 and the latter in 1854. Their children were William; John, who died at Clarksville, Missouri, in 1863, without issue; Joseph, who died in 1857 and left four children, and Thomas, who died single in 1856.

William Pitt learned drafting and carpenter work and began life as an architect and contractor, and executed some of the historic con- tracts of Virginia during the first quarter of the nineteenth century. He built the rotunda of the state University of Virginia at Charlotts- ville ; the Barber mansion under contract with Philip Barber of Orange county, one of the historic men of the state, that being one of the con- spicuous residences of the county; the home of Senator Wade Hamp- ton's father and the great and costly mansion of Col. John Cole on Green Mountain in Albemarle county. In 1831 Mr. Pitt abandoned his trade and profession and became a citizen of Missouri. He settled near Frankford and bought the old Levi Keithly farm, which was settled in 1816. Farming constituted his vocation during his remain- ing years of life and he died in 1876. He possessed no striking char- acteristics, was a man of domestic habits and was a zealous member of the Christian church. A memorial window was built in the Frank- ford church in honor of himself and his wife, who died in 1888. Wil- liam Pitt married Martha A. Dunkum, a daughter, granddaughter and great-granddaughter of John Dunkum, the great-grandfather being a Scotchman in the service of the British army who came to America about 1752 with the English troops and took part in the French and Indian war. When he quit the army he settled in Orange county, Virginia, married and reared a family. His son, John, married a Miss Bradley and spent his life in Cumberland county, Virginia. Of their several children, John became the father of Martha Dunkum, the wife of William Pitt. John Dunkum owned the townsite of Knox- ville, Tennessee, and valued it so little that he traded it for a dapple gray horse. One of his sons, Dr. J. D. Dunkum, came out to Missouri in 1838 and practiced medicine in Pike county for some years. He died here, leaving one son, Samuel J., who died in 1888. Samuel J. was the father of a daughter, now Mrs. Leta Miller, of St. Louis.

The children of William Pitt are Elizabeth, who married Gabriel Hostetter and died in 1855 at the age of twenty-seven, leaving five chil- dren; Robert R., who died of cholera on the Mississippi river near Cairo, Illinois, in 1850; he was unmarried; Mary J., born in 1832, mar- ried Turner H. Coleman, and died in Frankford in 1896, leaving a daughter; Mrs. Webb Turner, of Hannibal, Missouri; James D., of this review; Ellen, born in 1839, married Dr. Tucker in 1860 and died in Frankford in 1911, leaving three sons,-J. Elliott, Edwin L. and Wal- ter H. of the firm of Tucker Brothers; Edwin, born in 1842, died in 1882, leaving one son, William; William S., born in 1844, died unmar- ried at the age of twenty-four years; Luther died in 1848 at the age of two years; and Miss Fannie, born in 1853, is a resident of Frank- ford, Missouri.

James D. Pitt attended Van Renssalaer Academy in Ralls county, Missouri, and started life as a merchant's clerk in Frankford. He farmed and sold goods during the Civil war, and joined a company of citizens who built a woolen mill, then a grist mill, with both of which

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he was identified for several years. He was a prominent factor in the forming of the company which constructed the St. Louis & Hannibal Railroad, now the "Short Line," and was a director of it. He subse- quently engaged in the tie and timber business along the line early in its life, and has continued this interest to the present time, chiefly supplying the road with its repair material. He organized the Bank of Eolia with others about the new town, and was president of the institution until 1911, and in 1885 he organized the Frankford Ex- change Bank, together with other Frankford citizens. Mr. Pitt has been disposed to collect local historical data regarding people and in- cidents of Pike county for many years, and has written articles for local newspapers, which are of value in the way of keeping some things fresh in the minds of the public. He is a Democrat when the party clings to sound principles of business, participated in conventions of the party in the more vigorous years of his life, and was present at the convention that nominated Judge King for congress in the early seventies. He has his own ideas about man's origin and his responsi- bility to a personal creator, and is not a fraternity man nor a mem- ber of any church.

On October 22, 1861, Mr. Pitt married Miss Matilda M. Brown, a daughter of George Brown of Audrain county, Missouri, formerly from Kentucky. Her mother was Elizabeth Pickens, a lady of French descent, from South Carolina. This family of the name Brown starts with William Brown, who was killed by the Indians of Western Penn- sylvania during the French and Indian troubles of the Pittsburg lo- cality. A number of people, including his family, had taken refuge in a blockhouse, and were without water. The sufferings of the party from thirst induced him to make a sally for water, and he was mur- dered in sight of his wife, who was watching his progress through a porthole in the wall. His widow and children, William and Colburn, located at Cynthiana, Kentucky, where they remained. Colburn mar- ried Jane Taylor and reared a large family, among whom was George Brown, the father of Mrs. Pitt. Those of Mr. and Mrs. Pitt's children who reached mature years are Mrs. "Bida" Henry, who is her father's companion, and Bernice, the wife of Robert G. Tague, of Frankford. Mr. and Mrs. Tague have one child, Mervin Merrill. Mrs. Pitt died on January 10, 1899, at the age of 59 years.

DAVID WALLACE is an effective force in the legal mechanism of Ralls county, Missouri, and a living example of a force that does things in every department of social and professional life. He is a mixture of Scotch and Irish without being "Scotch-Irish," a paradoxical statement which the circumstances of his birth wholly warrant.

His father was William Wallace, who bore a Scotch name, but an Irish nativity, and who defended the dominant faith of his native Ire- land with pen and tongue. William was born in County Limerick, March 13, 1819, and was brought up by parents of independent means and given the advantage of a liberal education. As a young man he thought seriously upon the question of Irish liberty as proposed by successors of the great Robert Emmet, John Mitchell, D'Arcy McGee and Thomas F. Meagher, who aroused national feeling among the Irish patriots and led them to jeopardize their personal liberty and perhaps their lives, to make Ireland free.

William Wallace was one of these patriots, and for the part he took against British sovereignty his own expatriation was the result. He sniffed the impending danger to the author of seditious utterances before the arm of the law fell upon him and came to the United States where

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many of his compatriots had sought asylum and established homes under a real banner of liberty. He reached Boston about 1850 and located his residence at Walpole, Norfolk county, Massachusetts, and during the six years he resided there he devoted himself largely to literary work.

It was about this time that the American or "Know-Nothing" party in politics was casting its shadow upon the horizon as a menacing political factor and Mr. Wallace found his way into the arena of newspaper debate for the overthrow of its really un-American doctrines. He was a con- tributor to the Boston Pilot of articles calculated to expose the bigotry and the unfairness and lack of charity of the tenets of faith announced by the new political departure and witnessed its sudden decline after carrying but a single state. Thus did the erstwhile Irish patriot take up a new cause in a new land, a trait ever dominant in the character of the true Irishman.

In 1856 Mr. Wallace came out to Rock Island, Illinois, where he devoted himself to carpentry and in 1860 removed to Hannibal, Missouri, and a year later settled in Clay township, in Ralls county, where he turned his attention to agriculture and became a farmer. During the next few years he seemed content to follow this prosaic vocation. The ten- . sion of the times just preceding and during the Rebellion furnished sufficient excitement to sustain him in normal health, but the reestablish- ment of peace brought a resumption of the old monotonous existence, and he died on his farm in Jasper township, in November, 1869. His failure to bring about any actual reform in the situation in his native land was always a grief to him, and was doubtless a contributory cause to his early death, he being but fifty years old when he died. He was a Democrat and a supporter of the Union, and his attitude was reflected in the mimic soldiery and warfare of his young sons as they equipped themselves with toy implements of war and fought deadly engagements with neigh- bor boys in maintenance of the Union.

It was while in Walpole, Massachusetts, that William Wallace met his future wife. She was Elizabeth Richison, of Dumfriesshire, Scotland, where Mrs. Wallace was born March 12, 1822. She came to Prince Edwards Island as a girl of sixteen, remained there several years, and reached Boston about the same time that her husband did. She was reared in a strong religious atmosphere of the Dissenters, of Covenanters of the Presbyterian faith, but when she married, she became a member of the Roman Catholic church, which was the faith of her husband, and so their children were reared. She still survives, a member of the family of her daughter, and is the mother of David of this review; William, a farmer of Ralls county ; Rev. Thomas, of Tipton, Missouri, engaged in the ministry of the Christian church and one of the most traveled and accomplished men of Missouri; Jennie W., the wife of John M. Alexander of New London, and Lizzie, who married Frederick Roberts, a wealthy ranchinan of Cokeville, Wyoming.

David Wallace was born at Walpole, Massachusetts, January 3, 1852. He first attended school in Hannibal, Missouri, then in the country schools of Ralls county. He subsequently attended the Kirksville Normal School and the University of Missouri in 1899 and in 1890 he returned to Colum- bia and studied law in the university. In May, 1891, he was admitted to the bar for practice in all the courts of Missouri.

David Wallace entered politics before he had quitted the university, being appointed to the staff of the House Journal as a clerk in 1889, for the Thirty-fifth General Assembly. In 1890 he was appointed deputy assessor and the next year, on January 1, he was appointed clerk of the probate court, a position which he held until 1894, when he resigned to equip himself for the duties of prosecuting attorney, to which office the

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Democratic party had nominated him. He held the office for four years, acquitting himself creditably in that connection, and then withdrew to resume his private practice.

Mr. Wallace served in the Forty-first and Forty-second General Assemblies, was chairman of the committee of Wills and Probate Laws and was a member of the committee on criminal costs and fees and federal relations. He secured the passage of a bill giving the husband the same rights in the wife's personal property that she has in his. He introduced Joint Resolution No. 1 which embodied the initiative and referendum amendment to the state constitution, witnessed its passage in both branches of the legislature and its adoption by a referendum vote of the people. He was assigned by the state Democratic committee the territory of Northeast Missouri as campaign ground in advocacy of the amend- ment as well as the Democratic state ticket in 1902.

Mr. Wallace was married March 9, 1886, to Mrs. Mattie J. Bridge- water, a daughter of William and Martha (Clayton) Evans, who came to Missouri from Kentucky. Mrs. Wallace's children are those of her first marriage, two in number.

Mr. Wallace is an advanced type of moral man, strictly temperate, chaste in his conversation, a leading spirit in social and literary circles and a real inspiration to an enlightened community. He is devoted to the spiritual training received at his mother's knee, takes an active part in the work of the Sunday school, and takes a manifest pleasure in seeing little children brought up in the love of God. He is an efficient writer as a compiler of historical data and has written volubly upon the events and incidents of Ralls county and her prominent people. He reveals a fund of information upon historic subjects, and his style is direct and lucid. He owns one of the best libraries in the county. Mr. Wallace is known for a safe counsellor, an able advocate before any tribunal of justice, and his citizenship commends itself from every view point.

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A history of northeast Missouri, Vol. 2 pt 2, Part 44

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