USA > Missouri > A history of northeast Missouri, Vol. 2 pt 2 > Part 84
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James E. Deaver was born March 12, 1832, in Bourbon county, Kentucky, and was consequently a small boy when his father moved to Missouri. It was a rough pioneer neighborhood in which James Deaver grew to manhood, and his schooling at the district school was not much to boast of. He learned the miller's trade as a boy through helping his father, and he continued to operate the mill until it was
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washed away, when he located on a farm. He was not destined to follow the latter pursuit many years for death came to him not long after the change, in 1887. Although in sympathy with the South in the conflict of the sixties, he could not give actual service to the cause and indeed was often forced to feed the men and horses of the regiments in blue. Like his father he was a Democrat, but he took no active interest in politics. He lies now near the site of the old mill and his father is buried in the Curtright graveyard.
James E. Deaver married Sarah Welch, a daughter of Thomas Welch, who was a very early settler in Missouri, coming thence from Botetourt county, Virginia. Mrs. Deaver was born in 1839 and is still living, making her home on her father's old farm in Monroe county. James E. Deaver and his wife were the parents of seven children: Ashley C., the eldest; John, who died at forty-three, a farmer and un- married; Lillie, who died, aged four years; Lula married Isaac John- son, a farmer of Monroe county; Edwin passed away at the age of seventeen ; Joseph M. is a farmer in Monroe county; Bulah is the wife of John H. Whiteside and lives in Monroe county.
Ashley C. Deaver was reared among the influences of farm life and received his education in the Cedar Bluff school in the country. It was therefore not surprising that he should turn to farming as a means of livelihood when he found himself thrown upon his own resources. From farming he naturally turned to feeding and shipping stock and attained enough success to warrant his going into trading and shipping more and more heavily as the years passed. A keen judge not only of stock but also of the markets, and with courage to risk occasionally he has won success. He covers a wide field in his transactions and has made a wide stretch of territory surrounding the county seat tributary to his needs. The car loads which he ships from Paris have placed him in the lead among the shippers of the county. He is prominent in the affairs of the Monroe County Fair Association, being one of the stockholders in this enterprise and he is also a stock- holder in the Paris National Bank.
Although his family had never aspired to office and he himself had the same instinctive feeling against it, he allowed himself to be nominated for the office of county collector in 1904 and won the nomi- nation. Two years later he was re-elected and in 1910 he again suc- ceeded himself for another term of four years. He is a Democrat and his predecessor in office was William H. H. Crow.
Mr. Deaver married, at the home of the wife's mother, seven miles southwest of Paris, on the 18th of December, 1884, Miss Ann Pauline Howell, a daughter of William Howell and Fannie (Jones) Howell. William Howell was an old settler in the state of Missouri and Mrs. Deaver and Abijah Howell, a farmer of Monroe county, were his only children. After his death his wife married a second time, her husband being Edward Dawson, and her children by this second mar- riage being Samuel P., J. H., and Joseph Dawson. Mrs. Deaver, who was born in 1862. died in June, 1909, leaving three children : Frances L., who is the wife of O. M. Myers, of Kirksville, Missouri; Ellis, who was educated in Westminster College and at the University of Mis- souri and is now connected with the Paris National Bank; and Flos- sie, the youngest of the family. Mr. Deaver is interested in fraternal affairs to the extent of being a member of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, and he is very active in religious affairs, being a member of the Presbyterian church and one of the board of deacons of the same.
JOHN N. MAGRUDER. One of the most thoroughly capable men of Paris, Missouri, and a man upon whom his fellow citizens have learned Vol. III-36
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to rely, is John N. Magruder. Quiet, efficient and always ready to do his share when any project that tends to the betterment of conditions is on hand, Mr. Magruder has been a valued factor in the life of the town. As a politician he left behind him, upon his retirement from office a record for honorable and effective service that would be hard to equal, and his work as assistant cashier of the Paris National Bank, has only increased the respect and honor that the people of the community give to his name.
John N. Magruder was born in Monroe county, in 1861, on the 22nd of April, a descendant of a long line of ancestors hailing from Kentucky and Maryland. His grandfather, Nathaniel Magruder, was born in Maryland and was an extensive planter and slave-holder. He removed from his native state to Henry county, Kentucky, and there passed his life in the management of his large plantation, his death and that of his wife occurring in the county where they had become such prominent residents. The wife of Nathaniel Magruder was Elizabeth Bell and she became the mother of Willis, Thomas, Travis, Dennis and Nancy, all of whom died in Monroe county, Missouri, Sallie as the wife of Hiram Threlkeld.
Dennis Magruder was born in Henry county, Kentucky, on Novem- ber 27, 1827, and he came to Missouri with several of his brothers, who identified themselves with the life of this section of the state. Dennis Magruder settled upon a farm in Monroe county, and gave his energies throughout his life to the improvement and cultivation of the farm upon which he lived. He was a Democrat but was little interested in political affairs. When the Civil war broke out, although he was not a slave- owner himself, he was descended from a race of men who had been brought up in the belief that the ownership of slaves was not only right but necessary to the life of the South. Consequently his sympathies were all with the South, though he was not in a position to take an active part in the war.
Dennis Magruder married Martha Franklin, a daughter of Massey Franklin, of Frankfort, Kentucky, whose wife was Miss Elizabeth Wil- son. Mrs. Magruder died in 1889 at the age of fifty-five, while her hus- band lived to be sixty-eight years of age. Their children were Frank, Clarence, of Shelby county, Missouri, and John M., who grew to man- hood, and several others who died before reaching maturity.
John N. Magruder was educated during his earlier years in the district school near his home, helping on the farm during the hours when he was not in the school room. When he grew older he was sent to the Shel- bina high school, and later attended the Gem City Business College at Quincy, Illinois.
Upon leaving school he determined that teaching was the most at- tractive career open to him and so he became a pedagogue, teaching in the rural schools for eleven years, his last position being in the Spencer Chappel district, from which he resigned in 1889. This training was an invaluable one, and enabled him to meet the issues of the coming years with a greatly strengthened character. Upon leaving the school room the out-of-doors life of the farm appealed to him more strongly than anything else, and he turned to the vocation of his childhood and youth, giving four years to cultivation of the soil. He then turned to politics and in 1892 received the nomination for county clerk, on the Demo- cratic ticket, winning the election the same year. He served one term of four years and his service was so wholly satisfactory to the people that they re-elected him and he served another term, making eight years in all. Shortly after leaving his duties at the court house he was offered the position of assistant cashier of the Paris National Bank where he has remained ever since, and there is no member of the staff
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of this prosperous institution who has the interests of the bank closer at heart, or who is a more faithful public servant. Mr. Magruder is one of the most popular men in Paris, and he has won this popularity not so much through the success which has attended his work, or the trust which he has inspired, but through the distinctive charm of his own personality and the strength of his character. In the fraternal world, Mr. Magruder is a member of the Odd Fellows. In religious matters, although reared in a Methodist home, he married into a family whose religious affiliations were with the Missionary Baptist church, and so he became a member of this church.
It was on the 28th of November, 1888, that Mr. Magruder married Miss Emma Threlkeld, a daughter of Nathaniel Threlkeld and Tabitha (Maupin) Threlkeld. Mr. Threlkeld came to Missouri from Kentucky and of the eight children born to him and his wife six grew to ma- turity, namely : Mrs. Magruder; Jennie, who became the wife of J. H. Morgan, of Shelbina, Missouri; Cattie, who married George L. Hale, of Hannibal, Missouri; Mary, who became Mrs. George G. Sanders, of Shelby county, Missouri; Frank and William Threlkeld, of Monroe county. Mr. and Mrs. Magruder have no children.
PENN BRACE, although he has not yet reached his fortieth year, has made a name and place for himself at the bar of Monroe county. The son of a famous jurist he seems to have inherited his father's ability and has built up a flourishing law practice. As city attorney of Paris he has had many opportunities to demonstrate his ability, and a successful career may be safely prophesied for him.
Penn Brace is the son of Judge Theodore Brace, who was born in Ryan's Glades, Alleghany county, Maryland, five miles from Oakland, on the 20th of June, 1835. His father was Charles Brace, who was a native of England and as a lad of eight abandoned his home in Shrop- shire, where he had been born in 1908 and crossed the ocean to Amer- ica. He settled in Alleghany county, and there became a farmer, and subsequently deputy sheriff and jailer of the county. In 1853 he came to Missouri, and settled in Schuyler county, near Lancaster, Missouri, where he died in 1863. He married Adaline White, a daughter of John White, who had settled in western Maryland, when it was little more than a wilderness. Mrs. Brace died in 1839 and the children of this marriage were Sophie Ellen, who married Melvin Brake, a cousin of General "Stonewall" Jackson and died in Upshur county, Vir- ginia ; Theodore, and Martha, who died unmarried.
Judge Brace was educated in Cumberland, Maryland, but by the time he was fifteen he considered his education completed and so began to earn his own living. He secured a clerkship in a wholesale grocery house in Cumberland, Maryland, remaining here for six months. He then spent six months writing in the office of the circuit court, and following this was for eighteen months a clerk in the post office in Cumberland. During the last three years of his life in Maryland he was teller in the Cumberland Savings Bank, and during this period he studied law at night in the office of Price and Bruce. He was admitted to the bar by the circuit court of Alleghany county on the first day of May, 1856. His credentials or certificate of admission, which he still keeps among his papers, was written with a quill pen and is an ex- ample of the days when penmanship was an art. A few days after his admission he set forth for the west, locating in Bloomfield, Davis county, Iowa. Here he was admitted to the bar in October, 1856, but after practicing a short while, and entering enthusiastically into the campaign for Buchanan and the nominees of the Democratic party, he
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left Iowa and located in Missouri, settling permanently at Paris, in Monroe county, on the 1st of December, 1856. Here he began the prac- tice of his profession, and was soon afterwards elected city attorney. He had established a good practice by the time the Civil war cloud broke, but unlike so many men of his section he did not remain neutral, undecided as to which way to turn, but enlisted under the laws of the state, and aided in the organization of a company of the Missouri State Guard, being himself elected captain. After taking part in skirmishes at Boonville, Monroe City and Shelbina, his company was organized with others into a battalion, and he was made lieutenant colonel. After- wards still other companies joined the ranks of the first and a regi- ment, known as the Third Cavalry of the Second Military District of Missouri was organized. He was elected colonel of this regiment, his commission bearing the date of the 23rd of September, 1861. With this regiment under his command he joined the forces of General Price be- fore Lexington, and remained one of his officers until after the battle of Pea Ridge. The term of service of all of his men had by this time expired and after they had been discharged he set forth on his way to northern Missouri to recruit another regiment. He became ill near Springfield, Missouri, and it was while he was thus lying helpless that he was taken prisoner by a federal force, in company with his adju- tant and surgeon, and was transferred to the hospital in the city of Springfield. For weeks he was on the borderland between life and death, but at last having become somewhat convalescent, he was trans- ferred to Myrtle Street prison in St. Louis. He still remained in feeble health and on this account he was paroled with the first exchange of prisoners, and consequently returned home, not being able to partici- pate further in the war. He took up his law practice where he had laid it down and he presently was the possessor of the leading practice in Monroe and adjoining counties. During this period previous to his going on the bench he served as school trustee and councilman of Paris, and was active in the councils of the Democratic party of which he has been a life-long member. In 1872 his party in the county in- structed for him as a member of congress, and in 1874 he was elected to the state senate from the Seventh senatorial district, which was com- posed of the counties of Howard, Randolph and Monroe. He served as senator through two sessions of the legislature and during this time was a member of the state board of equalization. In November, 1873, he was elected probate judge of Monroe county, and held this office until he resigned to accept the office of judge of the circuit court of the Six- teenth judicial circuit, which included the counties of Monroe, Ralls, Shelby and Marion. He was elected to this position of honor in No- vember, 1880, and took office in January, 1881. He continued to serve as judge of this court until the first of January, 1887, when he became one of the judges of the supreme court of the state of Missouri, having been elected thereto by the vote of the previous December. In January, 1895, his service as judge of the supreme court won him the honor of being elected chief justice of the supreme court and presiding judge of district No. 1, by the vote of his associates on the bench. At the Democratic state convention, which was held in Jefferson City, in August, 1896, he received the re-nomination of his party for his posi- tion on the supreme court bench and was elected at the following No- vember election to succeed himself for a term of ten years. He received 341,927 votes to the 304,781 for Judge Hirzel, the Republican candi- date, the 24,153 for John M. Voris, the candidate of the Populist party, and the 2,332 for the Prohibitionist candidate, Lewis Adams. His record
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as supreme court judge commences with volume ninety-one of the Mis- souri reports.
Since his retirement from the bench in 1906 he has exercised the office of commissioner of the supreme court to take testimony and re- port on the law in several important cases. His first case was entitled "The Board of Control of the Museum of Fine Arts vs. the City of St. Louis," and involved a question of a special tax levy, authorized by the legislature, but which was held unconstitutional. His second case was styled "Rowland vs. the City of Hannibal and the Chicago Burling- ton & Quincy Railroad Company," an injunction suit to prevent the railroad company from building its tracks along the levees in front of the city. His next and in fact the most important case heard by the judge was the "State of Missouri vs. The International Harvester Com- pany," a suit to prevent the company from doing business in the state, because its business methods were those of a trust. After this case had been reported the judge closed his law books and says he will never open them again. Since he has reached the age of seventy-seven it is high time that he was taking a rest from the arduous labor with which his life has been filled. The judge has always taken a keen interest in Masonry and was grand master of the Masons of Missouri from Oc- tober, 1889, to October, 1890.
On the 12th of October, 1858, Judge Brace married Rowena C. Penn, a daughter of William M. Penn and Emily E. (Carter) Penn. William M. Penn was a native of Virginia, having been born near Lynchburg, and came to Missouri as a young man, where he became one of the first merchants in Florida, Missouri. He was first a Whig and then a Democrat, and took quite a prominent part in politics, being county clerk of Monroe county for a quarter of a century and serving as a member of one of the earliest general assemblies of the state.
Judge. Brace and his wife became the parents of the following chil- dren: Kate, who became the wife of William F. Summerkamp, a drug- gist of Bowling Green, Missouri, and has a daughter and grand-daugh- ter; Ned, of Paris, Missouri; Jessie, wife of Alexander H. Weber, sec- retary of the Rivers and Harbors committee of the national house of representatives ; Pauline, the widow of Alexander Crawford, who was a civil engineer in the service of the government and was engaged in the construction of the harbor of San Pedro, California, at the time of his death; Paul and Penn. Paul and Pauline are twins, the former is now stenographer for Judge Bond of the Missouri supreme court at Jefferson City, while the latter, Mrs. Crawford, after having reached the age of forty, courageously took up the study of shorthand and is now the private secretary of Attorney Walsh, of Kansas City, Missouri.
Penn Brace was born in Paris, Missouri, on the 19th of March, 1873. He attended the public schools both in Paris and Jefferson City and was graduated from the high school in the latter place at the age of sixteen. He entered the office of Governor Francis as a clerk and after learning stenography he became the governor's private stenog- rapher. He spent four years in the executive offices and then entered the University of Missouri, and taking up the study of law was gradu- ated from the law department in 1895. He began the practice of his profession at once, in Paris, as a member of the firm of Brace and Mc- Allister. He had scarcely become established here when he was invited by Captain Frank Pitts, state treasurer of Missouri, to become his pri- vate secretary. He therefore went back to Jefferson City and re- mained in the state treasurer's office for the next four years. Return- ing to Paris, he took up his law practice again, and has since been made city attorney of Paris and of Madison, also in Monroe county.
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In addition to his law practice Mr. Brace became the purchaser of the abstracts of the county records owned by Colonel R. N. Bodine and by Whitecotton and Hurd and combined them, so that now he owns the only complete set of abstracts in the county. Mr. Brace is a Dem- ocrat, having begun his relations with his party in support of W. J. Bryan in 1896.
On the 30th of August, 1902, Mr. Brace and Miss Nell Stone were married. Mrs. Brace is a daughter of E. K. Stone, cashier of the Paris National Bank. They have three children, Edwin T., Kemper P. and Jennie. Mr. Brace, like his father, is an enthusiastic Mason, being a master Mason. He is also a member of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, being a past noble grand and having sat in the grand lodge.
WILLIAM MARTIN FARRELL, the president of the Paris Savings Bank, has won this important office by years spent in the service of the institu- tion, years which proved that he was a man possessed of financial ability of a high order and that his high principles and strong char- acter fitted him admirably for this executive position. Mr. Farrell has lived in this section practically all of his life and during many of his years here has officiated in various public offices, winning the friend- ship and regard of the whole county, and the respect and admiration of his associates.
William Martin Farrell is a son of Irish ancestry, his great-grand- father being one of four brothers who emigrated from Kilkenny, Ire- land, to America. One settled in Kentucky, one in Virginia, one in Tennessee, and one eventually returned to his native land. John Far- rell located in Kentucky and among his sons was one, William. William grew to manhood on the old place in Kentucky and married Miss Maria Hayes. They moved to Missouri, where he died in 1872. He and his wife were the parents of several children : Richard; Rufus; Thomas, of California ; Samuel; Mary, who married T. J. Vincent, of Kentucky ; John and James M.
John Farrell was the father of William Martin Farrell, and was born on the 14th of July, 1825. He was educated in the country schools, first of Kentucky and then of Missouri, his parents removing to the latter state in 1834. Here they settled in Monroe county, where John grew up. He learned the blacksmith trade and in 1846 he married Mary Groves. She was a daughter of Martin Groves, who came into Missouri in 1835 and settled in Monroe county. Here he became a far- mer and merchant and was one of the first manufacturers of tobacco in this district. His wife was Mary Bryan, a daughter of Joseph Bryan and a grand ancestor of the "Great Commoner" and Demo- cratic leader. Mr. Groves died in 1853 and he left several children. John Farrell was married in Monroe county and some time during the fifties he located near Madison. Until 1862 he plied his trade as a blacksmith and then after a year spent as a merchant in Madison, he took up farming, which he followed for many years. He lived near Wood- lawn until within a few years of his death and then moved into Madi- son where he died the day after he had celebrated his eightieth birth- day. His wife, who was born in November, 1825, died on the 22nd of February, 1902. John Farrell was intensely loyal to the South during the great struggle of the Civil war, and was an ardent Demo- crat in his political sentiments. Both he and his wife were members of the Christian church. Their children were Rufus, of Clarence, Mis- souri; Thomas J., of St. Louis; J. Wesley, of Randolph county, Mis- souri; Catherine who became Mrs. Hall; Ira, of Billings, Montana, and William M.
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William Martin Farrell was born in Randolph county, Missouri, on the 13th day of March, 1848, and before the Civil war broke out he had finished his school days and was ready to take his part in the con- flict. He enlisted in Captain Elliott Major's company, Pennell's bat- talion of sharpshooters, belonging to Parson's Brigade in 1864 and served with this command until the end of the war. The company re- ceived its baptism of fire at Brunswick, Missouri, and during the fall that followed took part in a number of small engagements in the state. At Vera Cruz, Missouri, they had a sharp fight with the Federals and then passed on into Arkansas. From that time until the surrender of Shreveport in the spring of 1865, the command was stationed in the vi- cinity of Washington and Camden, Arkansas, and saw considerable service. After the surrender the troops were embarked on a Red river boat and were on their way home when the boat struck a snag and many of the men who had come through the war alive now lost their lives. Mr. Farrell escaped and upon his arrival at home, though he was as yet only a boy, began at once to compete with grown men. He be- gan life as a farmer, and after a time added dealing in stock to his farming interests. He then became a merchant in Madison, and during eight years of the time that he was thus engaged he also bought and sold livestock. In 1887 he sold his store and came to Paris to enter the Paris Savings Bank as its cashier.
The Paris Savings Bank was organized in 1885 with Dr. B. G. Dysart as president, R. O. Osborn as vice president and R. Calloway as cashier. Mr. Calloway retired from the service of the institution in January, 1888, and Mr. Farrell succeeded to the cashiership. He remained in this position until July, 1910, when he became president, as the successor of James S. Allen. J. W. Warren became vice-presi- dent and the directors, in addition to the officers are W. S. Forsythe. T. G. Bassett, T. A. McGee, J. S. Allen and G. M. Biwer. The bank is one of the most substantial financial institutions in the county, and since Mr. Farrell has been connected with it, its prosperity has been steadily on the increase.
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