A history of northeast Missouri, Vol. 2 pt 2, Part 86

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

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The children of Mr. and Mrs. Farris, four in number, are John F. and J. G., both of whom are genial young bachelors and farmers of a fine place of two hundred and forty acres in this county, their farm being situated west of their father's. They have good equipment as stockmen and are emulating the successful example of their father. Their daughter is Rosa, who is at home, and Russell, a young man of eighteen is assisting the father in the management of the home estate.

Mr. Farris is politically a Democrat, one of the active workers in the party, and has given liberal support to all community enterprises which have in view a better condition of citizenship and better facili- ties for local government. He is a member of the Baptist church and has liberally supported the cause of church, school and temperance. The proprietor of Fairview farm is a man of hospitality and pleasing personality and his home has long been known as a center of social activities of the neighborhood.

JOSHUA C. FRANK has been engaged as a lumber dealer in Madison, Missouri, since 1901. He became a Missouri resident in 1878 and for twelve years was a farmer in DeKalb county, Missouri. He gave some time to the lumber business in Glenwood, Iowa, and Union, Nebraska, in later years, after which he located in Madison, and has here resided since that time. He became the owner of the Frank Craver lumber yard and stock, and this stock, together with the one at Holliday, which he purchased in 1903, constitutes his chief business interests.

Mr. Frank was born in Warsaw, Carroll county, Kentucky, on November 14, 1858, and he is the son of James S. Frank and his wife, Eva P. (Craig) Frank. James S. Frank was the son of Johnston Frank, a Virginian, who moved into Kentucky about 1820 and passed his life as a merchant and farming man. He was about eighty years

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old when he died in Ghent, Kentucky. He married Linnie Sampson, and they became the parents of the following named children : James S., the father of the subject; Thomas, of Terrell, Texas; Dr. Gip, of Williamstown, Kentucky; Dr. Ben of Paducah, Kentucky; Jennie, the wife of Wirt Haines of Lincoln county, Missouri; Luckett married James Ferguson and died in Kansas City, Kansas; Harriet, the wife of Dr. Scruggs of Clay county, Missouri; and Linnie is the wife of Prof. Frank Bristow, a well known politician and musician of Cincinnati, Ohio.

James S. Frank was engaged in the merchandise business in War- saw and Ghent, Kentucky, up to 1881, when he migrated to Missouri and located in Maryville, there resuming commercial life, in which he continued until death called him. He passed away in 1907 at the age of seventy-five. He married Eva P. Craig, daughter of Walton Craig, of Ghent, Kentucky, and she bore him six children, as follows: Wal- ton C., now of Maryville, Missouri; John E. of. King City, Missouri; Joshua C., of this review; James D. of Maryville, Missouri; Eva, the wife of Frank Ridgeway, of Chanute, Kansas, and Inda, married to Fred Kurts, of Maryville, Missouri. Mrs. Frank died in 1906.

Joshua C. Frank spent his youth in Warsaw, the town of his birth, and in Ghent, Kentucky, where the family moved in his boyhood. He had the advantage of a college education, and was graduated from Ghent College at the age of nineteen, receiving his master's degree at that time. In the following year he came to Missouri, and engaged in farming, as indicated in an opening paragraph. Since then he has devoted himself to the soil and to the lumber business, which latter enterprise has claimed his full attention since 1892. He has enjoyed a very pleasing degree of success in the years of his connection with the lumber business, and is recognized as one of the substantial citi- zens of Madison.

Mr. Frank in former years gave some attention to active politics. While a citizen of Nebraska he was a delegate to the state convention of 1896 which sent William Jennings Bryan to the Democratic na- tional convention in Chicago, and thus gave him the opportunity to make the famous "Crown of Thorns and Cross of Gold" speech which nominated him as a dark horse candidate for the presidency that year. Mr. Frank was earlier one of the Dekalb county delegates to the Demo- cratic convention of the state which nominated David R. Francis for governor.

On November 18, 1880, Mr. Frank was married in Plattsburg, Mis- souri, to Miss Susie M. Dykes, daughter of Sidney Dykes, whose father built under contract the first brick building in Kansas City, and who refused fifteen hundred acres of the bluffs there when it was offered hint in lieu of the money for the job, which offer he declined. The Dykes were originally from Virginia and came to Missouri when the country about Platte was referred to as the Platte purchase. Mr. and Mrs. Frank have four children: Linnie, who was educated in music in the Chicago Conservatory of Music and is now engaged in teaching in Madison ; Alma M., who married Chester Atterbury, also of Madi- son ; Lucien, who married Pauline Ash and is associated with his father in the business; and J. Craig, the youngest of the family and his father's namesake.

JEFFERSON T. NOEL, county assessor of Monroe county and a mem- ber of the mercantile firm of Noel & Cunningham, of Madison, Mis- souri, has been a lifelong resident of this place, near which he was born on the 22d day of June, 1863. He is the son of John T. Noel, a

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retired farmer of Madison, who was born in Monroe county, October 7, 1832, and who was himself the son of Moses Noel, who came to Missouri from Madison county, Kentucky, in 1827, settling two and a half miles southwest of Madison, and there spending his remaining years in improving his farm. Moses Noel died in 1883, at the advanced age of seventy-nine years, and the place he lived upon for so many years is now the property of Mrs. Belle Farrell. Moses Noel was mar- ried in Kentucky where he was born, and his wife was one Rosetta Enoch, who survived her husband for several years, being more than ninety years old when she passed away. Their children were John T., the father of the subject of this review; Nancy, who married Thomas Noel and passed her life in Monroe county; Sarah, who became the wife of Buck Noel and died near Madison, Missouri; and Henrietta, who married John Dunway, and is now a resident of Madison.

John T. Noel married Mary Harley, a native of Monroe county, whose people were early settlers of the county. She was the daugh- ter of Mahlon and Mary (Biser) Harley, emigrants to Missouri from Frederick, Maryland. They came to Missouri during the forties. Mrs. Noel passed away during the year 1909 when she was seventy-six years old, her death occurring at Madison, Missouri, and she was the mother of five children, named as follows: Thomas, a resident of Greenville, Mississippi; Lena, the wife of Philip Wolf, of Madison, Missouri; Jefferson T., of this review; Ocie, the wife of W. J. Glascock, of Welch, Oklahoma; and Moses A., of Madison. The father, John T. Noel, received his education in the district schools and took up the voca- tion of his father, following it all the active years of his life. During the Civil war period he preserved a neutral attitude toward the diffi- culties of the time, but his natural sympathies leaned toward the South, a fact which came to be known by the Federal authorities and he was imprisoned at Alton for a time. As a citizen he remained out of political or other associations that might tend to draw him into the public eye, preferring a quiet life. He is a Democrat and a member of the Christian church.

Jefferson T. Noel acquired his early education in the public schools, and when fifteen years old he abandoned the farm and its cares to become a merchant's clerk in Paris. He spent sixteen years in the employ of Harley Brothers, when, returning to his old haunts, he again turned his attention to farming, spending a few years in that work. He then formed a connection with the firm of Chowning & Atterbury, a leading mercantile house of Madison, and remained thus occupied until 1905, when he severed his connection with that estab- lishment to assume the duties of the office of assessor of Monroe county, to which office he was elected in 1904, winning the nomination in the face of numerous competitors. He was the successor of William Shear- man in the office at that time, and in 1908 he succeeded himself. Mr. Noel joined Ben T. Cunningham to engage in the merchan- dise business, and the firm of Noel & Cunningham has succeeded the firm of H. Atterbury, and is now the leading dry goods house in the town. Mr. Noel was as successful as a public official as he has ever been in the conduct of his own affairs, and though inexperienced in the matter of public service, being the first of his family to hold a public office, the caliber of his service was evidenced in his reelection to suc- cecd himself after four years in the office.

On October 27, 1904, Mr. Noel married Miss Dora Brown, daughter of Judge Hugh E. Brown, one of the well known merchants of Madison and ex-county judge of Monroe county. The family is of Kentucky origin, but has been established in Missouri for the past generation.

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Mr. and Mrs. Noel have no children. Mr. Noel is a member of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows and a past noble grand of the order, and holds membership in the Christian church, in which he is also a member of the board of deacons.

JAMES R. CHOWNING has been conspicuous in the merchandise busi- ness in Madison for a long period of time, and has the distinction of being the oldest established merchant in the city. He came to Missouri from Henry county, Kentucky, with his mother, Mrs. Sarah (Brown- ing) Dunaway, in 1854, and they settled near Madison. Mr. Chown- ing was born in Henry county, Kentucky, on September 5, 1842, and is the son of James and Sarah Chowning. The father was born in Bourbon county, Kentucky, in 1798, and he was the son of John Chown- ing, the descendant of one of the first families of Virginia, some of whose representatives helped to fight the long and bitter battles of the colonists for Independence. Certain of the posterity of the original Chowning have lost identity with the present stock by changing the name to "Chewning," and, like the Chownings, have become numer- ous, and have contributed of its branch to communities throughout the United States. John Chowning married Tabitha Reid, who bore him five children. Of that number John, who was one of the direc- tors of the Kentucky Central Railroad, was a resident of Covington, Kentucky. Theophilus served in the Kentucky legislature; William was a soldier in the War of 1812 and took part in the last battle of the war at New Orleans. He died in Bourbon county, Kentucky. Elizabeth married Dudley George and died in Harrison county, Ken- tucky. Mary married William Hart, and also died in Harrison county. Mrs. Andrew Hamilton died in Texas; Nancy married Matthew Giv- ens and also died in Texas.

James Chowning, the father of James R. of this review, came out to this country several years before the advent of other members of his immediate family, and purchased a large tract of land that was then to be had at a nominal charge, and soon after his return home to his family, died. His widow eventually married a Mr. Dunaway, and came to Missouri with her family, establishing themselves on the place located by her former husband. They built a home upon the place, and there Mrs. Dunaway died in 1879, when she was in the sixty- second year of her life. The children of James and Sarah Chowning were : John, who died in Kentucky in early life; Mary T., who married James L. Harris and died near Madison, Missouri; and James R., of this review. The Dunaway children are: Ollie, who married H. C. Baker and lives in Madison, Missouri; Susan, the wife of R. Y. Todd; and Belle, the wife of J. M. Noel, also of Madison. .

James R. Chowning was educated in the common schools of his com- munity and in Hannibal, Missouri. He was just about ready to launch out on a business career when the Civil war broke out, and he enlisted in Colonel Clark's regiment of the Missouri State Guard, called out by Governor Jackson. He participated in the Lexington and Springfield engagements in Missouri while in the service of the state. He later enlisted regularly in the Confederate service and took part in the bat- tle of Pea Ridge as a member of Captain Tull's Battery. C. S. A. At Memphis this battery was consolidated with Bledsoe's Battery in which he remained throughout the remainder of the war. He took part in the battles of Corinth. Jackson. Iuka, Missionary Ridge. Lookout Mountain, Dalton, Peachtree Creek, Kenesaw Mountain. Atlanta and then went back in a northerly direction with Hood's army to Franklin and Nashville. Escaping capture with the annihilation of the Confed- Vol. III-37

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erate army at the latter place, his command again engaged at Pulaski, Tennessee, and suffered some of the greatest hardships of the war period before getting to Mobile, where the command surrendered, after defending the stronghold for several days.

Mr. Chowning thus gave four more years of his early manhood to military service, and when he returned home after the war he began preparation for a profession by reading law in Chillicothe, Missouri. Before he completed his studies, however, he decided to enter upon a venture in merchandising, and he began his long career as a merchant in Madison in 1868. He is the senior member of the firm of Chowning Bros. & Co., two of his sons being members of the company. It was not until he had passed the age of sixty-three, that, finding himself in a large measure freed from the many cares of the business, as the result of his son's connection with the concern, he found himself able to realize his early ambition and once more resume the study of law. He was admitted to the bar in 1905, before Judge Eby at Paris, and since that time he has conducted a law business, in addition to his mercantile interests. His legal activities have to do chiefly with title and land suits, with some probate work, and are pursued rather as an avocation or recreation, than as a desire to earn a competence in the profession. The splendid perseverance and tenacity of purpose which has marked his entire life, is especially evidenced in his ultimate achievement of his early ambition to gain admission to the bar, and in every association of life he has manifested these same qualities of steadfastness and determination in a worthy purpose.

Mr. Chowning has held himself rather aloof from politics in the sense of being a politician, although he has served Madison as its mayor, and occasionally, in past years, he has attended state and dis- triet conventions of the Democrats. In addition to his other business interests in Madison, he is vice-president and a stockholder in the Madison Bank, and owns considerable property in and about the city. He is an Odd Fellow, in which order he is past noble grand, and he was president of the county association of Odd Fellows for six years. He is a member of the Christian church, and is prominent in Sunday- school work as a Bible class teacher.

On the 1st day of October, 1874, Mr. Chowning married Miss Lonah Tucker, a daughter of Dr. B. S. Tucker of Monroe county, and settlers in Missouri from Kentucky. Mrs. Chowning was one of the three chil- dren of her parents, and she is the only surviving member of the family.

The children of Mr. and Mrs. Chowning are as follows: Orville, who married Lizzie Gwynn, and is associated with his father in the business; Sadie B., the wife of Edward F. Lanning, of Denver, Colo- rado; Jay Scott, another of the partners in the Madison store of which his father is the founder; he married Lillian Giddings; and Mary B., the youngest of the family, and also connected with the mercantile establishment of Chowning Bros. & Co.

ALONZO GILBERT DOOLEY, for many years engaged in the merchan- dise business in Stoutsville, was born near this city on the first day of April in 1859. He early became identified with mercantile interests in the capacity of a clerk in the establishment of the firm of which his father was a member, and eventually purchased the business of his father's partner, one Mr. Nolan, and finally succeeded to the ownership and management of the entire business. Since his retirement from commercial life he has devoted himself to farm life, and is finding much quiet enjoyment in the peaceful life he pursues thus. Mr. Dooley is

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the son of the late Judge Henry Dooley and his wife, Nancy Nolen, concerning whom further reference will be made at a later point in this review.

Judge Henry Dooley was born in Madison county, Kentucky, on January 20, 1831, and came with his parents to Monroe county, Mis- souri, when he was a child of two years. He was the youngest of the children of Gideon and Polly (McDaniel) Dooley, and others of their children to reach years of maturity besides Judge Dooley were Jacob, who passed away in Adams county, Illinois; Hiram, who died near Hannibal, Missouri; William, who died in Richland county, Wisconsin ; and Elizabeth, who married Eli Heckard. The death of his father when Henry Dooley was a mere child laid upon him responsibilities which fortunately did not fall to the lot of the average youth. Early education he had none, and it was not until after he had married that he learned to read and write, his faithful wife teaching him the rudi- ments of English and orthography, and giving him a start which made further advance by his own initiative possible to the ambitious young man. He was a young man vigorous of body as well as of mind, and in the years when he was utterly without knowledge of books, he applied himself with energy to such manual labor as came within his grasp, farm work constituting his chief occupation, and he was soon able to purchase a small farm which in later years became the center of a splendid estate which he accumulated. He combined stock and farming interests, developing into a feeder and trader of no little prominence, and in 1854 he further extended his operations in a busi- ness way by opening a store at Eliotsville. This enterprise proved a successful one, and tended to increase his general prosperity. He was later engaged in business at Swinkey and Stoutsville, and he was a prime factor in the development and growth of the last named place. During his long and worthy career he extended credit to the amount of one hundred thousand dollars, and as much as seventy-five thousand dollars in outlawed notes and accounts were charged to profit and loss. with no attempt to collect them. As another example of his exceeding leniency towards those less fortunate than himself, the above statement is made at this juncture. He had faith in the town of Stoutsville and when the place was destroyed by fire, he rebuilt with stone in every instance, but two other similar structures in the town being in evidence, outside of his personal estate. In 1883 he built a brick hotel in Paris, and for several years was an important factor in the affairs of the county seat. He became county judge in 1874, and served in that office for a period of twelve consecutive years. When his friends and neigh- bors throughout the county presented his candidacy for county judge, the honor came to him readily and without undue opposition, and it is everywhere conceded that he was one of the ablest judges who ever presided upon the county bench. He administered public affairs with the same care and efficiency that he gave to his private business, and won and retained a reputation for official sagacity and integrity that held him in the office for the period named above. He took an active part in Democratic politics and went with the delegation from Monroe county to state, district and congressional conventions as one of their number. During the twelve years of his judgeship he repre- sented the district of the county, with the exception of two terms when he was presiding judge. In his first contest for election he assured the people that if elected he would pay off the $200,000 bonded indebt- edness of the railroad and burn the bonds in four years, or let them know why it was not done. He was taken at his word, and Judge

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Dooley rewarded their confidence by bringing about the payment of the debt and burning the bonds.

Judge Dooley married Nancy Nolen, the daughter of John Nolen and his wife, Polly (Miller) Nolen. She was one of the nine children of her parents. The children of Judge and Mrs. Dooley were John W., deceased; Alonzo G., of this review; James H. of Stoutsville, Mis- souri; Lulu M., who married Dr. B. H. Goodier, of Stoutsville; Annie L., who became the wife of George A. Arnold; Eva L., the widow of Perry Delaney, now living in Colorado Springs; Charles E. of Stouts- ville, and Samuel T., a merchant in the same town. Judge Dooley was not a communicant of any church, but he lived and died by the golden rule of conduct. He was a member of the Masonic fraternity. His death occurred on May 18, 1905, and his wife died on the 24th day of July, 1888.

Alonzo Gilbert Dooley was prepared in the country schools about Stoutsville, Missouri, for the useful career which has been his since early manhood. Upon leaving school he entered the store of his father as a clerk, later becoming the partner of his father in the stead of Mr. Nolen, who retired, and eventually becoming owner and proprietor of the establishment. For twenty years he was practically identified with the mercantile business, and in 1901 he retired from that phase of his business life and turned his attention to agricultural matters. He today occupies the premises which he roamed over as a boy at home, and which his father once, in his less prosperous days, claimed that "if he owned it he would be satisfied." It is worthy of note, however, that the same small property, once acquired, formed but a small portion of the splendid estate which was his at the time of his passing. And it may also be mentioned that Judge Dooley cut the wood for twenty- five cents per cord that burned the brick for this house.

The Bank of Stoutsville, which was promoted largely by Judge Dooley, is one of the strong financial institutions of the city and county, and of that concern Alonzo G. Dooley is a member of the board of directors. He is also one of the road commissioners of his district which is working toward a system of gravel roads and a permanent high- way, and his interest in every activity projected for the ultimate good of the community is of a high order, demonstrating to the fullest his splendid citizenship.

In January, 1895, Mr. Dooley married Miss Ruth Poage, a daugh- ter of William H. Poage, of Monroe county. The issue of this union are Uel G., Opal, Charles Elmo, Forest, Henry, Creigh, William, Everett and "A. G." Mrs. Dooley's family is one of especial interest, and the following brief facts are here offered in that connection. Her father, William H. Poage, was a son of Major James Poage of the Vir- ginia militia. Major Poage came to Kentucky about 1805, settling in Greene county, and some years later he came to Missouri, locating some four miles east of Paris, where he died in 1850. His son, William H., was born in Greenup county, Kentucky, on the 15th of August, 1815, and was educated in the country schools. He was one of those who visited California in "forty-nine," although he made but a com- paratively brief stay in that country. In February, 1843, he married Elizabeth A. Pollard, a daughter of B. C. Pollard of Florida, Mis- souri, but a native of Kentucky. His children were James A .; Sam- uel B .; Charles W .; Sarah C., who married Albert Henderson; Mary J., the wife of Judge B. F. Vaughn; Amanda C., who married Mr. Yowell, of Perry, Missouri, and Ruth E., the wife of Mr. Dooley of this review. The Poage family are Presbyterians in their religious faith, and the Dooleys also are attendants of that church, although, like his

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father, Judge Dooley, "Bud" Dooley, as he is familiarly called, prac- tices Christian virtues without the preliminary of adding his name to a church roll.

Mr. Dooley's chief diversion is the chase. The bay of the fox hound has an irresistible fascination for him and he has come to be a scientific hunter of the fox, known as such wherever he goes. Beyond that he has no hobbies, and is not a member of any fraternal societies or clubs, preferring a simple and quiet life in his own home and in the care of his estate.

JOSEPH EDWARD SMELSER is manager of the mercantile establish- ment of C. R. Noel & Company, of Stoutsville, Missouri, and has been a resident of Monroe county since 1871. He was born near New London, Ralls county, on December 26, 1861, and is the son of Joseph Smelser, who was born in the same county on February 20, 1829.

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A history of northeast Missouri, Vol. 2 pt 2, Part 86

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