A history of northwest Missouri, Volume III, Part 16

Author: Williams, Walter, 1864-1935 editor
Publication date: 1915
Publisher: Chicago, The Lewis publishing company
Number of Pages: 912

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Dr. Daniel W. Martin grew up on an Ohio farm, and got most of his education from the common schools, and really prepared for his career after he had come home from the army. After reaching his majority he attended the seminary at St. Marys, Ohio, and pursued his medical studies in the Eclectic Institute of Cincinnati and the American Medical College of St. Louis, where he finished his course in 1877.

In 1862 he volunteered for service in the Union army. He was in Company A of the Fifty-seventh Ohio Infantry, under Capt. William McClure and Col. Clark Rice, the regiment being in the Second Brigade, Second Division of the Fourth Army Corps. Most of his service was detached duty until May, 1864, when he was appointed

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chaplain of the regiment. On July 22 of the same year, during the siege of Atlanta, he was taken prisoner and sent to the infamous Anderson- ville stockade. After being kept there a few months, he was sent to the prison at Florence, South Carolina, and toward the end of the war was moved to Goldsboro, and when Sherman's army came through that region he was moved about until the prisoners were turned into the union lines at Wilmington, North Carolina. While in the rebel prisons, Doctor Martin was exposed to outrageous treatment, from physical abuse by the notorious Wurz, to actual starvation, scurvy and gangrene. When he finally was released he weighed only ninety pounds, though his weight at enlistment was 170. After he had been in Andersonville he was put in line for exchange. While standing there it occurred to him as im- proper for him to accept liberty when about seven thousand of his comrades were lying about on the ground in the stockade scarcely able to get themselves a drink of water. With this prompting of sympathy, he stepped from the line and made a speech, reviewing the situation briefly, and asking for volunteers to stay with him in the stockade and accept the fortunes of the rest. One of his old schoolmates stepped to the front. This is perhaps the only case on record when prisoners, with the opportunity at hand to gain freedom, chose the harder lot to remain prisoners of war. They both remained until they and all their comrades were liberated, and his companion, Ernest Timbers, lived till a few years ago and died in Minnesota. After his release Doctor Martin was sent to Columbus, Ohio, where he was auditor in the paymaster's office until the business of the department was wound up, when he was discharged at Camp Chase and returned home.

After the war and before entering medical school at Cincinnati he read medicine for two years in the office of Doctor Prince at Freiburg, Ohio. His first two years of active practice were spent in Monroeville, Indiana, and then for three years at Monterey, Ohio. On coming to Missouri in 1871 Doctor Martin had an office at Jameson in Daviess County until moving to Harrison County. For the past forty years he has practiced either in Bethany or with headquarters on his farm near the county seat. About twenty years ago he took up the special work of cancer treatment, as taught him by his father, and this and his office practice comprise his professional activity.

Doctor Martin has taken no action in politics except as a voter of the republican ticket. For about thirty years he preached as a pastor of the Christian Church in Missouri, and practiced medicine at the same time. He began church work in Ohio soon after the war, and has thus combined the two most important vocations of human service -- the care of both the soul and the body. Also for five years he owned a store at Blue Ridge in Harrison County, and previously a year in Bethany. For a quarter of a century he has been in the real estate business, buying and selling farms. During this period he bought extensively in Logan County, Kansas, and made a large profit out of those transactions. Near Bethany he owns several farms, aggregating a section, and all well improved. Dr. Martin began buying land with nothing but his credit, and the results have shown his judgment to have been little short of unerring.

In December, 1860, Doctor Martin married Lucinda Harris. She became the mother of: Mrs. Josephine Wooley, of Kansas City; Charles, of Oklahoma; Mrs. Flora Ford, of Bethany; Hattie, wife of John Looman of Kansas; James, who died in Wichita, Kansas; and Mrs. Fannie Conwell, of Bethany. Doctor Martin married for his second wife Mrs. Ruth F. (Hammons) Miller, born at Hillsboro, Illinois,

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daughter of John Hammons, Sr., deceased. They have a daughter, Neima, wife of William Johnson, of New Hampton, Missouri.

JAMES A. SCAMMAHORN. A resident of Canden Township in DeKalb County, the enterprise of James A. Scammahorn as an agriculturist has given him a high business standing in that community, and through many years of honest and persevering activity as a farmer and stock raiser he has acquired that material success which is the ambition of every right-minded man. At the same time he is known for his sterling citizenship and is a man of integrity in all his relations. Mr. Scamma- horn has been a lifelong resident of this section of Northwest Missouri, and has advanced himself from modest circumstances to a position of prominence among DeKalb county farmers, and at the present time is successfully engaged in the cultivation of 280 acres of productive land.

James A. Scammahorn was born in DeKalb County, June 15, 1860, a son of Peter N. and Mary A. (Bacon) Scammahorn. Peter N. Scam- mahorn was born in Kentucky, and in 1850 he came to Missouri and joined the agricultural community and a tiller of the soil until his death December 16, 1913. He was a charter member of the Odd Fellows Lodge at Winston in Daviess County, and took an active part in public affairs at Maysville, of which town he was marshal for several years. His life was one of activity and industry, and he was held in high esteem with those who knew him because of his integrity, and honorable business record. In 1851 he married Mary A. Bacon. She was a native of Ken- tucky and came to Missouri in girlhood ; she died May 12, 1880. She was the mother of nine children, of whom five survive, namely : Elizabeth J., widow of Ben England and living in Breckenridge, Missouri; Liefa D., widow of John Kendrick, of Kansas City; Mary B., wife of Thomas Phelan, of St. Louis; Seth L. Scammahorn, yardmaster for Southern Pacific Railroad at San Antonio, Texas, and James A.

James A. Scammahorn was reared in DeKalb County and spent his entire life in one locality. The district school of Hickory Grove fur- nished him with his education during the winter terms of his boyhood, while his summer months were devoted to acquiring the fundamental principles of farming. On February 1, 1880, he married Mary J. Thomp- son, daughter of Bradford and Mary A. (Redman) Thompson. Mr. Bradford Thompson was born in Tennessee and came to Missouri when he was a small boy. He was a tiller of the soil until he died in 1889. His wife, Mary A. Redman, was born in Kentucky and came to Missouri in girlhood. She died in 1907. She was the mother of nine children, of whom seven survive, namely : Emeline, widow of Robert Bird; Cindia, widow of Thomas Reed; Sam Thompson, of Oklahoma; Dave Thompson, of Oklahoma; William Thompson; America, wife of Oliver Ollson, and Mary.

Mrs. Scammahorn was born in Adams Township, November 5, 1860, and was educated in what was known as the old Cope School. She had known her husband from childhood. After their marriage they moved to Daviess County, where Mr. Scammahorn bought forty acres of land in the bottom of Grand River, which overflowed continuously for four years. This left him in such bad circumstances that he moved to Cald- well County, living there one year. He then moved to DeKalb County and has since been a permanent resident. For several years he and his wife lived in a small one-room house, the frame of which had been hewed out and used as a barn, but by continuing industry and earnest it has eventually placed them in a position where they could afford a more commodious home, and from that time to the present Mr. Scammahorn has forged rapidly to the front, his position among his community's sub-

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stantial men now being assured. For a number of years he was engaged in general farming almost exclusively, but in 1902 started to raise Brown Swiss cattle, registered for dairy purposes, and continued to devote a large part of his attention to this enterprise until selling them in 1910. Since that time his operations in stock have been of a general nature. Mr. Scammahorn's association with the township has been for its betterment and a lesson in industry and patient application during the years of his adversity should be far reaching in their influence for good.

Mr. and Mrs. Scammahorn have had six children, of whom four sur- vive : Peter B., who was a student in the Quincy Business College, lost his wife, and has a child seventeen months old; Cora A. is the wife of Burton J. Ryan; Iona J. is the wife of Arthur Ryan; and Myrtle M., unmarried and living at home. For several years Mr. Scammahorn was a member of the Maysville Lodge of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows.

A. M. BATES. In the business and civic activities of Excelsior Springs during the past twenty years A. M. Bates has performed a more than ordinary successful and influential part. Mr. Bates came to the city a young man without capital, embarked in merchandising, laid the foundation for a business career, and is now one of the leading real estate men of Northwest Missouri. His administration as mayor of Excelsior Springs is remembered gratefully by the citizens, and as executive of the city he inaugurated many improvements which have helped to increase the fair fame of Excelsior Springs.

Mr. Bates represents one of the old families in Clay County. The family has lived here through three generations, the first having come as pioneers, the second having carried on the development through the later decades of the last century, and Mr. Bates himself represents the third, and his position in the community adds to the reputation for progressiveness and enterprise which have long characterized the name. A. M. Bates was born in Washington Township of Clay County, June 12, 1876. He was a son of Charles F. Bates, who was born in Ray County, Missouri, October 30, 1845, and is now living on his home- stead two and a half miles north of Excelsior Springs. Charles F. Bates was a son of William and Serilda (Nowland) Bates, the former of Virginia and the latter of Tennessee, who came as early settlers into Ray County, where the former died in 1884 at the age of sixty-five, while the grandmother is now living at Excelsior Springs at the advanced age of ninety years. Charles F. Bates married Elizabeth Miller. She was born in Ray County, three miles northeast of Excelsior Springs, March 24, 1849, and is still living. Her parents were William Andrew and Sallie (McKee) Miller, the former of North Carolina and the lat- ter of Kentucky. They came to Ray County about the same time as the Bates family. Charles F. Bates and wife were the parents of ten chil- dren, all of whom are living as follows: Robert L., of Excelsior Springs; A. M. and Ava E., twins, the latter the wife of Freeman Furman, of Excelsior Springs; L. E., of Excelsior Springs; Lucy, at home; Sallie Shoemaker, a widow living at Excelsior Springs; William, of Excelsior Springs : Ella, at home; and Frank, of Oklahoma. Charles F. Bates grew up in Ray County, was married there, and then moved to a farm five miles north of Excelsior Springs, and in 1873 came to his present location, which is the old Miller homestead. That home has been occu- pied by the family for more than forty years, and was originally entered directly from the Government by the great-grandfather of A. M. Bates, Frederick Miller, who died on the farm in May, 1872, at the age of seventy-eight.

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A. M. Bates grew up on a farm, received his early education in the country schools, and lived at home until twenty-one. With money supplied him by his grandfather Bates, he then came to Excelsior Springs and made his first business venture in the purchase of a meat market, which he conducted for some time, and thus paved the way for a larger career. He and his brother R. L. Bates then bought a grocery store, and conducted a successful partnership for six years, at the end of which time the brother acquired the entire stock. Since 1900 Mr. Bates has been successfully engaged in the real estate business. He has platted and sold three additions to Excelsior Springs, and also owns a large amount of farm land in both Kansas and Oklahoma, and operates a large stock feeding farm in Oklahoma. Mr. Bates was one of the organizers of the First National Bank of Excelsior Springs, served as its first president, and is still a member of its board of directors.

In 1898 Mr. Bates was first elected to the office of mayor of Excel- sior Springs, served for two years, and after that term was in the office as alderman for four years. In 1912 Mr. Bates was again the choice of the citizens for the office of mayor, and has led the city gov- ernment and cooperating associations of citizens in the movement for the making of Excelsior Springs a greater and better city. His service as mayor was concluded in the spring of 1914. Mr. Bates is affiliated with the Masonic Order, the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, the Modern Woodmen of America, the Knights of Pythias and the Benevo- lent and Protective Order of Elks. In politics he has always allied himself with the democratic party.

On January 16, 1895, he married Sarabe McGlathlin, who was born at Brookfield, Missouri, in 1871, a daughter of John and Irene (Cris- field) MeGlathlin, who came to Excelsior Springs in 1881, where her father was in the monument business and later real estate dealer. He died July 8, 1914, at the age of seventy-eight, while her mother passed away in 1906. To the marriage of Mr. Bates and wife have been born four children: Grace, Eugene, Harry and Donald.

JOSEPH REA. No publication purporting to touch consistently the history of Andrew County could justify its functions were there failure to pay a tribute of honor to the late Judge Joseph Rea, farmer, banker, lawyer and probate judge, for he left a deep and benignant impress upon the annals of this county, which represented his home from his boyhood days until his death, which occurred on the 28th of February, 1914. The judge was a scion of one of the most honored and influential pioneer families of Northwest Missouri, and in his sturdy physical and mental makeup he represented the best of the fine Scotch and Welsh strains of ancestry.

Judge Rea claimed the old Hoosier State as the place of his nativity, but was a lad of six years at the time of his parents' immigration to Missouri. He was born in Ripley County, Indiana, on the 13th of No- vember, 1837, the second in order of nativity of the two sons and eight daughters of Jonathan and Lurana (Breden) Rea, the former of whom was born in North Carolina on the 26th of October, 1805, and the latter of whom was born in Kentucky, on the 7th of August, 1813, their mar- riage having been solemnized in Indiana. Of the ten children, all attained to years of maturity and reared children of their own, with the exception of one daughter, who died in infancy. The first to die of those who thus reached mature age was not summoned to the life eternal until thirty- seven years after the death of the parents, each of whom was forty-seven years at the time of death and both having expired from attacks of

Joseph Rea

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pneumonia. That the second generation gave prolific progeny to the family line is evidenced by the statement that Judge Rea had nieces and nephews to the number of sixty-four. Jonathan Rea was one of the sterling pioneers of Andrew County, Missouri, where he developed a farm from the primitive wilds and where both he and his wife continued to reside on their homestead until the close of their lives.

Judge Joseph Rea was reared to the sturdy discipline of the home farm and while assisting in its work and management during the years of his youth he attended the district schools during the winter terms and thus laid the foundation for the substantial superstructure of knowledge which made him in his mature years a man of strong intellectuality and distinctive judgment. After the death of his father, in February, 1854, he continued to remain on the old homestead with his mother and sisters until the devoted mother likewise passed away, in February, 1861, the family having become scattered after that time. Thereafter Judge Rea remained on the old home farm with William Pettyjohn, who had rented the property, and while actively concerned with the work and manage- ment of the place, he devoted as much time as possible to the study of law, the reading of which he had previously prosecuted under the able preceptorship of Judge William Heren, of Savannah, judicial center of the county, this ambitious work having been prosecuted when he was also attending the school conducted by Prof. George W. Turner.

At the inception of the Civil war Judge Rea took a decided stand for the Union and became a member of the state militia, and after his mar- riage, in 1862, he soon subordinated his personal interests to enlist in the Fifty-first Missouri Volunteer Infantry, in which he rose from the position of private to the office of first lieutenant of Company B. He also served as assistant quartermaster and for a period of about two months was in charge of the Gratiot Street military prison, in the City of St. Louis. He continued in service until the close of the war, and there- after he continued to be identified with agricultural pursuits and stock- growing in Andrew County during the remainder of his active career, besides which he was engaged in the practice of law for a long period of years and gained prestige as one of the well fortified members of the bar of this part of the state. For twenty-four years he was the popular candidate presented by the democratic party for the office of probate judge, for which he was nominated for six consecutive times and to which he was elected three times. In each instance of election he had antici- pated defeat, and the anomalous condition was that at the time of each defeat he had anticipated victory. He served, and with characteristic loyalty and ability, three terms as judge of the Probate Court. Judge Rea was a man of forceful personality, inflexible integrity in all of the relations of life, and generous and considerate in his intercourse with his fellowmen, his strong mind and resolute purpose making him well equipped for leadership in public thought and action and his very nobil- ity of character gaining and retaining to him the confidence and high regard of all with whom he came in contact. He was a man of dignified presence, more than six feet in height and weighing about two hundred and twenty-five pounds in the prime of his life. Sincere with himself and others, he demanded a reason for the faith that was to be adopted by him, and though he ordered his life on the highest plane of integrity and honor he did not become formally a member of any religious organ- ization until about fifteen years prior to his demise, when he united with the Christian Church, of which he ever afterward continued a zealous and earnest member, his widow being one of the venerable and revered pio- neer women of the City of Savannah. Judge Rea was a brother of Hon.

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David Rea, who was elected a member of Congress from the then Ninth District of Missouri in 1872, as candidate on the democratic ticket, and who was twice re-elected. Hon. David Rea entered the Union army at the beginning of the Civil war and rose to the rank of lieutenant-colonel of a Missouri regiment.

In October, 1862, was solemnized the marriage of Judge Rea to Miss Sarah A. Muse, who was born in Fleming County, Kentucky, on the 27th of July, 1844, and who was five years of age at the time when her parents, the late Henry and Mahala Muse, came to Missouri and established their permanent home in Andrew County, within whose borders she has con- tinued to reside to the present time. Judge and Mrs. Rea became the parents of nine children, of whom the eldest is Judge James M., who is now serving as judge of the Probate Court of Andrew County, a position in which he is admirably upholding the high prestige of the name which he bears, individual mention of him being made on other pages of this work; Jonathan H. remains with his widowed mother in Savannah; Thomas B., who resides at South Omaha, is United States livestock in- spector of Nebraska ; Claude is a resident of Edmonton, British Columbia, where he is identified with the wholesale grocery business; Ida is the wife of Henry S. Rector, a successful farmer near Tonganoxie, Leavenworth County, Kansas; Earl is a farmer and representative citizen of Saline County, Missouri, his homestead farm being situated two miles north of Marshall; Ellen, under the administration of her eldest brother, is the efficient and popular clerk of the Probate Court of Andrew County ; Bettie died in 1903, at the age of twenty-five years; and Frank H. is special agent at Kansas City, Missouri, for the Home Insurance Com- pany of New York.

JAMES M. REA. In an office that was signally dignified and honored by the services of his father, Judge Rea is maintaining the same high . standard of efficiency and is one of the able and popular executives of the government of his native county. He is a son of the late Judge Joseph Rea, to whom a memoir is dedicated on other pages of this work, so that in the present article it is unnecessary to offer further review of the family history, though it may consistently be said that few names have been more prominent and represented greater influence in this history of Andrew County than that borne by him who is now serving as judge · of the Probate Court of the county and who is known as a citizen of high civic ideals, as well as a man of broad mental ken, well fortified convic- tions and unquestioned integrity of purpose.

In what is now known as the Fisher farm, about two miles northeast of the Village of Rea, named in honor of the family, Judge James Muse Rea was born on the 26th of August, 1863, a scion of one of the sterling pioneer families of Andrew County. He is the oldest of the children of Judge Joseph Rea and Sarah A. (Muse) Rea, the latter of whom main- tains her home at Savannah, the judicial center of the county, the death of her husband having occurred on the 28th of February, 1914. He whose name initiates this article has been a resident of Andrew County continuously from the time of his birth, save for an interval of one year, during which he was identified with the cattle business in Oklahoma and Indian Territory, in 1881. He attended the public schools of his native county until he had completed the curriculum of the Savannah High School, and in fitting himself for the profession in which his father achieved distinctive success, he entered the law department of Cornell University, at Ithaca, New York, in which he was graduated as a member of the class of 1892 and with the degree of Bachelor of Laws, his admission

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to the Missouri bar having been recorded in the year prior to his grad- uation. He engaged in the practice of his profession at Savannah and built up a substantial and representative law business, to which he con- tinued to devote his undivided attention until his election to the office of Judge of the Probate Court, in 1910. His father held this important office for three terms and for the same was virtually the "perpetual candidate" of the democratic party, and he himself has given an adminis- tration marked by great circumspection and care, so that the many important interests presented for adjudication in his court have been handled most efficiently and to the satisfaction of those concerned.

Judge Rea has been unswerving in his allegiance to the democratic party and has been one of its influential figures in his home county. He has been a student of economic and governmental affairs, both local and generic, and has never lacked the courage of his convictions. In 1912 he circulated in Andrew County a petition in support of the initiative policy, to enable the people to adopt by vote or to defeat by the same process the single-tax policy, of which he is a stalwart advocate. He realized fully that the idea was one that was distinctly unpopular among the farmers and that his advocacy would possibly lose to him the political support of many of the sterling husbandmen of the county, but he held principle above personal advancement and lived up to his convictions. In the election of 1914 he was defeated at the polls on account of his convictions as to single taxes, but throughout the campaign no other than high encomium as a man and an officer were heard against him.

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A history of northwest Missouri, Volume III, Part 16

Author: Williams, Walter, 1864-1935 editor Publication date: 1915 Publisher: Chicago, The Lewis publishing company Number of Pages: 912

Author: Williams, Walter, 1864-1935 editor
Publication date: 1915
Publisher: Chicago, The Lewis publishing company
Number of Pages: 912