A history of northwest Missouri, Volume III, Part 23

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

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Doctor and Mrs. Dunham are of the Presbyterian faith, but are not members of any church. Fraternally, he is connected with the Knights of Pythias, the Modern Woodmen of America and the Yeomen. Politi- cally a republican, he served one term as mayor of Pattonsburg, is now and has been for years health examiner of the city, and under the ad- ministration of President Benjamin Harrison was United States pension examiner. He is surgeon for the Quincy, Omaha & Kansas City and Wabash railroads, and of the latter is the oldest in point of service along the line. He has continued as a close and careful student and keeps fully abreast of the advances constantly being made in his calling, hold- ing membership in the Daviess County Medical Society, the Grand River Valley Medical Society, the Missouri State Medical Society, the Wabash Railroad Surgeons Association and the American Medical Association.

On July 14, 1884, Doctor Dunham was united in marriage with Miss Sophia Niewvahner, of Jackson County, Ohio, and to this union there have been born two sons: Leslie H., who is now taking a medical course at the University of Missouri, Columbia; and John Dunham, Jr., who graduated from the high school at Pattonsburg in 1914 and is now taking post-graduate work there.

Mrs. Dunham's ancestors were natives of Germany, and both her grandfathers, Niewvahner and Prior, were soldiers in the German army at Waterloo, the former being killed and the latter so seriously wounded that he died a few years later. Mrs. Dunham's parents, Henry and Mary (Prior) Niewvahner, were born in Hanover, Germany, the former emigrating to the United States about the year 1840, and landing at Balti- more, Maryland. For two years he followed steamboating and was then married and moved to Jackson Furnace, Ohio, where he was employed at the iron furnace, but later moved to Jackson Courthouse, Ohio, and

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there lived retired until his wife's death in 1902. At that time he came to Pattonsburg to make his home with Mrs. and Doctor Dunham, but in the following year met his death when struck by a passenger train.

HON. JACOB M. POAGE. One of the worthy pioneer residents of Pattonsburg, who by reason of a long carer of industry, careful manage- ment, patient endurance and upright dealing, has earned the respite from labor which he is now enjoying in circumstances of ease and comfort, is Judge Jacob M. Poage. Now that the period of his life in Daviess County reaches back over a period of forty-eight years, he is fortunate indeed in being able to review the past with the happy consciousness that he has discharged faithfully his duties in public and private rela- tions, and that he has borne his full share in building up the most im- portant interests and promoting the highest welfare of the locality among whose people he has lived so long.

Judge Poage was born in Greenup (now Boyd) County, Kentucky, August 23, 1835, and is a son of Hugh Allen and Eliza (Murphy) Poage, the former born in Virginia and the latter in Pennsylvania. The mother died when Jacob M. was about three weeks old, the only child of his parents, while the father passed away at the home of his son in Daviess County, having come here about ten years after the advent of Jacob M.

Judge Poage's boyhood was passed in the mountainous, eastern part of Kentucky, where the soil was unproductive, the people poor, and the children forced to go to work at a tender age. The scene of his youth was the Ohio River, four miles from the Virginia state line, where the subscription schools were few and far between, his educational advan- tages being therefore very limited, although he has since been a reader and student and has added to his information by observation. He re- mained at home with his father until reaching the age of seventeen years, at which time he began to learn the carpenter's trade and served a two- year apprenticeship thereto. He subsequently began to work at his trade, and was thus engaged when the Civil war came on. His sympathies being with the Union cause he enlisted in Company E, Fourteenth Ken- tucky Volunteer Infantry, and with that organization saw three years and four months of service in Kentucky, West Virginia, Tennessee, Georgia and Alabama, during which time he participated in numerous hard-fought engagements, including Cumberland Gap and the Atlanta campaign. As a soldier he proved himself courageous in battle and faith- ful to duty, and January 31, 1865, was honorably discharged with an excellent record.

For the two years following his military service, Mr. Poage was employed at his trade in his native state, and there, in March, 1865, was united in marriage with Miss Margaret E. Savage, of Greenup County, Kentucky, a daughter of Nicholas and Mary (McCroskey) Savage, na- tives of the Blue Grass State. Mr. Savage was an extensive farmer and owned 400 acres of land in Greenup County, but during his later years disposed of his property and came to Daviess County, Missouri, with his wife, and here they passed their last days with their children, the father dying at the home of his daughter, Mrs. Fulwider, west of Pattonsburg, while Mrs. Savage died at the home of Mr. Poage.

In the spring of 1867 Judge and Mrs. Poage came to Daviess County, Missouri, and spent the first summer in Benton Township, with William Savage, Mrs. Poage's brother, whose wife had recently died, and for whom Mrs. Poage kept house. In the fall of the same year Judge Poage bought 160 acres of his present farm, that part on which the buildings are now located, but at that time there were only eight acres cleared, the

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balance being in brush and timber. There was a small log cabin on the place, with one door, one window and a six-foot fireplace, and in this primitive home Judge and Mrs. Poage began their life in Daviess County, moving to the place March 4, 1868. Judge Poage immediately began to improve the property-as he says: "I first cleared all on top of the ground, and then underneath." From that time to the present he has labored faithfully to make this one of the finest properties in the county. Many improvements have been made and he has added to the farm until it now contains 300 acres, all of which he has improved and put under cultivation. His first land cost him $6.25 per acre, some of which he could now sell for $300 an acre; one 80-acre tract, purchased subsequent to his first property, cost him but $2.50, while for other land he has paid as high as $20 an acre. All of his land could now easily bring $100 an acre.

In 1871 Judge Poage built his present frame house, the lumber for which he brought to his farm from the City of Chicago, just previous to the great fire, and this was the first carload of pine lumber shipped into the Town of Pattonsburg. He also displayed his progressive spirit by buying and bringing here the first reaper and dropper.

When Judge Poage bought his present farm, Pattonsburg had not been started, his nearest railroad being at Stewartsville, Missouri, thirty miles distant. The railroad did not come to Pattonsburg until 1871, at which time the present site of the city was covered with timber from Judge Poage's east line to Main Street. East of Main Street the land had been broken and this the judge farmed until he could get his other land cleared. The timber was so heavy, in fact, and the roads so scarce, that it was customary, when starting on a journey, for the settlers to take along an axe, with which to cut their way through. After Pattons- burg was started, Judge Poage purchased ten acres of land across the road from his farm east of Poage Street, named in his honor, for $20 per acre, and this property he laid off in lots and sold as such. Judge Poage now has four large barns on his farm, besides numberless out- buildings, as he has always been a firm believer in taking care of what he has raised. He has an outside wash house, an acetylene gas plant, tool sheds, stock sheds, feed grinding building, a large chicken house and a tenant house, and all are in the best of repair and condition. He also has five houses in the City of Pattonsburg, which he rents, and is a stock- holder in the Daviess County Savings Bank of Pattonsburg, and a mem- ber of the directing board of that institution. For many years past he has been an extensive feeder of cattle, and at the present time is feeding sixty head of spring calves.

Judge and Mrs. Poage have been the parents of four children, namely : Mary Eliza, who was born in Kentucky and died in 1872 in Daviess County, Missouri; Carrie Luella, who is the wife of Ollie Weller and resides at Sherman, Texas; Daisy J., who is the wife of Alonzo Bridges, of Bedford, Iowa ; and Nicholas L., who lives with his parents and is his father's assistant in his farming operations. Judge and Mrs. Poage and all of their children are consistent members of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. Judge Poage is a Mason. In politics he is a democrat, and before the country school was consolidated with the city school, he served as director of the former for nine years. During the '80s he was elected and served four years capably in the capacity of county judge of Daviess County.

It is Judge Poage's opinion that it takes three classes of men to develop a country. The first class hunts, fishes and traps; the second class hunts, fishes, traps and clears out a little land; the third class. finding the game largely gone, clears and puts the land under cultivation

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and makes a home for his old age. Judge Poage belongs to the latter class. He has always been a hard worker and is still disposed to carry on his share of the work. Being a carpenter by trade, he has been able to furnish a large part of the labor required in the construction of every building on the place, and there are at least twenty good, substantial structures, much of the timber for which he has taken from his own woods, cut, hauled to the sawmill and put in place in the building. Judge Poage represents a type of pioneer now fast disappearing. In his eightieth year he is still active in mind and body, and his recollection of early events makes him an interesting conversationalist. He is well pro- vided for in his declining years, and is passing them in peace and com- fort, with the respect and esteem of all men as an additional reward for a life of honest and well-meaning effort.

GEORGE T. NETHERTON, M. D. The Netherton family was established in the wilds of Daviess County four score years ago, and Dr. George T. Netherton, now successfully practicing medicine in Gallatin, was himself born in this section of Northwest Missouri more than seventy years ago, and there are few men still living who have so close and accurate a recol- lection of early times and conditions. Doctor Netherton is an old soldier, for many years followed the business of farmer, and later in life took up the study and practice of medicine and has since enjoyed an extensive general practice.

Dr. George T. Netherton was born in Daviess County August 23, 1841, a son of James N. and Nancy (Thomas) Netherton. The parents were natives of Eastern Tennessee and were married there, and in 1834, with three children and with the parents of James Netherton, they all emigrated to Northwest Missouri, making the entire trip by wagon. Their destination was the Grand River Valley in Daviess County, and they laboriously proceeded through the wilderness until they arrived at a point eight miles north of the present City of Gallatin. At that time only one other family lived north of them as far as the Iowa boundary, and this extreme settlement was only a mile and a half north of the Netherton place. The land in Daviess County had not yet been put on the market by the Government, and the Nethertons and the other pioneers who came about the same time were "squatters" and occupied the land without legal leave until the Government opened it for entry through the land office at Lexington, Missouri, where the Nethertons secured and paid for their claims. Their settlement occurred several years before the Platte Purchase, and there were as many Indians as white settlers in Northwest Missouri. In a country that is now a smiling landscape of farms and cities it is difficult, if not impossible, to conceive the condi- tions which existed when the Nethertons came. The country was divided between prairie and dense primeval forest, and for a number of years it was possible to shoot deer without going more than a quarter of a mile beyond the homestead. Doctor Netherton's father built for the first habitation of the family a log house, which was covered with clapboards, split out of the native timber. This preliminary task having been accomplished, there remained before him the still heavier work of clear-

ing a farm from the midst of the woods, and that work occupied him for many years, and he died on the old home place in 1868. His widow survived many years, passing away in 1894. Both were members of the Baptist Church, and the father was originally a democrat, but subse- quently joined the republican party. In their family were fourteen children, named briefly as follows: Catherine, deceased; Elizabeth J .. deceased ; Rev. John L., who was the first male white child born in Daviess County and now lives at Montrose, California ; Henry, deceased ;

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Sarah A. Coffey ; Dr. George T .; James C., of Clinton, Henry County, Missouri ; M. G., now deceased, who was at one time treasurer of Daviess County ; William B., who enlisted in the Forty-third Missouri Volunteer Infantry, was taken prisoner at Glasgow, Missouri, and subsequently died during service as a result of disease near Kansas City ; Adelbert L., who lives at Gilman; Iciphena Z., deceased; Caroline, deceased ; and two that died in infancy.

Doctor Netherton was born on the old home farm in Grand River Township, and his earliest recollections are of log cabin homes, a com- paratively limited area of cultivation, most of the fields being thickly set with stumps, and practically all his education was acquired in school houses that had puncheon floors, split log benches, with instruction almost as crude as the furnishings. He lived at home and attended school until the outbreak of the war, and at that time was about twenty years of age. He was in the first command raised for service in Northwest Missouri, enlisting for a term of six months in a battalion organized by Major Cox. All his service was in this section of the state. In February, 1862, Doctor Netherton enlisted in the First Missouri State Militia Cav- alry, being assigned to Company A, his commanding officers being Capt. Joseph H. McGee, Major Cox and Colonel McFarren. He saw a great deal of active service, and at the Battle of Mine Creek was shot through the left arm, and has never entirely recovered from that wound. He remained with his regiment until mustered out in February, 1865, being at that time a non-commissioned officer.

With his return to Northwest Missouri Dr. Netherton bought a small tract of unimproved land, and in order to earn a living taught school while clearing up and getting his farm into a productive condition. He went on with his work until a hundred acres had been cleared, and his occupation was as a progressive and successful farmer for twenty-five years. Towards the close of his farming experience he attended one year of medical lectures at St. Joseph, and took two years in the Kansas City Medical College, from which he was graduated M. D. in 1897. He at once began practice at Gallatin, remained there until 1901, and then went to the Southwest and was in practice in one of the comparatively new counties of North Texas, Archer County, until 1908. Returning to Missouri, Doctor Netherton has since had his offices in Gallatin and still attends to large professional business.

On August 2, 1866, Doctor Netherton married Miss Hannah Everly, of Daviess County. Her parents were John J. and Iciphena (Seat) Everly, the former a native of Pennsylvania and the latter of Missouri. The Seat family came from Tennessee to Morgan County, Missouri, among the pioneers, while the Everly family located in the same county in 1838 and in the fall of the same year moved on to Daviess County, where they were among the early settlers. Doctor Netherton and wife have two children : The son Charles O. is now practicing as a veterinary surgeon at Gallatin. E. J. Netherton now has charge of the hog cholera serum preparation in the laboratory at St. Joseph.

Doctor Netherton is a member of the Baptist Church, keeps up his associations with the old veterans as a member of the Grand Army of the Republic, and is affiliated with the Masonic and Odd Fellow frater- nities. As a young man his political sympathies were with the demo- cratic party, but after the war he became an active republican, and continued that affiliation until the Chicago convention of 1912. He broke away from the party in that year, served as delegate to the state progressive convention, and later was in the convention at Chicago which nominated Roosevelt and Johnson as progressive candidates for President and vice president. He is a thorough believer in progressive principles

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and hopes for the ultimate success of the progressive party. Just fol- lowing the war Doctor Netherton served for a time as supervisor of regis- tration in Daviess County.

MELVIN A. GODMAN was one of the most venerable and interesting survivors of that group of early settlers whose gamut of experience ran back to the time when Daviess County was only emerging from the dominion of the wilderness. Considering his early lack of opportunity and the hard necessity which imposed continuous toil upon the shoulders of a child, he had a career of remarkable accomplishment and deserved all the honors paid him in his declining age.

The birth of Melvin A. Godman occurred in Monroe County, Missouri, March 17, 1836. He was a son of John and Tabitha (Jones) Godman, both of whom were natives of Virginia, were married in Bourbon County, Kentucky, and about 1830 emigrated and established homes in the new country of Monroe County, Missouri. They made the trip in a covered wagon drawn by four horses. Two families comprised the party and most of them rode in the one wagon. They located near the old Town of Palmyra, where John Godman took up Government land in the midst of the woods. built a log house, and cleared off many acres and prepared them for cultivation. John Godman was a hard worker all his active career, but circumstances were conflicting, and he lived in a time when life was largely heavy toil and hardship, with few comforts and advan- tages. In 1844 he brought his family to Livingston County, Missouri, and again took up Government land a mile and a half east of Spring Hill. On that place was a small log cabin, and during the four years he lived there he did a large amount of improvement. In 1848 he came to Daviess County and five years later entered 200 acres of Government land located eleven miles north of Jamesport. That was his home until his death in 1875, while his wife passed away in 1872. Melvin A. God- man was the eighth in a family of nine children, and all the others are now deceased, their names having been Ann, Eliza, Jane, Nancy, Allen, William, Caroline, Lucy and Mary Boone.

Melvin A. Godman had no school advantages when a boy, owing to the fact that his home was first in Monroe County, then in Livingston County and then in Daviess County, all of which at the time were on the frontier. His entire attendance at any sort of school was limited to about three months. and his training for life was the result of practi- cal effort, swinging the axe in the woods, plowing the heavy virgin soil, and planting and harvesting crops. He lived at home with his parents until thirty years of age, having been married when twenty-two. In the spring of 1865 Mr. Godman bought of his father-in-law. Thomas Michals, 320 acres of partly improved land twelve miles north of James- port in Lincoln Township. There was a log cabin, and seventy acres had been broken, while ten acres were in pasture. All the rest of the heavy work of clearing and improvement was performed by Mr. God- man, who in time erected a substantial residence and barns, built line and cross fences, and with the steady industry which was his lifelong characteristic continued to accumulate and add to his estate until he was the owner of 810 acres of well improved land. divided into three farms, with three separate dwellings and other buildings. For many years he was a large cattle and hog raiser, and shipped extensively from his farm to the markets of Chicago. Kansas City and St. Joseph. Mr. God- man remained on that farm until February, 1891, when he moved to Jamesport and lived retired, and there he died November 27, 1914.

On September 3, 1857, Mr. Godman married Miss Clara Michals. She was born in Montgomery County, Indiana, in 1840, a daughter of

Roscoe. a. mania

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Thomas H. and Deborah (Cravens) Michals. Her father was born in Tennessee and went as a child to Kentucky, while her mother was a native of Kentucky, where they were married, and moved to Montgom- ery County, Indiana, about 1830, and thence in the fall of 1856 took the interesting journey which established them in a new home in Lincoln Township of Daviess County. They came to Missouri with two teams, one of horses and the other of oxen. Mr. Michals bought 320 acres, paying $5 an acre to its owner, who had secured the land direct from the Government. Only twenty acres had been broken by the plow, and after Mr. Michals had lived there some years he sold the place to his son-in-law, Mr. Godman, for $10 an acre and then returned to Indiana, lived there three years, and on coming back to Missouri located in Saline County and a few years later returned to Lincoln Township, in Daviess County, where he died in 1879. His wife passed away at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Godman in 1882. Mrs. Godman was one of a large family of children, mentioned briefly as follows: Nancy Williams; Solomon, who died while a soldier in the Mexican war; Joel W., who also saw service in the war with Mexico; Cassie; Ann Endicott; Thomas B., Mrs. God- man, and several others that died in infancy. Mrs. Godman, like her husband, is the only survivor of her immediate family.

The long companionship of Mr. and Mrs. Godman was blessed by the birth of eleven children, five of whom died in infancy, and the other six are: Perry A., of Jamesport; Palmer F., of Lees Summit; Cassie, wife of P. V. Neighswenger, of Jamesport; Atlanta A., wife of John K. Everly, of Jameson; Belle, wife of John Meserva, of Trenton; Amanda A., wife of Harry B. Mccluskey, of Jamesport.

From the time he located in Jamesport Mr. Godman divided half of his farm among his children, and sold the balance, and has invested to a considerable extent in Jamesport City real estate. He was a member of the Baptist Church, as is his widow, and in politics he was a democrat, but never sought office. It was the fortune of Mr. Godman to have seen Daviess County grow from an almost uninhabited section to a thickly populated district. After his marriage he did his trading largely at Chillicothe and Spring Hill, thirty miles away, and it required two days to make a trip to and from mill to get meal and flour. For many years after he came to Daviess County Jamesport was unoccupied Government land. There were no public schools, and the settlers supported schools by paying $1 a month per pupil, while the teacher boarded around. In spite of the deficiencies of his early training, Mr. Godman was thoroughly successful, largely due to his native intelligence and an experience which developed keen business faculties.

ROSCOE A. MORRIS. A resident of Savannah for a period of forty- three years, Roscoe A. Morris has been a witness to and a participant in the era of this city's greatest commercial growth. For thirty-four years he was engaged in the sale of agricultural implements, and is widely known to the trade all over this part of the state, but at the present time is living in retirement. Mr. Morris was born at Petersburg, Illinois, August 6, 1852, and is a son of Martin S. and Elizabeth (Wagoner) Morris.

Martin S. Morris was born at Richmond, Kentucky, in 1817, and as a young man went to Illinois, becoming the owner of a large plow manu- factory at Petersburg, a business of which he was the directing head for a period of twenty-five years, or until coming to Savannah, in 1871. Here also he was engaged in making agricultural machinery, but finally retired from business, and died May 6, 1884. A lifelong republican, Mr. Morris took a particularly active participation in the movements

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of his party, and was personally acquainted with many of the leaders of the organization in Illinois. One of these was War Governor Richard Yates, who was his intimate friend, and Roscoe A. Morris now has in his possession a letter from the governor, written to his father in 1850, and sent through the mails with a five-cent stamp and without envelope. Mr. Morris was also an intimate fried of Abraham Lincoln, and his son has also a letter from the martyred President, and well remembers accom- panying his father to the Lincoln home to congratulate the President upon his election. Mr. Morris was offered a number of high positions by Mr. Lincoln, but followed his fixed rule in declining office, and his only public service of importance was as revenue collector of the port of New Orleans, an office in which he served three years. While in Illinois Mr. Morris was an extensive land owner, and at one time was known as one of his community's most substantial men. He was frater- nally connected with the Masons. Mr. Morris was married at Springfield, Illinois, to Miss Elizabeth Wagoner, who was born in Pennsylvania, and she died January 24, 1900, at Savannah, at the age of eighty years. There were six sons and six daughters in the family, of whom Mr. Morris is the only son living, while three daughters also survive.

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A history of northwest Missouri, Volume III, Part 23

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