USA > Missouri > A history of northwest Missouri, Volume III > Part 31
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In 1878 Mr. Davis was elected on the Democratic ticket to the office of county collector, in which he had shown his capability as deputy, and he was reelected in 1880, in 1882 and in 1884, discharging the duties of his office in a manner highly creditable to himself and to the county.
In 1887, following the expiration of his last term, Mr. Davis organ- ized the Exchange Bank of Richmond, whereupon he was elected cashier and served in that office until 1900, at which time he retired from active business. He has since lived a life of practical retirement in Richmond.
In 1890 Mr. Davis built the Eagle Mill at Richmond, and he and his son, Harry M. Davis, operated the plant for two years, when they sold it to its present owner, O. N. Hamsaler.
Mr. Davis married on May 15, 1861, Miss Mary Tripplett, a native of Rappahannock County, Virginia. She died on November 26, 1864, leaving one child, Carrie, now the wife of Frank Clark and living in Ray County, Missouri.
On May 15, 1866, he again married, Miss Allen M. Hughes, of How- ard County, Missouri; becoming his wife. She was born in 1843, and still lives. To them were born seven children: Harry M., whose name heads this review; Frank, also a resident of Richmond, Missouri; Katy, deceased ; Lucy N., the wife of F. M. Hyffaker, of Chicago; Allie, who married C. W. Harrison, of New York City; James A., Jr., of Rich- mond; and Estelle, the wife of Dr. E. M. Cameron, of Richmond.
When Harry M. Davis was twenty years old he went to Chicago to add something to his education, and there he took a rigid course in busi- ness training in the Bryant & Stratton Business College. Returning home when he had completed his commercial studies, he soon after went to Kansas City, and there he took a position as traveling salesman for Barton Brothers, a wholesale shoe house, and for five years there- after he worked for that concern. He then returned to Richmond and during the next two years he was engaged in the milling business with his father. In 1892 he joined a Mr. Bates in the purchase of a lumber yard, and for the next seven years operated the yard under the firm name of Bates & Davis. In 1899 Mr. Bates disposed of his share to L. T. Child, and then Mr. Davis and Mr. Child incorporated the busi- ness under the firm name of Davis & Child, with a capital of $10,000. Mr. Davis became president of the firm, and they have since continued in operation, increasing the capitalization as the demands of the business grew. The business is now capitalized at $30,000, and the establishment is making steady progress. Everything in the building line is carried by Davis & Child, the yard itself being under the personal supervision and management of Mr. Child.
In 1906 Mr. Davis was elected to the office of county collector and he served for four years. At the end of his term of office he turned his attention to farming, and he is now operating a farm comprising a full section of land, 380 acres of which he owns. He makes a specialty of jacks, mules and hogs, and has been very successful in his breeding enterprise. .
It is not too much to say that Mr. Davis is a man who has the genuine confidence and esteem of the public, and that he is one of the most prominent and popular men in these parts. He proved an excellent public official, and if he could be induced to enter the lists in political conflict, it is morally certain that he would find continued favor with the people as an official. Fraternally he is a member of the A. F. and A. M. and of the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks.
On December 30, 1891, Mr. Davis married Miss Edwina Menefee, who was born in the house where she now lives in the year 1874. She
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is a daughter of Berrien J. Menefee, a native of Culpeper County, Virginia, born there on January 22, 1832, and who died on December 30, 1890, at Richmond. His parents were early settlers in Missouri. Mr. Menefee was twice married. His first wife was Cynthia Cole, who died and left two children, Kate, the wife of James S. Lightner, and Henry R., of St. Louis, Missouri. His second wife was Miss Elizabeth Newland, a native of Pike County, Missouri. She is living and for the past eighteen years has been housekeeper at Central College, this state. There were five children of this second marriage: Newland lives in the West; Mrs. Davis was the second born; Emma is the wife of R. L. Tracy, of Albany, Oregon; Susie married M. W. Little, of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma; and Berrien is the wife of H. F. Blackwell, of Lexington, Missouri.
Berrien J. Menefee was a soldier of the Confederacy, serving as lieu- tenant in Company D, First Missouri Cavalry. In 1864 he went across the plains in company with James A. Davis, father of the subject, return- ing, together with Mr. Davis, in the following year. For twenty-five years he was a merchant in Richmond, operating a hardware and imple- ment store. He dropped dead of heart disease while busy about the store one day.
Mr. and Mrs. Davis have no children, but they have reared the child of a sister, Catherine Allen, now fifteen years of age, and attending school at Lexington, Missouri.
JODIA A. MAGRAW, M. D. Owning a name that has been honorably identified with Harrison County for sixty years, Doctor Magraw was long known as an educator, but since 1902 has been a successful physi- cian at Gilman City. Most of his life has been spent in the service of others, and as a physician he is kindly, even tempered, and a skillful counselor and friend to his widening circle of patients.
Doctor Magraw was born on a farm in Adams Township, Harrison County, November 22, 1859. There he grew up, had a farm training and environment, an education from the district schools, later supple- mented from the Kirksville State Normal and the old Stanberry Nor- mal, where he was graduated in 1892. He had been teaching for some years, and that was his regular profession for twelve years thereafter. His country school work was done in his native county, and his last teaching in a graded school was at Valparaiso, Nebraska, where he located in 1894. He took up the study of medicine at Cotner University in Lincoln, Nebraska, and was graduated M. D. in 1899. In that school he was demonstrator of anatomy one year and during 1901-02 filled the chair of diseases of children. After three years of practice at Pleasant Hill, Nebraska, Doctor Magraw returned to Missouri, and located in the same locality in which he had been reared. His office and home have been in Gilman City since 1902. He has membership in the Harrison County and the State Medical societies.
Doctor Magraw's grandfather was John Magraw, who was born at Germantown, Pennsylvania, the son of a Scotch father and of an Irish mother. When he was seven years old these parents died of yellow fever, being victims of the only epidemic of that scourge which ever reached as far north as Philadelphia. The three orphan children were reared in different homes. The daughter married a Mr. Latta and spent her life in Ohio. The other son became a resident of West Virginia, and among his well known descendants still in that state is former Governor Magraw, a grandson. John Magraw was reared in the East, served as a soldier in the War of 1812, and afterwards moved west and died in Fayette County, Illinois, at the age of eighty-five. He married an
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orphan girl, Elizabeth McGuire, and their children were: Eleanor, who married Samuel Sidener, of Fayette County, Illinois; James, who died in Fayette County; John D., father of Doctor Magraw; Joseph, who died in Fayette County, leaving a family ; and David, who died in Macomb, Illinois.
John D. Magraw, who was born in Knox County, Ohio, May 9, 1830, began active life with only a country schooling, but all his life was a stu- dious reader. In 1855 he came to Missouri and entered land in Adams Township of Harrison County, and improved it and made the home where his children grew up. He died in Gilman City March 31, 1905. In poli- tics he belonged to the old know-nothing party that existed before the war, and was one of the two men in his township to cast votes for Abraham Lincoln in 1860. He volunteered for service in the Union army, being rejected on account of a crippled arm, but had a place in Company G of the Fifty-seventh Missouri Militia, being called out for brief periods only. He was one of the party leaders among the repub- licans of his locality, never aspired to office, and for about a dozen years served as justice of the peace. He was an active Methodist.
John D. Magraw was married in Harrison County, March 13, 1857, to Miss Matilda J. Miller. Her father, Dr. Benjamin C. Miller, was a native of Ohio, and from the vicinity of Kokomo, Indiana, came to Mis- souri in 1855. He had practiced medicine in Indiana, but in Harrison County became a farmer until his death in 1876. His wife was Elvira DeVore, and of their eight children the following are mentioned: Jack- son Greene, who was named in honor of Gen. Nathaniel Greene; Matilda J .; Rebecca A., deceased, who married John T. Price and left a family in Harrison County ; Samantha E., who married John H. Myers; Alice, the wife of Mandrid Hart, lives at Carlsbad, New Mexico: John A., of DeKalb County, Missouri; and Samuel J., of Arickaree, Colorado. The children of John D. Magraw and wife were: Walter G., a farmer in Adams Township, Harrison County ; Dr. J. A .; Altha, a teacher in the high school at Maysville; Naomi, wife of Charles McClary, a Gilman City merchant. There are no grandchildren by any of these.
Doctor Magraw was married at Albany, Missouri, December 28, 1899, to Rose M. Selby, a daughter of Joshua J. and Mary E. Selby and a sister of Columbus O. Selby, mentioned on other pages of this work. Doctor Magraw is affiliated with the Independent Order of Odd Fel- lows, having filled all chairs in the lodge, and is past chancellor in the Knights of Pythias. He is a member of the Christian Church. Besides his profitable practice, he owns property in Gilman City and a farm near by. Doctor Magraw is a man of excellent physical presence, is alert, and full of life and hope.
WALTER CLEMENT CHILDERS. While Walter Clement Childers, of Grant City, is a newcomer in the ranks of Northwest Missouri journal- ism, his accomplishments in other lines of business endeavor, and as a public official, may be taken as an assurance that in his new venture he will meet with a full measure of success. He has been a resident of Grant City since his first election to the office of county clerk in 1906, a posi- tion which he still retains, and has been owner and editor of the Worth County Times since January, 1914, and is, all in all, considered one of his community's stirring and helpful citizens. Mr. Childers is not a native of Worth County, but has resided here since his infancy, having been brought here from Jay County, Indiana. where he was born Novem- ber 8, 1876, a son of James H. and Hannah (VanSkyock) Childers.
The paternal grandfather of Walter C. Childers spent his final years in Jay County, Indiana, to which locality he had gone from Adams
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County, Ohio. He was of English stock, the first of the name in this country having come from England early in our national history, and while it is not definitely known where the progenitor settled, it is established that his posterity early located in Ohio. James H. Childers was born in Adams County, Ohio, and received a somewhat limited education in the public schools. He was brought up in the same man- ner as the majority of Ohio farmers' sons, and although a cripple spent a busy life and achieved some success through his energy and perse- verance. Coming to Missouri in 1877, he located two miles and a quar- ter north of Isadora, in Worth County, where he established himself in the nursery business and later also spent some years as a salesman. Mr. Childers held no political office, although he was a staunch and lifelong democrat. He was identified with no religious denomination, although he firmly believed in churches and contributed his share to their movements. . Mr. Childers' fraternal connection was with the Odd Fellows. He died in Worth County in February, 1902. Mr. Childers married Miss Hannah Van Skyock, daughter of Jonathan VanSkyock, a member of a Dutch family of Jay County, Indiana, and sister of Wash- ington VanSkyock, who was one of the early pioneers of that county. She is still living, making her home among her children, and is seventy- eight years of age. The children born to Mr. and Mrs. Childers were as follows: Dr. Allen G. T., a practicing physician of Mullhall, Oklahoma ; John Calvin, who is engaged in agricultural pursuits in Worth County ; Stephen M., who is carrying on operations on the old homestead farm in this county; and Walter Clement, of this review.
Walter Clement Childers lived in the country until attaining his majority, and acquired an ordinary education in the rural schools. Later he attended the Stanberry Normal School, where he prepared himself for the vocation of educator, and engaged in work in the rural districts, his first school being the Platt Dell School. After three years passed in the country, Mr. Childers became principal of the school at Athelstan, Iowa, a position which he retained for a like period, and then deciding upon a career in a profession, entered the Highland Park Law School, at Des Moines, Iowa. After one year, however, Mr. Childers gave up his legal studies and engaged with his brother in the general merchandise business at Athelstan, Iowa, but in 1906 made the race for county clerk of Worth County, and was elected to that office in November of the same year, as the successor of W. P. Spillman. His energetic, capable and faithful services during his first term earned him repeated reelections and he has continued to serve his county in this capacity to the present time, much to the satisfaction of his fellow citizens. He has handled the affairs of his office conscientiously and well, and his record is one deserving high commendation.
In January, 1914, Mr. Childers purchased the Worth County Times, a democratic weekly and the only democratic paper in Worth county. During the forty years of its life it has had several owners, chief and oldest among whom is E. S. Garver, from whom Mr. Childers purchased the plant. This is equipped with linotype, good imposing stones, mod- ern press and all utensils and appurtenances to be found in an up-to- date plant, and is operated by gasoline power. Mr. Childers is endeav- oring to give to the people of Worth County a clean, reliable newspaper, and to mold public opinion along the lines of advancement and helpful- ness in education and good citizenship.
Mr. Childers cast his first presidential vote in 1900 for William Jen- nings Bryan and has since consistently supported democratic principles. His convention work has been confined to local matters, and he has served as chairman of the democratic central committee, during the
BIRath
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campaign of 1908, and has been also a member of the congressional committee. Fraternally, he is connected with the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, and is a Master Mason and a member of the Modern Wood- men of America. His religious connection is with the Missionary Bap- tist Church. He has been connected with a number of business inter- ests which have contributed to the growth of Grant City's importance, and at the present time is one of the owners of the city electric light and power plant.
On August 4, 1901, Mr. Childers was united in marriage with Miss Emma Weese, a daughter of Leonard and Nancy J. (Martin) Weese, whose children were as follows: Edith, who is the wife of P. S. Round, of Hanson, Idaho; Dr. W. W., a practicing physician of Ontario, Ore- gon ; Emma, who is now Mrs. Childers; Elmyra, who became the wife of R. B. Hill, and is a resident of Nampa, Idaho; and Guy, who resides at Hanson, that state. Two children have been born to Mr. and Mrs. Childers, namely : Tessie Helen and Vilas Evan.
B. L. RALPH. Now living quietly on his farm, which is partly within the city limits of Savannah, B. L. Ralph has had a varied business career which has taken him into all the states west of the Mississippi River, as far north as Alaska, during the Klondike mining excitement, and as far south as Old Mexico. He has done a great deal of work in a constructive way, has prospered as a business man, and is a good substantial citizen.
B. L. Ralph was born near Albany in Gentry County, Missouri, January 1, 1863, a son of George S. and Mary J. (Twedell) Ralph. His father was born in Ohio, June 30, 1824, and his mother in Illinois, February 15, 1829. Left an orphan, his father came out to the Platte Purchase in Northwest Missouri in 1846, while his wife came with her parents to St. Joseph, Missouri, in 1848, and they were married in Gentry County, where the father spent his active career as a farmer. The mother is still living at Albany. Their three children are B. L. Ralph ; William, of Gentry County; and Ida, wife of J. W. Worden of Gentry County.
B. L. Ralph spent the first twenty-three years of his life in Gentry County, lived on the old farm with his parents, and in the meantime had gained the fundamentals of an education in country schools. Among other experiences of his lifetime he has done a considerable amount of school teaching, teaching for two winters in his home district, and after moving to Andrew County in 1884 taught a country school one winter.
In 1886 Mr. Ralph was married in Savannah to Amy M. Cobb. She was born in England, August 25, 1870, and at the age of four years came with her parents, Amos and Harriet (Brand) Cobb, who settled in Savannah. After their marriage Mr. Ralph moved west, locating in San Luis Park, Colorado, took up a homestead, and assisted in the build- ing of irrigation ditches. After a year spent there he returned to Mis- souri, and became foreman on mason work during the construction of the Chicago Great Western Railroad through Savannah. His next venture was in the wholesale and retail oil business at Maryville, and subse- quently he was connected with the Standard Oil Company, and went out to Kansas and was located at Salina for nine years. He was interested there in the Lee 'Mercantile Company, a wholesale grocery firm. After selling out, Mr. Ralph was one of the men attracted to the far North by the gold discoveries in Alaska in 1897. He went over the Dyea Trail and down the Yukon River to Dawson City. This was a trip fraught with many difficulties and dangers. The party had to whipsaw the lumber used for the construction of boats, and there were times when provisions were scanty and when all manner of difficulties threatened them. Mr. Vol. III-14
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Ralph spent fifteen months in prospecting in the Yukon Territory, and returned to Skagway, a distance of seven hundred miles, by dog team, making that trip in twenty days. He arrived home in the spring of 1898. With his brother-in-law, Charles B. Cobb, he engaged in masonry. contracting along the line of the Chicago Great Western, and did all the masonry contracting on that system. Since giving up his contracting business Mr. Ralph has looked after his farming business. He has twenty- two acres with his home partially in the corporate limits, and another place of 220 acres outside.
Mr. Ralph is a democrat in politics, and is affiliated with both the York and Scottish Rite branches of Masonry, including the thirty-second degree and the Shrine. He and his wife are the parents of two children : Mildred and Elizabeth.
WILLIAM H. RICHTER. Here is a name which, introduced into Har- rison County in 1855, has for sixty years been identified with some of the most substantial improvements and activities in agriculture and stock raising. Many people recall the old pioneer, James Richter, whose equal as a hunter and trapper never lived in this section of the country. The Richter Stock Farm near Gilman City has for a number of years been the home of some of the finest Shorthorn cattle raised anywhere in the country, and many farms not only in this state but elsewhere have received the nucleus of their high-grade stock from this place.
James Richter was the son of German parents, and was born aboard a sailing vessel while en route from a German port to the United States in 1813. His parents located in Maryland, and while he was still a child moved out to Wayne County, Indiana, where they were among the earliest settlers in that old Quaker community. His father died there in 1819, and the widowed mother, whose name was Melcher, lived at Hagerstown, Indiana, until her death. Among their children were: John, William, Leonard, James and two daughters whose names are not now recalled. All these children lived in Wayne County, Indiana, with the exception of James.
James Richter grew up in the new country of Eastern Indiana, and had his education in the country schools. When a young man he moved to Fulton County, in Northern Indiana, and took up government land among the Miami and Pottawatomie Indians. He lived among these Indians as a neighbor, and when as a tribe they were removed to White Cloud, Kansas, he was appointed by the United States Government as commissary sergeant of the commission that moved them west. While in Fulton County James Richter cleared up an 80-acre farm and fol- lowed and became expert in the woodcraft of his Indian neighbors. In that section of Indiana his home was in a low, swampy country, char- acterized by heavy malarial fogs and swarms of mosquitoes. All the ani- mals of the primeval forest could be found, including wild hogs, and his life there was spiced with hunting and other outdoor sports. From his Indian friends in Fulton County James Richter learned to trail game with the same exquisite art employed by the red men of the forest,. and after he came to Harrison County he proved his skill by trailing wolves even without tracks for six miles to their den, a feat that no man could accomplish without Indian training and instinct. During the last years of his life in Harrison County he was a trapper and hunter, and his piles of skins showed his prowess. In the month of November after his seventy-fifth birthday he caught furs to the value of $130 in one month.
When James Richter came to Missouri in 1855 he entered land in Sherman Township of Harrison County, in section 29, township 63,
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range 27. This he improved from the prairie sod, and his log house, sixteen feet square, was the first one built standing on the prairie between Bethany, in Harrison County, and Bancroft, in Daviess County. During the first year spent there he hired men to break fifty acres, the work being done with great sod plows, drawn by seven yoke. of cattle to each plow. He produced from that virgin soil fifty bushels of corn to the acre. His work as a farmer was confined to grain raising, since the handling of stock would have interfered with his hunting pursuits. In the early days, as proof of the cheapness of land in this vicinity, it was customary for him to give an 80-acre tract of land to a man for a year's work. His home' in Sherman Township was a headquarters for early hospi- tality, and every older resident of Harrison County is familiar with the place. James Richter lived there from the time he came to Harri- son County with the exception of a time spent at Edinburg in order to give his daughters an education.
Politically James Richter was an old line whig and then a repub- lican. He had firm convictions on currency questions, took a good citi- zen's interest in politics, and voted for only one democrat in all his life. In 1860 he cast his ballot for Abraham Lincoln at a time when it required considerable courage and independence to openly support such a candidate in Missouri. He was a loyal Union man during the war and had previously been counted as a sympathizer with the conduc- tors of the "underground railroad." When quizzed as to what he would do if he saw a fugitive negro, he replied that he would say "Go it, darkey, get away if you can." And when asked what he would do if he saw the master come along hunting the darkey and was asked as to his whereabouts, he replied that he would say: "Catch him if you can." He was never in public office, and though not a member of a church, was a moral man and never failed to give aid in the construc- tion of pioneer churches, was a generous contributor to the poor and needy, and is remembered for his charitable character.
James Richter died February 25, 1894, when past eighty years of age, and he and his wife sleep side by side in the Odd Fellows Cemetery at Bethany. He was first married in Fulton County, Indiana, to Eleanor Gordon. Her father, Robert Gordon, was of the well known Gordon clan of Scotland, was a school teacher, and died in Fulton County, Indiana. Among other children one is the mother of Doctor Walker, of Bethany. James Richter and his first wife had the following children : Marie E., wife of S. A. Pettit, of Steamboat Springs, Colorado; and William H. James Richter married for his second wife Belinda Cham- bers, who died at Bethany, and is buried in the Odd Fellows Cemetery. She died in March, 1899. Of this marriage the children were: Ella, who spent her life in Harrison County and married William McCollum ; Dr. Louisa M., of Los Angeles, California; and Sarah Etta, who married John Smith, of Los Angeles.
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