A history of northwest Missouri, Volume III, Part 84

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

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Mrs. Korn traces her ancestry back to Gen. Wade Hampton of Revo- lutionary fame, through her mother's ancestors. Mrs. Korn is best known by her literary name as Anna Brosius Korn. She is a graduate, widely traveled, and thoroughly cultured woman and from early years has manifested great talent in literary and artistic movements. Has written many short stories in addition to her poems and songs. As a student and traveler, has assimilated much knowledge and is thoroughly informed on the prominent social and political questions of the day. She is a member of the Missouri Daughters of the American Revolution, the United Daughters of the Confederacy, of which she is president of Trenton Chapter, and Missouri Society United States Daughters of 1812. Mrs. Korn organized the Dorcas Richardson Chapter, Daughters of the American Revolution, of Trenton, Missouri, May 29, 1912, at her home,

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and is now commissioned to organize a chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy.

FRANK NICHOLAS KORN, a thorough railroad man, was born and reared in Breckenridge. At the early age of fourteen years he started his railroad career as messenger boy on the Hannibal & St. Joe Rail- road. Learning telegraphy at the same time, he was promoted as a telegraph operator, with his first position at St. Joe, August, 1886, re- maining with that company in capacity of operator and station agent until 1890, when he entered the service of the Santa Fe Railroad as operator at Las Vegas, New Mexico, where he remained until April, 1891, when he entered the service of the Rock Island Railway at Tren- ton, Missouri, as operator. In May he was promoted to the position of train dispatcher.

On October 28, 1891, he was united in marriage to Miss Anna Lee Brosius, of Hamilton, Missouri. A residence was established in Tren- ton and maintained until October, 1895, when he entered the service of the St. Louis & Southwestern Railway, and served that company in capacity as operator, station agent and train dispatcher for five years. In June, 1900, he entered the service of the Kansas City Southern Rail- way at Pittsburg, Kansas, which position he held until August 6, 1902, when he was promoted to the position of chief dispatcher, which posi- tion he relinquished to accept a position with the Denver & Rio Grande Railway, under General Superintendent William Coughlin, who resigned his position recently with the Kansas City Southern. The following article may be here quoted :

"It appears that the Kansas City Southern is the training school for the railroads of the country. Whenever a road wants a good man they take one from the Kansas City Southern offices. The latest man selected is the genial, hard-working chief dispatcher, F. N. Korn. He has accepted a position with the Denver & Rio Grande. Next Monday he leaves for his new home in Salida, Colorado. The whole office force hate to see him go. They feel as bad about it as they did when Super- intendent Coughlin left, and that is saying a great deal for the pop- ularity of Mr. Korn. He has been employed here a number of years and was promoted to his present position on the 6th of last August. From that day on he has borne the responsibilities of the office and never failed. The hours are long, the work hard and delicate, but he didn't falter nor lose temper. His subordinates are his greatest admirers, for he was always kind, generous, a good fellow, and an excellent chief. His successor has not been named."

Mr. Korn commenced duties at Salida, Colorado, for the Denver & Rio Grande Railway as dispatcher and chief dispatcher in April, 1903, and continued in service until November 16, 1905, when he resigned his position as chief dispatcher with that company to accept a position with the Rock Island Railway at Little Rock, Arkansas, in capacity of train master of construction, and built that part of the road from Has- kel into Crosset, Arkansas. When the work was completed he was trans- ferred to Chickasha, Oklahoma, where he was employed as dispatcher for ten months, when he was transferred to El Reno, Oklahoma, where he was made chief dispatcher, and later promoted to trainmaster of transportation, which position he held until January 1, 1911, when he was transferred to the Missouri division of the Rock Island lines as chief dispatcher at Trenton, where he and wife at present reside.

Frank N. Korn received his education in the schools of Breckenridge, Missouri. His father, J. N. Korn, a cabinet maker, is a native of Saxe Coburg, Germany, born March 17, 1829. His mother, Alida (Van Allen)

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Korn, was a native of Canajoharie, New York. Frank N. is one of six children born to this union.

GEORGE S. TUGGLE. Tuggle is a pioneer name in Northwest Missouri and has been identified particularly with Daviess County for more than half a century. George S. Tuggle is proprietor of the South View Stock and Chicken Farm in Davis Township of Caldwell County, adjoining the little City of Braymer. This farm is becoming famous in this part of Missouri for its fine stock, and particularly for its poultry. It com- prises 129 acres of land, and with the continued growth of Braymer will no doubt at some time be largely included within the city limits. Mr. Tuggle has spent both time and money and experience and care in select- ing and looking after his fine stock. He has a herd of fine Poland China hogs, but his prize stock is his white Orpington chickens, some of the finest to be found in Northwest Missouri of the Kellerstrass strain. The conveniences of his home and the general arrangement and equipment of the farm are all in keeping with his stock. He has a fine eight-room modern residence, situated only a block from the public school, and the situation is such that he has all the facilities and conveniences of country life combined with what amounts to a residence in a growing town.

George S. Tuggle was born in Daviess County, Missouri, on a farm in Monroe Township, April 24, 1875. His father is William S. Tuggle, who was born in Kentucky, June 22, 1848, a son of Spencer H. Tuggle, who became one of the pioneer settlers of Northwest Missouri. William S. Tuggle married Annie C. Railsback, April 3, 1872, who was born in Estill County, Kentucky, January 24, 1854, and died May 28, 1906. Their children were: George S., Dora B., deceased; Beulah, Dennis A., Jesse W .; Mary A., deceased, Josie M. and James S. William S. Tug- gle, the father, is still living. He has been a farmer, is a member of the Christian Church, is affiliated with the Masons and Independent Order of Odd Fellows, and in politics is a democrat.

George S. Tuggle was reared on a farm, acquired his education in the local schools and Grand River College, Gallatin, Missouri, and on June 4, 1902, married E. Belle Steenrod. To their marriage have been born two children, Nina Belle, born February 23, 1904; and Anna Evelyn, born January 29, 1911: Mrs. Tuggle was born in Des Moines County, Iowa, March 11, 1875, and moved with her father's family, when six years of age, to the farm in Caldwell County, Missouri, where a few years later the town of Braymer was surveyed. She acquired her education in the local schools. Her father, Robert Steenrod, now deceased, at one time owned the land on which the greater part of the town of Braymer is built, and the present South View Farm is a portion of the 350 acres originally owned by this pioneer. Robert Steenrod was a native of Vir- ginia, and located at Braymer in 1881. He died June 23, 1910, at the age of seventy-five. He was a son of Ephraim Steenrod, who came from Virginia. Robert Steenrod married Elizabeth J. Deam, who was born in Clark County, Ohio, October 20, 1827, and died March 19, 1907. Robert Steenrod lived here before the coming of the railroad on land for which he paid eighteen dollars an acre and had about three hundred and fifty acres in Caldwell County, and much of it was sold at a later day for fifty dollars an acre. The children in the Steenrod family were : Elizabeth Jane Moorman ; Nelson of Oklahoma; Ephraim D. of El Reno, Oklahoma ; John F., of Missouri; Amelia I. Shiner ; and E. Belle Tuggle. Mrs. Tuggle's father was a democrat, a member of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows for more than forty years, and one of the foremost citizens in this section of Northwest Missouri.

Mr. Tuggle has part of his land laid out in lots, and it offers an

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exceedingly attractive situation for homes, being well drained, and every lot a perfect site for buildings, within easy distance of schools, churches and the business center of town. Mr. and Mrs. Tuggle are mem- bers of the Baptist Church, and they have always maintained the South View Farm as a home of hospitality and good cheer, and both are actu- ated by that public spirit which gives support to churches, schools and all movements to promote the moral and material benefit of the com- munity.

N. W. CROCKETT. The Spring Hill Farm in section 13 of Platte Township, Andrew County, has as its owner one of the foremost agri- culturists and stockmen of this section, a man who has spent all his life in this one community, is a farmer by training and inclination, and has made himself a progressive factor in those affairs and activities which lie outside the immediate limits of an individual farm. Mr. Crockett has been known in this section of Andrew County as a banker, and as a stock exhibitor his name is familiar among stockmen over several states.

Nathan W. Crockett was born on the old homestead farm in Platte Township, November 19, 1860, a son of that splendid old pioneer, Milton Crockett. On other pages of this publication will be found the essential facts in the career of the late Milton Crockett and his family.

Nathan W. Crockett has always lived in Platte Township, grew up on the home place, and remained at home until two years after his mar- riage. He then came to his present farm, and is the owner of forty acres included in his father's estate. His Spring Hill farm, which takes its name from the presence of several springs of living water on the land, comprises 285 acres, and owing to the general lay of the land is unusually well adapted for stock raising. Mr. Crockett for a number of years has featured the thoroughbred Hereford cattle, the registered Percheron horses, keeps a stable with some imported jacks and jennets, raises mules and Chester White hogs. This has been his business for the past thirty years, and his reputation as a stock breeder and farmer is not confined to the limits of his home county. His jacks, jennets and horses have been frequently exhibited at the Des Moines State Fair and in the stock shows at St. Joseph and Sedalia, and his horses always won premiums. Mr. Crockett has been one of the directors of the Whites- ville Interstate Corn and Poultry Association since the organization of that now famous institution. For a number of years he was also a director and president of the Rea Banking Company. To his farm management he has brought the same degree of enterprise and good judg- ment which would have enabled him to make a success in commercial lines, and has a property that in value and improvements favorably compares with any country place in Andrew County. Mr. Crockett be- gan his career on 120 acres, which he bought at twenty-five dollars an acre, and it is now worth at an average $150 an acre. In. politics Mr. Crockett is a republican.

In 1882 he married Emma Ewing, who was born at Whitesville, in Andrew County, May 30, 1861. When she was three years old her par- ents moved to Kentucky, but returned to Missouri when she was nine years of age, and she grew up in this county. Her parents were Daniel and Lou Ann (Riley) Ewing. Her father was born in Kentucky, May 12, 1825, and her mother in Clinton County, Missouri, August 1, 1837, representing one of the pioneer families in that section of Northwest Missouri. Her mother is now living at a venerable age in Saline County, Missouri. Her father, who died in 1864 while temporarily in Illinois, was a miller all his active career, and had a financial interest in and was the

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manager of the old mill at Whitesville at the time of his death. Mrs. Crockett was one of three children, the other two being John, now de- ceased, and Lizzie, also deceased. Mr. and Mrs. Crockett have no chil- dren.

J. F. TAYLOR. Under the modern conditions of American society there is no more important factor than the teacher, the head or the instructor in the great public school system. The public school has been an institution of American society almost from the beginning of govern- ment, but never until the present era has its scope of importance and use- fulness reached out so far and broad as in the present generation. One of the able educators of Northwest Missouri is the present superintendent of the Braymer schools, Professor J. F. Taylor. Mr. Taylor has been connected with the schools at Braymer for the past four years. He has done much to improve and systematize the school work in that time, and has a well-equipped educational plant under his direction. The Braymer school building is a large ten-room brick structure, occupying a beautiful site, with ample ground. Mr. Taylor has a corps of nine teachers, and his assistants during the year 1914 were : Helen Nixon, P. G. Davis, G. W. Pool, Edna Glick, Ethel Williams, Grace Messenbaugh and Ethelyn Stub- blefield.

Professor Taylor was born in Green City, Sullivan County, Missouri, and comes from a family of teachers and educators. His father, T. C. Taylor, was for many years identified with school work in this state. He was born, reared and educated in Ohio, and now lives in West Plains, Missouri. He married Jane Edson, and both of them finished their courses in the Kirkville Normal School, and have taught in different sections of Northwest Missouri. The Edson ancestors came from Mich- igan and the Taylors from Virginia. T. C. Taylor and wife were the parents of five sons and five daughters. A. E. Taylor is instructor in the high school at Cameron; Mrs. P. H. Proops lives at Weiser, Idaho, and is a graduate of the Missouri Wesleyan College; Leah Taylor lives at West Plains, Missouri; Adaline is in the Missouri Wesleyan College at Cameron; Thomas C., Jr., is a student in the Illinois State University ; Ruth has her home in West Plains; Maynard is at home.

J. F. Taylor grew up in Northwest Missouri, and was carefully educated for his profession. He attended high school and college, is a graduate in the class of 1911 from the Missouri Wesleyan College at Cameron, and was also a student in the Maryville State Normal School. Mr. Taylor for one year was assistant instructor of science in the Mis- souri Wesleyan College, and in the fall of 1911 accepted the call to take charge of the high school at Braymer, and in the following year was promoted to superintendent of the entire public school system of the town.

In July, 1912, at Granger, Missouri, Professor Taylor married Helen Farwell. She was a graduate from the Missouri Wesleyan Col- lege with the class of 1912. Her father, Frank Farwell, is a resident of Granger, Missouri, and came from Iowa. Professor Taylor and wife have one child, John F., Jr., now one year old. Mr. Taylor is a republican in politics and he and his wife are members of the Meth- odist Episcopal Church. He is a man of athletic build, and during his college career made a record in football and on the track.

PETER GLENN FULKERSON. More than seventy-two years have passed since Judge Peter Glenn Fulkerson came with his parents from the Old Dominion State to the wilderness of Grundy County, Mis- souri. During this nearly three-quarters of a century he has witnessed

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a marvelous growth and development, a transformation in which he has shared and borne a full part. Few, indeed, are those now surviv- ing who were here when he came, and among the younger generations who have grown up about him he still survives in hale and hearty old age, taking a keen interest in the affairs which affect his community, although the time has long since passed when it was necessary for him to engage in active labors, and his declining years are being passed at Trenton in the ease and quietude which his long period of labor won him.

Judge Fulkerson was born in Lee County, Virginia, May 16, 1833, and is a son of Benjamin Franklin and Mary J. (Ewing) Fulkerson, the former born in Lee County, Virginia, and the latter in Bath County, Kentucky. Both Judge Fulkerson's paternal and maternal grand- fathers served as soldiers during the War of 1812, and he also has a military record, having been subject to call throughout the Civil war as a member of the Missouri State Militia, in which he enlisted in 1861. In 1842 his parents started on the long and dangerous overland jour- ney to the newly-opened country in Missouri, the father entering 640 acres of prairie and timber land from the Government. Here both he and his courageous and faithful wife continued to reside during the remainder of their lives, making a home for their children and win- ning the respect and affection of those in the new country among whom their lives were cast.

Peter Glenn Fulkerson was but nine years of age when he accom- panied his parents to Grundy County, and such education as he was able to secure was obtained in the primitive schools. He experienced every hardship and witnessed every incident of pioneer life, and is frequently prevailed upon today to speak of the times when he lived in the little log cabin in the midst of a country filled with wild game and in which the Indians still roamed in great numbers. The little home of the Fulkersons, like those of other pioneers, boasted of neither floor nor door. The hard earth served for the former, while a quilt in the winter months was used to keep out the cold. A wooden mallet was used to crush the corn, although hominy was the chief cereal used, as most easily secured; the leather for the family shoes was tanned by some member of the family and then kept until the shoemaker made his rounds and fashioned it into footwear. About the year 1852 the community began to become more thickly settled, many families com- ing here by way of ox-teams, and about that year the father freed his slaves, who were sent to Liberia and there given a generous portion of land. But while neighbors became more numerous, it was many years before primitive conditions ceased to exist. Sugar was a luxury not to be thought of, and honey was accordingly used to sweeten the food, this being gathered in the timber. Money was scarce, and but one store was located on the present site of the City of Trenton, while such mail as was received was paid for at the rate of twenty-five cents per letter. Tea and coffee being too expensive, the inventive settlers made a good brew from bark, boiled over a fire started by striking flints. The home-made candle furnished the light by which the mother made the summer clothes from flax, carded the wool, wove the cloth therefrom, or knitted the socks for the family, the latter commodity often being exchanged for the family bacon, at a ratio of one cent per pound, money being too scarce to pay for this article.

It was amid such surroundings that Judge Fulkerson grew to man. hood. He worked on the home farm until he was twenty-eight years of age, at which time his father gave him 100 acres of land, located ten miles north of Trenton, on which he built a log house of one large

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room, and there all of his children were born. As the years passed he added from time to time to his property, paying from thirty cents to five dollars per acre for his land, until he owned 640 acres of prairie land and was known as one of the substantial men of his community. He is now living in quiet retirement at Trenton, is still in the best of health and spirits, and has the appearance of a man many years his junior. A long life of integrity and honorable dealing have made him known and respected all over this part of the county, and at various times he has been called upon to serve in important offices. For many years he has been a member of the school board, and in 1875 was elected county judge from the Second Judicial District, serving effi- ciently in that capacity for four years. He is a member of the Inde- pendent Order of Odd Fellows, and his religious connection is with the Methodist Episcopal Church.

In 1861 Mr. Fulkerson was married to Miss Eliza Carns, daughter of Thomas and Anna (Peery) Carns, and to this union there have been born six children, one daughter, who is deceased, and five sons, all liv- ing and married. The boys are as follows: Dr. William Daw, who married Miss Ina Johnson, who died shortly afterwards, and he mar- ried Miss Sallie Weldon, daughter of William Weldon, and has one son, George; Walter P., who married Miss Sarah Harper, of Carthage, Missouri; Thomas F., who married Miss Mamie Milbank, of Chillicothe, Missouri, daughter of George Milbank; Emmet, who married Miss Louise Peery, daughter of Joseph Peery, of Ogden, Utah; and Henry Cartz, who married Miss Ida Shoemaker, daughter of John Shoemaker, of Perrin, Missouri.

GEORGE W. DAVIS. From the earliest pioneer times down to the present Caldwell County has been continuously honored and benefitted by the presence within her borders of the Davis family. In the char- acter of its individual members and in their public services no family in the county probably has been more distinguished, and it is impos- sible to estimate the strength and diversity of the influences which emanate from such a family and affect the social and business affairs of the county even to its most remote bounds.

George W. Davis is a representative in the third generation of this family, and has himself lived here a period of three score years and ten. His home is in Davis Township, named in honor of his grand- father, and in his career he has gained his success by farming and stock raising. He has a fine farm of 350 acres, with Cowgill as his post- office and market town. Mr. Davis is regarded in this county as the best informed man on current topics and particularly on English history.

He was born in a log cabin near the present place of his residence. on March 15, 1844. His father was John T. Davis, a native of Kentucky, who grew up in Greene and Macoupin counties, Illinois. Grandfather Dennis Davis brought his family to Caldwell County, Missouri, in 1837. The township, which was named Davis in his honor, at one time com- prised a quarter of the entire area of the county. The county was practically an unbroken wilderness, and most of it heavy forest lands. The first settlers had extreme difficulty in clearing off the virgin tim- ber in order to have space for their crops, but abundant materials for living were at hand in the woods and in the streams in the shape of wild game and fish. Almost any day a deer could be shot within a few rods of a pioneer cabin, and Mr. George W. Davis himself has hunted such game as deer and wild turkey in the woods about his home in this section of Missouri. Grandfather Dennis Davis was a volunteer soldier

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during the Black Hawk war. John T. Davis married Margaret Moore, who was born in Macoupin County, Illinois. Their children were: Mary Ann Hauks of Kansas City ; Elizabeth J. Ross, now deceased; George W .; D. J., deceased; John T., a prominent farmer of Davis Township; Mar- garet Brown, who lives in Kansas; and Mrs. Hannah P. Etherton of Davis Township. John T. Davis died at the age of seventy-one, was a democrat in politics, and a member of the Methodist Church, with which his wife also had communion. She died at the age of seventy-three.

George W. Davis grew up on the old homestead, and some of his earlier recollections center about the log cabin schoolhouse, which he attended for a number of terms, chiefly in the winter seasons. He was only eighteen when the war broke out between the states, and was one of the young men in this section of Northwest Missouri who volunteered for service in the Union army. He enlisted in 1861 in Captain Phillips company, and in 1864 joined the Forty-fourth Mis- souri Infantry. He was in the fight at Rolla, Missouri, and afterwards took part in some of the heavy campaigning in Tennessee. He was at Franklin and Nashville, two of the bloodiest battles of the Mississippi Valley, and also was at Mobile and participated in the capture of Forts Blakely and Spanish. Later he was in Montgomery, Alabama, and various other points in the South. He made a record of efficiency and fidelity as a soldier, and remained in the army until honorably dis- charged in August, 1865, after he had been out nearly four years.

After returning home, a veteran soldier, he took up farming and stock raising, and that has been the vocation which has brought him a substantial success and enabled him to provide liberally for his grow- ing family. Mr. Davis was married October 5, 1865, to Pauline Noff- zinger, of Ray County. Her parents were David and Mary Noffzinger, who came as early settlers from Virginia to Ray County, Missouri. Mr. Davis is justly proud of his children, brief mention of whom is made as follows: Rosetta Taylor, who lives in Oklahoma; Mary E., wife of L. McBee of Oklahoma; Rev. A. D., a preacher in the Methodist Church; Ola, of Braymer, Missouri; I. G., of Davis Township; Lute, of Okla- homa; Joshua, of Enid, Oklahoma; Clyde, of Davis Township; Charles B., in Caldwell County; M. J., who lives in Oklahoma City; H. A., of Cowgill; Ellen, wife of R. Sabin of Enid, Oklahoma; Emon, who died at the age of thirty-three; and Laura, who died when one year of age. The mother of these children died April 9, 1884. She was a devout member of the Methodist faith. On November 19, 1896, Mr. Davis mar- ried Mrs. Mary Alice West, a daughter of J. J. Lane, who was a soldier in the Civil war and is now deceased, dying at the age of sixty-eight years, and he was an active member of the Grand Army and of the Methodist Church. Mrs. Davis' mother was Mary F. Smith, now liv- ing at the age of sixty-nine. Mrs. Davis was reared in Caldwell County, Missouri, and by her first marriage had four children, Effie May, Stella L., Minnie F. and Eva B. Mr. Davis and wife have the following chil dren: Gertrude, George W., Jr., Opal G. and Roscoe L.

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A history of northwest Missouri, Volume III, Part 84

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