A history of northwest Missouri, Volume III, Part 9

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

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William A. Templeman acquired his education in the Bethany schools, and had his early experience in business in the store of his father. He afterwards acquired the store and was a merchant here for a number of years. He finally moved out to Colorado, and followed merchandising and mining at Leadville, and on his return to Bethany was a real estate man until his retirement. William A. Templeman con- ducted one of the early newspapers of Bethany, having been editor of the Bethany Union during the Civil war. He was a war democrat, and was enrolled with the state militia, and on one occasion accom- panied his company to Chillicothe to defend that town against threatened trouble. He served in the office of county collector and throughout his active career was one of the leading men of Bethany. He was an elder in the Disciples Church and superintendent of its Sunday school.

William A. Templeman was married August 9, 1855, to Miss Emeline Allen. Their children were: Mrs. Rosa A. Vandivert, now deceased; Mrs. Judge Wanamaker, of Bethany; John Allen, of Austin, Texas; Harriet, wife of Taylor E. Stone; Nancy, who died in childhood; Mrs. Emma Oxford; William Thornton, of Bethany; and Marian, wife of Virgil Yates of Bethany.

Mrs. William A. Templeman was a daughter of the Rev. John S. Allen, and mention of his name recalls one of the most noted pioneer families of Northwest Missouri. He had come into this section when a number of the present counties were under the jurisdiction of Daviess County. Rev. John S. Allen was born in Overton County, Tennessee, June 26, 1814, a son of William and Mary (Copeland) Allen, Overton County farmers. John S. was one of a family of thirteen children, and judged by the standards of the time possessed a liberal education. In 1832 he left Tennessee, settled in Illinois, and in Woodford County of that state married Nancy Childress, who was born in Kentucky, Novem- ber 4, 1813. From Illinois Reverend Allen was one of the leaders in a party of pioneers who came to Harrison County at the beginning of civilization in this section. The other members of that caravan were: John W. Brown, Thomas Tucker, Thomas Brown, W. R. Allen, C. L. Jennings, Ephraim Stewart and A. A. Allen, the last named being un- married. These families all settled near Bethany, and gave their char- acter as industrious, moral and religious people to the community. In this new country Reverend Allen soon constituted himself a leader not

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only in his church but also as a citizen and business man. He was a strong Union sympathizer and attended the secession convention of Missouri as a delegate, where he used his influence to keep Missouri from joining the Confederacy. He was a democrat in politics. The work of this devout man was felt everywhere, both in Harrison and adjoining counties in the early days. His voice was raised for God throughout all these counties, and those converted under the spell of his preaching numbered legion. In business affairs he was a merchant, and was one of the organizers and for twenty years president of the First Bank of Bethany. John S. Allen's family comprised the follow- ing children : Mrs. William A. Templeman, who was born in Woodford County, Illinois, March 22, 1837, and grew up in the pioneer com- munity of Bethany; James R., who died in Bethany; Mrs. Dr. King of Bethany; Mrs. Elizabeth Roberts of Bethany; and Willard Cass, who died in Bethany.

THOMAS JEFFERSON FLINT. An honored resident of Bethany, where he lives retired, Thomas J. Flint has spent the greater part of seventy years in Northwest Missouri, mainly in Daviess and Harrison counties. He knew this country when it was a wilderness, and few men still liv- ing have so broad a scope of experience and recollection in the things that made for development and history in this fair portion of Missouri. He has been a teacher, a soldier, a county official, a farmer and a merchant, and in the manifold relations of a long life has steered a course directed by the positive and high-minded qualities of his character.

Thomas Jefferson Flint was born in Franklin County, Indiana, August 4, 1835. His grandfather, John Flint, was an Englishman, and with four brothers came to America about 1788, his settlement being in Maryland, while the others located in other colonies. He was a sailor, and was lost at sea while his family were living in Maryland. By his marriage to Temperance Humphrey he had the following chil- dren : John, who was lost at sea with his father; Dorcas, who was born in 1795, married Samuel Davis and died near Mexarville, Indiana ; Thomas, born in 1798, came to Missouri and settled on a farm in Har- rison County in 1838, was one of the first officials in Bethany when it was founded and later county clerk of Harrison County, and died on his farm here, but was buried in the MeCleary Cemetery in Daviess County, where his brother George also rests; George, whose career is the subject of the following paragraph; Maria, born in 1804, married about 1822 Oliver Thurston and died near Mexarville, Indiana, in 1868; Joseph H., born in 1807, was a Baptist preacher and physician, and spent many years at Ottumwa, Iowa, where he died.

Rev. George Flint, whose name deserves remembrance among the pioneers of Northwest Missouri, was born in Maryland, July 19, 1801. After the death of his father his mother brought her family to Hamilton County, Ohio, where she died about 1820. The circumstances of his youth in a new country and with a meagerness of family resources left him little opportunity for gaining an education, and his regular school- ing was confined to three months. His studious nature and ambition for a life of usefulness enabled him to overcome this handicap, and in time he became a man of intellectual attainments far above the average. By the light of a fire kindled by hickory bark, he studied arithmetic, grammar, geography and some history, consuming the contents of the limited store of books which he could buy or borrow, and eventually even entered the field of the classics, and was able to read both Greek and

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Latin. Both in early and later life he taught many terms of school, chiefly in the country districts. His talent as a conversationalist and public speaker led him into the ministry. As an illustration of his familiarity with the Bible, it is recalled that he once repeated from memory the whole of Paul's letter to the Hebrews, thirteen chapters. He was never identified with any secret order. In politics, before the war, he was a democrat, and in 1860 voted for Stephen A. Douglas for president, as did his sons, but his next ballot went to Mr. Lincoln, and his sons followed his example.

Rev. George Flint brought his family out to Missouri in the early '40s, and entered land in Daviess County. About 1844 he opened a store on his land in Washington Township and continued as a merchant until 1849. Soon afterward, selling his farm, he moved to Saline County, and while there lived in the Town of Miami and was an active preacher. He organized the Christian Church at Arrow Rock and preached in Brunswick. While in Daviess County he organized a church in the Ford Schoolhouse, and the society afterwards erected a house of worship at Coffey. Soon after the close of the Civil war the Rev. Mr. Flint moved to Coffey, then an inland village, and remained there until his death, September 21, 1871.

The maiden name of the wife of this early Missouri divine was Nancy Foster, of Hamilton County, Ohio. Her father, who was born in 1776, moved from Kentucky to Ohio, subsequently to Indiana and finally to a farm in Missouri, where he died in 1850. He married Rachel Thomas, who died in 1854. The Foster children were: Elizabeth, who became the wife of Ancel Terry and died near Coffey, Missouri; Rachel, who married Thomas Flint and died in Harrison County, Missouri; John, who spent most of his life near Bethany as a farmer; Nancy Flint ; Nelson, who started from Daviess County to California in 1849, but died en route while near Cheyenne, Wyoming; and Thomas, who crossed the plains to California in 1850 and spent the rest of his life in and about Sacramento.

The Rev. George and Nancy Flint's children were: William F., born April 4, 1828, in Hamilton County, Ohio, spent his life largely as a teacher and farmer, and also during the war served in the Missouri State Militia and afterward for a year was captain of Company F of the Forty-third Missouri Infantry ; he married Mary Ann Ford, and left eight children. Rachel Temperance, born September 7, 1830, married John R. Maize, and died near Bethany in 1892, leaving seven children. Louisa Ann, born November 23, 1832, married Alanson Alley, and died near Bethany, July 12, 1874. The next in order of birth is Thomas J., of whom more is given in following paragraphs. Maria R., born January 13, 1838, married Isaac N. Thomas and died in Bethany, October 25, 1869. John Logan, born July 10, 1840, was a volunteer soldier of Company D of the Twenty-seventh Missouri Infantry, from which he was discharged for disability, in 1888 went to California, and now lives at Fowler. Andrew S., born September 21, 1842, in the flush of young manhood entered Company D of the Twenty-seventh Missouri Infantry, and died during the siege of Vicksburg. Asby C., born December 27, 1844, married Harlan T. Gerrish of Patoka, Illinois. Larkin S., born March 1, 1847, during the last year of the war served as fifer in Company F of the Forty-third Missouri Infantry, and is now a farmer near Bethany.

The preceding account shows that Thomas Jefferson Flint comes of a family with excellent characteristics. His own career has been in keeping with his inheritance. He was about old enough when the family

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moved to Missouri so that the journey left some impression on his boyish memory, and he grew to manhood in Daviess County, and attended the country schools. Later he was in the Bethany schools when Judge Howell was a teacher. At the age of eighteen he himself was recruited for service in the schoolroom, at wages of $15 a month. His first term was taught in the Glover School, now the Maize School. It was a log house, with mud-and-stick chimney and a big open fireplace into which the big boys rolled the logs on cold winter days. School was called at 8 in the morning. Everything went by a code of rules, tacked up on the wall where all could see, and one of the Monday morning duties was the reading aloud of these rules for the guidance of the scholars. Boys and girls were not permitted to play together, a situation that prevailed when Mr. Flint and his wife were schoolmates together in Daviess County. The rules also forbade whispering, skating, snowballing and wrestling, scuffling and fighting.

Mr. Flint abandoned the schoolroom and went from Daviess County into the army. In September, 1861, he enlisted in the Missouri State Militia in Captain Broomfield's company of six months' militia. The company marched out a few times during the following winter, but never came in sight of the enemy. In September, 1862, he enlisted in the regu- lar service, in Company D of the Twenty-seventh Missouri Infantry, under Capt. William A. Talby and Col. Thomas Curley. He and his comrades were rendezvoused and drilled at Benton Barracks in St. Louis, and in January, 1863, proceeded to Rolla. There Mr. Flint was discharged after having contracted pneumonia, resulting in bronchitis. He came home to resume work in the schoolroom, and in the spring be- came a pupil again in the Bethany schools. In July, 1864, he reenlisted, entering Company F of the Forty-third Missouri, and was discharged June 30, 1865. His regiment was in no engagements during this time and was kept on duty in its home state.

After the war Mr. Flint resumed teaching, and his last school was in the summer of 1868 in the Marlar district. About this time he became active in local politics, and after one term as treasurer of Daviess County was elected sheriff, serving four years. It was while he was in the office of county treasurer that the James boys killed Capt. John W. Sheets, mistaking him for Major Cox, whom they sought to kill to avenge his act in slaying the notorious Bill Anderson. At that time Mr. Flint was a Gallatin merchant, and had the county safe in his store there. He witnessed the flight of the bandits after they had completed their act of venegeance and had taken some of the funds of the local bank. After leaving the sheriff's office he resumed merchandising at Gallatin and was associated with John J. Broadbeck until 1882, when he left Missouri and located at Great Bend, Kansas. Besides keeping a store, he also did farming and proved up on a claim in Ness County. His home was in Great Bend for twenty years, and in the meantime he made two trips to California, visiting his brother. His return to Missouri was in 1904, and since then his home has been in Bethany, and he has been retired from active business.

On September 4, 1859, Mr. Flint married Miss Lydia A. Adams, a daughter of William and Elizabeth (Beall) Adams, her father being a farmer from Henry County, Indiana. Mrs. Flint was the third of four children. At Great Bend, Kansas, Mr. Flint married for his second wife, on March 28, 1883, Mrs. Lucretia E. Crail, a daughter of Ruel and Mamie (Thomas) Nimocks, the former an Ohio man. Mrs. Nimocks was a cousin of Mr. Flint's mother. The Nimocks children were: Mrs. Flint, born December 8, 1842; George, who was a Union soldier from

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Iowa, and died at Great Bend in 1902; Albert, of Barton County, Kan- sas; Link, of Vesalia, California; Frank, of Ottumwa, Iowa; Clara, who lives in Eldon, Iowa; Mrs. Vina Foster, of Eldon; and Mrs. Lucy Cramer, of Eldon. Mrs. Flint died August 27, 1903. On November 9, 1904, he married for his present wife, at Bethany, Mrs. Sallie A. Zimmerlee, a daughter of Milton and Emily (Jones) Higgins. Her father came from Clarksburg, Indiana, to Daviess County, Missouri, where Mrs. Flint was reared. By her first husband, Edward Zimmerlee, she had the following children: Emily, wife of Charles Barnes, of Bethany ; Mattie, wife of William Hill, of St. Louis; Maud, who married D. W. Coe, of New York City; and Katherine, wife of George H. Pannell, of Los Angeles.

Mr. Flint has always acted with the republican party, and while in Kansas was active in the party. He was a delegate to the congressional convention at St. Joseph when Mr. Parker was nominated by the repub- licans of this district. He belongs to the Christian Church, in which he has served as elder.

JOHN LOUIS COLE. Half a century of honorable business activity and citizenship comprises a record such as any man should be proud to possess. It was nearly fifty years ago when John L. Cole of Bethany, then a young man, with hardly a dollar to his name, and with only manual labor as his dependence, came to Harrison County and began a career which has since brought him a generous success so far as his own material means are concerned, and has also identified his name with much that is profitable and worthy in the community. His career has in it much of encouragement for those who begin life under a handicap, and in the face of difficulties that discourage those lacking in self- reliance and industry.

John Louis Cole was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, January 6, 1843, a son of Jacob and Mary C. (Smoker) Kohl. His father was a Pennsyl- vania German, and spelled his name in the true German manner. The mother was a native of Germany. Both the parents died of the cholera scourge at Cincinnati in 1849, and they left the following children: Sophia, who married Charles Lowe and spent her life in Indianapolis; Caroline, who married Henry Anderson and also lived in Indianapolis; Mary C., who became the wife of Dr. Samuel E. Strong and died at Ironton, Missouri; John L .; and Dr. William C., who at the time of his death was a physician at the Hospital for the Insane at Jacksonville, Illinois, and left two children.

After the death of his parents John L. Cole, then six years of age, was taken into the home of comparative strangers, and until eighteen years of age lived with Noah Boyce in Morgan County, Illinois. He was still under age when the Civil war broke out. In 1861 he enlisted, and was assigned to Company I in the Fourteenth Illinois Infantry. He joined his command at Rolla, Missouri, whither it had gone to the front. His first captain was Captain Mitchem and later Capt. Ernest Ward. The first colonel of the regiment was John M. Palmer, a distinguished Illinoisan, and later Colonel Cam and finally Col. Cyrus Ball com- manded the regiment. The regiment went into Southern Missouri to reinforce General Lyon's army at Wilson Creek, but did not reach the battleground to participate in that crucial engagement, and the troops were then ordered South to Fort Henry and Fort Donelson. Mr. Cole began to see active service during the siege of Fort Donelson, and after the fall of that post proceeded to Shiloh. Subsequently the command made an effort to reach Vicksburg by way of Holly Springs, but the

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Confederates cut off their line of communication, and they had to retreat, and finally reached the vicinity of Vicksburg by way of the Mississippi River. In front of Vicksburg the Union forces were em- ployed in digging a canal to change the course of the river, and later Mr. Cole's command was engaged in the siege of the city, being posted southeast of the river stronghold. Mr. Cole says the happiest day of his life was when Pemberton surrendered the Vicksburg garrison. After some further employment in the campaigns of Mississippi, the Four- teenth Regiment joined Grant's army at Chattanooga, and was present but not in action during the battles of Missionary Ridge and Lookout Mountain. In the general advance toward Atlanta, the Fourteenth was assigned to McPherson's corps, and fought in the battle of Resaca, and in many of the other engagements during the almost continuous fighting between Chattanooga and Atlanta, including the battles of Buzzard's Roost, Dalton, Ringgold Gap, Peachtree Creek, where General McPher- son was killed, and then in front of Atlanta on July 22d and again on July 28, and finally at Jonesboro. Jonesboro was the last engagement in which Mr. Cole participated. He had enlisted on September 7, 1861, and his three year term expired just before the fall of Atlanta, but he remained twenty days over time because of inability to get through the lines to the North. Mr. Cole was discharged at Big Shanty. Although he had many close calls he came out unwounded. At Vicksburg he was on one occasion stationed behind a clump of sprouts as a sharpshooter using his gun against a picket in the rebel fort, and was fired on in return and the ball passed through the edge of his cap just above his ear. At Shiloh Mr. Cole's cartridge box was pierced by a pullet.

After leaving the army the veteran soldier, though still under age, returned to Illinois. Having no trade, he took Horace Greeley's advice to "go West and grow up with the country," and thus arrived in Har- rison County, Missouri, in 1865. His circumstances were such that he could be classed only as a "laboring man," he had no money, and unable to find employment, in a short time his feet were almost on the ground. Through the kindness of Mr. Casebolt, who is still living in this vienity, he received a pair of boots, and thus protected his bare feet until the winter was over. That winter was spent in the home of William H. Bowler, a son-in-law of the man with whom Mr. Cole had spent his youth in Illinois.

With the opening of the spring of 1866, Mr. Cole rented a farm, and with one horse which he owned and one that he borrowed put in a crop, and as his efforts were seconded by a propitious season, he seemed fairly started toward prosperity. Hogs were worth at that time 8 cents a pound, and he believed it wise to buy hogs and feed his corn to them. Corn was so cheap as almost to be a drug on the market, but after he had fed all his own crop and had bought 500 bushels more, the price of hogs had declined so that he was compelled to kill them and peddle the pork around his home vicinity at 4 cents a pound. Thus his first year proved almost disastrous, and he was left deeply in debt. He still possessed the sympathy and confidence of his neighbors, and the fol- lowing year rented a farm from Mr. Baber, raised another crop of corn, on the half shares, and again, on the advice of Mr. Baber, bought and fed hogs, and this year conditions were in his favor, and he more than made up for the losses of the previous season. With this varying suc- cess Mr. Cole continued as a renter for three years, and then bought eighty acres of land in Sherman Township. Forty acres were under fence and a poor house that deserved the name of shanty was the prin- cipal improvement. Mr. Cole engaged to pay $20 an acre

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for the property, and by several seasons of unflagging work struggled out from under the load of debt, and after that his progress toward success was marked by only the ordinary incidents and ups and downs of the Missouri farmer. The farm which he bought more than forty years ago was his permanent home, and he kept increasing his acreage until his accumulations were measured by 600 acres, and he continued as active manager and supervisor of this large estate until 1902. That year Mr. Cole moved to the City of Bethany, and bought the old Doctor Vandivert home, which had later been the home of Gen- eral Prentiss. Aside from his large farming interests Mr. Cole was for a time interested in the Cole hardware store at Bethany, and was one of the organizers and is now president of the Harrison County Bank of Bethany.

Although in politics he has been a vigorous advocate of the economic policies maintained by the republican party, Mr. Cole has been chiefly characterized through his strict temperance views, and has refused to vote for any man who uses alcoholic drinks as a beverage. He has served as one of the trustees of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and since 1865 has been identified with the Independent Order of Odd Fel- lows, in which organization he has served as noble grand.

On May 31, 1871, Mr. Cole was married in Harrison County to Miss Ellen Meek. Her parents were . Rev. George W. and Mary (Chockley) Meek, her father a United Brethren minister who came to Missouri from Indiana. Mrs. Cole was the third in a family of seven children. The children of Mr. and Mrs. Cole are: William C., a hardware merchant of Bethany ; Charles L., who is now active manager of the home farm; George E., a merchant at Carnegie, Oklahoma; Maud and Roy, twins, the former the wife of Dod Planck, a Sherman Township farmer, and Roy, a farmer in Harrison County.

HENRY LEWIS GEORGE has been identified with the business life of St. Joseph for a period of forty-five years, and during this time it has been his privilege to realize many of his worthy ambitions and through the exercise of good judgment and business sagacity to wrest from his opportunities financial and general success. In his evolution from gro- cer's clerk at a meager salary to the head of one of St. Joseph's leading commission enterprises he has supplied an inspiring example of the compelling power of strong determination and perseverance and the high worth of homely, sterling virtues. Mr. George was born in the City of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in November, 1849, and his family history, as traced in a genealogy now in Mr. George's possession, runs back sev- eral centuries in Austria. His great-great-great-grandfather, John George George, who spelled the name Jorger, was born in Austria about the year 1686, came to America with his brother Peter and here founded the family in Pennsylvania, where they were granted all the privileges allowed natural born British subjects. He became a land owner and spent the remainder of his life in Pennsylvania, where he passed away at a ripe old age, in the faith of the Lutheran Church. Peter George and his son, Joseph, served in the Revolutionary war, in Capt. Thomas Fitzsimmons' company, in the Third Battalion, commanded by Col. John Cadwalader, and participated in the battles of Trenton, Princeton, Bran- dywine and Monmouth and wintered at Valley Forge. The Third Bat- talion was delegated by General Washington for special service. Peter George subsequently took an active part in public affairs in Philadel- phia, where he was married to Sybella Rennin or Renninger. Joseph George, who conducted the Fox Chase Inn at Philadelphia prior to the

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Revolution, married Anna Barbara Somers, a daughter of Henry and Veronica Somers.

The family name in Pennsylvania has been variously spelled, as Jorg, Jorge, Jarger, Jurigher, Jerger, Yerger, Yeriger, Yorger, Gerger, Georger and George. Peter George, the great-great-grandfather of Henry L. George, was born about 1720, in Philadelphia. Among his sons was Joseph George, who was born in that city about 1752, and the latter's son, also named Joseph George, was born there October 24, 1785. He served as a soldier during the War of 1812 from August 26, 1814, until January 20, 1815, and was a lifelong resident of Philadelphia, where he was engaged in the mercantile business, handling leather goods and accessories.

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A history of northwest Missouri, Volume III, Part 9

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