USA > Missouri > A history of northwest Missouri, Volume III > Part 92
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BENJAMIN CLAY NICHOLS. For forty-five years Benjamin C. Nichols has been engaged in mercantile business at Trenton. He recently retired from a long service in the office of postmaster and has in many different ways been identified with this community. During the war he was a soldier in a Missouri regiment fighting for the Union cause. His family was one of the earliest to make settlement in this section of Northwest Missouri, and the name is one always spoken with respect and apprecia- tion of its dignified position in the community.
Benjamin C. Nichols was born on a farm in Grundy County two miles north of the courthouse, November 22, 1844. His father was Ben- jamin Nichols, who was born at Bellefontaine, in Logan County, Ohio, in 1802. Grandfather Ninian Nichols was born probably in Virginia, lived for some years in Kentucky, finally settled in Ohio, and bought a tract of land near Bellefontaine, where he was a farmer. Late in life he went out to Iowa, and at the home of a daughter died, aged eighty- eight. His wife had died in Ohio, and they had a large family.
Benjamin Nichols, the father, was reared on an Ohio farm and fol- lowed farming in Ohio until 1839. In that year he came and made settlement in Grundy County. His wife and four children accompanied him, and, as there were no railroads across the Mississippi at that time, they made the entire journey from Ohio by wagons and teams, driving over the rough roads and taking several weeks for a journey which could now be accomplished in twenty-four hours. His location was a tract of timber land two miles north of where the courthouse now stands in Trenton. A previous settler had cleared off an acre or so, and the Nichols family located in a log house where the son Benjamin C. was born five years later. At that time all Northwest Missouri was sparsely settled and the greater part of the land was still owned by the Govern- ment. There were many Indians, and all the early settlers were on more or less familiar terms with the red men. About half a mile from the old Nichols homestead was a grist mill operated by horse-power. Settlers came from miles around with their grain and kept the little mill going night and day in order to turn out the grist. Oftentimes those who brought grain had to camp in the vicinity and wait their turn several
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days before getting the meal and flour for their households. After a few years Benjamin Nichols sold out that farm and bought a place five miles north of Trenton, where he was employed in general farming and stock raising until his death, at the age of seventy-one years. Benjamin Nichols married Anna Huston. She was born near Bellefontaine, Ohio, in which vicinity her parents were pioneer settlers. She survived her husband a few years and reared eleven children, whose names are briefly as follows: James T., who was a soldier in the Mexican war and who died at the venerable age of eighty-three years; Mary Jane; Melinda; Susan Matilda; Martha; William Harrison; John C .; Elizabeth C .; Ben- jamin Clay ; Lucetta ; Robert Huston.
Benjamin Clay Nichols grew up in a country which still had much of the characteristics of the virgin wilderness, and as he was born in a log cabin he also attended a school taught in a log house, heated from a fire- place, with home made furniture. There were no desks in front of the rude slab benches on which the pupils sat, and a broad board set at an incline against the wall served for purposes of writing. While his scholastic training might have been deficient in some ways, he had no lack of practical training. He worked on the farm, developed his physical constitution, and before he reached manhood had seen active service as a soldier, fighting the battles of the Union. Some time after the breaking out of the war he enlisted in the state militia and served two years, and then entered Company A of the Forty-fourth Regiment of Missouri Infantry. After a brief time spent at Rolla, the regiment went south and joined the Army of the Cumberland. Its principal battle was at Franklin in the latter months of the war, and while this was a Federal victory, Mr. Nichols was one of those captured by the Confederates, and as a prisoner of war he assisted in burying the dead on that battlefield. He saw six Confederate generals taken dead from the battlefield. As a prisoner he was removed to Meridian, Mississippi, and thence to Selma, Alabama, to Cahaba, and was finally sent with others to Vicksburg to be exchanged. The Confederate prisoners refused exchange, and the Union men were placed on neutral ground and kept until the close of the war. Mr. Nichols then went to St. Louis and received his honorable discharge in May, 1865. Returning home, he continued his schooling for two years in the Trenton High School, taught for two years, and then began his long and active service as a merchant. He was at first a clerk in a gen- eral store, and finally got into business on his own account. In 1880 he formed a partnership with Henry F. Carnes, under the name of B. C. Nichols and Company. In 1885 this was changed, when R. E. Boyce and James Fulkerson joined Mr. Nichols, and they conducted a pros- perous dry goods house until 1898. Selling out, Mr. Nichols then entered a partnership with W. E. Patterson under the firm name of Patterson & Nichols. They were engaged in the shoe business until 1906, when they sold their stock and acquired the men's furnishing store from T. H. Roder & Co. As Patterson & Nichols they have sold goods to a large trade ever since.
Mr. Nichols was married in 1878 to Miss Mary E. Moberly. She was born in Trenton, a daughter of George W. and Margaret B. Moberly. Her death occurred in 1883, and in 1895 he married Laura A. Yakey. She was born at Sidney, Shelby County, Ohio, daughter of Peter and Jane Yakey. Mr. Nichols cast his first presidential vote for Abraham Lincoln while a soldier in the army and has been a stanch republican ever since. In many ways he has been one of the leading republicans of Grundy County, and in June, 1913, retired from his administration of postmaster at Trenton after a service of eight years and five months. He affiliates with Grand River Lodge No. 52, I. O. O. F .; Trenton Lodge
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No. 111, A. F. & A. M .; Godfrey De Bouillon Commandery No. 24, Knights Templars, and the Temple of the Mystic Shrine at St. Joseph; also with Trenton Lodge No. 15, Daughters of Rebekah, and with the Order of the Eastern Star.
OLIVER GREEN BAIN. This name, of a prominent lawyer of Trenton, where he has practiced with success and participated in public affairs for more than thirty years, is also suggestive of one of the most interest- ing pioneer families in this section of Northwest Missouri. The Bains were among the very first to establish homes in the virgin wilderness of Grundy County before a county of that name had been created.
The family in 1837 located in what is now Lincoln Township, Grundy County, and in a log cabin near the present site of Tindall Oliver Green Bain was born January 4, 1850. His father was Jesse Bain, who was born in a fort on the Muskingum River, in Muskingum County, Ohio, June 21, 1812. Riason Bain, father of Jesse, was born on the east side of the Ohio River, in the little valley shut in by hills where now stands the City of Wheeling, West Virginia, in 1791, and came of good old American colonial stock. About 1808 the Bain family crossed the Ohio River, moved west along the National road, and finally arrived in the wilds of Muskingum County. Though Ohio had been a state for half a dozen years, the greater part of the country was a wilderness enjoyed as a hunting ground by Indians. Near where the Bains settled stood a fort for the protection of the scattered inhabitants, and at the first note of Indian alarm all gathered behind its stockade for protection. Riason Bain grew up and was married in Ohio, and lived there until about 1830.
The westward movement was in the blood of this family, and prac- tically every generation has furnished men of the pioneer type. Riason Bain with his family followed out the course of empire and moved first to Rush County, Indiana, and in the spring of 1837 again set out for a still more remote point on the frontier. With his sons Jesse and Jacob he made a journey overland to Missouri, using ox-teams for transporta- tion and carrying all the moveable possessions in wagons. The Missis- sippi River was crossed at St. Louis on April 9, and they pushed on to Pulaski County, Missouri, where they hastily prepared ground and put in a crop. Then they resumed exploration over the surrounding coun- try. While traveling as prospectors, they met a Government surveyor, Lisbon Applegate, who had finished some work for the Government in the Grand River country. When asked about that section he replied that in his report he should credit the land with being better than first rate. On hearing this the Bains at once returned to Pulaski County and, having harvested their grain, started with a team and wagon for Grand River. On arriving at the confluence of Shoal Creek, in Liv- ingston County, they met Samuel Kelso, Henry Foster and William Dille. The water was high and the creek unfordable. Kelso had been delayed by the water some time and was discouraged and ready to quit. Riason Bain took the lead, constructed a raft and ferried the entire party across. They all proceeded westward until they reached what is now Grundy County. There Riason Bain selected the southwest quarter of section 25, township 62, range 24, now designated as Lincoln Township. At that time most of this country was owned by the Government and much of Grundy County still unsurveyed. Two years later he entered his pre-emption right in the land office at Lexington.
In a history of Grundy County the authors say: "Lincoln township was first settled in 1837. The first settlers pitched their tent Novem- ber 12th of that year. The colony consisted of Riason Bain, Samuel Kelso, Jesse Bain, Henry Foster and William Dille. Their camping
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ground was on the northwest quarter of section 22, three hundred yards east of the site of the Bain schoolhouse. They traveled many hundred miles to reach their new home and were water bound and compelled to remain encamped many days."
Riason Bain was a Methodist and was a leader of the first class meetings in the neighborhood. In 1838 it was in his house that Rev. Thomas Peery preached the first sermon heard in Lincoln Township. Riason Bain died in 1839. His wife, whose maiden name was Nellie Crow, a native of Virginia, died in 1830. Her parents were pioneers of Western Virginia, and later of Muskingum County, Ohio. While the Crow family and others were sheltered in the fort previously mentioned, two of Nellie's sisters and a brother ventured into the woods for hickory nuts. Indians fell upon them, scalped the girls and knocked the boy senseless. He recovered, got back to the fort, and lived several years, but the girls died soon after being brought within the shelter.
Jesse Bain was a vigorous young pioneer of twenty-five when he arrived in Grundy County .. The little home which he established in Lincoln Township was for a long time an isolated outpost of civilization. All kinds of wild game were in abundance, deer and wild turkey fur- nished meat for the table, and one of the favorite sports among the settlers was "bee hunting," a bee-tree supplying the larder with sweets for several weeks. The women of the household did many tasks now unknown to womanly accomplishment, such as carding and spinning and weaving of the cloth which furnished raiment for all the family. As soon as the land was put on the market Jesse Bain walked all the way to Lexington and entered the southeast quarter of the northwest quarter of section 22, and then constructed the log cabin in which the present Trenton attorney first saw the light of day. He hewed a farm from the wilderness, and was one of the strong men in that day of rugged frontier virtues. Little money was in circulation in the first ten or fifteen years of Grunty County history, and though it was a heavy task to produce a crop lack of convenient market kept prices down. When a farmer of that community had some hogs or hides to sell, they were carried by wagon to Brunswick, seventy-five miles away, and there sold at from one dollar and fifty cents to one dollar and sev- enty-five cents per hundred weight. In spite of early disadvantages, Jesse Bain prospered, added to his land until he owned 320 acres, and left it well improved with buildings and under perfect cultivation.
The pioneering which brought him to Grundy County did not satisfy him, and in 1850 he joined in the great exodus to the California gold fields. He joined a party that went overland with wagons and teams, staid about a year on the coast, and returned by sea, around Cape Horn, and after many adventures, including the wreck of a vessel, he once more took his place in the little Missouri community. During the war between the states he was in Company E of the Seventh Missouri Militia. His later years were passed in quiet and comfort on his farm, where he died September 22, 1894.
In Pulaski County on August 10, 1837, Jesse Bain married Catherine Ogletree. She was born in Overton County, Tennessee, in November, 1818, and died in 1857, leaving two sons, Pleasant W. and Oliver Green. November 10, 1858, he married Mary Rock. By this marriage there were four: Walter G., Anna, Jesse D. and Helen A. From the formation of the party Jesse Bain was a strong republican.
Fifty years ago Grundy County was still a half wilderness, and the boyhood of Oliver G. Bain was encompassed by an environment which seems primitive compared with present conditions. He attended a school taught in a log cabin and has a vivid recollection of old-time books
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and methods. Later he studied in the Trenton high school, and began his self-supporting career as a teacher, a vocation he followed through seven terms. In the meantime he had applied himself to the study of law, and in 1878 was admitted to the bar. His has been one of the honorable careers in the law in Grundy County for an entire generation. After a brief practice in the country, and one year in the Town of Spickard, he moved to Trenton, where he has been in practice ever since.
In 1884 he was elected prosecuting attorney of Grundy County, and in 1890 was again elected and re-elected in 1892. He has long been a leader in republican ranks, and cast his first vote for Grant in 1872.
February 14, 1878, Mr. Bain married Miss Rosa Brunson, who repre- sents an old family of Southern Iowa. She was born in Lee County, Iowa, September 17, 1859. Her father, Thomas, was born in Hamilton County, Ohio, in 1835. Thomas Rennick Brunson, her grandfather, was born in New York State in 1784, a son of Barefoot Brunson, who came from Holland and settled in the Province of New York before the Revolution. This Dutch settler married Margaret Bell, a native of Ireland. Thomas R. Brunson learned the trade of stonemason, and when a young man went to Tennessee and assisted in laying the foundation of the state capitol at Nashville. Later he settled in Clermont County, Ohio, and in 1841 moved out to the Territory of Iowa. As a pioneer in Lee County he bought a tract of land near the present site of West Point, and combined farming with his trade until his death in 1866. His wife, Susan Miller, was born in Pennsylvania in 1796 and died in 1874. David Miller, her father, was born in Germany, settled in Pennsylvania, where he was a miller, and died there in 1845. He married Susan Humlong, also a native of Germany, born in 1741 and died in 1844. Thomas Brunson, father of Mrs. Bain, was six years old when the family settled in Lee County, where he was reared and learned the trade of plasterer. That and farming were his means of support in Lee County until 1867, when he sold out and went to Clark County, Iowa. That section of the state was still new, and he was able to trade a horse for eighty acres of land, which he began to improve, and he lived there to see settlement and civilization become established all around him. After twenty-eight years he again sold, and moved into the new country of the Southwest. In Washita County, Oklahoma, he became one of the early white settlers, bought a quarter section of raw land, and built a frame house which he plastered with his own hands. It was the first house with plastered walls in the county, and attracted much attention for this modern innovation. He followed farming and stock-raising for some years, and finally moved to the Town of Foss, where he is now retired at the age of seventy-eight. Thomas Brunson married Arline Clark, a native of Ohio. Her father was Cullen Clark, born in Vermont, in 1810, and a son of Johnson Clark, of Scotch ancestry, who died in 1820, and whose wife Sally (Bent) Clark, died in 1817. Cullen Clark in young manhood went to Ohio, where he married Rozella Case. Her father, Chauncey Case, who was born in 1788 and died in 1868, and was a New York farmer, married Nancy Van Heining, who died in 1884. Thomas and Arline Brunson had five children, namely: Rosa, Cullen, Clark, Bent H. and Thurman. To the marriage of Mr. and Mrs. Bain has been born one child, Homer Judson.
HOMER JUDSON BAIN. The only son of Oliver G. and Rosa (Brunson) Bain, Homer J. Bain is one of the successful younger lawyers of Grundy County, and has practiced with his father at Trenton since his admission to the bar.
He was born at Trenton, September 9, 1879, attended the city
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schools, graduating from the high school with the class of 1896, and the following year entered the University of Missouri. He graduated LL. B. in 1901, and was admitted to the bar before the Supreme Court in the same year.
An active republican, casting his first vote for William McKinley, he has interested himself in local affairs and has been honored with posi- tions of trust. In 1905 he was elected city attorney, and by re-election served three terms. In 1910 he was elected prosecuting attorney of Grundy County, and added to the honors previously gained by his father in the same office.
June 16, 1908, he married Fern Hibbird, who was born at Sigourney, Keokuk County, Iowa. Mr. Bain belongs to the university honorary fraternity, Beta Theta Pi, and to Lodge No. 801, B. P. O. E. He is much interested in agriculture, owns a stock farm in Lincoln Township, where the Bain family history centers, and supervises his estate as a pas- time and recreation, though he also makes his land pay good profits.
HON. THOMAS B. COOK, M. D. It is scarcely possible, in these modern days, for a man to be a successful practitioner of medicine without being also a man of learning and of solid, scientific acquirements. Often . the youth who feels the inspiration that ultimately leads him into the medical profession finds his progress one of difficulty from lack of encouragement, opportunity or capital, and when all these drawbacks are overcome, through personal effort, battles have been won that make firm the foundations of character. One of the leading physicians of Ray County, Dr. Thomas B. Cook, of Rayville, has not only gained a high place in his profession through individual effort and merit, but has also won distinction in public life, and as the representative of his people has been able to secure the enactment of some legislation of a decidedly beneficial character to his community.
Doctor Cook has been a lifelong resident of Ray County, being a member of a family which came here in pioneer days. He was born on a farm in the vicinity of Lawson, May 6, 1855, and is a son of Joseph and Melvina (Underwood) Cook, natives of Orange County, North Carolina, the former born January 12, 1809, and the latter Decem- ber 15, 1812. In 1838 Joseph Cook and his wife started on their long journey to the far west, as then represented by Missouri, packing their possessions in one wagon and being accompanied by their children, one of whom died on the way, while in Tennessee. The hard, tedious and dangerous trip consumed six weeks, but finally the little party of immi- grants reached their destination in Audrain County, and there the father established their primitive home. The family continued to reside in that community until 1844, in which year Mr. Cook purchased a tract of land in Ray County, on the present site of Lawson, and there became a fairly well-to-do farmer. The contentions and ani- mosities growing out of the struggle between the North and the South, however, caused him to remove to Illinois in 1864, and there he re- mained until peace was declared between the warring factions in 1865. On his return to Missouri, he located on a property in Caldwell County, near Polo, and this continued to be his home until his death, March 2, 1881, Mrs. Cook surviving until July 13, 1885, when she passed away on the same homestead. They were the parents of eleven, children, of whom seven are now living, as follows: Lemuel, who is a resident of Clark County, Missouri; James Clay, who lives in Clinton County, this state; O. G., who resides in Ray County; Martha, who is the wife of Abraham King, of Excelsior Springs, Missouri; Mary, who is the widow
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of Joseph McCowan, of Elmira, Missouri; Sallie, who is the wife of William P. Pryor, of Ray County, and Dr. Thomas B., of this review.
Doctor Cook was reared on the home farms and attended the common schools of the country and the high school at Lathrop, and while he was not employed with his studies gave his services to his father on the home place. It was his ambition to become a physician, but was not possessed of the finances necessary, and accordingly, to secure the needed means, took up school teaching as a vocation. From 1874 until 1880 he taught in the country schools of the community, and in the latter year, having carefully saved his means, began reading medicine in the office and under the preceptorship of Dr. W. C. James, at Lawson. Subsequently he entered the medical department of the University of Louisville, Ken- tucky, and in 1883 saw his ambitions realized when he was graduated with the degree of Doctor of Medicine. He at once came to Rayville, and in this city established himself in practice, his subsequent activities hav- ing been centered here. At this time Doctor Cook is in the enjoyment of an excellent professional business, built up by his ability, his thorough knowledge of his profession and his deep sympathy and kindliness. He has attained high standing in his profession as a strict adherent of medical ethics, and among his fellow-practitioners is accounted a valued assistant in consultation. He belongs to the various organizations of his profession and keeps himself thoroughly in touch with the discoveries and inventions constantly being made in the field of his calling. Doctor Cook has been successful in a business way, being the owner of a flourish- ing drug business at Rayville and a stockholder in the Commercial Bank at Lawson and the Savings Bank at Richmond. A lifelong democrat, he has been active in the ranks of his party, and in 1906 was honored by election to the Missouri Legislature. His district returned him as representative to the Forty-fourth General Assembly, in which he intro- duced and had passed a measure granting to circuit clerks the power to fix bail of persons charged with criminal acts during the vacation of courts. He was also made chairman of the committee on accounts and in that capacity acquired the suggestive sobriquet of "Watch-dog of the Treasury." He took at all times a leading part in placing on the Missouri statutes some of its most important laws during his terms of office, and conscientiously protected the interests of his constituents.
On January 31, 1888, Doctor Cook was married to Miss Maud Mass- berger, who was born in Carroll County, Missouri, May 15, 1868, a daughter of Frank M. and Anna (Taylor) Massberger, natives of Mis- souri, who are now living at Bogard, this state. One son has been born to Doctor and Mrs. Cook, Thomas B., Jr., who is a member of the senior class, 1914, at the University of Missouri.
MRS. MARY S. NAUMAN. The Nauman family took up its residence in Holt County more than thirty years ago, and during his lifetime the late Hiram Godfrey Nauman was one of the prosperous agriculturists of Liberty Township. Though he came to Missouri a poor man, he exhibited the thrift and enterprise which bring success in any vocation and in any locality and has left his widow and children well provided, and theirs is now one of the largest individual estates in Liberty Town- ship.
The late Hiram Godfrey Nauman, who died January 17, 1913, and whose death took away one of the best and most successful citizens of Liberty Township, was born in Page County, Virginia, a son of Reuben and Elizabeth Nauman. He was married in his native county to Mary S. Dovell, a daughter of David M. and Elizabeth (Booton) Dovell. Mrs. Nauman had seven brothers and four sisters, while her husband was
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