USA > Missouri > A history of northwest Missouri, Volume III > Part 97
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CHARLES W. SCOTT. Among the venerable citizens of Grundy County whose lives have long since passed the mark of three score and ten, Charles W. Scott, of Brimson, is worthy of mention. His life has been a long and full one, including experiences in California during the "days of old, the days of gold, the days of '49," as a soldier during the Civil war, in which he won promotion for valiant service, and, in later years, as a farmer and stock raiser whose energetic and well-directed efforts won him material fortune, while his good citizenship won him personal esteem. Today, at the age of more than eighty-one years, he goes about his daily round of affairs, a striking and helpful example of a long life well lived.
Charles W. Scott was born August 2, 1833, in Daviess County, Mis- souri, and is a son of John and Charlotte (Meeks) Scott, natives of Virginia. His father's family included members who participated in the War of 1812, while on his mother's side he is related to Joseph and Butler Meeks, who many years ago went to the Hudson's Bay country, where they engaged in hunting and trapping, and where many bearing the name are still to be found. Mr. Scott obtained his education in the public schools of Grundy County, but at the age of seventeen years the spirit of adven- ture and the oft-repeated stories of the great fortunes to be secured in the gold country called him to California, and he safely made the long and hazardous journey across the plains. A short experience, however, convinced him that money was not to be secured as quickly as he had been led to believe, and he gave up the vocation of miner for that of tender of a ranch. In 1853 Mr. Scott returned to Grundy County, and, realizing the need of further education, attended Grand River College. In that same year he entered upon his agricultural career by purchasing eighty acres of land, locating in Grundy County and erecting a small log cabin. This land, which cost him $2.50 per acre, he improved, and was able, in 1856, to dispose of it at a good price. He next moved to Harrison Township, in the same county, where he purchased sixty acres,
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at $1.25 per acre, and this formed the nucleus for his present magnificent farm.
The distress of his country and its need for men called Mr. Scott to the ranks of the Union army in 1861, when he enlisted in the Missouri State Militia, which organization was held to subject to call at any time during the war. Under Colonel Shanklin, Mr. Scott participated in a number of battles in Missouri, was promoted to orderly sergeant of his company, and was honorably discharged at the close of hostilities with an excellent record as a soldier. Returning at that time to his home he resumed the duties of peace, taking up his agricultural labors where he had left off, and as the years have passed he has continued to devote himself to general farming and stock raising, with a full measure of success. At this time he is the owner of 420 acres of land, on which are located substantial and architecturally handsome buildings, a modern frame residence, valuable improvements of every kind, and large herds of well-fed cattle. The very air of the place denotes its prosperity and the property is a substantial monument to the labors, good management and ability of its owner. Mr. Scott is a republican and has labored efficiently and conscientiously in his community's behalf as justice of the peace and in other offices. With his family he attends the Methodist Episcopal Church and takes a helpful part in its work.
Mr. Scott was married December 3, 1854, to Miss Sarah Thornburg, who was born in Alabama, a daughter of William and C. (Rickey) Thorn- burg. Nine children have been born to this union, as follows: Laura, who married George Drummond, and has five children-Floyd, Ray, Musie, Irene and Francis; Flora, who married Charles M. Bowman, of Grundy County, a native of Ohio, and has three children-Velta, Dale and Scott; Hannah, who married J. P. Lynch, of Grundy County, and has one son-Frank; Lottie, who married Louis Shaw, of Grundy County, and has four children-Lyman, Gard, Paul and Bart; Charles S., who married a young lady of Iowa; Thomas T., who married a California lady and has one daughter-Yuba; Hugh, who married Luella Frazier, of Gallatin, Daviess County, Missouri, daughter of Dr. and Mrs. Lillian Frazier, of that place, and has six children-Wilson, Hulda, Anna L., Elsie B., James and Francis L .; Bart, who married Elizabeth Coppel, of Ludlow, Missouri, daughter of Mose Coppel; and Porter, who married Callie Cires, of Grundy County, daughter of Columbus and Mary Jane Cires, and has three children-Gertrude, Helen and Columbus.
PHILIP ERNEST WENZ. Many of the most thrifty and prosperous business men of Buchanan County have come from the land beyond the sea, noteworthy among the number being Philip Ernest Wenz, who has been actively identified with the manufacturing and mercantile interests of St. Joseph for more than half a century, and is eminently deserving of mention in this biographical work. He was born, October 23, 1831, at Beisinger, three miles from Bodelshausen, Hohenzollern, Germany, in the same house in which his father, Conrad Wenz, was born and reared. His paternal grandfather served in the German army, under Karl Herzog, and was afterwards appointed chief forester, with two assistants under him. He subsequently bought a house in Beisinger, and there spent his remaining years.
Conrad Wenz learned the trade of a baker when young, and spent his entire life in the town in which his birth occurred. He married, and of the six children he reared, five came to America, as follows: Philip Ernest, George, Fred, Catherine, and Rosa.
Having attended school steadily from the age of six years until fourteen years old, Philip Ernest Wenz then served an apprenticeship
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of four years at the trade of a boot and shoe maker in the City of Zurich, after which he followed his trade in various European cities. In 1854, desirous of trying life in a new country, he went from Stuttgart, Ger- many, to Havre, France, where he sailed for America, arriving at the end of sixty-seven days after leaving the fatherland. Mr. Wenz imme- diately came to St. Joseph, which was then a small frontier city, Missouri having at that time no railways, while Kansas had just been opened to settlers. His only capital when he came to this country was good health, willing hands, and a set of tools. Finding employment at his trade, he worked as a journeyman for twenty-one months, and then embarked in business on his own account, establishing on Edmund Street the business now owned by his brother, it being one of the first of the kind established in the city, or in Northwestern Missouri. Selling out in 1860, Mr. Wenz purchased property at No. 1003 Frederick Avenue, and there conducted a general store a few years, but has since, at the same location, been actively engaged in his present business.
Mr. Wenz married, in 1859, Christiana Frederica Bauman, who was born in the village of Backnang, in Wurtemberg, Germany, in the same house in which the birth of her father, John Bauman, occurred. Reared and educated in his native village, John Bauman married Frederica Schwaterer, a native of Marbach, Wurtemberg. She died in 1844, in early womanhood, leaving seven children, Christina F., George, Caroline, Gottlieb, Jacob, Dorothy, and Ludwig, all of whom, with the exception of Dorothy, came to America. In 1858 Mr. Bauman emigrated with his family to this country, settling in Andrew County, Missouri, where he purchased 150 acres of land, one half of which had been cleared. Imme- diately assuming possession of the log buildings standing on the place, he began adding to the improvements already inaugurated, and was there a resident until his death, at the age of seventy-two years. Mrs. Wenz died September 28, 1902, leaving four children, namely: Emma, Rosa, Annie, and Nellie. Mr. Wenz has four grandsons, William Wenz, Herbert Wenz, Edwin Wenz, and Ernest Beihl. Mr. and Mrs. Wenz were both brought up in the Lutheran Church, and have reared their family in the same religious faith.
CAPT. JOHN HARNOIS. A veteran of the Civil war, and a highly respected citizen of St. Joseph, Capt. John Harnois has had a varied career in life, having been associated with different industries, and having served in army and navy, and also having filled with ability and fidelity numerous public offices. A son of Peter Harnois, he was born, November 12, 1844, in what is now the State of Nebraska, coming from pure French ancestry, the founder of the family in this country having settled in Nova Scotia on leaving France, becoming one of the Acadian colonists.
His paternal grandfather, John Baptiste Harnois, was born in the Province of Quebec, Canada, where his father, Charles Harnois, an Acadian by birth, spent his last years. He embarked in farming when young, owning and managing a farm near Lavaltrie, in the Province of Quebec, about thirty miles below Montreal, and there spent his life. He married Mary Maible, a lifelong resident of the Province of Quebec.
Peter Harnois was born on the parental farm near Lavaltrie, in 1814, and as a young man served an apprenticeship at the trade of a black- smith. He subsequently came to the United States, and found employ- ment in the lumber camps along the lakes, a part of the time being engaged in selecting ship timber. He later located in Cleveland, where he was driver on the canal. Going from there to Detroit, he followed his trade for awhile in that city, and then went South, first to Louisville, Kentucky, thence to New Orleans, where he spent one winter selling prod-
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uce on the wharves. In 1836 he entered the employ of the American Fur Company, and for two years was located at the head waters of the Missouri River. The ensuing ten years he was in the employ of the United States as a blacksmith among the Indians, spending five years with the Otoes and Omahas, and five years among the Pawnees, after which he was in business for himself one year at Sarpy's trading post, a few miles below Omaha. Locating in St. Joseph in 1849, he kept a hotel at. No. 815 North Second Street for a time, and continued his residence in that place until his death, in 1894. The maiden name of the wife of Peter Harnois was Sarah Holcomb. She was born in Gallia County, Ohio, and died in St. Joseph, Missouri, in 1889. She was of Welsh ancestry, her immigrant ancestor having come from Wales in the ship "Mary John" soon after the "Mayflower" at Plymouth.
A boy of five years when he came with his parents to St. Joseph, John Harnois attended school quite regularly until sixteen years old, when he began life as a wage-earner, clerking in a store. On November 12, 1862, he enlisted in the enrolled militia, and served as orderly under Gen. Oden Guitar. He was later made corporal of Company M, from that organization enlisting, in August, 1863, in Company G, Fifteenth Kansas Cavalry. He was subsequently with his command in Missouri, Arkansas, Kansas, and the Indian Territory, being promoted to the rank of first sergeant, and continuing in service until honorably discharged, October 19, 1865, when he. returned home ill in health. On November 11, 1867, Mr. Harnois enlisted in the United States Navy, in which he served until receiving his honorable discharge, July 14, 1868.
Mr. Harnois married in 1869, and after that important event kept a store for awhile. He then assumed charge of his father's farm for a few months, after which he served as a letter carrier for three years. In 1877 he went to the Black Hills, but seeing no prospect of acquiring a fortune in that region soon returned, and during the ensuing seven years was bookkeeper in a bottling house. In 1885 Mr. Harnois was appointed United States gauger, and held the position until a change of adminis- tration. The following two and one-half years he was in the employ of an express company, afterwards being bookkeeper for a hay and grain firm. In 1889 he was again appointed United States gauger, and served in that capacity thirteen months. He was then deputy collector of internal revenue for seventeen counties in Northwestern Missouri, con- tinuing in that office until another change in the presidential administra- tion. Mr. Harnois was subsequently variously employed until 1900, when he went to Oklahoma, where he spent seven years. Returning to St. Joseph in 1907, he has since been busily employed at the courthouse.
Mr. Harnois has been twice married. He married first Alice A. White, in 1869. She was born in Zanesville, Ohio, a daughter of Fred- erick W. and Alice (Stewart) (Pharis) White, and died November 10, 1884. Mr. Harnois married second, December 6, 1885, Laura Holcomb, who was born in Ottumwa, Iowa, a daughter of Zephaniah Holcomb. Mrs. Holcomb is a noted preacher in the United Brethren Church, and a widely known temperance lecturer. By his first marriage Mr. Harnois reared two children, Sarah Alice and George P. Sarah Alice Harnois was one of the youngest graduates of the St. Joseph High School. She married, and at her death left one child, Etta Freeman, who now lives with her grandparents. George P. Harnois was educated in the St. Joseph High School, the Christian Brothers' School, and at Glencoe, after which he taught for awhile in the Christian Brothers' School. He is a veteran of the Spanish war, and was in service in the Philippines for two years. He has served five years as a member of the National Guard of Missouri, two years of the time being captain of the Grant Guards.
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Mr. Harnois is a member of the Custer Post, Grand Army of the Republic, and has served as chief mustering officer of the Department of Missouri, and has been on the national and department staff several times, now, in 1914, being adjutant of the post.
G. B. COWLEY, M. D. During his many years of residence in Cald- well County, Doctor Cowley has performed varied and useful service, as physician and surgeon, as editor and publisher, as a member of the State Legislature, and one of the leaders in every movement that concerns the development and progress of his home town and county. Doctor Cowley is editor and proprietor of the Cowgill Chief, one of the most influential papers in Caldwell County. He has been identified with the medical profession for about thirty years, and has been proprietor of the newspaper at Cowgill since 1889. He has made this newspaper not only a medium for the current news and the business announcements of the town and vicinity, but also a force for good in the community, upholding clean and honest civic movements, purity in politics, and moral and religious progress. He has also for several years been identified with the rural letter carrier service out of Cowgill.
Dr. George B. Cowley represented his district in the Thirty-ninth Missouri Assembly, as a republican, and was one of the very active members of that body, a member of the ways and means committee, the Committee on Banks and Banking, and in many ways showed himself a hard working and intelligent member of the law making body. Doctor Cowley was born near Rio, Wisconsin, May 16, 1861. His father, Alfred Cowley, who was born in England in 1827, was brought to this country in 1838. In 1856 Alfred Cowley married Hannah A. Carter, who was born in New Jersey in 1833. Coming from Wisconsin, they became in 1869 early settlers of Caldwell County, and lived as farmers near Polo. They had a large family and seven grew to maturity: Charles A., a resident of Cottonwood Falls, Kansas; A. A., of Polo; Joseph H., died in 1893; John H., in the lumber business at Hamilton ; B. F., of Leesville, Louis- iana; S. R., of Cedar Point, Kansas; Dr. George B. The mother died in 1890, and the father in 1899, at the age of seventy-two. In politics he was a republican.
Dr. George B. Cowley was reared on a farm, attended the public schools, and in 1882 graduated in medicine from the Missouri Medical College at St. Louis. He was first located at Polo, but soon after came to Cowgill where he has long enjoyed a high position in his profession as well as in business and civic affairs.
Doctor Cowley was married August 29, 1886, to Mary Alice E. McCray, a member of one of the prominent families in Caldwell County, and a daughter of William and Nancy (Carroll) McCray. They were natives of Kentucky, who settled in Caldwell County in 1846 and died there in 1903 and 1885 respectively. Doctor Cowley and wife became the parents of six children : Luella J., who is secretary and registrar of Phillips University, in Enid, Oklahoma ; Harry, who was married in 1913 to Maurine Todd of this county, and they have one son, Kenneth Carl; Lucile, wife of M. K. Simpson, a merchant in Thomas, Oklahoma, and they have two children, Margaret R. and William; Joy Louise, who is con- nected with the First National Bank of Cowgill; George B., Jr., and Eva May, at home. All the children but one are graduates of the Cowgill High School, and all have shown themselves useful workers in the world. In addition to their Cowgill property and some holdings in Texas and Oklahoma, Doctor Cowley and wife own a fine fruit and stock farm of 160 acres in the "Shepherd of the Hills Country" of Southern Missouri. He and family are active in the Christian Church, and he is at this time
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president of its official board, and interdenominational superintendent of adult Sunday School work for Caldwell County. He affiliates with Masonic Lodge No. 561, the M. W. A., R. N. A. and W. O. W., and Lodge No. 483 of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows at Cowgill. He is also a member of the Missouri Press Association, the county and state medical societies and is a registered pharmacist. For the past seventeen years Doctor Cowley has served as a member of the Board of Education, and was from 1897 to 1914 secretary of the County Board of U. S. Pension Examining Surgeons. These are only a few of the major facts in his active career, and there has hardly been a movement for the advancement of Cowgill and Caldwell County in the past twenty-five years with which his name has not been influentially identified.
The name of Cowley is an ancient and honorable one in English history, Abraham Cowley, the famous poet of the restoration, having been the personal friend and confidant of King Charles I, and on his (Cowley's) death in 1667 was honored by burial in Westminster Abbey, London, near the present tombs of Wellington and Nelson. Mrs. Cowley also has a notable ancestry, her mother, Nancy Carroll, being the daughter of John Carroll of Virginia and Kentucky, a soldier of the War of 1812, he being a son of John Carroll, born in Virginia in 1754, who afterward saw distinguished service in the Revolutionary war. (See Collins' History of Kentucky, (Vol. 2) Census of 1840, Rev. Pensioners). Mrs. Cowley is a member of the National Chapter, Daughters of the American Revolution.
Doctor Cowley, among his many accomplishments, has the faculty of wielding a graceful pen in literary composition, and both as an illustra- tion of his style and for the intrinsic beauty of the lines the following poem, dedicated to the old Union soldiers' of Caldwell County, under the title "On Decoration Day," which appeared in the St. Louis Globe- Democrat, is herewith quoted :
"It was an aged veteran, with locks all thin and gray, Who sat within the village church on Decoration Day; He came upon his crutches, with tottering step and slow, And many winters on his brow had cast their fleeting snow ; His eyes were sunk and feeble, his cheek was pale and wan, Not like the boy who went out when the cruel war began.
The organ pealed out grandly : "My Country, 'Tis of Thee," And youthful voices sang aloud the anthem of the free. With listless air he watched them, from the old, familiar pew, A sad example of the old supplanted by the new.
No wife or child sat by him-all dead or far away ; Amid the throng he was alone, on Decoration Day.
Too weak and lame for walking for many years of late, A friendly auto bore him to the cemetery gate ; Here, sitting in the welcome shade, he watched his comrades come- A piteous few, but keeping step behind the fife and drum; Then, leaning on a marble shaft, his dead wife's grave a-nigh, He gave salute, and waved his hat, as the starry flag went by.
The graves were strewn with blossoms, the little flags all placed ; His comrades to the busy town their halting steps retraced ; And the dead slept on in silence, beneath the flowers of May, Heedless alike of fife and drum, and Decoration Day ; But, lingering there among them, till red the sunset gleamed, His head sank down upon his breast ; he fell asleep and dreamed.
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He dreamed of childhood's hour; he heard the robin sing And culled again the violets that blossomed by the spring ; With sisters and with brothers, in his happy northern home, He watched the war cloud gather, and heard its thunders come. His mother's clasp, his sweetheart's kiss, still thrilled him as of yore, When proudly, down the village street, he marched out to the war.
He dreamed of soldiers marching-he saw the deadly fray 'Round Vicksburg's walls, on Lookout's height, and Shiloh's bloody day :
"Tramp, tramp!" Is this the boy he was, who marches, blithe and free,
With Sherman and with Sherman's men through Georgia to the sea ? "Tramp, tramp !" It is the Grand Review, and Grant is looking on ! Then "Taps" were blown, the lights went out, and night and death came down !
They found him there next morning; his locks were wet with dew And his dead face wore a peaceful smile, as if the angels knew That this brave old Union soldier had struck his earthly tent And marched on to that blissful shore, where old Elijah went. Perhaps, from that great camping-ground where summer shines for aye,
He still looks down, and waves his hat, on Decoration Day."
THOMAS JEFFERSON TOWNSEND. Since its establishment in Northwest Missouri in 1846 the Townsend family has been identified with its agri- cultural interests, and its numerous members have attained substantial positions in this fertile farming community. Its men have shown in their own careers the worth of industry and integrity in the affairs of life, and have contributed materially to the development of the locality's resources. A worthy representative of the name is found in the person of Thomas Jefferson Townsend, who is now the owner of a well cultivated farm in section 24, Benton Township.
Mr. Townsend was born January 22, 1856, on the original homestead of his parents, located four miles northwest of Savannah, in Andrew County, Missouri, a son of William Calvin and Mary Ann (Judd) Town- send. William C: Townsend was born on an Indiana farm, was there reared and educated, and married in that state Mary Ann Judd, who was born in Dearborn County, Indiana, in 1825, four years her husband's junior. They were married May 26, 1842, and about the year 1846 migrated to the State of Missouri, taking up their residence on a new, undeveloped farm, four miles northwest of Savannah. Here the father made the usual pioneer improvements, and the little log house continued to be the family home until 1861, when removal was made to Iowa, Thomas J. being then a lad of five years. Two years later, however, the family returned to Andrew County, Missouri, and took up their residence on a farm two and one-half miles south of the town of Bolckow. William C. Townsend continued to be identified with agricultural pursuits on this property during the remainder of his life, and through industry and earnest effort made a success of his grain and stock raising operations, accumulating over three hundred acres of good land. He was a republican in his political views, but took only a good citizen's interest in affairs of a public character. Both he and Mrs. Townsend were charter members of the Baptist Church at Bolckow, in which Mr. Townsend was a deacon for a number of years, and since their deaths their children have placed there in their memory a beautiful memorial window, one of the largest in the
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church. William C. Townsend passed away, honored and respected by the community, July 12, 1882, the mother surviving him until August 29, 1907. Ten children were born to William C. and Mary A. Townsend, as follows: Sarah, who is the widow of the late George H. Sexton and resides in Oklahoma; Emeline, deceased, who was the wife of David H. Headley; Nancy A., deceased, who was the wife of James C. Campbell; John M., whose sketch will be found elsewhere in this work; William Calvin, a resident of Benton Township; Thomas Jefferson, of this review ; Harriet F., who is the wife of G. F. Wilson and resides at Warrensburg ; Charles G., who lives in Benton Township; Elizabeth E., deceased ; who was the wife of T. J. Officer ; and Ida B., whose death occurred at the age of four years.
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