A history of northwest Missouri, Volume III, Part 98

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

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Thomas J. Townsend received his education in the public schools of Benton Township and has been a resident of Andrew County all of his life with the exception of four years. In early manhood he decided to devote his career to agricultural pursuits, and his training in his youth was along this line. At the present time he is the owner of ninety-five and one-half acres, this being a part of his father's homestead. He has brought his land under a high state of cultivation, and it is devoted to the raising of grain and live stock, and in both lines Mr. Townsend has met with excellent success. His buildings are of a substantial character, his stock is of a good grade, his improvements are new and modern, and his good management is reflected in every department. He has been content to devote his energies to farm work and has kept out of politics, save as a republican voter, but maintains an interest in matters that affect the welfare of his community and can be relied upon to support good and progressive movements. Mr. Townsend is a member of the Baptist Church at Bolckow, to which the members of his family belong.

In 1883 Mr. Townsend was united in marriage with Miss Dora E. Dorrel, who was born September 25, 1866, in Andrew County, a daughter of James and Eliza J. Dorrel, a history of the family being found in the sketch of Judge A. Dorrel, elsewhere in this work. Four children have been born to Mr. and Mrs. Townsend, namely: Anna Ethel, who is the wife of Blaine Townsend and resides in Wyoming; Eva Ruth, who is at home ; and Warren Irl and Mary Dorrel, who reside with their parents.

JUDGE WILLIAM MCAFEE. In Hamilton and Caldwell County for more than thirty years there has been perhaps no abler attorney than Judge William McAfee. His successes have all been worthily won, he has built up a large and prosperous practice through solid ability, and has served his community with disinterested devotion to the public wel- fare.

William McAfee was born September 19, 1850, at Blue Lick, Indiana, and comes of an old Scotch-Irish ancestry. In the earlier generations the family were planters and slave holders, but subsequently liberated their negroes, lived in the northern states, and were chiefly industrious and high-minded farmers. On the maternal side Judge McAfee's grand- father was a native of Vermont. The Judge was one of six children. His brother James was a railroad man and was killed in a railroad acci- dent. Thomas is deceased. John lived in the State of New Mexico until his death. The father died at the age of seventy-three. He was a farmer and cooper, a member of the Christian Church, and affiliated with the Independent Order of Odd Fellows.

William McAfee received practically no schooling till the winter of his eighteenth year, when he began working for himself and secured his education by home study and attending college at Macon City, Missouri, Vol. III-42

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two years. After coming to Northwest Missouri he taught in the high school at Kingston for four years while studying law.

In 1875 Judge McAfee married Marian Johnson, daughter of Capt. E. D. Johnson, of prominent family in Northwest Missouri, but coming here from Coshocton County, Ohio. Judge McAfee and wife have three children : Agnes, wife of W. O. Keeney; Emmet, who is employed in the laboratory of the Dr. Price Baking Powder Company; and Floyd L. Two children died in childhood, Effie and Ernest. The children were all liberally educated, 'most of them in college, and one of them was a student in the Missouri Wesleyan College at Cameron.

Judge McAfee was admitted to the bar in 1876, and has been engaged in active practice ever since that time. He was prosecuting attorney of Caldwell County three terms, of two years each, from 1876-1880; 1887- 1889. He has held a commission as notary public from all the govern- ors of Missouri since that time. Judge McAfee served four years as judge of the Probate Court of Caldwell County, and at one time declined a nomination for Congress. He is affiliated with the Royal Arch Chapter of Masonry, with the Independent Order of Odd Fellows and the Knights of Pythias, and his church is the Methodist. In politics he is a republican.

ISAAC M. NEFF, of Fox Creek Township, R. F. D. No. 2, Gilman City, is the oldest living member of this pioneer and numerous family of Harrison County. He has resided in the county since April 6, 1858, when he came to it as a young man with a small family, settling where he is now located and where he patented a small piece of school land, and here he has spent his life with his farm and with the manifestation of a genius for invention and for doing new things which has marked him among the interesting and useful men of his community. Mr. Neff came hither from Franklin County, Indiana, where he was born November 15, 1834. His environment as a youth was such as inspired him with mechanical inclinations, for his father was a mechanic, made plows with wooden moldboards, made cradles for har- vesting grain, manufactured wagons and worked in iron as well, and had a shop on his farm about two miles from Andersonville, Indiana. having worked at wagon-making in Andersonville, and had a wagon shop in Andersonville itself.

The father of Isaac M. Neff was Elihu S. Neff, who moved into Rush County, Indiana, in 1822, his parents coming from Clinton County, New York, where he was born March 6, 1811. He picked up his trade by himself, being naturally skilled in and having an eye for mechanics, and worked at his several vocations until late in life. Mr. Neff manu- factured seventy-two coffins after coming to Missouri, from time to time in his community as they were needed to bury its dead. Mr. Neff had been granted only such education as was afforded by the public schools, but early developed an inventive turn of mind such as is evidenced by his sons and daughters, and his judgment was of a superior order, enabling him to succeed notwithstanding the fact that a portion of his career covered a period of national monetary and commercial depression that severely tried the metal of business men. An example of his industry is shown in the fact that in Indiana he paid for the clearing of his farm by making all kinds of agricultural implements, and this work he did with his own hands. Elihu Neff was an earnest whig in his political views, but was never possessed of ability as a speaker, and did not seek the honors of public office. He voted for Henry Clay for president in 1832, and in 1836 and 1840 for William Henry Harrison. In coming from New York to Indiana, the Neffs made the trip by boat much of the

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way, coming down the Ohio River to the mouth of the Miami, where Gen. William H. Harrison lived in his log cabin, and with the general the family stopped while the father, Daniel Neff, went on to Indiana and selected his location for settlement. General Harrison, or "Old Tippecanoe," as he was after that called, lived in a typical pioneer cabin, with coon-skins stretched about over it, and the hospitality of the gen- eral's home so impressed young Elihu S. that he held the Harrison family in grateful remembrance ever after. During the campaigns which the general made later, Mr. Neff cast his ballot for the gallant soldier, and when the grandson of "Old Tippecanoe" became a candidate for presi- dent, in 1888, Elihu S. Neff, then an old man, built a replica of the old Harrison cabin, loaded it on a wagon, provided a live coon for one of his decorations, and drove the wagon and cabin about over Harrison County as a campaign feature in aid of Benjamin Harrison for the presidency. When the latter was elected the live coon was sent to him at the White House. Elihu S. Neff's only military experience was as a teamster in the Missouri militia during the Civil war.

Daniel Neff, the grandfather of Isaac M. Neff, was a Quaker and although according to his faith not a believer in warfare, was old enough to haul supplies for the Revolutionary army of the colonies. He lived at that date in New York and was only ten years old when the war ended. He was a native of the Empire State and his life's activities were devoted to the cultivation of a farm. In all that he did Daniel Neff was noted for his accuracy, a trait noticeable in his descendants. He lived the Quaker faith, always spoke the truth and let it make its own defense, and was courageous in reproving those who he believed needed reproof, although he did it in a mild and inoffensive way. His death occurred in Rush County, Indiana, some time after the Civil war. Mr. Neff's first wife was Charity Sherman, who was of Quaker stock, and it is doubtless from her that subsequent generations have inherited their inventive genius, for she fashioned her own spinning wheels and looms and was a conspicuous figure in her community. She died before her husband, who subsequently married Mrs. Deborah Howell. The children born to Daniel Neff were: Orange H., Elihu S., Ebenezer, Daniel, Jane, Sophira, Jeanette, Sophrona and Ann. Of these, Jane married Henry Cook, Sophira became the wife of John Allen, and Jeanette married James Yates.

Elihu S. Neff was married July 5, 1832, to Amanda Howell, a daugh- ter of Isaac and Deborah (Barnett) Howell, the father being a native of Wales, a farmer by vocation and an early pioneer of the State of Kentucky, where he died. After his death his widow moved to Indiana, and there passed away, being buried in Franklin County, at the age of ninety-six years and five months. Mrs. Neff died in August, 1887, aged seventy-three years, while Mr. Neff survived until April 6, 1896. Their children were as follows: Oliver H., who met his death by a stroke. of lightning in 1868 and left a wife and three sons; Isaac M .; Lydia J., who married Richard Utter and died in Nebraska ; Francis M., of Ridge- way, Missouri; Charles H., who died in childhood; Daniel B., a resident of San Diego, California; Deborah, who died at the age of seven years ; Orange T., who reared a family and died in Caldwell, Kansas; Elihu O., a farmer near Ridgeway, Missouri; Mary, who married Daniel Pilcher ; Emily C., who first married Thomas Wiley, and second John Adkinson and died near Caldwell, Kansas; Sarah, who married Frank Reaksecker and died in Harrison County ; and Laura, who married Jo Stephens, of Caldwell, Kansas.

Isaac M. Neff received his education mainly at home, aided somewhat by his father who was too constantly at his work to give much aid, and his

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mother learned to read and write after he did from the same source, He possessed an inherited mathematical turn, as well as a fondness for books, and became a teacher himself despite the fact that he had seldom been a pupil of school. As a teacher he taught in the Walnut School, where Gardner Station is now situated, December 6, 1862. Of the eighty pupils who enrolled in and out of the district, only one is now a resident of the district and none of the parents of those students survive. The number of pupils now in that district is less than half the number who attended his school, and the farm houses now occupied are fewer than one-fourth of what they were then as a result of the develop- ment and growth of the "larger farm." Mr. Neff taught in five different districts in Missouri, but his earliest work was done in Indiana as a youth of eighteen years. The total of the young folks who have attended his public and private schools is 1,470, the Sabbath school teaching span- ning almost the period of his active life. He educated mainly for the farm, and a wonderfully successful lot of men went out of his schools as farmers, but in spite of this his teaching was with him rather a side line, for he was engaged in careful farming ventures at the same time. He has continued his studies through life, and learned the laws govern- ing the solar system by securing a complete treatise on astronomy, and at the age of eighty can commit to memory better than at an earlier age.

The early boyhood of Mr. Neff had been passed in the days of financial depression that marked President Jackson's administration and the years that immediately followed. Labor was then worth but twenty cents a day, wheat after being cut with the hand sickle and threshed by hand brought only forty cents a bushel, half in goods and half in money, at Cincinnati, sixty miles away ; a suit of clothes could be had for four dollars, and rich and poor were obliged to work hard to make both ends meet. This early experience without doubt bred in him a spirit of thrift and industry that enabled him to make a success of his later labors. He was always able to give at least one-third of his earnings to help the needy. In the matter of agriculture Mr. Neff is able as a result of numerous experiments to teach many of the teachers of the colleges of agriculture. He has been able to produce on one sweet potato vine three bushels of potatoes by irrigation, and four good ears on one stalk of his "Yellow Dent" corn. His experiments have covered the conservation of moisture, subirrigation and the handling of different plants at any season of the year, transplanting trees and plants to determine how readily they would recover and produce fruit. One pear tree which he moved at four years old, produced within eighteen months 100 pears that weighed forty-seven pounds. He then lifted this pear tree which, with the roots and leaves intact, weighed thirty-six pounds, and reset it with the leaves not wilting, and in less than two years gathered 102 pears from its branches and picked up twenty-three windfalls. According to Mr. Neff this demonstrates that any plant or tree in foliage can be transplanted successfully if the roots are not injured. In another field of agriculture Mr. Neff is also a pioneer, for he brought the first Poland- China hogs to Harrison County in 1858, when hogs were worth only $1.25 per hundred pounds.

As a mechanical engineer and practical mechanic Mr. Neff was active for more than forty years, moving eighty-one houses between July 10 and November 17, 1876. His work as a mover included three large grist mills. One conspicuous case was the moving of the Cainesville mill from its props on the edge of Grand River to the high bank, where it was lifted twelve feet to form a basement. The mill contained eighty tons of grain at the time of moving. He built the first bridge over Grand River, making the water itself cut or excavate the ground for the abutments,

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a new and cheap method of doing that sort of work. At the same time he straightened the channel of Grand River. He has had experience in all kinds of excavation, straightening up and repairing, putting addi- tional stories on houses and erecting new homes for the people of his county, and has used as many as forty-four horses on some of his loads, and employed as many as twenty-five men on a job, and never had a man nor an animal to lose its temper and fail to do good work.

In his polities, Mr. Neff first voted for John C. Fremont, and cast two ballots for President Lincoln, and has voted for all the republican candidates since. In 1864, while in the military camp at Chillicothe, as a member of Captain Frisby's company, Col. James Neville's regiment, in which he largely did hospital work, he had some difficulty in returning home to cast his vote. While he was ready to fight as a soldier, he has always favored universal peace, but his sentiments in regard to slavery and the defense of the home caused him to take up arms. His mission in politics of recent years is to aid in the correction of the evil which has come to dominate portions of our government and to restore the . truth to power everywhere. He confesses allegiance to no man or party and reserves for himself the right to expose error in public affairs and to lend a hand in its overthrow. He makes addresses, speeches and talks on occasions, and writes freely and extensively upon the great opportu- nities men have to combat evil and to correct error in private as well as in public life. In this connection it may be said that he is also well known on the lecture platform before bodies of farmers and agricultural investigators as well as students, upon subjects pertaining to farming. Mr. Neff is a strong temperance man, and favors the county unit law as proposed, as well as votes for women. Throughout his life he has continued to engage in Sabbath school work, and on numerous occasions has been a delegate to conventions and conferences of Sabbath school workers.

In addition to bringing up his own family, Mr. Neff has reared seven orphan children, educated them in a business way, taught them all kinds of domestic work, and never an unkind word has ever escaped any one of them toward him. One of them, Nona, enumerated the citizens of the township in 1909 and was the first enumerator to report her work as completed. These children were: Zula Neff, who is the wife of Alexan- der Bond; Vernie Neff, who is the wife of Jesse Little; Nona Neff, who still resides with Mr. Neff; Bert I., who is a successful farmer of Fox Creek Township; and Juna Neff, who married Rev. Floyd Morgan of Mercer, Missouri; Ollie Ballew, who is the wife of Thomas Arney, of Harrison County, Missouri; and Wilma Barnes Chuning, of Clayton, New Mexico.

Mr. Neff was married February 6, 1856, in Franklin County, Indiana, to Miss Barbara A. Maple, daughter of Elijah and Sarah (Coon) Maple. She was born August 28, 1834, and died August 8, 1897, was a devout Christian woman, a member of the United Brethren Church, and a woman of clear thought and careful speech, who took a great interest in doing her work well and was a most domestic and home-loving woman. She possessed great attraction for her children and grandchildren, and when she died left many sorrowing friends in the community. The children born to Mr. and Mrs. Neff were as follows: William H., residing on the old homestead, who married Nellie Good, and has three children; Alvah, who married Grace Hubbard; Lillie, who married James Childers, and Joseph, who married Edna Bryant; Sarah Amanda, who married . J. I. Straight, of Bonesteel, South Dakota, and has seven children-Elma, Merlin, Walter, Van, Lucile, Forest and Ronda; Thomas V., a farmer of Harrison County, married Allie McGowin and has three children,

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Ethel, Mon and Van. Their mother died eleven years ago and four years ago their father married Jennie Dewit, a widow with three children. He has one son from this marriage. John P., of Gilman, Missouri, who married Delila Gibson and has a daughter, Merle; Rhoda, who married Henry Leazenby of Bethany, Missouri; and Franklin E., who married Minnie MeGowin and has four children, Hazel, Edith, Delbert and Elgin.

In the very month that Mr. Neff celebrated his eightieth birthday anniversary, he entered upon a personal campaign which lasted for many days in his efforts to secure the establishment of certain principles and certain reforms which his study and observation have led him to believe essential to the proper working of government and the administration of justice. Mr. Neff has also been greatly stirred by the events of the European war, and having little patience with the superficial aspects and causes which have been so prominently emphasized by statesmen and political philosophers, he is one of those who recognize that the war primarily and fundamentally is the result of a perversion of truth and those divine principles upon which the welfare and health of society . must always rest. In his home district Mr. Neff has exerted his influence to secure the abrogation of rules and methods by which the administra- tion of justice in the courts is too often turned aside and perverted in the interests of attorneys, who, he claims, have too often ruled the court and have made of judicial procedure little more than a game of chance.

Mr. Neff at the patriarchal age of eighty is still one of the most valuable citizens of Harrison County, and a man whose conversation is always interesting and enlightening. Much more might be written of his activities and the influence which he has exerted in his community, but the limits assigned to this sketch have already been passed and it will be necessary to close.

J. A. ROBERTS. For nearly a half century the Roberts family have been conspicuous members of the rural community half a dozen miles west of Savannah in Lincoln Township, where J. A. Roberts has his home in section 3. The name bespeaks a large relationship with both the older and later generations of Andrew County people and while the lives of most of them have been spent in the normal and inconspicuous walks of life, they have been none the less useful, have walked upright in the sight of men and God, and those that have gone have left the world a little better for their presence.

J. A. Roberts, though a resident of Andrew County most of his life, was born in Richardson County, Nebraska, July 27, 1857. His family were among the pioneers of Nebraska Territory, and his birth occurred shortly after the historic debate on and settlement of the Kansas- Nebraska question. Mr. Roberts is a son of the late J. W. and Sarah Ann (Walker) Roberts. The paternal grandparents were Arnett and Ann (Thompson) Roberts, both of whom were born in Kentucky and both died at Salem, Nebraska. Some facts that will contribute to the family history are found in an obituary of Ann (Thompson) Roberts, who died in Salem, Nebraska, at the home of her daughter, Mrs. J. C. Lincoln, October 15, 1892, aged eighty-four years nine months and fourteen days. She was the daughter of Gideon and Jane Thompson, and was born in Todd County, Kentucky, and was married to Arnett Roberts when sixteen years of age. They removed from Kentucky to Cooper County, Missouri, in the spring of 1826, lived there a year or two, then to Clay County, Missouri, and in 1842 entered land a mile and . a half south of Fillmore in Andrew County. That was their home until 1856 when they went out to Richardson County, Nebraska, and were the

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first settlers in the vicinity of Salem. Arnett Roberts died at Salem in February, 1862, his widow surviving him thirty years. They were the parents of eight children, four sons and four daughters, and only three of them survived their mother. Those who grew up were three sons and two daughters: James W .; Obediah, Samuel, Eliza Lincoln and Carrie Holt.

The late J. W. Roberts, father of J. A. Roberts, was born in Cooper County, Missouri, May 22, 1826, and was about sixteen years of age when his parents came to Andrew County in February, 1842. He was married February 25, 1849, to Sarah A. Walker, who was born in Estill County, Kentucky, July 22, 1829, moved with her parents to Clay County, Missouri, in 1830, and thence to Andrew County in 1837, the Walkers having been among the very first settlers in that section of Northwest Missouri. In October, 1854, J. W. Roberts and wife removed to Richard- son County, Nebraska, and helped to establish the frontier line of civiliza- tion in that state. They lived there about a dozen years, and in November, 1866, returned to Andrew County. Here J. W. Roberts bought a farm on Hackberry, six miles west of Savannah, and lived there working as a farmer and increasing his revenues by employment as a carpenter among the neighbors throughout the rest of his active career. J. W. Roberts and wife traveled through life together nearly fifty-eight years, and died within thirty-six hours of each other. . Mr. Roberts died at his old home February 3, 1907, aged seventy-nine years eight months and seven days, and less than two days later his wife passed away February 5, 1907. She had united with the Christian Church in 1858 and remained steadfast in its membership until her death. She is remembered as a faithful wife, a devoted mother and a kind neighbor. J. W. Roberts, who was long affectionately known in his community as "Uncle Billy," was a man who had gone through some of the hard experiences of pioneering, but always retained an optimistic attitude towards life, and his death marked the passing of one of Andrew County's oldest and best citizens. He had become identified with the Masonic order in 1848, and for many years was in good standing in his lodge. J. W. Roberts and wife were the parents of ten children: Mary Martin, deceased; Susan Martin, deceased; Alexander D., of the State of Washington ; J. A .; Frank, a resident of Washington; David, of Andrew County ; Samuel, who died in 1878; William, of Andrew County ; Jennie Patterson, of Warrensburg, Missouri; and Carrie Evans of Savannah. The late J. W. Roberts was the first man to carry the mail between Sparta in Andrew County and Rockport in Atchison County, and per- formed this service during 1844 to 1848.

Mr. J. A. Roberts has lived in Andrew County since the return of his parents to this section from Nebraska in October, 1866. He was about ten years of age at that time and finished his education in the public schools of this county. His home has been on the farm where his father died west of Savannah with the exception of the first four years after his marriage, when he lived in another locality west of Savannah. Mr. Roberts owns 104 acres, utilized for general farming purposes. He has been a progressive and successful citizen. He is affiliated with the Modern Woodmen of America and belongs to the Christian Church in Savannah.

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A history of northwest Missouri, Volume III, Part 98

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