USA > Missouri > Centennial history of Missouri, vol. 1 > Part 4
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The marriage of Mr. Shapleigh and Miss Elizabeth Anne Umstead, of Philadelphia, was celebrated in 1838, and they became parents of eight chil- dren, five of whom survive; Mrs. J. Will Boyd. A. F., Dr. John B., Richard W. and Alfred Lee Shapleigh.
The death of Augustus F. Shapleigh occurred in February, 1902. when he had reached the venerable age of ninety-two years. Thus passed from life one whose activity made the world better. While he never sought the distinction that comes in political and military circles, his record was char- acterized by the faithful performance of each day's duty to the best of his ability-and that his ability was of superior order is indicated in the splen- did results he achieved. Ilis entire career was in conformity with the high- est standard of commercial ethics, and his history indicates that splendid success and an honored name may be won simultaneously. In early manhood he gave his political support to the whig party and on its dissolution joined the ranks of the republican party. Ile was long a member of the Central Pres- byterian church and religion was to him no mere idle word. It guided him in all his relations with his fellowmen, and he ever strove toward those ideals of living which were set before the world by the Nazarene teacher more than nineteen centuries ago.
Weding letem
Marvin C. Singleton
M
ARVIN E. SINGLETON, one of the many to lay aside personal interests to serve the cause of democracy when America was at war with Germany and possessor of the Distinguished Service Medal awarded by congress for meritorious work as ordnanec district chief during the World war, has for many years been a conspicuous figure among the prominent business men of the country.
He was born in Ellis county, Texas, January 6, 1872. His father, John Haw- kins Singleton, a native of Kentucky, was one of the pioneer settlers of Texas where he moved in 1848; he served in the Mexican war, the Texas Revolution and as a first lieutenant in the Confederate army, in which conflict his brother was killed. Rebecca Ann Barker, his mother, was a native of Tennessee and moved to Texas with her parents during her girlhood and there she later became the wife of Mr. Singleton. She died in May, 1901, when in her seventy-second year.
The country schools of Ellis county offered Marvin E. Singleton no special advantages over those to any other young man and even this opportunity for education was necessarily shortened owing to the death of his father. He secured a position as clerk in a merchandise store where he remained only a short time, leaving to take up work as a shipping clerk in a cotton warehouse. And later he became interested in a cotton seed oil mill business which was organized in 1898 under the name of the Fort Worth Cotton Oil Company. This company built a plant at Fort Worth and Mr. Singleton was made secretary and manager of the business.
He withdrew from this company in 1902 to organize the East St. Louis Cotton Oil Company of which he was originally secretary and general manager, becoming president and general manager in 1912. He continued to fill this position until he sold out in February, 1918.
Almost immediately after selling out this business he was appointed a mem- ber of the War Labor Board of the St. Louis distriet engaged in an effort to adjust and settle industrial disputes. And in July, 1918, he was called to Washington. D. C., by General C. C. Williams and there appointed ordnance distriet chief of the St. Louis ordnance district, which included all territory west of the Mississippi river. He supervised the organizing of the St. Louis office, all ordnance work in his territory and the final settlement of all claims arising out of war contracts involving millions of dollars. It was for this most efficient service that he was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal by the government, this being the highest honor given any civilian in the United States.
Before the ordnance work had been finally disposed of he was elected the presi- dent of the Missouri State Life Insurance Company in March, 1919, and con- tinues in this office.
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Darvin C. Singleton
Mr. Singleton was married to Miss Susie Clary of Corsicana, Texas, in 1897. Their children are: Edward C .. John H., Susie S., Elizabeth R., Marvin E., Jr., Joe Ready. and June. Mrs. Singleton died January 16, 1920. The eldest son enlisted in the Field Artillery at Camp Taylor; he is much interested in football and golf. playing both games well. Mr. Singleton, too, enjoys a good game of golf. but prefers, whenever he can spend any time away from business, to visit his Netherlands farm in southeast Missouri. He is a Methodist and attends the church at Kings Highway and Washington boulevard.
Mr. Singleton was married in February, 1921. to Mrs. Elsa P. Logeman of St. Louis.
He is a well known member of many clubs, among which are the Noonday, St. Louis Club, Missouri Athletic Association and Glen Echo Country Club. He is a Mason, belonging to Tuscan Lodge, A. F. & A. M .. St. Louis Chapter No. S. R. A. M., Ascalon Commandery. K. T .. to the Scottish Rite bodies and to Moolah Temple of the Mystic Shrine. His interest in affairs of civic importance is evi- denced by his membership in the Chamber of Commerce, of which he is a director.
He has breadth of vision, as well as initiative and an unlimited supply of "stick-to-it-iveness " and determination. His strength of character and his pleas- ing personality have not only been elements in his success in the business world, but have featured largely in the accomplishments of his purposes for the benefit of others and the upbuilding of the city.
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Warwick M. Hough
Warwick Massey Dough
ARWICK MASSEY HOUGH, whose connection with some of W the most important cases tried in America has brought him national reputation as a lawyer, his position being that of one of the most eminent and honored members of the St. Louis bar, was born in Columbus, Mississippi, September 29, 1862, his parents being Judge Warwick and Nina Elizabeth (Massey) Hough. The father, who was a distinguished jurist, passed away October 28, 1915, and is mentioned at length on another page of this work.
After pursuing his education in the public schools of Kansas City, Missouri, Warwick M. Hough continued his studies in the St. Louis University and in Cen- tral College at Fayette, Missouri, where he completed his academic course in 1883. Attracted to the profession to which his father devoted his life, the son began his law studies under his father's direction, thus continuing his reading from 1883 until 1886 and also gaining legal experience in the office of the clerk of the supreme court of Missouri, where he assisted in preparing opinions of the court for the official reporter. On the Ist of February, 1886, he won admission to the bar, being licensed to practice before the circuit court, and he at once entered upon professional work in St. Louis. His biographers, writing of him about eight years ago, said: "During the latter part of President Cleveland's first adminis- tration he was assistant United States district attorney for the eastern division of the eastern district of Missouri, Hon. Thomas P. Bashaw being at that time the district attorney. While serving in this capacity he was called upon to make a close study of the internal revenue laws of the United States and as a result he has since, while engaged in general practice, given special attention to litigation of all kinds growing out of the enforcement of the revenue laws and has achieved marked distinction in this line of professional work. Among his distinguishing characteristics as a practitioner have been absolute fearlessness in the discharge of his duty to his elients, painstaking effort in the preparation of his eases and prompt and vigorous action in cases requiring such action. As a trial lawyer he is conspicuous for the force, directness and clearness of his statements to both courts and juries, and for his courteous demeanor under all circumstances. Espe- cially happy in presenting the strong points of his own case and in exposing the weakness of an adversary's cause, he has shown himself the well rounded and well equipped lawyer in a practice which covers a wide and varied field." During the past seven years, however, Mr. Hough has confined his attention exclusively to corporation, internal revenue and pure food laws and during President Taft's administration he was chief counselor in what was known as the Whiak case, which was one of national importance, in which Mr. Hough was associated with Mr. Choate, Senator Armstrong, Mr. Lucking and Lawrence Maxwell of Cincin- nati, Ohio. Mr. Hough also tried the largest libel case ever heard in the United
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States, brought against the American Medical Association. Four months were consumed in the trial of this case and the court costs and expenses incurred amounted to over two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. In both of these cases, which were of national interest, he was successful and thus heightened his fame as one of the leading lawyers of the country.
On the 22d of October, 1890, Mr. Hough was married at Waterloo, Iowa, to Miss Elizabeth Gage, formerly of St. Louis, and a daughter of Charles and Mary S. Gage and granddaughter of Frances Dana Gage, of Ohio, who in her day was a well known and popular writer. Through her Mrs. Hough is also descended from Captain William Dana, who commanded a company of artillery at the battle of Bunker Hill and whose wife was Mary Bancroft. Mrs. Hough is prominent in the social circles of St. Louis, where she has many friends.
Politically Mr. Hough is a democrat, but has taken comparatively little part in active political work, although in 1896 he entered the presidential campaign as the champion of bimetallism, free trade and the reserved rights of the states in opposi- tion to centralization of power. During the period of the World war he was a member of the legal advisory board and active in support of all war movements. Fraternally he is connected with Occidental Lodge, A. F. & A. M. He is never found wanting when men are needed to champion a principle or to uphold na- tional interests. Nothing that concerns the welfare of his fellowmen is foreign to him and the nature of his interests is indicated in his membership in the Citi- zens' Industrial Association, the Civic League, the Business Men's League of St. Louis, in the Law Library Association and the St. Louis Bar Association, in the American Bar Association and in the American Academy of Political and Social Science. That the social element in his nature has not been neglected is also evidenced in the fact that he has membership in the Missouri Athletic Association, in the Racquet, Noonday, St. Louis, Country and Bellerive Clubs of St. Louis and in Chevy Chase of Washington, D. C. He enjoys the outdoor sports offered in hunting, fishing, motoring and golf and by reason of his literary tastes many of his happiest hours are spent in his library in association with the men of master minds of all ages.
Byron Hugeux
Byron Rugent
T HERE is something inspiring in the life record of such men as Byron Nugent, of whom it was said, "Coming to St. Louis thirty-five years ago there was no time in the interval from 1873 to the day of his death in 1908 when Byron Nugent was not a force for progress in the life of this community." For many years he was actively engaged in the dry goods business and became equally prominent as a factor in financial circles but the attainment of success was only one end and aim of his life. He always recognized and met his obligations to his fellowmen and his duties of citizenship and thereby became one of the valued and honored residents of St. Louis.
Mr. Nugent was born in Marysburgh, Prince Edward county, Ontario, July 1, 1842, and was a son of Thomas and Eleanor A. (Morgan) Nugent. At the usual age he became a pupil in the public schools and later attended Victoria College, at Coberg, Ontario. He was a young man of twenty-one years when he made his initial step in the business world by accepting a clerkship in the store of Robert Carrie, a Scotch merchant of St. Thomas, Ontario. He afterward went to New York city where he was employed by the firm of Lord & Taylor, from 1865 until 1867. He then visited his old home in Canada and one day met on the street an old friend who said he was going to Chicago. Mr. Nugent was then on his way to a telegraph office to wire acceptance of a position in New York but instantly changed his mind and that night accompanied his friend to Chicago. Thus he took his place in the commercial development of the middle west where he was later destined to play an important part in the business development and upbuilding of the section. He soon secured a situation in the wholesale house of Bowen, Hunt & Winslow, which went out of existence soon after the Chicago fire.
In 1869 Mr. Nugent established business on his own account by opening a small store in Mt. Vernon, Illinois, where he was joined by his brother, Morgan Nugent, who passed away in 1870. It was in March, 1873, that Byron Nugent sold his store in Mt. Vernon and cast in his lot with the business men of St. Louis where he purchased a small store formerly owned by James Barron, at the southeast corner of Broadway and Franklin avenue, and conducted it under the style of B. Nugent from 1873 to 1878. Here he later admitted to partnership his three brothers, James G., Daniel C. and Charles W. Nugent, all of whom are now deceased except Daniel C. Business was carried on for a time under the firm style of B. Nugent & Brothers, and in 1899 their interests were incorporated under the name of B. Nugent & Brothers Dry Goods Company, of which Byron Nugent became president and so continued until his life's labors were ended in death. His careful direction of the business, his well laid plans and his unfalter- ing enterprise proved effective elements in the attainment of notable success.
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Spron nugent
The integrity of his methods combined with his determination to bring desired results in all of his business affairs. Aside from his commercial pursuits he became a director of the Boatmen's Bank of St. Louis and his name was ever an honored one on commercial paper.
In January, 1873, Mr. Nugent was married to Miss Julia Lake, of Nunda, New York, and they became the parents of three sons: Edwin T., Byron and Julian L. It is said that Mr. Nugent was never happier than when he gathered around him at his fireside his wife and children as evening came on and put behind him the cares and perplexities of business. In his later years he traveled extensively and gained comprehensive knowledge of the lands and peoples that he visited, for he was a close observer and possessed a most retentive memory. He had a most interesting way of recounting his reminiscences of his travels and was at all times an entertaining talker.
Mr. Nugent belonged to the Episcopal church and his life was ever the expression of high ideals. He held membership with the St. Louis Country and Noonday Clubs, also belonged to the Mercantile Club and to the St. Louis Retail Merchants Association which at his death expressed regret in a fitting memorial, as follows:
"Resolved, that in the death of Byron Nugent, our association, the retail business men of the city and of the county and the city of St. Louis have suffered a loss which it is difficult to estimate. For more than a generation he has stood in the front rank of merchants in this vicinity for success, integrity and publie spirit. High character, untiring industry and unswerving devotion to the interests of the city have made his name and the name of his business universally known. We mourn his loss and desire these words to express as best we may our appreciation of what his life has meant to us, his business friends with whom he has so long associated in friendly endeavor.
"Resolved, that the retail merchants be requested to close their stores on Tuesday, April 7, between two and three P. M., the hour of the funeral."
One of the local papers said at his death, "Of a numerous family of strong men, from a sturdy Canadian race, the merchant who passed from the scenes of his activity on Saturday, April 4, 1908, was in a sense a pioneer. His little place of business of thirty-five years ago was opened at a time when St. Louis was yet merely 'promising' and it was men of the Nugent type that made the promise good in the brilliantly successful development of this day. Byron Nugent was active in a broad way publicly and in an effective way in his private beneficences. Uneompromising in truth, sympathetic in disposition, unsusceptible to flattery, he was a man of sterling qualities and unreserved in friendships onee made. Always forceful in his publie spirit and disinterested in his devotion to the welfare of the community, positive in decision, contemporaneous with the spirit and progress of his time, aristocratie by nature but a plain man by act and by ten- deney, he lived a life worth living, a eredit to his name and to his city. His passing to the tomb leaves an indelible impress upon the activities of St. Louis and in the hearts of those who knew him."
N. C. Steigers
William C. Steigers
ILLIAM C. STEIGERS, who has passed the seventy-fifth W milestone on life's journey, has through an extended period been closely identified not only with the business development but with the civic progress of St. Louis, which numbers him among her native sons, his birth having here occurred Septem- ber 15, 1845, on Market street between Third and Fourth streets, and the house is still standing, his parents being Franeis I. and Sarah (Price) Steigers. The father was engaged in the wholesale and retail grocery business, and spending his youthful days under the parental roof William C. Steigers attended the Wyman school and afterward the Christian Brothers College, the Laclede and Washington schools and other educational institutions of St. Louis, until September, 1862, when he enlisted in the Eighth Missouri Regiment at the age of seventeen years, or one year before the youth of the country is regarded as of military age. The south was conscripting, the north drafting and every volunteer, regardless of age, was welcomed as a hero if he could carry a gun. The war was being fiercely waged and the air was surcharged with patriotie excitement. No boy born for a life of strenuous action as was young Steigers could breathe such atmosphere and put aside his yearning to begin the doing of manly things. His elder brother, Dr. A. F. Steigers, was a surgeon in the United States regular army and continued in that service for thirty years, or from 1861 until his death in 1891, at which time as a surgeon he was connected with the Medieal Corps of the army at Washington, D. C.
William C. Steigers left the schoolroom to join the army and was with his regiment in many hotly contested engagements, including Arkansas Post and the siege of Vieksburg, resulting finally in the opening up of the Mississippi river. Before the capitulation of Vicksburg, however, positions in the field signal service had been offered to the candidates of the various regiments who could pass the best seholarship examination. Being just out of school Mr. Steigers was an easy winner as the candidate of the Eighth Missouri. Signal work brought him into elose communication with Grant and other famous commanders, but it involved extremely arduous and dangerous service at times. One hot day, late in the summer of 1863, an amount of hard riding that wore out two horses sent him prostrated to the hospital. A serious illness followed and when he left the hospital in October, 1863, it was with an honorable discharge from the army on account of physical disability.
Immediately after reaching home Mr. Steigers seeured a position in the Eagle Foundry as bookkeeper and on the 12th of April, 1868, made his initial step in the newspaper field as collector for the Evening Dispatch. He was soon advaneed to the position of advertising manager and continued to act in that capacity until he resigned and became the advertising manager of the St. Louis
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William C. Steigers
Morning Times, published by Stilson Hutchins, in January, 1872. After filling this position on the Times for several years he resigned and became the adver- tising manager of the Evening Post in July, 1878. He was retained in the same position by the Post-Dispatch after the consolidation of the two papers on the 12th of December, 1878, continuing thus to serve until October, 1895, when Mr. Pulitzer employed him as advertising manager on the New York World, pending a suit for the recovery of the Post-Dispatch from the control of Charles H. Jones. Upon the latter's surrender of his interest in June, 1897, Mr. Steigers resumed his old position on the Post-Dispatch and his contribution to the phenomenal prosperity sinee attained by that paper has been recognized by his promotion to the positions he now fills as business manager, director and second vice president.
On the 4th of September, 1896, Mr. Steigers was married to Miss Helen Martha Wadsworth, daughter of Charles Chester Wadsworth, the latter a nephew of General James Wadsworth of New York. Mrs. Steigers' mother was an own cousin of Sir Robert Peel, long the premier of the United Kingdom. The death of his father in 1863 left to Mr. Steigers' eare a widowed mother and a younger brother and sister, all now deceased.
It would hardly be possible to name any publie welfare organization of St. Louis in which Mr. Steigers has not been actively interested. He has done important work in support of the plans and measures of the Business Men's League, the Civie Improvement League and the Million Club of St. Louis and he was one of the early promoters and supporters of the World's Fair Movement, becoming a director of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition Company and aeting as a member of its publicity committee. As stated, he is the oldest past exalted ruler of St. Louis Lodge, B. P. O. E., having been a faithful follower of the teachings of this organization since he became one of its members on the 2d of April, 1882. He has for some years been a member of the Chamber of Com- meree, the New York Athletic Club, also the Missouri Athletic Club, the Glen Echo Club, the St. Louis Club, the Sunset Hill Country Club, the Midland Valley Club, the Century Boat Club, the City Club and the Million Population Club.
Born a child of her business life when St. Louis was only a big river village on the outer verge of civilization and remote from railways, Mr. Steigers has been, through his adult life, a strong and earnest factor in the evolutionary activities that have converted his native town into the great St. Louis of today. Advertising her business interests has been his ehosen personal occupation for fifty-three years and how to promote them his constant study. This brought him into elose daily relations with men of every commercial or industrial line of enterprise. His alert and forceful personality impressed itself upon all, while his fair-mindedness and fidelity to all obligations won and retained their con- fidenee. In his own line of business, therefore, he has made a most enviable record of unrivaled success, and that, too, without allowing personal interest or ambition to dwarf his public spirit or activities. It is the record of a strenuous life -- the record of a strong individuality, sure of itself, stable in purpose, quiek in perception, swift in decision, energetic and persistent in action. His feelings have ever found expression in prompt action rather than in blank-cartridge professions. When war broke out between the north and south, he didn't stay
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at home to sympathize with either, but pitched in with the first regiment that would accept a seventeen-year-old boy as a soldier.
It goes without saying that a man born with such a high-pressure momentum has never been a deadhead in his relations to the interests of his native city, but rather a wheel-horse in every public welfare movement of his time; that, too, without seeking official favors or desiring any preferment outside of the private calling to which he had devoted his life. It is enough for him that his early business friends are still his friends; that relations established long ago with business concerns in old St. Louis shops have remained unbroken, while those same concerns were growing into gigantie department stores, occupying aeres on aeres of floors in enormous modern structures. Finally, if he seeks further proof that his life and labors were not in vain he finds it in the magnificent prosperity of his native eity and of the newspaper which had less than two thou- sand circulation when he began to work for it fifty-three years ago, and now circulates an average of over one hundred and seventy-five thousand copies daily and three hundred and sixty thousand Sundays while he presides over its business management and is the second vice president, and a member of the board of directors of the Pulitzer Publishing Company, publisher of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
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