USA > Missouri > Centennial history of Missouri, vol. 2 > Part 4
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John Barber White
is well known in Masonie eireles, having attained the thirty-second degree of the Scottish Rite. As a clubman, too, he is well known, belonging to the Chamber of Commerce, Mid-Day, City, Knife and Fork Clubs, the Kansas City Club, and the Mission Hills Golf Club, all of Kansas City. While he maintains his winter residence in Kansas City, he has a fine summer home at Bemus Point, Chautauqua county, New York, and thus he maintains associations with the distriet in which his birth occurred. He has long been a man of broad vision and of high ideals whose life has never been self-centered. While he has at- tempted important things and has accomplished what he has attempted, his success has never represented another's losses, but has resulted from effort intelligently applied, and the generous use which he has made of his means in assisting others marks him as a man of kindly spirit, who recognizes the obliga- tions and responsibilities of life.
Hon. Rolla Wells
ON. ROLLA WELLS has long been an outstanding figure in H connection with the banking, street railway and political in- terests of St. Louis. The soundness of his views on all ques- tions of public policy has made him a recognized leader of publie thought and action and there has never been any ques- tion as to the sineerity of his purpose and the integrity of his views. He was born in St. Louis, Missouri, Jme 1, 1856, and is a son of the Hon. Erastus and Isabella Bowman ( Henry ) Wells. The father was a prominent railroad man of Missouri who for more than forty years figured in the public life of the state and from 1869 until 1877, or for a period of four consecutive terms, was a member of congress.
In the aequirement of his education Rolla Wells attended Washington University of St. Louis and afterward Princeton University of New Jersey. Ile then entered the offices of the street railway company of which his father was president, but his advancement was won through individual merit and ability and his developing powers brought him to the position of assistant superintendent. In 1879 he became general manager of the road, succeeding A. W. Henry, under whom he had previously served. He continued in that position until 1883 and in that period brought about many improvements. He then retired from the railroad business in order to take up the management of his father's various business enterprises and was thus active until the death of the father in 1893. In that year he became the president of the American Steel Foundry Company and as such identified with one of the important cor- porations of the city. The prompt execution of well formulated plans has been one of the strong elements in his growing sueeess.
In St. Louis, in 1878, Mr. Wells was united in marriage to Miss Jennie Howard Parker, who passed away April 8, 1917. Their children are Mrs. J. Clark Streett, Erastus, Lloyd Parker, Mrs. Tom K. Smith and Mrs. Elzey MI. Roberts. The sons are graduates of Princeton University.
The honorary degree of Master of Arts was conferred upon Mr. Wells by Washington University in June, 1912, and hy Princeton University in June, 1916. He is a prominent figure in the club circles of St. Louis, having mem- hership with the University, St. Louis, Racquet, Noonday, City, St. Louis Country, Log Cabin and Cuivre Clubs. He was decorated with the Third Class Order of Red Eagle in 1902, the Chinese Order of the Double Dragon and the Japanese Order of the Rising Sun in 1905.
Mr. Wells was long a dominant figure in democratie circles in St. Louis and the state. He has taken keen interest in politics from the time when age conferred upon him the right of franchise. He was a delegate to the democratie national convention held in Indianapolis in 1896 and in the same year became president
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Don. Rolla Wells
of the Sound Money Democratie Club of St. Louis. In the spring of 1901 he was nominated for mayor of the city on the democratie ticket and was eleeted for a four years' term, and that his administration was businesslike, progressive and fraught with various measures of public improvement is indi- cated in the fact that he was reelected for the succeeding term. While he was mayor every department of the eity government was placed on a sound business basis and the affairs of the municipality were in excellent shape at the end of his second term. In 1912 he was treasurer of the national democratie com- mittee, during the first Wilson eampaign, and during the first campaign after the corrupt practices act was passed, which involved endless details to be kept of all campaign funds. Ile was governor of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis from October 28, 1914, to February 5, 1919, when he resigned to devote himself to his personal affairs. In April, 1919, he was appointed receiver for the United Railways Company of St. Louis. He belongs to that elass of prom- inent business men who recognize that life holds its obligations for every indi- vidual in the matter of citizenship. Ile feels that it should be the duty and the business of every man to aid to the extent of his ability in solving the vital publie problems that are continually arising and to render such serviee in public affairs as lies within his power. When every man does meet his obliga- tions the perplexing questions of the republie will be solved. Mr. Wells has set a splendid example in this direction.
William & Iamitt
William C. Scarritt
'ILLIAM C. SCARRITT, lawyer, is a representative of one of W the most prominent and honored families of Missouri, his parents being the Rev. Nathan and Martha M. (Chick) Sear- ritt. Born on March 21, 1861, in Westport, which later be- eame a part of Kansas City, Missouri, he has resided in that city ever since. After attending the public schools in Kansas City, he afterward attended Central College at Fayette, Mis- souri, where he was graduated with a master's degree in the class of 1881. He took his law course in the law school of Boston University, where he received the degree of LL. B. in 1883, and then, on the first of July, 1883, began practice in Kansas City in association with his brother, Judge Edward L. Scarritt, un- der the firm style of Scarritt & Scarritt, a connection that was maintained for ten years, until the elevation of his brother to the beneh of the state circuit court.
William C. Scarritt afterward practiced alone for three years, and then organized the firm of Scarritt, Griffith & Jones, of which Judge Scarritt became a member upon his retirement from the beneh in 1899. The members of this firm, with the exception of Mr. Griffith, who died in 1906, have continued to- gether in the practice until the present time, the firm name having been changed, first to Scarritt, Scarritt & Jones, then to the present name of Scarritt, Jones, Seddon & North.
For many years William C. Scarritt has been recognized as one of the lead- ing members of the Kansas City bar, and as one of the ablest practitioners be- fore the state and federal appellate courts. Devotedly attached to his profession, systematic and methodical in habit, sober and discreet in judgment, untiring and conscientious in earing for the interests of his clients, and courteous and fair in his dealings with his adversaries, these qualities served to win for him the respect and high regard of the beneh and bar of Missouri and the confidenee of his clients. For many years he has been an active member of the Kansas City, the Missouri State and the American Bar Associations.
Mr. Searritt has always taken an interest in civic and political affairs. He has been an active member of the Chamber of Commerce of Kansas City prac- tieally since its organization. In politics he is an earnest democrat and has done mueh to shape the policy of the party in his city and state. He was one of those who performed the legal work in connection with the development of Kansas City's great park system. Through appointment by Governor Stephens, he served one term as police commissioner of Kansas City, and in 1917 he Was appointed by the mayor one of a commission of seven to draft a new charter for Kansas City.
In 1884 Mr. Scarritt was married to Miss Frances V. Davis, a daughter of
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William C. Scarritt
Temple Davis, of Hannibal, Missouri, and they have become the parents of four children, William II., Frances M., Arthur Davis and Dorothy Ann.
Mr. Scarritt's father was one of the pioneer preachers of the Methodist Episcopal church, South, and Mr. Scarritt, as a result of his father's influence has always been an active member of that church, and has become a dominat- ing figure in its affairs. Since maturity he has been one of the board of stew- ards of Melrose church in Kansas City. In 1903 he organized the Methodist Church Society of Kansas City, a corporation formed for the purpose of pro- moting new church projects, was elected its first president, and has always served as a director and as its counsel. In 1892 he was elected a curator of Central College, at Fayette, Missouri, his alma mater, and has ever since served in that capacity.
Mr. Scarritt has always loved the state and the city of his birth and has taken just pride in being identified with their development. Few lawyers have made a more lasting impression on the community, both for legal ability and devotion to the public welfare.
Parade
Festus J. Talade
HERE may be those who look with envious eyes at Festus J. T Wade, president of the Mercantile Trust Company of St. Louis, but they are only such as have not manhood enough to acknowledge their own deficiency, for it is through effort and diligence that Mr. Wade has become an outstanding fig- ure in the financial cireles of his eity. Ilis educational ad- vantages were less than most boys enjoy; no opportunity came to him save that which he sought and no promotion save that which he won. He was only eleven years of age when he started out to make his way in the world and from that time he has depended upon his own resources.
He was born in Limerick, Ireland, October 14, 1859, a son of Thomas and Catherine (MeDonough) Wade, who sought to instill into the minds of their children principles which would prove of value to them throughout life. The family home was established in St. Louis in 1860 and in 1870 Festus John Wade ohtained a position as cash boy in the dry goods store of D. Crawford & Company. His limited education barred him from many positions that a lad of more liberal training could have filled. In those early days he was a clerk in an oil store, was employed in a photographie studio, worked as water boy in connection with the building of the railroad tunnel along Washington avenue and was a clerk in a Franklin avenue store. When fourteen years of age he entered upon an apprenticeship to the carpenter's trade, but three months' work of that character convinced him that it was not the calling for which nature intended him. He afterward drove a cart while looking for something better and in the season of 1874 worked at the St. Louis fair. At its close he entered a safe manufactory and during the next season drove an ice wagon. When seventeen years of age he began manufacturing cider on his own account, but the enterprise did not prove successful and he accepted a position as clerk and paymaster with a contractor on the Wabash Railroad. In the summer of 1876 he drove one of Green's sprinkling earts and after- ward became a street car driver on the old Northwestern line, which later he- came the Mound City, the property which John Seullin and James Campbell developed into a part of the great street railway system of St. Louis. Mr. Scullin is now one of the directors of the trust company, the presidency of which is today occupied by his former driver of a bobtail street car. Such are the changes which can be wrought in the business life of the new world, where opportunity is not hampered by caste or class.
Through summer seasons Mr. Wade was employed at the fair grounds until 1878 and was then given a permanent place in the city offices of the Fair Association and was gradually advanced to the secretaryship. It was about this time, when he was twenty years of age, that he realized the necessity of
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Festus 3. Cade
further educational training and spent four years as a student in the Bryant & Stratton Business College, acquainting himself with various branches of learning that qualify the youth for successes in the business world. From that time forward his advancement has been continuous. In April, 1883, he was elected secretary of the St. Louis Agricultural and Mechanical Association as the successor of G. O. Kalb, who had occupied the position for twenty-seven years. Recognizing that he could advance no farther with that company, Mr. Wade then at the age of twenty-eight years formed a business connection with the August Gast Lithographing Company, but again he found that he had entered a field in which his native powers and talents could not be developed. He then entered into the real estate business with Lorenzo E. Anderson and here he found a field where his efforts counted for substantial results. He organized realty companies and erected office buildings, hotels, mercantile and industrial structures to the number of more than half a hundred. With the development of the real estate business it naturally followed that the Mer- cantile Trust Company was organized by Mr. Wade, the organization being effected in 1899. From the beginning the new corporation was recognized as a forceful factor in the business life of the city and has long figured as one of the most prominent financial concerns. The notable success which Mr. Wade achieved in that connection led to his being named as chairman of the com- mittee on ways and means for the Louisiana Purchase Exposition Company, and recognizing the need for larger and better hotels at the time of the expo- sition, he became one of the builders of the Jefferson Hotel.
There was a long period in which his business career seemed in the experi- mental stage, but when once he had entered real estate and financial circles he made most rapid progress, calling forth his powers of organization and initia- tive, displaying marked enterprise and originality in his business methods and never losing sight of a plan till it was brought to successful completion. A con- temporary writer has said of him: "Somebody asked Festus J. Wade one day what his theory of hanking was. His answer was: 'To get in every dollar I can and make it earn as much as it will with perfect security.' The answer was characteristic of the man's straightforward, clean-cut ways of managing the business. The faculty of doing everything in the quickest and easiest way, which Mr. Wade comes by naturally and which he applies to financial affairs great and small, was illustrated when the East St. Louis Trust & Savings Bank was established. Mr. Wade had been one of the managing spirits in that organization. The day had been set for the opening. The capital as sub- scribed had been paid into the National Bank of Commerce while the subserip- tions were being collected. Mr. Wade went to the bank, drew out the capital -two hundred and fifty thousand dollars-for the new institution in large bills. He placed the bills in the inside pocket of his coat and left the bank. Entirely alone he walked to the Eads bridge and got on a street car. When he reached the Illinois side he traversed several blocks to the location of the new bank and handed the money to the cashier. It never seemed to occur to him that there was anything unusual in carrying a quarter of a million dol- lars in his coat pockets through the streets and across the bridge without escort or weapon."
Not only has Mr. Wade figured prominently as the president of the Mer-
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Festus J. Ciade
eantile Trust Company but has also been a director of the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, the North American Company, the Frisco Railroad and the Seullin Steel Company. In 1914 he organized a hundred-million-dollar cotton pool in order to stabilize prices of cotton and save the south. In May, 1920, he was elected director of the Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago and St. Louis Railway Company (Big Four).
On the 28th of August, 1883, Mr. Wade was married to Miss Kate V. Kennedy and to them have been born four children: Stella Marie, who is now the widow of Charles L. Seullin and the mother of one child; Marie L., the wife of C. Sewell Thomas, a civil engineer of St. Louis; Florenee J., at home ; and Festus J., who is a student at Yale University. The religions faith of the family is that of the Catholic church.
In early manhood Mr. Wade became a leading member in one of the great Catholie temperance organizations of the city-the Knights of Father Mat- thew, of which he was supreme secretary. He belongs to the St. Louis, Com- mereial, Noonday, Country. and Log Cabin Clubs of St. Louis and the Bankers Club of New York. At the time of the World war he became a director of the War Savings and Thrift Stamps campaigns and was a member of the advisory committee of the finance section of the United States Railroad Administration. He was also a member of the executive committee of the St. Louis Chapter of the Red Cross. He has ever made his wealth a source of benefit to his fellows and nothing is foreign to his interests that promotes the welfare of mankind. Charles Sumner has said, "Peace hath its victories no less renowned than war," and no discerning person ean read the record of Festus J. Wade with- out feeling a thrill over the conquests which he has won.
Hours July & Richards
John Francisco Richards
OHIN FRANCISCO RICHARDS of Kansas City, who has been instrumental in the upbuilding of one of the largest hardware enterprises of the west, operating under the name of the Richards & Conover Hardware Company, has also been a rec- ognized factor in the promotion of public interests of worth and was largely instrumental in bringing about the munici- pal ownership of the waterworks of Kansas City. His resi- denee in this state dates from an early day, although he was born at Warm Springs, Bath county, Virginia, October 23, 1834, his parents being Walter and Nancy (Mayse) Richards, both of whom were natives of the Old Dominion, the latter being a daughter of Joseph Mayse, who served in the Indian wars of Virginia, and on one occasion was wounded by the red men, causing the am- putation of his leg twenty years later. Ile also served with the rank of lieuten- ant in the Revolutionary war. To Mr. and Mrs. Walter Richards were born several sons and daughters, namely: Elizabeth Ann, Lonisa, Maria, Mary Matilda, William C., George, Blackwell Shelton, Thomas and John F. In the year 1836 the father started with his family from Virginia to Missouri, proceed- ing to Guyandotte, a small town on the Ohio river, where the parents and younger children embarked on a steamboat for Cairo, Illinois, approaching thence by boat to St. Louis, Missouri. The elder sons took teams and servants overland from Guyandotte, joining the family at St. Louis. On leaving that city they went to St. Charles, Missouri, and while there the father beeame ill and passed away. Not long afterward the family took their abode at New Franklin, oppo- site Boonville, Missouri, and the first distinct recollections of John F. Richards eenter about that town. At a subsequent period the family removed to Roche- port on the Missouri river and in 1842 became residents of Boonville, where for several years the elder sons engaged in business. John F. Richards ean well remember the great flood of 1844, although he was but ten years of age at the time. In 1846 his mother removed to St. Louis, where she resided until her death in September, 1848. J
With the removal to St. Louis John Francisco Richards became a pupil in the publie schools of this city, which he attended to 1848. Following the death of his mother he resided at Arrow Roek, Missouri, during the winter of 1848-9 and there attended school while making his home with his sister Louisa, the wife of Henry C. Miller. She, however, was one of the victims of the cholera epi- demie of 1849.
In September of that year, when a youth of fifteen, John F. Richards went to Jackson county, Missouri, and obtained employment in a country store, in which he continued until the spring of 1853. The store was located at Sibley, at a point where the Santa Fe bridge now crosses the Missouri river, and the
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John Francisco Richards
town was the old outfitting station and in the early days was the site of Fort Osage, the military garrison, which was afterward removed to Fort Leaven- worth. Mr. Richards spent the winter of 1852-3 as a student in an academy at Pleasant Hill, Missouri, and the spring of the latter year became a clerk in the employ of Captain John S. Shaw, a well known Indian trader, formerly of St. Charles, Missouri, who had a government license to trade with the Sioux, Cheyenne and other Indian tribes. Ox teams were made up at Westport, Mis- souri, and proceeded thence to Fort Leavenworth, where they loaded for the Indian country, which at that time comprised the territory within the present borders of Kansas, Nebraska, Wyoming and Colorado. Most of the trading was done along the North Platte river from Scottsbluff to Green River, on the Salt Lake trail, and it required about fifteen months to make a trading trip with a large train.
In 1854 Mr. Richards returned to St. Louis and was clerk on a Missouri river steamboat until September when through the influence of Captain Shaw he was given a position with Child, Pratt & Company, hardware merchants of St. Louis, and thus started out along the line in which he has since been so sue- cessfully and prominently engaged. His initial salary in this connection was twenty-five dollars per month, a sum, however, that was increased from time to time during the four years of his connection with that house. In 1857 he began business on his own account by establishing a store in Leavenworth, then one of the important cities along the Missouri river. The firm by which he had been employed extended him credit and he also invested his modest capital in a stock of hardware which he transported by steamboat to Leavenworth, where he ar- rived Mareh 4, 1857, the stock being valued at seventeen hundred dollars. About a week was eonsnmed by the boat in making the trip from St. Louis to Leaven- worth. In the meantime Mr. Richards had covered the same ground on a pas- senger boat and by the time the stock arrived he had rented one-half of a frame building twenty-four by forty feet at the southwest corner of Second and Chero- kee streets, to be used for store purposes. At that time the freight rate was thirty-five eents per hundred pounds without classification. Mr. Richards slept in his store in those days and bent every energy toward the upbuilding of his trade. Leavenworth was at that day an outfitting place for points west, espe- cially the frontier military posts. As emigration into Kansas rapidly in- creased there was a heavy demand for the merchandise which he earried and he was soon obliged to seek larger quarters, removing to a building three stories and basement in height and considered at that time the finest building of the town. Recognizing the value of pietorial advertising even at that early day, Mr. Richards had a large poster two and a half by three feet printed in St. Louis as an announcement of his new store at Leavenworth. This poster is now one of the interesting documents of the pioneer mercantile history of the Missouri river valley. The poster advertised the various things handled by Mr. Richards, including plows, horse-power mills and the first combined mower and reaper, and on the poster appeared the words: "Hardware for Emigrants, Farmers and the whole of Kansas and Missouri at the new three story brick building, corner of Delaware and Third streets. Call at J. F. Richards' pioneer hardware store and agricultural warehouse, Leavenworth City, K. T." The initials stood for Kansas Territory, for the state at that time had not been ad-
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John Francisco Richards
mitted to the Union. In 1862 Mr. Richards consolidated his interests with those of W. E. Chamberlain under the firm style of Richards & Chamberlain, but in 1866 purchased the stock of his partner and at that time John Conover became identified with the business as the pioneer hardware traveling salesman of Kansas. In 1870 he was admitted to partnership under the style of J. F. Rich- ards & Company and they operated very successfully in Leavenworth until 1884, when they sold the business to Park-Crancer & Company. In the meantime, or in 1875, they had established a house at Fifth and Delaware streets in Kansas City and the growth of their trade here now requires their undivided atten- tion. Owing to the increase in their business it became necessary to secure larger quarters and in 1881 they erected a building at the southeast corner of Fifth and Wyandotte streets, while in 1882 the business was incorporated under the name of the Richards & Conover Hardware Company. In 1902 they erected a new building at the northwest corner of Fifth and Wyandotte streets, thus seenring a floor space of seven acres. In 1906 they established a branch house at Oklahoma City. Sinee coming to Kansas City more than a third of a century ago Mr. Richards has been connected with the commercial development here and his labors have been an important element in bringing about present-day conditions in mercantile circles. Six years after embarking in business on his own account the firm name of J. F. Richards & Company was adopted and the business has broadened in its scope to include both the wholesale and retail trade. In 1881 it was incorporated as the Richards & Conover Company and under that style one of the largest enterprises of the kind in the west has been developed. Mr. Richards is a man of sound judgment and keen discrimination and it was after his removal to Kansas City that his establishment became ree- ognized as one of the foremost commercial interests here. He also became one of the organizers of the First National Bank of Kansas City, was made a mem- ber of its board of directors and is now chairman of the board. He had for- merly been vice president of the First National Bank of Leavenworth, Kansas, which was the first national bank established in the state, and he still retains his place as a member of the board of directors of that institution. He is now, however, practically living retired from active connection with business, but the enterprises with which he has been associated still stand as monuments to his initiative, his progressiveness and business discernment.
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