Encyclopedia of the history of Missouri, a compendium of history and biography for ready reference, Vol. I, Part 16

Author: Conard, Howard Louis, ed. 1n
Publication date: 1901
Publisher: New York, Louisville [etc.] The Southern history company, Haldeman, Conard & co., proprietors
Number of Pages: 856

USA > Missouri > Encyclopedia of the history of Missouri, a compendium of history and biography for ready reference, Vol. I > Part 16

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

Henry Clay Ewing, Cole County .- Elected November, 1872. for two years. Still lives in Jefferson City.

John A. Hockaday, Callaway County .-- Elected November, 1874, for two years. Is yet living in Fulton, and is judge of the circuit court.

Jackson L. Smith, Cole County .- Elected November, 1876. for four years. Is yet living.

Daniel H. McIntyre, Audrain County .- Elected November, 1880, for four years, and lives in Mexico, Missouri.

Banton G. Boone, Henry County .- Elected November, 1884, for four years. Died in Clin- ton, Missouri, February 11, 1900.

J. M. Wood, Clark County .- Elected No- vember, 1888, for four years. Resides in St. Louis.

R. F. Walker, Morgan County .- Elected November, 1892, for four years. Resides in St. Louis.

Edward C. Crow, Jasper County .- Elected November, 1896, for four years, and is yet in office.

Total number of Attorneys General, twenty- three. Now living, ten, namely, J. Proctor Knott, T. T. Crittenden, A. J. Baker, II. Clay Ewing, John A. Hockaday. Jackson L. Smith, D. H. McIntyre, J. M. Wood, R. F. Walker and E. C. Crow.

WILLIAM F. SWITZLER.

Atwood, LeGrand, physician and med- ical educator, was born October 16, 1832. in La Grange, Tennessee, son of Nathaniel B. and Elizabeth (Fisher) Atwood. His father, who was born at Newburyport, Massachu- setts, came to St. Louis in 1819 and engaged in merchandising in that city. In company with Dr. Samuel Merry, who was receiver of United States moneys in St. Louis, the elder Atwood, early in the twenties, dispatched a train to Santa Fe, New Mexico, which was one of the earliest trading ventures of St. Louis merchants extended to that remote region. Prominent in Masonic circles, Nathaniel B. Atwood was a member of the committee of Freemasons appointedto extend a welcome to General Lafayette on the occasion of his visit to St. Louis in 1825. He died in 1860. The family to which he belonged was planted in this country by one of the Pilgrims who came to Plymouth, Massachusetts, in 1635. This immigrant ancestor of the family came from Coulsdon, a parish in Surrey County, twelve miles south of London, England, and among his descendants were some of the active and prominent participants in the Revolutionary War. Of this family also was Harriet At- wood Newell, wife of Rev. Samuel Newell, both of whom were famous as missionaries to India. Elizabeth Fisher Atwood, the mother of Dr. Atwood, who was born at Murfrees- boro, Tennessee, and who died in 1887, was a descendant of Pierre Le Grand, who settled on the James River, near Richmond, Virginia, early in the seventeenth century. The Le Grand family emigrated from Bohain, France, to escape religious persecution, in 1699. and settled at Tenby, South Wales. From there they came with the Flournoy and Nash families to this country. The son of Pierre Le Grand married Lucy Nash, a sister of

ATWOOD.

Governor Abner Nash, who was Governor of North Carolina from 1779 to 1781, and was prominent and influential in Revolutionary af- fairs. Lucy Nash was also a sister of Francis Nash, brigadier general of the North Carolina contingent in the Revolutionary War, who fell mortally wounded at the battle of German- town, October 4, 1777. Both General Francis Nash and Governor Abner Nash were grand- uncles of Dr. Le Grand Atwood. Dr. Atwood was reared in St. Louis, and was educated chiefly at the classical school of Professor Ed- ward Wyman. In 1847 he began the study of medicine under the preceptorship of his kinsman, Dr. Joseph Nash McDowell, one of the most eminent surgeons of his day. He attended lectures at Missouri Medical College and was graduated from that institution in 1851, before he was nineteen years of age. During the spring and summer of 1851 he practiced his profession at St. Louis and then removed to Potosi, Missouri. In the spring of 1852 he crossed the plains to California, and for a year thereafter practiced in one of the mining camps of the Pacific Coast region. At the end of that time he established himself in practice in San Francisco and remained there until 1855. In the year last named he re- turned to St. Louis, and during the two years following practiced at Miami, Missouri. Thereafter, until 1863, he was in practice at Marshall, Missouri, and from 1863 until 1878 at Bridgeton, Missouri. He then returned to St. Louis, and continued his professional labors in that city until 1886, when he was appointed superintendent of the St. Louis Insane Asy- lum. After filling that position for five years lic was made superintendent of the State In- sane Asylum at Fulton, Missouri, and filled that position for one year, after which he re- sumed the private practice of his profession in St. Louis, having his residence at Ferguson, Missouri. At the outbreak of the Civil War Dr. Atwood was appointed surgeon, with the rank of captain, in the first regiment of the Missouri State Guard, commanded by Colonel -afterward General-John Marmaduke. He was a participant in the first battle at Boon- ville against Lyon and Blair, and afterward was appointed surgeon of the second regi- ment. under Colonel Dills, of Cooper County. While serving as surgeon of the last named regiment he took part in the engagement at Drywood, and was post surgeon in charge of all the Southern wounded. In the battle of

Lexington, after the first engagement, he was a prisoner to Colonel Mulligan, under orders from General Price, for several days, being as- signed to the duty of attending the Southern wounded within the Federal picket line. After the engagement he was instructed to remove severely wounded officers to a place of safety and then to report for other duty. While obey- ing these orders he was captured by Federal soldiers. Throughout the war he was an earnest and consistent champion of the South- ern cause, and contributed, as far as lay in his power, to advance that cause. In politics he has always been a staunch Democrat, and at different times he has taken a prominent and active part in political campaigns. He was chairman of the Democratic congressional committee of the Third District from 1876 to 1884, and acting elector on the Tilden presi- dential ticket from the Third District in 1876. In 1896 he was a congressional nominee in the Tenth District ; was mayor of Ferguson, Mis- souri, during the years 1897 and 1898, and at the present time is the representative of Mis- souri in the National Association of Demo- cratic Clubs. In the educational work of his profession, and as a member of various medical societies, he has been no less promi- nent than as a practitioner. He has been president of the St. Louis Medical Society, vice president of the Missouri State Medical Association, and chairman of the committee on arrangements of the American Medical Association. He has also held the chairs of physiology, therapeutics and toxicology, and mental and nervous diseases, and still retains the last named professorship in Beau- mont Hospital Medical College. He was mainly instrumental in obtaining the largest appropriation ever made by the State-an ap- propriation of $80,000-for the St. Louis In- sane Asylum, and has materially assisted in the preparation of health bills and bills regu- lating the practice of medicine in Missouri, and in securing their passage by the Legisla- ture. In the many responsible positions to which he has been assigned by his profession, it has been a labor of love with him to uphold the highest standards of professional honor, and he has devoted himself to the inculcation and maintenance of the principles contained in the American code of ethics, winning thereby the plaudits of his worthy professional breth- ren. He was baptized into the Presbyterian Church in 1835, by Rev. William Potts, of St.

AUBREY- AUCHLY.

Louis. and has always been an attendant of that church. Since 1865 he has been a meni- ber of the Masonic fraternity, and has held various offices in that order, being at the pres- ent time worshipful master of Ferguson Lodge, No. 542. February 21, 1860, Dr. At- wood married Miss Eliza J. Cowan, of Shelby- ville, Tennessee. Mrs. Atwood was a devoted Presbyterian, who came of Scotch-Irish . par- entage, lived and died in the faith of her an- cestors, and was an exemplar of every Chris- tian virtue and excellence. She died January 11, 1894. Their children are Helen L., John C., Annie E., William L., Tom C., and Le- Grand L. Atwood.

Aubrey, F. X .- A citizen of St. Louis and a Santa Fe trader, who became prominent in 1848 for a famous ride which he made from Santa Fe. New Mexico, to Independence, Mis- souri, and who a few years afterward met with a tragic death. Aubrey was a French Cana- dian, who came to St. Louis in the thirties, and was for a time clerk in the carpet store of Eugene Kelly, who subsequently removed to New York and became wealthy and eminent as a banker. While still a young man. Aubrey went ont to Santa Fe and established a trading store. There was a constant intercourse be- tween St. Louis and Santa Fe, and freighting trains-as they were called-were continually going out in the spring and summer from In- dependence to points in New Mexico. It took these trains about three months to make the trip, and on horseback it consumed usually three or four weeks. Aubrey undertook to make the ride without stopping, by means of relays of horses-and he accomplished the feat, riding from Santa Fe to Independence in nine days and a few hours, not halting either to eat or sleep. After the second day out, as he reached the successive stations on the way, and made a remount, he had himself strapped to his horse, so that he might not fall off as he slept-the true and faithful plains horses fol- lowing the plain trail and bearing him in a gallop from station to station. His arrival at Independence was a triumph, and the ride was announced throughout the West as a great achievement of courage and endurance. One of the fastest and most popular Missouri River boats, built and brought out a year after- ward. was named "F. X. Aubrey." The hero of the feat was killed in a bar-room at Santa Fe about the year 1854, by Mayor Waitman,

who, for some slight and, as it was considered, insufficient provocation, stabbed him through the heart. Aubrey was of small stature, about five feet two inches, and weighed a little over one hundred pounds. He was not quarrel- some nor violent, but quiet and modest in manner, and there was universal regret among plainsmen and traders at his untimely death.

D. M. GRISSOM.

Auchly, Ignatz, one of the prominent farmers of St. Charles County, was born De- cember 15, 1837, in St. Charles Township, in the county in which he still resides. His par- ents were AAntoine and Mary (Lilleman) Auchly. They were natives of Lucerne, Switzerland, who immigrated to the United States in 1833. When they reached St. Louis they had seven children to care for, and their entire capital with which to begin life in a strange land was seven dollars. They located in St. Charles Township, where the father en- gaged in farming and worked at his trade of carpentering. Through industry and econ- omy he was able, after a time, to buy a forty- acre farm, and this he added to in succeeding vears, until he had acquired an extensive and valuable holding of farm property. His death occurred in 1866, and that of his wife in 1871. The son attended the public and private schools in the neighborhood, but the struggles of his parents in making a home curtailed the time he would have been glad to give to more thorough school training, as he had to assist in caring for the family. He succeeded, how- ever, in acquiring an education which has been ample equipment for the business con- cerns of life. During this time of preparation, and after leaving school, he remained at the family home, assisting in the management of the farm and performing a full share of the labor. Upon the death of his parents he suc- ceeded to the ownership of the homestead. He is recognized as one of the most pro- gressive and successful farmers in St. Charles County, and has succeeded in amassing an extensive and valuable landed property. Dur- ing the Civil War he rendered honorable serv. ices as a corporal in Company G, of the St. Charles regiment of enrolled Missouri militia. In politics he is a Democrat, and his religious affiliations are with the Catholic Church. He is a trustee and one of the most active and lib- eral members of the historic old church of St. Peter's, which gives its name to the town in

AUDITOR OF STATE-AUDRAIN COUNTY.

which it is situated. Mr. Auchly was married, June 2, 1869, to Miss Katherine Brown, daughter of Godfrey and Theresa Brown, of St. Charles Township. Her father was one of the early settlers there, having immigrated from Baden, Germany. To Mr. and Mrs. Auchly eleven children have been born, of whom nine are living. They are Joseph God- frey, Mary Ann, Albert Ignatz, Matilda The- resa, Lee, Robert George, Oscar Charles, Walter Joseph, and John Auchly.

Auditor of State .- The office of State Auditor is in some respects the most impor- tant one in the State government. The Aud- itor ascertains the amount of taxes due from each county, and settles with the county col- lectors for these amounts; issues warrants on the State treasury to persons entitled to them, and makes the estimates upon which the Gen- eral Assembly votes appropriations. His re- ports are comprehensive and valuable state- ments of the receipts, expenditures, debt, resources and funds of the State, the financial condition of all the State penal and eleemosy- nary institutions, and of the history and con- dition of the county and township debts. He is chosen by the people, holds his office for a term of four years, and receives a salary of $3,000 a year.

Audrain County .- A county in the northeast central part of the State, bounded on the north by Monroe and Ralls; on the east by Pike and Montgomery; south by Mont- gomery, Callaway and Boone; and west by Boone and Randolph Counties ; area 439,000 acres. Audrain is one of the counties that lie on the "divide" between the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers. The surface of the county is generally high and undulating, with about three-fourths of its area prairie, the remainder originally wooded, with some small tracts of bottom lands along the streams, the largest of which are scarcely of sufficient size to de- serve the name of river. The principal stream of the county is Salt River, which rises in the southern part, and flows in a northerly direc- tion near the center. Salt River has numerous small tributaries, the chief ones being known as Saling Creek, Long Branch, South Creek. Young's Creek, Davis Fork, Beaver Dam, Littleby and Skull Lick Creeks. In the east- ern part of the county is West Fork of Cuiver River and Hickory and Sandy Creeks. The

county has few natural flowing springs, and the streams are not of sufficient fall to afford water power. The soil is generally a dark loam containing in places considerable sand, having a clay subsoil, and is susceptible of high cultivation. Nearly 90 per cent of the land is arable and 85 per cent is under culti- vation, the remainder in timber, chiefly white, black and burr oak, maple, walnut, hickory, sycamore and lind. The minerals of the county are coal, limestone, potter's clay and fire clay. The average yield per acre of the cereals and grasses are corn, 35 bushels ; wheat, 12 bushels; oats, 30 bushels; clover seed 3 bushels ; timothy seed, 3 1-2 bushels ; timothy hay, 1 1-2 tons ; clover hay, 2 tons. Accord- ing to the report of the Bureau of Labor Statistics the surplus products shipped from the county in 1898. were cattle, 12,355 head ; hogs, 66,815 head ; sheep, 12,529 head ; horses and mules, 3,207 head; wheat, 633 bushels ; oats, 18,764 bushels ; corn, 2,768 bushels ; flax seed, 2,132 bushels ; hay, 205,000 pounds ; flour, 3,963,530 pounds; corn meal, 785 pounds ; ship stuff, 36,675 pounds ; clover seed, 48,745 pounds ; timothy seed, 588,080 pounds ;. logs, 12,000 feet ; walnut logs, 6,000 feet ; coal, 8,704 tons; brick, 1,371,300; wool, 111, 170 pounds ; potatoes, 3,136 bushels, poultry, 958 .- o82 pounds ; eggs, 540,290 dozen ; butter, 41,- 634 pounds ; game and fish, 8, 157 pounds ; tal- low, 32,145 pounds ; hides and pelts, 116,950 pounds ; apples 1,009 barrels ; fresh fruit, 21,- 180 pounds ; honey, 6,141 pounds ; nursery stock, 31,280 pounds ; furs, 4,062 pounds ; feathers, 27.789 pounds. Other articles ex- ported were cooperage, clay, ice, melons, vege- tables, lard, beeswax, cider and vinegar.

It is probable that the early French trappers and hunters visited the territory that is now Audrain County, before the beginning of the nineteenth century. Long before the advent of white men there, according to Schoolcraft, the tribe of Indians known as the Missouris made it their hunting ground, and by the ag- gressive Sacs and Foxes and the Iowas were driven from the land. For many years after there were cultivated farms in the Audrain County section, the Indians, principally the Sacs, Foxes and Iowas, hunted over the prai- ries, and if the evidence of the earliest settlers is not erroneous, buffalo was the chief game they sought, in different places skeletons of those animals having been found. The earliest authentic record of white men visiting the

AUDRAIN COUNTY.

"Salt River Region," as the country now Audrain County was called, places the date at IS12, when a number of settlers on Loutre Island followed a band of horse-thieving In- dians northwest of the site of Mexico, to a point on a creek which is known as Skull Lick. Here the party camped for the night, and were surprised by the Indians, who killed all but one member of the party, an account of which is given in the sketch of Montgomery County in these volumes. Some years afterward some travelers discovered in a lick on the banks of this stream some human skulls, supposed to be those of the men killed, and from these facts the creek was given its name. It was about four years after this massacre that, according to the most reliable tradition, which is sub- stantiated by irrefutable evidence, the first permanent settlement was made in the country afterward Audrain County. The name of the first settler was Robert Littleby, an English- man, who in 1816 settled on a small stream, a tributary of the South Fork of Salt River. which is now known as Littleby's Creek. Traditions of the other early settlers are that Littleby lived the life of a hermit, and sus- tained himself by hunting and trapping. For five years he was the only known white resi- dent of the big territory that became Audrain County. In 1822 Littleby removed to the Platte River country, where, it is supposed, he died a few years later. The next one of whom there is a reliable record of his early settlement in the territory was Benjamin Young, a native of Stokes County, North Carolina, who, in 1821, took up his residence in what is now the northwestern part of the county, on the creek which bears his name. Young had been raised with the Indians and took unto himself a squaw wife, whom he later cast aside for a white woman, who accompanied him to Missouri, and who bore him a number of children. He was killed in 1833, gored to death by a pet bull. Up to 1827 there were but few families located upon land in Audrain County territory, and there was no marked immigration until after 1830, when numerous emigrants from Kentucky, North Carolina, Virginia and Tennessee, located upon land. Many of these had previously settled in Mont- gomery, Boone, Callaway and Howard Coun- ties, from which they removed. It is said that in 1825, two brothers, John and William Willingham, who had for some time resided in Boone County, took up their residence upon

land within the limits of what is now Audrain County. In 1830, among those who located in the territory, were Joseph McDonald, Wil- liam Lavaugh, John Barnett, Caleb Williams, Black Isam Kilgore, John Kilgore and Richard Willingham. Nearly all of these here named moved from nearby counties, where some years before they had located, and about all were natives of Kentucky. John Kilgore, according to a short history of Audrain County, written by Judge S. M. Edwards, now (1900) a resident of Mexico, located upon the south side of Davis Fork, on what was later known as the McIlhanay farm, and in 1831 there was born to him and wife, a son, the first white child born in Audrain County territory.

According to the same authority. in 1834 the total population of the section now Audrain County did not exceed thirty families. The people were noted for their hospitality and sociability. To go fifteen or twenty miles to assist a "neighbor" at a "house raisin' " or to help harvest a crop was considered a pleasur- able task, and trips on horseback to St. Charles, for many years the nearest trading point, were looked upon as pleasant journeys. There was abundance of game in the country and the hunt supplied all the fresh venison and other meats that constituted, along with corn hread and rye coffee, the chief food of the settlers. The large game in the country at that time was elk, deer, bear and wolves, the latter causing the pioneers great annoyance by the destruction of the few domestic animals they brought into the country. An incident of about two years ago discloses that the early inhabitants of the county had some super- stitious ideas regarding cures. J. T. Johnson, who now owns the farm improved by the late Judge Doan, was clearing away some timber near where the old residence stood, and on cutting down a large oak tree and splitting it up, found near the center, a few feet above the ground, a well preserved lock of human hair. Inquiry developed that a superstition believed by many, years ago, was that croup in children could be cured by cutting a lock of hair fromn the child's head and boring a hole in a tree just as high as the top of its head and putting the hair into it, and that when the child grew above the hole, the croup would disappear. Inquiry from some of the older members of the Doan family revealed that this belief had been prevalent in the family, and that about

AUDRAIN COUNTY.

fifty years ago, one of the children since dead, was severely affected with croup and phthisis.

What is now Andrain County was originally included in the old St. Charles District. When Montgomery County was organized, Decem- ber 14. 1818, the unorganized territory west of it was attached to it for military and civil purposes. Callaway. Boone and Ralls Coun- ties were created, however, in November, 1820, and for civil and military purposes parts of what is now Andrain County, were attached to each, and when Monroe County was organ- ized. January 6, 1831, a portion of the unor- ganized territory lying south was attached. January 12th of the same year the Legislature passed a supplemental act, defining the bound- aries of Monroe County, and also "defined and designated a completed county, to be known as Audrain County, and as soon as inhabitants sufficient to justify a representa- tive, it shall be organized and entitled to all the rights and privileges of all of the other counties in the State. The parts of aforesaid county shall remain attached to Callaway. Monroe and Ralls Counties" for civil and military purposes. Thus it can be seen that. when the counties contiguous to Audrain were organized, Audrain remained not a part of St. Charles, as erroneously stated by some historical writers, but an unorganized terri- tory, more the result of the faulty or accidental outlining of the boundaries of the counties surrounding it. This also accounts for its peculiar form, which is different from any other county in Missouri. Audrain County was formerly organized by legislative act, ap- proved December 17, 1836, and named in honor of Charles IT. Audrain, a prominent pioneer of St. Charles County, who was a member of the State Legislature in 1830. In 1842 the Legislature passed an act further defining the boundaries of Monroe and Audrain Counties, and a strip of territory one mile wide- in all thirty-one square miles was taken from the southern part of Monroe and added to Audrain County. As at that time defined, the boundaries of Audrain County have since remained. The act organizing Audrain County named as commissioners to locate a permanent seat of justice, Cornelius Edwards, of Monroe, Wil- Ham Martin, of Callaway, and Robert School- ing, of Boone County, and directed that they meet on the first Monday in June, 1837, at the house of Edward Jennings, in "New Mexico."

An amendatory act passed January 20, 1837, changed the day of meeting to the first Mon- day in March, 1837, on which day the com- missioners met at the place designated. In April, 1836, Rev. Robert C. Mansfield and James Il. Smith laid out a town on land which they had entered at the government land office and called the town New Mexico. They plat- ted fifty acres into lots and donated to the county a public square and each alternate lot upon condition that the town be made the per- manent seat of justice. This donation was accepted by the commissioners, and was ap- proved by the circuit and county courts. May 4, 1837, an auction sale of town lots was held for the benefit of the county building fund, and later that year, in block 8, lot 6, fronting the public square, a log courthouse was built. It was of white oak logs, 18 x 36 feet, one story high, "ten feet between floor and ceiling," and contained two rooms. This building was used until the spring of 1839, when the second courthouse, of brick, two stories high, was built on the public square, the county court appropriating $1,600 for its building. This structure served the county until 1869. when the present substantial courthouse was com- pleted at a cost of $42,870.71. In July, 1870, the county purchased a farm on which to sus- tain its poor. Fortunately the number of paupers in the county is small and are sup- ported at a minimum expense to the taxpayers. The members of the first county court were James Harrison, James E. Fenton and Hezekiah J. M. Doan. February 6, 1837. the first meeting of the court was held at the house of Edward Jennings, in the town of New Mexico, James Harrison and James E. Fen- ton, two of the justices being present. Joel Haynes was the first county clerk. The session was opened by William Levaugh, elisor, who was appointed by the court, James Jackson, who was commissioned sheriff by the Gov- ernor, having refused to qualify. Later James M. Hicks was appointed to the office of sheriff. The first business of the county court was the acceptance of the bond of the county clerk. The first order made by the court was leave to James E. Fenton, one of its number, "for sell- ing and retailing spirituous liquors and gro- ceries at his house in the town of New Mexico for six months, from the 17th of December. 1836, upon his paying a tax of five dollars ; also a tax of one-eighth per cent on every $150." After making this order the County of Audrain

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Encyclopedia of the history of Missouri, a compendium of history and biography for ready reference, Vol. I, Part 16

Author: Conard, Howard Louis, ed. 1n Publication date: 1901 Publisher: New York, Louisville [etc.] The Southern history company, Haldeman, Conard & co., proprietors Number of Pages: 856

Author: Conard, Howard Louis, ed. 1n
Publication date: 1901
Publisher: New York, Louisville [etc.] The Southern history company, Haldeman, Conard & co., proprietors
Number of Pages: 856