Encyclopedia of the history of Missouri, a compendium of history and biography for ready reference, Vol. I, Part 33

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 33

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).

Barton, Joshua, was born in Tennes- see, son of Rev. Isaac Barton and brother of

David Barton, one of the first United States Senators elected from Missouri. He came west soon after his elder brother settled in St. Louis, and read law there under the preceptor- ship of Rufus Easton. After his admission to the bar he was associated with Honorable Edward Bates in practice until the State Gov- ernment of Missouri was organized, when he was made Secretary of State. This office he resigned to accept the appointment of United States district attorney for Missouri, a posi- tion which he held until his tragic death, which occurred on the 28th of June, 1823. On that date he was killed in a duel fought with Thomas C. Rector on Bloody Island.

Barton, C. Josephine Wigginton, metaphysical writer and artist, was born not far from Columbia, in Boone County, Mis- souri. Her father, Rev. W. R. Wigginton, is of Virginia nativity; her mother, whose maiden name was O. H. Daniel, was born in Kentucky. Mrs. Barton is the fourth of eleven children. Hickman J. Wigginton. of the firm of Wigginton & Conger of the "Lin- neus Bulletin." is her brother. He is Chair- man of the Linn County Democratic Central Committee, which position he has held since 1888. He has also been secretary of the Dem- ocratic Congressional Committee of the Sec- ond District since 1890, and is a member of the Senatorial Committee of the district in which he lives. Mr. Wigginton is an eloquent orator and able man. On the grandmother's side Mrs. Barton's family tree extends back to the Norman grandfather, who was first cousin to George II. The genealogy traces backward thus: "Wigginton, Redd, Bullett, Norman, Whyte. (William Redd, the fore- most lawyer in his State, was Mrs. Barton's great-uncle. J. A. Broaddus, of Louisville, Kentucky, was a consin of Mrs. Barton's mother.) At an early age Mrs. Barton evinced the highest natural talent for art. To make original sketches was her delight. At school she was often reprimanded for spending the precions time that should have been given, as the pedagogue believed, to the more impor- tant work of "ciphering" and studying the sciences. Endowed by nature with finely bal- anced mental powers and a perfect physical organism, she early gave promise of a splendid career. She graduated with honors from Stephens College, and the year following found her conducting the art school at Mount

Hours in the Spirit. 0 Truth and Love' @Josephine Barton

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Pleasant College. In 1874 she was married to Abraham P. Barton, and was for seven years engaged with him in educational work, teaching the higher branches. They removed to Kansas City in 1882, where, for fourteen years she conducted one of the finest and most successful art studios in the interior of the United States. Ilere she distinguished her- self in portrait and figure painting, taking her models from nature and from her own ideals. She holds several valuable medals. Iler last important picture was a full length portrait of Jesus from her own ideal standard. It was painted for Mr. Morden of Chicago, and was on exhibition at the World's Fair in 1893. Mrs. Barton is, by nature, a student of metaphysics, . delighting in the mathematics and order of Perfect Being. She invited her husband to take up, with her, that branch known as men- tal science, because she saw in it a vast field for usefulness. They entered the work as publishers, journalists and teachers. Mrs. Barton is editor of "Holiday Extra," a new era magazine, and also one of the editors of "The Life," and author of several metaphysi- cal books. "Evangel Ahvallah," "The White Spectrum," "Healing Thoughts" and "The Mother of the Living," are from her pen. She is a forcible writer and an efficient teacher. She says : "Happy is the one who has found his true office in Being." She is the mother of four children, Vivien Ethel, Homer Raphael, Mabel Italia and Ralph Waldo Emerson Bar- ton.

Barton, Levi, was born October 17, 1817, in Warren County, Kentucky. His father was John Barton, son of Joshua Barton, also of Kentucky. Levi Barton's grandfather, Joshua Barton, was one of three brothers who came to this country before the days of the Revolutionary War, either from England or from Germany, perhaps from the latter coun- try, as they appear to have been German. One of these three brothers settled in Massachu- setts, one in Virginia. and one in Kentucky. One was the father of Senator David Barton, who, with Thomas H. Benton, was the first United States Senator sent from Missouri, and the brother settling in Massachusetts was an ancestor of Clara Barton of Red Cross fame. Levi Marton's mother's maiden name was Mary Blankenship. Her father, an English- man by birth, came to this country during the days of the Colonies, and wasinhis eighteenth

year when the War of the Revolution began. He had two older brothers fighting on the side of the colonists, and tried himself to enlist with them, but was prevented on account of his youth. During the dark days of the Rev- olution the report came that two brothers, who were then in the Revolutionary Army in Vir- ginia, were starving. On hearing this report, their father, being Mr. Barton's maternal grandfather, filled a knapsack with provisions, went on foot through the wilderness, gained admission to the ranks during an engagement, went to the front where his two sons were in line of battle, took the musket of each son in turn and fought in his place while he ate.

Levi Barton's mother died in Kentucky about 1830. His father died in Missouri, and was buried in Boone County about ten miles from Columbia. When Levi Barton's mother died he was a small boy. He was taken to live with his maternal grandfather, but soon ran away from home, walking up the old Louisville and Nashville pike to Louisville, Kentucky, on his way crossing Green River in a canoe which he found tied to the bank. He readily secured employment in Louisville, later clerked in a store in Caneyville, and was never idle. While yet in his teens, his em- ployer placed him in charge of a flatboat, and he made regular trips down the Ohio and Mis- sissippi to New Orleans, carrying such freight as fresh and cured meats, tobacco, grain and venison in large quantities. Frequently on such trips his sales amounted to over $6,- ooo, which money, if not largely invested by Mr. Barton for his employer in mer- chandise, would be brought back on his person.

When about eighteen years of age he came to Missouri, but soon returned to Kentucky. After about two years he came back to Mis- souri, locating in Boone County, near Colum- bia. It was here that he met and married Malinda C. Pool, daughter of Abraham Pool, September 7, 1843. He then moved to north- west Missouri, cleared land in the wilderness and built a cabin in what is now Platte County, later moved to the territory now Nodaway County, returned to Platte, but on account of prowling Indians, who stole his property, and the wolves making depredations on his young stock, he moved to Andrain County in the spring of 1846. There he purchased over four hundred acres of land from the government. He settled on Young's Creek in that county,

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about twelve miles northwest of Mexico, and remained there until 1874, raising a family of eleven children, eight sons and three daugh- ters. In 1874 he sold his farm in Audrain County and moved to Howard County, pur- chasing the Phillips farm, near White's Store, where in a serene and happy old age he yet lives. Mr. Barton never went to school a day in his life. The instruction he received was suchas might be gained in actual contact with life in the mountains of Kentucky, as a clerk in stores, as a blacksmith, and in his multifa- rions dealings as thetrusted employe of a mer- cantile concern large for those days. In books he educated himself. The book he read most was the Bible. The standard books of his day, of a religious nature, he mastered. He was a skilled mechanic, blacksmith, gunsmith and carpenter, and a successful farmer. He is a man of unimpeachable integrity, and of the highest honor in all his relations of life. Though living in a border State during the Civil War, he was not molested. During that conflict his sympathies were with the South. Inpolitics hewas a Whig, and yet holds to the old doctrines of that party, but since its disor- ganization has always voted the Democratic ticket. In church affiliations he has been a Baptist from early manhood. He is one of the noblest of the early pioneer settlers of Mis- souri, who laid the foundation of this splendid Commonwealth.

Barton, Malinda C., was born in Ken- tueky, February 28, 1824, and died in Howard County, Missouri, April 1, 1900. She was one of the noble pioneer woman who illustrated the early history of Missouri, and from whose high character the State inherited so much of which it has reason to be proud. Her father was Abraham Pool, a man of great courage and high integrity, and her mother, Malinda Pool, a woman of superior intelligence and great purity and dignity of character. They came to Missouriat an early day, raised a large family of children and became wealthy. All the schooling that Malinda C. Barton received was had in some twenty days she attended school in a primitive log schoolhouse in the neighborhood ; but her lack of educational op- portunities was more than made good by her reading at home. In those days the books in the pioneers' homes were few, but they were of the best - King James' Version of the Bible, "Bunyan's Pilgrims' Progress," "Bax-

ter's Saint's Rest" and "Call to the Uncon- verted,""Judson's Travels," Dr. Watts' Hymns, Catechisms, and a few theological works, to- gether with such treatises on history and the common English branches as were obtainable, usually constituting the list. These books she read and mastered, and with their aid became a good English scholar. Probably no other woman of her time and locality had as pro- found a knowledge of the text and substance of the Bible. For a long period of her life she went through its pages, with painstaking care, once a year, and in her mature life she was sought as a teacher of the book. In January, 1843, her father came with his family to Mis- souri and settled in Boone County, and on the 7th of September of that year she was married to Levi Barton, also from Kentucky, a man of high character and worthy of her. At first they settled in Platte County, but in 1844 re- moved to the wild region now called Nodaway County. After living there a year they re- turned to Platte County, and the following year settled in Audrain County, on Young's Creek, twelve miles northwest of Mexico. At that time the county was sparsely settled, and Mexico was a straggling village. Between 1845 and 1856 her husband purchased 440 acres of choice government land, paying for it twenty-five cents to one dollar and twenty- five cents per acre. It was a beautiful tract, bordered by Young's Creek, and, excepting a stretch of timber along the creek. consisted of undulating prairie. It was on this pioneer farm, which year by year grew out of its crude conditions into an abode of comfort. that Ma- linda Barton took up the golden thread of her life. She came to be the mother of eleven children, eight sons and three daughters, born and mainly reared on this Audrain County farm, excepting the eldest, Abraham, who was born in Platte County. She lived to see all of them grown to men and women, and not one of them afflicted with a physical or mental de- fect. Only once in her long life was she called upon to mourn the loss of a member of her family, that of her second son, David, who, at the age of thirty-seven years, was accidentally drowned in the Missouri River, near Roche- port, February 22, 1886. Her children living in 1900 were Abraham Pool Barton, of Kan- sas City, distinguished as a thinker and meta- physician ; John W. Barton, of Chillicothe, Missouri, a leading educator of the State ; Jo- seph Barton, lawyer, and Lee Barton, editor,

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of Chillicothe, both of whom have become suc- cessful ; James Barton, an enterprising citi- zen of New Mexico; Paul Monroe Barton, and Isaac Luther Barton, both successful farmers in Howard County; Mrs. Fannie C. Keen, of New Franklin, Missouri, a noble woman, who is following closely in the foot- steps of her mother ; Mrs. Elizabeth Smith, of Texas, engaged in religious and philanthropic work ; and Mrs. Mollie B. Mitchell, of Howard County, Missouri, who, with commendable de- votion and filial loyalty, is taking care of her father's household in his declining years. The family lived in Audrain County for nearly thirty years, until 1874. when they sold their farm there and moved to the Phillips farm, in Howard County, which they had purchased, and there lived until she died, ripe in years and all womanly graces, rich in the veneration of the young and the love and esteem of the aged, and leaving behind her a name made illustri- ous by extraordinary nobility and dignity of character, which her friends are never weary of mentioning. In 1846 she joined the Hope- well Baptist Church, near Mexico, whose pas- tor at the time was Rev. William Jesse, Sr .. a pioneer preacher of . exalted character, and she remained an active and exemplary Chris- tian to the day of her death. She lies buried at Rocheport, Missouri. The history of this State will chronicle no nobler life, no more exalted and forceful character. IIer husband, venerable with the weight of four score and three years, was still living in 1900.

Bartonville. - See "Mount Sterling."

Baskett, Cecil Morrison, editor and proprietor of the "Mexico Intelligencer," was born in Mexico, Missouri, on Christmas day, 1874. He did not retire one night and find himself famous in newspaper circles the next morning, but started, as most Missouri boys, by attending the public schools. He began his studies at home, however, under his mother, and at nine years of age entered the Mexico public schools, progressing so rapidly that at the ageof seventeen he graduated from the high school with high honor. He then continued his studies by taking a post- graduate course, in 1892-3, at the Missouri Military Academy, graduating with distinc- tion. He next entered Central College, Fay- ette, Missouri, and in 1894 completed the junior work and a part of the senior course. His intention of attending higher universities

in the East was given up because of his an- xiety to at once get started in his chosen pro- fession, journalism, his desire for this work being whetted by the publication of a paper entitled "Birds' Eggs," in the "Pittsburg Dis- patch," written when he was about sixteen years of age, while he was yet in the public school, and also by his editorship of papers published by Missouri Military Academy boys and Central College students. His instinct for journalism was inherited from his father, James Newton Baskett, who is to-day the fore- most literary man of his State. During one of Mr. Baskett's vacations from school he ac- cepted the local editorship of the "Mexico Ledger," remaining until school called him "to books," but in the summer of 1894, after leav- ing Central College, he again accepted the po- sition on the "Ledger" as city editor. After remaining there almost two years he went to St. Louis, and was connected with the St. Louis "Post-Dispatch." From there he went to the Little Rock, Arkansas. "Tribune" as assistant editor, and in 1896 left there for a position as one of the editors of the Hot Springs "Evening News." After remaining a few months at that place he returned to Mexico to buy a half interest of S. B. Cook (now Sec- retary of State) in the "Mexico Intelligencer." After securing a half interest in this paper he re-established the "Daily Intelligencer," and had the distinction of being at that time the youngest editor of a weekly and daily paper in the State of Missouri. His business and liter- ary talent was so marked that Mr. Cook soon turned almost the entire editorship and man- agement of these papers over to him, so that the former could further his interests in the political world. In newspaper work Mr. Bas- kett has been very successful in many ways. He has also done work for other papers not herein mentioned. IIe has little sympathy with schools for journalism. IIe believes ex- perience is the best teacher, with good books to read and ambition mixed with hustle that never stops.

Mr. Baskett was married to Miss Martha Kirtley, of Livingston County, Missouri, on November 15, 1898. August 4. 1900, he bought Mr. Cook's remaining interest in "The Intelligencer," and is now the sole editor and proprietor of the Mexico weekly and daily "In- telligencer." His friends expect later to hear of him prominently in the literary world apart from his journalism.

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Baskett, James Newton .- The Bas- ketts are from English stock, three brothers of which family settled around about Richmond, Virginia, in an carly day. One branch of this family moved to Kentucky shortly after Danie! Boone and others had opened up the way, and from that part, which finally located in Nich- olas County, James Newton Baskett is de- scended, and in this county he was born on the first day of November, 1849.

His father's name was William, and his mother was Miss Nancy Elizabeth Maffitt be- fore her marriage, her people living in the ad- joining county of Harrison. The father moved to Missouri in the fall of 1846, when the boy was seven years old, and spent the first year in Callaway County, but in the following autumn he bought a farm about eight miles west of Mexico and moved to it. Here, for seven and a half years, the boy toiled and went to rural schools, and here he passed the stormy period of "the war." In the spring of 1865, however, his parents moved into Mexico to educate their only child. For three years the boy was in such schools as the little town afforded then, and he evinced such a desire "to know" that he was sent to the State Uni- versity in the autumn of 1868. During the school year of 1865-70 he was compelled to stay at home on account of the failing health of his father, who died in May of the latter year. The following fall the son again entered the university, from which he was graduated with the degree of B. Ph. in June, 1872, Dr. Daniel Reid then being president. Subse- quently, in appreciation of his scientific and literary work, the degree of M. A. was con- ferred upon him by the faculty of his alma mater, Dr. Jesse then being president. Mr. Baskett, however, is largely a self-educated man, having, since he left college, made him- self known in the field of engineering and biology.

At first Mr. Baskett had a brief business ca- reer, and was for a few years the assistant of B. L. Locke, the well known clerk of the County Court of Andrain County. Later, in connection with the late John Gregg. recorder of deeds, he made the first set of abstract-of- title books in the county. In the spring of 1875 he was appointed deputy surveyor of his county under T. W. Carter, and two years later was elected to that office ; but in the sum- mer of 1878 he resigned, on account of ill- health brought on by exposure, and to save

himself from consumption he was compelled to move to Colorado. Here, for a short while in the spring of 1879, he was the assistant en- gineer of the city of Denver-practically doing all the work-until the progress of disease pre- cluded further physical labor, and he was com- pelled to devote himself exclusively to recti- peration. This was at the period of the Leadville excitement, and judicious invest- ment in Denver real estate proved more re- munerative than professional effort.

In outings in the mountains Mr. Baskett- always a student-became interested in the unusual and new species of plants and animals which he found about him, and began, merely for entertainment, to study them, thereby lay- ing the foundation of his subsequent scientific attainments. At times, too, lic felt a desire to express himself concerning the interesting things his studies revealed ; and the casual ac- ceptance of a letter by the "Detroit Free Press" opened at once a new career.

On acount of the high altitude not agreeing with Mrs. Baskett, he was compelled to move back to a lower level, and the spring of 1882 found them again on the old home spot in Mexico, Missouri, where they have resided ever since. Mr. Baskett's health was fully re- stored, but fearing a relapse he did not enter into any active business.

Finally he took up his pen again, and wrote for the "Youths' Companion" and various newspaper syndicates a series of articles on natural history topics, and again he spent the summer of 1890 in the Rocky Mountains as correspondent for several papers. In the fall of that year the "Cleveland Leader" asked for a series of hunting papers, and these were du- plicated and enlarged in the spring of the next year, at the request of the editor, for the "St. Louis Republic"-more than forty articles on hunting and birds appearing in the columns of that paper. These articles attracted the at- tention of naturalists in the East, and Mr. Bas- kett was solicited to become an associate member of the American Ornithologists' Un- ion, to which he was elected, and of which he is still a member. He met with them for years, and has thereby gained a secure place in sci- entific circles. In 1893 he was invited to de- liver a paper on any ornithological topic before the World's Congress of Ornithologists, held in connection with the World's Fair at Chi- cago, and he read in person a thesis upon "Some IFints at the Kinship of Birds as Shown

James Auton Beckett

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by Their Eggs," which not only attracted the attention of naturalists in this country, but was favorably reviewed by the "London Zo- ologist."

Shortly after this the publishing house of D). Appleton & Co. determined to issue a series of home-reading books, under the editorship of Dr. Wm. T. Harris, United States Comunis- sioner of Education, and Mr. Baskett was asked to write the initial volume-a book on birds. The "Story of the Birds" was the out- come, and when it was published the author's place as a biologist was confirmed. Dr. Cones, the veteran ornithological author; Professor Robert Ridgway, of the Smithsonian Insti- tution ; Mr. Frank M. Chapman, of the Ameri- can Museum, New York : Mr. Witmer Stone, of the Philadelphia Academy, and many others, wrote kindly of the work ; and Dr. Cones re- viewed it very appreciatively in the "Nation." Per consequence, the publishers asked the att- thor for the "Story of the Fishes," the "Story of the Reptiles and Amphibians," and the "Story of the Mammals." The first of these three-illustrated by James Carter Beard- is now issued, with the others on the way.

Previous to the issue of the second book Mr. Baskett, through Dr. Coues, came into a cor- respondence with the house of Macmillan Company, one of the largest in America, and the result was that they asked him to write for them a nature book, through which there should run a slight story to hold the reader's interest. The result was "At You-All's House"; but when it was submitted the pub- lishers rejected it as a nature book and issued it as a novel, and the author found himself in- advertently classed with the romancists of the ' land, and that his little volume, as a piece of fiction, was being read and praised from Cali- fornia to Great Britain. In truth, many East- ern and English reviewers classed the book as a prose poem. It was purely a Missouri product in character and scenery, and its liter- ary success was such that these publishers re- fused to consider anything else from him till he should write them another novel.

The winter of 1898-9 was spent with his family near Mobile, Alabama, and, here be- side the gulf, "As the Light Led" was written. This also was a purely Missouri story, with rural characters and scenes, but with the plot more closely connected than in the other. Of it many Eastern papers, headed by the "Out- look," have said that "what Mr. Page has done

for Virginia, Miss Murphy for Tennessee, Mr. Allen for Kentucky, Mr. Baskett is doing for Missouri," and many English critics say the whole rural West is indebted to him.

At present he is engaged upon a story, the scenes of which are laid in Hot Springs, Ar- kansas, but the characters are mainly Mis- sourian, and inchide both some cultured city people and some familiar rural types.

Though born in Kentucky, Mr. Baskett is very proud of being a Missourian, and is try- ing, in his way, to do all that he can for his adopted State. He has never had any special political or military aspirations. He was for a while rather prominently connected with the Sunday school work of the State, and also with that within his own denomination, the Methodist Episcopal Church, South ; but he is extremely liberal in either sectarian or political proclivities. By tradition and record he is a Democrat of the conservative type.

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Encyclopedia of the history of Missouri, a compendium of history and biography for ready reference, Vol. I, Part 33

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