General history of Macon County, Missouri, Part 42

Author: White, Edgar comp; Taylor, Henry, & company, pub
Publication date: 1910
Publisher: Chicago, H. Taylor & company
Number of Pages: 1106

USA > Missouri > Macon County > General history of Macon County, Missouri > Part 42

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In polities Mr. Morrow adheres steadfastly to the Democratic faith and shows the strength of his convictions by active service in behalf of his party. But he is himself very averse to official life and prefers to aid in advaneing the eanse which he defends and advocates from the honorable post of a private station, fighting for its welfare among the militant soldiery of its rank and file. His feelings and desires in this respeet were overborne, however, in April, 1909, when against his will and over his protest, he was unanimously elected mayor of Callao. Taking the wishes of his fellow citizens of the town as a command and imperative call to duty, he accepted the office, and, by his wise, straightforward and enterprising administration of its affairs, soon fully justified the faith that was so freely and feelingly expressed in his election.

His fraternal affiliations are with the Free Masons and the Knights of Pythias, and his religious allegiance is given to the Christian church. In the good work of all these organizations he is zealous and service- able, and in each his membership is highly appreciated. But his assist- ance is not given only to the organizations in which he holds member- ship. His hand is open and his influence is freely exerted in behalf of every worthy enterprise in which the welfare of the people, or any part of them, is involved. Every commendable undertaking for the improvement of the community has felt the impulse of his quickening spirit and known the guidance of his excellent judgment, and these have been bestowed freely without regard to circumstances, whenever the matter in hand has seemed to him worthy of his aid. In 1889 he was united in marriage with Miss Melissa E. Vernum, a native of Cal- lao and daughter of John A. and Lucy (Spieer) Vernum, both now deceased. Seven children have been born in the household and all of them are living. They are: Anna, the wife of P. E. Pease, of Callao;

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Samuel F., who is also a resident of Callao; and Charles W., Helen G., Paul, Vivian and Virginia, who still brighten the parental home with their presence and help to make it one of the pleasant and characteristic social centers of the town.

THEOPHILUS JONES.

Combining in his make-up the sturdy characteristics of the Welsh people and the enterprise and all-daring determination of America, and in his experience a knowledge of the customs, habits and methods of thought, together with the industrial pursuits and political aspira- tions of the people in different parts of the country, and in his own special training the acquisitions gained in several pursuits of varied character, Theophilus Jones came to his present location and occupa- tion well prepared for its exactions and capable of holding his own in any condition or under any requirements. In his prosperous and productive career he has shown that his training was not wasted on him, and the seeds of it fell on fruitful ground.

Mr. Jones is a native of Luzerne county, Pennsylvania, a region filled with strenuous industrial life and distinguished for the enter- prise and progressiveness of its people. He was born there on Feb- ruary 21, 1844, and there he grew to manhood and secured his education, attending the district schools and the university at Lewisburg, Penn- sylvania. He is a son of Thomas and Elenor (Williams) Jones, natives of Wales, the former born and reared in the southern part of that country and the latter in the northern part. They came to Missouri in 1870, and here they passed the remainder of their days. They had a family of seven children. Three of them are living: Edward I., Anna, the wife of E. G. Snow, of Atlanta, and Theophilus. The mother died on July 26, 1885, and the father on January 24, 1890.

After leaving school he was engaged in the mercantile business for a few years, finally settled at Vienna, in Macon county, Missouri, and has been in the farming and stock-raising business ever since. In this dual pursuit in the agricultural interests of the county, he has ever since expended his efforts and of it he has made a very gratifying success. He is now the owner of about 200 acres of good land, all of which is under advanced cultivation, except what is devoted to grazing his stock, and all yielding abundant returns for the labor and intelli- gence bestowed upon it.

The affairs of his township and county have greatly interested Mr. Jones and he has given them close and careful attention. The welfare of the region around him and that of the people who inhabit it

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are prime considerations with him and at all times command his most earnest and energetic attention. For this reason he has not allied himself with any political party specifically, but has kept himself free to support the policies and candidates in whose success he has believed the best interests of the publie were vitally involved. But this independence has not stayed his hand with reference to public affairs or lessened his energy in seeking to secure what he has consid- ered the best results in every election. He has been a justice of the peace since 1878 and a member of the school board more than thirty years. He was married in January, 1876, to Miss Edna E. Snow, a native of Kalamazoo, Michigan. They became the parents of three children, Owen W., Edith R. and Paul L., all of whom are living. Their mother died on August 12, 1908.

FISHER H. RICE.

Owning and cultivating 300 acres of land, except what is reserved for grazing purposes, and carrying on his farming industry and his extensive live-stock business with an enterprise and vigor that com- mands success and compels large returns for his outlay of diligence and intelligence, Fisher H. Rice, of Independence township, is one of the leading agriculturists of Macon county, and both in his contribu- tions to its general wealth and consequence and his fine example and helpful influence in its public life, is justly regarded as one of its most worthy and representative citizens. His life to this time has been passed in the county, and here, also, his father lived and labored from his birth to his death, and his grandfather spent his best and wisest years.

Mr. Rice was born in Macon county on November 13, 1873, and is a son of John W. and Maria (Hayden) Rice, the former of Kentucky and the latter of Kentucky ancestry, but both born and reared in this county. They had four children, Fisher H., Sadie M., the wife of James Montgomery, Rosie and William T. All four are living and exemplify- ing in good citizenship and general usefulness the lessons they received by admonition and example at the parental fireside. The father was a Democrat in his political views and always took an active interest in public affairs and the campaigns of his party, rendering it effective service and enjoying in a marked degree the confidence and esteem of both its leaders and its rank and file. He was a justice of the peace for many years, road overseer for several terms and a member of the school board for nearly a quarter of a century. He died in December,

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HISTORY OF MACON COUNTY

1908. The mother is still living, and is regarded with universal venera- tion wherever she is known.

Fisher H. Rice was prepared for the battle of life by careful train- ing at home and a limited extent of academic instruction in the country schools of the neighborhood. The home training included a full meas- ure of participation in the farm work of the homestead, and this was immediately useful in giving him strength and suppleness of body and independence and self-reliance of spirit. It was permanently service- able in giving liim intimate practical knowledge of the lines of indus- try in which his life was to be spent, and so, when he left school and soon afterward began a farming and stoek-raising industry of his own, he was well qualified and equipped for the undertaking. He farmed for a number of years and then conducted a harness-maker's establishment at Ethel for two years. In 1897 he sold his interest in the harness factory and since then has devoted his whole time and energy to farming and his live-stock interests, except what has been demanded in helping to push forward the general progress of the com- munity and promote the general welfare of its people. In all things pertaining to these he has done his full part as a good citizen, and his efforts in their behalf have been highly appreciated by those who have had the benefit of them.

In political relations Mr. Rice is anchored firmly to the Democratic party and he is energetic and loyal in his service to it. But he has at all times steadfastly refused to consider overtures to become a candi- date for political office himself, always preferring to serve the public from the honorable post of private citizenship. On August 22, 1900, he was married to Miss Anna M. Johnston, a native of this county. They have one child, their daughter, Alba, who is now (1909) eight years old. The parents mingle freely in the best social circles and are niversally esteemed.

JOHN W. THURMAN.

From the dawn of his manhood until a year or two ago, when he retired from all pursuits of strenuous activity, John W. Thurman, of Independence township, was one of the most energetie and progressive farmers of Macon county. His operations were not as extensive as those of some other farmers in the county, although they were con- siderable, but they were of a high character, advanced in method and fruitful in good results for him and the general progress of the region in which they were conducted. Mr. Thurman is a native of Kentucky. He was born in 1844, and was brought to Missouri when less than a

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year old. He grew to manhood in this portion of the state and has mingled with its people all his years to this time. He therefore began his farming and stock-raising industries with considerable knowledge of what was required to develop them to their ntmost possibilities, and he has applied his knowledge with assiduous industry, good judgment and comprehensive breadth of view. His success is, therefore, the logical outcome of ability and intelligence applied skilfully to cir- cumstances and conditions whose capabilities and requirements were well understood from the start.

Mr. Thurman is a son of Samuel and Emma (Lee) Thurman, natives of Kentucky, who came to this state in 1845 and followed farming for a livelihood until death ended their labors, the mother passing away in 1888 and the father in 1900. They had thirteen chil- dren, but only three of them are living now: James T., John W. and Francis E. Having arrived in this part of the country while it was yet on or near the frontier, with all its forms of government and civil insti- tutions still crude and unsystematized, the father was called upon to take an important part in public affairs in the locality, and he won gen- eral esteem and approbation for the valuable services he rendered in this respect, and his name is held in appreciative remembrance among all classes of the people.

His son, John W. Thurman, grew to manhood on the family home- stead and performed with ability and fidelity his full portion of the labor it entailed upon the household. He attended the country schools of the neighborhood when he had opportunity, and thereby secured a fair common school education. The higher walks of academic acquire- ment were not open to him, as he lived in a region in which the conquest over nature was not yet wholly won and the necessity for continning the struggle with vigor and unceasing attention left small chance for other pursuits. But he acquired enough of mental development through hook learning to serve his needs, and as he had already selected farming as his occupation for life, as soon as he left school he began to move toward an enterprise of his own in this great field of labor. For a few years longer he remained with his parents and assisted them on the family farm. Then he began operations for himself, and in these he was successful from the start. His progress at first was, of course, slow and his struggles were arduous. But he was persistent and, after a time, the reults were larger and the advance toward comfort and consequence hecame more rapid. He now owns 239 acres of fine land and has his farm well improved and thoroughly equipped with the most approved implements of husbandry. His live-stock industry is

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also extensive and profitable. It is conducted with vigor and intelli- gence, as all his undertakings are, with the best results always in view and all efforts bent toward securing them.

Within a short time recently Mr. Thurman has given up all strenu- ons activity, giving over the management of his farm and stock inter- ests to others while he finds occupation for his mind in looking after affairs in which he is interested that do not require intense physical activity. He is one of the stockholders and directors of the Bank of Atlanta and has other interests in the industrial and financial institu- tions of the community. In political faithi he is a Democrat, and, while devoted to his party in loyal allegiance and faithful service, has always refused public office of any kind, except that for the good of the com- munity he consented to serve as one of the school trustees for a period of eight years. During the last eighteen years he has been an active member of the Order of Odd Fellows, and for a much longer time one of the zealous and energetic working forces in the Southern Methodist church. In March, 1874, he was married to Miss Paulina Bennett, a native of Schuyler county, Missouri, and a daughter of Virginia and North Carolina parentage. Four children blessed the union and bright- ened the family circle : Luvella, now the wife of J. F. Seney, Harvey, Ezekiel and Ira.

JAMES H. ELLIOTT.

As a representative man among the promoters of one of the leading industries of Maeon county, James H. Elliott, of Independence town- ship, has an elevated and firmly fixed place in the public esteem and well deserves it. He is one of the leading farmers of his township and conducts his operations in the most progressive and enlightened way. They are profitable to him because by his skill and enterprise he makes them so; and they are beneficial to the region around him because they contribute to its wealth, prosperity and influence, and also because the force of his stimulating example produces and quickens activity and progress in others.

Mr. Elliott was born in Macon county in 1872, and is a scion of good old Kentucky families, whose farming operations on the fertile soil of the Blue Grass state helped its progress toward its present high state of development, commercial greatness and political influence for several generations prior to the advent of any of their members into the indus- trial life of Missouri. Mr. Elliott's father, George Elliott, accom- panied his parents from their Kentucky home to Missouri when he

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was a boy. The family located in Macon county, and here he grew to manhood and became a farmer. He is still living and still actively engaged in tilling the soil and raising cattle and other live-stock. He was married to Miss Sarah Herrin, and they became the parents of four children, Cora, the wife of Thomas Tate, James H., George and Ada, all of whom are living.

James H. Elliott has passed the whole of his life to this time in Macon county, the boyhood and youth on his father's farm and the mature years on one of his own. He secured a limited education in the country schools-all that their facilities and his opportunities could give him-but it has served his purpose well and been of great serv- ice to him. It taught him the value of intelligence and how to get it, and the lesson has not been lost upon him. He has been a man of read- ing and reflection, especially in the line of his business, and has a con- siderable fund of general information, with special acquisitions con- cerning agricultural life and the live-stock industry, in both of which he is energetically engaged. He has a fine farm of 120 acres, not far from the town of Atlanta, and in its condition of advanced development, rich productiveness and high state of improvement it is very credit- able as a product of his enterprise and wisdom, good taste and breadth of view, and is also creditable to the township in which it is located as one of its representative country homes.

Mr. Elliott is in no sense an empiric or an experimenter in any sentimental significance. But he has intellectual hospitality and wel- comes every new idea that seems commendable to him and gives it a chance in use to prove its value. He is progressive in his farming and liis stock-breeding, and endeavors to keep abreast with the most advanced thought and discovery in both lines of endeavor. He is pro- gressive for the community, too, as well as for himself, and omits no effort he is able to make in the way of promoting its welfare and prog- ress. As a member of the local school board he has been of great service to the people, and in all other ways he has looked upon their best interests as closely allied with his own. In politics he is an active working Democrat, eager for the success of his party and zealous in its service. In 1894 he was married to Miss Myrtle Bealmer, a native of this county, but of Kentucky ancestry. They have one child, their son, Ernest, who is attending school. The parents stand well in social life, are regarded as worthy of all esteem in every attribute of their citizenship, and are looked upon as among the most useful of the township's population.

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ANDREW TAYLOR STILL, D. O.

All Macon county men who have won distinction are entitled to have their record set forth in any work that claims to be in any sense an account of the lives of the county's progressive men, and the means and efforts by which its development and progress have been achieved. No work of the character of this publication would be com- plete without some mention of Dr. A. T. Still, the founder of the oste- opathic school of medical treatment and now head of the American School of Osteopathy at Kirksville, Missouri, which was chartered by the state in 1894. Like other men who broached a new theory in science which disturbs long established beliefs and old prejudices, Dr. Still was obliged to win his way to success and popular approval through tribulations and opposition that sometimes amounted almost to persecution. But he felt that he had conceived something of great value to mankind, and he persevered in his efforts to make it known and established its worth in spite of all opposing forces, and he is now firmly fixed in popular esteem as the discoverer of a new system and one of its most accomplished and capable practitioners to be found in the whole country.

Dr. Still was born in Lee county, Virginia, August 6, 1828, and is a son of Rev. Abram Still, a Methodist minister and doctor of medicines, who moved his family to New Market, Tennessee, in 1834. There Dr. A. T. Still became a student at Holston college, in which he con- tinued the scholastic training he had begun in a little log schoolhouse in his native state. In 1837 the father was sent by the conference to which he belonged as a missionary to Missouri and moved his family to this state, making the journey overland with teams and consuming seven weeks in the trip. He located in Macon county, where he was one of the first settlers. Ile traveled all over the country, new and trackless as it was, preaching the gospel to the people in his ministerial capacity and tending the sick as a doctor, in both lines of activity doing a great deal of good. He founded seven churches in this wild territory and was the pastor of all of them. He took up a large track of land near Barnesville, in Independence township, and a few years later built on it a large two-story house of hewed logs, which was one of the most commodious and imposing in all this region at the time, and was so well built that, although it is more than sixty years old, it scarcely shows any signs of age or wear.

The children of the family attended the subscription schools of the period, and in them the future doctor completed his academie educa- tion and qualified himself to become a teacher himself. He taught for

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ANDREW T. STILL

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some time in a primitive log building, although a new one, about one mile west of Barnesville, and was snecessful in the work. Among the men who have since risen to prominence that attended his school is Dr. J. F. Gross of Callao, a sketch of whom will be found in this work. In 1849 Dr. Still was united in marriage with Miss Mary Vaughn, a sister of "Aunt Fannie" Edwards, who now lives in Macon. She died September 29, 1859 leaving one daughter, Mrs. John Cowgill now living in Ottawa, Kansas, and in 1852 he moved his family to Kansas, where he practiced medicine in company with his father, having pre- pared himself for the profession while teaching school and afterward. He also farmed while living in Kansas and took part in everything of public importance which occurred in the region of his home. His practice was mainly among the Shawnee Indians, with whom he was on very friendly terms. On Nevember 24, 1860 Dr. Still contracted a second marriage, the lady of this choice being Mary E. Turner. Fonr children of this union are still living, and all reside at Kirksville, Missouri.

Dr. Still always had a deep and abiding interest in the welfare of the country, and when the Civil war broke out he promptly followed his political convictions to the battlefield and fought for them as valiantly as any soldier in the service. After the war he renewed his activity as a physician and farmer and also operated a saw mill some time and continued to grow into prominence among the people. He was a member of the committee appointed to locate the University of The M. E. Church at Baldwin, Kansas, and being skillful as a car- penter and builder, he helped to saw the lumber and put up the buildings of this institution. He also served in the Kansas legislature in 1857-58.

For a number of years before making any announcement of his the- ory of healing diseases withont medicine, to which he gave the name of osteopathy, he was a diligent student of it in all its bearings. At length he announced it and began to teach it. He then traveled from place to place in Missouri, practicing his theory and making many remarkable enres. Some of these appeared so remarkable to the people that they attributed supernatural power to him and became afraid to say anght against him lest he do them some harm. But he persevered in his efforts and in time overcame all opposition and gained a large number of followers. He established a school at Kirksville and had students from all parts of the country, and this finally expanded into the pre- sent American School of Osteopathy, the parent institution of the new school of medicine which he founded, and which now has zealous practi- tioners in every state and almost every county in the United States.

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The main building of the institution is a large and well arranged structure which cost more than $80,000, and is well adapted to the uses for which it was erected, also an up-to-date hospital at a cost of over $75,000. The school is flourishing, and the man who founded it is living in comfort after so many trials, in high esteem after so much obloquy in a handsome residence after pass- ing many years of his earlier life in log cabins, many of which he helped to build. His life record is the old story of opposition to truth which has not been long established, persecution of faith which the world has not tested, misrepresentation and abuse for doing good in a manner that is new to the public. Its later chapters are, however, different from those in the lives of many martyrs, for they record triumphant success and complete vindication from all that was ever said in the earlier parts, and the general acceptance of views which scarcely anybody would tolerate when they were first made known by the practical genius who thought them out.

JOHN WESLEY WIGGANS.

All of the forty years of life that have so far been vouchsafed to this very progressive and successful farmer of Independence town- ship, in this county, have been passed in the county and all of his activ- ities have been employed in the commendable work of helping to build np and develop it and advance the best interests of its people. He was born and reared in Macon county, obtained his education in its public schools, married one of its native daughters, and has been engaged all of his mature life in tilling a portion of its soil as his own particular and productive enterprise. He has also been active and serviceable in its public life, and has ministered to the welfare of its people by ability and fidelity in a number of public offices. Mr. Wiggans is, therefore, wholly a product of the county, and is thoroughly imbued with the spirit, desires and aspirations of its inhabitants, and truly representative of the best that is in them.

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General history of Macon County, Missouri, Part 42

Author: White, Edgar comp; Taylor, Henry, & company, pub Publication date: 1910 Publisher: Chicago, H. Taylor & company Number of Pages: 1106

Author: White, Edgar comp; Taylor, Henry, & company, pub
Publication date: 1910
Publisher: Chicago, H. Taylor & company
Number of Pages: 1106