USA > Missouri > Shelby County > General history of Shelby County, Missouri > Part 77
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Coming down to the next generation, Mr. Calvert is a son of Gabriel and Sarah A. (Rollins) Calvert, natives of Ken- tucky. The father was born in Bourbon county, in that state, in 1814, and was brought to Missouri by his parents when he was four years old. He was reared and educated in Marion county, and as soon as he was of a suitable age began farming and raising live stock in that county, and followed those pursuits in the same locality until his death in 1898. He was very successful as a farmer and when he died left 200 acres of superior and well improved land to his heirs. In the days of his young manhood the law required citizens to muster at regular times under fixed regulations for mili- tary training. Gabriel Calvert was the fifer of the organization in his neighbor- hood, and it is a common tradition handed down from the older inhabitants that lie was one of the best of his day.
He was married in 1839 to Miss Sarah A. Rollins, a native of Kentucky, but re- siding in Marion county, Missouri, at the time of the marriage and for some years
previous. They had twelve children, six of whom are living: Thomas J., of this county; Cecilius C., the theme of this writing; Sarah, the wife of B. V. Fergu- son, of Marion county; George A., of Monroe county; Julia, the widow of the late John Wood, of Shelby county ; Ziba, who lives at Shelton, Nebraska ; and Bo- lar, who is a resident of Marion county, Missouri. In politics the father was a Republican and always deeply interested and active in the service of his party.
Cecilius C. Calvert obtained his educa- tion at Hickory Grove district school, in Marion county, which he attended during the winter months until he was thirteen years of age. He then worked on his father's farm until the beginning of the Civil war, when he felt impelled by his love of the Union to enlist in its defense. He enlisted in March, 1862, in Company K, Eleventh Missouri Infantry, under Col. Henry S. Lipscomb, and served un- til December, 1864, when he received an lionorable discharge at Cape Girardeau, in this state. During his service he took part in the battles of Newark and Kirks- ville, Missouri; Gainesville, Arkansas, and the two days' engagement at Cape Girardeau. The command then followed Price and Marmaduke to Little Rock and took possession of that city and closed the campaign at Frederickstown, Mis- souri.
After his discharge from the army Mr. Calvert returned to his Marion county home and remained there working on the farm and assisting the family until 1866, when he was united in marriage with Miss Eliza Spaw, of Iowa, a daugliter of William J. and Mary Ann (Ashpaw) Spaw, formerly of that state but long
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residents of Missouri. He then rented a farm in Marion county, which he occu- pied until 1873. In that year he moved to Macon county on eighty acres of land which he purchased, and on which he raised stoek and carried on general farm- ing operations until 1889, when he sold out there and changed his residence to a farm of 240 acres in Shelby county, about three miles from Emden. He directed the enltivation of this farm and the stock industry in connection with it until 1905, then divided it among his children.
After this disposition of his farm Mr. Calvert moved to Emden and took charge of a feed and grist mill, which he owned and operated until 1907. This mill he then sold, after which he passed a year in South Dakota. Returning to Emden in 1908, he bought back the mill property, and he now operates the mill very profitably. He also keeps a general store and has a large and active trade. In October, 1908, he was appointed post- master of Emden and is still in service in that capacity.
From his happy union with Miss Spaw in the marriage which was solemnized in 1866, ten children have been born, eight of whom are living, and all residents of Shelby county but one. They are: Laura, the wife of E. P. Parsons ; James ; Sarah, the wife of William E. Dye; Ad- die, the wife of James Vanoy ; Anna, the wife of W. C. Habig, of South Dakota: Julia, the wife of William Adudell; and George and Frank. The father is a Re- publican in politics. Fraternally he is connected with the Grand Army of the Republie, and in religions affiliation he and his wife are energetie working mem- bers of the Primitive Baptist church.
WILLIAM J. COTTON.
This extensive, enterprising and suc- cessful farmer and live stock breeder and dealer, furnishes an impressive il- Instration of the worth of industry, thrift and intelligent use of the oppor- tunities afforded by this prolific and rapidly improving country and what they can accomplish in the way of making fortune and good repute for a laborious man and worthy, public spirited citizen. He lived on rented land for some years after he began farming, and although he finally inherited a farm of considerable extent, it was in a state of primeval wild- ness when he took charge of it, and he was obliged to do almost as much as any pioneer to reduce his holding to sys- tematie productiveness.
Mr. Cotton was born on April 29, 1857, at Shelbyville, Missouri, and is a grand- son of Chester K. Cotton, a native of Connecticut and one of the earliest set- tlers of Shelby county. He was for many years engaged in general merchandising at Shelbyville, and prospered finely in his business. The parents of William J. were William B. and Mary (Parsons) Cotton, the former born in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1835, and the latter a na- tive of this county. He came to Missouri with his parents when he was quite young and was reared and educated in this county, attending school in Shelby- ville, where he lived. As soon as he was old enough and sufficiently trained for the purpose, his father took him into the mercantile establishment as a partner under the firm name of Cotton & Son, which became a very popular and pros- perous firm, doing a large business and
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winning trade from a very large extent of the surrounding country. But the life of the junior member of this firm was short, as he died in 1871 at the early age of thirty-six years.
He was married in 1854 to Miss Mary Parsons of this county, a daughter of Jonathan and Mary Ann (Carter) Par- sons, natives of Virginia. They had two children, their daughter, Mary Cather- ine, the wife of I. N. Frederick, of Shelby county, and their son, William J., both of whom live to revere their memory and follow their example of upright and use- ful living. The mother died in 1858, and in 1860 the father married a second wife, choosing as his partner on this occasion Miss Jennie Dobbins, of Marion county. Four children were born of their union and three of them are living, and all resi- dents of Shelbina. They are: Thomas M .: Cora, the wife of Sim Downing; and Weldon. In politics the father was a Democrat and an active worker for his party. He was a Freemason fraternally and a member of the Methodist Episco- pal church in religious affiliation.
William J. Cotton obtained his aca- demic training in the district schools of Shelby county and at Ingleside College, Palmyra. After leaving the latter in- stitution he pursued a course of special business training at the Gem City Com- mercial College, Quincy, Illinois. Upon completing his education he started mak- ing his own way in the world, and until 1866 rented land and carried on farming operations as extensively and vigorously ashiscircumstances would permit. In 1866 he received as an inheritance from his grandfather, with whom he had made his home after the death of his father until
he started a home for himself, a farm of 360 acres of wild and unbroken land, and he immediately gave himself up with all his energy to make this tract over into a comfortable home and a productive and valuable basis of general farming and stock breeding and feeding operations, enlarging his efforts in each department as he prospered and gained facilities for the purpose. In this design he lias been very successful. His farm is well improved, highly productive and very valuable, and he has made it all this by his energy, intelligence and excellent judgment in managing everything con- nected with it. And the live stock indus- try conducted in connection with the farming is managed with the same care, intelligence and skill, and is in its meas- ure proportionately as profitable.
Mr. Cotton has risen to prominence and influence also in the general life of his township and county. He has shown great interest in their development and improvement, giving active support to every worthy undertaking for promoting that and looking well to the best inter- ests of the whole people in every way. His public spirit as a citizen is highly ap- preciated by the people, and he is very popular and has high standing among them. He has served them well as a school director and in all other ways open to him, or that he could make open to him, has given their affairs and their enduring welfare his best and most help- ful attention.
On December 18, 1878, Mr. Cotton was united in marriage with Miss Jessie Bar- num, of Palmyra, a danghter of Ezra and Martha (Wells) Barnum, the former a native of Connecticut and the latter of
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Kentucky. Two children have been born of the union, a son named Chester P., who is living at home with his parents, and a daughter named Alberta, who is the wife of B. F. Floweree, an esteemed resident of Shelby county. In politics the father is a pronounced and unwaver- ing Democrat of the most reliable kind. In fraternal relations he is a Freemason, and in religions connection he and his wife are zealous working members of the Missionary Baptist church, he having served as clerk of the congregation to which he belongs during the last fifteen years with credit to himself and benefit to the church and greatly to the satisfac- tion of the whole congregation.
JOHN J. HOLLYMAN.
The untimely death of this excellent farmer, fine stock man and most highly esteemed citizen of Tiger Fork township, Shelby county, which occurred on No- vember 13, 1899, when he was but little over fifty-five years of age, stopped in its midst a very progressive and successful business career in the allied industries to which it was devoted, and cast the whole community in mourning over the loss of an inspiring force, a leader of thought and action and a very useful man in all practical requirements of every day life, which had been at work among its people.
Mr. Hollyman was born on August 23, 1844, in Shelby county, Missouri, and here he resided all the years of his life. He was a son of Charles N. and Nancy (Eaton) Hollyman, natives of Kentucky, where the former was born in 1810. He came to Missouri in the very early days
and for a short time lived in Marion county. From there he moved to Shelby county, and on its fertile soil and amid its inspiring and progressive institutions he passed the remainder of his days, dy- ing on March 25, 1882. He spent his years in this state in farming and raising live stock, and in his time was considered one of the very best farmers in Shelby county. His marriage, which took place in 1835, resulted in three children, all of whom are now deceased.
John J. Hollyman attended the dis- triet schools in Shelby county and also the public schools in Lexington, Ken- tueky, whither he went during the Civil war and remained three years. After his return to this county he finished his education in one of the schools here. He remained on the home place with his pa- rents, assisting them until deathi robbed him of them. He then bought the place and on it he passed the rest of his own life and the remaining years of a very successful career as a farmer and also as an extensive breeder and feeder of stock, which he shipped in large consign- ments to the Chicago and other markets. He began as a farmer and stock man with 160 acres of land, and when he died he owned 480 acres, which his widow now controls and manages with a skill and in- telligence that keep the old spirit in the industries conducted on the place and maintain the profits at the highest range of the times.
Mr. Hollyman was prominent in local public affairs as a Democrat who never wavered in loyalty to his party or flagged in zeal in its service. But he would never consent to accept a political office either by appointment or election,
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although frequently and earnestly solic- ited to do so by his friends among the party leaders and also those who marched with the rank and file. He pre- ferred the independent and honorable position of private citizenship as a man and the duties and interests of his farm to all official cares and all artificial dis- tinctions born of temporary elevation in public life. At the same time he gave close and intelligent attention to the needs and possibilities of his township and county, and omitted no effort possi- ble on his part to provide for the one and develop the other to the highest extent. Every form of public improvement or enterprise for the good of the people had his hearty, cheerful and helpful support from start to finish.
On April 26, 1883, he was united in marriage with Miss Anna V. Bell, who was born on July 17, 1855, in Shelby county, Missouri, and is a daughter of J. W. and Elizabethı B. (Ferguson) Bell, the former a native of Kentucky and the latter of Virginia. Mr. and Mrs. Holly- man were the parents of two children, both living: Charles N., who lives at La- redo, Texas, and Frank, a resident of this county. Their mother is a member of Mt. Zion Baptist church, and one of the active workers among those who be- long to it, doing everything she can to advance the interests of the congrega- tion and the church in general.
JAMES W. TURNER.
Having passed the limit of human life as designated by the Psalmist, although bearing well and with spirit the burden of his years, James W. Turner, one of the prosperous and enterprising farmers
and stock men of North River township, in this county, is entitled, on account of his age, to the veneration the people be- stow upon him. But he has another title to their regard and good will and to their gratitude and esteem as well. That is that more than half a century of his use- ful life has been passed among them and the greater part of this period has been devoted in a leading and substantial way to the development and improvement of the locality in which his labors have been expended.
Mr. Turner was born on December 10, 1839, in Garrard county, Kentucky, and is a grandson of James Turner, who was also a native of that state and when he left it, and came westward with the ad- vancing tide of migration toward the Rocky mountains, became one of the very early settlers in this portion of Mis- souri. He settled on a farm in our ad- joining county of Marion, and on that farm he passed the remainder of his days, dying on it at last and being laid to rest in the very soil he had hallowed by his labors. His son, Thomas W. Turner, the father of James W., was born in 1818 in Garrard county, Ken- tucky, where he grew to manhood and was married at the very dawn of that estate. In 1840 he brought his young family to Missouri and located on a farm in Marion county, also, near where his father lived. On this farm he was ac- tively, extensively and prosperously en- gaged in farming and raising live stock during all the subsequent years of his life except the last two or three, which he passed in Shelby county at the home of his son James, where he died on October 10, 1899.
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He was married in 1838 to Miss Mar- garet Tucker, of the same nativity as himself, and they became the parents of ten children, eight of whom are living: James W., the interesting subject of these paragraphs; Thomas, who has his home in the state of Oklahoma; JJohn, who is a resident of this county; Mica- jah, who resides at Fort Scott, Kansas; Samuel, whose home is also in Okla- homa ; Mary, the wife of George Powell, of Marion county; Holman, who dwells in distant California; and Nancy, the widow of the late George Nash, of Marion county, this state. In politics the father was a Democrat and always took an interest in the welfare of his party.
James W. Turner began his scholastic training in the district schools of his na- tive county in Kentucky and completed it in those of Marion county, in this state, attending the latter until he reached the age of twenty-one. He then started his own career of conquest and advancement by buying eighty acres of land in Shelby county, on which he set- tled and which form a part of his present fine and well improved farm of 400 acres, nearly all of which is under advanced and skillful cultivation. On this land he was very actively, extensively and profit- ably engaged in farming and raising live stock until 1903, when he retired from all active pursuits, although he still gives supervisory attention to the farming and does chores and light jobs connected with its work, according to his taste and in- clination.
Mr. Turner has long been prominent and influential in the public life of the township and county, and has always
shown a very warm and cordial interest in whtever has involved their enduring welfare. He served as clerk of the dis- triet school and on the board of school directors twenty-five years, and is now serving his third term as justice of the peace and notary public. He also car- ried the United States mails for two years during the Civil war. This was a public service full of peril and he fre- quently appeared to take his life in his hand when he started on his trip. But he met the requirements of the case bravely and faithfully, and he escaped unharmed, winning the commendation of all who knew of his service for his courage and fidelity in performing it.
On January 25, 1866, he was united in marriage with Miss Martha Meglasson, of Marion county, a daughter of Paschal and Caroline (Bayless) Meglasson, the former a native of Kentucky and the lat- ter of Mississippi. Five children were born of the union, three of whom are liv- ing: Lee, Laura Belle and Hurley J. The daughter is still at home with her parents, and her brothers are both pros- perons and rising men in this county. The father adheres to the Democratic party in political faith and action, and in the days of his greater vigor was a very energetic worker for its success in all campaigns. His religious allegiance, and that of his wife also, is given to the Christian church, in which both are zeal- ous and devoted workers for all that per- tains to the welfare of the congregation to which they belong.
MONROE TEACHENOR.
The life of a traveling salesman for a large and important mercantile estab-
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lishment is by no means an easy one, City, Utah; Isaae L., who lives at Clay- however outsiders may view it. At the ton, Illinois; Monroe, the pleasing sub- jeet of this brief review ; and Mrs. P. F. Gardiner, of Knox county, Missouri. The father was a successful farmer and a de- voted and loyal member of the Independ- ent Methodist church. He stood well in his community, wherever he lived, and was regarded as an upright, enterpris- ing and useful citizen wherever he was known and by all who had the pleasure of his acquaintance, or the benefit of in- timate association with him. same time it has its compensations for its exactions and hardships and those who follow it are not slow to see and ap- preciate these. The traveling salesman of our time is looked upon as an author- ity on the latest phases of social, polit- ical and mercantile activity in many places, and is usually warmly welcomed as a sunbeam from the outside world in nooks and corners which are aside from the great, busy, struggling world; and in other aspects he is regarded as a shin- His son, Monroe Teachenor, obtained his education in the district schools of this state and at a high school in New- ark, in Knox county. After leaving school he was employed as a clerk and salesman in a dry goods store for a num- ber of years. He then went on the road as a traveling representative of Janis, Saunders & Co., a large wholesale dry goods establishment in St. Louis, whom he represented in the commercial world throughout a large territory until 1884. In that year he accepted a position in the same capacity with the Hargadine-Me- Kiltruek Dry Goods Company, of St. Lonis, and with that house he has been actively engaged ever since. ing link between the ambitious busy strivings of the smaller cities and the mighty commercial centers. In this ca- pacity Monroe Teachenor, of Shelbina, has served the publie for a number of years and has found his life agreeable in the main. He has been snecessful in his calling, and this, if nothing else, is an element of enjoyment and sufficient in it- self to reconcile the man who experi- ences it to almost any ordinary privation. Mr. Teachenor was born in Lewis conn- ty, Missouri, on October 5, 1863, and is a grandson of Isaac Teachenor, a native of Ohio, and a son of Nathaniel Teache- nor, who was born and reared in the same state. The father came to Mis- souri in 1857 and located in Lewis eoun- ty, where he followed teaching school in connection with farming for a number of years. In 1869 he moved to Shelby county, and after remaining in this eoun- ty two years removed to Knox county, where he died on May 1, 1909.
He was married in 1855 to Miss Sarah Glasscock, also a native of Ohio. They had eight children, four of whom are liv- ing: David W., a resident of Salt Lake
Although his home is in Shelbina, Mr. Teachenor has seen much of the world and learned its ways. He knows men and their secret springs of action, and has mastered all the details of the dry goods trade as a commercial tourist. And he has the wisdom to make an intel- ligent, practical application of what he has learned in the way of swelling his trade and thereby adds greatly to his own revenues and the business of the house he represents. He is regarded as
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one of the most capable, agreeable and successful men in the employ of the house in his line of activity, and univer- sal testimony proclaims that he is en- titled to the high rank he holds in this respect.
On September 23, 1886, he was united in marriage with Miss Harriet Parsons, a native of Shelbyville, Missouri. They have had four children, three sons and one daughter. They are: Homer, Fred, Lotus and Brooks. The father is a pro- nounced Democrat in politics and active in the service of his party according to his opportunities to work for it. These are necessarily limited, as he is away from home a great deal of the time. Fra- ternally he is connected with the Masonic order, and in religions affiliation is al- lied with the Methodist Episcopal Church, South.
Mr. Teachenor's heart is in his busi- ness, and in 1909, thinking thereby to win ont a larger and more gratifying snecess in it, he moved to St. Louis. But he found that he was as well off in She]- bina and better satisfied, and in 1910 he moved back to that city, which is now his home. He takes an active interest in public affairs and does all in his power to promote the welfare of his city and county. And he is esteemed by their people as one of the best and most repre- sentative men among them.
EMMETT D. SWINNEY.
Starting in life with nothing but his native ability and his determined and persevering spirit, and winning a grati- fying success as a farmer, a mechanic and a merchant, Emmett D. Swinney, of
Shelbina, furnishes in his career a fine example of the versatility of the Amer- ican mind when awakened to and kept in action by correct principles and lofty ideals of duty; and an example also of the true allegiance to local and general requirements of government, which is the natural product of good citizenship.
Mr. Swinney was born in Macon conn- ty, Missouri, on March 13, 1863, and is descended from sturdy old Kentucky stock. His father, Rev. John G. Swin- ney, was born in Pulaski county, Ken- tucky, in 1818, the son of William II. Swinney, who was also a native of that state, and who there was reared and had his career. The family was a pioneer one in that state. Some of its earlier members helped to lay the foundations of the commonwealth and later ones aided in building the superstructure.
Rev. John G. Swinney came to Mis- souri in 1832, while the conditions here were much like those found by his ances- tors when they invaded the wilderness of Kentucky, and he experienced in his day many of the hardships and privations which they experienced in theirs. He was a millwright and worked at his trade along the Missouri river for a great many years. But in the meantime, feel- ing a call to higher duties, he studied for the Christian ministry, and the greater part of his time during the subsequent years of his life were spent in pastoral duties and in proclaiming from the sa- cred desk the truths of the gospel.
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