History of Bates County, Missouri, Part 47

Author: Atkeson, William Oscar, 1854-
Publication date: 1918
Publisher: Topeka, Cleveland, Historical publishing company
Number of Pages: 1174


USA > Missouri > Bates County > History of Bates County, Missouri > Part 47


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D. B. Reist, the capable and highly respected cashier of the Adrian Banking Company of Adrian, Missouri, formerly local manager of the Hurley Lumber Company of Adrian, an ex-councilman of this city. is a native of Indiana. Mr. Reist was born in 1876 at Flora in Carroll county, Indiana, a son of J. W. and Mrs. Reist. His mother died when he was an infant ten months of age and he was adopted by Mr. and Mrs. W. B. Switzer, natives of Indiana, who reared and educated him. They moved from Indiana to Missouri in 1880 and located at Rich Hill, where they resided two years, and in 1882 purchased a small tract of land located three miles east of Adrian, to which they moved.


Mr. Reist, whose name introduces this review, obtained his educa- tion in the public schools of Bates county, Missouri. He was a small Jad, four years of age, when he came with his foster parents to this part of the country and while the Switzers resided at Rich Hill he attended school at that place, school being held in the old Presbyterian


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HISTORY OF BATES COUNTY


church building. When they moved to their farm, D. B. Reist attended school at Little Deercreek school house. Mrs. W. B. Switzer was employed as teacher of Little Deercreek school the first session which Mr. Reist attended. After he had completed the prescribed course of study, he continued to reside with Mr. and Mrs. Switzer and to assist with the work on their farm. In 1900, Mr. Reist located at Adrian, where he accepted a position with the Hurley Lumber Company of of Adrian and for four years was local manager of the lumber yards in this city and for two years at Archie. In 1906, Mr. Reist resigned his position with the Hurley Lumber Company of Archie, returned to Adrian, and accepted a position as bookkeeper with the Adrian Bank- ing Company and the ensuing year he was elected assistant cashier. Since August 1, 1911, Mr. Reist has been faithfully and competently filling the position of cashier of the Adrian Banking Company.


The marriage of D. B. Reist and Minnie M. Stilwell, a daughter of Mr. and Mrs. J. B. Stilwell, was solemnized in 1899 and to this union has been born one child, a daughter, Nadine B., who is at home with her parents Mr. and Mrs. Reist are worthy and consistent members of the Methodist Episcopal church and Mr. Reist has been superintendent of the Methodist Episcopal Sunday School for nine years and, at the time of this writing in 1918, is president of the Deercreek Township Sun- day School Association. They own their home in Adrian in addition to a farm in Grand River township and Mr. Reist is a stockholder and director of the Adrian Banking Company.


The Adrian Banking Company of Adrian, Missouri, was organized in 1883 with a capital stock of ten thousand dollars and the follow- ing officers : H. Moudy, president ; J. Scudder, cashier; and John Murphy, H. Moudy, A. J. Satterlee, J. Scudder, H. F. Wilhite, H. L. Fair, J. N. Bricker, and F. J. Taggard, stockholders, seven of whom were directors. Of the eight original stockholders, three are now 'living, namely : H. Moudy, H. L. Fair, and H. F. Wilhite. Mr. Moudy and Mr. Fair reside at Adrian and Mr. Wilhite is a resident of Lordsburg, Los Angeles county, California. This financial institution was first started in 1882 as a private bank and did not organize as the Adrian Banking Company until one year later. June 2, 1885, the capital stock was increased from ten thousand dollars to fifteen thousand dollars and since that time there has been a further increase to twenty-five thousand dollars, which in itself speaks well for the efficient manage- ment of the bank. The present officers of the Adrian Banking Com-


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HISTORY OF BATES COUNTY


pany are as follow : M. V. Owen, president ; D. F. Andes, vice-president ; D. B. Reist, cashier ; and W. W. Ricketts, assistant cashier; and M. V. Owen, D. F. Andes, J. M. Reeder, G. L. Argenbright, and D. B. Reist, directors. This bank is one of the strong, sound financial institutions of Bates county, of which all are proud, and its remarkable success from the very beginning is undoubtedly due to its wise management by gentlemen of superior business ability, whose integrity, as well as financial standing, is far above question.


Politically, D. B. Reist is a member of the Republican party. He has held different offices of public trust, he has served as a member of the city council of Adrian, and he has been secretary of the Adrian school board He takes a deep interest in lodge work and is affiliated with the Odd Fellows at Adrian. Mr. Reist was a representative from the Adrian chapter to the Grand Lodge for two years and he is a nominee for the position of grand warden. He was for two years district deputy grand warden of Bates county. Mr. Reist is not only an able financier, but an honorable, courteous gentleman, one of the county's valuable, substantial, public-spirited citizens.


W. W. Ricketts, the well-known and competent assistant cashier of the Adrian Banking Company of Adrian, Missouri, is one of Bates county's native sons whom all are proud to claim, a son of R. R. and Sarah Ricketts, the eldest of seven children born to his parents, who are, as follow: W. W., the subject of this review; Mrs. Grace Black- man, Adrian, Missouri: Mrs. Ruby Blackman, Kansas City, Missouri; Mrs. Phillis Hooper, Gillespie. Illinois: J. C., Adrian, Missouri; Mrs. Rosa Hardman, Drexel, Missouri; and Blanche, Adrian, Missouri. Mr. and Mrs. R. R. Ricketts have an adopted son, Zolas. R. R. Ricketts came to Missouri from California in 1880 and settled on a tract of land, embracing one hundred acres located in Grand River township, where he has ever since been and now is engaged in farming and stock raising. He and his second son, J. C., are associated in partnership and they rent two hundred acres of land, in addition to their own farm, and are successfully conducting a very profitable business, both being intelligent. progressive, and industrious agriculturists, and they are widely and favorably known in Bates county.


Miss Edith White was employed as teacher of the Crawford school in Grand River township, Bates county, when W. W. Ricketts began his school work about twenty-five years ago. He was later taught by Curtis Smith and Mr. Gregg, while a pupil in the same school as men- (32)


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HISTORY OF BATES COUNTY


tioned above. Mr. Ricketts completed the public school course at War- rensburg in 1905 and immediately accepted a position at Kansas City, Missouri, with the National Bank of Commerce, which place he held for three years and then resigned to accept a position with the New England National Bank of Kansas City. Mr. Ricketts was with the datter institution three years when he came to Adrian, Missouri, in 1911, to assume the duties of assistant cashier of the Adrian Banking Com- pany, a position he is filling with satisfaction to all concerned, at the time of this writing in 1918.


The marriage of W. W. Ricketts and Stella Smith, a daughter of W. H. and Anna Smith, of Cass county, Missouri, was solemnized in 1910. To this union has been born one child, a son, Gordon. Mrs. Ricketts is a member of the Christian church and Mr. Ricketts of the Methodist Episcopal church. They reside in Adrian, in which city they own an attractive residence and, in addition, two building lots. Mr. Ricketts is a stockholder of the Adrian Banking Company, a sketch of which institution will be found in connection with the biography of D. B. Reist, which appears elsewhere in this volume.


Mr. Ricketts is affiliated with the Democratic party and although he is a conscientious upholder of his political principles, he is by no means narrow or bigoted in his views. He has now for many years maintained an enviable standing in his home county, has filled with marked credit to himself several important positions of trust, and he possesses to an unusually large degree the confidence and respect of the people with whom he has so long been associated. W. W. Ricketts has attained his present high standing in this community not because of wealth, inheritance, or aid of influential friends but because of his own inherent worth and Adrian is proud to number him among the city's most representative citizens.


Reverend Ira Witmore, the well-known and competent manager of the Farmers Lumber Company of Adrian, Missouri, an honored bishop of the Church of the Brethren, one of Bates county's most progressive and prosperous citizens, is a native of Ohio. Reverend Witmore was born in 1868, a son of Jacob and Amanda Witmore. For three genera- tions, the Witmores have been ministers in the Church of the Brethren, Jonathan, the father of Jacob, Jacob the father of Ira, and Ira Wit- more, who traces his lineage back to a prominent and highly respected colonial family of Pennsylvania.


In the state of Ohio, Reverend Ira Witmore was reared and edu- cated. He came to Missouri in 1881 and settled in Bates county in 1893


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HISTORY OF BATES COUNTY


on a splendid farm, of eighty acres of land, located one mile from Adrian, for which place he paid twenty-five dollars an acre. Reverend Witmore was recently offered one hundred dollars an acre for his farm, which is not for sale. His home is one of the most beautiful country places in this part of the state. He but lately disposed of his stock interests, in order that he might give his entire attention to the work of the Farmers Lumber Company, of which he is manager. As a minister of the Gospel, Reverend Witmore is many times called upon to perform marriage cere- monies and funeral rites.


The marriage of Reverend Ira Witmore and Hannah Blocher, a daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Jacob Blocher, who came to Illinois from Pennsylvania, in the early days of the settlement of that state, and thence to Missouri, was solemnized in 1892. To this union have been born four children: Merle, Irma, Gertrude, and Naomi, all of whom reside at home with their parents. Reverend and Mrs. Witmore are highly esteemed in Adrian, where the Witmore family is numbered among the best families.


The Farmers Lumber Company of Adrian, Missouri was organized in 1903 at Adrian, Missouri with a capital stock of ten thousand dollars, consisting of four hundred shares. The company has long been self- sustaining and has prospered from the very beginning. The Farmers Lumber Company of Adrian has annually paid a dividend of from five to ten per cent. and stock in the company is at the present time selling for sixty dollars a share, which sold originally for twenty-five dollars. The officers of the company, at the time of this writing in 1918. are, as follow: E. H. Wyatt, president; W. H. Wagner, vice-president; L. R. Allen, secretary; Ira Witmore, manager; E. H. Wyatt, L. R. Allen, D. F. Andes, W. H. Wagner, H. Baie, directors; D. W. Six and J. P. Reeder, clerks. This company financed the building of the Adrian Cheese Factory, which is proving to be a most profitable investment. Reverend Witmore was elected manager of the company in 1908 and for three years prior to that he had been a clerk of the company. The Farmers Lumber Company handle all kinds of building material, includ- ing lumber, doors, cement, paint, and builders' hardware, all of which have greatly advanced in price during the past ten years. The com- parative values of the material in 1908 and 1918 are not only interesting in themselves but are of historical value, and are given below.


1908 1918


Cement, per sack


$ .35 $ .65


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HISTORY OF BATES COUNTY


Lumber, per hundred feet


2.25


3.75 ยท


Flooring


2.50


4.50


Shingles


3.75


5.00


Galvanized iron, per square


4.25


12.00


Paint, per gallon


1.65


3.00


1


I


I


1


The company had, at the time of this writing in 1918, a carload of yellow pine coming from Louisiana, which is costing eleven hundred fifty-two dollars and twenty-four cents. S. H. Ray was the first busi- ness manager of the Farmers Lumber Company of Adrian and under his capable management a surplus fund of two thousand eight hundred eighty-four dollars and eighty-two cents was accumulated. Since Mr. Witmore has assumed the management, this fund has been increased to ten thousand one hundred dollars, an increase which certainly reflects great credit upon the efficient business management of the company. Reverend Witmore has also increased the capacity of the company's building and it now owns two large plants. He relates many interest- ing and amusing experiences which he has had as manager of a new company beginning to make itself felt in competition with older firms. The prosperity of the Farmers Lumber Company is sufficient proof of its phenomenal success.


Willard Trout .- Thirty-four years ago, Willard Trout, leading farmer and stockman, of Howard township, Bates county, came to Bates county without a dollar to his name. He began his career in this county as a farm hand and is now one of the wealthy and influential citizens of the county. Mr. Trout owes his continued success to the fact that, when he had determined upon a certain method of procedure, to follow it, whatever the result, and in almost every instance, his judgment has resulted to his profit. For many years he has been an extensive feeder of livestock, and continues year in and year out to feed stock for the markets, regardless of conditions. This unvarying method of trusting nothing to chance, but in pursuing an undeviating and decided policy as regards his farming operations, has resulted in one of the remarkable successes in this section of Missouri. The "Trout Stock Farm" is one of the most complete and best equipped in Bates county, comprising four hundred acres of land, three sets of farm buildings, a recently completed feeding shed eighty by eighty feet in extent with concrete floors, a large granary, and two concrete silos, sixteen by forty feet in dimensions, with a capacity of two hundred tons of silage each. At the present writ- ing, December of 1917, Mr. Trout is feeding forty head of hogs and one


WILLARD TROUT AND FAMILY.


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HISTORY OF BATES COUNTY


hundred twenty-five head of cattle. He and his sons have harvested one hundred fifty acres of corn which made the great yield of forty to sixty bushels per acre, eighty acres of which actually yielded sixty bushels to the acre. They harvested one hundred ten acres of wheat which yielded a total of eighteen hundred bushels; and have sown two fields to wheat for the 1918 harvest, one field of one hundred fifteen acres and another of fifty acres. They also har- vested eighty acres of oats which made a substantial yield of forty bushels to the acre. The foregoing figures are direct and irrefutable evidence that the Trout farm is one of the most productive and best managed agricultural plants in this part of Missouri.


Willard Trout was born April 7, 1864 in Pendleton, Indiana, a son of Isaac and Amelia (Wanbaugh) Trout, natives of Pennsylvania, who located in Henry county, town of Greensboro, Indiana, in 1865. Isaac Trout was a miller by trade and operated a flouring and grist mill at Greensboro until 1870 when he took charge of the Stone Quarry Mill in Henry county and operated this mill up to within a few years of his death which occurred in October, 1898 at the age of seventy-six years. He was widely and favorably known throughout that section of Indiana. He was owner of a farm "near the mill" which he cultivated and upon which his family of eleven children were reared. Twelve children were born to Isaac and Amelia Trout, eleven of whom were grown to matur- ity and nine of whom are yet living: Willard, subject of this review; Robert, in Colorado; Frank, a resident of Indiana; Joseph, Pittsburg, Kansas; Burt, New Castle, Indiana; Mrs. Jennie Duncan, Knightstown, Indiana ; Mrs. Ida Whitely, Pittsburg, Kansas; Mrs. Dora McNew, How- ard township, Bates county ; Mrs. Adonis Rogers, New Castle, Indiana. The mother of this large family was born in 1841 and died in March, 1913.


Opportunities were poor for securing an education in his native county, and Willard Trout found it necessary to begin work at an early age in order to assist in providing for his father's large family. He worked in the mill during his boyhood days and until 1884 was employed in the cultivation of his father's farm. He then decided to come to Mis- souri in search of a home and fortune if possible. Arriving here during the harvest season, he secured employment as a farm hand, and his first work consisted in shucking twenty-five hundred bushels of corn at three cents per bushel. This was the first real money he earned in Missouri and was paid him by S. P. Wilson for his first winter's work. For the next two years he was employed at a wage of seventeen dollars per


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HISTORY OF BATES COUNTY


month. He then rented land until 1893, at which time he bought an "eighty" at a cost of one thousand eight hundred dollars. This farm was raw land which he improved first with a small shanty and after- ward built a frame dwelling. This farm was located west of his present home place and formed the nucleus around which he has gathered his present acreage, buying his present home "eighty" in 1900; another eighty-acre tract in 1903; a quarter section in 1915 at a cost of nine thousand dollars.


Mr. Trout was married March 11, 1888 to Miss Della Brown, and to this marriage have been born six children: Francis Wayne, farmer, Howard township, married Cecil Wilson; Howard Collier, farmer, on the home place ; Isaac Harrison, at home ; Mary Amelia, Minnie, Maude, and Adeline Marie, at home with their parents. Mrs. Della (Brown) Trout was born in Vernon county, Missouri, January 31, 1869 a daughter of Harrison and Marie (Miller) Brown, the former of whom was born in Anderson county, Kentucky in 1842, and the latter having been born in Fulton county, Illinois in 1851. Harrison Brown went to Illinois in 1864, removed to Texas in 1867, married in 1868 and located in Vernon county, Missouri in the fall of 1868, dying at the age of seventy-four years in 1916. In 1906 he retired to a home in Hume, Missouri, where his death occurred in July, 1916. There were seven children in the Brown family : Mrs. Willard Trout, wife of the subject of this review; Mrs. Nova Per- rine, deceased; Mrs. Lillie Rhodes, Kansas City, Missouri ; Miles Alonzo, living near Fulton, Kansas; Mrs. Maude Criss, Bates county, Missouri ; Charles, a dairyman at Rich Hill, Missouri; Neville, a druggist at Spring- field. Missouri.


Mrs. Della Trout had a painful and terrifying experience during the cyclone or tornado which devastated this section of Bates county on April 21, 1887. She was visiting at the home of her uncle, Miles Miller, located just northeast of the Trout place. The time was six o'clock in the evening and the family consisting of Mr. and Mrs. Miller and children were in the house, she making preparations for the evening meal. The sky was overcast and a storm was brewing. A roaring noise was heard, and Mr. Miller, looking out of the door, observed a twisting, funnel shaped cloud bearing directly down upon the buildings. All of them in- cluding Mr. Miller, his wife and babe, a son, Weaver Miller, three years old, and Mrs. Trout fled toward the outside storm cellar for safety. Just as Mr. Miller had opened the cellar door the tornado reached them in all its fury and Mrs. Trout knew nothing more until she found herself caught


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HISTORY OF BATES COUNTY


in the hedge some distance from the home and badly bruised about the body. The bodies of Mr. Miller and his wife and the two-months-old infant were found dead in the well where some freak of the "twister" had thrown them. The little three-year-old boy was found uninjured and was afterward reared by Mrs. Brown to manhood and is now a druggist in Nevada. The Miller homestead was one of the finest in Bates county, but every building was totally demolished by the fury of the tornado and the boards and parts of the buildings scattered to the four points of the compass as a result of the twisting power of the wind.


Mr. Trout takes a good citizen's part in matters political and is one of the influential members of the Democratic party in Bates county. He served for six years as township treasurer, and is fraternally affiliated with the Modern Woodmen of America. The Trout home is a very hospitable one and the several members of the Trout family are held in high esteem in Bates county.


S. L. Bates, M. D., one of the most prominent physicians of Bates county, ex-mayor of Adrian, vice-president of the First National Bank of Adrian, and the city physician, is a native of Indiana. Doctor Bates was born in 1850 at Castleton in Marion county, Indiana, a son of Ozro and Mary M. Bates, and a descendant of one of the leading colonial families, whose ancestors came to America from Scotland among the one hundred two Pilgrims on board the "Mayflower" which set sail from Plymouth, England, September 6, 1620. Ozro Bates was born at Brattleboro, Vermont, in 1813. When he was a child, five years of age, his parents moved from Brattleboro to Cincinnati, Ohio, and in 1818 both father and mother died from cholera, an epidemic of which dreaded disease swept the city at that time. The orphan boy was apprenticed to a Quaker family residing near Cincinnati, Ohio. In his youth, Ozro Bates mowed hay on the land which is the present site of Chicago, Illi- nois. He was greatly afflicted with the desire for change in his early maturity and he traveled extensively, always on horseback. Later in life, he purchased a tract of land, embracing one hundred twenty acres, located near Indianapolis, where he spent the remainder of his life engaged in the pursuits of agriculture. Ozro and Mary M. Bates were the parents of seven children, four of whom are now living, as follow: Nathaniel S., Rensselaer, Indiana ; David H., Henrietta, Texas : William M., Delphi, Indiana; and Dr. S. L., the subject of this review.


On his father's farm near Indianapolis, Indiana, Dr. S. L. Bates was reared and his boyhood days were spent much as are spent the days


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HISTORY OF BATES COUNTY


of the average lad on the farm. The doctor attended a little country school, which was held at Vertland school house near his home and which was taught by Professor Phipps at the time S. L. Bates began his educational career. He vividly recalls an occasion indelibly impressed upon his mind because of his keen disappointment in the results. One day, when the doctor was a schoolboy, the janitor of the school house built a booming fire of "poplar" wood and the young Bates lad naturally thought that that day they would have a "popping" fire and impatiently watched through the entire session to hear the "pops." In 1878, Dr. S. L. Bates graduated from Ohio Medical College, the oldest medical school in the West, and immediately afterward opened his office at Colburn in Tippecanoe county, Indiana, where he was engaged in the practice of his profession for several years. Dr. S. L. Bates completed the graduate course in medicine at the Ohio Medical College in 1886 and in February. 1887, he came West and located at Adrian in Bates county, where he has ever since been actively engaged in the medical practice. At the time of his coming, Adrian was a new town and pre- sented a very primitive appearance. The country was mostly unfenced and there were no bridges or roads. Dr. Bates has responded to calls fifteen miles from Adrian and in the early days always traveled on horseback.


The marriage of Dr. S. L. Bates and Effie M. Chapman, a daughter of Jacob H. and Mrs. Chapman, natives of Indiana, was solemnized in 1880. To this union have been born seven children, four of whom are now living: Dr. Carl, who is engaged in the medical practice in Colorado; Dr. Gerald C., Adrian, Missouri; Wilma A., Kansas City, Missouri; and Gertrude, at home with her parents. Each of the doc- tor's children is interested in the medical profession and all his sons have entered it. Miss Wilma E., the elder daughter of Dr. and Mrs. Bates, is at present a student in the Christian Church Hospital at Kansas City, Missouri, preparing for medical work, and Miss Gertrude, a stu- dent in the Adrian High School, is planning to be a physician and nurse. With the accession of the youngest child in the profession, the doctor's entire family will have become physicians. Dr. Gerald C. Bates is com- missioned as first lieutenant and will soon be called to France. The little city of Adrian is still grieving over the loss of Dr. Floyd Bates, a son of Dr. and Mrs. Bates, who was commissioned as first lieutenant, who was one of the first "to go to the colors" when the call to arms came. He was a young man of great ability with a bright and most


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HISTORY OF BATES COUNTY


promising career opening before him. Doctor Floyd had graduated from the Kansas City Medical College in the class of 1910 and was engaged in the practice of medicine at Adrian, associated with his father, and he had long since made scores of friends in this city and county. He was in camp at Fort Riley, when on the night of August 6, 1917, he was killed by lightning. His remains were brought to Adrian for interment.




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