USA > Missouri > Bates County > History of Bates County, Missouri > Part 63
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down in 1916 and a modern building erected on the site of the old one, the new school house being known as Prairie Rose.
In 1886, Alfred A. Miller went to Leadville, Colorado and for six and a half years was employed in the mines there. Mr. Miller suc- ceeded well in Colorado and was prospering when the word came to him that his father was dead. He then returned home to care for his widowed mother and together they resided at Butler from 1897 until 1913, when death entered their home again and she was taken from him. Mr. Miller disposed of his farm two years ago, selling the place to his brother, and he is now living in quiet retirement in Butler. He is the owner of his home in this city, a residence of six rooms, modern throughout, which he purchased in 1897. Mr. Miller has been a most devoted son and he is a man highly honored in Butler because of his unselfish devotion to duty, a citizen who occupies a large place in the respect and esteem of his fellowmen. Mr. Miller has never married.
R. C. Hays, manager of "Maple Grove Stock Farm" in Spruce town- ship, a well-known and successful breeder of registered Hereford cattle, is one of Bates county's enterprising, young agriculturists and stock- men. Mr. Hays is a son of J. B. and Ruth E. Hays, the father, a native of Saline county, Missouri and the mother, a native of Lafayette county, Missouri. The maternal grandparents of R. C. Hays were among the first settlers of Lafayette county and J. B. Hays is a son of William Hays, who was one of the leading pioneers of Saline county. J. B. Hays settled in Bates county, Missouri in 1874 on the farm in Spruce town- ship, now operated by his son, R. C., the subject of this review, when the land for nearly eight miles north to Grand river was all open prairie. He began the breeding and raising of registered Hereford cattle in 1897 and for many years was widely known in the county as an exten- sive feeder. His son. R. C., has continued the work begun by his father and they have on the farm, at the time of this writing in 1918, thirty head of fine registered Herefords, twenty-two of the herd being cows, and he and his father but recently sold twenty-seven head of cattle. "Maple Grove Stock Farm" in Spruce township comprises two hundred fifty-two acres of valuable land. J. B. Hays has retired from the active pursuits of farming and stock raising and since October, 1916 has been a resident of Adrian, Missouri. Mr. Hays, Sr. is now at the advanced age of seventy-four years, but a fairly well-preserved gentleman for one of his age, and he is numbered among the honored and invaluable citi-
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zens of Bates county. His name has long been connected with all worthy enterprises, having for their object the upbuilding of the material and spiritual interests of his community and no man in Spruce township is more deserving of commendation in a work of this character than is he. J. B. Hays will long be remembered for the gift of one acre of land upon which the Fairview Baptist church was erected in 1882. He was for many years clerk of the church and his son. R. C .. now holds the same position. Apparently, the father's mantle has fallen upon worthy shoulders.
The marriage of R. C. Hays and Miss Iva Evans, a daughter of George H. Evans, of Shawnee township, a sketch of whom appears else- where in this volume, was solemnized March 1. 1914. Mr. and Mrs. Hays are highly respected and esteemed in their community and they number their friends by the score in Bates county. As a citizen. R. C. Hays has always been a stanch advocate of progress and improvement.
Capt. John B. Newberry, the oldest living pioneer citizen of Bates county, Missouri, ex-sheriff of Bates county. ex-senator and ex-repre- sentative of the Missouri State Legislature. proprietor of "Evergreen Liberty Bell Farm" in Bates county, is a native of Orange county, New York. Captain Newberry was born May 25. 1829. a son of Joshua and Elizabeth (Stevins) Newberry, both of whom were natives of New York. Mr. and Mrs. Joshua Newberry moved with their family to Broome county. New York and there the parents died and are buried. They were the parents of seven children. of whom Captain Newberry is the sole survivor.
In the public schools of Orange and Broome counties. New York. Captain Newberry obtained his education in the elementary branches of learning. He later entered Harfard Academy, Susquehanna county. Pennsylvania and was a student at that institution for one session. In his youth. he mastered the trade of blacksmithing and when he came to Missouri in 1853 he located at Papinsville. at that time the flourish- ing county seat of Bates county, and for four years followed his trade at that place. In 1857. Captain Newberry purchased his present coun- try place in Bates county, a farm comprising one hundred twenty acres located two and a half miles southeast of Spruce. He recalls among the heads of families. that were residents of Papinsville in 1853. when he-a young man twenty-four years of age-came to this county. the following men : F. F. Eddy. F. H. Eddins. S. H. Loring. James McCool. George L. Duke. Stephen S. Duke. and D. B. McDonald. Captain New-
CAPTAIN JOHN B. NEWBERRY.
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berry can not recall one family, or one single member of any family, keeping house in Papinsville in 1853 who is now living.
"Uncle James" Hook hewed the timbers for the residence built on Captain Newberry's farm in 1844, a building which has been since remodeled by Captain Newberry. The frame of this building was built of hewed lumber, the lath and weatherboarding all hand-rived, the floors made of pecan lumber hauled from Ball's Mill on the Osage in Vernon county, the woodwork of the interior made from pine hauled by oxen from Boonville, Missouri. The road from Papinsville to Boon- ville passed Captain Newberry's farm and the primitive log cabin on the place was known far and wide as "The House with the Glass Win- dow." It stood just a few feet northeast of the site of the present residence and Captain Newberry describes it as having a puncheon floor, and a ceiling of hickory bark, and a roof covering made of rived clap- boards. The cabin was eighteen feet square. In 1873, the captain planted two Norway spruce evergreen trees on the lawn of his home and he has carefully and painstakingly trained them and one is so shaped as to present a marvelous resemblance to the famous Liberty Bell. It is a strangely beautiful tree and immediately attracts the atten- tion of the passerby. Captain Newberry has the eye of an artist in matters pertaining to landscape gardening and the lawn of "Evergreen Liberty Bell Farm" is the most delightful feature of the place.
At Butler, Missouri, in 1862 Capt. John B. Newberry enrolled in Company F, Sixtieth Enrolled Missouri Militia in the Civil War and of this company was elected captain, and served as captain until the company was mustered out of the service. When Bates county was ordered evacuated in 1863, on account of Order Number 11, Captain Newberry's company was stationed in Henry county, in which county he remained after the war had ended until the autumn of 1865. During the summer of 1865, he worked at his trade of blacksmithing in Clinton. When he returned home, he found his house still standing, but found it with much difficulty as it was completely hidden by a rank growth of weeds.
In the election of 1870, Captain Newberry was elected on the Demo- cratic ticket sheriff and collector of Bates county. He served faithfully and efficiently two years and did not ask for re-election. At that time he and his family resided at Butler. In the autumn of 1874, Captain Newberry was elected senator of the Missouri State Legislature to rep- resent the district composed at that time of the counties of Bates, Cass,
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and Jackson. He served one term of four years during Governor Wood- son's administration and again did not ask for re-election. In 1888, Captain Newberry was elected representative of the Missouri State Legislature and after serving one term in this official capacity he for the third time refused to ask for re-election. While a member of the House of Representatives in the Missouri State Legislature, Captain Newberry introduced a bill providing for the inspection of coal mines and the bill became a state law and it has countless times since proven to be a most valuable one, resulting in the saving of hundreds of lives.
On December 10, 1854, the marriage of John B. Newberry and Eliza- beth Drake was solemnized. Mrs. Newberry was a native of Ohio, born July 12, 1833, a daughter of George Drake, who located in Bates county in the days before the Civil War. He returned to Ohio at the time of the outbreak of the war and in that state remained until the conflict had ended, when he came back to Bates county, Missouri. Mr. Drake died at Johnstown in Bates county. Elizabeth (Drake) Newberry was residing at the time of her marriage with her widowed aunt, Sarah Drake, in the same homestead in which she died. To Capt. John B. and Elizabeth Newberry have been born five children, two of whom are now living: Mrs. Charles Ewin, Butler, Missouri; and George W., a graduate of the Butler high school, a former student of a business college of Sedalia, Missouri, now with the Houchin Loan & Collection Agency, Chicago, Illinois. Those deceased are: Susie, the wife of I. M. Kret- zinger; Jessie, the wife of Arthur L. Gilmore; and one, who died in infancy. Mrs. Elizabeth Newberry died February 22, 1893.
The second marriage of Captain Newberry occurred on October 8, 1902, with Mary Van Hoy, of Deepwater township, a daughter of John M. and Mary (Ludwick) Van Hoy, deceased pioneer settlers of Bates county. John M. Van Hoy resided in Henry county at the time of his marriage. He was captain of a company of Union soldiers during the Civil War. He died during the Civil War. After the war Mrs. Van Hoy located in Bates county and died at the age of ninety-four years. Mary (Van Hoy) Newberry was born May 4, 1856.
There is no better authority in Missouri on the conditions of pioneer life in Bates county than Captain Newberry. He retains a vivid remem- brance of the early days-of the dense and gloomy shade of the primeval forest along the streams of water ere the clearings had been made and of the opportunities afforded one to conceal himself in the shelter of the tall prairie grass while awaiting a shot at a deer, wild turkeys, or prairie
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chickens, for which the family were waiting to make an appetizing and savory breakfast. He has many times brought home three wild turkeys before the morning meal. Captain Newberry states that meat was plentiful in those days, that even the hogs ran at large through the winter, though each hog had an earmark to designate its owner. He recalls the days of the well-developed mosquito, when a smudge fire at night and a mosquito net over the bed were the only measures to take if one wished for comfort and sleep. Horseflies, "greenheads," were so annoying in the summers that it was impossible to travel across the prairie with horses and so people obliged to travel went at night in order to escape the pests. Captain Newberry used to own an Indian pony named "Tom," which he used in all his travels over the country, and when leaving Butler all that was necessary was to give the pony the rein and he would bring his master safely home, a distance of twelve miles, crossing intervening streams cautiously, even on the darkest nights arriving at "Evergreen Liberty Bell Farm" in safety. "Tom" was pur- chased from Thomas Goulding. In the daytime, a traveler would be able to locate himself by marks upon trees along the way and would always "cut across" the prairie the nearest way.
Captain Newberry is eighty-eight years of age at the time of this writing and in a very few months will have lived four score years and ten. He has during his long life of usefulness experienced the toil, the sacrifices, the hardships, and the many happy hours of pioneer life in Missouri and he has seen Bates county in embryo, then gradually emerge from a most primitive condition to one of the most advanced in the country. He has done his part nobly and well in bringing about the marvelous development and is spending the closing years of his career enjoying the comforts and luxuries of our present-day civilization. It is a wonderfully fine thing to have had the privilege to have a life which has spanned more than man's allotted three score years and ten, to have lived in two different centuries, and that in itself is sufficient evi- dence of a good, pure life well lived. Although Captain Newberry's .
eyesight is poor, preventing reading, he is otherwise in perfect possession of all his physical and mental powers, as active and alert as many who are a score of years younger than he.
Rising above the heads of the masses are a few men of sterling worth and value, who by sheer perseverance and pluck, have conquered fortune and by their own unaided efforts have risen from the ranks of the commonplace to positions. of eminence in a business world and state,
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and at the same time have commanded the universal respect and trust of all with whom they have come in contact. Among those earnest men of Bates county, whose strength of character and strict adherence to honorable principles, whose upright morality excite the admiration of their fellowmen, Captain Newberry is prominent and no biographical compendium of Bates county, Missouri, would be complete without his life-story.
Del Lutsenhizer, a prominent farmer and stockman of Bates county, Missouri, is a member of an honored pioneer family of this section of the state. Mr. Lutsenhizer was born September 17, 1878 on the farm where his grandfather, Jacob Lutsenhizer, had settled in 1839. He is a son of Thomas and Sallie (Ewin) Lutsenhizer. Thomas Benton Lutsenhizer was born in Bates county, March 29, 1842, a son of Jacob Lutsenhizer, a son of Henry and Judith (Marchand) Lutsenhizer, and who came to Missouri from Ohio with his family and settled on a tract of land located three miles southeast of the present townsite of Spruce, Missouri, which land he entered from the government in 1839. The forerunner of the Lutsenhizers in Bates county, Missouri was Henry Lutsenhizer and with him came William Lutsenhizer, brother of Jacob and they settled on land entered from the government in 1837, a tract located in Deepwater township two miles southeast of the present townsite of Spruce. Henry Lutsenhizer laid out the road from Johns- town to Pleasant Gap, and near the latter place his brother, William, died. Jacob Lutsenhizer came two years later than did Henry and William and soon became one of the leaders of the settlement. He served as the first county judge of Bates county. He lived but five years after coming West, his death occurring in 1844. Henry Lutsen- hizer went to California in 1848, at the time of the excitement over the discovery of gold in that state, and when he left this country his home was situated in Vernon county, as the boundaries were in those days. Mr. Lutsenhizer returned to Missouri after fifty years and, much like Rip Van Winkle and not having been in touch with the progress of the county, he sought in vain for his old home. During his absence, the natural changes of a half century of progress had taken place. Bates county had been formed. His relatives at Butler, learning of his return, located him at Nevada, where he, an old man of ninety years, was patiently searching for some trace of his old home- stead and his friends. He came to Butler and visited his people for many weeks and spent the rest of his days with Thomas Benton Lut-
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senhizer and died in 1902. His farm is now owned by Del Lutsenhizer.
Judith (Marchand) Lutsenhizer was a daughter of David March- and, of French-Huguenot descent, and who served in the Revolutionary War. He was a native of Pennsylvania. The Lutsenhizers were Penn- sylvanians also. David Marchand was a surgeon with rank of captain. He was a son of Dr. David Marchand, whose ancestry goes back to 1700.
Mr. and Mrs. Jacob Lutsenhizer were the parents of five daugh- ters, all of whom were early-day school teachers of Bates county, namely: Mrs. Sarah Durand, deceased : Margaret, deceased; Esther, deceased; Susan, deceased; and Abiah, the wife of J. R. Simpson, and the only one now living. Mrs. Lutsenhizer and her children were obliged to move from their home place near Spruce to Henry county, Missouri, on account of Order Number 11 and she died in Henry county two months after they had moved.
In 1875, Thomas Benton Lutsenhizer and Sallie Ewin, a daughter of William Ewin, were united in marriage. Sallie (Ewin) Lutsenhizer is a descendant of one of the first families of Missouri. Her father was born April 13, 1819, in Howard county, Missouri, a son of Watts Ewin, who came with his wife to this country when it was still a terri- tory and they settled near Fort Homestead in 1817. Mr. and Mrs. Watts Ewin brought with them from Kentucky a setting of eggs which they hatched in a chimney corner by keeping them warm as they had no hen to sit upon them. This was probably the first incubator, and the finest in its day, in use in Missouri. To Thomas B. and Sallie (Ewin) Lutsenhizer were born the following children, who are now living: May, Kansas City, Missouri; Del, the subject of this review; and Jessie B., the wife of Walter B. Kelly, of Kansas City, Missouri. Thomas B. Lutsenhizer was a veteran of the Confederate army in the Civil War. He was taken prisoner from his own home by the Union forces and placed in prison at St. Louis, where he was confined for three or four months before he was exchanged and thus given his lib- erty. He then enlisted with the Confederates and served until the close of the war, serving with General Parson's brigade, the Sixteenth Missouri Infantry, and he was at Shreveport, Louisiana, at the time of the surrender in 1865. Thomas Benton Lutsenhizer died June 21, 1900. The widowed mother makes her home at Kansas City, Mis- souri, with her daughter, Mrs. Walter B. Kelly.
Del Lutsenhizer received his education in the district schools of (42)
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Deepwater township, Bates county. He remained at home with his parents until he was twenty-one years of age. Mr. Lutsenhizer's farm comprises one hundred sixty acres of land, formerly owned by his great uncle, Henry Lutsenhizer, and formerly known as the William Ludwick place. He is profitably engaged in raising cattle, hogs, sheep, and mules and is prominently identified with the agricultural interests of Bates county.
The marriage of Del Lutsenhizer and Blanche Price, a daughter of Mr. and Mrs. M. H. Price, of Summit township, a sketch of whom appears elsewhere in this volume, was solemnized June 22, 1904, and to this union have been born two children: Hazel Fern, who was born September 19, 1905; and Howard Benton, who was born August 18, 1911. Mr. and Mrs. Lutsenhizer are highly respected in their com- munity and they are numbered among the valued citizens of Bates county.
Clay S. Cumpton, a progressive agriculturist and stockman of Bates county, was born in 1879 on the farm which was entered from the gov- ernment by his grandfather, Thomas S. Cumpton, in 1853, a son of John M. and Angelina E. (Hedrick) Cumpton, the former, a native of Howard county, Missouri, and the latter, of Lawrence county, Indiana. John M. Cumpton was born in 1833 and until he was ten years of age resided with his parents in Howard county, Missouri, and then moved with them to Johnson county, whence they came to Bates county, Mis- souri, in 1853 and the father, Thomas S. Cumpton, entered the land above mentioned. The elder Cumpton died on his farm in Bates county in 1862 and interment was made in Dickison cemetery.
The marriage of Thomas S. Cumpton's son, John M., and Angelina E. Hedrick, daughter of William and Elizabeth Hedrick, was solem- nized in 1860. Angelina E. (Hedrick) Cumpton came to Morgan county, Missouri, with her parents when she was a child two years of age and thence to Bates county, Missouri, in 1846. The Hedricks settled at Round Prairie in Hudson township. Mrs. Hedrick died in 1874 and interment was made in Myers cemetery in Hudson township. She was survived by her husband twenty-nine years, when in 1903 he joined her in death at the noble age of ninety-nine years, one month, and sixteen days. Mr. Hedrick was laid beside his wife in Myers cemetery. To John M. and Angelina E. Cumpton were born ten children, five of whom are now liv- ing: Orvil W., Spruce, Missouri; Dr. Victor J., Pleasant Gap, Missouri ; William E., Spruce, Missouri; Mary Elizabeth, the wife of J. A. Borland,
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of Spruce, Missouri; and Clay S., the subject of this review, on the home place of the Cumptons, the homestead of his grandfather, the birth- place of his father and of himself. John M. Cumpton has long since answered the last summons and the widowed mother, now at the advanced age of eighty years, makes her home with her son, Clay S., at the Cumpton homestead. Mrs. Angelina E. Cumpton is one of the most honored and beloved of Bates county's pioneer women and she talks entertainingly of the days of her youth in Bates county, of the hard but not unhappy times of the long ago, when there was always plenty food but little money, more than enough work for all but few pleasures or recreations. She recalls how they were obliged to travel across the prairie to Papinsville once a week to obtain their mail. Mrs. Cumpton is the proud grandmother of seventeen grandchildren, all of whom reside in Bates county.
Clay S. Cumpton received his education at Cumpton school house in Bates county, Missouri. The Cumpton school house was named in honor of the Cumpton family. Practically all his life, Mr. Cumpton has been interested in farming and stock raising and since attaining maturity he has established a splendid reputation for himself in this part of the state as an exceptionally successful, careful breeder and pro- ducer of high grade hogs, cattle, and horses. He has on the farm, at the time of this writing in 1918, seventeen head of good Shorthorn cattle. Twenty acres of the Cumpton place are in timber and the past season, of 1917, Mr. Cumpton had twenty acres of the farm in wheat and had planted some oats and corn.
June 5, 1912, Clay S. Cumpton and Ada Silvers, a daughter of Clint and Martha Silvers, of Rich Hill, Missouri, were united in marriage. To this union have been born two children: Mary Belle and Lloyd Lawrence.
Clay S. Cumpton occupies no small place in the public esteem, being an active and earnest supporter of all worthy enterprises which have for their object the material and spiritual advancement of the community.
James A. De Armond .- Born at Greenfield, Missouri, November 28, 1873, oldest son of Judge David A. De Armond. Educated in com- inon schools and Butler High School; Wentworth Military Academy, Lexington, Missouri; Washington and Lee University, Lexington, Vir- ginia ; Missouri State University, Columbia, Missouri. Admitted to the bar at Butler in 1901. Practiced law in Butler until 1904, when he purchased the "Bates County Democrat," daily and weekly, and owned
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and conducted the same until 1910. In 1912 resumed the practice of law and is now located at Butler. Held the office of city attorney of Butler by appointment and election in 1903 and 1904. Was tendered the appointment of adjutant-general of Missouri by Governor Folk in 1905 although not a candidate for that or any other appointment from the governor of whom he had been an active supporter. Held the office until expiration of his term in 1909. Elected mayor of Butler in 1918 without opposition. Active in military affairs from the age of seven- teen when he joined the National Guard as a private. Retired as brigadier-general in 1909. Served in the Spanish-American ;War as first lieutenant and captain in Company B, Second Missouri Infantry. Married in 1901 to Nancy Lee Bell of Liberty, Missouri. Five children born to marriage : David A., Jr., who lost his life in a fire in 1909 together with his grandfather, Congressman David A. De Armond; Alice Irene; Ann Landis; James A., Jr .; and Helen. Member of Masonic and Odd Fellow lodges.
W. H. Charters, Jr., proprietor of "Charteroak Stock Farm" in Bates county, is one of the successful and most prominent stockmen of this part of Missouri. Mr. Charters is a native of Bates county. He was born October 26, 1885, in Deepwater township, a son of W. H., Sr., and Margaret (Carroll) Charters. W. H. Charters, Sr., was born in Ireland in 1856. When he was an infant, he came with his parents to America and they located in New York, later in Ohio, and finally W. H. Charters, Sr., settled in Bates county, Missouri, about 1880 on a farm of one hun- dred acres in Deepwater township, where he engaged in farming and stock raising. Margaret (Carroll) Charters is a native of Champaign county, Ohio. To W. H., Sr., and Margaret Charters were born the following children: L. J., Wichita, Kansas; Mrs. J. A. Hermann, Culver, Missouri ; Mrs. W. B. Young, who resides on the home farm in Deepwater township: Mrs. Grady Smith, Spruce, Missouri; and W. H., Jr., the sub- ject of this review. The father died in 1916 and the widowed mother makes her home at Butler, Missouri.
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