USA > Missouri > Bates County > History of Bates County, Missouri > Part 84
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Since coming to Bates county thirty-eight years ago, Mr. Fischer has risen to become one of the leading and most substantial citizens of this county. His first purchase of eighty acres was made on time-his beginning as a farmer having been practically made without capital. Diligence, careful management, good judgment, and unfailing optimism in hard times have enabled him to forge ahead and become well to do. He is one of the leaders in his township and is president of the Pleasant Gap Boosters Club, an organization formed among the best people of his neighborhood by Mr. Fischer and others for the purpose of advancing the social and business welfare of the neighborhood in general. This club is a very popular and busy concern and is behind the project for the erection of the Community Hall at Pleasant Gap.
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HISTORY OF BATES COUNTY
Benjamin F. Barnett, ex-collector of taxes in Summit township, one of Bates county's progressive and successful, young agriculturists and stockmen, was born in Carroll county, Kentucky, May 13, 1886. Mr. Barnett is a son of J. W. and Frances (Todd) Barnett, natives of Kentucky. They were the parents of four children, who are now living: Gordon, Butler, Missouri; Nannie, the wife of Roy Argenbright, of Summit township; May and Lillie, at home with their father. Mrs. Barnett, the mother, died at the Barnett home place in Summit town- ship in 1916. Mr. Barnett is engaged in farming and stock raising in this township.
Mr. Barnett, whose name introduces this sketch, received his ele- mentary education in the public schools of Carroll county, Kentucky. He was a student at Clay City High School, Clay City, Kentucky, for two years. He came to Bates county, Missouri, in 1903 and located on a farm one mile south of Butler, where he remained two years, and then he moved to a country place in Summit township located seven miles east of Butler. Mr. Barnett bought a tract of land, embracing one hundred ten acres, in 1909 from Doctor Foster. The land was practically unimproved, having only a small house and barn. Benjamin F. Barnett has rebuilt the residence and the barn and erected a silo, 14 x 35 feet in dimensions, and a dairy barn, equipped with twenty-four stanchions, and a chicken house, 12 x 38 feet in dimensions. He has increased his holdings and his farm now comprises two hundred ten acres of excellent prairie land, well watered and nicely improved, which he is constantly building up and making better. Mr. Barnett has at present a herd of twenty-four dairy cows and sixteen heifer calves of both Holstein and Jersey breeds. He is the owner of one cow which gives forty pounds of milk daily and the milk tests four per cent. butter fat. Mr. Barnett is enthusiastic in his defence of the dairy cow as a money-making investment. It has frequently been said by other stock- men of Bates county, whose words are quoted in this volume, that beef cattle are a better paying proposition in this part of the state than dairy cattle, but Mr. Barnett states that the dairy cow beats everything else on the farm, being a source of income constantly while at the same time increasing the fertility of the soil and he is planning to handle a larger herd of registered dairy cattle in the future. He has a mechanical milker, which milks twenty-five cows in an hour, the one of two such milkers in Bates county, the other one being owned by Sunderwirth Brothers of Prairie City. Mrs. Barnett is raising Brown Leghorn
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chickens .and has at present a flock of three hundred fowls, which are proving to be a very profitable feature of the farm.
In 1910, the marriage of Benjamin F. Barnett and Jessie Cantrell, a daughter of Starlin and Hattie (Gloyd) Cantrell, was solemnized and to this union has been born one child, a daughter, Elizabeth. Mr. and Mrs. Barnett are widely known and universally respected in Butler and Bates county. Mr. Barnett has an extensive acquaintance throughout his township, having served four years as collector of taxes in Summit township. He is a young man of exceptional business ability and judgment and his standing, financially, commercially, and socially is second to none in the county.
Palmer E. Nelson, the well-known manager of the "Allen View Stock Farm," is one of Bates county's progressive and energetic young agriculturists and stockmen. Mr. Nelson is a native of Bureau county, Illinois. He was born in 1885, a son of N. Y. and Mary Nelson, natives of Sweden. Mr. and Mrs. Nelson, with their son, Palmer E., came to Missouri in 1905 and they are now residents of Cedar county, Mis- souri.
Mr. Nelson, whose name introduces this review, attended school at Princeton, Illinois. Seven years ago, dating from this writing in 1918, he was employed on the Green Walton place for one year and then on the farm, of which he is now manager, for one year, when he left Bates county and accepted a position with the Steam Shovel & Elevator Company of Kansas City. Mr. Nelson was employed with this company for eighteen months and then resigned his position and returned to his father's home in Cedar county, Missouri. Three years ago, in August, 1914, he assumed charge of the "Allen View Stock Farm" in Deepwater township.
The marriage of Palmer E. Nelson and Nellie Miller was solemnized in 1907 and to this union have been born two children: Miller and Mary Jeannette. Mrs. Nelson is a daughter of Warren and Awra Miller and a native of Kentucky. Mr. and Mrs. Nelson have made scores of friends since their coming to Bates county and they are held in the highest esteem and respect by all with whom they have come in con- tact.
"Allen View Stock Farm" is one of the excellent stock farms of Deep- water township, lying eight miles east of Butler, comprising four hun- dred ten acres of land partly in Deepwater and in Summit townships, owned by Frank Allen, of Butler, Missouri. The land is rolling and is
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a part of the old White place. "Allen View Stock Farm" is "The Home of Shorthorn Cattle and Duroc Jersey Hogs" in Bates county and is widely known in the stock markets of Missouri. Mr. Nelson shipped a carload of Duroc Jersey hogs, a herd of seventy-eight, farrowed in April and May of 1917, and they averaged two hundred forty-two pounds each December 1st, and "topping the market" at seventeen dol- lars and seventy-five cents each per hundred pounds in Kansas City, Missouri. Mr. Nelson keeps on the farm usually from eighteen to twenty brood sows and a herd of fifty to seventy-five Shorthorn cattle, mostly cows. "Hallen," one of the best males in the entire country, from the E. M. Hall herd, of Carthage, Missouri, twenty-nine months of age and weighing sixteen hundred pounds, heads the Allen hierd. He was purchased in February, 1916, and could easily and quickly be made to weigh a ton, if it were so desired. "Allen View Stock Farm" is nicely improved and well equipped with all modern facilities for the efficient handling of stock. The improvements include a comfortable residence, hog barn, horse barn, hog houses, breeding pens, feeding rooms, implement shed, hog-tight fencing, and a splendid well. The well is 10 x 40 feet in dimensions and the water stands within twelve feet of the top and it would be impossible to pump it dry. The feeding rooms are supplied with a feed grinder, which grinds and mixes the feed, and Mr. Nelson employs all the methods of scientific feeding which have been proven profitable and practical by agricultural insti- tutions. He reads and studies agricultural journals and bulletins and puts into practical use the knowledge he gains thereby, realizing that the main object in raising stock on the farm is to make money and that the farmer and stockman should find out just how much and what is profitable to feed and how to conserve the energy of the animal after it is profitably fed. Palmer E. Nelson is one of the most enterprising, up-to-date, intelligent stockmen of Bates county.
William A. Eads, a highly respected and progressive farmer and stockman of Deepwater township, is a worthy representative of a prominent pioneer family of Missouri. Mr. Eads is a native of Iowa, a son of Strowther and Martha A. (Dodds) Eads, the former, a native of Gasconade county, Missouri, and the latter, of Illinois, and he was born in 1855. Strowther Eads was born March 3, 1825, at the Eads homestead in Gasconade county, Missouri, a son of William and Rebecca (Robison) Eads. William Eads was a native of Kentucky, born in 1780, a member of a leading colonial family of the South. He was
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united in marriage with Rebecca Robison, a native of South Caro- lina, who was ten years his junior, in 1820 and to this union were born five children : Polly, Cyrena, and Strowther, all of whom were born in Gasconade county, Missouri; and Alcy and Louisa, who were born in Sangamon county, Illinois. William Eads and his family resided in Gasconade county, Missouri, during the first years of the statehood and settlement of Missouri, from 1820 until 1835, moving thence to Sanga- mon county, Illinois, and then to Des Moines, Iowa, in 1846. At Des Moines, Iowa, William Eads died. Strowther Eads, father of William A. Eads, the subject of this review, was reared in Sangamon county, Illinois, and was there united in marriage with Martha A. Dodds, a daughter of Joseph and Martha Dodds and a native of Illinois, born in 1827. Joseph Dodds was born May 18, 1785, and his wife was born May 18, 1793. To Strowther and Martha A. (Dodds) Eads were born the following children: Nancy E., who was born February 28, 1847. married William White and now resides at Appleton City, Missouri ; Mary E., who was born December 9, 1848, married William Purcell and now resides at Kansas City, Missouri; Rebecca J., who was born March 6, 1851, married Frank Peacock and now resides at Schell City, Mis- souri ; William A., the subject of this review; Finis E., who was born April 15, 1858, a well-to-do farmer residing one and a half miles north of Spruce, Missouri; and Martha A., the wife of Samuel Coleman, of Butler, Missouri. After their marriage on April 16, 1846, Mr. and Mrs. Strowther Eads resided for some time in Sangamon county, Illinois, whence they moved to Iowa, in which state their son, William A., was born. In 1866, they came to Missouri and located near Carrollton, but were dissatisfied and in one year returned to their old home in Sangamon county, Illinois. However, the Eads family could not resist the call of the West and in 1870 returned to Missouri to purchase a tract of land in Bates county in Deepwater township, which was their home until 1881, at which time Strowther Eads moved to Vernon county, pur- chasing a farm of one hundred sixty acres in ,sections 3 and 4, located south of Schell City, Missouri. The father died in Vernon county in 1903 and interment was made in the cemetery at Johnstown. The widowed mother survived Mr. Eads ten years, when in 1913 they were united in death and she was laid to rest beside him in the burial ground at Johnstown. For almost a full century, the name of Eads has been a familiar and honored name in Missouri and the family has long been ranked with the sterling first families of the State.
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William A. Eads attended school in Bates county, Missouri, and in the district school of Deepwater township obtained an excellent con- mon-school education. Educational advantages in this part of the country were necessarily very limited in the pioneer and war times, but with limited opportunities Mr. Eads made the best progress pos- sible and became thoroughly familiar with the elementary branches and in later life, by eagerly reading and closely observing, has become a remarkably well-informed gentleman. He remained at home with his father as long as the latter lived, the two being associated in partner- ship in farming and stock raising. Mr. Eads, Jr., was the proprietor of a good farm in Vernon county, Missouri, prior to 1902, when he dis- posed of it and purchased a country place in Bates county, the Hall farm one-fourth mile east of Spruce, Missouri, a tract of land compris- ing one hundred four acres, a part of which place was entered from the government by Barbary Price in the early thirties and improved by Mr. Price's son, Mr. William Price. The Eads farm lies twelve miles east of Butler, Missouri.
The marriage of William A. Eads and Dora Cooper was solemnized February 26, 1880, in Lone Oak township. Mrs. Eads is a daughter of J. M. and Kate (Gentry) Cooper. The Gentry family came from Ken- tucky to Missouri in the early days and Mrs. Eads was born at Harri- sonville, to which city her father had moved from Lees Summit, where he had originally located. He and his brother conducted a mercantile establishment, owning a carriage and wagon factory, at Harrisonville in the fifties. The old building in which the factory was located is still standing. The Coopers moved to Harrisonville when Order No. 11 was issued by General Ewing during the Civil War. The resi- dences of J. M. and Jackson Cooper, the two brothers, were the only two houses in the vicinity which were not searched. Mrs. Eads knew the Youngers personally, for when her parents resided at Lees Sum- mit her brothers, sisters, and she attended the same school as they. To William A. and Dora (Cooper) Eads have been born three children : Maude Ethel. the wife of Carl Ludwick, of Los Angeles, California; `Ira, who married Mrs. Epsie Murphy, who is engaged in the mercantile business at Spruce, Missouri ; and Charles, who married Bessie Barrick- man, and they reside on a farm one-half mile east of Spruce. Mr. and Mrs. Eads are very proud of their five grandchildren: George William and Martha Ruth Ludwick, children of Mr. and Mrs. Carl Ludwick: Mildred and Richard Eads, children of Mr. and Mrs. Ira Eads: and Charles Kenneth Eads, the only son of Mr. and Mrs. Charles Eads.
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William A. Eads is a Republican of prominence in his township. He made the race for judge of the county court from his district in 1910 and for county treasurer in 1912. Mr. Eads has always taken an active and interested part in politics and during his residence in Vernon county served for several years on the township board in Clear Creek township and as assessor. Deepwater township is proud to number him among its best, most enterprising, public-spirited citizens. Bates county owes its present supremacy to the class of clear-headed, strong- armed, energetic yeomen of which William A. Eads is a creditable rep- resentative.
E. E. Morilla, one of the younger generation of farmers who have been born and reared in Bates county, has achieved one of the most striking successes in his vocation ever accomplished in this section of Missouri. Mr. Morilla was born on a farm in Lone Oak township. January 7, 1878, and is the son of Charles and Emma ( Thomas) Morilla, both of whom are living. Emma (Thomas) Morilla is a daughter of William R. Thomas, of Lone Oak township. Charles and Emma Morilla are parents of the following children: E. E., subject of this review ; Mrs. Alice Ellington, Butler, Missouri; C. W. Morilla, Abilene, Kansas; Mrs. Christina Moore, Huntington Beach, California; Ernest, a soldier in the National Army, Three Hundred Forty-first Field Artil- lery, Camp Funston, Kansas.
The education of E. E. Morilla was obtained in the public schools of Butler and the Butler Academy. He was a student of the academy when Professor Richardson was the principal in charge. He began his farming career in Mt. Pleasant township, and bought his first farm in 1898, in Pleasant Gap township. He later traded this farm for a tract of land in Greenwood county, Kansas, where he resided for six years. He then returned to Bates county and lived upon the Joe G. Ellington farm in Pleasant Gap township for five years. He purchased his present home farm of two hundred fifty-five acres in 1906. He bought eighty acres March 15, 1918, making a total of three hundred thirty-five acres. The farm was formerly owned by the Huffmans. Mr. Morilla has placed practically all of the improvements upon his place, the residence being erected in 1908, and is a modern structure, one and a half stories, of seven rooms. He built his fine barn in 1910. This barn is 64 x 80 feet in dimensions. Mr. Morilla is a believer in the use of the silo to store green food away for cattle feeding in the
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winter season and he has three of these modern adjuncts to farming on the place. the sizes of his silos are 16 x 30 feet, 14 x 32 feet, and 14 × 34 feet. Mr. Morilla is an extensive feeder of cattle and hogs and has about one hundred and thirty-five head of cattle on the place which he will have fed out for the markets by spring. He has fifty head of hogs and is feeding over two hundred head of Shropshire sheep.
Mr. Morilla has been twice married, his first marriage occurring on April 14, 1897, with Miss Fannie Ellington, who died July 4, 1907, leaving two children: Leo, and Joseph. His second marriage was with Miss Fannie Wix, on November 17, 1909. Two children have blessed this union: Clarence, and Vivian Bernice. Mrs. Fannie Mor- illa is a daughter of Joseph F. Wix, of Pleasant Gap township, a sketch of whom appears elsewhere in this volume. The Morilla family is one of the most prominent in their neighborhood and Mr. and Mrs. Morilla are universally esteemed and respected by the people of their section of Bates county. For a number of years, Mr. Morilla has been prominent in the affairs of his township and has served two terms as trustee of Pleasant Gap. He is looked upon as a "live wire" and a progressive and enterprising citizen who has made good in the county of his birth.
Benjamin Franklin Sharpless, M. D., retired physician, ex-justice of the peace of Rockville, Missouri, formerly a leading agriculturist and stockman of Bates county, a successful business man, is one of the promi- nent pioneers of Rockville. Doctor Sharpless came to Bates county, Mis- souri, in 1869 from his native state, Pennsylvania, to evade the persistent calls upon him in the practice of medicine and to recuperate from a breakdown due to overwork. He was born December 4, 1837, near Philadelphia in Chester county, Pennsylvania, a son of William and Abi- gail (Garrett) Sharpless. Doctor Sharpless was reared and educated in his native state. He is a graduate of the American Eclectic College of Philadelphia.
Doctor Sharpless came to Rockville, Missouri. from Sedalia, driv- ing three yoke of oxen, and he purchased a tract of land comprising four hundred acres located in Rockville township, section four, for ten dollars an acre. He resided on this farm and improved the land, building a nice, comfortable residence, two barns, sheds, cribs, and other necessary farm conveniences and engaged in general farm and stock raising. When Doctor Sharpless located in Bates county in 1869, the Johannas, the Belchers, the Hooks, the Housleys, the Bowdens, the
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BENJAMIN FRANKLIN SHARPLESS, M. D., WIFE, CHILDREN, AND GRANDCHILDREN. Golden Wedding Anniversary Group. Dec. 14, 1914
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Stoddards, and the Murphys resided in the vicinity of Rockville. The railroad has been built since that time and the little village has grown to be a small but flourishing city, having a population of seven hundred inhabitants. The doctor broke the prairie sod of his farm with the assistance of oxen and built a rude cabin home, 18 x 20 feet in dimen- sions, of unfinished lumber shipped up the Osage to Papinsville and hauled from there to the farm. Doctor Sharpless recalls that there were a large number of emigrants passing through this particular corner of Bates county during the years of 1869 and 1870 and frequently the doc- tor and his friends would recommend, to undesirables, Kansas as a Paradise on earth and urge them to go on. The doctor was instru- mental in establishing School District No. 2 in 1871 and while on the farm was a member of the school board. Doctor Sharpless has the dis- tinction of being the first teacher employed in District No. 2, Rockville township.
December 14, 1864, Dr. Benjamin Franklin Sharpless was united in marriage with Harriet Wollerton, a daughter of Samuel and Elizabeth Wollerton, of Westchester, Chester county, Pennsylvania. The Woller- tons were highly respected and valued members of the Friends church and both Mr. and Mrs. Samuel Harvey Wollerton spent their lives in Pennsylvania, where their remains now lie interred. To Doctor and Mrs. Sharpless have been born five children, all of whom are now liv- ing: Elberta, the wife of Oscar Housley, of Kansas City, Missouri; Carrie E., the wife of Dr. E. J. Viedt, of St. Louis, Missouri; William W., who married Kate Rees and they reside at Stonewall, Oklahoma; Harry C., who married Bessie Greeson and they reside at Amarillo, Texas; and Samuel Lewis, who married Miss Amy Bluett, of St. Louis, Missouri, and they reside at Los Angeles, California. Dr. and Mrs. Benjamin Franklin Sharpless celebrated their Fiftieth Wedding Anni- versary on December 14, 1914. They are justly proud of their ten grandchildren, one of whom, a grandson, Gilbert O. Housley, son of Mr. and Mrs. Oscar Housley, of Kansas City, Missouri, is a corporal at Camp Doniphan, Fort Sill, Oklahoma, at the time of this writing, in 1918.
Among several priceless possessions owned by Doctor and Mrs. Sharpless is a grandfather's clock which is more than a full century old and is still a correct timekeeper. On the inside of the clock is the fol- lowing inscription : "Cleaned October 13, 1812. W. Putman. Again October 17, 1823." This remarkable heirloom is eight feet high and
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has two weights, requiring winding once every eight days. The hands designate the day of the month, the hour, minute, second, and the changes of the moon. Doctor Sharpless inherited the clock from his uncle, John Sharpless, and the name "Goshen" is on its face. The doctor also owns an old-fashioned secretary, which is nearly one hundred years of age, and a table constructed without the use of nails, being held together with wooden pins. Dr. Sharpless has a valuable record of the Sharpless family, a book of one thousand three hundred thirty-three pages con- taining the genealogy of the family from 1682 to 1882. P. M. Sharp- less, manufacturer of the Sharpless separator, is a cousin of Willian Sharpless, father of Dr. Benjamin Franklin Sharpless.
In 1903, Doctor and Mrs. Sharpless moved from their farm to Rock- ville, where they purchased their present residence from Philip Bartz. The life of Doctor Sharpless has been in the main quiet and always unas- suming and although he is now the possessor of an ample competence he and his noble wife continue to live in the simple manner which was their custom in the earlier days. Both the doctor and Mrs. Sharpless are still active and are enjoying life and they are highly esteemed in Bates county for their genuine worth.
George S. Porter, well and favorably known farmer and stockman of Deepwater township, was born on the farm which he is now man- aging, May 14, 1877. He is the son of Jefferson L. and Catherine (Schere) Porter, natives of Virginia. Jefferson L. Porter was born in Virginia in 1826 and departed this life on his farm in Bates county in 1912. He was a scion of an old American family of prominence. He came to Missouri from Virginia in 1858 and made an early settle- ment in Deepwater township, where he became one of the most influential citizens of the county. Mr. Porter first purchased a homestead of two hundred and forty acres from Jerrard Witt who had entered the land. He was industrious, a good farmer, and financier and became owner of nine hundred and twenty-six acres of land in this county previous to his death. When Order No. 11 was issued by General Ewing calling for the residents of Bates county who were in sympathy with the South to evacuate their homes, Mr. Porter was the only man in his neighborhood to remain. During the troublesome times in the border country when marauding bands would sweep over western Missouri, burning homes and killing livestock and settlers, J. L. Porter was living on the old home place. When ordered away, he left it for one night only, he and his family returning next day. A party of marauders attempted to assassinate him, and his horse was killed
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during the affray. The attack and attempt upon his life occurred near Johnstown. A party was organized to avenge the assault, com- posed of Mr. Porter, A. E. Page, John Sisson, George and William War- ner, Lafayette Griggs, and Valincourt Griggs. The party came upon a part of the band which had attempted the killing and a battle ensued which lasted for some time on April 14, 1861. Lafayette Griggs fell dead at the first return fire from the jay-hawkers and a running fight ensued, the marauders making a stand for their lives near a small lake. Eight of the invaders were killed and the captain wounded, he being killed later by members of the posse who became the victors in the engagement.
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