History of Howard and Cooper counties, Missouri : written and compiled from the most authentic official and private sources, including a history of its townships, towns, and villages : together with a condensed history of Missouri, a reliable and detailed history of Howard and Cooper counties-- its pioneer record, resources, biographical sketches of prominent citizens, general and local statistics of great value, incidents and reminiscences, Part 105

Author: National Historical Company
Publication date: 1883
Publisher: St. Louis : National Historical Co.
Number of Pages: 1198

USA > Missouri > Cooper County > History of Howard and Cooper counties, Missouri : written and compiled from the most authentic official and private sources, including a history of its townships, towns, and villages : together with a condensed history of Missouri, a reliable and detailed history of Howard and Cooper counties-- its pioneer record, resources, biographical sketches of prominent citizens, general and local statistics of great value, incidents and reminiscences > Part 105
USA > Missouri > Howard County > History of Howard and Cooper counties, Missouri : written and compiled from the most authentic official and private sources, including a history of its townships, towns, and villages : together with a condensed history of Missouri, a reliable and detailed history of Howard and Cooper counties-- its pioneer record, resources, biographical sketches of prominent citizens, general and local statistics of great value, incidents and reminiscences > Part 105

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EDWARD CRAMER,

general merchant and dealer in grain. Merchandising has thus far been Mr. Cramer's life occupation, and in his chosen calling he has been reasonably successful. He was a son of Dr. Edward Cramer, the first physician that ever practised in Gasconade county, a thor- oughly educated and accomplished member of the medical profession. Dr. Cramer was a native of Prussia, and graduated in medicine from one of the noted institutions of that country of pre-eminent learning. Shortly after his graduation he came to America and located in Gas- eonade county, Missouri. Here he was married to Miss Margaret Krocker, originally of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Edward, the sub- ject of the present sketch, was born of this union at Harmon, Gas- conade county, March 12, 1844. After praetising medicine for a number of years at his adopted home, Dr. Cramer retired from his profession and engaged in merchandising, which he was following at the time of his death, January 3, 1878. He was a man of more than ordinary public spirit, and took a zealous and active interest in the eause of general education. He held numerous local offices and was esteemed by all who knew him for his many excellent qualities of mind and heart. He gave his son good school advantages. Besides the instructions in the ordinary preparatory schools, Edward had the ben- efit of a course at the St. Louis university, then as now one of the best institutions of learning in the west. After his university course, Ed- ward was connected with Judge Heim, at Boonville, for about six months in the mercantile business. This was in the forepart of 1862. In the fall of that year he went to St. Louis and clerked in a hard-

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HISTORY OF HOWARD AND COOPER COUNTIES.

ware store in that city for six years. After this, in March, 1869, he came to Bnnceton, and established his present business, in which he has since been engaged. Here he has had substantial and satisfactory success. In 1878, however, he met with a serions loss in the burning of his business house. But he has erected a new building, a com- modious, well-arranged business house, and he is rapidly recovering from his pecuniary misfortune. He carries an excellent and well selected stock of general merchandise, and commands a good trade. Like his father, he takes a deep interest in educational matters, and in recognition of his zeal in these interests he has been made a director of the Parish Institute, a school built up by private enterprise. He is also the present secretary and treasurer of its board of directors. Oc- tober 7, 1875, he was married to Miss Louisa, daughter of Captain Samuel Henley. His wife was born and reared in Boone county. They have three children : Kate M., Otto H. and Walker. Mrs. Cramer is a member of the Lone Elin Christian church, and Mr. Cra- mer is a Baptist. He is also a member of the Masonic order.

J. T. CRENSHAW,

farmer and raiser and shipper of merino sheep. Mr. Crenshaw is a native of the Blue Grass state, where to farm and not raise fine stock is considered no farming at all. He was born in Harrison county, July 28, 1856, and was a son of R. M. Crenshaw, a prominent farmer of that county, and afterwards a leading farmer of Cooper county. R. M. Crenshaw, having married in his native state Miss Nancy S. Majors, came to Missouri with his family in the fall of 1861, and set- tled on the farm where the son, J. T., now lives, and where the father died in 1875. The mother died one year before, in 1874. They reared a family of two children, one besides having died in infancy. J. T. has a sister, Maggie A., widow of the Rev. G. B. Sergeant, whose sketch appears elsewhere. J. T. Crenshaw, the subject of this sketch, was given an excellent education in youth, taking a course in the higher English branches as well as mastering the usual curriculum of the common schools. Reared on the farm he thus acquired a taste for the free, independent life of a farmer, which decided him to adopt that as his regular, permanent occupation. In this he has seen no cause to regret his decision, and each year strengthens his attachment to his calling, and adds additional and greater success to his career in his chosen line of employment. His farm contains 245 acres of fine land, all under fence and well improved, having good buildings and an excellent class of other betterments. He makes a specialty of rais-

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HISTORY OF HOWARD AND COOPER COUNTIES.

ing fine merino sheep, of which he has a flock of the best quality, and he also deals in this class of stock to a considerable extent. October 10, 1877, Mr. Crenshaw was married to Miss Maggie R., daughter of E. M. Hansberger, of Pettis county. She was reared and educated in that county, and is a most amiable and accomplished lady. She is a member of the M. E. church, and Mr. Crenshaw is a member of the Masonic order, Lodge 456, at Bunceton.

PROF. S. W. CROSSLEY,

county school commissioner and justice of the peace. Among the public-spirited, well educated and useful citizens of Palestine town- ship and of Cooper county, is the one-armed Confederate soldier, at son of the Old Dominion by nativity, whose name heads this sketch. He was born in Rockingham county, Virginia, November 23, 1842, and up to the outbreak of the war had enjoyed good common school advantages. When the authorities at Washington took steps to rein- force the garrison at Fort Sumter in the early part of 1861, thus presaging an open conflict between the north and south, he was then in his nineteenth year, and on the first call of old Virginia for volun- teers to defend her altars and hereditary institutions, he was one of the first to answer her appeal. He became a volunteer in company E, 52d Virginia infantry, and marched to the music of the Confederate drum, until he lost his arm in the battle of Gaines' Mill, on the 27th of June, 1862. He was severely wounded in the elbow and shortly afterwards his arm had to be amputated near the shoulder. Up to that time he had participated in nearly all the leading battles in Virginia, among which were Port Royal, Winchester, the three-days battle, Cross Roads, Port Republic, the seven-days fight at Richmond, and a number of others. On recovering from his wound he returned home, and after the close of the war entered Botetourt academy at Roaring Run, Virginia, where he continued as a student for three years, applying himself with untiring zeal and energy. At the con- clusion of his academic course he engaged in teaching in Virginia, and himself kept up a course of study in the higher branches. He fol- lowed teaching there until 1870, and in the fall of that year came to Missouri and located in Boone county, where he taught for four years. Having married during this time he removed with his family to Cooper county, in 1874, and since then has been one of the most active educators and successful teachers in the county. His great zeal and success here as a teacher was not long in becoming recognized throughout the county. In the spring of 1879 he was elected to the

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HISTORY OF HOWARD AND COOPER COUNTIES.

office of school commissioner of the county, and he is now filling his third term in that position, having been re-elected in 1881 and again in 1883. During this time he has established the normal institute of Cooper county, one of the most thorough and efficient organizations of its kind in the state. As a matter of accommodation to his neighbors he consented to discharge the duties of justice of the peace of the township, to which position he was accordingly elected. This office he now holds. On the first of January, 1874, Prof. Crossley was married in Boone County, to Miss Elbertie, daughter of Elbert Givens, Esq., of that county. She is a native of Kentucky, but was reared and educated in Jackson county, this state, whence her par- ents removed to Boone county. They have one son, Wallace, a promising boy. Prof. and Mrs. Crossley are both members of the Baptist church.

J. W. EDWARDS,

blacksmith at Bunceton. Mr. Edwards is a native of Kentucky, and was born in Clark county, April 25, 1836. His parents, Thomas W. and Nancy (Combs) Edwards, removed from that state to Missouri when he was two years of age and settled in Pettis county, where J. W. was reared to manhood. However, when eighteen years of age he entered a blacksmith shop to learn the trade at Ridge Prairie, in Saline county, where he worked for three years. In the spring of 1858 he established a shop of his own near Blackwater, in the western part of Cooper county, and was carrying it on with excellent success when the war broke out in 1861. He was one of the first to enlist in the service of the south, and joined Captain Cunningham's company, but shortly afterwards became a member of company G, 5th Mis- souri cavalry, under Colonel McCowan, and served until the close of the war. He participated in the battles of Lexington, Missouri ; Elk- horn, Arkansas ; Corinth, Mississippi ; Grand Gulf, Mississippi ; Vicks- burg, Mississippi ; Atlanta, Georgia ; Franklin, Tennessee, and numer- ous others. During the service he was on the disabled list for two months, caused by a wound in the right arm, but upon recovery re-entered the active service. He was captured at Vicksburg, Mississippi, and paroled, but rejoined his command upon exchange and surrendered with it at Mobile, at the close of the war. After the restoration of peace Mr. Edwards returned to Missouri and opened a shop about three miles west of Bunceton, and in 1875 removed to the last named place, where he has a good run of custom and is meeting with excellent success. December 25, 1866, he was married in Ala- bama, to Miss Martha, daughter of Oswell Edins, of that state.

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HISTORY OF HOWARD AND COOPER COUNTIES.

They have one child, a danghter, Louella Josie. Mr. and Mrs. E. are members of the Baptist church.

HON. WILLIAM C. EWING,

deceased. Major Ewing, as he was called by all who knew him, was a representative of the distinguished Ewing family, whose name is so conspicuously aud honorably interwoven with the histories of Missouri, Ohio, Kentucky and other leading states of the union. He was a near relative of the late Judge E. B. Ewing, of the Missouri supreme court, and of the Rev. Finis Ewing, the eminent Presbyterian divine. Major Ewing was born in Logan county, Kentucky, July 14, 1814, and was a son of Reuben Ewing and wife, whose maiden name was Mary Hammon. His father was a native of Kentucky, but his mother was originally from the District of Columbia. It 1819 the family emigrated from the Blue Grass State to Missouri, and settled in Cooper county, where both parents lived until their deaths. Here William C. grew to manhood, and as school advantages in this county in that early day were very indifferent, he had to rely almost wholly upon his own efforts for what education he acquired. Notwithstand- ing, however, the absence of regular instruction, by private study and by persevering application to his books, he succeeded in acquir- ing more than an average education for those times. Farming became his chosen occupation for life, and in this as in everything with which he was connected, the superior quality of his mind manifested itself. He was not only eminently successful as a farmer, but conducted his farming interests on those broad-minded business principles which distinguish the man of ability in whatever calling he is engaged from what, speaking of a class of mechanical lawyers, Quinitilian terms, "plodders in the forum." Although gifted to a high degree with the qualities that would have made him a conspicuous figure in the learned professions or in public life, he had no ambition above that of leading an honorable, quiet life, and leaving a name to his children untarnished by a wrong act. He looked at life with a philosopher's eye, all are equal at the grave and only those are superior beyond it whose lives here have been the purest and the best. Hence here he strove to do the full measure of his duty in whatever relation he was placed, and if called upon to discharge the duties of a public office he did it with the same seriousness, plainness and modesty, and with the same thorough- ness and earnestness, with which he attended to his own private affairs. Besides other positions of trust and distinction he was called upon to fill, he was twice prevailed upon to serve the county in the

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HISTORY OF HOWARD AND COOPER COUNTIES.

legislature, and in that body he wielded a potent and salutary influ- ence for the welfare of the state, an influence that integrity and ability combined with modesty and dignity never fail to exert. Major Ewing was married on the 3d of February, 1845, to Miss Lucretia, daughter of Henry Corum, one of the pioneer settlers of the county. Four children were reared of this union : Oscar F., now merchandis- ing in Bunceton ; Eva, Lilly and W. H. Clay, now at William Jewell college, Liberty, Missouri. Prior to the winter of 1881-82 Major Ewing's health had been failing for some time, and he was advised to visit the Eureka Springs, of Arkansas, in the hope that the use of their waters would benefit him. But this unfortunately proved delu- sive. He went there and died soon afterwards, on the 20th of Janu- ary, 1882. The sad news of his death was received with a sigh by all who knew him, for he had lived a singularly offenseless and blameless life. In his death the county lost one of its best and most worthy citizens. He had long been a consistent and exemplary member of the Presbyterian church. His wife, a most worthy, noble-hearted lady, still survives him.

T. B. GOODE,

druggist, is also engaged in the grocery business at Bunceton. Mr. Goode, after receiving an excellent education, at the age of nineteen, in 1874, entered the drug store at Pilot Grove, this county, under Dr. A. H. Thruston, the proprietor, to learn the drug business and continued with him for six years, thus acquiring a thorough knowledge of the business. After this he came to Bunceton and engaged in the drug business on his own account, and here his recognized qualifica- tions as a druggist, and his popular, gentlemanly bearing soon won him an excellent trade. Full of enterprise and ready to engage in any honorable pursuit that promises satisfactory returns for the means and time employed, he has also added a stock of groceries to his drug business, and in this line is likewise meeting with gratifying success. He was born in Morgan county, May 24, 1855. His father John Goode, is a native of Virginia, but removed to Morgan county, Missouri, when a young man. In that county he was married to Miss Mary A. Walton, originally of Tennessee. He followed farm- ing and stock raising until 1865, and then went to St. Louis, but three years aftewards located at Pleasant Hill, Cass county, where he still resides. His son, T. B., the subject of this sketch, spent his early youth mainly in the common schools and afterward entered the Pleas- ant Hill high school, where he continued as a student for about six years

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HISTORY OF HOWARD AND COOPER COUNTIES.

thus acquiring a good, practical English education. From Pleasant Hill, in 1874, he came to Pilot Grove as above stated. February 16, 1881, Mr. Goode was married to Miss Anna, daughter of J. W. Chamberlin, whose sketch appears elsewhere. She was born in Vir- ginia but was principally reared in this county. They have one child, Beulah Lee. Mrs. G. is a member of the Baptist church. Mr. Goode is still a young man, and has every promise of a future of suc- cess in life and usefulness as a citizen.

D. F. HARNESS,

of Harness & Ewing, dealers in general merchandise, hardware and farming implements. The above named firm, in which Mr. Harness is the senior partner, are successors in business to W. D. Wilson, whom they bought out in 1882. Both gentlemen are excellent bnsi- ness men, and Mr. Harness has had considerable experience in mer- cantile pursuits. He is a native of Cooper county, Missouri, and is a son of Conrad and Ann (Tueker ) Harness, old aud highly respected residents of this county, who came here from Virginia in 1830. The Harness family is one of the oldest of the Old Dominion, having set- tled in that state, then a colony, long prior to the revolution. Mr. Harness' grandfather served in the continental army from Virginia and held the position of quartermaster to his command. Iu Conrad Harness' family there are eleven children, nine sons and two daugh- ters, of whom D. F. is the eighth son but the ninth of the family. His father being a well-to-do farmer and fully alive to the importance of education, D. F. was given good school advantages. After com- pleting the eurrienlum of the common schools he entered William Jewel college at Liberty, Missouri, where he took a higher course of study, thus acquiring an excellent education. At the conclusion of his college course he returned home and shortly afterwards, in Janu- ary, 1875, was appointed deputy county clerk, under Jackson Mon- roe, one of the most efficient officials and popular men who ever held publie office in this county. In this position he served four years to the hearty satisfaction of Mr. Monroe, and with the cordial approval of the public. In 1879 he went to St. Louis and was employed there in a clerical position in the publishing house of the Christian Advocate the two following years. He then became a travelling salesman for the mercantile firm of Heltzell & Co., of that city, and remained with them until the early part of 1882, when he engaged with a cousin of his in the lumber business at Aurora Springs, but sold ont six months afterwards and joined Mr. Ewing, his present partner, in the

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HISTORY OF HOWARD AND COOPER COUNTIES.

purchase of the stock, good will, etc., of Mr. Wilson, at Bunceton in which he has since been engaged. They carry unusually large and well selected stocks of general merchandise, hardware and agricul- tural implements, and have a widely extended and rapidly increasing trade. Mr. H. has always been identified with the democratic party, and although decided and firm in his political convictions, he is liberal and tolerant in his intercourse with others and recognizes that those who hold diametrically opposite views to his own, may be equally sin- cere and conscientious in their opinions. So unobjectionable is he in this respect to all parties that in 1882 he was nominated by the inde- pendents for county clerk without his consent, however, and being a democrat he very properly, but respectfully, declined their nomina- tion. He is a member of the Baptist church and of the Masonic order.

GEORGE C. HARTT, M. D.,

physician and surgeon at Bell Air. Dr. Hartt, himself one of the most skillful physicians in this section of the state, came of an ancestry of physicians noted for their eminence in their profession. His father, also named George, was one of the pioneer physicians of Cooper county, having located at Boonville as far back as 1818, and for many years he ranked as the Nestor of the medical profession in Central Missouri, not so much for his early location and long practice here-and he was one of the earliest and oldest physi- cians of the country -as for his recognized pre-eminence as a physician and surgeon. He performed many operations in that early day among the most remarkable and successful known to medi- eal surgery. Being called upon at one time to attend a patient virtually dying of stone in the bladder, and having no instruments available with which to remove the stone, he went to a gunsmith's shop and himself improvised such instruments as he needed and successfully performed the surgical operation, cutting into the man's bladder and removing the cause of the difficulty. Many, even more remarkable in- stances of his great skill and ability are related, which space cannot be given here to mention. It is a fact in his history, however, that he was never known to lose a case in surgical practice. He was born at Harrodsburg Springs, Kentucky, in 1781, and received both his general and medical education in the Blue Grass State. From there during the first decade of the present century, Miss Maria Davis having be- come his wife in the meantime, he with his family removed to Mis- souri and located at New Madrid, on the Mississippi river. But after the war of 1812, in 1818, he came to Boonville, where he lived until his

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HISTORY OF HOWARD AND COOPER COUNTIES.

death in 1852, engaged in the active practise of his profession here for nearly forty years. His grandfather of the same name, George C., the ancestor of the fourth generation of George C., the sub- ject of this sketch was also an eminent and successful physician. Dr. George C. Hartt, of Bell Air was born in Boonville, Aug. 7, 1826, and in early youth attended the local schools of this city. At the age of sixteen, in 1842, he entered the St. Louis university, then the most famous school this side of the Alleghanies. He continued as a student in this institution for three years, during which he applied himself to his studies with great energy and assiduity. Returning home at the expiration of this time, he then entered regularly upon the study of medicine under his distinguished father. In due time he attended medical lectures, first at Lexington, Ky., and then at Louisville, in the same state. Continuing his studies without inter- ruption, he entered the St. Louis medical college, which he attended until 1857, when, on the 28th of February of that year, he was gradu- ated with merited honor. After his graduation, Dr. Hartt went to San Francisco, California, where he practised his profession for about two years, but then returned to Cooper county and engaged in the prac- tice here. In 1861 he removed to Little Rock, Ark., where he remained for over twenty years, building up a large and lucrative prac- tice. But in 1882 he returned to his native county, and located at Bell Air, where he is recognized as one of the ablest physicians in the profession, and is rapidly accumulating an extensive practice. Dr. Hartt has been twice married. First in Boonville in 1850 to Miss Mary Stewart, a native of Kentucky. She died in 1861. Of that union there are two children, Jessie and Mary. Again in 1864, the doctor was married in Little Rock, Arkansas, Mrs. Fanny Amos, a widow lady, then becoming his wife. There are two children by this marriage, Geo. C. Jr., and Agnes. Dr. Hartt was for some time a lecturer in the medical department of the state university, and also served a term as state medical examiner while a resident of Arkansas. He is a member of the Catholic church.

JUDGE GEO. W. HELMREICH,

farmer and stock raiser. Judge Helmreich, a prosperous farmer and prominent citizen of Palestine township, is a Bavarian by nativity, and was born November 16, 1819. His parents, John Frederick and Sybila (Schindler ) Helmreich, were both natives of the same country. He grew up to manhood in Bavaria, and was educated in the excellent schools for which all the German states are noted. In keeping with

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HISTORY OF HOWARD AND COOPER COUNTIES.

the regulations of that country - that all youths must learn some use- ful trade, profession or occupation -young Helmreich learned the milling business, and followed it there until his emigration to the United States in 1843. In the fall of that year he came west and located in Howard county, Missouri, where he followed farming and milling for about two years. In 1845 he moved to Cooper county, coming to Palestine township, and here gave his attention to farming. He located on his present farm in 1854, which now contains 340 acres of the best quality of land, and is well improved. In addition to the ordinary farm interests, Judge Helmreich is also giving considera- ble attention to stock raising. In December, 1843, he was married to Miss Sybila Weber, originally of Bavaria, who lived to brighten his home for over thirty years, but in May, 1875, was claimed by the in- satiate cormorant, Death. The following year, in March, 1876, Judge Helmreich was again married, his present wife having been at the time of her marriage to him Mrs. Maria, the widow of the Rev. John Koelle. By her first husband Mrs. Helmreich had four children : Ophelia M., Samuel, Emma and John Koelle. The judge and Mrs. Helmreich by their union have one son -George W. Judge Helmreich is a member of the Evangelical church, and his wife is a member of the Methodist denomination. As a public man, the judge has held numerous township offices, and he was appointed road and bridge commissioner of the county by the county court, a position he held for four years with great satisfaction to the people. He was also appointed by the court a director to represent the stock of the county in the Osage Valley and Southern Kansas railroad company, in which he served two years with credit to himself and advantage to the county.

CHARLES E. LEONARD,

owner and proprietor of Raven Wood farm. There are few farms in Missouri, if any, that present a handsomer picture of advanced agricul- ture than the one referred to in the present sketch. Raven Wood farm, devoted mainly to stock raising, contains 1,900 acres in a solid body, all under fence and in an exceptionally fine state of improve- ment. The residence of the proprietor, one of the handsomest and most commodious structures of its kind in the state, is in the interior of the farm, and the place is so divided into fields and pastures that all open through gates into lanes leading directly to the barns and stock lots near the dwelling. Moreover, the farm is so arranged that stock may be transferred from one pasture to another, however far apart, and grain or other products brought out of the different fields, without

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Author: National Historical Company Publication date: 1883 Publisher: St. Louis : National Historical Co. Number of Pages: 1198

Author: National Historical Company
Publication date: 1883
Publisher: St. Louis : National Historical Co.
Number of Pages: 1198