History of Johnson County, Missouri, Part 41

Author: Cockrell, Ewing
Publication date: 1918
Publisher: Topeka, Kan. : Historical Publishing Co.
Number of Pages: 1234

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HISTORY OF JOHNSON COUNTY

were born the following children: W. B., Whitesville, Missouri; F. M., Whitesville, Missouri; James S., Bolckow, Missouri; E. E., Savannah, Missouri; Mrs. John Roe, Savannah, Missouri; Mrs. Louisa J. Todd, who died in 1891; and H. S., the subject of this review. Mrs. Town- send died in 1861. Jonathan Townsend's death occurred at the age of ninety years in Savannah, which had been his home for twenty years. Prior to moving to Savannah he had lived on his farm near that place fifty-two years. Mr. and Mrs. Townsend lived in the first home which he built for fifty-two years and in the seventy-two years they lived in but two different homes. The remains of both father and mother were interred in the cemetery at Savannah, Missouri. The father served in the State Militia under Capt. D. C. Stotts during the Civil War.

H. S. Townsend received his early education in the public schools of Andrew county, Missouri. He later attended Lagrange College, Lagrange, Missouri, for three years. Mr. Townsend entered the teach- ing profession after leaving college and for fifteen years was engaged in teaching during the winter and farming in the summer time. Twenty- three years ago, in 1894 Mr. Townsend came to Warrensburg, and entered the dairy business. Fifteen years ago he went in partnership with J. B. Baird in the marble and granite business and in farming and stock raising. Baird & Townsend, Marble & Granite Works, are suc- cessors of the Farley Brothers. Four years ago they moved to their present location on East Pine street, where they have two display rooms, 24 x 118 and 24 x 30 feet in dimensions respectively. The firm employs three traveling salesmen and has an extensive business all over the state of Missouri and extending into adjoining states. Fre- quently carloads of stone are shipped to a single point in the state. They import granite and marble in the rough from quarries in Missouri, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Oklahoma, Massachusetts, Vermont. New Hampshire, and Maine, besides obtaining some foreign shipments. This firm has undoubtedly the finest stock on hand of any company in west- ern Missouri. Mr. Townsend is well known throughout the state and is universally esteemed, possessing a pleasing personality which has won for him scores of friends. In addition to the granite and marble business, the firm is also engaged in farming and stock raising, owning a splendid stock farm ten miles south of Warrensburg. This farm com- prises one hundred sixty-nine acres and is devoted to dairy stock.

In 1880, H. S. Townsend was united in marriage with Florence

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I. Clark, daughter of Silas and Marguerite Clark, of Andrew county, Missouri. Both parents of Mrs. Townsend are now deceased. To H. S. and Florence I. (Clark) Townsend have been born two children: Glenn, an only son, who died at the age of thirteen months, who is interred in the cemetery at Warrensburg; and Nellie Grace, who is the wife of Harley Hoar, of Warrensburg. Mrs. Townsend is president of the Johnson County Women's Christian Temperance Union and has held this office for the past five years. She was elected delegate to the national meeting of the Women's Christian Temperance Union held at Seattle, Washington at the State meeting in 1915, but on account of illness was unable to attend.

Mr. Townsend is affiliated with the Modern Woodmen of America. of which lodge he has been one of the officers in Warrensburg for many years, and with the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, of which he has been a member for the past ten years. He has been a deacon in the Baptist church for twelve years and superintendent of the Sun- day School four years.

William Lazenby, a retired farmer and Civil War veteran residing in Warrensburg, was born July 15, 1840 in Morgan county, Illinois. He is the son of John and Sarah (Green) Lazenby, natives of England. John Lazenby emigrated from England to America in 1829 and settled in Morgan county, Illinois on a farm near Jacksonville. John and Sarah (Green) Lazenby were the parents of the following children : Mary, who was born in England; John. Jr., who was born in Illinois and is now deceased : Jane, who died in Adams county, Illinois in 1857 ; William, the subject of this review: Charles, who died in February, 1916: and Isaac, Jacksonville, Illinois.

William Lazenby enlisted in the Twenty-seventh Illinois Infantry August 12, 1861, serving under Captain A. J. Bozarth, whose widow now resides in Warrensburg Mr. Lazenby's regiment was assigned to the Army of the Cumberland, first serving under Commodore Foote and after the battle of Shiloh under General Grant. His company took a prominent part in the battles of Belmont, Missouri: Union City, Ten- nessee : Corinth, Mississippi : Stone River, Chattanooga, and Missionary Ridge, Tennessee. William Lazenby was in the very thick of the campaign for Chattanooga, which resulted in the restoration of all Tennessee to the Union, in a victorious army holding the key to Atlanta and the Georgia uplands. At the battle of Belmont, Missouri, Mr.

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Lazenby was shot through the right knee and for thirty days was con- fined in the hospital. In the important engagement fought September 19th and 20th in 1863 at Chickamauga, Tennessee he was again wounded, on September 19th being shot at this time through the hip. Mr. Lazenby was first wounded November 7, 1861 and again on Sep- tember 19, 1863 and from the effects of these wounds he has been handicapped through all his later life. Mr. Lazenby himself states that he has never been a sound man since September 19, 1863. On account of the wound received at Chickamauga he was confined in the hospital sixty days. Mr. Lazenby was mustered out and honorably discharged September 20, 1864.

After receiving his discharge, Mr. Lazenby returned to Illinois. Within a short time he moved to Iowa, locating in Van Buren county, where he remained five years. From Iowa he moved to Missouri, locating on a farm nine miles north of Knob Noster. William Lazenby resided on the farm near Knob Noster until 1902 when he moved to a farm near Oak Grove in Simpson township. In 1907 he moved to Warrensburg and purchased the six building lots at 410 South Wash- ington street, where in 1909 he built his present residence.

In 1902, William Lazenby was united in marriage with Mrs. Ida (Higgins) Winkler, the widow of Franklin Winkler. She is the daugh- ter of Eugenie and Susan Higgins, the former a native of Vermont and the latter of New York. They settled in Iowa in the early fifties. Both father and mother now rest in the cemetery at Carthage, Mis- souri. One brother and one sister of Mrs. Lazenby are now living : Horace. Oronogo, Missouri; and Mrs. Susie Montague, Sedalia, Missouri. Franklin Winkler, the former husband of Mrs. Lazenby, was a native of North Carolina. He came from North Carolina to Missouri in 1847 and located in Lafayette county. He was united in marriage with Ida Higgins in 1877 at Carthage, Missouri and to them were born two children: Mrs. Alice May Gladish, who is now residing in Johnson county, Kansas, near Merriam; and Belle M., who is employed as bookkeeper for the Long Construction Company, Kansas City, Missouri. The Winkler family made their home north of War- rensburg until Mr. Winkler's death in 1895. His remains were in- terred in the cemetery at Oak Grove.

By a former marriage with Mildred Lacy, William Lazenby was the father of nine children, five of whom are now living: Frizello,

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Dunksburg, Missouri; Harvey, Warrensburg; Mrs. Della Thornton, Sedalia, Missouri; Arthur, Knob Noster, Missouri; and Wesley, who resides in Howell county. Missouri. Mrs. Clara Tyler died in January, 1917 and three children died in infancy.

William Lazenby was justice of the peace in Simpson township for more than twenty years and the last two terms he served under a Democratic administration although he is Republican. In 1890 and 1900 Mr. Lazenby took the United States census in Simpson township. He is noted in the county for his splendid penmanship, and at the age of seventy-seven years writes a better, plainer, steadier hand than the majority of the young people of today. Mr. Lazenby acquired his skill in writing while serving in the army as orderly sergeant.

Mrs. Lazenby has in her possession a priceless relic of the long ago. This is a Seth Thomas clock, which is still in good working order after seventy-five years of service. The clock was purchased three- quarters of a century ago and brought to Lexington, Missouri by Charles Bradley, the former husband of the first wife of Franklin Winkler.

Mr. and Mrs. Lazenby are highly esteemed and valued members of the Warrensburg Methodist Episcopal church.

H. F. Clark, ex-mayor of Warrensburg, and a highly respected pioneer of Johnson county, was born in 1836 in Virginia. He is the son of Richard Harvey and Mary (White) Clark, natives of Virginia. H. F. Clark is the only survivor of a family of eleven children. One borther, A. P. Clark, died recently at the age of eighty-five years, in Lawrence, Kansas.

H. F. Clark received his education in the public schools of Ohio, to which state the Clark family moved when he was a child. When he was thirteen years of age, his mother died and he was obliged to leave school to seek work. Mr. Clark has at different times been a boatman, a miner, and a grocer. In 1861 he came from Ohio to Mis- souri and located on the Missouri river in Gasconade county. In the spring of 1864 he came to Warrensburg, where he opened a general store although he still engaged in farming near Warrensburg.

In 1861, H. F. Clark and Rosa Goff were united: in marriage in Muskingum county, Ohio. To H. F. and Rosa (Goff) Clark were born the following children: John, who was a pharmacist in Warrensburg, died at the age of fifty-two years; Mary, died at the age of

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HISTORY OF JOHNSON COUNTY

sixteen years; Stanton, who was reared to maturity and educated in the schools of Warrensburg, Missouri, and died at the age of twenty-three years at Norman, Oklahoma, where he was engaged in the drug business; two children died in infancy; H. C., a merchant of Warrensburg; W. S., who is at the head of the Warrensburg Whole- sale Grocery business; Mrs. Rose Bradshaw, wife of Ed. Bradshaw, a broker of New York City; and Ethel, who is the wife of Charles Houx, a prosperous stockman of Centerview township and president of the Bank of Centerview, a sketch of whom appears in this volume. Mrs. Clark died in 1907 and her remains were interred in the cemetery at Warrensburg, where the children who had preceded her in death were also buried. Mr. Clark, who is now eighty-one years of age, makes his home with his daughter, Mrs. Charles H. Houx. He is one of Senator Cockrell's most valued friends.

Mrs. Mary M. (Hocker) Robinson, one of the noble pioneer women of Johnson county, was born January 31, 1844 in Grover township, Johnson county. She is the daughter of a pioneer family, who settled in this county in 1834. Her parents, Larkin and Eliza J. (Thornton) Hocker, were both natives of Kentucky. Larkin Hocker was born in Lincoln county, Kentucky and in 1834 moved from Kentucky to Missouri, where he located on a farm comprising seven hundred acres of land, which he entered from the government, situated eight miles north of Knob Noster. The Hockers came by boat up the Missouri river to Missouri and then drove through to Johnson county. In those early days, wild game was in abundance and the Hocker children often saw herds of wild deer and flocks of prairie chickens, wild turkeys and wild geese. To Larkin and Eliza J. Hocker were born the following chil- dren: Martha Ellen, who was the wife of Willis Huff and is now de- ceased; Harrison, who died at the age of three years; Amanda J., who was the wife of James K. Tyler, and is now deceased; Mary M., the subject of this review; Henrietta T., who was married to Stanton Feagans in 1866, who is now deceased, and she is residing in the brick house which was built in 1850 on the old Hocker homestead in Grover township; and Larkin, Jr., who was born in 1848 and is residing at Knobnoster, Missouri. Larkin Hocker, Jr. is unmarried. All the chil- dren were born in a log cabin, which their father built in 1834. The cabin consisted of one and a half stories with a "lean-to" and shed, making three large rooms, two below and one above. Mr. Hocker

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brought four slaves with him, when he moved from Kentucky, and he was owner of twenty at the time the slaves were made free. Mrs. Hocker died December 3, 1894 on the home place and she was followed in death by her husband January 31, 1899. Mr. Hocker was at the time of his death eighty-seven years of age.

Mary M. (Hocker) Robinson was attending school in Warrens- burg when the Civil War began. Dr. Warden was teaching in War- rensburg at that time. The school house was north of the old court house in the old town of Warrensburg, and is standing to this day. The Hocker family remained on the farm during the war, keeping the blacks with them until the close of the war, when they were set free.

May 27, 1867, Mary M. Hocker and John E. Robinson were united in marriage at the Hocker home in Grover township. John E. Robin- son was born August 23, 1841 in Grover township. He was the son of Jehu and Julia Ann (Oglesby ) Robinson, who moved from Saline county, Missouri to Johnson county in 1833. A sketch of Jehu and Julia Ann Robinson appears in connection with the biography of James L. Robinson, which is given in this volume. John E. Robinson was one of six children born to his parents, as follow: Mary, deceased ; Mrs. Louisa Hull, deceased; John E., who was the husband of the subject of this review and is now deceased : Dr. J. F., Nevada, Missouri; Mrs. Sallie B. Reynolds, who resides near Leeton, Missouri; and James L., Warrensburg, Missouri.

John E. Robinson enlisted during the Civil War, at Warrensburg with Company A, Fifth Missouri Infantry, and was assigned to McCowan's regiment, First brigade, serving under General Bowen. Mr. Robinson was with that division two years, then he was assigned to Company I, Tenth Missouri Cavalry, Marmaduke's brigade, with whom he served two years. He was first lieutenant in the latter company and had charge of a company when the war ended. Mr. Robinson was wounded October 4, 1862 in the right shoulder by a bursting shell, but as he was in fine physical condition and possessed a splendid, robust constitution, he soon recovered and was not handicapped in later life from the effects of his wound. When the war closed, John E. Robin- son returned to the home of his father, who was at that time living in Boone county, Missouri, and assisted him in recovering from the losses inflicted by the war. Jehu Robinson had been financially ruined. Then in 1867 he was married to Mary M. Hocker.

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John E. and Mary (Hocker) Robinson were the parents of four children: Dr. Jehu F., who died January 10, 1896 at the age of twenty- six years, leaving a widow and a daughter, three weeks old, Margaret Finis Robinson, who now resides with her mother, Mrs. George Gilham : Larkin H., who died at the age of thirty-one years, June 30, 1907, leaving a widow; Eliza A., the wife of Henry E. Vitt, of Warrens- burg; and Mary Margaret, who died March 26, 1888 at the age of three years, ten months, and one day. Mrs. Henry E. Vitt, the only child now living of the four born to Mr. and Mrs. Robinson, attended the Warrensburg State Normal School, where she specialized in music. She is a member of the Daughters of the American Revolution of Warrensburg, Missouri and of the Daughters of the Confederacy, Francis M. Cockrell Chapter, Warrensburg.

John E. Robinson was a prominent and influential stockman of Grover township for many years. In August, 1896, Mr. and Mrs. Robinson moved from the farm to Warrensburg and one year later Mr. Robinson died. November 10, 1897. Interment was made at the Hocker cemetery in Grover township, in which burial ground both his parents and the parents of Mrs. Robinson rest. John E. Robinson was a highly esteemed citizen of Johnson county, a man who possessed many qualities worthy of the greatest respect. His death was a source of universal regret and though a score of years have passed his friends still miss with sadness his familiar form and voice. Mrs. Robinson resides in the handsome, modern residence at 212 East Market street in Warrensburg, among a host of friends.

Henry E. Fewel, one of the founders of the city of Leeton, Mis- souri, and president of the Bank of Leeton, is one of the prominent pioneers of Johnson county. He was born June 6, 1855, in Jefferson township, Johnson county, a son of Richard B. and Nancy (Avery) Fewel, the former a native of North Carolina and the latter of Tennes- see. Richard B. Fewel was born April,30, 1827, a son of Mason C. Fewel, who was born January 30, 1797, in North Carolina. Mason C. Fewel and his son, Richard B., came overland from North Carolina to Mis- souri many years before the Civil War and settled on land entered from the government six miles southeast of Leeton, Missouri. Nancy (Avery) Fewel was born in Tennessee, March 12, 1830. To Henry E. Fewel's parents, Richard B. and Nancy Fewel, were born the fol- lowing children: Orlando, deceased; Hattie E., Montrose, Missouri ;

HENRY E. FEWEL.

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Henry E., the subject of this review; Dr. R. B., who has been engaged in the practice of medicine at Montrose, Missouri, for the past thirty- five years; Mace, Redlands, California; Mrs. Mollie Wallace, Fort Worth, Texas; Green, Muskogee, Oklahoma; Mack, Calhoun, Missouri; and Walter, Murchison, Texas. Mason C. Fewel died and was buried on the home place near Leeton. February 24, 1880, the death of his son occurred and the remains of Richard B. Fewel were interred in the cemetery at Sardis church. His widow survived him twenty-two years. when March 12, 1902, she followed Mr. Fewel in death and was also laid to rest in the cemetery at Sardis church.

Henry E. Fewel attended the public schools of Johnson county and the Warrensburg State Normal School. He was in attendance at the latter institution two years. After leaving school, Mr. Fewel engaged in the stock business. He was reared on the farm in Jefferson town- ship and all his life has been interested in agricultural pursuits and a stock buyer since he attained maturity. Mr. Fewel resided on the farm until 1896, when the town of Leeton was founded. J. R. Grinstead, J. J. Lee, and Henry E. Fewel were the founders of the present pros- perous, flourishing, little city of Leeton, Missouri. In 1896 the town was laid out and at first embraced but eighty acres within the corpora- tion limits, but since that time seventy acres more have been added. Leeton was planned and laid out before the Rock Island railway reached this locality. Leeton now has a population of about five hundred and is constantly growing. It has two splendid banks, an elevator, two lum- ber companies, and is located in the richest agricultural section of Johnson county.

October 10, 1889, Henry E. Fewel was united in marriage with Jennie Lee Cooper, the daughter of Daniel and Angie (McCray) Cooper. Daniel Cooper was born January 3, 1822, and came to Missouri with his father, David Cooper, in 1832. They settled in Jefferson township, and here Daniel's daughter, Mrs. Fewel, was born many years later. At the time of his death, December 8, 1893, Daniel Cooper was owner of nearly six hundred twenty acres of land. His widow still resides in Leeton. Mr. Cooper was a veteran of the Confederate service, serving under General Price, and he took an active and prominent part in the battle of Wilson's creek. To Henry E. and Jennie Lee Fewel have been born three children: Mrs. Belle Kennedy, who was a student

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at Liberty College, Liberty, Missouri, and is now the wife of J. T. Ken- nedy, assistant cashier of the Bank of Leeton; Floyd E., who is a graduate of the Military College of Mexico, Missouri, was a student at the State University at Columbia for three years and then engaged in farming and stock raising, and associated in business with his father in buying and selling stock, now in training for an officer's commission at Fort Sheridan, Illinois, and also he attended the Military Training School, at the Presidio, San Francisco, six weeks during Panama Expo- sition ; and Lee Lucile, who is a graduate of Stevens College, Columbia, Missouri, and is now a student in Central College, Lexington, Missouri.

Henry E. Fewel was one of the organizers of the Bank of Leeton, of which institution he is now president. Mr. Fewel still buys and sells stock, being associated in business with his son, Floyd E. In addition to his beautiful residence in Leeton, Mr. Fewel is owner of the Snowberger place, located a fourth mile northeast of Leeton, the Harwood place, which comprises two hundred acres one and a half miles northwest of Leeton, and a farm of two hundred forty acres two miles southeast of Leeton, owning seven hundred sixty acres in all.

Henry E. Fewel is a man of whom Johnson county is proud. He possesses an unusually broad perspective of life. In a pretty, woodland home, surrounded by flowers and trees, he is spending his life in the city of his own building, for the growth and advancement of which he willingly gave the best years of his life.

Mary C. (Divers) Greenlee, widow of John White Greenlee, of Warrensburg, is one of the honored pioneer women of Johnson county. She was born in 1844 in Post Oak township, Johnson county, the daughter of one of the most distinguished pioneer families in Missouri. Her father, Frank Divers, was born in 1811 in Franklin county, Vir- ginia, thirty miles from the famous Natural Bridge of Virginia. He was the son of Christopher C. Divers, who came with his family from Virginia to Missouri and located in Post Oak township about 1832. where he entered land from the government in Johnson county. His death occurred on the farm in Post Oak township and his remains were interred in the family cemetery in Post Oak township. Frank Divers, the father of Mrs. Greenlee, entered about one thousand acres of land from the government, located eight miles southeast of Warrensburg. He was one of the first settlers in that vicinity. Mr. Samuel Kimzey,

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the nearest neighbor, lived six miles away. Mr. Divers conducted a general store near High Point church for many years, in the early thirties.

In 1840, Frank Divers and Amelia A. Bouldin were united in mar- riage in Pettis county, Missouri. Amelia A. (Bouldin) Divers was the daughter of Leonard Bouldin, who was a cousin of Henry Clay, the famous Kentucky orator and renowned "peace-maker." The name Bouldin was originally spelled Boling or Bowling but an ancestor, through error or otherwise, always signed his name Bouldin, and thus through the years the name has continued to be. To Frank and Amelia A. Divers were born the following children: Mary C., the sub- ject of this review; Lucy M., who died in infancy; Nannie, who was first the wife of Theodore Jones, who died, and she later became the wife of Felix Bibb, in 1915 her death occurred in Warrensburg and she left five children: Bernice, the wife of Mr. Appel, Great Falls, Montana ; David, banker, Lewistown, Montana ; Frankie, married James Calicote, Hobson, Montana; and Leonard Greenlee and Robert Hunton, twins, ranchers near Hobson, Montana, all graduates of the State Normal School, Warrensburg, except the twins who attended school there; William Baxter, died in childhood; Leonard B., who is a prominent ranchman of Hobson, Montana, married Cora Ridge, of Warrensburg, and they have one child, Cora Lee; Frank, Jr., a well- known ranchman of Roswell, New Mexico, married Kate Greenlee, of Fayetteville, and he is a trustee of Baptist Theological School at Waco, Texas, and a liberal contributor to the church and is also one of the directors of the First National Bank at Roswell, New Mexico; Virginia, who was the wife of William Dean and is now deceased, leaving two children, Leonard and Frank, of Kentucky: Vivia H., the wife of Reverend Earl D. Sims, a Baptist minister, state evangelist for Nebraska, who with his family is now located at Liberty, Missouri, but for five years he and his wife were missionaries in China, and they have one son, Rochester Ford, student at William Jewell College, Lib- erty, Missouri; and Lelia H., the wife of Thomas Fisk, of Butler, Missouri, and they have one daughter. Helen Marie, married Ray- mond Percival, of Cole Camp, Missouri. Both parents are now de- ceased. Mr. Divers died in 1874 and his remains were laid to rest in the family cemetery and the mother passed away three years later.

November 24, 1870, Mary C. Divers and John White Greenlee were

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History of Johnson County, Missouri, Part 41

Author: Cockrell, Ewing Publication date: 1918 Publisher: Topeka, Kan. : Historical Publishing Co. Number of Pages: 1234

Author: Cockrell, Ewing
Publication date: 1918
Publisher: Topeka, Kan. : Historical Publishing Co.
Number of Pages: 1234