History of Saline County, Missouri, Part 62

Author: Missouri Historical Company, St. Louis, pub
Publication date: 1881
Publisher: St. Louis, Missouri historical company
Number of Pages: 1008

USA > Missouri > Saline County > History of Saline County, Missouri > Part 62

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

JOHN J. TUCKER was born in Hampshire county, Virginia, May 23, 1824. In the fall of 1841 he, in company with his mother, three broth- ers and two sisters, came to Missouri and settled near Old Palestine, in Cooper county. In 1849 Mr. Tucker was one of the thousands of emi- grants, attracted by the newly discovered gold fields of California. He paused, however, in Nevada, and, for a time, followed mining in the vi- cinity of Nevada City, and then moved to the village, in which he was one of the first settlers. Remaining there, engaged in mining in the cel- ebrated Gold Run mines, till the fall of 1850, he returned to Cooper county, and married Laura, daughter of James Hutchison. His wife lived only four years after their marriage, but Mr. Tucker, since the loss of his first wife, has married Miss Sarah E. Fisher, of Morefield, Vir- ginia. They have five children living: Mary S., wife of Frank G. Mc- Cutchen, Esq., of Cooper county, Laura H., John J., Jr., George F. and Robert Lee. After his return to Cooper county, as stated above, Mr. Tucker lived at Bell Air, where he was engaged in farming and mer- chandising at the same time. He has ever been a public-spirited, unself- ish gentleman, having at heart the welfare of the people, and lending personal support, as well as material aid, to whatever tended to promote the good of his fellow citizens. His education is such as he obtained in

566

HISTORY OF SALINE COUNTY.

the common schools, but strong native intellect and a retentive memory, enriched by studious, careful reading, do much to obviate the deficiencies of early scholastic advantages. In the spring of 1865 Mr. Tucker went to Nebraska City, Nebraska, but remained there only a year, when he returned to Bell Air and lived in that village till March, 1879, at which time he moved to Arrow Rock, in Saline county, where he succeeded T. C. Rainey in the dry goods and grocery business, in which he is now engaged. Mr. Tucker's experience in life has been extensive and varied, but upright and honorable, and it may be truly said that he has not lived in vain.

WILLIAM L. TOWNSEND, farmer, was born in Cooper county, Missouri, November 16, 1824. His father was a native of South Carolina, but emigrated from that state to Kentucky at an early day, and after about ten years moved to Missouri and settled on a farm in Cooper county, where the subject of this sketch was born and grew to manhood. His edu- cation is limited to that of the common schools. After living on the farm with his father about twenty-one years, Mr. Townsend moved to a farm in Saline county, where, excepting a brief interval, he has lived ever since, conducting his farm, which is one of the best in that part of the county. April 2, 1846, he was married to Miss Sally Staples, of Saline county, an amiable lady who still lives to gladden a peaceful household. They have ten children: James T., Saunders, Peyton N., John B., Nathaniel S., William G., Benjamin F., Mary V., Edward F., and Susan A. E. Mr. Townsend is an old citizen of Saline, a successful farmer, and a worthy gentleman.

MONARCH MURPHY. The subject of this sketch is a native of Orange county Virginia, and was born May 10, 1809. When he was ten years old, his father emigrated to Kentucky, and settled in Mercer county, near "Shaker town," on the Kentucky river. He was reared on a farm, and during the winter months attended the common schools, to the curri- culum of which his education is necessarily limited. He is a carpenter by trade, an occupation he learned in 1838, after he was married. He con- tinued to ply his vocation twenty-eight years in New Castle, Kentucky, and December 19, 1866, left that state, to locate at Arrow Rock, Saline county, Missouri. Here for about six years he worked at the carpenter's trade, but at the end of that time turned his attention exclusively to the undertaker's business, in which he is now engaged, and has a large trade, which he deserves, as he attends closely to business, is a good workman and deals fairly with all. February 1st, 1830, he was married to Ann Hall, of New Castle, Kentucky, by whom he had four children: Lucy A., Susan, Priscilla, and William. His first wife died in 1839, and May 3, 1843, Miss Mary Watts, of New Castle, became his second wife. This second union is blessed by two children: Elizabeth and Florence.

567

HISTORY OF SALINE COUNTY.

JOHN C. THOMPSON was born in Winchester, Virginia, July 27, 1837. His father, Samuel Thompson, was a soldier in the Mexican war. He enlisted in battery 6, 4th artillery, at Baltimore, December, 1846, and fell at the battle of La Puebla, in August, 1847. The subject of this sketch lived in Winchester till the death of his mother, which occurred when he was about six years old. Subsequent to that event he lived with his grandparents, Thomas and Margaret Jackson, in Washington, D. C., where he was a student at Abbott's College. At the age of seventeen, he came to Saline county, Missouri, and lived with his uncle, John C. Thompson, Sr., at Saline City. Shortly after coming to Missouri, he made a profession of religion, was very soon licensed to preach the gos- pel, and became a member of the St. Louis annual conference of the M. E. Church. He traveled different circuits in central and southwest Mis- souri, and, in 1860, was stationed at Christy Chapel, in St. Louis. After remaining pastor of that charge throughout the year 1860, he asked a location and moved to California, Missouri, when he became temporarily connected with the Missouri Pacific railway. In 1862, Mr. Thompson was admitted to the bar in Moniteau county, and practiced law in Califor- nia, until his refusal to take the "iron-clad" oath, under the Drake consti- tution, when he abandoned the profession and re-entered the employ of the railway company above mentioned, and continued in connection there- with till the spring of 1869. He then moved to Arrow Rock, in Saline county, where he has ever since resided. He is local elder in the M. E. Church, South, at that place, and is esteemed an unpretending Christian gentleman. December 12, 1858, he was married to Miss Susan I. Adams, a daughter of Judge J. D. Adams, of California, Missouri. They have four children living and one deceased, as follows: Mary E. B., Joseph Lee (deceased), Charles T., Maggie M., and John C., Jr.

COL. JOHN THOMAS PRICE was born in Arrow Rock, Mis- souri, July 13, 1836. His father, Dr. William Price, a native of Mary- land, commenced the practice of medicine here, and on September 24th, 1835, married Mary Ellen Sappington, the youngest daughter then living, of Dr. John Sappington. John T., or as he is familiarly called, Col. Tom. Price, is, therefore, the eldest of the six children now alive, who were born of this union. The rest are Mrs. E. J. Collins, of Arrow Rock, and Capt. William M., and Stephen G. Price, commission mer- chants, of St. Louis, and the Misses Mary Alice and Hope Azola Price, who reside at the homestead of their mother, yet living near Arrow Rock, Missouri. Dr. Wm. Price, after a lucrative practice of thirty years, in which he vindicated himself to be a peer of the many able phy- sicians whom the reputation and success of Dr. Sappington attracted to this vicinity, died in 1865 at his beautiful residence, near the above town, which had just been completed when the war broke out, and is one of the

568

HISTORY OF SALINE COUNTY.

most attractive houses in central Missouri. It is here that Col. Price indulges occasionally in those literary, political, and philosophic specula- tions which are a necessity to any man of the education and intellect which he possesses, while at the same time not neglecting those essen- tials of our physical existence, which the management of several thousand acres of farming land enables him very easily to acquire. He is one of the most genial and cultivated gentlemen of the many whom we met in this sec- tion-the Athens of Saline county; and therefore a short sketch of his past life is well justified, though obtained with difficulty. We learned that it was a cardinal principle with Dr. Price to give all of his children a complete education, and for that purpose he set apart six thousand dol- lars for each one, as they grew up, to use at their option in this matter. To those who know John T., it is superfluous to add that he consumed his full sum, and would have used double if the paternal exchequer had permitted; valuing, as he does, intellectual and spiritual treasures beyond all price, and setting little store to that earthly dross which moth and rust doth so easily corrupt, and thieves so readily steal. At the age of fourteen, after having attended the best local schools about home, he was sent to New Haven, Connecticut, preparatory to entering a college, where two of his cousins, Col. Vincent and Gen. John S. Marmaduke, were then students. He was well advanced already, for after one year of study in Latin and Greek, he entered the Freshman class, and graduated in his twentieth year, one of its youngest members, in 1856. After studying law with Judge Krum, in St. Louis, in the year 1857, not content, as yet, he spent the summer of '58 at the University of Virginia, where Wil- liam and Stephen Price then were, as a student in the chemical labora- tory, and from Charlottsville went to Europe. There he spent two years, being six months at Heidelburg; and besides the English language, we are informed he is the master of three others, German, French, and Spanish. He returned home on the eve of the election of 1860, and although in favor of Bell and Everett, the last representatives of the old whig party, in whose teachings of nationalism as opposed to sectional controversy, Col. Price had been reared - his father having always been a whig -after Lincoln was elected he opposed secession in public speeches at Marshall and Arrow Rock, with all the force and influence he could summon.

Saline county, being the centre of a large slave-holding interest, and the home of C. F. Jackson, his uncle by marriage, and the then Governor of Missouri, was the hot-bed of "Southern Rights," and with party feel- ing ready to burst into organized war, it required not only strong convic- tions, but great boldness of character, even in a man of Colonel Price's high social position, to resist the popular torrent. After argument had ceased, and the sword was unsheathed, on the first day of May, 1861,

569

HISTORY OF SALINE COUNTY.

Colonel Price was commissioned by the secretary of war a second lieu- tenant in the fifth infantry of the regular U. S. Army. Prefering to per- form no acts except those incident to regular war, and not to participate in conflicts about home and among his own kindred-nearly all of whom where on the other side, and among them both his own brothers, he sought military service, honorable, but necessary, as remote as possible, and had the good fortune to be employed chiefly in the Adjutant Gen- eral's department. His first assignment of duty was at Fort Columbus, New York harbor, in the drilling and equipment of recruits, several detachments of which he distributed to the armies of Virginia in the sum- mer of '61, but in the fall of that year, he was chosen aid-de-camp on the staff of General C. F. Smith, who was ordered from Fort Columbus to Paducah, Kentucky, to collect and organize a column, which subse- quently moved on Fort Donelson, and thence to Shiloh, and the sea. In the winter of '62, however, Colonel Price was transferred to the head- quarters of the Mississippi department, and there acted as adjutant gen- eral of the district of St. Louis, on the staff of General Hamilton, a brother-in-law of General Halleck, then chief commander of the depart- ment. St. Louis at this time was a vast camp, for the organization and shipment of troops to Tennessee, and when General Halleck, on the eve of his departure, took the field in person to command that army, Colonel Price was again promoted to be an aid-de-camp on his staff. In that capacity, alongside of Generals Grant, Sherman and Thomas, McPherson and Sheridan, the two latter of whom were also staff officers of General Halleck. Colonel Price served with the Tennessee army until Halleck was called to Washington to superintend, under Secretary Stanton, the strategic movements of all the United States armies. Therefore the staff of General Halleck was largely disbanded, and Colonel Price was returned to St. Louis, as chief mustering and disbursing officer of volunteers for the Mississippi department, having charge of hundreds of thousands of dollars, without any bond, and payable on his own individual check at the U. S. sub-treasury. Here he mustered into the U. S. service the com- mands of Generals F. P. Blair and Clinton B. Fisk, Governor Fletcher being a colonel of one, paying the expenses of collecting, drilling and feed- ing the recruits, and large sums in bounties, etc., and as many irregulari- ties then existed, he composed a phamphlet giving details of uniform action, in respect to this branch of the service, which afterwards became the basis of a fuller one issued from the adjutant general's office. These duties being very onerous and responsible, while not very pleasant to a man indisposed to make money out of his office, opportunities and temp- tations to which were very abundant, Colonel Price, in the fall of '62, accepted an offer from Governor Gamble, by consent of the secretary of war to command the Ninth Missouri cavalry, but as a vacancy occurred

570

HISTORY OF SALINE COUNTY.

in the First Missouri cavalry, of which a regular U. S. army officer was commander, Colonel Price preferred to serve under him as lieutenant colonel, rather than accept a raw regiment. With this command he acted in Arkansas and Tennessee, but as the companies of it had been scattered in different departments, and could not be collected for any brilliant service, and he was shortly promoted to a captaincy of the Fifth infantry U. S. A., he asked to be relieved and put in command of his own company, then stationed in New Mexico, where he went in the fall of '63, and served until it became evident that the toils of the Union armies were fast closing around the corpse of the rebellion.

During the last year of our war, the Emperor Maximillian was at the height of his power in Mexico; while President Juarez, driven to El Paso, with some of his staff officers at work as laborers in the quarter- master's department of Fort Bliss, headquarters of the 5th Infantry, was, during the same year, flooding New Mexico with emissaries, seeking aid in the form of American soldiers and officers, to what seemed to be the dying cause of liberty in that republic. Col. Price, seeing no prospect or necessity for his regiment of regulars to be called from camp life on the frontier, eastward, where the death struggle of secession was then immi- nent; and preferring, at any rate, foreign to domestic war, determined to throw up his commission, so as to be in a condition to take part against French imperialism. This he did more readily on account of chronic rheumatism, which he contracted by sleeping on the ground, in crossing the plains, and required time and the hot springs of New Mexico for a cure. Col. Price hoped to combine a body of Federal soldiers, who would be mustered out of the U. S. service, with some ambitious ex-Confederates; but when the war ended Maximillian had weakened, while Juarez had strength- ened, so as to be more independent, and then, what was wholly unaccount- able, Generals Price, Shelby & Co. took the wrong side, thus sinking to nothingness in Mexico, when, by taking the other side, they might have been heroes, and forever regarded as the liberators of a nation. When these dreams, however, had faded, Col. Price, though still in the city of Chi- huahua, and in correspondence with the Mexican government, hearing of the death of his father, which occurred September 30, 1865, immediately returned home, residing most of the time since with his mother, and assisting to keep intact a large landed estate through a long period of hard times and high taxes. In the spring of 1866, he opened a law office at Marshall, and helped to edit the Saline County Progress, strongly advocating the enfranchisement of the southern people; but when Presi- dent Johnson and the Blairs reorganized the democratic party, subse- quently, he withdrew from the paper and made an independent canvass for congress, as a conservative republican. He claimed then, as now, that "democracy" is a misnomer for the opposition' to the northern

571

HISTORY OF SALINE COUNTY.

monopolies; that it died with the war, and its name only keeps the north in power; that the new issues arising since our war, should have given us new names, new policies, new leaders, and a new era of peace and pros- perity. He has since taken part in several canvasses as an independent republican, but always " scratches " his ticket in favor of the best men of either party. In religious matters Col. Price is as liberal, original, and independent as in politics. He thinks when no believer in Christ shall vote for a man who is not likewise a practical Christian, in his judgment, and that when this kind of virtue is generally elevated to office, as a mat- ter of paramount importance to mere political differences, in contrast to the demagogues, liars, and thieves, now generally in office, the kingdom of God will have been established, to endure for ages, and that America, with its system of free suffrage, is the stone cut out of a mountain, which will some day fill the whole earth. In other words, it will represent a government of God's rulers, for the benefit of God's children. If not orthodox, he is at least patriotic. In 1866, December 5, Col. Price mar- ried Miss Sarah M. Bradford, of Arrow Rock, Missouri, who died December 30, 1870; and her death, together with that of an infant son, born September 24, of the same year, occasioned him much religious study for several years afterward. Of this union, Eulalia May Price, born June 12, 1868, remains to cheer her father.

JOHN B. HUSTON was born in Saline county, Missouri, July 16, 1854. His father and mother were natives, respectively, of Missouri and Virginia. He was raised on a farm, receiving his education in the com- mon schools. He is a carpenter by trade, but is now engaged in the drug business, in Arrow Rock. He has a good trade-is largely patronized, and deserves the success he has attained. He keeps a full assortment of pure drugs, and deals justly and liberally with his patrons. Mr. Huston is a young man, who is yet "heart whole and fancy free," but is emi- nently deserving of the fair. Of temperate habits, active, energetic and persevering, a prosperous future awaits him, and, if spared to old age, it will surely be his pleasure to review a pathway of life all strewn with roses.

WILLIAM B. SAPPINGTON, second son of Dr. John Sappington, was born in Franklin, Tennessee, January the 4th, 1811. When Wil- liam was about six years of age, his father moved to a farm, near the present site of Glasgow, in Howard county, Missouri. Thence, in 1819, to Saline county, where he remained with his father on the farm, attend- ing the common schools of the neighborhood. At the age of seventeen, he was sent to Cumberland College, a manual labor institution, near Princeton, Kentucky, where he remained four years. Returning home, he commenced the study of law, but his eyes failing him, he relinquished the undertaking, and turned his attention to farming, at the same time,

572

HISTORY OF SALINE COUNTY.

assisting his father in the manufacture and sale of " Sappington's Anti-Fever Pills." In the enterprise, he was associated with his father, as partner, about ten years. On the 3d day of September, 1844, Mr. Sappington was mar- ried to Miss Mary Mildred, a daughter of Gov. John Breathitt, of Ken- tucky. Their union resulted in the following children: William Breath- itt, (deceased), John Cardwell, Mildred J., Erasmus D. and Stella. In pol- itics, Mr. Sappington has always been a democrat, and during the war was in sympathy with the South. From his early manhood, he has been prominent in the politics of the country, not as an office-seeker, nor an office-holder, but as a representative of public sentiment in various politi- cal assemblies, during a period of more than forty years. In 1844, he was a delegate to the national convention, which met at Baltimore and nominated James K. Polk, for president. He has also been a member of several state conventions, and other public bodies-yet he has persist- ently declined to hold office, preferring to pursue his private vocation, which demands his whole attention. He is ever ready, however, at the call of his friends, to assist, by both personal exertion and pecuniary con- tribution, in any measure deemed conducive to the public good, or neces- sary in the economy of government. A man of notable public spirit, he contributes liberally to any enterprise that looks to the advancement of his state, county or community. Of great heart and large charity, the suffer- ing poor find in him a friend and benefactor. But the most beautiful trait of his character is his plain, unselfish, unassuming disposition, which invites the esteem of even a stranger, and makes one, temporarily beneath his roof, feel himself the participant of a genuine, old-fashioned hospital- ity. He has been more than twenty years, trustee and treasurer of the " Sappington School Fund." In 1866, he was elected president of the bank of Missouri, at Arrow Rock, in which capacity he continues to serve. His wife, who was many years a member of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, and an earnest Christian, died August 13, 1880. No man in Saline county is more closely identified with her interests; and in all the elements of true manhood, William B. Sappington is excelled by no living man. This is not the language of a fulsome panegyrist, but a faithful epitome of a life that challenges the admiration of every lover of truth, purity and benevolence.

JESSE T. BAKER. The subject of this sketch is a native of Saline county, Missouri, and was born in the town of Arrow Rock, September 5, 1847. He received a fair education in the common schools, which he has greatly improved by intercourse with men, and by his faculty of obtaining whatever of useful information is to be gleaned from passing events. In 1863, he became a clerk in the dry goods store of H. S. Mills, of Arrow Rock, and was thus employed about seven years, when he opened a drug store on his own account in his native village. In 1875,

573

HISTORY OF SALINE COUNTY.

Mr. Baker embarked in the commission business in St. Louis, but after two years returned to Arrow Rock, where he joined the occupation of farming to that of merchandising. He is the owner of a farm in section 27, township 50 of range 19, which is undoubtedly one of the finest in the county. It contains 160 acres, and is excellently adapted, not only to the growth of all the cereals, but is admirably suited to the raising of hemp, and every variety of fruit indigenous to this climate. The soil is deep, fertile, and exhaustless, and the entire farm is finely improved. The dwelling and out-buildings are substantial and commodious, and the sup- ply of water is perennial and abundant. The farm is convenient to mar- ket, and the completion of the proposed Hannibal & Southwestern rail- road, will make it one of the most valuable and desirable places in the county. Mr. Baker was married in January, 1874, to Miss Belle C. Brad- ford, a daughter of the late Dr. Charles M. Bradford. Lottie Cosette, Ida L., Lavinia Belle, and Jesse B. are their children.

BENJAMIN F. TOWNSEND, was born in Logan county, Ken- tucky, October 11, 1818. In 1819, his father settled on a farm inCooper county, Missouri. He attended the common schools in the vicinity of his home, and his education is only such as they afforded. The school houses at that early day were of a very rude and primitive kind, and the build- ing in which our subject attended school was made of unhewn logs, one of which was removed from either side and the apertures covered with greased paper to admit the light. The floor was the naked ground. In 1836, Mr. Townsend was employed as a clerk in a dry goods store at Jonesboro, the then county seat of Saline, where court was held in a log cabin, one apartment of which was used as a stable. In 1847, he opened a dry goods store in Arrow Rock, and has been engaged in that business continuously nearly thirty-five years. During this long period he has dealt liberally, justly, charitably with his fellow-citizens, and merits their lasting gratitude. March, 1855, he was married to Elizabeth Ann Dur- rette, by whom he had eight children, four of whom are now living. May 22, 1867, his wife died.

GEORGE A. MURRELL. In 1805, George Murrell, with his father, Samuel Murrell, emigrated from Virginia to Kentucky, and settled near Glasgow, in Barren county. There, February the 18th, 1826, the subject of this sketch, youngest son of George Murrell, was born. Mr. Murrell's parents died in his infancy, consequently he knows nothing of them, save what he has gathered from tradition. He was raised on a farm; and farming, together with trading in live stock, has been his only occupation, except during a brief interval, mentioned below. His educa- tion is not more extensive than familiarity with the ordinary English branches-such as are taught in the common schools of the country. This, however, is greatly strengthened by strong natural endowments,

Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.

History of Saline County, Missouri, Part 62

Author: Missouri Historical Company, St. Louis, pub Publication date: 1881 Publisher: St. Louis, Missouri historical company Number of Pages: 1008

Author: Missouri Historical Company, St. Louis, pub
Publication date: 1881
Publisher: St. Louis, Missouri historical company
Number of Pages: 1008