History of St. Charles, Montgomery, and Warren counties, Missouri, written and comp. from the most authentic official and private sources, including a history of their townships, towns and villages, together with a condensed history of Missouri, Part 39

Author: National Historical Company (St. Louis, Mo.)
Publication date: 1885
Publisher: St. Louis, National Historical Company
Number of Pages: 1166

USA > Missouri > St Charles County > History of St. Charles, Montgomery, and Warren counties, Missouri, written and comp. from the most authentic official and private sources, including a history of their townships, towns and villages, together with a condensed history of Missouri > Part 39
USA > Missouri > Montgomery County > History of St. Charles, Montgomery, and Warren counties, Missouri, written and comp. from the most authentic official and private sources, including a history of their townships, towns and villages, together with a condensed history of Missouri > Part 39
USA > Missouri > Warren County > History of St. Charles, Montgomery, and Warren counties, Missouri, written and comp. from the most authentic official and private sources, including a history of their townships, towns and villages, together with a condensed history of Missouri > Part 39

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).

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HISTORY OF ST. CHARLES COUNTY.

Krekel, who was then conducting the St. Charles Democrat, and upon whom he made a very favorable impression. The result was that he was offered a situation as editorial writer on the Democrat, which he accepted, and in order to do that he resigned the charge of his class given him by Judge Waller. While writing for the Democrat he also studied law under Judge Krekel, and in 1854 entered the law department of Cincinnati College, where he took a regular course and graduated in the class of '55 with distinguished honor. In his class were such men as Gen. Ewing of Ohio, Hon. W. H. Corwin, Gov. Alfred C. Jenkins and others, then young men, among the brightest in the country. But even among these young Bruere graduated among the first in his class. After his graduation he returned to Missouri and was examined for admission to the bar by Judge John F. Ryland of the Supreme [court, who subjected him to a thorough examination, and at its close complimented him very highly. Immediately following his admission to the bar Mr. Bruere entered actively upon the practice of his profession at St. Charles, in the courts of neighboring counties and in the Supreme court. Shortly afterwards he was elected surveyor of St. Charles county, an office he held for four years. He also held the office of city engineer for three years. In 1863 he was appointed city attorney of St. Charles, and the duties of that position he discharged for a period of seven years, consecutively. Three years after his appointment to the office of city attorney he was elected to the State Senate. In the Senate Mr. Bruere soon took a leading position, as an able and upright legis- lator, a sound lawyer and a forcible, eloquent, effective speaker. During the last two years of his term in the Senate he was chairman of the judiciary committee and was the recognized leader of his party in that body. He also held important positions on the committees on education, State University, Deaf and Dumb Asylum, etc. In 1868 he was elected a member of the Electoral College from this State on the Republican. ticket, and cast his vote with the other Missouri electors for Gen. Grant. Since then he has been a prominent mem- ber of a number of conventions of the Republican party. He was the Secretary of the State convention of 1872 and a delegate of his Con- gressional district to the national conventions at Philadelphia in 1872, at Cincinnati in 1876, and at Chicago in 1884. Since the organiza- tion of the Republican party in Missouri he has been identified with that party. Prior to that, as was the case with most German- Americans in Missouri, including his old-time friend Judge Arnold Krekel, now of the United States District court, he voted and acted with the Democratic party. His first vote was cast in 1856 for James Buchanan. Mr. Bruere has always taken an active interest in the cause of education, and has been one of its warmest and most useful friends in this county. Himself a man of thorough education and superior mental culture, he fully appreciates the advantage and im- portance of learning, and believes that the means of obtaining knowl- edge should be placed in the reach of every youth in the land. For the last 21 years he has been a member of and the secretary of the

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St. Charles school board. He has made numerous trips to Europe, with an eye both to meeting old friends and to the enlargement of his general stock of information. He has traveled extensively in Europe and has been a close observer and student of affairs on the other side of the Atlantic. In his conversation and personal bearing he shows that polish and the ease and dignity of presence which almost invari- ably characterize the man of culture and thorough acquaintance with the world. Mr. Bruere has been actively engaged in the practice of law throughout the whole of his career from his first admission to the bar. In his profession he has been very successful, and has not only acquired a good property but has won an enviable reputation as an able and honorable lawyer. A man of more strength of mind than brilliancy, he depends not so much on display or flashy expedients for success in his practice as upon the sober, common sense soundness of the position he takes in a given case, as viewed from the standpoint of the law and the facts involved. He is what is commonly termed a hard worker in his profession, and being thoroughly honest with himself, as with all, he first satisfies himself that he is right in a cause and then leaves nothing undone which might be properly done to bring his case to a successful issue. A man of sober, sound judg- ment and a close student of the law, he has long since won the name of being one of the safest, best counsellors at the bar in this circuit. As a speaker, he is clear, polished and forcible ; pleasant and enter- taining to hear and logical and convincing in his arguments. Mr. Bruere was one of the organizers of the St. Charles Savings Bank in 1867, and has been its president ever since that time. While on a visit to Europe in 1857 he was married to Miss Minna Taeger, near the University of Heidelberg, in Southern Germany. Mr. Bruere is a man of fine social qualities, and is highly esteemed as a member of the best society at St. Charles and wherever he is known.

CAPT. LORENZO COTTLE (Retired Farmer, St. Charles).

Capt. Cottle is one of the oldest living native born residents of the county, and is well known as one of the most highly respected citi- zens. He has served his country in two wars, but has rendered it even more valuable service as an industrious farmer and law-abiding, useful citizen. In the years of his activity he accumulated considera- ble property and was the founder of the town of Cottleville, in this county. He still has a modest competence, and in the Indian summer of life is comfortably situated at his home in St. Charles. What is perhaps better still, a life of sobriety and good habits have pre- served to him in old age much physical vigor and his mental activity unimpaired - these, notwithstanding the hardships he endured in the pioneer days of the country and the exposures he underwent as a sol- dier of the republic in the swamps and everglades of Florida and in the malarial and then uninhabited regions of the Upper Arkansas, the Red river and the extreme South-west. Capt. Cottle was born in St. Charles

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county, near the present site of Cottleville, September 13, 1811. He was a son of Warren Cottle and wife, nee Salome Cottle, who were cousins and pioneer settlers in St. Charles county. They came here as early as 1800 and were from Vermont. The father was a physician by profession and a man of collegiate education. The mother was likewise a lady of culture and refinement. Dr. Cottle's father was Warren Cottle, Sr., and his mother's maiden name was Relief Farms- worth. The parents of the Doctor's wife were John and Elizabeth ( Allen ) Cottle. Dr. Cottle obtained land in this county under a Span- ish " grant " and opened a farm ; he also erected a mill, one of the first ever built in the county, and followed the practice of his profes- sion. The latter was not profitable, however, in those early days, for the people had little or no money to pay a physician and 'coon skins were a " drug" on the market; he nevertheless became a man of comfortable means, for those times, and reared his family in comfort and with the limited advantages for mental improvement the country afforded. In religious sentiment he was a Universalist, and in poli- tics an earnest, consistent Whig ; he was a man of temperate habits, sterling intelligence and a kind, generous heart, and was greatly esteemed by all who knew him ; he died near what is now Cottleville, in June, 1821; his good wife died on the same family homestead in 1845, having spent 24 years after her husband's death in widowhood. They had eight children, and some of them were still young at the time of their father's death, so that the responsibility of caring for them and bringing them up devolved largely upon the mother. Of this she acquitted herself with singular fidelity and devotion, and her memory is cherished as that of one of the best of mothers. The chil- dren are Alonzo, Olive, Fidelo, Alvard, Lorenzo, Pauline, Ora and Othello. Olive died in early maidenhood ; Pauline is the wife of Henry Bates, of Sonoma, Cal., and Ora resides at Wellsville, Mo. The others are deceased, except the subject of this sketch, but lived to reach years of maturity and become the heads of families. Lorenzo Cottle, the subject of this sketch, was reared on his father's farm near Cottleville, and received only a primary education, includ- ing reading, writing, arithmetic, etc., in the neighborhood schools of the period. He inherited 200 acres of land from his father's estate, on which he early began the improvement of a farm. At the age of 20, early in 1831, he enlisted under Capt. Nathan Boone in a com- pany of mounted rangers for the Black Hawk War, and served for 12 months. A sketch of the service of this company is given in Chapter VI., on a former page, the principal facts for which were furnished by Capt. Cottle himself, one of the few survivors of the company. We shall therefore not take space here to recount the events of that campaign. After the expiration of his term of service, the Black Hawk War having closed sometime before, Capt. Cottle returned home and was occupied with farming until the call of Gov. Boggs for volun- teers for the Florida War. That was in 1837, and in the fall of that year he enlisted in Capt. Jackson's company of mounted militia. The campaign of the Missouri volunteers is also given in the chapter

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above referred to, as recounted by Capt. Cottle. It should be noted here, however, that many interesting incidents and thrilling adven- tures related by him, which are entirely worthy of publication, were necessarily omitted for want of space in which to give them. After the Missourians closed the Florida War by the brilliant victory of Lake Okeechobee they returned to St. Louis and were honorably mustered out of service. Capt. Cottle then came on home and bought a country store and engaged in merchandising. In 1839 he laid out the town of Cottleville on his land, including the site of that place, and sold and gave away a number of valuable lots. The place had a substantial growth and he did a good business at Cottleville or some years and until he retired from merchandising, by selling out, in order to resume farming. He then located on a farm which he bought in Lincoln county, but two years later traded that for a place in this county and moved back to old St. Charles, the county of his birth, in 1847. Meanwhile, on the 5th of February, 1840, he was married to Miss Violeta Killiam, a daughter of Elizabeth Killiam, nee McClay, of St. Charles, Mo. She survived 13 years, dying Jan- uary 5, 1853. His second wife was a Miss Sarah Green, daughter of James Green and Rachel Green, nee Yarnell, to whom he was mar- ried December 15, 1853. She died May 12, 1862. To his present wife he was married November 30, 1865. After returning to this county from Lincoln county, Mr. Cottle continued farming until 1876, when he bought property in St. Charles and located where he now resides. After coming here he carried on a broom factory for some six years, but in 1883 retired from all regular business, and since then has occupied himself with attending his garden and in other light employments about his home. His retirement from active work was made necessary by a stroke of paralysis, which occurred in 1883. This was the severest physical affliction he had received since the bat- tle of Okeechobee, and although not quite so critical as the wound he received there, it has proved far more serious in its results. From that he shortly recovered, but from this he has little hope of a thor- ough recovery. His wound was received in the final charge on the Seminoles, when he was shot in the neck, the ball ranging down and breaking his collar bone. It first struck the bow of his necktie, or, rather, his " stock," as it was then called, and but for that would unquestionably have proved fatal. As it was, it was quite a painful and serious wound. Capt. Cottle, although not engaged himself in ac- tive farming, has two excellent farms in the county, which are occupied by tenants. His homestead in St. Charles consists of 10 town lots, on which he has a good residence building, a good barn, a neat garden and other convenient and comfortable improvements. In political affiliations he is a conservative Democrat and in religious convic- tion a Universalist. After his return from the Florida War, he served as captain of militia under the old muster law. Indeed, while in Florida he was practically captain of his company, for he had seen service in the Black Hawk War, was well posted in military tactics, a. good drill master and was relied upon by the captain of the company,

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who had had no experience in military life, to lead the men in every emergency. Capt. Cottle is a man who has always been an intelligent and discriminating reader. He takes several newspapers, reads an excellent class of literature, such as historical and religious works, and is a man of intelligence and good information. Now, in his retirement, his time is spent with his books and newspapers and in his garden and orchard. His wife is a companionable, good woman, and their married life is one of singular serenity and happiness. She was a Miss Sarah M. Barricklom, of this county, but had been married to Jerome Coonan, who died in 1857. His first wife was a native of Vermont, but came to Missouri with her parents at an early day .. His second wife was born and reared in this county. Capt. Cottle's present wife is a native of Indiana, born in Dearborn county, on the 10th of November, 1830. Her father removed to St. Charles county with his family in 1839 and. bought the Flanders Callaway farm, where she was reared. Mrs. Cot- tle was the eldest of four children, all daughters, and her father died when they were still quite young. Their opportunities for an education were, of course, very limited. She, however, and her sisters succeeded in securing a good common English education. She is a lady of fine intelligence and, considering her opportunities in early life, a woman of more than ordinary information and mental culture. In 1840 she was married to Mr. Coonan. He survived, however, only eight years, and in 1865 she was married to her present husband. Her mother is still living at the age of 85, having been born in Washington county, Pa., in 1799. Her father's parents first removed to Bourbon county, Ky., and thence, in 1829, to Dearborn county, Ind. There she was married to Charles J. Barricklom, who became the mother of Mrs. Cot- tle. Her father was originally from New Jersey, born in January, 1779, and a son of Conrad Barricklom, who removed to Pennsylvania in an early day. Mrs. Cottle's father was of German descent, but her mother was of English ancestry. Mr. Cottle has four children living by his first wife.

HENRY C. DALLMEYER

(Dealer in Furniture and Undertaker, St. Charles).

Mr. Dallmeyer, one of the leading business men at St. Charles in his line, was born and reared in this county, and a son of Henry and Gertrude Dallmeyer, who came from Germany in 1846. Henry C. was born September 18, 1856, and was reared and educated at this place. In 1872 he began to learn the cabinet maker's trade, and has since continued to work at it. In 1877 he opened a furniture store for himself at St. Charles on Second and Franklin Streets, where he still continues the business. Two years after opening his furniture store he established an undertaking business in connection with it. In order to obtain a knowledge of this business he attended the Cincinnati school for embalming dead bodies, where he thoroughly qualified himself for the duties of funeral undertaking. He now car- ries a full line of burial cases, coffins, caskets, etc., etc., and is pre-

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HISTORY OF ST. CHARLES COUNTY.

pared to conduct funerals with entire satisfaction on the shortest notice. In 1881 Mr. Dallmeyer was married to Miss Josephine Mein- sohn, a daughter of John B. and Gertrude (Schulte) Meinsohn, for- merly of Germany. Mr. and Mrs. D. have two children, Joseph and Sophia. He and wife are members of the Catholic Church.

CAPT. HENRY B. DENKER

(Grocer, Pork Packer and Vice-President of the St. Charles Car Works).

Not without justice Capt. Denker is conceded to hold an enviable position among the prominent, self-made business men of St. Charles. With but limited means to commence with when a young man, and with no influence to help him along except his own good name and upright conduct, with these and by untiring industry and intelligent, energetic management, he has steadily come up until he now occupies a place of marked consideration in the business affairs of the com- munity and as a citizen. Like many of the better people of St. Charles county, he is a native of Hanover, born January 30, 1839. At the age of 20 he emigrated to America, and came directly to St. Charles county. The following year he located at the city of St. Charles, where he obtained a clerkship in a store. He was here less than a year when the war broke out, and he at once enlisted in the Union service, becoming a member of Co. A, St. Charles County Home Guard. He first served as second lieutenant. Subsequently he was elected first lieutenant, in which capacity he served until the close of his term. Enlisting again in the service, he was now elected captain of Co. E, Twenty-second Missouri infantry, continuing in the command of that company until after the 'close of the war. Mean- while, however, he had become interested in merchandising as a part- ner in business in St. Charles, and he has ever since continued to carry on business at this place. He has been in the grocery business for many years, and has long been sole proprietor of one of the leading grocery houses, if not the leading one of St. Charles. He carries an unusually large stock of groceries, queen's-ware, glassware, wooden ware, etc., etc., and has an annual trade of from $35,000 to $50,000. Capt. Denker is a man of energy and enterprise, not to be satisfied with what the average of men would take to be enough work for one man. He is interested in different business enterprises, including pork-packing on quite an extensive scale. He packs from 3,000 to 5,000 hogs a year. He was also largely instrumental in the establishment of the car works at this place and he subscribed liber- ally to the stock of the company. He was elected vice-president of the company and has held that position in its management ever since. Capt. Denker has never been troubled with political aspirations, but has, nevertheless, been frequently called into service of the county in an official capacity. One of the substantial citizens of the county, and a man in whom the people have unquestioned confidence, both in point of integrity and business qualifications, he was three times elected to the office of county treasurer. He is a prominent stock-

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HISTORY OF ST. CHARLES COUNTY.

holder in the Union Savings Bank, and is vice-president of that insti- tution. In the fall of 1864 he was married to Miss Mary Myer, a daughter of Ludwig Myer, deceased, late of the county, but formerly of Hanover. Mrs. D. was educated at the Convent of the Sacred Heart, and is a lady of superior intelligence. Mr. and Mrs. D. have five children : Henry L., Anna, Tillie, Annette and Edwin. Mr. and Mrs. Denker are members of the German Catholic Church.

DR. JAMES WADDY DAVIS

(Editor of the Cosmos, St. Charles).

Like, perhaps, a majority of the members of American families in St. Charles county, the subject of this sketch is a native of Virginia. He was born in the city of Richmond, August 28, 1843. His parents' families on each side had long been settled in the Old Dominion. His father was Hardin Davis, and his grandfather James Davis, both born and reared in that State. His mother was a Miss Mary Emily Thomp- son, a daughter of John Thompson, of Cumberland county. Dr. Davis' father was a contractor and builder, and died in Virginia in 1850, his first wife having preceded her husband to the grave about a year. Of their two children, the Doctor, who was the elder, is the only one living.

He was reared in Richmond, and was pursuing a collegiate course at the Baptist College there when the Civil War broke out. In 1861-62 he was a student at Randolph and Macon College, then located in Meck- lenburg county, Va. In the winter of 1862 he became a student of the Medical College of Virginia at Richmond, and upon his graduation in the spring of 1864, was appointed resident physician of the college hospi- tal. In August of the same year, he passed a successful examination before the Army Medical Board, and was appointed assistant surgeon in the Confederate army. After a service of a few months in hospi- tals, he was assigned to the Forty-sixth Virginia infantry in Lee's army and remained there until the close of the war.

In the summer of 1865 he located in Hanover county, and followed the practice of his profession there until the spring of 1874, when he came west and located at New Melle, in St. Charles county, where he was engaged in the active practice of medicine until 1877, when he accepted the position of editor of the Cosmos, with which paper he has since been connected in that position. He has proven himself to be not only a good writer, but of excellent judgment in directing the editorial policy of the paper. One may be a ready, versatile and pointed writer, yet from lack of good judgment, wholly unfit for the management of the editorial department of a paper, where a single in- judicious article, however well written, will do more to destroy its prestige than a year of hard sensible work can overcome. Dr. Davis had the good sense to see and appreciate this at the beginning, and he has always been careful to preserve a dignity and self-respect in all that he has written, as well as in the general editorial management of the paper, allowing nothing ridiculously extreme or fanatical to ap-

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pear in its columns, and aiming always to give it a good moral tone. He has been careful to give no worthy man just cause of complaint for anything published of a personal nature, his view of the province of the editor being that there is enough to write about without entering into personalities, of an abusive, scurrilous or insulting character ; enough to do the work for the material and general progress of the community, which his paper endeavors to serve, and for purity and impartiality in public affairs. Under this policy the Cosmos has become well established as one of the representative country journals of the State. Dr. Davis is a man of good education, gentlemanly in- stincts, and a ready and versatile writer, eminently fitted for the po- sition he occupies in the editorial control of the Cosmos.

On the 19th of July, 1865, he was married in Washington, D. C., to Miss Anna E. Apperson, a daughter of James L. and Mary (Burke) Apperson, of Richmond, Va. They have four children : Lawrence S., Mary E., Hardin M. and Virginia A. Two of their children, James W. and Bessie, died in infancy. Dr. Davis is a member of Ivanhoe Lodge No. 1812, Knights of Honor.

ALBERT DEEMAR

(Warden of the County Asylum, St. Charles).

Mr. Deemar was born in the province of Nassau, February 14, 1832, and was a son of Philip and Catharine ( Fischer) Deemar, of the same province. He was reared there, and after he grew up learned the tavern business, or keeping hotel and bar. In 1850 he came to the United States and located in Bloomington, Ill. About 18 months later he came to St. Charles county, and was engaged in keeping hotel and bar at different points in this county almost continuously up to the time of taking charge of the asylum in 1878. He was for 14 years justice of the peace, and was also, . for a time, notary public. He has had charge of the asylum ever since his appointment six years ago, and has done much to improve the condition of the institution. He is a kind-hearted man, a good manager and indus- trious, and is evidently the right man in the right place where he now is. May 20, 1859, he was married to Miss Mary A. Trendley, a daughter of Joseph Trendley, deceased, who located at St. Peters. They have three sons: Henry V., George A. and Herbert H. He and wife are members of the Catholic Church. He is a member of the Catholic Knights of America.

CAPT. JOHN F. DIERKER

(Liveryman and Undertaker, St. Charles).

When the war broke out in 1861, Capt. Dierker was engaged in merchandising at Wentzville. He had started out for himself with- out anything, and had worked hard and economized closely to get a start. He had been in business for some years before, and had started in the first place in Callaway township in a small way. By

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History of St. Charles, Montgomery, and Warren counties, Missouri, written and comp. from the most authentic official and private sources, including a history of their townships, towns and villages, together with a condensed history of Missouri, Part 39

Author: National Historical Company (St. Louis, Mo.) Publication date: 1885 Publisher: St. Louis, National Historical Company Number of Pages: 1166

Author: National Historical Company (St. Louis, Mo.)
Publication date: 1885
Publisher: St. Louis, National Historical Company
Number of Pages: 1166