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 90
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 90
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 90
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JAMES FERGUSON
(Of Ferguson & Co., Proprietors of the Montgomery City Lumber Mills and Dealers and Contractors in Railroad Timber and Native Lumber, and Proprietor of the New Florence Lumber and Flour Mills).
Still comparatively a young man, Mr. Ferguson has achieved a de- gree of success in business affairs that few men of his age and oppor- tunities, in this part of the country at least, have attained. A son of that old and substantial citizen of the vicinity of Montgomery City, Maj. Thomas Ferguson, or Uncle Tom, as he is familiarly but respectfully called, and who is abundantly able and willing to help those of his own family along who need it, he depended not upon parental assistance for a start in life, but with the self-reliance and independence characteristic of his name and family, started out for himself at an early age. He was born at Cleveland, September 3,
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1849, and was therefore quite young when the family removed to this State. His early education was limited to only that afforded by the ordinary district schools. At the age of 16, in 1865, he entered the railway station office at Montgomery City for the purpose of learning telegraphy under C. A. Paxson, the agent and operator at this place. In less then a year by quick and energtic aptitude he became a skill- ful operator, and before he was 17 years of age he was entrusted with the control of the office and became the regularly appointed station agent and operator at this place. This position he continued to fill for over 15 years, and until his voluntary retirement from the office. Unlike many others, a man of energy and enterprise, he soon began to interest himself in other matters and occupied his time and thought,. when not necessarily engaged by his duties as agent, with outside business. By economizing his salary he saved up some means and thus his interests continued to grow in importance. He resigned his position in 1881, and has not been connected with the road since that time. Mr. Ferguson has from time to time been identified with va- rious business interests, not necessary to mention here. He built a telegragh line from this place to Danville at a cost of $60 a mile, which he sold to C. A. Bruner several years ago. He has been en- gaged in the milling business for some years, and is sole proprietor of the large saw mill at this place, run under the name of Ferguson & Co., which does a heavy and profitable business in manufacturing and supplying railway timbers and other lumber. In 1883 he bought the large lumber and flour mills at New Florence, which is being success- fully run for him by an experienced miller at that place. Since buy- ing that mill he has made a number of valuable improvements on it and has greatly added to the reputation which it had previously born. The two mills have a combined capacity for 10,000 feet of lumber a day, and the New Florence mill turns out about 50 barrels of flour daily. The flour manufactured at the New Florence mill has a high and enviable standing in the market, and its own use is its high- est and best recommendation. Mr. Ferguson's experience in the mill- ing business has been an unqualified success. He is to-day, though less than 35 years of age, generally recognized as one of the respon- sible business men and substantial citizens of the county.
GEORGE J. FERGUSON.
(Wabash Station and Pacific Express Agent, Montgomery City).
Concededly among the more efficient and popular station agents along the line of the Wabash Railway is the subject of this present sketch. He is a son of Thomas Ferguson, an old and respected citi- zen of Montgomery City, mention of whom is given elsewhere, and was born at Cleveland, O., July 5, 1854. But his father removing to the vicinity of Montgomery City, this State, soon afterwards, young Mr. Ferguson was therefore reared at this place. His youth was spent on the farm in the suburbs of Montgomery City and at school, having the benefit of several terms at college, in this place.
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HISTORY OF MONTGOMERY COUNTY.
While yet a youth, however, he entered the station office at Mont- gomery City, then in charge of his brother, James Ferguson, to learn the business of telegraph operator, where he continued until he mas- tered it and indeed for some time afterwards. He was appointed night operator and held this position until going to St. Louis, where he operated for the Wabash company, or then the St. L., K. C. & N., for about two years. Subsequently he operated at other points and for different companies in this State, Illinois and Nebraska until 1881, when he returned to Montgomery City and received the appointment of general station agent, a position he has since continued to hold. Mr. Ferguson is a young man of good habits, excellent business qual- ifications, pleasant address, and fills the position he now occupies with entire satisfaction both to the company and the public in and around Montgomery City. August 15, 1880, he was married to Miss Hattie, a daughter of R. W. Harrison, of this place. He and wife are members of the Catholic Church.
FRANK FIELD
(Proprietor of Field's Restaurant and Bakery, Montgomery City).
Mr. Field is a native of New York, and the son of James C. and Hattie (Scott ) Field, both also of New York by nativity. When Frank was young the family removed to Ohio, where the father was engaged in teaching school. In 1865 they came to Missouri and re- sided in St. Louis county for some five years, coming thence to Montgomery City. The mother died here in the spring of 1883, and the father is now a resident of Florida, engaged in the orange cul- ture. Four of their children lived to reach mature years. One is now a photographer of Atlanta, Ga., and James C., Jr., is a photo- grapher at Tampa, Fla .; Frank, the subject of this sketch, was principally reared in Ohio and St. Louis county, and as he grew up he learned the harness maker's trade in St. Louis at which he worked for 10 years. Meanwhile he came to Montgomery City and in a short time engaged in his present business. Mr. Field keeps one of the best houses in the line in the county, and has a liberal patronage. In 1872 he was married to Miss Lizzie Moore, of this county, but originally from England. She was educated at the Mont- gomery College where she graduated in the class of '71. Mr. and Mrs. F. have one child, Percy, aged seven years. Mrs. F. is a mem- ber of the Presbyterian Church, and he is a member of the Masonic order.
HON. WILLIAM L. GATEWOOD (Attorney at Law, and ex-State Senator, Montgomery City).
It is but a plain statement of the truth, and no empty, meaningless compliment, to say that the life-record of the subject of the present sketch has been one which reflects only credit upon himself, upon the name he bears and upon the public in whose interests much of his time, means and best energies have been spent. In early life his outlook
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HISTORY OF MONTGOMERY COUNTY.
for the future was by no means a bright one. Although coming of an old and excellent family, one which had been in good circum- stances and that occupied an enviable position both for character and intelligence, when he was quite young his father was broken up by losses as surety upon the obligations of a friend and left little better than destitute of means, so that young Gatewood, as was the case with the other children of his father's family, was not only deprived of early advantages for self-improvement, but was compelled to spend most of his early years at hard labor and to begin in life for himself with nothing to rely upon for success but his own industry, intelli- gence and personal worth. Nor is this all. A man of the most gen- erous impulses and of the warmest sympathy and affection for those allied to him by the ties of kindred, it has been his peculiar fortune to be so situated, almost continuously from the time he first became old enough to do for himself, that he has had those dependant upon him in a measure, whose misfortunes and circumstances he would not ig- nore, and the care of whom he undertook as a personal responsibility. To them he has been one of the truest friends and most generous of kindred. Not only have they been the beneficiaries of his liberality and kindness of heart, but others,and ofttimes strangers, the poor and unfortunate, and every movement for the betterment of the condition of those around him, religious, moral, educational and otherwise, have shared of his generosity. All public improvements, moreover, have found in him one of their warmest and most liberal supporters. Indeed, it is but voicing the general sentiment of the community where he has resided for many years to say that no one among them all has done so much for the growth and prosperity of his place, has given so much of his time, means and personal attention to public works and enterprises as he. And if his life were to be viewed in the light of the public-spirit he has shown and his private generosity, it might well be said that he has seemed to labor for his own advance- ment and the accumulation of property only that he might become the better able to help the unfortunate and make himself useful as a citizen. The wonder is that one so liberal and public-spirited as he has shown himself to be, should continue able to be of assistance to others and of service to the community.
But, notwithstanding all this and not a few misfortunes which no human sagacity could have foreseen or averted, he has become a suc- cessful man, reasonably successful in the accumulation of property and eminently so as a man of character and personal worth. Mr. Gatewood is one of the substantial property holders of Montgomery county, as he is one of its leading, representative citizens. He is a lawyer of recognized experience and ability, and for four years he rep- resented his district, consisting of the counties of Montgomery, Pike and Lincoln, in the State Senate. He has been prominently identified with politics for many years, but more as a public-spirited citizen and a man of honest, positive convictions on public questions than other- wise. Rarely a candidate for office, indeed, not more than two or three times in an active career of over thirty years, he has neverthe-
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HISTORY OF MONTGOMERY COUNTY.
less contributed, probably, as much time and means for the success of the principles supported by him, as any of his political associates in the state.
William Lemasters Gatewood was born on his father's homestead near Winchester, in Clark county, Ky., December 12, 1826, and was a son of Joseph Gatewood, Jr., and wife, nee Miss Lucy Clark Winn. His father was originally from Spottsylvania county, Va. His mother, a daughter of Jesse Winn, Sr., and wife, whose maiden name was Johnston, was born and reared in Kentucky. Other particulars of his parents' families appear further along in the pres- ent sketch.
Mr. Gatewood was the fifth child in a family of eight children by. his father's second marriage, six of whom lived to pass the middle of life, four sons and two daughters. His father was well situated in Kentucky, a well-to-do farmer and substantial slave owner. But when young William was still in childhood his father became in- volved as security on the paper of a friend for a large amount of money, which he had to pay at the sacrifice of his own property. He was thus broken up, and at a time when he was well advanced in life and still with a large family to provide for; he therefore decided to remove to Missouri, and accordingly brought his family out to this State and settled in Pike county, on a tract of land near Bowling Green, where he improved a small farm. This was in the fall of 1833. Here the family underwent many hardships and privations.
In that early day, in North-east Missouri, neighborhood schools were of very rare occurrence, and those that occasionally were kept were by no means of a superior grade. Young Gatewood's school oppor- tunities, therefore, were extremely limited. Besides, most of his time was required for work on the farm. His first knowledge of books was obtained from lessons learned at home of nights by the light of a hickory hark fire and under the instructions of his eldest brother ; he thus persevered in his studies, after each day's work was done, until he made appreciable progress in the elementary branches. By and by, N. P. Minor, afterwards a reputable lawyer of Pike county, opened a school in the vicinity, which he kept for a term of three months and which the subject of the present sketch attended. Young Gatewood also attended a school for three months kept in the neighborhood by a Mr. Charles Huntington, and in the winters of 1844-45 and 1845-46 he attended John Hubbard's school at Bowling Green Seminary for a term of five months each, or, rather, for three days of each, week ; for during the other three days he carried the United States mail from Bowling Green to Mexico.
Those were times when the youths of the country were compelled to be self-reliant. When young Gatewood first went on the route from Bowling Green to Mexico he was under 16 years of age, and nearly all the way, a distance of over 40 miles, lay through an unbroken wilderness. There were no bridges on which to cross the
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HISTORY OF MONTGOMERY COUNTY.
streams, often swollen out of their banks, and wolves were his fre- quent and by no means welcome or harmless companions ..
After concluding his second term at the Bowling Green Seminary, young Gatewood engaged in the occupation of teaching school in Pike county, and taught almost continuously for the following four years. Close confinement in the school-room, however, soon began to show its effects on his health, and during the last two years of his experience as a teacher, he was sorely afflicted with dyspepsia. This, finally, became so serious that he was compelled to quit the school-room alto- gether, and on that account he determined to study law.
Col. James O. Broadhead was at that time a practicing attorney at Bowling Green, and he gave young Gatewood much encouragement in the way of advice and of mapping out the proper course of studies to be pursued. Indeed, Col. Broadhead loaned him the first volume of Blackstone's Commentaries, to which he at once applied himself. This read through, he entered Col. Broadhead's office as a student of the law, remaining a short time. About this time he was appointed school commissioner of Pike county, but nevertheless continued his legal studies, and in due time was admitted to the bar by the circuit court at Bowling Green, in 1857. Thereupon he entered without delay upon the practice of his profession at that place.
As a lawyer, Mr. Gatewood's early career was one of success and credit. But when the late war came on, the political party which then took possession of the State government by force, required an oath to be taken by attorneys, which he refused to take, and he was therefore compelled to give up the practice, for several years. The Drake Constitution, promulgated in 1865, also required a so-called test oath to be taken by attorneys, ministers of the Gospel, teachers, and others, and this likewise he refused to take. But as soon as the test-oath was decided unconstitutional by the Supreme Court of the United States, he resumed the practice of his profession, having in the meantime removed to Montgomery county. But such was the intense hatred against attorneys of his political views by the partisan courts and jurors of that day, that for three years, or until 1870, when the Radicals of the county were voted out of office, he never gained a single case before a jury of the county. After that, his practice gradually increased until he was elected to the State Senate in 1872, when he had perhaps the largest number of cases on the circuit court docket among all the attorneys at the Montgomery county bar.
Mr. Gatewood's practice has been somewhat of a general character, but confined more particularly to real estate. For a period of about 20 years, from 1859 to 1879, he was engaged as attorney, in connec- tion with Hon. John B. Henderson, now of St. Louis, in a number of suits involving the title to the Herrick lands in Audrain county. In litigating the various branches of the title to these lands no less than 20 suits were necessary, in nearly all of which they were suc- cessful. Two of these suits are reported in the 49th Missouri
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HISTORY OF MONTGOMERY COUNTY.
Supreme Court Report, entitled, respectively, Musick v. Barney, and Briggs v. Henderson.
The Bowles suits were also cases of general interest. During the late war, a regiment of Federal troops drove an old man by the name of David Bowles from his home and attempted to confiscate his pro- perty, for the alleged reason that he was a Southern sympathizer. They took an inventory of his personal property and sold it all at public sale, including his household and kitchen furniture. This was done by the officers of the regiment, and the property was bought by third parties.
After the war, Mr. Bowles returned to his home, near Middletown, in this county, without a dollar, and with no property left but his real estate, which was in the name of his wife. He then came up to Mr. Gatewood's office at Montgomery City and related his grievances, asking whether or not anything could be done for him. Mr. Gate- wood asked him if he could find any of his property, and he replied that he knew where seven or eight of his horses were; and that if he could recover those he would be enabled to make a crop that year for the support of his family. But he frankly admitted that he had no money and no means with which to fee an attorney ; nor was he able to give the security required for costs, or the indemnifying bond necessary in such cases. "Never mind," said Mr. G., " I'll attend to that, give me a description of your horses." The old gentleman described his stock with tears of gratitude in his eyes, and when he had given the descriptions, Mr. G. drew up seven different replevin petitions and prepared as many bonds, which latter the old gentleman signed, Mr. G. signing them also, thus becoming surety on the bonds.
These petitions Mr. Gatewood filed in the circuit courts of Mont- gomery, Warren, Lincoln and Pike counties respectively, in each county of which some of the horses were found ; and he went in per- son with the sheriff's of these counties to see that the horses were taken and returned to Mr. Bowles, as was directed by the writs. The horses were promptly delivered to their rightful owner, in Mr. G.'s presence, near Middletown.
Mr. Gatewood then prosecuted the suits, as attorney, in connection with Hon. A. H. Buckner. In the case of David Bowles v. Enos Lewis, in the circuit court of St. Charles county, a test case, they were defeated ; but they appealed the case to the State Supreme Court, where they were successful. This case is reported in the 48th Missouri Supreme Court Report. Thus, Mr. Bowles gained all seven of his cases, and recovered sufficient damages to pay the full amount of the fee of his attorneys. Further space, however, can not be given to refer to particular cases in which Mr. G. has been engaged.
Mr. Gatewood's political course has been one of earnestness and sincerity. In 1861 he voted against secession, and afterwards pre- sided over a large Union meeting at which the policy of " armed neutrality " was warmly indorsed by resolutions. These meant that the people would resist armed force from the seceding States to pre-
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vent the forcing of this State out of the Union, with armed force ; and that likewise they would resist the authority of the Federal Govern- ment with armed force to prevent the administration at Washington from bringing this State into its support. Companies were organized at the meeting for home protection against all hostile comers, either from the South or the North.
But soon the affair at Camp Jackson and a change in the current of events favorable to the North, or to the authorities at Washington, worked a marked change with many in regard to the course to be pursued. Some of the members of the companies organized at the meeting referred to, openly avowed themselves in favor of sustaining Mr. Lincoln in his purpose to coërce the seceded States. When asked for an explanation, in the face of the " armed neutrality " resolutions, under which the companies organized, they significantly answered that " the resolutions meant arms for the Union men and neutrality for the rebels," as those opposed to coërcion were then for the first time called.
Mr. Gatewood experienced no such change of heart in his political convictions as the success of Lyon at St. Louis, and the dispersion of the Legislature at Jefferson City worked in the breasts of some. He honestly and frankly continued to oppose coërcion, as he had opposed secession, and was of course denounced as a rebel.
In 1862 the remnant of the State Convention left at that time assumed to provide a Provisional Government for the State, the forces of the National Government having, in the meantime, driven the officers of the regular State Government from the State capital. This conven- tion also passed a so-called ordinance requiring every public official of the State and every attorney to take an oath to support the irregular and fatherless State government which it had set up. Mr. Gatewood refused to take the oath thus prescribed, and on that account was disbarred from the practice of his profession. He was then one of the leading attorneys at the Pike county bar. The other attorneys of Pike county, without exception, subscribed to the oath.
A motion of disbarment against Mr. Gatewood was made by Hugh Allen, Esq., Judge Fagg presiding. When called for an an- swer to the motion against him, Mr. G. replied that " the proceedings of the convention prescribing the oath demanded were revolutionary, and were nothing less than treason against the properly constituted authorities of the State; that, therefore, he could not swear to sup- port the so-called Provisional Government set up by the convention ; and that the court, as then constituted under the alleged authority of the said convention, had taken possession of papers and other docu- ments in suits pending, to which he, as an attorney, had the undoubted right ; and that in appearing before this alleged ' court,' he did so, not in recognition of its authority, but only to protect the rights of his clients, and for no other purpose." But the motion against him was of course sustained, and an order of disbarment was entered on record. He was not again in the practice until 1867, as stated elsewhere.
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HISTORY OF MONTGOMERY COUNTY.
By the fall of 1864, that being in the midst of the war, the Demo- cratic party of the county had become practically disorganized. But in this state of affairs a small coterie of politicians in the county, most of whom had never voted a Democratic ticket in their lives, formed them- selves into an alleged Conservative convention and put out a ticket. It was then a time when it was almost worth a man's life to call him- self a Democrat. Nevertheless Mr. G. issued a call under his own name for a regular Democratic convention to nominate candidates for the different county offices. In view of this meeting, the so-called Con- servatives called another meeting for the same day and a compromise was effected between the two conventions by which the Conservatives withdrew one of their candidates for the Legislature and accepted in his place John I. Fisher, a representative of the regular Democrats, and well known as an anti-coercionist. He had been one of those who responded to Gov. Jackson's call for volunteers to protect the State against invasion.
In the spring of 1865 affairs being thoroughly unsettled in Pike county, Mr. Gatewood removed to St. Louis, and continued there until the following summer when he came to Montgomery City, where he has ever since resided. In this county, during all the dark days of disfranchisement he stood up manfully for the first and dearest right of American freemen, the right to have a voice in the govern- ment of their country. He boldly and fearlessly denounced disfran- chisement and the desperate faction of political adventurers then in control of public affairs, and worked unceasingly for the restoration of the ballot to the people, who represented the character, intelligence and property of the State. No man of his prominence and influence did more in this cause than he, or was more liberal of his time and means.
In 1866 he established the first newspaper in Montgomery county, the Montgomery Independent, now the Standard, a Democratic paper published at Montgomery City, and established almost exclusively in the interest of the Democratic party. Four years later, through the columns of the Standard, he was mainly instrumental in reorganizing the Democratic party in Montgomery county and placing a ticket in the field, much against the judgment and opposition of many Demo- crats, but which, nevertheless, was successful and proved the redemp- tion of the county from Republican rule. In 1872 he bitterly opposed the nomination of Horace Greeley for the Presidency, a nomination the most self-stultifying ever made by a party. He, nevertheless, gave the Greeley electors a passive support. But the political pill he then took proved so nauseating that he has never entirely recovered from its effects, even to this day. That year he was nominated for the State Senate, in the district composed of the counties of Mont- gomery, Pike and Lincoln.
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