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 95
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 95
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 95
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DUNCAN SNETHEN
(Proprietor of Snethen's Saddlery and Harness House, and Producteur de Volaille, Montgomery City.)
Mr. Snethen, an energetic business man of this city, and who has a gallinarium of fine poultry of the best breeds, fancy and sporting, has been a resident of Montgomery City for nearly twenty years, and is well and favorably known throughout the west-central part of the county, as well as in the southern part, where he was born and reared. He was one of a family of 13 children, six of whom are living, of Rev. Dr. Alia B. Snethen and wife, who was Miss Caroline Margaret Johnson before her marriage. They were early settlers on Dry fork, in this county, and the father came from Kentucky in 1808 and the mother from Tennessee in 1827. The father was a practicing physi- cian of nearly 25 years' experience before his death, and he was also a well known and highly esteemed minister of the Baptist Church. He died on his farm on Dry fork, February 3, 1867. The mother is still living, and makes her home with her daughter, Mrs. I. H. Knox. Duncan was born on the farm, April 19, 1843, and was reared to a farm life. At the age of 17, however, he apprenticed himself to E. Rosenberger at High Hill to learn the saddler's trade, under whom he served for three years. He was then employed by Rosenberger for
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HISTORY OF MONTGOMERY COUNTY.
about eight months. In 1864 he went to Illinois, and then to St. Louis, where he staid until the close of the war. In the summer of 1865 he came to Montgomery City and went to work in the shop of J. W. McDaniel. Two years later he became McDaniel's partner, and in 1869 he bought out McDaniel and became sole proprietor. Mr. Snethen is a fancier of fine poultry, and makes a specialty of breed- ing the best grades. In his gallinarium are represented most of the best breeds, including the Light Branch, the Plymouth Rock, the White Leghorns, the Partridge Cochins, etc., etc. Mr. Snethen is a man of family, and was married April 24, 1867. His wife was a Miss Julie E. Overstreet, a daughter of James Overstreet, of Virginia (deceased). Mr. and Mrs. S. have three children : Cora Lee, Maggie May and Elisha. Three are deceased : Alia, Mannie and Luther. Mr. and Mrs. S. are members of the Baptist Church, and he is senior deacon of the Masonic lodge at this place.
HENRY SPINSBY
(Proprietor of Spinsby's Railway Hotel, Montgomery City).
For nearly 20 years the name that heads this sketch has been familiar to the traveling public along the line of the Wabash Railway through North Missouri, as that of one of the most popular landlords in the hotel business in the State. Mr. Spinsby came to Montgomery City in 1866 and built his present hotel building in which he has car- ried on the hotel business almost continuously since that time. From the first his house became a regular stopping place for the trains, and it has continued so ever since. It early acquired the reputation of being the best railway hotel on the road, a reputation it has never ceased to enjoy and deserve. Its proprietor, Mr. Spinsby, started out with the determination to make his hotel popular with the public and justly so. The building was made large and commodious, and exceptionally well adapted by its plan and arrangement for a first-class railway hotel. The local markets were not and have never been relied upon to supply the wants of the table kept at the hotel, but everything of which a better quality could be bought at distant. markets has been brought from such points, regardless of expense. Mr. Spinsby is a typical landlord, a man who knows how to run a hotel with success, in a business point of view, and so as to make it popular with the public. He has made the Spinsby Hotel second in reputation to that of no railway or other hotel outside of a large city in the State. Mr. Spinsby is an English- man by nativity, born in Cumberland county, July 29, 1819. He was a son of Maj. Henry Spinsby of the British army, who served for 24 years as sergeant-major of the Fifteenth Hussars. Mr. Spinsby's mother was a Miss Elizabeth Sewell. He was reared in Cumberland county, and in 1840 came to America. Here he was engaged in various occupations until 1866 when he came to Montgomery City. In 1856 he was married in St. Louis to Miss Mary McCaffery, formerly of Ire- land. She died March 31, 1884, leaving a family of seven children :
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HISTORY OF MONTGOMERY COUNTY.
Minnie, the wife of George Hutchinson ; Lizzie, now Mrs. Chadwick ; Katie, now Mrs. Yearsley ; Isaac, Henry, Jr., Jack and Lottie.
AUSBIN STEWART
(Farmer and Fruit Grower, Post-office, Montgomery City).
Mr. Stewart has been a resident of this county for 45 years, and is one of the well known and highly respected citizens of the county, as well as a substantial property holder. He was born in Highland county, Va. (then Pendleton county ), May 22, 1819, and was a son of John Stewart and wife, Mary Stewart, who was formerly of Bath county, that State, a distant relative of her husband, and of the same family name-Stewart. Mr. Stewart's father was a soldier in the War of 1812, serving from the opening until the close of the struggle, having re-enlisted after his first term of service expired, and remain- ing at home but one night between his two terms of enlistment. After the war he returned home to Virginia and engaged in milling. He was married in 1813, and 25 years later removed to Missouri, settling in Montgomery county, about four miles west of the present site of Montgomery City, on a farm now owned by Thomas Britt. He had a family of 11 children, six of whom lived to years of maturity. Oc- tavia (Mrs. Devine), Tabitha (Mrs. Edis), Ausbin, the subject of this sketch ; Margaret (Mrs. See), Alonzo and Emily (deceased ). Alonzo, while on a trip to California, in 1865, was murdered, in Co- lusa county, together with the sheriff and deputy sheriff of that county, by a party of outlaws, instigated, it is believed, by the notorious Alvin Cobb. Ausbin Stewart was about 20 years of age when the family came to Missouri, in 1839. He soon afterwards engaged in farming here for himself, and on the 14th of October, 1847, was mar- ried to Miss Elizabeth Glenn, a daughter of Judge Thomas Glenn, of this county. Two years. later Mr. Stewart, during the gold excite- ment, went to California, and was engaged in mining out there with reasonable success until 1851. Returning to Montgomery county, he resumed farming, and removed to his present place in 1877. This is a neat farm of 45 acres adjoining the town of Montgomery City, de- voted principally to fruit raising, which he has found a profitable in- dustry. He has over 2,000 trees on his place, and his farm is hand- somely improved. Mr. Stewart has also a good farm of 757 acres about 10 miles north-east of Montgomery City, a portion of which (318 acres ) he gave to his son Cortez : the balance he rents. He and his wife have three children, Malissa, the wife of Thomas Britt ; Cor- tez, who married Miss Lettie Bruner, and resides on a farm in the county ; and Julia I., the wife of Rev. J. O. Edmondson, a minister of the M. E. Church South.
MANLIUS R. SUGGETT
(Retail Dealer in Wines, Liquors, Beer, Cigars, Tobacco, Etc., Montgomery City).
Mr. Suggett's grandfather, John Suggett, from Kentucky, was one of the pioneer settlers of Callaway county. He entered nearly all of
.
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HISTORY OF MONTGOMERY COUNTY.
Cat's prairie, near the present site of Reform post-office, and improved a large farm. There he lived the remainder of his days, one of the respected farmers of the county, and reared a worthy family of children. Among these was his son Minter, who afterwards became the father of the subject of this sketch. He married Miss Louisa Petty, and of this union Manlius R. Suggett was born October 11, 1845, She is still living, residing on the farm near Reformn, but her husband has been dead for a number of years. Manlius R. was reared
on the farm and early became a farmer and stock dealer. He followed this with success until 1877, when he engaged in the retail liquor busi- ness at Danville. Five years afterwards he came to Montgomery City, where he has ever since continued the same business. Mr. Sug- gett is in substantial circumstances. He has two valuable business properties in Montgomery City, and besides these he has a comfortable residence property. April 2, 1882, he was married to Miss Louisa Bush, a daughter of Ambrose Bush, deceased, late of Danville. Mr. and Mrs. Suggett have two children: Jessie and an infant. During the war, in 1863, Mr. Suggett attempted to join the Southern army, but was saved from soldiery, for a time at least, by the Federals, who . took him prisoner on his way and confined him in Gratiot prison in St. Louis for about four months. He was then released after taking an oath. But in 1864, when Price marched through Missouri, he joined the Southern forces, and was with them until he was again cap- tured. This time he was sent to Rock Island prison, where he was kept until the Confederate star of hope set to rise no more. While in the army he was under Marmaduke. He is Democratic in polities.
COL. L. A. THOMPSON
(Editor of The Ray, Montgomery City).
Larkin Asbury Thompson was born in Warren county, Mo., De- cember 7, 1838. His parents, James Thompson and Mary Brother- ton, were married in Blount county, Tenn., February 26, 1831, and came to Missouri in 1837. They were Methodists of the old school. Their ancestors were Irish, with a small vien of Welsh blood in the paternal line, and were active in the Revolutionary War for independ- ence, and also in the second war with England.
In the spring of 1842, when Larkin was in his fourth year, his parents moved to Montgomery county, and settled at Belleville, where they resided until March 6, 1851, when they removed to Warren county, and settled on the Boone's Lick road, two miles west of Warrenton. There the boy grew to manhood.
His early educational advantages, were such merely as the common schools of the country could furnish. But through these he had the benefit of debating societies, in which he gained some reputation among his associates. The discussion on the tariff question, the division in the Methodist Church on the slavery question, the Jackson resolutions and Benton's appeal to the people, the Missouri compromise of 1850, and the Nebraska bill, were so interesting that he made such inquiries and investigations as his circumstances would permit. And, as a re-
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HISTORY OF MONTGOMERY COUNTY.
sult, he concluded that the public or common opinion on these ques- tions was wrong, and he resolved to vote the Whig ticket when he became old enough. In the meantime preachers in the Methodist Episcopal Church, who were driven from their circuits, came to his father's house to find a home and a place to preach. Their grievances at the hands of the pro-slavery party were narrated in his hearing. The troubles in Kansas becoming a topic of common talk, Free State men, returning from the territory, gave exciting reports of the work done there in the interests of slavery. These made impressions on his mind to be matured into settled conviction, by time and experience. In 1858 the first " High School " in Warrenton, was opened by Prof. Joseph W. Carson. This was pleasing to young Thompson, and he readily became a pupil during that and the ensuing year, giving at- tention to the higher branches of mathematics and the Latin lan- guage.
With an irregular education thus obtained, he commenced reading law, January 9, 1860, and teaching school to earn a living. In the August elections of that year he voted for Sample Orr for Governor, and for James S. Rollins for Congress, in a measure gratifying the desire of his boyhood. And in the November election of the same year he voted for Bell and Everett for President and Vice-President. But his teaching enterprise was of short duration on account of State legislation on the school fund. He continued the study of law in the office of Col. Fred. Morsey, at Warrenton. February 18, 1861, he voted for W. W. Edwards and Ab. T. Franklin, straight Union men, for delegates to the State Convention to consider the relations of Missouri to the United States. And, espousing the cause of the government, he joined the Union League and did scouting service for United States troops during the fall of 1861 and the ensuing winter, and on one occasion met some Federal cavalry who, suspecting him to be a rebel, were prevented from shooting him only by the arrival of a neighbor, whose testimony, spoken in his native tongue - German - made satisfactory proof of the scout's loyalty.
In March, 1862, Mr. Thompson was admitted to the bar by Ju dg T. J. C. Fagg, of the circuit court. Subsequently he enrolled in the Supreme Court, and was admitted to practice in the United States court for the western district of Missouri. April 1, of that year, he settled in Danville, Montgomery county, and commenced practicing law. But August 8, all hope of an early termination of the war hav- ing decayed, he enlisted as a private in Co. I, Thirty-first Mis- souri infantry volunteers, of whom Thomas C. Fletcher, afterwards Governor of Missouri, was colonel. When the company was mustered, the young lawyer was appointed second sergeant, and was soon thereafter made first, or orderly sergeant. In a short time he was appointed brigade quartermaster sergeant, but declined the honor. In the November election, that vear, he supported Arnold Krekel for Congress.
In the memorable bayonet charge of Blair's brigade at Chickasaw Bluffs, Miss., December 29, 1862, Sergeant Thompson was wounded
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HISTORY OF MONTGOMERY COUNTY.
by a shell, but partially recovering, he was permitted to remain with his friends for care and treatment, rather than be sent elsewhere with strangers, and was therefore with his regiment in the campaign against Arkansas Post. But after the army returned to Young's Point, La., the Mississippi became so high as to threaten the overflow of the whole encampment; he, having become unable to travel, was taken to a boat for safety. On the 14th of June, 1863, he was dis- charged from the service, by order of Maj. Gen. U. S. Grant, on ac- count of disability caused by wounds received in battle. The degree of disability was declared to be one-half, and he was adjudged unfit for military service in the future. Placing him in charge of a friend, the authorities sent him " home to die." Reaching home, at his father's, June 22, he was confined to his bed some weeks where his mother's care, and Dr. J. M. Foreman's skill, put him on his feet. Returning to Danville, August 1st, he re-opened his law office.
August 25, 1863, he was taken to Middletown in a buggy in care of Walter L. Lovelace, and assisted in organizing the Radical party, and electing delegates to the State Convention at Jefferson City, but was too feeble to go there in person. In the ensuing November, he supported Krekel, Wagner and Clover for judges of the Supreme Court. In October, he was appointed postmaster at Danville, and a year later, October 14, 1864, the town was raided and burned by Bill Anderson and his bushwhackers. The post-office and records with Mr. Thompson's papers and clothing, except what he had on, were consumed, and he narrowly escaped capture.
March 14, 1865, he was commissioned captain of Missouri militia, under the law of that year, and enrolled all male inhabitants, white and colored, in the county who were over 15 years of age. He was then commissioned colonel of the Montgomery county regiment, which he organized by direction of the district commander.
In the early summer of 1865 he set out to quietly organize a regi- ment to go to Mexico and join the Juarez forces in resisting the French army, but the Mexican agent not being able to give satisfactory guar- antees, the scheme was abandoned. June 6 he voted for the new or " Drake " constitution.
April 1, 1866, he resigned the postmastership, continuing the prac- tice of law. The ensuing November he was elected representative of the county in the Twenty-fourth Legislature of Missouri, having been nominated by the Republicans in convention at Montgomery City. When the House was organized in January, 1867, he was appointed a member of the Committee on the Judiciary, and also on the Commit- tee on Lunatic Asylum. Later a committee of nine, one from each congressional district, was made, and he was appointed the member for the Ninth district. He aided in the election of Charles D. Drake to the United States Senate, and voted for the ratifica- tion of the Fourteenth Amendment to the constitution of the United States. Later, January 26, he introduced a concurrent resolution asking the Missouri Senators and Representatives in Congress to favor submitting to the States an amendment to the Federal constitution to
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HISTORY OF MONTGOMERY COUNTY.
prohibit any State from withholding the elective franchise from its citizens on account of race or color. This was before Senator Hen- derson introduced the resolution that ended in the Fifteenth Amend- ment to the Federal constitution, March 7, 1867. With a majority of the Committee on Constitutional Amendments, Mr. Thompson re- ported favorably on the proposed amendment to the State constitu- tion extending the right of suffrage to the colored men of the State. These advanced views on the suffrage question drew upon him much keen opposition, which followed him home and threatened to defeat his renomination in 1868. But his party renominated him in conven- tion at Montgomery City, and a lively test was made against his suf- frage position. He was re-elected, although the suffrage amendment was defeated, and mainly, too, by those whose votes elected him. In the Twenty-fifth Legislature, organized January, 1869, he was again placed on the Committee of the Judiciary, and at the second place on the list ; and he was made chairman of the Committee on Federal Re- lations. The contest for United States Senator was warm. The object was to succeed Mr. Henderson, whose vote against the im- peachment of President Johnson was so displeasing to Republicans generally that they considered his re-election far below a possibility, and were not, therefore, prepared to hear, much less tolerate, any movement looking to his re-election. The favorite candidates were Carl Schurz and Ben F. Loan, and their advocates attended their re- spective caucuses nightly. Mr. Thompson refusing to attend either caucus was subjected to such interviews as brought forth the sensa- tional report that he was decidedly in favor of the re-election of Mr. Henderson. Intimate friends of Mr. Thompson and supporters of both the favorite candidates waited on him, and labored to admonish him of the error he was about to commit, assuming that it would cost him his position in the party ; but their efforts were of no avail. In the meantime a discussion in the capital by candidates and their friends, in which Mr. Henderson was permitted to be heard, briefly, made it less unpopular for a member to be his friend. But at his own request Mr. Henderson's name was withheld from the joint caucus when the nomination for Senator was made, Mr. Thompson voting in the caucus for D. P. Dyer. The caucus nominated Mr. Schurz, and Mr. Thompson voted for him in the joint session. But Col. Thomp- son had other controversies with his Republican associates.
In 1868 the election returns from several counties were Rodman- ized, that is to say discarded, by the Secretary of State, Francis Rodman, whose duty it was to canvass them. This action deprived those counties of any voice in the election of Governor, Lieutenant- Governor, two members of Congress and two judges of the Circuit Court. It also deprived them of representation in the regular session of the Legislature and of any voice in the election of United States Senator. When the subject came before the House it caused a long and searching debate, participated in by the ablest lawyers, Col. Thompson taking the lead and maintaining that the duties of the Sec- retary of State, in canvassing returns, was ministerial and not judicial.
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HISTORY OF MONTGOMERY COUNTY.
A majority of the House dissenting from his construction of the law, declined to admit the members presenting certificates of election from their respective counties. But before the session adjourned his posi- tion was sustained by the Supreme Court.
The fifteenth amendment to the Federal Constitution, having been submitted to the States for ratification, came before the House, and Col. Thompson, in its support, made an elaborate speech, casting his vote to thus settle the suffrage question by a law uniform in all the States and in the identical mode proposed by his resolution of Janu- ary 26, 1867. - As chairman of the Committee on Federal Relations he submitted a report favoring the repeal of the tenure of office act, and vindicated the report in an exhaustive argument on the constitu- tional question involved in the act.
Of the measures of general import which Col. Thompson gave earnest support during his four years' service in the General Assem- bly, the following may be mentioned : The enlargement of the public school fund and the building of school houses for the benefit of chil- dren of the common people; the permanent location of the Agri- cultural College in connection with the State University at Columbia ; needed improvements in the State asylums, and especially at Fulton, while Callaway county was unrepresented ; to reserve to the State the right to regulate the rates of freight and passenger tariff on railroads on which the State's liens were sold at a loss to the State, and to require the purchasers of such roads to semi-annually pay a small per . cent of their gross earnings to the State ; the elevation of the State judiciary by paying salaries such as to attract the better lawyers of the State ; to place insurance companies under such legal restrictions as to protect the people against impostors ; to attract to this State a thrifty class of immigrants ; the relief of counties whose public buildings, records and business were destroyed during the Civil War ; the repeal of the registration law and the test oath as a requisite to the qualification of voters. The law that he had passed establishing the Probate Court in this county is so concise in diction and plain in detail that many bills for similar courts were drawn by it. He had a bill passed in the House to establish a Court of Common Pleas at Montgomery City, but it failed to pass the Senate, and gave consid- erable dissatisfaction about Danville, which culminated in an organized effort to prevent his renomination. He returned home in the spring of 1870 much fatigued, and before the canvass had commenced his health was such that he could neither speak nor write. Many propo- sitions were made to him by Republicans and Democrats, who were willing to guarantee his re-election if he would consent to the use of his name ; but all were respectfully declined. He was not renomi- nated, nor was he able to take any part in the campaign. The Repub- lican candidates in the county were all defeated, and in 1871, at a special election for representative to fill the vacancy of George W. Hammet, deceased, the Republican nominee, Hugo Monnig, an excellent gentleman, was defeated.
With the Republican party discouraged by the second defeat, and
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HISTORY OF MONTGOMERY COUNTY.
his health yet feeble, Col. Thompson commenced the publication of The Ray at Danville. The first issue of The Ray appeared Decem- ber 7, 1871, and boldly espoused the Republican cause, and has ever stood by its colors, he giving it his attention at the expense and final abandonment of his profession, and taking part in the discussions of the time.
March 22, 1874, Col. Thompson was married to Mrs. Naomi W. Terrill, widow of the late Robert P. Terrill, and a worthy companion, who, adapting herself to his interests, was soon able to set type neatly, and has many times, when occasion suggested, gone to the case and made an interesting hand. Thus the pair have often put in type and printed The Ray. October 2, 1875, they moved with The Ray office and fixtures to Montgomery City, where they now reside.
September 19, 1876, Col. Thompson was appointed route agent be- tween St. Louis and Kansas City over the Wabash, St. Louis and Pacific, and April 1, 1877, soon after the Hayes' Cabinet was formed, he was retired from the service.
In 1880 he was nominated by the Republicans, in State convention at Sedalia, for presidential elector for the Thirteenth Congressional district. Later in the campaign the State Republican convention at St. Louis nominated him for State Auditor, after which he resigned his place on the electoral ticket. In 1884 he was again nominated by the Republican State convention at Sedalia for presidential elector. which he again resigned, so that the anti-Bourbon electoral ticket could be made satisfactorily. These three nominations were made without his solicitation ; the first against his consent, and the second wholly without his knowledge. He was not present at either con- vention.
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