USA > Missouri > History of southeast Missouri : a narrative account of its historical progress, its people and its principal interests, Volume I > Part 80
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Benj. H. Marbury.
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In the year of the great struggle between the states he was captured at Franklin and was put a prisoner on board a boat which was landed at Scott's Landing. Ile escaped by jumping off the boat with four messmates, and while a fugitive he met Mr. Lusk, his father-in-law to be, and, both being Masons, a firm friendship was cemented. The elder gentleman took him to his home and there he met the daughter of the house, the two young people falling immediately in love. They were married in May, 1862. Three sons were born to bless this union, they being : Horatio L., editor of the Festus News at Festus, Missouri ; Benjamin Il. ; and Dr. Alex- ander B., a dentist at Charleston. Dr. Mar- bury was a prominent and talented physician and well merited that term which has come to mean all of good, "a Sonthern gentleman."
Benjamin H. Marbury received his early education in the public schools of Mississippi county and later matriculated at Bellevue College, located at Caledonia, Missouri, and was graduated from the same in 1887, with the degree of B. S. Like so many of our successful men he taught school for several years and became president of St. Charles College, at St. Charles, Missouri. He com- pleted his literary and legal education in Washington University at St. Louis, Missouri, and was admitted to the bar at Petosi, Mis- souri, in 1895. In 1897 he came to Farming- ton and here success has awaited him. He was elected prosecuting attorney in Novem- ber. 1903, and served until 1905. Generally recognized as a proper man for publie office, he was made a candidate for judge of the St. Louis Court of Appeals in September, 1910, but was beaten by Charles Bates. At the present time he is attorney for the St. Louis Smelting & Refining Company and also for the Farmers Bank, the Flat River Ice & Cold Storage Company, and the Peoples' Bank of Delose. As a member of the firm of Marbury & Hensley he conducts a very sue- cessful general practice, Mr. W. L. Hensley, his partner, being United States congressman from the Thirteenth Missouri district. Mr. Marbury has won considerable fame in this locality as a gifted criminal lawyer. During the one term in which he was prosecuting at- torney he convicted over forty men, one for the death penalty. The aggregate sentence of the remaining thirty-nine amounted to over one thousand years. Ile proved a stanch and strenuous judge,-the friend of good gov- ernment.
Mr. Marbury laid the foundation of a happy home and ideally congenial life com- panionship when on September 3, 1895. he was united in marriage to Annie Eversole, of Caledonia, Missouri, daughter of William G. and Rebecca A. Eversole. Mr. and Mrs. Mar- bury share their hospitable and attractive home with three children-Virginia, Leonard Rutledge and Anna. Mrs. Marbury is a di- rect descendant of Chief Justice John Rut- ledge, of South Carolina. The subject is in direct descent from Felix Grundy, the cele- brated Southern statesman, United States senator from Tennessee in 1829-1838 and at- torney general from 1838 to 1840. Mr. Mar- hury is a gifted orator and possibly inherits his silver tongue from his distinguished forebear. Fraternally he is a member of the Knights of Pythias, Cristal Lodge, No. 50, of Farmington ; politically is a Democrat ; and he and his family are members of the Meth- odist Episcopal church, South.
GEORGE KRONE, formerly of the firm of Hooper & Krone, now serving his second term as mayor of Senath, has public official, his achievements in develop- ing and advancing the material interests of the community bringing to the people a re- alization that the affairs of the city are their affairs, and at all times entitled to their con- sideration. A native of Kentucky, he was born August 13, 1878, in Calloway county, where he resided until eighteen years of age.
In 1896 AIr. Krone came to Senath, Mis- souri, arriving here four months later than his mother, and where he also had a brother living, J. W. Hall, who is still a resident of this city, and one of its earliest pioneer citi- zens, he having come here before there were any railways in this section of the country. Forced by circumstances to earn his own liv- ing, he worked by the month as a farm hand for two years, and the next two years found employment in a shop. Ambitious then to embark in business on his own account, Mr. Krone bought a team on credit. and began draying, an industry in which he was pros- perously engaged for eight years. doing al- most the entire draying for the town. Dur- ing the last two years in which he was thus engaged he also dealt in feed. ice and coal, building up a trade which demanded so much of his time that he gave up the draying in its favor, since September, 1910, being junior member of the firm of Hooper & Krone. Mr.
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Krone is a keen, far-sighted man of business. and through his own efforts has accumulated a good property. He has two hundred and thirty-eight acres of valuable farming land, the greater part of which is under cultiva- tion, and is operated by tenants. He has also erected several business houses and residences in Senath. In April, 1909, Mr. Krone was elected mayor of Senath. and served the city so ably and faithfully that in April, 1911, he was re-elected to the same high position.
Mr. Krone married, July 28, 1901, Fanny Barr, who was born in Texas, but was brought up near Senath, Missouri, where her father was engaged in farming until his death. The union of Mr. and Mrs. Krone has been blessed by the birth of one child, Jewel. Religiously Mrs. Krone is a member of the Christian church. Mr. Krone is an active member of the Democratic party, and fraternally he be- longs to the Benevolent and Protective Or- der of Elks: to the Modern Woodmen of America ; and to the Woodmen of the World.
EDWARD B. RECK. Fourteen years post- master of Lutesville with an average absence from the office of less than a day a year is the enviable record of Edward B. Reck, born in Cape Girardeau. September 1, 1869. Both his father. Frederick Reck, and his mother, Adelina, were natives of Missouri and of Cape Girardeau county. The former was born near Appleton and the latter near Shawneetown. Mr. Reck's grandfather, George Reck, was born in Germany, likewise his grandmother, Catherine Reck. George Reck was a shoemaker in the "fatherland" and followed that trade in Cape Girardeau county, where he had an extensive business, and was also engaged in farming. After
serving ten months in the militia, Frederick Reck enlisted in the Union Army, May 2, 1863. He belonged to Company C, second Missouri Light Artillery. He served in the war until December, 1865, and then spent six months fighting the Indians. The cam- paign was one of incessant activity. Engage- ments were numerous and often desperate. Mr. Reck was in the fight at Jefferson City and the one at Glasgow, besides a number of lesser engagements and numberless skir- mishes. After being mustered out of service in 1866. Mr. Reck married Miss Adeline Whiteledge and resumed his occupation of farming. in which his good management and hard work made him more than ordinarily
successful. Edward B. is one of the three children of Mr. and Mrs. Frederick Reck, the others being: Jolin A. Reck, a physician of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, and Cora, wife of Mason F. Kinder, of Marble Hill, Missouri.
Like most of the successful men of his gen- eration, Edward B. Reck spent his boyhood on his father's farm. He attended the public schools and had the additional advantage of a course in the Pocahontas high school. He remained with his father until he was twenty- four years old and then went to farming for himself on his father's home place of sev- enty acres. In August, 1893, he moved to Lutesville and for three years worked there as a laborer. In 1897 Mr. Reck was ap- pointed postmaster, which office he still holds. The Lutesville postoffice is no sine- cure, as all the mail for the southern part
of the county must pass through the Lutes- ville office. Formerly Mr. Reck handled the mail for the following offices, Marble Hill, Leopold, Dongola, Zalma, Huxis, Hahn and Lutesville. The distribution is now made through Marble Hill, Zalma and Hahn. Mr. Reck sorts out the mail for the four or five offices for which Zalma is the distributing point. The Lutesville office has been bur- glarized twice during Mr. Reck's term of service.
Mr. Reck was first married to Rosa Schatte, of Cape Girardeau county. on Christmas day of 1892. Rosa was the daughter of Jolin and Mary Schatte, old residents of the county but natives of Germany. The death of Mrs. Reck occurred March 14, 1897. In 1898 Mr. Reck's union with Mrs. Julia A. Yount took place. She is the daughter of Henry Scheni- mann, of Cape Girardeau county, where he was a successful merchant, also a farmer and stock raiser. Henry Schenimann came to America from Germany in 1844 with his father, D. Schenimann. The boy was but nine years old at the time. The family set- tled in Cape Girardeau county, where Mrs. Reck's father grew up. Mr. Henry Scheni- mann served three years in the enrolled mili- tia in the Civil war. He afterwards engaged in mercantile business at Neely's Landing. His daughter Julia became the wife of W. C. Yount, a merchant of Patton, Missouri, on March 27, 1895. One child. Miss Willie C., was born of this union, which was trag- ically ended before their first anniversary, for Mr. Yount was shot March 14, 1896.
The eldest of Mr. and Mrs. Reck's four
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children, Alpha O., was born February 11, 1899. Their son Fred E. was eleven on the sixteenth of December, 1911. Inez Glo- rine was born April 27, 1903, and Hope Otelca on the seventeenth of the same month, six years afterward.
Though Mr. Reek is so constantly on duty at the postoffice, he has other interests in which he is active. He is a stockholder in the Bollinger County Bank and has been sec- ond vice-president of it for eight years. He owns a fine residence property in Lutesville and is prominent in the lodges of that town, being a member of the Ancient Free and Accepted Masons, the Royal Arch Masons and the Modern Woodmen. In polities he is a staunch adherent of the Republican party. His religious preferenee is for the Presbyter- ian church, of which he and his wife are both members.
WILBUR M. WELKER, the superintendent of the Bollinger county schools, was born in this county June 9, 1883. His father, J. A. Welker, is a farmer now residing at Bloom- field. Randolph Welker, the grandfather of Wilbur M., was also born in the county, where his father, Wilbur's great-grandfather, came from in North Carolina.
The second of a family of nine children, Mr. Wilbur M. Welker was kept busy on his grandfather's farm when not attending school. Until he was twenty years old his life was spent in this fashion. In 1903 he began to teach school and has followed this profession ever since. Two years in the dis- trict schools, two in the schools of Marble Hill and three years in Bessville have filled up his seven years' experience.
As Mr. Welker is ambitious, he has spent the time not occupied in the school-room in studying. Part of two different years he at- tended Will Mayfield College. By taking courses in the spring and the summer terms at the State Normal at Cape Girardeau, he obtained the degree of Bachelor of Pedagogy from that institution. In April, 1911, Mr. Welker was elected county superintendent for four years. He is in charge of eighty- nine schools in Bollinger county.
On December 23, 1906, occurred the mar- riage of Mr. Welker and Miss Clara Walker, daughter of Richard A. Walker, of this county. They have two children, Vera Vern, born 1907, and Paul Lee Alexander, two years younger. The family reside upon a
place of forty-three acres, which they own. Mr. Welker is a member of the Missouri Teachers' Association and keeps abreast of all educational movements. Fraternally he is connected with the Independent Order of Odd Fellows and with the Modern Woodmen of America.
B. P. BURNIIAM, now serving in his sec- ond term as county superintendent of the schools of Iron county, has gained mueh dis- tinction as an educator in this section of Missouri, and during his long connection with the schools of this locality has sueeeeded in greatly raising the standard of education and promoting the efficiency of the system as a preparation for the responsible duties of life. Indeed, the constant aim and the gen- eral character of Mr. Burnham's life work are summed up in the famous dictum of Sid- ney Smith,-that "The real object of edu- eation is to give children resources that will endure as long as life endures; habits that time will ameliorate, not destroy; occupation that will render sickness tolerable, solitude pleasant, age venerable, life more dignified and useful, and death less terrible."
A native of Reynolds county, Missouri, B. P. Burnham was born on the 9th of April, 1875, he being a son of Martin L. and Mary (Sloan) Burnham, the former of whom is now living at Ellington, Missouri, and the latter of whom was summoned to the life eternal in 1876. Martin L. Burnham was born on Current river, in Missouri, his fa- ther, Samuel Burnham, having come to that section of the state in the ante-bellum days. Samuel Burnham was a native of Indiana, while his wife, nee Miss George, was born in Missouri, and he was a gallant soldier in the Confederate army during the Civil war. He died at his home in Reynolds county, Mis- souri, about 1870, his old farm near Elling- ton being still in the possession of his de- seendants. He was an extensive farmer and stock-raiser during the greater portion of his active career. Martin L. Burnham was like- wise engaged in farming operations for a number of years but he is now identified with the hotel business at Ellington, where he is a man of mark in all the relations of life. He is a devout member of the Missionary Baptist church. His wife, whose maiden name was Mary Sloan, was born near Belle- view, in Iron county, this state, a daughter of Alexander and Mary Elizabeth (Wyatt)
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Sloan, who came from Tennessee to Mis- souri about 1830. Mrs. Burnham died before she had reached her thirtieth year and the subject of this review was her only child.
Mr. Burnham was reared to the invigor- ating discipline of the old homestead farm and his preliminary educational training con- sisted of such advantages as were afforded in the public schools of Reynolds county. Sub- sequently he attended the Marvin Collegiate Institute, at Fredericktown, Missouri, and for a time he was also a student in the state normal school at Cape Girardeau. On the 9th of April, 1902, he was graduated in the Gem City Business College, at Quincy, Illi- nois. For six years he was engaged in teach- ing in Reynolds county and from 1902 to 1909 he was a popular and successful teacher in Iron county. He was elected county school commissioner in April, 1909, serving in that capacity until he qualified as super- intendent of the schools of Iron county, as- suming charge of the responsibilities con- nected with that office ou the 16th of August. 1909. In April, 1911, he was elected as his own successor for the office of county super- intendent for a term of four years, and he is acquitting himself with all of honor and distinction in discharging the duties of that important position. As a teacher Mr. Burn- ham had charge of the schools at Belleview, Annapolis, Granite, Pilot Knob and other places in the state.
On the 9th of August, 1905, was solemn- ized the marriage of Mr. Burnham to Miss Letha M. Moyer, whose birth occurred in Iron county and who is a daughter of A. G. Moyer, of Belleview. This union has been blessed with one child, Edwin B., whose natal day is the 14th of September, 1906.
In politics Mr. Burnham is a Democrat. His interest in political questions is deep and sincere and he gives a hearty support to all projects advanced for the good of the general welfare. In a fraternal way he is affiliated with Camp No. 421 of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, at Annapolis, and with the Belleview lodge of the Modern Woodmen of
tiful home is the scene of many attractive gatherings.
LEON J. ALBERT. A representative of a family whose name has been prominently and worthily identified with the history of southeastern Missouri for more than half a century, Leon J. Albert has long held dis- tinctive prestige as one of the active and in- fluential business men of the city of Cape Girardeau, which place has represented his home since his boyhood days and in which he holds secure vantage ground in popular confidence and esteem. He is essentially one of the representative citizens of Cape Girar- deau county, his influence has permeated the civic and business activities of this favored section of the state, and his activities have been directed along normal and legitimate lines. In point of consecutive identification with the more important business interests in Cape Girardeau he is now one of the oldest business men in this city, where his capital- istic interests are of broad scope and impor- tance. He has stood exponent of the high- est civic ideals and the utmost loyalty and few residents of Cape Girardeau have wielded larger or more beneficent influence in the promotion of the best interests of the com- munity. He served seven years as mayor of his home city and has held other positions of public trust,-preferments that bear patent evidence of the high regard in which he is held in the community that has so long been his home and the center of his productive ac- tivities. Here he is president of the Sturdi- vant Bank, the oldest and most substantial financial institution of this section of the state, and he has been actively concerned with the same for forty years, being the oldest banker in Missouri south of St. Louis. He is also a member of the directorate of the Southeast Missouri Trust Company and has other large interests in Cape Girardeau.
Leon J. Albert was born at Portland, Jef- ferson county, Kentucky. on the 6th of No- vember, 1840, and the village in which he was thus ushered into the world is now an in- tegral part of the city of Lonisville. He is a son of Nicholas and Anna (Hoin) Albert, both of whom were natives of France and the marriage of whom was solemnized in the city of Louisville, Kentucky. Nicholas Albert was that became a German province as a result
America. In their religious faith Mr. and Mrs. Burnham are devout members of the Methodist Episcopal church, South, to whose good works they are most liberal contributors of their time and means. They are popular and prominent in connection with the best - born in Alsace-Lorraine. France. a district social activities at Ironton, where their beau-
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of the Franco-Prussian war, and there he was reared to years of maturity. He received excellent educational advantages and, reared on the border between France and Germany, he had virtually equal facility in the use of both the French and German languages,-a knowledge that proved of great value to him during his subsequent business career in America. His mother died in her native land and after he himself had established his resi- dence in the United States his venerable fa- ther, John Albert, joined him and passed the residue of his life in Louisville, Kentucky.
Nicholas Albert gained his initial business experience in his native land, where he con- tinned to maintain his home until 1830, when, as a young man, he embarked on a sailing vessel and set forth to seek his fortunes in the United States. After a long and weary voyage he landed in the city of New Orleans, whence he proceeded to Kentucky and located in the city of Louisville. There he was given a municipal office, largely due to his famil- iarity with the French and German lan- guages, and in the '40s he removed with his family to Jackson, Cape Girardeau county, Missouri, where he engaged in the general merchandise business, in company with his brother. In 1852 he removed to Cape Girar- deau, the judicial center and metropolis of the county, and here he soon gained prece- dence as one of the leading merchants of the county. He was a man of marked ability and sterling character, commanded the high re- gard of all who knew him and was an influ- ential factor in local affairs of a public order. He was well known throughout the county and was the confidential advisor of its French and German citizens, the while he was deeply appreciative of the institutions and advantages of the land of his adoption, to which his loyalty was ever of the most nn- equivocal type. He was called to various of- fices of local trust and at the time of his death was incumbent of the position of United States ganger for his district. He was summoned to the life eternal in August, 1874, at the age of sixty-eight years, and his name merits enduring place on the roster of the sterling citizens who have aided in the development and upbuilding of this favored section of the state of Missouri. In politics he gave his support to the cause of the Demo- cratic party and both he and his wife were devout communicants of the Catholic church, in whose faith they were reared. Mrs. Albert
died in 1872, at the age of fifty-six years, leav- ing four sons and one daughter, all of whom attained to years of maturity, and three of whom are now living.
Leon J. Albert, the second in order of birth of the five children, gained his rudi- mentary education in Louisville, Kentucky, and he was about twelve years of age at the time of the family removal to Missouri. He continued to attend school at Cape Girardeau, this state, and was abont twelve years old when the family home was established in the little city, where he has maintained his resi- dence during the long intervening years, within which he has risen to a position as one of the representative citizens of the sec- tion of the state to which this history is de- voted. Here he continued his higher aca- demie studies in St. Vincent 's College. After leaving this institution he was for a time em- ployed as clerk in his father's mercantile es- tablishment and later he was for two years a clerk on boats of the .St. Louis & Memphis Packet Company, operating a line of steam- boats between the two cities mentioned. After severing his connection with this company Mr. Albert became associated with his uncles, John and Sebastian Albert, in the wholesale grocery business at Cape Girardeau, and with this line of enterprise he was thus identified from 1864 until 1871, in which year he as- snmed the position of cashier in the bank of Robert Sturdivant, which was then a private institution. In 1882 the bank was incorpo- rated under the laws of the state, under the title of the Sturdivant Bank, and Mr. Albert continued to serve as its cashier until Janu- ary, 1902, when he was elected president of the institution, of which office he has since continned incumbent. He has wielded much influence in the upbuilding of this solid and popular banking concern, which bases its op- erations on a capital stock of one hundred thousand dollars and which now has a sur- plus fund of twenty-five thousand dollars. From dates designated it will be seen that Mr. Albert has been consecutively identified with the executive affairs of this bank for a period of forty years, and additional signif- icance is given to this statement by reason of the fact that the Sturdivant Bank is the old- est in the state south of St. Louis. Its man- agement has ever been along careful and con- servative lines and it has successfully weath- ered the various financial panics of localized or national order, without the slightest ques-
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tioning of its ability to liquidate all its obli- gations at any period in its history. The bank has done much to conserve the best interests of the community in which it is located and those identified with its management have at all times been citizens of the highest stand- ing.
In addition to being one of the principal stockholders in the bank of which he is presi- dent, Mr. Albert is also one of the leading principals in the Southeast Missouri Trust Company, of Cape Girardeau, which was or- ganized and incorporated in 1906 and which has a paid up capital stock of five hundred thousand dollars. He was one of the organ- izers of this corporation and has been a valued member of its directorate from the beginning. He is also a stockholder and di- rector in the Cape Girardeau Water Works Company and the local electric-light com- pany. Every enterprise and measure pro- jected for the general good of the community has received the earnest co-operation of Mr. Albert and no citizen of Cape Girardeau has shown more distinctive loyalty and public spirit. Though he has had naught of ambi- tion for public office, he yielded to the impor- tunities of his fellow citizens and consented to become a candidate for the office of mayor of his home city. He was first elected to this position in 1877 and he served as mayor for seven years,-a fact that offers the best voucher for the efficiency and acceptability of his administration of municipal affairs,-an administration marked by due conservatism and wise progressive policies. Mr. Albert has shown a specially lively interest in educa- tional affairs and he has served consecutively as a member of the board of regents of the Missouri State Normal School at Cape Girar- deau since 1885. He was appointed to this office by Governor Francis and has thrice been reappointed. During more than a quar- ter of a century of such identification with this fine state institution he has been inde- fatigable in the promoting of its interests and the maintaining of its facilities at the highest standard. Besides serving as mayor of his home city Mr. Albert has held other munici- pal offices and also county offices, his elec- tion to each of which was made entirely with- out solicitation or effort on his part and his acceptance of which was prompted solely by a sense of civic duty. In politics he accords unwavering allegiance to the Democratic party and both he and his wife are communi-
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