USA > Missouri > History of southeast Missouri : a narrative account of its historical progress, its people and its principal interests, Volume II > Part 30
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John L. Thomas.
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The death of John Wenom occurred June 21, 1909, but his revered memory will long re- main green in the community which was his home for so many years.
The early life of Gustavus Adolphus We- nom who in his high ideals of citizenship re- sembles his father, was passed in Kimmswick, where he resided continuously until the age of sixteen years. At that time, having fin- ished his public school education, Mr. Wenom took a business course in Bryant & Stratton's Commercial College at St. Louis, from which institution he was graduated in 1891. Equipped with a thorough business training and plenty of native ability, he took a posi- tion with the Singer Sewing Machine Com- pany at St. Louis and remained with that concern for several years. In 1894-1895 he held a position as cashier with the Monte- Sano Park, near Kimmswick, resuming his residence in Jefferson county, and in August, 1895, he became deputy circuit clerk of the county, which position he retained until 1899. From the year mentioned until 1903 he was bookkeeper with the Meyer-Schmidt Whole- sale Grocery Company at St. Louis and the following year, 1904, when the Bank of Kimmswick was organized, he returned to his native town to accept the office of cashier, which he retains to the present time. In 1906 he was appointed postmaster of Kimms- wick, which at that time was only a fourth class office, but in January, 1910, the office was advanced to third class. Mr. Wenom was again appointed by President Taft to the postmastership and his brother, John Jr., acts as assistant postmaster.
Mr. Wenom was happily married October 4, 1901, Miss Blanche Sibley, of Salt Lake City, Utah, becoming his wife. They share their home with two sons. Freeman Sterling and Gustavus Adolphus, Jr. The subject is Republican in politics and holds membership in the Court of Honor.
JUDGE JOHN LILBURN THOMAS. Judge Thomas was born September 16, 1833, near the present Belleview post office, then in Washington county, now Iron county, Mis- souri. His parents, James Wilton Thomas and Eliza Ann Johnson. were born, raised and married in Albemarle county, Virginia. In 1826 they moved to Washington county, Missouri. His father was a son of Captain John Thomas and Frances (Lewis) Thomas and through his mother was descended from the Warners, the Lewises of Warner Hall and
the Randolphs, all of Virginia. Judge Thomas' grandfather was a revolutionary soldier and through him he became a mem- ber of The Sons of the Revolution and he is also a member of the Society of Colonial Wars through ten ancestors, whose names and services are recorded in the Missouri Register of that Society for 1909. His pa- rents had eight children, three born in Vir- ginia and five in Missouri, he now being the sole survivor of the family. His father tilled a small farm every year and he was justice of the peace of Washington county two years (1842-43), but his life profession was teach- ing. He and his wife were Methodists and their home was the stopping and preaching place for the circuit riders of that denomi- nation on their periodical rounds. The father died October 4, 1845, and the mother, Novem- ber 29, 1875.
At his father's death Judge Thomas was only twelve years old and the oldest son at home, and on him fell the duty of managing all out-door work. He attended some short term schools and did all sorts of farm work till he was nearly seventeen. Having inlier- ited some means from their uncle, John L. Thomas, of Virginia, the mother moved to Arcadia and put the four youngest children in the Arcadia High School in April, 1850. With the money he inherited and the income from a six months' school he taught in 1852. Judge Thomas was enabled to graduate in that school in the B. A. degree in July, 1853. He then taught school for two years and a half and read law at odd times. On March 27, 1855, he was licensed to practice law and in the fall of that year opened an office at Steelville.
He was united in marriage at Hillsboro, December 25, 1856. to Sarah Ellen, daughter of Judge Philip Pipkin, and granddaughter of Phillip Pipkin, of Tennessee, a colonel in the war of 1812-14. and great-granddaughter of Lester Morris, a revolutionary soldier of Virginia. There were born to them twelve children, five of whom are living: Kora (Mrs. J. W. Evens), of Birmingham, Alabama ; Winna (Mrs. W. B. Morgan), of Trinidad, Colorado: Zoe (Mrs. E. Y. Mitchell), of Springfield, Missouri: Emily (Mrs. Frank Hamel), of De Soto. Missouri; and Richard M., an attorney of Washington. D. C. The latter married a Miss Johnson of that city.
Judge Thomas ran for assessor of Wash- ington county in 1854. but was defeated. He was county attorney for Crawford county
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in 1857-1858, and moving to Hillsboro in September of that year, helped organize the Jefferson County Teachers' Association in 1859, the first of its kind in Southeast Mis- souri for the advancement of education. He ran for circuit attorney in 1860, but was defeated and was county attorney for Jeffer- son county, 1863-64. He helped organize the Jefferson County Immigration Society, 1866; was elected its president and prepared for the society a statement descriptive of the coun- ty and its resources, published in the Hand Book of Missouri, 1881. He took the lead in a campaign for good roads, 1867-68, result- ing in giving Jefferson county more improved roads than any county in the state outside of Jackson and St. Louis, and he also in- corporated a company and superintended the building of a rock road from Hillsboro to Victoria 1870-72. He was elected to the Leg- islature, 1870, and was requested by General Francis P. Blair to put him in nomination for the Senate, which he did in January, 1871. He was appointed chairman of the Judiciary Committee of the House by Speaker Wilson, giving him a state-wide prominence; ran for judge of the Supreme Court in 1872, but was defeated; helped in- corporate the Hillsboro High School, 1874 and became its president; and was elected circuit judge in 1880 and re-elected, 1886. He organized in 1881 "The Conference of Nisi Prius Judges of Missouri." of which he was president eleven years, and it still meets annually. Judge Thomas moved to De Soto in November, 1881, and in 1890 ran for judge of the Supreme Court, but was defeated, and was appointed in December of that year, by Governor D. R. Francis, judge of the Su- preme Court for two years, being defeated in 1892 for nomination to succeed himself. He was appointed, in May, 1893, assistant at- torney general for the post office department, and held that office four years. A few years ago he, as chairman of the De Soto Commer- cial Club, headed the movement to install a municipal water plant for the City, and the people voted the bonds and the plant is now in operation.
Judge Thomas has been a member of the Masonic order for over fifty-five years, and he and his wife are members of the Order of the Eastern Star.
Judge Thomas served twelve years as a judge, ten on the trial and two on the appel- late bench. As trial judge he required the sheriff to open and adjourn conrt in the court
room instead of the outer window, and on de- ciding cases he often wrote lengthy opinions on questions of importance or public interest.
The two years he was judge of the Supreme Court he wrote one hundred and fifty opin- ions and he took a liberal and advanced posi- tion on four questions of great public interest : 1. In the Thornton case, 108 Mo. Rep. 840, in which the defendant was charged with debauching a girl under eighteen under promise of marriage, he set up the same standard of morals for men as women in their sexual relations. 2. In the Terry case, 106 Mo. Rep. 209, he held that the statute, mak- ing it a felony for a man, holding a confiden- tial relation to a girl under eighteen to de- bauch her, embraced those hiring servant girls to work in their homes. In the Thorn- ton case he so vigorously denonnced men who debauched young girls nnder promise of mar- riage and then deserted them that it is prob- able his opinion in that case had some influence in inducing the Legislature a few years later to extend the age limit of girls in such cases, from eighteen to twenty-one years. 3. In the Loomis case, 21 Lawyers Reps. Ann. 789, he upheld the constitution- ality of the anti "truck store" statute, for- bidding the payment of wages in anything but lawful money, but a majority of the court was against him on this point. 4. In the Relyea case, 112 Mo. Rep. 86, he clearly stated what he thought the law of fellow service in personal injury cases was, in a dissenting opinion of great cogency; and it is probably this opinion and others he wrote on the same question had some weight in the enactment of an employers liability act a few years later. 5. In the Gratiot case, 16 Law- vers Reps. Ann. 189, he defined very clearly the limitation of the power of the court to take a question of fact from the jury. His opinions in the Gratiot and Relyea cases, however, proved to be his undoing politically, for by them he incurred the displeasure of the great corporations which, holding the bal- ance of power in the Democratic convention row margin for the nomination as a candidate of July, 1892, defeated the Judge by a nar- to succeed himself. Of all his judicial work, however, he prizes most his position in the Thornton case, in defence of young girls against the wiles of unscrupulous men. He says if he were required to write his epitaph and were limited to a single act of his life he would have it stated he was the author of the opinion of the court in that case.
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As attorney for the postal department Judge Thomas found himself in a new field, with few precedents to guide him. He dealt with foreign as well as domestic ques- tions. He ruled that our government could refuse to carry, in its mails, matter advertis- ing lotteries authorized by foreign govern- ments to raise public revenue and not vio- late the comity of nations. In every case, domestic or foreign, where an appeal was taken to the Attorney General (first Richard Olney and then Judson Harmon) or to the courts, the decisions of Judge Thomas were affirmed.
Raised by a Whig father the predilections of Judge Thomas were towards that party, but it died about the time he was grown and he soon became a Democrat. During the war he was classed as a secessionist, was ar- rested several times and required to take the oath of loyalty. On one occasion he was required to sign a bond that if found out- side Federal lines he should be shot. In subsequent years, however, he has often said, in public speeches, that he rejoiced that the war terminated in the preserva- tion of the Union and the abolition of slav- ery.
He continued to affiliate with the Demo- cratie party till 1896, when, as he views it, the party went over to populism and he re- fused to follow. Now he thinks all parties are teaching socialistic doctrines, though denouncing socialism, and he is politically homeless. He is an individualist and he hates all phases of governmental paternal- ism, whether it be interfering with business or dictating what one shall eat, drink or wear.
When Judge Thomas quit office in 1897 he practiced law two years with his son, John Lilburn Thomas, Jr., and then retired from business. Since then he has devoted himself mainly to literary pursuits, publish- ing two works, one on "Non-Mailable Mat- ter" treating of the law relating to lotteries, frauds and obscenity in the mails and the other on "Constructive Contempt," devoted chiefly to a criticism of the Missouri Su- preme Court for nullifying, as unconstitu- tional, a statute that had existed seventy- five years, in order to enable the members of the Court to sit as judge and jurors to determine whether a citizen had libelled them in a newspaper article and fix the punish- ment therefor. Besides these works he has
published scores of historical, political and critical articles in the Press.
The religious creed of Judge Thomas, as formulated by himself, is this: "I believe I ought to be humble, patient, meek; I ought to hunger and thirst after righteous- ness and eschew evil ; I ought to love justice and mercy and hate injustice and cruelty ; that I ought to do to others what I would have them to do to me; I ought to pluck the beam out of my own eye before I try to take the mote out of my brother's eye ; I ought to help those who are not able to help them- selves; I will be judged here and hereafter according to the deeds done in the body and I serve God best when I serve my fellows best."
Judge Thomas is now an old man. He has watched and studied the evolution of civil- ization for sixty years and he still takes an absorbing interest in current events and watches the kaleidoscopic phases of domes- tie and world affairs as they daily develop. In his advanced age it is his fortune to re- tain his mental faculties unimpaired to con- tinue his literary work and to have the com- panionship of the devoted wife who united her life to his over fifty years ago.
ALBERT WULFERT, county clerk of St. Francois county. Missouri, since 1910, is one of the most active and influential Republi- cans of this section and he has given a most able and conscientious performance of the duties of his important office. This is not to say all, for in a previous career in the rail- road and lead mining business he has had an excellent opportunity to witness and assist in the phenomenal growth of this section. Mr. Wulfert is a native-born citizen of Missouri, his birth having occurred at Gerald, Frank- lin county, February 26. 1875. His father, Julius Wulfert, was born in Berlin, Ger- many. December 13, 1828, and came to Amer- ica at the time of the Revolution of 1848. At the time of the Civil war in this country his sympathies, like those of most of his eoun- trymen on this side of the sea, were with the cause of the Union. Not long after coming here he located at Washington, Missouri, and he subsequently removed to the vicinity of Gerald, where he engaged in agriculture. On March 9, 1856, he married Marie Hart- man of Campbellton, Missouri, and to this union ten children were born, Albert being the eighth in order of birth. At the time of
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Price's raid in the Civil war, the elder Mr. Wulfert was at home on furlough from the Union army and he was captured, although his incarceration was of comparatively brief duration. He resides at the present time at Gerald, a prosperous farmer and honored and useful citizen.' He is Republican in pol- ities and holds membership in the Masonic order.
The early education of Albert Wulfert, of this review, was secured in the common schools in the vicinity of his home and also from the father, a well educated man who for a time maintained a private school for the benefit of his sons and daughters and the children of his neighbors. At the age of seventeen years he entered the Warrensburg Normal School and was in attendance there during the term of 1892 and 1893. Follow- ing that he taught school for a period of four years and in 1897, with a view to making a radical change of occupation, Mr. Wulfert took a course in railroad and telegraph work and the following year he located at Flat River and became agent and operator at the office at that place maintained by the Mis- sissippi River & Bonne Terre Road. After one year of this work he again made a com- plete change of work and entered the employ of the Doe Run Lead Company as time keeper. At that time the Doe Run Lead Company owned but one mine, but its growth has been so great and continual that at the present it owns seven. Flat River, when he first went there, was but a small town, but it has grown until today it is a city of five thousand inhabitants.
Mr. Wulfert, at the time he came to Saint Francois county, found the Democratic party in complete control, the Republican party having lost life and vigor through many de- feats. With the initiative and purpose of a born leader, Mr. Wulfert buckled on his Re- publican armor and offered himself on the sacrificial pile as a candidate for county clerk. Not that Mr. Wulfert regarded it in that light, but such was the opinion of the community. He was defeated in the conven- tion the first time, but lost by a small major- ity. At the election in 1910 he won by a large majority and he has held the office of county clerk with credit to himself and the party. It is needless to say that the opposi- tion he overcame was severe.
Mr. Wulfert was chief office man in the offices of the Doe Run Lead Company at Flat River under Superintend O. M. Bilharz and
Captain J. A. Perry. In the year 1905 Mr. Charles Clardy became Mr. Wulfert's as- sistant and when he left the office the crew consisted of seventeen men. He is a climber, as has been manifested in many ways. For instance, he started as time-keeper of the Doe Run Lead Company and when he left he had become paymaster and purchasing agent, this fine result being obtained through the legiti- mate channels of perseverance and hard work. He wins the confidence of those with whom he comes into contact and it was his popular- ity with the men of the mines which elected him to his present office. In 1902 he became one of the trail blazers for the establishment of the St. Joe Lead Company Mill, upon whose site the town of Leadwood now stands. This was the first modern mill in the county.
Mr. Wulfert joined the Benedicts when on December 4, 1901, he was united in marriage to Miss Julia Grandy. Mrs. Wulfert is a daughter of John Grandy, of Iron Mountain, foreman of carpentry in the mines. To the union of the subject and his admirable wife have been born six children, as follows: Perry (deceased), Viola, Harold, Rodney, Julius and Dorothy.
Mr. Wulfert is an advocate of the princi- ples of moral and social justice and brotherly love as set forth by the Masonic order, and he is also a valued member of the Independ- ent Order of Odd Fellows, the Knights of Pythias, the Modern Woodmen of America and the Order of Railroad Telegraphers.
LOUIS WILLIAM LIX. The postmaster of Lixville is the tenth or last of the ten chil- dren of Henry and Mary Lix, natives of Ger- many. They both came to America when young, settled in this county and remained here until the end of their lives. The eldest son of the family, Henry Lix, did not live to grow up, but the eighth child was given his name and lived to bear it. The other chil- dren were christened August, Christian, Louis, Nancy, Catherine, Louise, Minnie and Caroline.
Louis Lix was born November 8, 1868. He has lived all his life on the farm where he was born, which he inherited at his father's death. Both parents died in 1900; he at the age of seventy-three, and she at sixty-four. In 1903 Louis Lix bought his mercantile busi- ness. He deals in general produce and has extensive holdings in real estate, two hundred and twenty five acres in Bollinger county and fifty-four in Perry county, besides lots in
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Lixville, of which the total area is seven acres.
Mr. Lix was appointed postmaster in May, 1905, and has served ever since that time. He is a Republican in his political creed, as so many of the Americans of German descent are.
On February 10, 1895, occurred the mar- riage of Louis Lix and Rosetta, daughter of David Barks. Six children were born of this union : August W., October 28, 1895; John Robert, October 12, 1897, deceased; Bertha Ethel, April 5, 1900; Esther Ella, March 3, 1903; Effie May, November 3, 1905; and Mary Alice, July 11, 1909. The family are members of the Lutheran church.
Ross BLAKE, an energetic, able and hon- ored citizen of Leadwood, has also the good fortune to be blessed with a strong, brave and fine fatlier. Both have made splendid records in the railroad and mining fields of southeast Missouri, the younger man being at the present time superintendent of the large lead mine and mill at the point men- tioned. H. A. Blake, the father, was born at Newark, Ohio, on the 2nd of November, 1846; received a fair education in his boyhood and spent the bulk of his youth in the Civil war, wearer of the blue and an honor to it. After- ward he taught school; advanced in that field to the superintendency of schools of Mont- gomery county, Missouri, and finally com- pleted a course in civil engineering. While thus engaged for a quarter of a century he was identified with the Missouri Pacific, Kan- sas City & Pittsburg and Mississippi River & Bonne Terre Railroads. The elder man and father has earned the partial retirement which he is now enjoying at the home of his son in Leadwood. By his marriage to Melissa Carter he became the father of two sons, Carl and Ross. Both he and his wife are well known members of the Baptist church, and he himself is one of the old Masons of the locality, to whom the compass and square have a high moral and religious significance.
Ross Blake was born at Nevada, southeast Missouri, on Christmas day of 1879. After receiving his early education in the public schools of Sedalia and completing his studies under the tutelage of his father, he entered the employ of the Missouri Pacific Railroad in connection with its engineering corps, and continued in the same line of work with the Iron Mountain and Kansas City, Pittshurg & Gulf Railroads. He has always taken a deep Vol. II-11
interest and has attained prominence in the military matters of the state, and during the Spanish-American war was a non-commis- sioned officer of Company D, of the Missouri Volunteers. At the conclusion of the war he became connected with the engineering de- partment of the Mississippi River & Bonne Terre Railway, but in 1904 located at Lead- wood to take charge of the four mines and mill at Leadwood, property of the St. Joseph Lead Company, under the direction of Mr. O. M. Belharz, the responsibilities of which posi- tion he still ably carries. He is a Republican in politics; a Congregationalist in his church connections; and, like his father and other members of his family, a member of the time- honored Masonry and a firm believer in its benefits, both practical and moral. Married to Miss Frances Jennetta Sargent, of Bonne Terre, in 1904, Ross Blake is the father of one child, Virginia.
TIMOTHY F. KINSOLVING. The prosperous grocery establishment of T. F. Kinsolving Company at Hornersville represents the en- terprise of one of the most progressive citi- zens of the town, one who has always relied on his own industry for advancement, and by successive years of labor and good manage- ment has been able to secure au independent place in the business affairs of his commu- nity.
Mr. Kinsolving is a member of a family well known in Dunklin county. He was born on a farm in Kentucky in 1869, and had few school advantages. When he was twelve years old the family came to Dunklin county, near Malden, living there three years, and then to Howell county, where he lived twelve years and employed himself at farm work. When he was twenty-seven years old he mar- ried Miss Bertha Yakley, who was born in Indiana in 1879. Soon after his marriage, in 1898, he came to Hornersville and began farming. For six years he was in the livery and blacksmith business in this town, his as- sociate in the livery business part of the time being his brother Tom, under the firm name of Kinsolving Brothers. In 1909 he started the business of T. F. Kinsolving Company, and since then his trade has increased rapidly, and as a merchant he is considered one of the most substantial in Hornersville. He owns his town home, and has acquired a start on the road to fortune. Fraternally he is a member of the Woodmen of the World and the Independent Order of Odd Fellows
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at Hornersville and the Knights of Pythias at Cardwell. In politics he is a Democrat. He and his wife have one child, Bainbridge, who was born in 1897.
Mr. Kinsolving's parents were natives of the state of Virginia, whence they were brought to Kentucky as children. His mother died in 1897, while on a visit in Hor- nersville. His father is now living with his son Thomas in Hornersville. The children of the parents were: Thomas (see sketch) ; Floyd, a doctor of Hornersville; Wilbur, a butcher in Hornersville; Leam, in Dunwick, Missouri; T. F .; Bettie, who married Tom Davis, of Harrisburg, Arkansas; and Eller, the wife of Sam Lyons, of West Plains, Mis- souri.
WILLIAM C. WILKES is one of the coming attorneys of Caruthersville, where he has suc- cessfully practiced law since 1907, and where he has the highest record for integrity, no one being able to cast any aspersions on his character, either in his private life or his professional capacity. Since his first entry into the legal field he has set himself each day to perform those tasks which he could see, leaving all else to determine itself later. This simple course of action has brought him more business than he can handle, but what is worth far more it has brought him the con- tentment which comes with the knowledge of having done his best. His fellow citizens say of him that he is one of the few honest lawyers in the county.
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