USA > Missouri > History of southeast Missouri : a narrative account of its historical progress, its people and its principal interests, Volume II > Part 51
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place where the men and dogs were gath- ered. The fight began and after a desperate struggle the hunted animal fell prostrate, ap- parently dead. Boylike, William Bridges advanced to the bear and pulled his hind leg. Infuriated by the indignity the mortally wounded bear made a last desperate effort to retaliate, jumped up and advanced towards the boy,-who was, however, too quick to be caught by the wounded animal. The youth mounted his mule and rode away from the threatening claws of the wounded heast. This is only one of the many interesting ex- periences which Mr. Bridges relates to a few favored listeners.
When nineteen years old William Bridges began to clerk in a little country store at Old Four Mile, a place which gained its name through its being situated four miles from three of the neighboring villages. For the ensuing two years he remained as a clerk in this general store, when his father bought his partner out and sold his son a half interest in the business. For the next four years the management of this concern devolved al- most entirely on William Bridges, and he was very successful in the conduct of the store. In the fall of 1879 he went to Malden and engaged in the general merchandise business on a much larger scale than hereto- fore. At first the senior Mr. Bridges, and his two sons, William and John H., were partners in the new establishment. After a time the father and brother dropped out of the Malden concern (opening a store at Campbell) and William Bridges was again left with the sole management of a store. He continued to successfully conduct the busi- ness for three years, when he sold out his in- terest to W. J. Davis and T. J. Bailev. He later, about 1885, opened a general store at Campbell, then only a small town. The above is all in relation to the commercial connections of Mr. Bridges, hut during these years he had not confined his attention to the management of his stores, but had left the actual work to competent clerks. Louis Mccutcheon began what has proved to be an exceptionally prosperous career. in Mr. Bridges' store. In 1873 enterprising young Bridges began to buy mules. cotton and any- thing else he thought he could sell ; voung as he was. he was one of the biggest buyers in that section of the state. and he made a great deal of money by his sales. Traveling through the country in the course of his buy- ing and selling, he also dealt in real estate,
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buying land whenever possible, as an invest- ment. At one time he had four thousand six hundred acres. In the year 1896 he sold out his store interest to Will Taswell, and since that date Mr. Bridges has been engaged in farming and stockraising. He is today the proprietor of seven hundred and thirteen acres of land, about five hundred acres of which is under cultivation and rented out to tenants. In 1894 he was not able to stand up under the losses which he, in common with many other capitalists, had suffered as a re- sult of the panic of 1893. He had enormous holdings at that time, and in order to meet his obligations he was forced to sell his prop- erty at very low figures-property that is now fetching high prices. His cotton, worth one hundred thousand dollars, he sold at a loss of three cents per pound. Thus his en- tire fortune took wings and he had practi- cally to begin over again. Many men would have felt too discouraged to make any fur- ther efforts, but Mr. Bridges did not let any- thing interfere with his optimism, and has slowly mounted again, not to the height (in a material sense) that he had reached before, but he is in a position of ease and affluence.
August 17, 1871, Mr. Bridges was united in marriage to Martha J. Taylor, a native of Tennessee, and they have four children,- Effie E., married to A. T. VanMeter of Campbell; John L., a farmer who married Miss Rogers and the couple live in Dunklin county ; William and Kingdon, who are at home with their father. Two other children were born to Mr. and Mrs. Bridges, but they did not survive infancy. Mrs. Bridges is a member of the Christian church.
Mr. Bridges has one of the best two-story brick residences in Southeastern Missouri ; the fifteen rooms are large and airy and magnificently furnished, but without any os- tentation. The rooms are furnished for use and comfort and not for show. Although as mentioned above, Mr. Bridges had very lit- tle schooling, he is a cultured man; he has a good library and is a great reader ; he keeps up with the times on all subjects of the day and is familiar with all the current literature of any merit. He has been too busy about other matters to have much time left to dab- ble in politics; he devotes some of his few spare moments to Masonry, having joined the order in the year 1871 when a Masonic lodge was built at Four Mile. He is now a Master Mason, being a member of the Council. While a resident of Malden he helped to or-
ganize the Dunklin County Bank in that town, and was for several years vice-presi- dent of this enterprise. There is no man in Dunklin county who has been more active in his attempts to promote the betterment of the community, although his efforts have all been made in a quiet way. Realizing the value of school training, he has sent boys to school, paid their expenses and then assisted them to get started in business. He is a man whose genial manners and sympathetic per- sonality have gained him hosts of friends, not only in Campbell, where he resides, but throughout Dunklin county. The picture facing this sketch was taken when Mr. Bridges was 55 years of age.
ELBERT H. HENSON. An honored repre- sentative of the native-born citizens of Dunk- lin county, Elbert H. Henson, of Gibson, has here spent his entire life, and since attaining manhood has contributed his full share to- wards the development and advancement of its agricultural interests. His birth occurred September 17, 1853, on Ten Mile Island, where his parents were pioneer settlers.
His father, Nathaniel Henson, was born in South Carolina, and died in Kennett, Mis- souri, in 1858, while yet in the prime of a vigorous manhood. He married Nancy Thompson, who was born in 1827, in Tennes- see, and as a girl came with her parents to Dunklin county, Missouri, where she spent the remainder of her life, dying on the farm now owned and occupied by her son Elbert in 1884.
Elbert H. Henson was but five years old when his father died, and but nine years of age when, in 1862, his mother assumed pos- session of the farm where he now resides. He assisted in the care of the homestead until twenty-three years of age, when he purchased one hundred and sixty acres of land and be- gan farming independently. Prosperity has smiled on his undertakings, and his fine farm is under good cultivation and yielding profit- able harvests, three acres being devoted to the growing of fruit, while the other fields, which are divided by wire and picket fencing, are devoted to the raising of cotton, corn and peas. Mr. Henson also raises some stock, chiefly mules, which find a ready market.
Mr. Henson has been three times married. He married first, November 15, 1889, Fanny Badie, who died two years later, and he mar- ried for his second wife, in 1892, Sara Kagle, who died four months later. On June 5,
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1895, Mr. Henson was united in marriage with Maggie Gibson, who was born in Hardi- can county, Tennessee, February 24, 1878. Her father, James Gibson, was born in 1852, in Hardiman county, Tennessee, and is now a resident of Nimmons, Arkansas, while her mother, whose maiden name was Dovie Lam- bert, was born in Hardiman county, Tennes- see, in 1857, and died, in 1895, in Little Rock, Arkansas. Mr. Henson has five children, ail of whom were born of his third marriage, namely : Ethel, Jesse, Ezra, Aaron and Fan- nie. In politics Mr. Henson is identified with the Democratic party, and fraternally he has for twenty-four years been a member of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows. Mr. and Mrs. Henson are consistent members of the Missionary Baptist church, and are highly esteemed throughout the community for their sterling traits of character.
WILLIAM T. TAYLOR. Noteworthy among the energetic and self-reliant men who are so skilfully conducting the agricultural interests of Dunklin county is William T. Taylor, of Holcomb, who was born not many miles from his present home, August 25, 1865, of pioneer ancestry.
His father, Philip Fulbright Taylor, a na- tive of North Carolina, came westward in pioneer days, about 1820, when twelve years of age, and located near Holcomb, Missouri. He purchased a tract of land that was still in its primeval wildness, and having cleared a part of it began cultivating the soil, being one of the first two white men to plant corn in this part of Dunklin county, the other being the great-grandfather of William Moore, who resides near Campbell. He was skillful in the use of the rifle, enjoying hunting, and one winter won a notable record, having killed fifty-two bears that season. He spent his last years in Arkansas, dying in that state in 1874. His wife, whose maiden name was Mary E. Smith, was born in Kentucky, and died in Dunklin county, Missouri, in 1888, aged sixty-three years.
Left fatherless when a boy, William T. Tay- lor remained on the old homestead which his father had redeemed from the wilderness until twenty-three years of age, helping his widowed mother in the management of the farm, from the age of twelve years doing all of the planting and most of the farm work. He subsequently worked for wages on a neighboring farm for two years, and for two years was employed as a raftsman on the
Mississippi river. On taking upon himself the responsibilities of a married man, Mr. Taylor rented land for ten years, and then made his first purchase of real estate, paying eleven dollars and fifty cents an acre for thirty-five acres of land in Holcomb. He af- terwards added one hundred and twenty acres to his original purchase, paying fifty dollars an acre for the tract, and has now a fine farm of one hundred and fifty-five acres, well worth seventy-five dollars an acre. His farm, which is well cultivated and which he has finely improved, Mr. Taylor devotes to the growing of corn, cotton and peas, chiefly, and in its management is meeting with well deserved success, the farm being well stocked, while everything about the place bespeaks the thrift and practical judgment of the proprie- tor.
Mr. Taylor married first, August 1, 1894, Mattie Rouse, who proved herself a most valuable helpmate and companion. She was an active member of the Missionary Baptist church, to which Mr. Taylor belongs. She died in 1908, aged thirty-nine years. Mr. Taylor married for his second wife, September 7, 1909, Mrs. Rosa A. Davidson, a daughter of Milton A. and Martha (Scobey) Lightfoot, and their only child, Thomas Harrison Tay- lor, was born August 16, 1910.
Politically Mr. Taylor is a firm adherent of the Republican party. Fraternally he is a member of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, and of the Woodmen of the World, in which he has filled various official positions. Mrs. Taylor belongs to the Daughters of Re- bekah and to the Ladies Circle of the Wood- men of the World.
THOMAS MCFARLAND. An able representa- tive of the progressive agriculturists of Dunk- lin county, Thomas McFarland, of Gibson, is skillfully devoting his energies to the man- agement of his attractive farming estate, on which he has made substantial and essential improvements, so that it now compares favor- ably with any in the town. He is a man of keen foresight and enterprise, and possesses a good understanding of the best ways of con- ducting his business so as to secure the best possible returns. A son of Andrew McFar- land, he was born October 20, 1860, in Orange county, North Carolina.
In 1873 Andrew McFarland migrated with his family from North Carolina to Missouri, and was subsequently busily engaged in gen- eral farming until his death, for seventeen
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years operating on rented land. He was born in North Carolina and died in Dunklin county, Missouri, in September, 1896, aged seventy-five years. His wife, whose maiden name was Caroline Cook, was born in Orange county, North Carolina, and died in Dunklin county, Missouri, in 1879, aged forty-six years.
A lad of thirteen years, Thomas MeFar- land, when he first came to Missouri, began assisting his father on the farm, and likewise continued his studies, attending first a sub- scription school and later a public school. When eighteen years old he began life for himself, and for five years worked by the month on neighboring farms. The ensuing five years Mr. McFarland lived and labored on rented land, and met with such good suc- cess in tilling the soil that he was then war- ranted in buying a tract of land. Being persuaded in his mind that the farm which he now owns would prove a good investment, he purchased ninety acres of it, and as his means increased added to it, by purchase, one hundred and ten acres more, having now a fine estate of two hundred acres, on which he has made valuable improvements, having erected his conveniently arranged dwelling house all of the outbuildings. Mr. McFarland has two acres devoted to the culture of fruit, and in addition to the growing of corn and cotton raises fine cattle and Poland China hogs. He is recognized throughout the com- munity is a wide-awake, enterprising agri- culturist, and is held in high esteem as a man and a citizen. He is especially interested in the development of the cotton industry, and is one of the stockholders of the Farmers' Gin at Gibson, Missouri.
Mr. McFarland married, September 14, 1885, Mary Jolly, who was born October 11, 1868, and to them seven children have been born, five living, namely: Mary E., Homer W., Letha, Blanche and Leona. The two de- ceased children are: William Andrew and Sylvanus, who died in infancy. Mrs. McFar- land was born in Cape Girardeau county, Mis- souri, a daughter of William and Elizabeth (Campbell) Jolly. The latter was a native of Missouri, but the former was from East Tennessee; he was a farmer until his death, in August, 1896, aged sixty-six years. The mother died when Mrs. McFarland was but an infant in the winter of 1869-70. Mr. Mc- Farland is an adherent of the Democratic party, but has never been an aspirant for political office. Fraternally he belongs to
Campbell Lodge, Modern Woodmen of Amer- ica, and religiously he is a member of the Cumberland Presbyterian church, which he is serving as elder.
W. H. HOUSTON has been trained in a hard school, that of adversity. His has been a long and arduous struggle with little to encourage him and against heavy odds, but he has come out of the conflict with not only honor, but with unusual success in a material way. His is surely a life history to encourage those who are toiling upward at what sometimes seems a hopeless rate.
Mr. Houston was born in Tennessee, Sep- tember 2, 1868. His entire life has been spent on a farm. Mrs. Houston, his mother, died before he was six years old and his father broke up housekeeping. The boy lived with a cousin for five years and then hired out on the farms of the neighborhood. He had op- portunity to go to school only a few months of a year. Sometimes he could get work only by the day and for several years he just man- aged to make a bare living. The youth knew the bitterness of poverty. He continued to work on the Tennessee farms until he came to Dunklin county, in July, 1892. In the meantime he had married Miss Clue McNeil of Lake county, Tennessee. They had one child, Ophelia May, born March 4, 1891. She died in infancy. The mother died in Dunklin county in 1895.
When Mr. Houston first came to this region he settled near Holcomb. His first venture was a share-crop. The next year he hired out to John Thomasson for thirteen dollars a month through crop time. As this was only five months of the year he was without income of any sort for the winter.
On February 25, 1897. Mr .. Houston was married a second time. The bride was Alva Thornberry, born and reared in Dunklin county. She is ten years younger than her husband, whose good fortune dates from his marriage to her. Mrs. Thornberry, her mother, is still living in Holcomb.
In the year of his marriage to Miss Thorn- berry Mr. Houston rented fifteen acres of land from John Thomasson. This tract is near Mr. Houston's present home. The next year he rented forty acres and moved to Holcomb. Later Mr. Houston was a tenant of A. F. Blakemore's and he lived on different places during the following three years, at the end of which time he was renting one hundred and sixty acres.
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In 1903 he moved to the place where he now lives. This farm now comprises about one hundred and five acres and Mr. Houston owns it all. When he came to the place to live the fences were in poor repair and it was generally in rather a run down state. Mr. Houston has not only repaired the fences but also the houses for his hired men. He has cleared about fifteen acres of the tract and put up additional farm buildings. He has put at least two thousand dollars worth of improvements on the place and the land is worth about one hundred dollars an acre.
Mr. and Mrs. Houston have five children living: Edna, Will, Truma, Harold and Euwin. Two others have died, one at three months, and the other, the eldest, at almost seven years. A sister of Mr. Houston's makes her home with him also. The Woodmen of the World is his lodge. His politics are Democratic.
Mr. Houston has made all that he has since his second marriage and looking at his "luck" since that time, one can see that his good fortune is due to no chance but to the persistent determination never to own him- self beaten.
B. L. GUFFY. It was the privilege of Mr. Guffy to acquire his legal bent and indeed much of his legal knowledge from association with his father, a judge of the Kentucky court of appeals. When the subject of this review was thirteen years old his father was elected to the above mentioned court and the family moved from Morgantown in Butler county, where B. L. had been born in 1875, and took up their residence in Frankfort, Kentucky. The father held this office for eight years.
Here Mr. Guffy attended school and for six years held the position of deputy sergeant of the court of appeals. This office gave him ample opportunity to study law and he made good use of it. In 1897 he was admitted to the bar of Kentucky and after that time prac- ticed hoth in Kentucky and in Marion, Indi- ana. In 1899, while still at Frankfort, he was married to Miss Jane Huffman, born in Spencer county, Indiana, in 1880, and they have one daughter, Mahala Helen. He was in Marion four years during the oil boom in that place and had a fairly large practice in the town.
Mr. Huffman, Mrs. Guffy's father, had bought twelve hundred acres of timber land in Missouri, and in 1906 Mr. Guffy came
down to see about the purchase. He found the county so good a field for all sorts of en- terprises that he decided to locate here and since then has been identified with this region. The timber has been sold and Mr. Guffy has part of the land under cultivation and more of it being cleared. He owns two houses in Hayti and has a third interest in a business block, one hundred by seventy feet, on the main street of Hayti.
Since coming to the county Mr. Guffy has been prominent in the Republican party of the county. He has served as chairman of the county committee of his party and also filled the same office in the fourteenth con- gressional committee. For two years, begin- ning in 1907, he was city attorney. In 1909 he was appointed postmaster, and since that time he has put in many improvements at the office.
In the Masonic fraternity Mr. Guffy be- longs to the Blue Lodge of Hayti and in the same town he is a member of the Modern Woodmen of America. He still continues his law practice in the city as well as keep- ing up his other enterprises.
JUDGE JOHN A. HOGUE. A prominent fac- tor in advancing the material interests of Dunklin county, John A. Hogue is conspicu- ously identified with the financial and mer- cantile prosperity of Holcomb, his home town, where he has won a good record for industry and success. A son of John B. Hogne, he was born January 15, 1841, in Obion county, Tennessec.
Coming with his family to Dunklin county, Missouri, in November, 1860, John B. Hogue purchased one hundred and sev- enty-four acres of land, paying twenty dollars an acre for the piece, and was here prosperously engaged in cultivating the soil until his death, at the age of sixty-six years. He took an active part in local affairs, serv- ing for four years as county judge. His wife, whose maiden name was Jane Robinson, was born in North Carolina, and died young, when John A. was an infant.
For four years after taking up his resi- dence in Dunklin county, John A. Hogue assisted his father in the pioneer labor of improving a homestead. In 1861 he enlisted in the Confederate army, became first lieu- tenant and commanded the company at the siege of Vicksburg. His was Company K, Fifth Missouri Infantry, General Cockrel's brigade, Bowen's division. Mr. Hogue also
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took part in the battles of Corinth, Fort Gibson, and in the gunboat battle on the "Sumpter" at Plum Point, Iuka. He was afterwards, from 1864 until 1872, engaged in general farming on his own account. Since coming to Holcomb, Mr. Hogue has been actively and successfully employed in busi- ness, at the present time being president of the People's Bank, a responsible position which he has ably filled since 1909. He or- ganized the People's Bank in 1904. He is also connected with the mercantile interests of this part of the county, assisting his sons, who are among its leading merchants.
Politically Mr. Hogue is a sound Democrat, and has rendered efficient service as county judge for one term. Fraternally he stands high in the Ancient Free and Accepted Order of Masons, being a member and past master of the local lodge, and a member, also, of the local chapter and of the council.
Mr. Hogue married first Rebecca White, who bore him four children, as follows: Cora B., who died when thirty-seven years of age; Mortimer S., engaged in mercantile pur- suits in Holcomb ; Iras M., who married S. E. Bage, cashier of the People's Bank; and Maury A., a well-known merchant of Hol- comb. Of his union with Medora James, his second wife, Mr. Hogue has one child, Hes- man D., a Dunklin county farmer. Mr. Hogue married for his third wife, Mary Howell, and to them three children have been born, namely: John A. Hogue. Jr., who was graduated from the Kentucky School of Medicine, in Louisville, Kentucky, is en- gaged in the practice of his profession at Holcomb; Robey H., bookkeeper for Hogue Brothers, owns and operates the Holcomb Telephone Company; and Allie M., a teacher in Texas. Mr. Hogue's religious views are in harmony with the Presbyterian church.
JOHN WILLIAM MORRIS, M. D., is one of the pioneer settlers in Dunklin county, Mis- souri, and is well-known and respected not simply in Malden, where he resides, but throughout the state of Missouri. Not only has he become identified with the leading members of the medical profession but he has aided political and civic prosperity and improvement. There is no more public-spir- ited man in Malden, nor one who has been more active in the furtherance of all matters of common betterment. A brief recital of the leading events of his life will serve to
show that he has well earned the approba- tion which he has gained in this locality.
Dr. Morris was born January 6, 1847, at Nashville, Tennessee. His father, John E. Morris, was born at Richmond, Virginia, in 1821, and was there educated and engaged in the occupation of carriage manufacturing with Josiah Stout. In 1843 he was united in marriage to Miss Mary Ann Chambers, born in 1830, at Fredericksburg, Virginia, and the wedding was solemnized at Buckingham courthouse, Virginia. Shortly after their marriage the young couple moved to Teunes- see, where they became the parents of three children, George E., John W. and Virginia Adelaide. In 1849 Tennessee was the scene of a cholera epidemic and the dread disease carried off John E. Morris, his eldest child, George E. and the baby, Virginia. The be- reaved widow and mother remained in Ten- nessee three years, then, with her little boy, her only living child, she took up her resi- dence in Kentucky. There mother and son stayed, enjoying the closest degree of inti- macy, until the year 1868, when Mrs. Morris was summoned to her last rest.
Dr. Morris, at the age of two, deprived of a father's love and the companionship of his brother and little sister at one time, was ten- derly cared for and reared by his mother When he was five years old he accompanied his mother to Kentucky, as mentioned above, and there received his educational training. He was a teacher in the public schools, but did not regard pedagogy as the work for which he was best adapted, and studied med- icine during his spare time. He remained in Fulton county, Kentucky, until after he at- tained his majority, when the death of his mother left him without family ties. On the second of November. 1872, he moved to Cot- ton Plant, Dunklin county, Missouri, and the day after he arrived in the township he ad- ministered his first medicine in Dunklin county to the children of Ed Langdon, al- though Dr. Morris was not at that time a certified physician. He later attended the University of Illinois and was graduated from the medical department of that institu- tion in 1879. That same year the Doctor set- tled in Malden and commenced the practice of medicine as an authorized practitioner. He soon had to give up all idea of continuing his work at that time. as his eyes were trou- bling him and he believed he was losing his sight entirely. For the ensuing ten years he
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