USA > Missouri > History of southeast Missouri : a narrative account of its historical progress, its people and its principal interests, Volume II > Part 79
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65 | Part 66 | Part 67 | Part 68 | Part 69 | Part 70 | Part 71 | Part 72 | Part 73 | Part 74 | Part 75 | Part 76 | Part 77 | Part 78 | Part 79 | Part 80 | Part 81 | Part 82 | Part 83 | Part 84 | Part 85 | Part 86 | Part 87 | Part 88 | Part 89 | Part 90 | Part 91 | Part 92 | Part 93 | Part 94 | Part 95 | Part 96 | Part 97 | Part 98 | Part 99 | Part 100 | Part 101 | Part 102 | Part 103 | Part 104 | Part 105 | Part 106 | Part 107 | Part 108 | Part 109 | Part 110 | Part 111
E. C. MOHRSTADT. The substantial and in- fluential citizens of Stoddard county have no more worthy representative than E. C. Mohrstadt, president and treasurer of the Reuter Hub and Spoke Company, of Dexter, and president of the Bank of Dexter, prom-
1127
HISTORY OF SOUTHEAST MISSOURI
inent industrial and financial organizations. A native of Missouri, he was born March 27, 1863, in Saint Louis, where his boyhood days were spent.
His father, J. C. Mohrstadt, was born in Prussia, and as a boy of sixteen years immi- grated to America, the land of promise. He served throughout the Civil war, holding a captain's commission and serving as quarter- master much of the time, being stationed at Helena, Arkansas. He subsequently located in Saint Louis, where he became manager of that famous German publication, the Anzei- ger, continuing in newspaper work the re- mainder of his life.
Having completed the course of study in a business college, E. C. Mohrstadt, at the age of eighteen years, secured a position in a Saint Louis savings bank, and when it was merged into a national bank continued with that institution until it failed. Mr. Mohr- stadt was then made deputy receiver under ex-Governor Lon Stevens, for five years hav- ing charge of the bank's affairs, Mr. Stevens being state treasurer at Jefferson City. In 1891, when the affairs of the defunct bank were closed, Mr. Mohrstadt came to Dexter to assist in the organization of the Bank of Dexter, and was made its cashier, this being the first bank established in Stoddard county. It was capitalized at fifteen thousand dollars, with Andrew F. Cooper as president. On the death of Mr. Cooper, who was killed, Mr. A. A. Jorndt was made president of the in- stitution, and he was succeeded as president by Mr. Mohrstadt in 1905.
Mr. Mohrstadt is likewise president of the Reuter Hub and Spoke Company, which was organized in 1868, at Kaukauna, Wisconsin, by Peter Reuter, who afterwards removed it to Rice Lake, Wisconsin, and in 1889 brought the plant to Dexter, Missouri, incorporating it for fifty thousand dollars. In 1900 the plant was sold to Messrs. E. C. and A. C. Mohrstadt, Mr. E. C. Mohrstadt becoming president of the company, with A. C. Mohr- stadt, vice-president, and Charles T. Brace, secretary. This company has factories at Dexter, Missouri, and at Marianna and Batesville, Arkansas, and all are in a flourish- ing condition. The plant at Dexter, cover- ing eight acres of ground, has a pay roll amounting to two thousand five hundred dol- lars per month, while at Marianna fifty men are employed, and at Batesville about forty men, the company's annual output being one hundred thousand sets of spokes and one Vol. II-27
hundred thousand sets of hubs, the business amounting annually to a sum ranging from three hundred thousand dollars to five hun- dred thousand dollars. Mr. Mohrstadt, with Mr. A. L. Harty, was also one of the promoters of the Dexter Ice Plant, which manufactures and sells ice.
An extensive land owner, Mr. Mohrstadt has one thousand acres of land under culti- vation in Stoddard county, operated by ten- ants, with one of whom he is in partnership, carrying on general farming with excellent pecuniary results. He likewise has title to two thousand acres of timber land in Stod- dard county, and about a thousand acres on the cut over that is rapidly being converted into farming properties. He takes much in- terest in the drainage work, of which he is a strong advocate. He is not at all active in politics, although he is a firm adherent of the Democratic party. Fraternally he is a Royal Arch Mason and a member of the Modern Woodmen of America.
Mr. Mohrstadt married, in Chicago, Illi- nois, Lizzie Brinnond, of that city, and they have two children, John C. and Ethel B.
DANIEL OWEN JARVIS, the well known mer- chant of Hematite, has made a substantial record in Arkansas and Missouri as a pro- gressive young stockman and business man. He is of an old Kentucky family, his grand- father, Thornton Jarvis having been born in Fleming county, Kentucky, in 1806. He spent his early days in Indiana and, having married, located in Jefferson county, Mis- souri, about 1836. On coming to that part of the state he purchased a tract of eighty acres for one hundred and fifty dollars, nearly the extent of his earthly possessions, and by hard labor and thrift, as well as thorough business practices, made himself one of the wealthiest men of Southeastern Missouri. His operations consisted not only in farming but in hauling lead by ox-team from the lead mines to the shipping points or markets. Grandfather Jarvis was both prominent in Masonry and in Democratic pol- itics, and at his death in 1892 was considered one of the stalwart citizens of that section of the state.
Daniel L. Jarvis, born at Jarvis, Missouri, was the eldest of seven children born to Thornton and Mary Anne Jarvis, and re- ceived his education in the common schools of Jefferson county, Missouri, and at Mc- Kendree College, Lebanon, Illinois. He
1128
HISTORY OF SOUTHEAST MISSOURI
then, for about a year, assisted Judge J. J. Williams as probate clerk and studied law. Mercantile pursuits next occupied his atten- tion, in association with Cornelius Marsden, but after being thus occupied for about two years he returned to farming in Jefferson county. At this crisis in his life he married Miss Rosetta, danghter of William H. Per- lina Hensley, one of the county's pioneers. The seven children of this marriage were Claude T., Nowell W., Edith (Mrs. Henry Thatcher), Daniel Owen (subject), Ada F., Madge and Clayoma (deceased).
Daniel L. Jarvis became one of the lead- ing citizens of his part of the state, his chief business being the condnet of a fine farm of five hundred acres devoted to the raising of thoroughbred stock. He also conducted a large general store at Jarvis, where he was postmaster, a leading Democrat, and an active member of the Baptist church and of the Ancient Order of United Workmen and Modern Woodmen of America, as well as a strong advocate of temperance. He died in 1899, to the general regret and sorrow, the widow still residing at Hematite with her son of this biography.
Daniel Owen Jarvis was born at Jarvis, Missouri, May 3, 1886, and spent his early life on his father's farm there. After com- pleting a common school education he took a course in a St. Louis business college, and then followed the cattle and stock business in Arkansas until 1910. In that year, on ac- count of ill health, Mr. Jarvis returned to Missouri and located at Hematite, Jefferson county, where he purchased the mercantile establishment of C. T. Bird. As proprietor of that business he is pushing it along into a leading establishment of this section of the state. Mr. Jarvis still owns real estate in Arkansas, but has concluded that Southeast- ern Missouri is good enough for him, and will eventually concentrate all his energies and abilities toward the development of his in- terests there. In politics he is a firm Dem- ocrat and is.an enthusiastic fraternalist in all that concerns the work of the Odd Fellows and the Modern Woodmen of America. He is unmarried, residing with his mother and sister.
As to Mr. Jarvis' brothers-Dr. Nowell W. Jarvis is a physician and surgeon at Bloom- dale, Ste. Genevieve county, and Claude T. is a court stenographer in this judicial cir- cuit, residing at DeSoto, Jefferson county.
DAVID BRUCE DEEM, probate judge, Poplar Bluff, Missouri, dates his identity with south- eastern Missouri back to 1880, when he came to Butler county, primarily as a hunter. That winter there were about twenty-five or thirty bears killed in Butler county, and of this number Judge Deem, then a young man of twenty, killed two. It was about twelve miles south of Poplar Bluff where he scored this success. He spent that winter and the next two winters as a hunter in this locality, and he still takes a keen delight in the hunt, his gun being his boon companion for a brief season each year in the early fall and winter, when he visits Mississippi and Louisiana. As recently as 1905 his shot brought down a bear.
Judge Deem was born and reared on a farm; rural life has a fascination for him, and he says it is his desire to spend his last days on a farm. It was in Greene county, Indiana, April 14, 1860, that he was born, only child of Hiram Phillip Deem and wife. His father, a soldier in the Union army, was killed in April, 1862, while a member of the Seventy-first Indiana Volunteer Infantry, at Richmond, Kentucky. Thus orphaned, young Deem was reared by his widowed mother. He attended the common schools, the Normal school at Spencer, Indiana, and had one term in the Indiana State University, all before he was seventeen. From the time he was seventeen until he was twenty he taught school in Indiana, and then, as above stated, he came to Missouri. While spending his early winters here, as already indicated, in the summer time he worked on the railroad, and later was interested in farming. Finally he bought a farm, which he has cleared and drained and now has under cultivation.
Politically he has always been a Repnb- lican, and has always taken an active part in local affairs. In 1894 he was made deputy sheriff of Butler county, a place he filled for a period of four years, two years under John Hogg and two years under John A. Sonders. While acting in thiis capacity he spent his leisure time in the study of law, and in due time was admitted to the bar and has been engaged in general and probate practice. He was first elected probate judge in 1898, for a term of four years; has been re-elected three successive times. and since January, 1911, has been on his fourth term. As showing his standing and popularity in the county, it may be stated that when he was first elected
1129
HISTORY OF SOUTHEAST MISSOURI
the county was strongly Democratic. He was a delegate to numerous Republican county conventions, and had served as a county com- missioner.
Mr. Deem was first married in 1884, to Miss. Dora Wilson, who died in 1893. She left two children, Claude and Roxie, now aged respectively twenty-two and nineteen years. In 1897 he married Miss Josephine Flaherty, of Butler county, by whom he has two chil- dren : Ina, nine years old, and Fanny, six.
Mrs. Deem is a member of the Christian church, which, while not a member, the Judge attends and supports. Fraternally he af- filiates with the M. W. A., K. of P., I. O. O. F. and F. and A. M., in the last named hav- ing membership in the Blue Lodge, Chapter and Council. He is a past noble grand of the I. O. O. F. and past chancellor of the K. of P.
JOHN BURTEN CHASTEEN. The prosperity of Stoddard county depends in large measure on its agricultural element, and one of the representative exponents of the great basic industry is J. B. Chasteen, whose well im- proved and valuable farm is situated about four miles west of Bloomfield. He is a man of good citizenship, interested in the progress of the whole community and doing all in his power to advance the same. He belongs to a family which has long lived in this locality and his birth occurred on the farm adjoining the one he now owns, his birthplace being situated only about half a mile from his present home. The date of his advent upon this mundane sphere was July 14, 1849, and his parents were John and Sarah (White) Chasteen, both natives of Tennessee, where they married. They came to Missouri in 1846 and bought property three miles west of Bloomfield, on the Poplar Bluff road. There the father remained until his demise, which occurred in 1863, at his home, his death being an outcome of the Civil war. The Federal soldiers had captured him and taken him to Bloomfield, where he was kept over night. In the morning he was set free, but was killed while on the road home, being shot when half way from town. The deed was supposed to have been in retaliation for imagined grievances-"bushwhacking." His sons-in-law and relatives were in the Confed- erate army. He left a widow and seven chil- dren, but one son, N. C., being old enough to help. N. C. Chasteen is the present county judge.
John B. was only about fourteen years of age at the time of his father's death. The mother kept her little brood together on the farm, and this able and courageous woman died just about the time the children reached maturity. Soon after the father's taking away the older brother married and found the responsibilities of his own household's support all he could shoulder. The stock and feed had been taken by marauders dur- ing the war and as there was no arguing with necessity young J. B. found it incum- bent upon him to take the head of the family. lIe had only a one-horned steer for his farm- ing operations and later, securing a horse, he worked them separately, doing his cultivat- ing with the steer. hitched single. When harvest time came he had a fine crop and had sufficient extra grain to sell to a retired old soldier. At the age of eighteen years Mr. Chasteen took as his wife Martha Jane Proffer, daughter of Peter Proffer, of the same vicinity. Peter Proffer and his brother Moses were pioneers of the neighborhood and were well known, the family having come from Cape Girardeau before 1846, and both brothers spent the remainder of their lives in Stoddard county, where Martha Jane was born. After the death of his wife Peter Proffer spent his last years at the home of his son-in-law, Mr. Chasteen.
J. B. Chasteen, with a capital of nothing at all at his marriage, set up for housekeep- ing. From his father's estate he received forty acres in the woods, and upon this tract his present home is situated. In those early days he built a log cabin and began the great task of clearing his land, and to make an im- mediate living he worked out by the day. He had but one horse and worked with him for eight years, putting fifteen acres into culti- vation. And after all the work of clearing he got nothing from the heavy timber. He lived in the log cabin for ten years, but even- tually success crowned his well-directed in- dustry and a fine house took the place of the cabin, and most of the forty acres were put into cultivation. In course of time he bought another forty acres, at six dollars an acre, paying about half in cash, with the re- mainder at ten percent interest. He grad- ually bought other stock, including a yoke of oxen, and in a comparatively short time had improved his additional tract and put it into cultivation. He has in later years added to his land from time to time until he owns one hundred and ninety-two acres, his farm be-
1130
HISTORY OF SOUTHEAST MISSOURI
ing one of the best hereabout. His farm is divided into two parts and has two sets of buildings. In the breeding of high grade cattle he has had the greatest success and he is noted for his registered Berkshire hogs. His home is a well-built, attractive abode. In evidence of the success with which he has labored for the improvement of his holdings is the fact that the land he bought for six dollars an acre will now sell for seventy-five. His own concerns have ever been so engross- ing that he has had neither time nor inclina- tion for public office, although he is a loyal Democrat and interested as a voter in public matters. He built his present home twelve years ago, this standing on the site of the old log cabin in which the happy, though hard early years were passed.
Mr. and Mrs. Chasteen are the parents of the following family of children: Edgar, a farmer, who died in February, 1905; Albert, a merchant, residing at Oklahoma City; Aurilla, wife of John Robinson, a merchant at Aid, Missouri; Marzilla, wife of Rev. J. M. King, pastor of the Methodist Episcopal church at Alton, Missouri; Jesse, a farmer engaged in the operation of his father's farm; Addie, wife of Thomas Evans, a farmer of this locality; Mary, an invalid daughter, at home; and Letas, a farmer located in this neighborhood.
Mr. and Mrs. Chasteen are consistent mem- bers of the Methodist Episcopal church, at- tending at Lick Creek Chapel. The former is one of the prominent members and has served as class leader. He enjoys hunting and fishing and intercourse with his fellow men, among whom he enjoys the highest con- fidence and esteem.
JOHN W. GASKIN. As a hunter and trap- per John W. Gaskin, of Hayti, Pemiscot county, has won far more than local fame, every year men of prominence in business, social and political circles coming here to share in his sports, finding him an expert guide and an intelligent and agreeable com- panion on their trips. A native of Illinois, he was born January 4, 1858, in Harrisburg, Saline county.
His father, Roy Gaskin, was born in Saline county, Illinois, March 7, 1833, and died in Pemiscot county, Missouri, August 20, 1910. He served as a Union soldier in the Civil war, and later, in 1872, located at Gayoso, the old county seat of Pemiscot county, and for awhile conducted the ferry at Hay's Land-
ing. He married Emeline Wilford, who was born in Saline county, Illinois, July 8, 1836, and died at Island Number Twenty-one in 1873.
Beginning life as a wage-earner when quite young, John W. Gaskin was for eleven years employed in a grocery, afterwards working for a year in a dry goods establishment and a year in a saloon. In 1872 he came with his father to Hay's Landing, two miles from Gayoso, Missouri, and, though but a boy, carried the mail for his father on horseback. On June 8, 1873, he moved with his father to the mouth of the Obion river, and about 1875, in company with his father, he had the distinction of starting the first horse ferry across the Mississippi at Riley's Landing, just south of Cairo. Three years later Mr. Gaskin opened a ferry at Cottonwood Point, on the Tennessee side, and remained there until 1882, in the meantime he and his father furnishing two thousand dollars worth of pil- ing for the jetty works at Plum Point, cut- ting all of the piles themselves.
From 1882 until 1891 Mr. Gaskin lived in Illinois, being employed as a clerk in either a grocery or a dry goods establishment. Com- ing from there to Pemiscot county, he worked two years for A. J. Dorris, a dry goods mer- chant at Gayoso. Being a keen sportsman, especially fond of hunting, Mr. Gaskin gave up his position with Mr. Dorris and went to Florida. Buying a sailing vessel, he sailed to Key West, thence to the Thousand Islands, and up through the Miami and Florida rivers, for seven months being engaged in shooting cranes for their plumage, which was worth one hundred and forty dollars a pound. Returning to Pemiscot county, Missouri, Mr. Gaskin walked into Hayti penniless, having to borrow ten cents to meet his needed ex- penses. On the small sum of a dime he opened a saloon, and met with such success in his subsequent operations that he was soon out of debt, and built and paid for a house costing four thousand five hundred dollars. He has now a yearly income of one thousand two hundred dollars from his property, and is in most comfortable circumstances. Mr. Gaskin still retains his former love of the chase, and keeps at his kennels eleven deer dogs, four of which are "cold trailers," and worth over one hundred dollars apiece. He also owns thirty acres of land, on which his hunting outfit is established.
Mr. Gaskin has been twice married. He married first Sallie Garrison, of Illinois, who
1131
HISTORY OF SOUTHEAST MISSOURI
died in early womanhood. He married for his second wife, January 4, 1903, Hattie Hudgins, who was born January 25, 1878, and they have one son, Wilsie H. Gas- kin, and an adopted daughter, Ruby J. Gas- kin. A stanch Democrat in his affiliations, Mr. Gaskin is quite influential in political circles, and in fraternal circles he is a mem- ber of the Woodmen of the World.
DEWITT CLINTON LANGLEY. It is always pleasing to the biographist or student of human nature to enter into an analysis of the character and career of a successful tiller of the soil. Of the many citizens gaining their own livelihood, he alone stands pre-emin- ent as a totally independent factor, in short "Monarch of all he surveys." His rugged honesty and sterling worth are the outcome of a close association with nature and in all the relations of life he manifests that gener- ous hospitality and kindly human sympathy which beget comradeship and which cement to him the friendship of all with whom he comes in contact. Successfully engaged in diversified agriculture and the raising of high-grade stock, Mr. D. C. Langley is de- cidedly a prominent and popular citizen in Richland township, Stoddard county, Mis- souri. He is the owner of some seven hun- dred acres of most arable land in the vicinity of Essex, and as a land baron is a man of marked prominence and influence in this progressive section of the state.
De Witt C. Langley was born in Hardin county, Kentucky, the date of his nativity being the 27th of July, 1850. His parents, whose names were Randall Harrison and Elizabeth (Calvin) Langley, were likewise natives of the fine old Blue Grass state, the founder of the family in Kentucky having been the grandfather of him to whom this sketch is dedicated, he having been a native of Maryland. The father was identified with the great basic industry of agriculture dur- ing the major portion of his active career and while he died in Missouri, at the home of his son DeWitt C., he passed practically his entire life in Kentucky. He was sum- moned to eternal rest February 17, in the year 1902, aged eighty-two years, and his cherished and devoted wife passed away in 1870, aged thirty-eight years. Mr. Langley, of this notice, was reared to the age of twen- ty-one years on his father's farm, in the work and management of which he early be- came an important factor. In 1871 he
traveled through Kansas, Nebraska and Cali- fornia, looking for a good place to locate, and finally he established his home in South- eastern Missouri. This was in 1879 and for the ensuing sixteen years he farmed on rented ground. He purchased his present farm in 1885, which then consisted of three hundred and twenty acres, for fifteen hun- dred dollars locating on the same in 1895. With the passage of time he has continued to add to his original acreage until he is now the owner of an estate of seven hundred acres. He purchased eighty acres, at five dollars an acre, forty acres at three dollars and a half an acre, sixty at three and a half dollars, this making five hundred acres. In 1909 he bought one hundred and twenty-five acres, for which he paid fifty dollars an acre, and in 1910 he paid one hundred and fifty dollars an acre for a tract of fifteen acres, the latter being located in the close vicinity of Essex. His present home farm consists of five hundred and sixty acres and it is eligibly located some two miles south of Essex. Since then he has bought property at Frisco, con- sisting of a residence, blacksmith shop and restaurant. When he first settled on this estate two hundred acres were cleared; now it is all fenced and nearly all under cultiva- tion. He grows corn, wheat and cotton, the last crop being one of four or five years' cul- tivation and covering a tract of sixty or seventy acres. Cotton is grown largely by his tenants on shares and it has proved to be a most profitable crop, showing up from five to eight dollars per acre. In addition to general farming he has also been deeply in- terested in the raising of thoroughbred stock, doing all in his power to introduce and en- courage the best breeds. Mr. Langley was the first man to secure a petition for a good drainage system in this section and the result of this move has been to practically double the cultivable acreage in Southern Missouri. He has some five or six sets of modern and well equipped buildings on his farm and to- gether with his sons runs the entire place. When he first made his home here the roads were simply blocked out. Now they are in fine shape and the general atmosphere of thrift which pervades this place is amply in- dicative of the ability of the practical and industrious owner. Clover has proved a valuable crop on some of his land and cow peas have also been found profitable.
In the year 1871, in Hardin county, Ken- tucky, was solemnized the marriage of Mr.
1132
HISTORY OF SOUTHEAST MISSOURI
Langley to Miss Ellie F. Thurston, who was born and reared in Hardin county. Mr. and Mrs. Langley have two children of their own and one adopted son. Randall Greenfield, whose birth occurred on the 19th of May, 1873, married Miss Sarah Taylor and he operates a portion of his father's fine estate. Emory Lambert is a railroad conductor at Cristobal, Panama, being in the employ of the Panama Railroad Company. He passed seven years in the Philippines, was in China for two years and has visited nearly all the big countries in the world. Elijah Langley was reared by Mr. and Mrs. Langley from four years of age, was reared with the same care and tenderness as the Langley boys, and he is now engaged in operating his farm of eighty acres just southwest of Frisco. He married Alma LaRue and they have one son, John William Clinton Langley, an infant.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.