USA > Missouri > Pike County > The history of Pike County, Missouri : an encyclopedia of useful information, and a compendium of actual facts > Part 8
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spring of 1869. He then located at Clarksville, and with the exception of about cleven months absence at Leadville, Colorado, in 1879 and 1880, he has been in constant practice there. October 18, 1870, he married Miss Allie, daughter of Capt. Fleming Calvert of Clarksville; they have one child, Charles Fleming. Himself and wife are members of the Cumber- land Presbyterian Church, of which he has been a ruling elder for four years. He is a Master Mason and member of Clarksville Lodge No. 17, A. F. & A. M., and is past master of his lodge.
Joseph M. Pepper. This gentleman is a native of Pike county, born October 30, 1853. His father, Joseph S. Pepper, was born in Kentucky and immigrated to Missouri with his father in 1818. The grandfather of the subject of our sketch was Samuel Pepper: he immigrated to Missouri at an early day, and purchased a large tract of land some three and a half miles from Clarksville, on which he made his permanent home until the time of his death in 1874. The father of our subject was married to Andra R. Mackey, daughter of Joseph Mackey, Esq. She died in 1857, and her hus- band soon followed her to the goodly land, he dying in 1859. They left two sons, one of whom died, leaving Joseph M. the only survivor. Mr. Pep- per was reared and educated on a farm. He attained his education at Lon- isiana and Fulton. After completing his education he engaged in farming and now has one of the best farms in the neighborhood; three hundred and sixteen acres in cultivation, all well adapted to the growing of grain, as well as blue-grass. Mr. Pepper has fine improvements on his farm; his resi- dence is a large two-story frame house, supplied with every convenience for making a home comfortable. Ile has a splendid barn, supplemented with all the necessary accessories for making farming profitable and pleasant. Mr. Pepper was married December 18, 1878, to Miss Gussie B. Starke, daughter of Washington Starke, of Pettiscounty. They have three children, two boys and a girl, Thomas J. W., Joseph L. S., and Mattic.
· Caleb Weldon Pharr, M. D., was born on a farm five miles southeast of Bowling Green, Pike county, Missouri, September 22, 1823. He is the son of Samuel and Margaret (Gourley) Pharr, natives of Tennessee, who came to Missouri from Kentucky in 1819, and settled in Pike county, where our subject was born. He was raised at his birthplace, and educated in the common schools, and by attending the Marion College in Marion county, Missouri. In 1846 he began reading medicine in the office of Dr. M. H. McFarland of Louisville, Missouri, and was under his preceptorship until his graduation as M. D., in the spring of 1851, from the St. Louis Med- ical Department of the Missouri State University, now the Medical Col-
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lege of St. Louis. He began his practice in this county in the vicinity of Clarksville and practiced one year before he graduated. After graduating he practiced at Boonsborongh, Missouri, until May, 1852, when he became associated with his preceptor, Dr. McFarland, at Louisville, with whom he practiced until the spring of 1858, when he located at Ashley, where he practiced up to 1865, and then removed Clarksville, where he has been in constant practice ever since. In 1880 his son William A. became associated with him in the firm name of Drs. Pharr & Pharr. With his ined- ical practice he is also engaged in manufacturing and dealing in barrels, boxes, staves, hoops, and lumber, being associated with L. W. Haywood in the firm of Haywood & Co. December 5, 1832, he was married to Nancy Ellen, daughter of Caleb McFarland. Esq., of Lincoln county, Mis- sonri. They have five children, Marens Henry, William Arthur, Maggie Banham, James R., of Colorado, and Nellie V., attending the Chadwick Col- lege at Quiney, Illinois. He is a Master and Royal Arch Mason.
William Arthur Pharr, M. D., Clarksville, was born in Louisville, Mis- sonri, November 5, 1855. Ile is the son of Dr. Caleb W. and N. Ellen, (nee McFarland) Pharr. When he was abont three years old his parents removed to Ashley, Pike county, where he lived with them until ten years old; he them removed with thein to Clarksville, where he lived until man- hood. He was educated by attending the Goodman & Reid Academy of Clarksville, until 1872, when he began the study of medicine in his father's office, with whom he studied until March 1877, when after taking three courses of lectures he graduated as M. D., from the St. Louis Medical Col- lege at St. Louis, Missouri, and after passing a competitive examination, he was appointed an assistant physician and surgeon in the female hospital of St. Louis, a position which he filled with honor until May 1879, when he was placed in charge of the St. Louis poor-house and insane asylum, where he remained until Angust 1880, when he resigned the position and returned to Clarksville and became associated with his father in the prac- tice of medicine. November 1880, he was appointed surgeon by the K. & St. L. R. R. Co., and filled the position up to June 1882. He is a member of Anchor Lodge No. 60, K. of P., Lonisiana City.
Lewis M. Price, druggist. Among the prominent business men who have largely constituted the material commercial interest of Clarksville, may be mentioned Mr. Price, who, upon a small capital, a few years since commenced his career in the commercial circle, leaving the shoemaker's bench and embarking in the drug trade amid strong competition, prosecut- ing his business with a zeal seldom met with, and to-day stands at the head
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as the leading druggist of his town. Mr. Price is a native of Pike county, and was born on the 16th day of October, 1840, in the town of Ashley. Mr. Price's father, Thomas Price, was a native of England, and when about twenty five years of age came to the United States. Coming to Missouri he settled in the town of Ashley, where he was married to Rosana Laird. Later in life Thomas Trice had determined on visiting his native country, and the vessel on which he took passage went down, and from it no tidings were received. The mother of our subject died when he was quite young. Thus he was carly in life thrown upon his own resources, but being possessed of executive ability, coupled with a determined will to succeed, he has sur- mounted every difficulty; besides having a large and growing trade, with his kind and affable ways he has won him many friends. In 1864 Mr. Price was united in marriage with Miss Maggie V., daughter of Rev. M. M. Tucker, of Frankford, this county. From this union they have had five children. three girls and two boys. Mr. Price is a prominent Mason of Lodge No. 117, and a consistent member of the C. P. Church.
William Caswell Prewitt. This gentleman, for many years a citizen of Pike county, is a native of Fayette county, Kentucky, where he was born on the 29th of October, 1808. His father was Vaul Allen Prewitt and his mother's maiden name was Mildred Ellis. Both his grandfathers, Robert Prewitt and Capt. William Ellis, were natives of Virginia, and both had been soldiers in the War of the Revolution and had fought to secure the in- dependence of the American Colonies. In 1795, some years after peace had been proclaimed between Great Britain and the United States, and when we were no longer a dependency of England bnt a free and independent people, they left Virginia and removed with their families to the state of Kentucky and settled in Fayette county where they continued to reside during the re- mainder of their lives. The subject of our sketch, having before lost his parents, emigrated to Missouri in October, 1829, when he was but twenty- one years of age, and invested his limited means in land in Lincoln county and near the town of Anburn, where he continued to reside for ten years, devoting himself to farming and the constant improvement of his property. At this time he sold his farm for what was then regarded as a very high price, and bought a small tract of land two miles south of Clarksville in Pike county. To this place he moved in 1839 and commenced, as before, to im- prove his land and to better his surroundings. Here he still resides. but the little tract has grown into an immense farm and the sinall cabin into a palatial residence. Mr. Prewitt was engaged in the mercantile business in the town of Clarksville from 1840 till 1843 when he sold out his business
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and again addressed himself to the duties of the farm. In March, 1845, le was married to Martha C. Prewitt, daughter of Robert C. Prewitt of Lin- coln county. At this time Mr. Prewitt was in the thirty-seventh year of his age, and had been a housekeeper fifteen years, while his wife was almost a girl, being at the time of her marriage a little less than seventeen years of age. To these parties five children have been born, of whom only one, William C. Prewitt, Jr., survives. The father of Mr. Prewitt, and also his wife's father, who were brothers, were Kentucky volunteers in the War of 1812 and served in the army of the northwest under General Harrison. The former, Vaul Allen Prewitt, was adjutant of Colonel Dudley's Regi- ment and was captured at Dudley's defeat near Fort Meigs on the Maumee River, and after being stripped by the Indians of all his clothing except his pants and shirt, was thrust with some five hundred others into the famous Bull-pen where they received much severe treatment, until the interference of Tecumseh put a stop to the cruelty of the savages. Robert C. Prewitt had been captured, before his brother, at the River Raisin. IIe entered the army before he was eighteen years of age and claimed that on account of the difficulty of getting supplies to the army he suffered more from hunger than from all other canses. William C. Prewitt, our subject, has long been actively engaged in successful farining, while the profits arising from his business have been cautiously and safely loaned, until at this time the accu- mulations have been such that he is known to be the wealthiest citizen of Pike county. To his honor be it said that no man who knows him could be induced to believe that he has ever made a dollar by any other than the most honorable means, and that he would seorn to take advantage of either a man's ignorance or necessities in order to gain for himself any pecuniary advantage. Within the last few years Mr. Prewitt has made very consider- able investments in real estate in the state of Colorado, where he spent sev- eral years with his sick daughter, Mrs. Mattie C. Gentry, wife of R. T. Gentry, who died in September, 1881, at the homestead in Pike county, Missouri. Mr. Prewitt, while he has been generally successful, and has succeeded in amassing a fortune largely in excess of that of a majority of the most successful business men even in the money centers of the country, has also, in various ways, during a long and active business career, sustained losses that aggregate a large sum of money. But losses can no more de- press him than the constant accumulation of wealth can make him either selfish or vain. Under all circumstances he is the same cheerful, urbane, and dignified Christian gentleman. He is hospitable alike to the rich and the poor, while his generosity is exhibited in the quiet and unostentatious
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manner in which he contributes to all charities and especially to the neces- sities of the poor and the unfortunate.
Michael Jacob Reinheimer, merchant of Clarksville, was born at Tha- leischweiler, Rheinpfalz, Germany, April 3, 1848, where he was raised. Ile was educated in his native city and at Forbach, France. His father, Jacob Reinheimer, being a dealer in hides, furs, and leather he was brought up to that business, and began to travel for him as a salesman at the age of seven- teen, and was so employed until he was twenty-two, when, in 1870, he iunni- grated to the United States. He located first at Louisiana, Missouri, where he was employed as a elerk in the store of Lesem Brothers for seven months, when he went to Delaware, Illinois, where he clerked in the store of his brother, S. M. Reinheimer & Co., for four years, when, in the latter part of 1874, he went to New York City. where he was employed as a traveling salesman for the wholesale house of Moses & Meyers, manufacturers and importers of optical goods one year, when, in October, 1875. he went to Clarksville and established his present business. Mr. Reinheimer had to depend upon his own resources to gain a business footing. He began his life with nothing, but by due diligence and persevering industry and econ- omy he has succeeded in building up a good business reputation at Clarks- ville, and has a paying trade. December 13, 1882, he was joined in wed- lock with Miss Mollie Hainsfurther, of Petersburgh, Illinois. Being a He- brew by birth he holds to that faith, but is not a member of any congrega- tion, but is a member of Riverside Lodge No. 285, I. O. B. B., a Hebrew society of Louisiana, Missouri, of which he is a charter member. He is also a Master and Royal Arch Mason, and a member of Clarksville Lodge No. 17, and of Grossman Chapter No. 156, Delaware, Illinois, and has served as secretary of his lodge several years.
John A. Renean. stock dealer, post-office Clarksville. This gentleman is a native of Tennessee, born in Hawkins county, in the township of Rog- ersville, October 15, 1847. He was raised on a farm. His father, Charles M. Renean, was also a native of Tennessee, and was a blacksmith by voca- tion. He immigrated to Missouri in 1852, settling in Clarksville, where he remained until his death in January, 1873. His mother is still living, and is making her home with the subject of our sketch. Mr. Renean, when grown, engaged in farming and trading in stock. In 1874 he was elected constable, serving four years, and at the same time filled the office of dep- uty sheriff. At the expiration of his term of office he resumed tlie stock business, dealing largely in cattle and hogs, shipping to St. Louis mostly, and supplying the butchers trading in this part of the county. Ile was
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married April 9th, 1878, to Miss Alice C. Lyter, daughter of Alex. Lyter, of this county. They have two children. He is a Mason, being a member of Lodge No. 17.
William F. Richardson, M. D .. was born at Quiney, Illinois, February 19, 1839, where he was raised and educated; his parents both dying before he was fifteen, he was thrown upon his own resources and had to maintain and educate himself. In 1866 he began the study of medicine in the office of Drs. Vance & Torance of Quincy Illinois; he studied with them until 1869 when he took two courses of lectures in the American Medical College of St. Louis; he then began to practice, at Barry, Illinois, with one of his preceptors, Dr. C. II. Vance, and practiced there and at Louisiana up to 1874, when he took his third course at the American Medical College and graduated as M. D., in the spring of 1875. He then located at Clarksville, where he has practiced ever since. In 1864 he married Elva H. Ferry, of Quiney, Illinois.
Michael Rickard. Mr. Rickard is a native of County Mead, Ireland. He was born October 1, 1825. He is the son of Edward and Marcella Sew- ard Rickard, both natives of County Mead. They both died there; Mrs. Rickard in 1837, and Mr. Rickard in 1852. Michael Rickard came to America in 1846. He landed in New York and stayed there three months. He then went to Morris county, New Jersey, where he remained for seven years engaged in the iron mines there. He then moved to Ilndson City, New York, where he lived ten years. Ile was a street contractor a part of the time, and a part of the time inspector of the Bergen tunnel which was built by the New York & Erie. Railroad. In 1863 he went to New Bruns- wick in the employ of the Campabella Mining Company of New York to take charge of the copper and lead mines of the company there. He re- mained there five years, and then came to Clarksville, and has made this his home ever since. He was married, in 1850, to Miss Elizabeth Cronin. They were married in New Jersey. Mrs. Rickard is a native of County Cork, Ireland, and the daughter of William and Mary Cronin. By this union they had two children, John and Auna. Mrs. Rickard died in 1853. Mr. Rickard married his present wife in 1857. She was Miss Bridget Ros- common, daughter of James and Margaret Riley Roscommon. They came to this country in 1852 from County Roscommon, Ireland. There are five children, two, Mary and Katie, now living, and three, Maggie, Josephine, and an infant not named, dead. John is living in New York, Annie is the wife of William B. Warmsby, of Pike county. Mary and Katie are still at home. Mr. Rickard is a stone mason by trade but a large part of his life
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has been spent in public and mining enterprises. He and his family are members of the Roman Catholic Church. They belong to the Clarksville congregation. Mr. Rickard is also a member of the Independent Order of Good Templars.
Jolin O. Roberts, Clarksville. This sketch outlines the life of a gentle- man who has for almost half a century been a citizen of Pike, and who has had business and official connection with many of the most important enter- prises looking to the advancement of the material interests and general prosperity of the county. Mr. Roberts is a native of Virginia, born in Albemarle county, and almost within the shadow of Monticello, the home of Jefferson, on the 9th day of June, 1830. He is the son of Jeremiah Roberts, who emigrated to Missouri in 1835, and settled near Prairieville, where he continued to reside, following the avocation of a farmer until a few years before his death, when he removed to Clarksville and engaged in mercantile pursuits. Mr. Roberts' mother, a lady of wonderful native in- tellect and the most liberal intelectual culture, was Mildred Fagg, a dangh- ter of Major John Fagg, and a sister of the Hon. T. J. C. Fagg of St. Louis, an able lawyer and distinguished jurist, and once a member of the Supreme Court of Missouri. In 1847, when but seventeen years of age, the subject of our sketch removed to Clarksville and began clerking in a house of gen- eral merchandise, where he remained until 1851, when he engaged in steam- boating, running first from St. Lonis'to Keokuk, and for a while clerking on some of the best and fastest steamers plying between St. Louis and New Orleans. Charmed with the constant change of place and the excitement incident to a life on the river, he continued for five years (until 1856) to preside over the offices of some one of the magnificent steamers then traversing our great national water highway Three years previous to his abandonment of the river, Mr. Roberts was united in marriage to Miss Mary Malvina Swain, daughter of Warren Swain, one of the first settlers of this portion of the county and who came on a flatboat much of the distance between his eastern home and this, the then far distant west. In 1856 Mr. Roberts resumed the mer- cantile business, forming a partnership with Capt. B. P. Clifford, a gentle- man of large wealth and great probity of character, in which he eontinned until the year 1862, when he engaged in milling, and is at this time the president of the Imperial Mill Company of Clarksville, where he is and has long been successfully conducting one of the largest interests of the county. Iu 1870, assisted by a few of his fellow townsmen, he organized the Clarks- ville and Western Railroad Company and orignated the plans, by which means for its partial construction, at least, could be raised; chosen its first
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president, he so entirely devoted his energies to the work that the enter- prise, at first regarded as chimerical, assumed, after a time, the aspect of feasibility and finanlly enlminated in the construction of the road whose northern limit is Keokuk, and whose southern terminue is St. Louis. He is also interested in the paper mill at Clarksville, and through the efforts of him- self and his associates the enterprise has proven highly satis factory. Mr. Rob- erts was the clerk of the first board of trustees of the incorporated town; has served long as a member of the common council; was largely identified with the construction of the excellent system of gravel roads to be found in the county, of one of which he is now and has been for nearly twenty-five years secretary, and has persistently sought by all the means in his power to con- tribute to the upbuilding of all the interests, material, social, and moral of the community of which he has so long been a member.
Levi Marion Smith, grocer and commission merchant and steamboat agent, of Clarksville, was born near Bridgeton, St. Louis county, Missouri, November 8, 1825. He is the son of James and Elizabeth (nee Ellis) Smith. When he was five years old his parents removed to near New Hope, Lin- coln county, Missouri, where he lived with them until of age, when he began business for himself as a farmer in the same county, and with farming he. in 1856, built the grist-mill known as Smith's Mill, near Paynesville, Pike county. In 1863 he came to Clarksville and engaged in his present busi- ness. December 28, 1848, he married Miss Narcissa Bradford, daughter of Ira T. Nelson, of New Hope. They have three children, Mary J., wife of John A. Wirick, of Clarksville; James T., of the firm of Smith & Boone, tobacco manufacturers, of Clarksville, and J. D. B. L., at home. Himself and wife are members of the Christian Church of Clarksville. He is a Mas- ter Mason and member of Clarksville Lodge No. 17.
James W. Stark, son of James and Jane (Watt) Stark, was born in Pike county, Missouri, seven miles west of Clarksville. His father and mother were both natives of Bourbon county, Kentucky. They were married there May 5, 1815, and in 1816 they moved to Pike county, Missouri, and settled on the farm where our subject was born. They lived here until the death of Mr. Stark, which was in May, 1873. Mrs. Stark is still living and is in her eighty-sixth year. She lives with her daughter Susan, who is the wife of Isaac Jump, Esq., of Pike county. The children of this family were sixteen in number and all lived to be growu, and all but one mar- ried. The names were Henry; Thomas, Jolin, Eliza, James W., Elizabeth, Mary, William, Sarah, Thornton, Susan, Washington, Margaret, Julia, Jane, and Edward. Heory was drowned in Illinois opposite Clarksville in 1840;
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he was about twenty-five years old. He was out with a fishing party and was taken with cramps and drowned before assistance reached him. Thomas, John, and William died in Pike county; Thornton died at Eureka Springs, Arkansas, where he had gone for his health; Sarah died in California; Jane in Colorado; Washington and Margaret (now Mrs. James Brown), live in Pettis county, Missouri: Edward lives in Colorado; Eliza is the wife of Bos- man Bogyess of Andrain county. The rest all live in Pike county; Eliza- beth is the widow of Lewellyn Carro !!; Mary is the wife of Win. Carroll: Susan is Mrs. Wilson. James W. Stark was married December 15, 1842, to Miss Catharine B. Schooler. She was born in Kentucky and came to Pike connty with her parents in 1828, when she was only five years old. They have had three children, Nancy Margaret, Sarah Elizabeth, and William Henry. Nancy M. is the wife of Capt. Abijah Johns of Clarksville. They have one child, Harry S. Sarah Elizabeth died January 19, 1880. William Henry is living on the farm where his father was born. He married Miss Margaret M. Elgin of Pike county. They have four children living, George N., William D., Beulah C., and Ira O., and two dead, Leona and James Fran- cis. Mr. Stark has been farming all his life until 1876, when he moved to Clarksville and he now devotes his time to managing his property in Clarksville and his farms in the country adjoining.
John Henry Story, M. D., was born near Murraysville, Illinois, January 22, 1851, where he was raised. He is the second son of Parish M. and Eliz- abeth (Emerson) Story, with whom he lived until manhood. He was edu- cated at Illinois College at Jacksonville, Illinois. In 1873 he began the study of medicine in the office of Drs. Long & Long. He was under their pre- ceptorship until January, 1877, when after taking two courses of lectures he gradnated as M. D. from the Eclectic Medical Institute at Cincinnati, Ohio; and in March of that year he located at Clarksville, where he has built up a good practice. November 11, 1850, he married Miss Mattie A. Goodman, of Pike county: he is a member of Clarksville Lodge No. 5S, I. O. O. F., and of Calunet Lodge No. 1968, K. of H., of Clarksville. He is medical examiner of the latter.
John A. Wirick, manager of the Clarksville Vinegar Works, and former president of the paper mill. Mr. Wirick is a native of Pennsylvania, and was born in Adams county in the month of October, 1543. He came to Missouri in the spring of 1866, and to Clarksville in the fall of 1869, im- mediately connecting himself with the Missouri Vinegar Manufacturing Works, which under his management has grown to be one of the largest establishments of the kind in the state, and an enterprise of which the eiti-
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