Ohio County
Biographies
I
found these biographies online and was able to download them. These were found in a five-volume set, of which the first two volumes are general history and the last three volumes are biographies. These biographies were new to
me and I hope they will be helpful to someone.
Source:
History
of Kentucky, Vol. 3
By: William
Elsey Connelley and E. M. Coulter
Published
1922 by The American Historical Society
ERNEST BENTLEY ANDERSON for more than a
quarter of a century has been an active member of the Owensboro bar, with
practice and other associations that make his
name widely known over this section of Kentucky. He is a son of the veteran
Owensboro merchant, Samuel Walter Anderson, whose interesting career has been
reviewed on other pages. Ernest B. Anderson was born at the home of his parents
at Ceralvo, Ohio County, Kentucky, September 16, 1868. When he was about ten years
of age his parents located at Hartford, where he continued attending public
schools. In 1885, after a competitive examination, he was appointed a cadet at the
United States Naval Academy at Annapolis, and received the thorough training
accorded the naval cadets in that famous institution. He graduated in 1889, and
for one year was in active service in the navy as a midshipman. He then
resigned to begin the study of law in the University of Virginia, where he
graduated in 1893, and in the same year was admitted to the bar at Owensboro,
where he has earned many gratifying successes in his profession. He has always
devoted his time to his profession, with no political side issues, though he is
classified as a democrat. In July, 1889, he married Edith May Smith, of Ludlow, Massachusetts.
They have two children, John Bentley and Mary Dimmick Anderson. Mr. and Mrs. Anderson
are members of the First Baptist Church of Owensboro.
SAMUEL ARETUS ANDERSON is a product of
western Kentucky. He had the experience of a farmer boy, became a printer and
newspaper publisher, achieved success in politics as a republican in a
democratic stronghold, studied law and since 1910 has been one of the valued
and successful members of the Louisville bar. Mr. Anderson was born at Whitesville, Daviess County,
Kentucky, January 29, 1872. In that community on
April 12, 1848, there was born to the Anderson family a son, R. A. Anderson,
and to the Hayes family a daughter, Sophronia C, and nearly twenty years later these
two linked their lives in marriage on February 27, 1868. R. A. Anderson
acquired a public school education
in his native county, and in 1862, when only fourteen years of age, enlisted in
the Third Kentucky Cavalry and played a gallant part as a boy soldier of the
Union. He was wounded while in the army and was honorably discharged at the
close of the war at Louisville.
The remainder of his life was spent in the industrious and honorable pursuit of
farming. He did general farming, but was a great lover of fine saddle horses.
R. A. Anderson, who died in August, 1919, was for a number of years commander
of the G. A. R. Post at Hartford, Kentucky, and was a member of the Christian
Church. In politics he was aligned with the democrats until 1899, and after
that with the republican party. His wife died February 16, 1914, and of their
nine children eight are still living, Samuel Aretus being the third in age. S.
A. Anderson was born on his father's farm near Whites-ville in Daviess County,
but after 1879 lived with his parents on their farm in Ohio County. He attended
public schools, and at the age of sixteen began to work for the Hartford
Republican as a printer. He was a printer in the offices of the Hartford Republican and Hartford Herald for five years,
and at the age of twenty-one came to the responsibilities and dignity of the
ownership of the Hartford Republican, of which he was publisher and editor for
a number of years. In the midst of his journalistic career came his first notable
triumph in politics. In 1897 he was nominated by the republicans of Ohio County
as candidate for clerk of the Circuit Court. His election was in the nature of
a personal triumph, since he was the first republican circuit clerk ever
elected in Ohio County. He filled the office one term, and while in office he passed
the bar examination, and on leaving the courthouse began practice at Hartford.
Mr. Anderson was engaged in practice there until December, 1910, when he
removed to Louisville, and for the past ten years has maintained his offices in
the Marion E. Taylor Building. Along with a busy professional clientage he has
always maintained a great interest in politics. He was republican nominee for
judge of the Jefferson Circuit Court, Criminal Division, in 1915, but was
defeated with other republican aspirants of that year. During 1918-19 he served
as a member of the Louisville City Council. Mr. Anderson is a member of the Methodist
Church, and fraternally is affiliated with the Elks, Knights of Pythias and
Maccabees. On
September 19, 1894, he married Miss Elva M. Morton, oldest daughter of the late
Judge John P. Morton, who for a number of years filled the post of county judge
of Ohio County. The three children of Mr. and Mrs. Anderson are Mary Louise,
wife of Gilbert Watkins; Capt. Samuel A. Anderson, Jr., who gained his title in
the football world; and Helen Morton Anderson, attending the Girls' High School
at Louisville.
CHARLES HENRY ELLIS. It is perfectly safe to make the statement
that no man can become a leading factor in any line and win such appreciation
from his fellow citizens as to be rewarded with high local office unless he has
deserved such preferment. Occasion-ally men do have honors conferred upon them
to which they are not entitled, but it is not long before they are found out
and they fall back to their real position among their associates. Were there no
material rewards attending upon the proper performance of duty and an uprightness
of living, the self respect a man earns by such a course is sufficient to raise
him above the level of a time-serving servant, and mark him for what he is.
Charles Henry Ellis, president of the Bank of Sturgis, president of the
Kentucky Bankers Association, and for four years mayor of Sturgis, is easily one
of the most deserving and successful of the citizens of Union County, and one
to whom all the above praise should be applied. Charles Henry Ellis was born in
Ohio County, Kentucky, near
Hartford, July 27, 18 73, a son of Alexander C. and Mary (Stevens) Ellis, both
of whom were born in Kentucky. The Ellis family is of Virginia stock, but Joel
Ellis, the grandfather, was born in Kentucky, and this state also gave birth to
the grandfather Stevens, although his ancestors came from Maryland. Alexander C.
Ellis was a farmer and tobacconist of Ohio County, and Charles H. Ellis was
reared on the homestead and was
early taught to make himself useful to his parents. After attending the rural
schools he became a student of Centre College, from which he was graduated, and
then for nine years was occupied with teaching school. Entering the banking
business he was cashier of the Citizens Bank at Calhoun, Kentucky, for one
year, and then occupied a similar position for three years with the Morganfield
National Bank of Morganfield, both of which
he assisted in organizing. In 1908 he came to Sturgis as cashier of the Bank of
Sturgis, and continued in that office until 1920, when he was elected its
president. In September, 1920, he was further honored by his fellow bankers of
the state, who made him the chief executive of their organization. In politics
a democrat, he has always been active in his party and popular with the masses,
and was once elected mayor of Sturgis. He is a Master Mason, and belongs to the
Christian Church. In 1902 Mr. Ellis was united in marriage with Miss Corinne
Landrum, and they have three daughters. Having had such a long experience as a
banker, Mr. Ellis is well qualified to judge wisely with reference to men and
their motives, and many times renders very valuable services in advising with
reference to prospective investments and expansion of existing business
concerns. His interest in his home community is unquestioned, and he is one of
the leaders in all wholesome movements designed to improve existing conditions
and raise the general standards of the people.
ROBERT LEE FORD, M. D. The community of Livermore in McLean County has
been fortunate in having available the services of such a progressive physician
and surgeon as Doctor Ford. He is a man of real attainment in his profession,
has fortified his individual experience by keeping in touch with the great progress
made in the medical and surgical world, and his standing among local physicians
is indicated by the fact that he is president of the McLean County Medical
Society. Doctor Ford was born in South Carrollton, Muhlenberg County, Kentucky,
June 6, 1863, son of Manalcus C. and Maria (Sawyer) Ford. His mother, who is
still living, in her ninetieth year, was born in Tennessee and reared in
Illinois. Manalcus Ford was born and reared in Kentucky, a son of William Ford,
who represented an old Maryland family. Doctor Ford's parents were married in
Kentucky and eventually settled in Ohio County, this state, where Doctor Ford
was reared at Centertown. He attained his early education in the schools of
that village, but went to St. Louis to acquire his medical education. He
graduated in 1899 from the Barnes Medical College of that city, but previously,
in 1888, had received a certificate from the state board and practiced as an
undergraduate at Centertown. For ten years his home was on a farm near
Hartford, and he combined farming with looking after a country practice. Since
1901 he has been at Livermore engaged in a general practice, recognized for his
special abilities in surgery. He took two post-graduate courses in the Chicago
Polyclinic and also two courses in the Mayo Brothers Institute at Rochester,
Minnesota. Doctor Ford is a member of the State and American associations, is a
democrat and a Master Mason. In 1890 he married Miss Nora Bennett.
WILLIAM L. GRADDY, whose acuteness,
foresight, tact and tenacity of purpose have made him one of the most
successful business men of Utica, belongs to the class of men who have had to
work their own way to prosperity and position. His present general mercantile business
represents the result of years of honorable and painstaking endeavor, and his
status as a leading citizen has been gained through his constructive and
public-spirited support of movements which his intuition has told him would be
beneficial to his community. Mr. Graddy was born in Ohio County, Kentucky, December
30, 1867, a son of Whitfield and Catherine (Brown) Graddy. His parents were
also natives of Ohio County, where the father followed the vocation of
agriculture, and both were highly esteemed in their locality. The boyhood of
William L. Graddy was passed on the home place, and he remained under the parental
roof until he was twenty-one years of age, aiding
his father in the various duties pertaining to the operation of the paternal
acres. In the meantime he acquired an ordinary education in the district school
in the neighborhood of the place of his birth, and when he had reached his
majority broke home ties and started out in earnest to pursue a career of his
own. He at that time had no resources of a financial
nature, and was forced naturally to accept such honorable employment as came his
way. As a result, for several years he was variously employed, on farms and
otherwise, and his first mercantile experience was gained as a clerk in a
general store at Livia,
Kentucky. Here he remained three years, during which time he practiced the most
rigid economy, and then, having saved a few hundred dollars and gained a fairly
good idea of mercantile conditions, determined to embark in business on his own
account. He accordingly bought a small stock of goods and a store at Nuckols,
McLean County, and during a period of thirteen years successfully conducted a
general store there. Not alone was he prosperous in his business endeavors, but
largely through his initiative and example the town of Nuckols grew and
developed immeasurably. In 1907 Mr. Graddy sought a wider field for his operations
and accordingly disposed of his interests at Nuckols
and came to Utica, where he purchased the general store of the Utica Mercantile
Company. He has since merchandised with constantly increased success at Utica,
where he has made his home and where he is highly esteemed both as a business
man and a citizen.
He has forged his own way to success in the business world, and his rules of
life have included diligence, industry and fair dealing. He has never aspired
to political honors, preferring to devote his time entirely to his business
affairs, yet he has taken a
live interest in politics as a democrat and has manifested a commendable public-spiritedness
as a citizen. In church faith he is a Baptist, and fraternally he is affiliated
with the Masons. In 1890 Mr. Graddy was united in marriage with Miss Priscilla
Tucker, of McLean County, and to this union there have been born six children,
namely; Iran Clay,
Lottie B., Elsa Lee, Catharine, Elizabeth and William L.
JOE HAYNES MILLER. During the past three decades perhaps no
citizen of McLean County has found his time and abilities harnessed to more
responsibilities of public and professional affairs than Joe Haynes Miller, who
has successively been a teacher, school superintendent, lawyer, public official
and banker. Mr. Miller was born in Ohio County, Kentucky, April 12, 1860, son
of James C. and Frances Y. (Haynes) Miller, the former a native of Daviess
County and the latter of Ohio County. James C. Miller spent his active
life on a farm in Daviess County, and was the father of five children. Joe
Haynes Miller grew up in a rural district, and had the duties of a farm
household as a familiar part of
his early environment and training. He attended common schools, the West
Kentucky College at South Carrollton, and was in the schoolroom as a teacher for
five years. He studied law under Judge William B. Noe at Calhoun, and was
admitted to the bar in January,
1887. In the previous year he had been elected county superintendent of
schools, and gave his time to that office for four years, but in the meantime
had handled his first cases of private practice and in 1890 was elected county
attorney, filling that post four years. Since then he has been engaged in an
extensive general practice. In 1903 he organized the Citizens Deposit Bank of
Calhoun, and as president has guided that institution
through a period of seventeen successful years. Mr. Miller is a democrat, a
Master Mason, and a member of the Baptist Church. In 1888 he married at Calhoun
Miss Lizzie Shutt. Their only daughter, Leura H., is now Mrs. W. H. Waller, of
Hopkinsville, Kentucky.
WILLIAM EDMUND RENDER. Livermore,
though one of the smaller towns of Western Kentucky, is a center of
considerable importance industrially as well as agriculturally, and no one institution has done more to add
to this phase of the community's prosperity than the Livermore Chair Company.
This company was incorporated in 1911, and the following year its factory began
operations. It has been a steadily sustained industry, manufacturing large
quantities of chairs distributed and sold throughout the Middle West. The
president of the company is K. J. Meyer, while the general manager of the
factory and business from the beginning has been W. E. Render. Mr.
Render, a live and energetic business man, was born in Ohio County, Kentucky,
July 24, 1880. His parents, William P. and Mary (Tichenor) Render, were also
born in Ohio County, where his father for many years has been substantially
identified with farming. W. E.
Render grew up on a farm, had a common school education, and for several years
busied himself with helping raise crops. Leaving home at the age of twenty-three
he came to Livermore and for nine years was cashier of the Bank of Livermore.
While with that institution he took an active part in the organization of the
Livermore Chair Company, and at once assumed the supervision of its factory. Mr.
Render is a republican in politics, a Knight Templar Mason and a member of the
Missionary Baptist Church. In 1913 he married Miss Myrtle Johnson, daughter of
W. A. Johnson, of Livermore. They have one son, Gerald.
JACOB EDWIN ROWE. No member of the
Kentucky bar is generally acknowledged to have a more ready and sound judgment
in broad and intricate matters of civil and criminal jurisprudence than Jacob
Edwin Rowe, of Hawesville. His knowledge of the law is remarkable, both for its
comprehensiveness and accuracy, and in its application he is earnest, concise, logical
and forceful, which accounts in large measure for the high and substantial
nature of his professional standing, and has led his fellow citizens to elect
him to
offices of importance. Jacob Edwin Rowe was born on a farm in Ohio County,
Kentucky, August 19, 1857, a son of John P. and Ursula Rebecca (Ingleheart)
Rowe and of patriotic Revolutionary stock. He is a grandson of Robert and Nancy
(Ross) Rowe, natives of Kentucky, and Jacob Ingleheart. The last named was a
Baptist minister, ex-tensive farmer and miller, who was also a native of Ohio
County, Kentucky, whose forefathers came from Maryland, having immigrated there
from Holland and France as Huguenots. The mother, through her maternal
ancestors, traces her lineage back to the famous
families of Humphreys and Marshals. John
P. and Ursula Rebecca Rowe had four children, as follows: Richard Perry, who
was the eldest; James Albert, who died in 1892, aged thirty-six years; and
Jacob Edwin and his twin brother, Robert Lewis, who died in infancy. The father
was a farmer, merchant and tobacconist, and lived to be eighty-seven years old.
Growing up in Ohio and McLean counties, Jacob Edwin Rowe attended the common
schools and Bethel College, from which he was graduated in 1877 with the degree
of Bachelor of Science. For the subsequent two years he was engaged in teaching
school, and then began the study of law at Hartford, Kentucky, under Judge E.
Dudley Walker, and was admitted to the bar in McLean County in 1878. He began
the practice of his profession at Hartford, from whence he moved to Owensboro,
having been elected in the fall of 1892 commonwealth attorney for the Sixth Judicial
District, composed of Daviess, Ohio, Hancock and McLean counties. Prior to that
date he had acquired experience in public life as school commissioner of Ohio
Comity, which office he held from 1884 to 1886. After serving for one term of
five years as commonwealth attorney, being the first of the district under the
present constitution, in 1897 he was reelected to the same office and served
another term of six years. At the expiration of that period he resumed his
private practice, continuing at Owensboro until 1917, when he came to
Hawesville, where he has since remained, and he is now enjoying a large and
valuable connection and is regarded as one of the ablest attorneys of this part
of the state. He has always been a democrat. In 1879 Mr. Rowe was united in
marriage with Miss Logan M. Walker, eldest child of Judge E. Dudley Walker, of
Hartford, Ohio County, Kentucky, a lawyer of marked ability and eminent
success, under whom Mr. Rowe read law and with whom he was associated for many
years in the practice. Mr. and Mrs. Rowe have three children, namely: Ella
Walker Rowe, who is the wife of Newton H. Field, of Hawesville; Bessie Ree, who
is the wife of William Dix Morton, of Nortonville, Kentucky; and Edwina, who is
the wife of Frederick William Botts, an attorney of Miami, Florida. In all of
the relations of life Mr. Rowe has been the exemplar of the high principles he
has always held, and he sets an example to his associates in honorable practice
and unfailing resourcefulness.
RICHARD PERRY ROWE. Life presented a busy and strenuous program to
Richard Perry Rowe, and he has accepted the opportunities and adventures
therein with commendable
good spirit, has carried on a good fight against heavy odds at times, and has
made a name for himself as a successful lawyer, farmer and business man. Mr.
Rowe, whose home is in Daviess County, was born in Ohio County, Kentucky, March
16, 1854, and represents an old Kentucky and Virginia family. His earliest
ancestor of whom there is accurate record was George Rowe, a native of Virginia
and of Irish lineage. The next, also named George Rowe, was born in Culpeper County,
Virginia, and came to Kentucky more than a century ago, settling in Ohio County
in 1806. He married Mary Brown. Their son, Robert Rowe, married Nancy Ross, who
were the parents of John Plain Rowe, and grandfather of Richard Perry Rowe. John
Plain Rowe was born in Ohio County in 1830 and
died in Daviess County in 1917, at the advanced age of eighty-seven. He spent
his active years as a farmer, and during the period of the Civil war was a
Union soldier. John Plain Rowe married Rebecca Ursula Igleheart, a native of
Ohio County and daughter of Jacob
Henderson Iglehart, who was of Holland Dutch ancestry. The children born to
their marriage were Richard Perry, James Albert, Jacob, Edwin and Robert, twins,
the last dying in infancy. Richard Perry Rowe grew up on his father's farm in
Ohio County, attended country schools, and for one year was a student in Bethel
College at Russell-ville. He also taught school and later gave his very
constructive influence to local educational affairs in the office of school
commissioner or superintendent of Ohio County
schools. Besides the value of his record in office he earned the distinction of
being the first republican to hold a county office in that county. He also
served seven years as postmaster of Hartford, following which he was a merchant
at Hartford, this portion of his business career being attended with
indifferent success. Following that he entered the timber business, acting as a
broker and buying and selling timber in the valleys of the Cumberland and
Tennessee rivers. Part of the time he lived at Paducah. He then located on a
farm at Island in McLean County, moved to Owensboro in 1915, and in 1916 came
to his present country home south of Owensboro. During his early years Mr. Rowe
gave serious attention to the study of law. Later on, when business reverses occurred,
he was prompted to take up the law as a profession and in 1889 was admitted to
the bar at Paris, Tennessee, and still later was licensed to practice in the
courts of Kentucky. It was a profession in which his knowledge and broad
experience gave him a place
of special advantage, and he retired from practice only as a result of
paralysis of the muscles of the throat, followed by impairment of speech. Mr.
Rowe has always been a stanch republican and while in Ohio County was active in
his party, serving as chairman of the County Central Committee six years. Under
his leadership Ohio County for the first time after the Civil war gave a
republican majority. He is a Baptist, and has always strongly allied himself
with the best interests of the community in which he has lived. The
deepest sorrow of his life assailed him at his country home south of Owensboro
on August 29, 1919, when his wife and the companion of his youth and mature
years passed away. October 11, 1876, forty-three years before her death, he
married Miss Lillian May
Karnes. She was born and reared near Island in McLean County. Mr. and Mrs. Rowe
had three children, Ernest Perry, Eric Judson, and one son, John Mason Rowe,
who died at the age of twelve years. Ernest P. Rowe is now a prominent young
attorney at the
Owensboro bar. The younger son is actively associated with his father on the
farm, and also earned a patriotic record in the United States Navy from
December, 1917, until October, 1919.
PIGMAN TAYLOR, M. D., AND J. H. TAYLOR, M.
D. Some of the most repre-sentative
men and finest characters in this country have found congenial employment for
their talents and a wide field of usefulness in the practice of medicine. For
many years the name of Taylor has been connected with this learned and self sacrificing
profession in Providence and Webster County, it having been borne by the late
Dr. Pigman Taylor and his son, Dr. J. H. Taylor, who is still engaged in an
active practice at Providence. Dr. Pigman Taylor was born in Ohio County,
Kentucky, February 28, 1825, and died at Providence, Kentucky, August 22, 1899.
He was a son of Harrison and Philenia (Pigman) Taylor, the former a native of Virginia
and the latter a native of Maryland, and of Irish and English descent,
respectively. When he was eleven years of age Harrison Taylor was brought by
his parents to what is now Ohio County, Kentucky, where his father, Richard
Taylor, settled on military land and developed a farm, and later became the
first merchant of
Hartford. Still later he engaged in a distilling business. He served for three
terms in the Lower House of the Kentucky State Assembly, and was a prominent man
and a second cousin of General Zachary Taylor. His son, Harrison Taylor, was
reared on the home-stead, and after reaching' manhood's estate bought a farm in
the then wilds of Ohio County and developed it, residing on it until 1870, when
he sold his property and went to live with his daughter, Mrs. Sarah A. Austin,
remaining with her until his death in December, 1878. He was a veteran of the
War of 1812, and served as sheriff of Ohio County for one term. When he was
nineteen years old Dr. Pigman Taylor began the study of medicine under Doctors
Moore and Hart of Hartford, Kentucky, and during 1846 and 1847 attended the
medical department of the Louisville University, and in the spring of 1848
began the practice of his profession at Fordsville, Ohio County, Kentucky. In
January, 1849, he moved to the western part of Hopkins County, where he was
engaged in practice for ten years, and in March, 1859, located permanently at
Providence, and continued to practice until his death. In 1851 Doctor Taylor
was united in marriage with Miss
Almedia S. Anderson, a native of Christian County, Kentucky, who died in March,
1906, aged seventy-seven years. They were blessed with eight children, four of
whom grew to maturity: Lelia, who married William Johnson and died in 1906,
leaving one son,
Taylor Johnson; Ida, who married Sidney Morrow, and died in 1889; John
Harrison, whose name heads this review; and Thomas Lee, who is residing at San Antonio,
Texas. Both Doctor Taylor and his wife were consistent members of the
Cumberland Presbyterian Church. In
politics he was a democrat. Fraternally he was a Royal Arch Mason. A gentleman
of the old school, he was noted for his charming personality and exquisite
courtesy, as well as for his profound learning and professional skill. Boundlessly
generous, he lived up to the most exalted conceptions of his calling and displayed
in every relation of life a sweet-tempered spirit and was beloved by all who
knew him.
Dr. John Harrison Taylor, son of Dr.
Pigman Taylor, was born at Providence, March 20, 1864, and secured his
preliminary educational training in the city of his nativity and his medical
instruction in the medical department of Vanderbilt University, from which he
was graduated February 26, 1884, when not quite twenty years of age. He began
to practice medicine with his father, and this association continued till the
death of the elder man. In 1889 Dr. J. H. Taylor took a postgraduate course of
three months at the New York Polyclinic; in 1907 he took another post-graduate
course at Johns Hopkins University at Baltimore, Maryland, and was appointed
resident physician at Saint Agnes Hospital
at Baltimore in May, 1908, which position he held for a year, and then returned
to Providence. He is a member of the State and National Medical Associations, and
for several years was president of the county Board of Health. On February 17,
1892, Doctor Taylor was married to Miss Nannie Lee Humphrey, and they had two
daughters, Juanita and Almeda. Mrs. Taylor died November 14, 1920. Fraternally
Doctor Taylor belongs to the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks. In his
politics he is a democrat. For many years the Cumberland Presbyterian Church
has held his membership. Like his father, he is held in the highest esteem in
Webster County, and is a physician and surgeon of unquestioned skill and
scholarly attainments.
JOHN M. TICHENOR. Marshall County men have always been restless
to reach still higher success, whether in business or political or professional
life, and one of them who has contented himself only with bringing into a
perfect system the duties devolving upon him, so that he is now satisfied with
the rewards which his years of usefulness have brought him in the confidence of
the people and the respect of his associates, is John M. Ticbenor,
merchant and extensive farmer of Calvert City. Whatever work he has undertaken
he has done well; every duty cast upon him has been efficiently discharged; no
one who has reposed confidence in him has been disappointed, and his accomplishments present an example worthy of
imitation by all who are destined to follow in his footsteps. John M. Tichenor
was born in Ohio County, Kentucky, December 24, 1861, a son of W. C. Tichenor,
who came into the world in the same county as his son, the date of
his birth being in 1812. His death occurred in the same county in 1894. His
entire life was spent within the confines of Ohio County, and there he became
one of the prosperous and wealthy farmers. From the time he cast his first vote
he was a firm supporter of the democratic
party. Being converted at an early age, he joined the Baptist Church, and the
local congregation never had a more earnest and generous member. By his first
marriage he had five children. Eliza married Buck Sawyer and died in
Mississippi, and four others died
before they reached maturity. The second wife of W. G Tichenor was Martha
Miller, who was born in Maryland in 1824, and died in Ohio County, Kentucky, in
1902. Their children were: David P., who is a farmer of Beaverdam, Kentucky;
John M., who was second
in order of birth; William J., who was station agent for two railroads at
Collins, Louisiana, died there when he was forty years of age; and J. McHenry,
who is a farmer of the Hopkinsville, Christian County, neighborhood. John M.
Tichenor attended the rural schools of Ohio County and the South Carrollton
High School for two terms, and left school when he was twenty-two years old.
For the subsequent four years he was telegraph operator for the Nashville,
Chattanooga & Saint Louis Railroad at Calvert City, coming here in 1884.
While holding this position, in 1886 he established his present general
mercantile business, starting it with a very small capital, his total assets
being less than $100. However, as he is a born merchant, from the start the
venture proved to be a paying one, and under his capable management the
business has been expanded until it is the leading one of its kind in Marshall
County outside of the county seat. The store is located at the corner of McLeod
and Railroad streets, and Mr. Tichenor owns the building it
occupies and a large warehouse on the Illinois Central tracks. The store
building is of solid concrete and modern in every particular. Mr. Tichenor also
owns a modern residence on McLeod Street, which is one of the finest in the
city, and several other dwellings here, as well as a farm of eighty acres two
miles south of Calvert City and one of sixty acres which adjoins his residence
and is within the corporate limits of the city, both
properties being very valuable land. Prominent as a democrat, Mr. Tichenor has
received such rewards as his service to his party entitle him, and was
postmaster of Calvert City from 1885 for eight years. In 1912 his son, Paul W.
Tichenor, who is his assistant in the mercantile business, was appointed
postmaster by the Wilson administration and re-appointed in 1916, being still
the incumbent of the office and a very satisfactory and dependable official.
Mr. Tichenor is a member of the Missionary Baptist Church, and has served it as
clerk for the past twenty, years, is Sunday School superintendent, and was
instrumental in securing the establishment of the Calvert City Congregation and
the erection of the present church edifice. In every way he is one of the leading
members and feels that no demands made in behalf of the church are excessive.
He is a stockholder and director of the Calvert Bank, which he assisted in organizing
in 1907. During the period that this country was at war Mr. Tichenor was one of
the active workers, and took a keen interest in all of the local movements in behalf
of the cause. He subscribed very generously to all of the Liberty Loan and
other drives, and took the limit of the stamps. In addition to his other
interests he owns a modern garage and has a half interest in the firm
conducting it, composed of Dr. W. T. Little, R. L. Holland and himself. The
garage building is a new and modern one on McLeod Street. He also has a
fourth interest in the new electric plant of Calvert City. A man of broad
vision, Mr. Tichenor has been able to look ahead and see the future of these
different enterprises, and therefore was willing to invest his money in them. He
was married in 1890, at Calvert City, to Miss Williford Calvert, a daughter of
Mr. and Mrs. P. W. Calvert, both of whom are deceased. Mr. Calvert was the
pioneer farmer and hotel proprietor for whom Calvert City
was named. Mr. and Mrs. Tichenor became the parents of children as follows:
Jessie, who was graduated in music, is a skilled performer in both vocal and
instrumental music, and is living at home; Paul W., who is postmaster; Milton,
who died at the age of five years; and Calvert, who is attending the Paducah
High School.
ARETUS ALLEN WESTERFIELD, M. D. The
most enlightened tenets of medical and surgical science find expression in the
career of Dr. Aretus Allen Westerfield, a general practitioner of Utica since
1896, a prominent and progressive factor in several leading medical
associations and a potent influence in the promotion of civic measures making
for progress and advancement. Doctor Westerfield's professional ambitions
unfolded on the
farm in Ohio County, Kentucky, where he was born February 15, 1871, a son of
John C. and Martha (McGan) Westerfield, the former also a native of Ohio County
and the latter of the State of Virginia. His paternal grandfather, William
Westerfield, was a Kentuckian by birth and a farmer by occupation, and this vocation
was likewise followed by John C. Westerfield. The members of this family have
always been highly respected in the various communities in which they have
resided, and have for the most part been agriculturists, although well
represented in business circles and professional life as well.
Aretus
Allen Westerfield spent his boyhood amid the agricultural surroundings of the
home farm and received his preliminary educational training in the country schools
and in the public schools of Hartford, Kentucky. While his early training at
home had been along agricultural lines, he did not fancy the life of a farmer, and
when he showed a marked predilection for the medical profession his parents
wisely allowed him to pursue his inclinations and he eventually entered Barnes Medical
College, which is now merged with the University of Louisville. After
completing a course of three years he graduated in medicine from that
institution in 1896, receiving his degree of Doctor of Medicine, and
in the same year located at Utica, where he has since been engaged in a general
practice. He has built up a large and lucrative practice and is accounted one of
the highly skilled medical and surgical practitioners of Daviess County.
Professionally he belongs to the emancipated class whose mind is open to light
and who sanction the beliefs of the past only so far as they are in harmony
with the greater progress and enlightenment of the present. He takes time to
investigate the new order of things and has the breadth of mind to judge wisely
yet conservatively. A great capacity for painstaking accomplishment constitutes
one of his chief mental assets, as well as a genuine liking for the great amount
of work entailed by his supreme allegiance to a fascinating and inexhaustible
science. Dr. Westerfield is a valued and popular member of the Daviess County
Medical Society, the Kentucky State Medical Society and the American Medical
Association. He is social in his tendencies, and out of his busy life finds time
for relaxations and diversions, being a member of the Masons, the Modern
Woodmen and the Odd Fellows. His political support is given to the democratic party,
and his religious faith is that of the Baptist Church. In 1897 Doctor
Westerfield married Miss Hettie Howard, daughter of A. G. Howard, of Daviess
County.
CLARENCE WESTERFIELD. As county tax commissioner of Daviess County
Mr. Westerfield is one of the best known citizens of his county and is also
widely known over
the state. He has set a high standard of efficiency in his office and has the
benefit of many years of experience in the Court House at Owensboro and a
thorough business training. He is a native of Ohio County, where the
Westerfields are a numerous and prominent family. His parents, William H. and
Nancy (Chapman) Westerfield, were both
born in Ohio County. His father fought three years for the Confederate cause
during the war, was always a stanch democrat, was a Master Mason and a member of
the Baptist Church. He lived on his farm in Ohio County until 1903, when he
bought a farm near Masonville in Daviess County, and on that spent the rest of his
life. He died in 1912 at the age of sixty-nine. He was three times married. His
first wife was Josie Birk, a daughter of Daniel Birk of Ohio County. Her two children
were Mollie and Charlie. After her death William H. Westerfield married Nancy
Chapman, who died in 1898. She was the mother of Clarence, Herbert and Bertha
Westerfield. For his third wife William H. Westerfield
married Miss Fannie Westerfield, now deceased, who was a well known and able
school teacher for many years both in Kentucky and western states. Clarence
Westerfield, whose general worth and popularity are attested by the fact that
he outgrew the burden of the nickname of "Dude," was born on his father's
Ohio farm September 21, 1892, and was only six years of age when his mother
died. He was eleven when the family came to Daviess County, and he grew up on
the farm near Masonville, finishing his education in the country schools. His
life was the routine of a farm until nineteen, and when he left home he became a
wagon driver at six dollars a week for the Mullen & Haynes wholesale drug
company of Owensboro. A year later he had advanced so far in proficiency and the
confidence of the company that they put him on the road as a traveling
salesman, and for three years he steadily added to the volume of trade of that
concern. Mr. Westerfield early became interested in politics, and his first
public office was as deputy county assessor under A. S. Tyner. He was Mr.
Tyner's assistant four years,
and with the election of the late R. C. Clark as county assessor Mr.
Westerfield was put in charge of the office and had the responsibilities of
handling the details of office throughout the four-year term of Mr. Clark. In
the meantime the Legislature had changed the title of the office to that of
county tax commissioner. Following his eight years as deputy assessor Mr. Westerfield
in 1917 was elected for the full term of four years as county tax commissioner,
beginning his duties in January, 1918. He has performed the delicate and
difficult duties of tax commissioner with such discrimination and
good judgment as to win the approval of the great bulk of tax payers in Daviess
County. His duties require frequent attendance at the state capital, where he
has gained a large acquaintance with men in public life in Kentucky. Mr.
Westerfield is one of the leading democrats of his county, and is a member of
the Order of Elks. In March, 1912, he married Miss Jessie Roll, daughter of Dr.
J. B. Roll, of Daviess County.
ERNEST WOODARD. The possession of more
than ordinary abilities and a remarkable energy and diligence in going about
his work accounts for the rather rapid succession of honors and promotions that
have marked the career of Ernest Woodard as a lawyer. At the age of forty-four
he enjoys a post of great responsibility as general attorney for the Louisville
& Nashville Railroad Company. Mr. Woodard was born at Hartford in Ohio
County, Kentucky, November 18, 1877. Hartford was also the birthplace of his
parents, William T. and Lucy (Paul) Woodard. His father was born May 22, 1848,
and his mother
July 10, 1849. Ernest is the second in a family of three sons and four
daughters, all of whom are living. His father was well educated in his native county,
attending Hartford College, and during his mature career he has been a
prosperous general farmer and
tobacco grower. He is a member of Hartford Lodge No. 675, F. and A. M.; Lodge
No. 110, Knights of Pythias; and the Independent Order of Odd Fellows; is a
Presbyterian and votes as a democrat. Ernest Woodard likewise attended public
school in Ohio County, was a pupil in Hartford College, and studied law in the
office of Ben D. Ringo at Hartford. He was admitted by examination to the bar
in 1899, and earned his early successes as a lawyer at Hartford. In 1915 he
moved to Henderson, and since 1917 has practiced at Louisville. He was county
attorney of Ohio County from 1905 to 1910, and from 1911 until May 1, 1921, was
district attorney for the Louisville, Henderson & St. Louis Railway
Company. He assumed his duties as general attorney for the Louisville & Nashville
on May 1, 1921. Prior to that time he had been engaged in private practice with
Charles H. Moorman, under the name Moorman & Woodard. Mr. Woodard is a
member of the Pendennis Club, Henderson Lodge of Elks, Henderson Lodge, F. and A.
M., Hartford Chapter, R. A. M., and Owensboro Commandery No. 25, K. T. He
voices his political sentiment as a republican. On January 4, 1910, Mr. Woodard
married Alice
Fielden.
Their two sons and two daughters are Alice, Elizabeth, Fielden and Ernest.
Source:
History
of Kentucky, Vol. 4
By: William
Elsey Connelley and E. M. Coulter
Published
1922 by The American Historical Society
ROBERT S. AMBROSE. Though at the time
he left high school be did not have a dollar in capital and had no wealthy
family connections or influential friends to start him, Robert S. Ambrose
learned the lumber business by steady and diligent application, has neglected no
opportunities in his upward climb, and is now sole owner of one of the largest
lumber yards in western Kentucky, with a complete equipment of buildings, sheds
and offices. This business is at Hopkinsville, but for many years Mr. Ambrose
was in the lumber business at Henderson. He was born in Grayson County,
Kentucky, June 29, 1874. His grandfather, Lewis Ambrose, was a native of
England and as a young man came to America and settled in Ohio County,
Kentucky, where in the course of time he developed some extensive holdings in
farm lands. He died in Ohio County, during the Civil war. His wife was a Miss
Chapman, a member of an Ohio County family of that name, where she spent all
her life. Benjamin W. Ambrose, father of Robert S., was born
in Ohio County in 1841 grew up there and lived as a farmer, and in 1886 moved
to Daviess County, Kentucky, and in 1890 to Henderson, where he lived retired
until his death in 1917. He was a Confederate soldier during the war between
the states, enlisting almost at the beginning of the struggle in a Kentucky regiment
at Madisonville. He participated in the battles of Shiloh, Chickamauga, Lookout
Mountain, Missionary Ridge
and Vicksburg. He was once wounded in the arm, and was in a hospital for some
time. He was also taken prisoner near the end of the war, and was confined near
Chicago until the surrender of Lee. In politics he was a stanch democrat, and
was one of the leading
members of the Baptist Church in his community. Benjamin W. Ambrose married
Elizabeth Paris, who was born in Ohio County in 1852 and is now living at the
city of Henderson. She was the mother of the following children: Alice, the
oldest, died unmarried at the age of twenty-two and the next two were twin daughters,
Matilda and Edith, both of whom died at the age of nineteen. Edith was the wife
of Sidney McCann, a carpenter at Henderson, now deceased. The next in the
family is Robert S. Lillian, who died at Henderson at the age of thirty,
married Charles Cecil, now foreman in a cotton mill at Henderson. Claude died
at Henderson at the age of twenty-one and Birdie, the youngest, is the wife of
Leon Busby, a railroad man living at Henderson. Robert S. Ambrose acquired his
early education in the public schools of Henderson, graduating from high school
in 1893. Lie gained his first knowledge of the lumber industry in a planing
mill at Henderson, next went to a planing mill at Owensboro, where he remained a
year, for six years was foreman of H. W. Clark's planing mill at Henderson, and
in 1901 set up in the lumber business for himself at Henderson. He sold lumber
in that city until October, 1915, when he moved to Hopkinsville and established
himself in the lumber business with a complete new equipment of yards and
offices on East Seventh Street, between Clay Street and the Louisville and
Nashville Railway, and extending from Seventh to Eighth streets. He is sole proprietor
of this business, and handles all classes of lumber
and general building supplies. He is also a large property owner at Henderson,
and his substantial prosperity has all been built up and acquired through a
steady working career beginning a quarter of a century ago. Mr. Ambrose is a
democrat, is a deacon in the Baptist Church at Henderson, is affiliated with
Henderson Lodge of Elks and the I. O. O. F. and is a member of the Traveling
Men's Association. Mr. Ambrose first married at Carmi, Illinois, in 1893, Miss
Catherine Lipp. She was born in Tell City, Indiana, and died at Henderson
February 16, 1916. She was the mother of two children: Clyde S., who died at
Henderson at the age of twenty-three years, and Irma, who was married in 1919
to Frank Koewler, a merchant at Henderson. On January 14, 1920, Mr. Ambrose
married in Hopkinsville Mrs. Alberta (Hisgen) Moorefield, widow of Robert Moorefield
and daughter of Mr. and Airs. C. H. Hisgen. Her mother is still living, in
Hopkinsville, where her father died. Her father was a painting and decorating
contractor and a skillful artist in his line.
GEORGE W. BALES. The personal
efficiency of Mr. Bales has pervaded his administration of the office of sheriff
of Daviess County, and his administration is the
more notable because he was the first republican ever elected to that post of
responsibility in this county. Mr. Bales, a resident of Daviess County many
years and
well known both in the country districts and the City of Owensboro, was born in
Ohio County, Kentucky, January 19, 1875, son of John H. and Eliza (Ray) Bales.
His parents were born, reared and married near Knoxville, Tennessee. His father
was a Union
man at the time of the Civil war and served in the Third Union Tennessee
Infantry and was wounded in battle. After the war he settled in Ohio County,
Kentucky, and lived as a farmer until his death in 1880. He was survived by
four sons and a daughter and his widow, who now lives at Pleasant Ridge in
Daviess County. George W. Bales grew up in the Pleasant Ridge community,
acquired a common school education, and early launched himself into serious
tasks and responsibilities. He began dealing in livestock at an early age and
continued that business for twenty years, offering an important medium between
the growers and the breeders and the markets. The better to handle his business
he removed from Pleasant Ridge to Owensboro in 1906, and that city has been his
home for fifteen years. Mr. Bales made his successful campaign for election as
county sheriff in the fall of 1917, and began his four year term in January,
1918. He is affiliated with the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, the
fraternity of which his father was also a member. In January, 1921, he was made
a director in the First National Bank of Owensboro, and is one of the
stockholders in the institution. He is president of the county fair association
and active in public affairs. In 1906 Mr. Bales married Miss Minnie Daly, of
Ohio County,
who died April 12, 1921. They had two children, named Daly Ray and Josephine. Mr.
Bales is a member of the First Baptist Church of Owensboro, as was also Mrs. Bales.
JAMES HUNTER BELL, one of the
enterprising farmers and highly esteemed citizens of Daviess County, lives two
miles east of Owensboro. He was born in the City of Louisville, Kentucky,
December 6, 1844, and is a son of William and Louisa (Ewing) Bell. William Bell
was born at Glass Loch, County Monahan, Ireland, in 1790, and died in Daviess
County, Kentucky, in 1865. He was a son of John and Elizabeth (Dobbin) Bell,
the former of Irish and latter of French origin, and both of them lived and
died in Ireland. The name Bell is of Scotch origin, and Adam Bell having emigrated
from Scotland to Ireland as early as 1689. William Bell came to the United
States when he was
nineteen years old, and first lived at Reading, Pennsylvania, but later moved
to Harrodsburg, Kentucky. Still later he resided at Shelbyville and Louisville,
Kentucky. At Harrodsburg and Shelbyville he was engaged in merchandising, and
when he went to Louisville
became interested in the wholesale dry goods trade, and from 1827 until 1844
remained in that line. In the latter year he sold his business and came to Daviess
County, where he bought a farm of 1,000 acres of land to the East of Owensboro,
and here he lived out the remainder of his life, a period of twenty-one years,
during that time devoting himself to the pursuit of agriculture. He was twice
married, his first wife having been Mary Allison, whom he married at
Shelbyville, and she bore him the following children: John,
Robert, William and Mary E. For his second wife, William Bell married at
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Louisa Elizabeth Ewing. She was born at Trenton,
New Jersey, May 24, 1804, and died December 3, 1888. Her parents were Maskell
and Jane (Hunter)
Ewing, the former, born in 1758, serving as a soldier in the American
Revolution. He later became a lawyer and died in 1825. His parents were Maskell
and Mary C. (Paget) Ewing, and his grandparents were Thomas and Mary (Maskell)
Ewing. Thomas
Ewing was the American progenitor of the family, having come to this country
from Glasgow, Scotland, in 1718, after a period of some years spent in Ireland.
Upon his arrival in the American Colonies he located at Greenwich, New Jersey.
The Bells and Ewings
have been Presbyterians in religious faith and are noted for strong force of
character, high standards in living and thrift and industry. James Hunter Bell
and a sister, Louisa, his senior, were born of the second marriage of William
Bell, and he was only a month old when his parents moved to Daviess County, and
since then he has made it his home.
He received a good elementary education, and was a student in college when his
father died in 1865. Leaving his studies, he came home and assumed charge of
the homestead, and has never been without farming interests since that time,
although for eight years he was one of the owners and the manager of the Daviess
County distillery, and from 1896 to 1904 was a buyer, rehandler and exporter of
tobacco. On November 5, 1872, James Hunter Bell was united in marriage with
Elizabeth Woolfolk, of Daviess County,
who died in 1880, having borne her husband four children. On October 17, 1882, Mr.
Bell was married to Miss Emily Craig, a native of Daviess County, and a daughter
of Robert and Mary Jane (McHenry) Craig. Her father was a native of Scotland and
her mother of Ohio County, Kentucky. The following children were born to Mr.
and Mrs. Bell: Mary, who died in 1920, and Nannie, James Hunter, Ewing Craig,
Elenor C, (now Mrs. Birk), Robert Maskell, Edward Hobbs Luckett, all of whom
are living. Mr. and Mrs. Bell are members of the Presbyterian Church. In
politics he is a democrat. Their house is
one of the oldest in Daviess County, and is a hewn log structure, plastered and
weather-boarded, of Colonial style, and here a generous hospitality is extended
to the many friends of the family. Mr. Bell is a progressive man both in his
business and civic ideas, and is proud of his family, community, state and nation.
JAMES H. CATE, president of the Cate
Milling Company of Hopkinsville, Kentucky, has been identified with the
business here since 1897, and during the long period of his connection with
flour milling has become one of the best known figures in the industry in
this part of the state. His career has been one of great industry and worthy
accomplishment, and his business, in its growth from a modest beginning to its
present large proportions, has reflected his untiring energy and high ideals of
business honor. Mr.
Cate was born at Owensboro, Kentucky, June 29, 1864, a son of James and Mary
(Phipps) Cate. The family originated in Wales, whence the first American
ancestor came during Colonial times and settled in New York, and it was in that
state, at Rochester, that James Cate was born in 1835. He was reared there, but
in young manhood moved to Louisville,
Kentucky, where he put up a woolen mill, subsequently starting the first power
loom south of the Ohio River. Later Mr. Cate removed to Hartford, Ohio County,
this state, where he was married, and then went to Owensboro and engaged in business
as a manufacturer of woolen goods. In 1868 he went to Rumsey, Kentucky, where
he conducted his own woolen mill until 1892, in which year he formed a
partnership with R. Monarch and built a woolen mill at Owensboro, two years
later retiring and disposing of his interests. He has since made his home with
his son James H. at Hopkinsville. Mr. Cate
is a democrat, a strong churchman of the Methodist Episcopal faith and a
zealous Mason. He married Miss Mary Phipps, who was born in 1838, in Ohio
County, Kentucky, and died at Rumsey in 1871, and they became the parents of
three children: Frances, who died as the wife of the late Dr. L. A. King, a
dental practitioner of Henderson, Kentucky; James H.; and Sarah Phipps, the
wife of W. M. Armistead, an
insurance man of Nashville, Tennessee. James H. Cate was given his educational
training in the public schools of McLean County, Kentucky, and at Vanderbilt
University, Nashville, from which institution he was graduated in 1887 with the
degree of
Bachelor of Science. During his college career he joined the Kappa Sigma Greek
letter college fraternity, in which he still retains membership. Following his
graduation Mr. Cate engaged in the sawmill and lumber business in McLean County
for ten years, and in 1897 came to Hopkinsville and bought a flour mill
situated on East Ninth Street, adjoining the present city limits. His elder
son, James Cate, was later admitted to partnership and the business was operated
as James Cate & Son until the mill was destroyed
by fire September 2, 1918, following which an incorporation was effected to succeed
the original incorporation of 1907, the articles of corporation were amended,
and the business adopted the present style of Cate Milling Company. The present
officers of the
concern are: James H. Cate, president and general manager; James Cate, treasurer;
and George Cate, secretary. The present modern mills have a daily capacity of
100 barrels of flour, 600 bushels of corn meal and ten tons of feed. Mr. Cate
is a democrat, although not an active politician. He has always supported
worthy movements, particularly during the World War period, when he subscribed
liberally and worked effectively in behalf of the local and national
activities, and for six years has been a member of the Hopkinsville Board of Education.
He is a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church and superintendent of the
Sunday School. The comfortable Cate residence occupies one of the finest
residential locations of Hopkinsville, at 1010 East
Ninth Street. In 1887, at Nashville, Tennessee, Mr. Cate was united in marriage
with Miss Anna Armistead, daughter of G. W. and Annie M. (Harrison) Armistead, the
latter of whom resides with her son-in-law, while the former, who was an editor
and lecturer, is deceased. Mrs. Cate died in 1896, leaving five children : Annie,
residing with her father, the widow of Frank King, Jr., a former cotton buyer
in the South; James H., Jr., who enlisted in July, 1918, in the United States army,
was sent to Camp Taylor and commissioned a second lieutenant, and was given his
honorable discharge in December, 1918, since which time he has been connected
with the freight department of theNashville,
Chicago & St. Louis Railroad at Nashville; John M., who enlisted in the
United States army in May, 1918, was sent to Camp Taylor and detailed to an
artillery corps, and was mustered out of the artillery service in November,
1918, since which time he has followed the profession of law at Nashville; Dr.
William R., a practicing physician and surgeon in charge of Ivey Hospital at
Sougdo, Korea, a Methodist institution; and George H., who enlisted in the United
States Navy, in May, 1918, was placed on the training
ship New Orleans, and mustered out of the service in November, 1918, since
which time he has been secretary of the Cate Milling Company at Hopkinsville. In
1899, at Nashville, James H. Cate, Sr., married Miss Mary Lucenia Armistead, a
younger sister of his first wife, and to this union there have been born the
following children: Wirt M., a student at Emery University, Atlanta, Georgia; Mary
Lucenia, Elizabeth
and Margaret, who are attending Hopkinsville High School; Margaret, Dorothy,
Wilbur and Frances, who are attending the graded schools; and Randolph and
Martha, at home.
ALEXANDER CLEVELAND FOSTER, M. D. An
educator of successful distinction before he became a physician, Doctor Foster
has for over twenty years been one of the able members of the profession in
Kentucky, and since 1909 has been established at Owensboro, where in addition
to a general practice he has achieved special reputation in diseases of women
and children. Doctor Foster was born at Hartford, Ohio County, Kentucky,
September 25, 1862, son of William and Sarah Jane (Carson) Foster. William
Foster, a native of County Down, Ireland, came at the age of seven years with
his parents to the United States and grew to manhood at Pittsburgh,
Pennsylvania. When twenty-four
years of age he came south, and in McLean County married for his first wife
Susan Bennett. He finally established a home in Ohio County, where he devoted
the best years of his life to farming. He had a progressive spirit, and as a
farmer he exemplified some of the ideas and practice that were years in advance
of prevailing agricultural methods. He worked
along practical and experimental lines, but was also fond of books and
literature, read extensively the agricultural journals of his day, and was a man
of wide information. He believed heartily in education as a general principle
and gave all his children the best possible advantages, though he reared a large
family. The children of his first marriage were: John P., a farmer, who died at
the age of sixty two; Lydia A., wife of Rev. R. D. Bennett, of Hartford, Kentucky;
Sophie E., wife of K. H. Howard, of Detroit, Michigan; Martha A., widow of C.
L. Woodward, of Baton Rouge, Louisiana; and Melissa, who died
at Bellaire, Ohio, the wife of Robert McDonald. After the death of the mother
of these children William Foster married Sarah Jane Carson, of Ohio County,
also a native of Kentucky, and related to the historic western scout and
frontiersman Kit Carson. The
oldest of her children is Dr. Alexander Cleveland Foster. The second, Isaac
Foster, is a building contractor at Hartford, Kentucky, Joseph is a farmer at
Marion, Kentucky, William has for over fifteen years been professor of
chemistry in Princeton University at Princeton, New Jersey, and Richard Leland,
the youngest, is a successful physician at Danville, Boyle County, Kentucky. These
sons who have achieved such distinctive places in
life give a high degree of credit to their honored father and mother. The
father died in 1904, at the age of eighty-one. He was a man of fine character, both
in heart and mind, and the relations he sustained to his home and family and
his community justified the
high regard in which he was held and the esteem that continues after him. The
mother, who died at the age of seventy-one, was noted for her Christian
character and
influence. Alexander Cleveland Foster grew up on his father's farm, and had the
desire to profit by the educational advantages afforded him during his youth.
He attended Hartford
College and Business Institute, receiving the B. S. and M. S. degrees in the
above named institution, and the first ten years after reaching his majority
was identified with educational work. After teaching a year in the public
schools of his native state he went to Texas, was identified with public school
work several years and in 1892 founded East Texas College at Lufkin, Texas. He
built up that institution and made it prosperous for three years, and then sold
the property and returned to his native state and entered the University
of Louisville, medical department, where he graduated in 1897, with the degree
of M. D. The following twelve years he engaged in private practice at Morganfield
in Union County, and in 1909 moved to Owensboro. He is a member of the
Owensboro City and Daviess County Medical societies, and the Kentucky State and
American Medical associations. As frequently as possible he has renewed contact with
the original sources of learning and experience in medical science, and in the
lecture room and clinic has kept in touch with many of the world's eminent physicians
and surgeons. He has twice taken postgraduate courses at the New York
Polyclinic, the Chicago
Policlinic and New Orleans Polyclinic, and during a residence abroad attended
courses and clinics in the University of Edinburgh, Scotland, and at London, England.
Through these post-graduate courses he has specialized in obstetrics and
pediatrics and is regarded
as one of the ablest men in those special fields in Western Kentucky. Busy with
his profession, he has sought no participation in practical politics though he
is a stanch democrat. He is affiliated with the Independent Order of Odd
Fellows and Knights of Pythias and is a Methodist. His first wife was Miss
Laura Manning, daughter of Dr. W. W. Manning of Texas. Several years after her
death he married Miss Helen Vowels, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Lafe Vowels of
Owensboro. Doctor Foster is thorough-going in everything he undertakes. He was
successful as an educator, and has found even broader opportunities for service
and work as a physician.
C. H. FRAIM, who was in the navy during
the World war, is one of the progressive young business men and bankers of
Eastern Kentucky. For several years prior to and after his service he was with
the Rockport Deposit Bank, but is now cashier of the Beaver Valley State Bank
of Weeksbury. He was born near Rockport in Ohio County, August 12,
1896. He is of Scotch ancestry. His great-grandfather Fraim was a pioneer
settler of Grayson County, Kentucky, coming west from Virginia. His grandfather,
Austin Fraim, was born in Grayson County in 1835, and devoted a long and active
life to farming, though he also was connected with several stores. He died in
1910, near Spring Lick in Grayson County. W. S. Fraim, his son, was born in
Grayson County in 1864, and is now a resident of Rockport. He was reared and
married in his native county, and soon afterward moved to a farm two miles
north of Rockport. In the past he has been extensively engaged in the
agricultural industry, but now leases his farm and since November, 1919, has
lived retired in Rockport. He is a member of the town board of trustees
of Rockport, a republican in politics, is affiliated with Warsaw Tribe No. 73,
Improved Order of Red Men, and is a member of the Lone Star Baptist Church near
Rockport. W. S. Fraim married Nancy Ellen Payton, who was born in Grayson
County in 1864.
They have three children, Bennie L., C. H. and Dayton. The youngest is employed
in a store at McHenry, Kentucky. Bennie L., now bookkeeper for the Beaver Dam
Coal Company at McHenry, is also a veteran of the World war, and spent thirteen
months in
service in France. C. H. Fraim was educated in the rural schools of Ohio County
and lived on his father's farm until after he had completed his education. He
also attendedthe
Hartford High School, taking the normal course. Leaving school in 1916, he was
clerk in the store of the Rockport Coal Company from September 4, 1916, until May
5, 1917. At the latter date he became assistant cashier of the Rockport Deposit
Bank. On June I, 1918, Mr. Fraim left his duties in the bank to serve the
nation, was sent to the Great Lakes Naval Training Station at Chicago, and on
the first of July was transferred to the Brooklyn Navy Yard, and on the twelfth
of that month was assigned to duty on the U. S. S. Montana. On this warship he
made three trips of convoy duty across the Atlantic, continuing until December,
1918. He was then sent to Bumpkin Island, and was released January 11,1919. He
immediately returned home and took up his former duties with the bank at
Rockport, and on February 25, 1919, was elected cashier. The Rockport Deposit
Bank was established under a state charter in January, 1904. On April 10, 1921,
Mr. Fraim resigned to accept a similar position, on April 18th, with the Beaver
Valley State Bank at Weeksbury, Floyd County, located in the Kentucky
mountains. This bank was organized and commenced business June 4, 1918, and has
enjoyed and is still enjoying a profitable business. At the close of 1921 its
resources were over a hundred and ten thousand dollars, and they reflect the
sturdy and growing prosperity of one of the smaller towns of Eastern Kentucky. The
officers of this bank are: John E. Buckingham, president, who is also president
of the Ashland National Bank; George P. Archer, vice president, and cashier of
the Bank Josephine at Prestonsburg; H. R. Laughlin, vice president, and
superintendent of the Long Fork division of the Baltimore & Ohio; F. M. Addis,
vice president, and superintendent of the Elkhorn Piney Coal Mining Company; C.
H. Fraim, cashier;
L. A. Johnson, assistant cashier; while the directors are J. E. Buckingham, H.
R. Laughlin, G. P. Archer. F. M. Addis, W. J. Johnson, J. D. Hatfield, E. C.
Slade, C. H. Fraim and T. T. Webb. Mr. Fraim, who is unmarried, is owner of
considerable real estate, and is a stockholder in the Comet Automobile Company
of Decatur, Illinois. He is a republican, and in Masonry is affiliated with
Rockport Lodge No. 312, F. and A. M., Central Chapter No. 147, R. A. M.,
Central City Commandery of the Knights Templars, and
Rizpah Temple of the Mystic Shrine at Madisonville. He is also a member of
Rockport Lodge No. 316, Independent Order of Odd Fellows.
ZEPHANIAH HARREL was introduced to the
practical game of life when a boy of fourteen or fifteen, did a great deal of
arduous and rough work in mines and lumber camps, and with his maturing
experience and ability took up a career as a merchant and for many years past
has been associated with a brother conducting one of the largest stores of Ohio
County at Rockport, where he enjoys an enviable place as a citizen. Mr.
Harrel was born in Butler County, Kentucky, May 5, 1868. The name Harrel is of
Irish lineage. His grandfather, Noah Harrel, born in 1801, was a pioneer farmer
of Grayson County, Kentucky, and late in life moved to Rockport, where he died
in 1873. He married Miss Craig, who also died in Rockport. Their son, Uriah
Blue Harrel, was born in Grayson County in 1834 and was reared and married in
that county. When the Civil war came on he espoused the cause of the Union,
enlisted in Company G of the Eleventh Kentucky Infantry, and for four years
fought for the Stars and Stripes and the integrity of the state. Shortly after
his marriage he moved to Butler County, where he became a fanner, and in 1872
he came down the Green River on a log raft to Rockport, where he re-established
himself as a carpenter and farmer, only to be interrupted by death eight years
later, in 1880. He was a republican, a member of the Baptist Church and was
affiliated with Ceralvo Lodge No. 253, F. and A. M. His wife was Jane Hunter,
who was born at Evansville, Indiana, in 1842, and survived her husband forty
years, passing away at Henderson, Kentucky, in February, 1920. She was the
mother of seven children: M. F. Harrel, a farmer at Rockport; A. M. Harrel, who
is a carpenter in Cloverport, Kentucky; L. F.
Harrel, now waterworks foreman of the Illinois Central Railroad Company at
Grenada, Mississippi; Zephaniah; Agnes, of Henderson, widow of Warren Nichols,
a railroad man who died at Rockport; Mattie, wife of Luther Camfield, a
carpenter and builder at Henderson; and Alma, wife of Emery Tilford, a miner
living at Rockport. Zephaniah
Harrel was twelve years old when his father died. He attended the public
schools of Rockport and also was in school at the Masonic Home in Louisville.
At fourteen his education was ended, and from that time for several years he
made a living in
the mines and logging camps around Rockport. From 1889 to 1895 he was an
employee of the Newport News Railroad Company, and then returned to Rockport
and became a partner in the mercantile firm of Gibbs Brothers. The partnership
was dissolved in
1898, and in that year Zephaniah Harrel and his brother, L. F. Harrel, joined
forces as general merchants, and in twenty years have expanded and increased their
business until it is now one of the largest stores in this part of Kentucky.
They do an immense business, and are leaders in enterprise in their home town.
They own a large store building, also own and operate the moving picture
theater of Rockport, and have six dwelling houses and other real estate at
Rockport. Mr. Harrel saw his son volunteer at the beginning of the World war,
and his interest and enthusiasm in behalf of all patriotic movements were
unabated until after the signing of the armistice. He and Mrs. Harrel served on
every committee for war purposes and the filling of every quota for their
community they regarded as a burden upon their individual responsibility. They
promoted a show and gave all the proceeds to the Red Cross. Mr. Harrel is a
republican, is affiliated with Rockport Lodge No. 312, F. and A. M. Mrs. Harrel is a member of the Eastern Star
Chapter No. 103, and also a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. In
1898, at Jeffersonville, Indiana, he married Jessie Brown, who was born in Ohio
County, Kentucky, and died at Rockport in 1906. She became the mother of his
two children, Ray and Nora. The latter is Mrs. Walker, of Louisville. The son,
Ray, was born September 24, 1898, and was only a youth when in July, 1917, he
volunteered for service in the World war.
He was in training at Camp Stanley in Lexington until the 25th of July, was
then sent to Camp Shelby, Mississippi, was assigned to the infantry and on
September 12, 1918, embarked for overseas duty, landing at Southampton,
England, October 9th, at Havre,
France, October 11th , spent two weeks at St. Sebastian, a suburb of Nantes,
and for nine days was on duty at Le Mans and until December 30, 1918, was
stationed at La Suze. He was then ordered to Brest, and after days at that port
embarked for home. He was mustered out at Camp Sherman, Ohio, February 8, 1919,
being discharged as a sergeant, and is now assistant cashier in the Rockport
Deposit Bank. In 1910, at Louisville, Mr. Harrel married Miss Elizabeth
Stevens, daughter of J. P. and Elizabeth (Taylor)
Stevens. Her mother is living at Hartford, Kentucky. Her father was at one time
sheriff of Ohio County, living in Hartford, and died there. Mrs. Harrel is
prominent in social affairs in her home city, and is also a director in the
Rockport Deposit Bank.
WILLIAM PEYTON KINCHELOE, banker,
manager of the Louisville branch of the Federal Reserve Bank, is one of the
prominent figures in financial circles in Kentucky, and is a brother of
Congressman D. Kincheloe of the Second Kentucky District. Mr. Kincheloe was
born in McLean County, Kentucky, on his father's farm, December 19, 1880, son of
Robert McFarlin and Lucy Ann (Reeks) Kincheloe. His parents were both native
Kentuckians. His grandparents, Thomas and Minerva (McFarlin) Kincheloe, were
also born in Kentucky, and his grandfather spent his active life as a farmer in
Daviess County,
was a democrat and a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church. South. The
maternal grandfather of Mr. Kincheloe was Thomas Reeks, a well known farmer in
his time in McLean County. Robert M. Kincheloe was born in Rumsey, Muhlenberg County,
now McLean County, December 23, 1839, was educated in the schools there and for
a number of years was a successful teacher in country districts. Later he
engaged in farming in McLean County and was a successful breeder of harness
horses. He retired from
his farm in 1900, and is now living at Sacramento in McLean County. He served
as county assessor of McLean County eight years, and was a member of the State
Legislature during the long session of 1891-92-93. He is active in the
Methodist Episcopal
Church, South, is a member of the Masonic fraternity and a stanch democrat. His
wife was born in Logan County and is now deceased. They were the parents of
five sons and two daughters: Phoebe, wife of F. F. Gibson; Jennie M., widow of
James R. Morgan; Thomas Thurman, who married Anna Gish; Charles Alexander, who
married Margaret Bibb; David Hayes, who was born in 1877, admitted to the Kentucky
bar in 1899 and has practiced at Madisonville, was elected to represent the
Second Kentucky District
in Congress in 1914, and was re-elected for his fourth consecutive term; William
P., who is the sixth in age; and Robert Duvall. William Peyton Kincheloe was
educated in the public schools of Daviess County, spent three years in school
at Frankfort, graduated in 1899 from Sacramento Academy of his home county, and
completed the work of the Bowling Green Business College in 1900. For about
three years he engaged in teaching and
for four years was in the general merchandise business at Elk City, Oklahoma.
Returning to Kentucky, he entered upon his banking career in August, 1905, with
the Home Deposit Bank at Central City as bookkeeper, was promoted to assistant
cashier and
when the bank became the First National Bank of Central City he was made
cashier. He resigned this post in November, 1913, to become a national bank
examiner, and the four years he spent in that office gave him a wide
acquaintance among Kentucky bankers
and a thorough knowledge of banking conditions. It was with the hearty support
and commendation of Kentucky banking interests that he was appointed in August,
1917, as manager and chairman of the board of directors of the Louisville
branch of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. He handled many of the details
of organization of this branch, which
was opened for business December 3, 1917. Mr. Kincheloe on November 21, 1919,
was appointed aide de camp on Gov. James D. Black's staff with the rank of
colonel. He is a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, is affiliated
with Sacramento Lodge No. 735, F. & A. M.; Central City Chapter No. 147, R.
A. M.; Owensboro Commandery No. 15, K. T.; and Mizpah Temple of the Mystic
Shrine at Madisonville. September 11, 1911, Mr. Kincheloe married
Miss Blanche Muir, who was born in Ohio County, Kentucky, daughter of John A.
and Margaret O. (Hunley) Muir. Her parents were also born in Ohio County and her
father died in 1917, at the age of fifty-two and her mother is still living.
Mrs. Kincheloe is the oldest of three sons and two daughters. Her father for many
years was in the signal department of the Illinois Central Railway Company, was
a democrat in politics and a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. Mr. and Mrs. Kincheloe have one son, William
Peyton, Jr.
EUGENE MCCABE. No man can render an
efficient service in the office of sheriff unless he is utterly fearless, rigidly
upright, and possessed of an innate knowledge of human nature which enables him
to understand men and the motives which govern them, especially those of a
criminal turn of mind. When the people of a county elect a man to this
responsible office they put their seal of approval upon him, for, realizing that
their safety for the succeeding four years is in his hands, they are more
careful about his selection than they are in choosing any other official.
Grayson County has had some able men in this responsible office, but none of
them made a better record than the present incumbent,
Eugene McCabe, is furnishing, and his efficiency and thorough-going methods are
making his name a terror to evildoers in this part of the state. Mr. McCabe has
long been a well-known figure in the county as one of the foremost
agriculturists, but his actions since elected sheriff have given him added prestige
which will not easily be forgotten. Eugene McCabe was born at Piedmont,
Virginia, April 6, 1871, a son of Barney McCabe, who was horn in County Cavin,
Ireland, in 1844, and died at Leitchfield, Kentucky, in 1913. He was reared and
educated in his native county, but came to the United States in 1862 and became
a coal miner of Frostburg, Maryland, where
he was married, but a year later left for Piedmont, Virginia. Later he moved to
McHenry, Ohio County, Kentucky, and was the pioneer coal miner of that
neighborhood, and the first to open operations in the coal fields. In time he
became one of the extensive coal
operators of that region and a very prominent citizen, who held the confidence
and esteem of all who knew him. In politics be was a republican. Barney McCabe
married Margaret Ryan, who was born at Frostburg, Maryland, in 1848. She
survives her husband and
makes her home with Sheriff McCabe. Their children were as follows: Eugene, who
was the first born; Margaret, who married J. J. McClure, a farmer of Clarkson,
Kentucky; Mary, who married Dr. Isaac Lynch, a physician and surgeon of
Breckinridge County, Kentucky; Biddie, who married Warren Payton, principal of
the high school at Beaver Dam, Ohio County, Kentucky; Henry, who is an oil
worker of Grayson County; and Katie, who married Dr. W. H. McConnell, a
physician and surgeon and farmer of Altus, Oklahoma. Eugene McCabe attended the
rural schools of Grayson County until he was twenty-one years old, and at the same
time learned habits of industry and thrift under the
watchful care of his estimable and practical parents. Until 1912 he was
actively occupied with farming, but in that year he was appointed deputy
sheriff of Grayson County,
and held that office until he was elected sheriff in November, 1917, as the
candidate of the republican party, and assumed the duties of the office in
January, 1918,
for a term of four years. His offices are located in the courthouse. He still
owns his fine farm of 250 acres of land four miles southwest of Leitchfield,
and has attained to a wide-spread celebrity as a breeder of White-Face
thoroughbred cattle. He is a republican and
served as a magistrate in Grayson County for four years, and in every office he
has held Sheriff McCabe has proved his worth as a man and official. Sheriff McCabe
belongs to the Roman Catholic Church. He is a member of the Knights of
Columbus, being a third degree knight of Elizabethtown Council of that
fraternity, and he also belongs to Pennyroyal Camp. M. W. A. His comfortable,
modern residence on Mill Street is owned by him. During the period this country
was at war he took a zealous part in all of the local
activities, assisting in all of the drives, buying bonds and stamps, and
contributing to the different war organizations to the full limit of his means.
On February 1, 1918, Sheriff McCabe married at Leitchfield Miss Annie McClure,
a daughter of E. and Mary
Theressa (Edelen) McClure. Mrs. McClure is deceased, but Mr. McClure survives
and makes his home with Sheriff and Mrs. McCabe. In former years he was a
farmer and tobacco dealer, but is now retired.
JOHN O. MCKENNEY, M. D. In the
community of Beaver Dam, Ohio County, where he began practice in 1905, Doctor
McKenney is now the oldest physician and surgeon from the point of continuous
service, and by his diligence and skill in caring for the health of the people
and his leadership in other ways he has become esteemed as one of Beaver Dam's
most useful citizens. The McKenneys are a Scotch family early settled in
Virginia. Doctor McKenney's grandfather, William McKenney, was born in Virginia
in 1819. Early in life he moved to Butler County, Kentucky, where he followed his
trade as a blacksmith and also owned a farm. He died at Rochester in that
county in 1887. His
wife was Armilda James who died at Logansport, Kentucky. Their son, J. P.
McKenney, was born in Butler County in 1850 and in early life took up
merchandising and
developed an extensive business in Butler County. Later he went on the road for
a wholesale
shoe company of Louisville and St. Louis, and traveled out of those cities for
about forty years, covering Western Kentucky. He was an excellent businessman,
had great personal charm and affability and was esteemed in nearly every town
in the western part of the state. He had moved his home to Beaver Dam in 1883
and in 1914 he retired from business and died at Beaver Dam in 1915. He was a
democrat and a member of the Christian Church. Outside his home and business
perhaps his chief business and enthusiasm was in the Masonic order. For many
years he was master of Beaver Dam Lodge No. 420, F. and A. M., and it is said
that he raised more men in the order than any other master in Western Kentucky.
He was also a Knight Templar, being affiliated with Beaver Dam Chapter R. A. M.
and Owensboro Commandery No. 15 K. T. J.
P. McKenney married Elizabeth Hays, who was born at Rochester, Kentucky, in
1857, and died
at Beaver Dam in 1909. Annie, the oldest of their children, died at Beaver Dam
at the age of thirty-six, wife of C. P. Austin, who is cashier of the Beaver Dam
Deposit Bank. Dr. John O. McKenney, second child, was born at Rochester,
November 23, 1879. Ivan, the third child, was drowned in Green River at the age
of eighteen. W. C. McKenney has charge of the store and railroad interests of
the Madeira Mamore Railroad Company
in Bolivia, South America. Dr. John O. McKenney was about four years old when
his parents moved to Beaver Dam, where he acquired a public-school education.
He finished his high school course in 1896 and had a rather extended business experience
before he qualified as a physician. For four years he was the druggist and
pharmacist for the Central Coal & Iron Company at McHenry. In 1901 he entered
the University of Louisville Medical School, graduating in 1905. He is a member
of the Phi Chi college fraternity. Doctor McKenney later took post graduate
work in the Chicago Policlinic in 1907 and again in 1914. He took up the active
work of his profession at
Beaver Dam in 1905, and his work here has been attended by a high degree of
success both from the financial and professional standpoint. Doctor McKenney is
president of the Beaver Dam Drug Company, the leading drug store in Ohio
County. He is a member of the Ohio County, State and American Medical
associations and the Southern Medical Association. He was prominent in local
war work, both as a contributor and as a worker on various committees, and he
also volunteered his professional services and was commissioned a first
lieutenant in the Medical Reserve Corps. His duties as local surgeon for the Beaver
Dam Coal Company, however, were regarded as an essential patriotic duty, and he
was not called for other service. For several years Doctor McKenney owned some
farming interests, but disposed of that property in December, 1920. He is a
democrat and in Masonry has membership in Beaver Dam Lodge No. 420, F. and A.
AL, Beaver Dam Chapter, R. A. M, Owensboro Commandery No. 15, K. T., and Rizpah Temple
of the Mystic Shrine at Madisonville. In 1907 at Beaver Dam be married Miss
Elizabeth Sandefur, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. J. P. Sandefur, residents of
Hartford, Kentucky, where her father is an influential and successful attorney.
Doctor and Mrs. McKenney
have two daughters: Virginia, born in 1908, and Rachel Hays, born in 1911.
REUBEN ANDERSON MILLER. For a quarter
of a century at Owensboro the late Reuben Anderson Miller gave all the rich and
varied resources of his intellect and character to the practice of the law, a
profession in which he achieved front rank not only in his home locality but in
the state. He was born in Ohio County, Kentucky, November 6,
1857, son of Reuben Anderson and Martha (Ford) Miller, both natives of
Kentucky. His father was born in Shelby County. The youngest of their ten
children, Reuben Anderson Miller grew up on a farm and in pursuit of an education
contended with some of the difficulties in the way of an ambitious youth
following the period of the Civil war. He attended country schools, graduated from
Ford's Seminary at Hartford, Kentucky, and for
several years was a successful school teacher, accepting that work not only as
an opportunity for service but also as a means of self advancement. He early
determined to become a lawyer, and for that profession was well fitted by
intellectual equipment and natural endowment. While teaching he read Blackstone,
and by close study achieved a lasting knowledge of the fundamentals of law.
Before his twenty-first birthday he was admitted to the bar at Hawesville, and
there began his brilliant career as a lawyer. It is significant of his untiring
devotion to his profession that the only office for which he was a
candidate was county attorney of Hancock County, a post to which he was
elected. In 1889 he was appointed, the first under a new law of the state,
state inspector and examiner of the eleemosynary institutions and
penitentiaries. This office he held for two years,
residing in Frankfort in the meantime. He then resigned to resume private
practice, and located at Owensboro, where he gained his greatest reputation as
a lawyer and where he lived and practiced for a quarter of a century. The last
ten years were largely devoted to corporation law. While he had, as above
noted, no aspirations for public office, he was a stanch democrat, and wielded much
influence in his section of the state. A man of great
intellect, of commanding personal appearance, he possessed a rich, musical
voice and had a native eloquence that, combined with his learning, made him a
formidable opponent at the bar, and as a trial lawyer he was eminently
successful. His contemporaries regarded him at the very height of his power,
and for that reason his death, on April 17, 1915, was regarded as a distinct
and irretrievable loss to the profession and the good citizenship of the slate.
November 30, 1881, he married Miss Margaret Morehead, a Kentucky lady of
education, refinement and high social connection. Her father, Col. J. S.
Morehead, was in the Confederate army, while her grandfather, James T. Morehead,
served as governor of Kentucky and as United States senator. She was a foster
daughter of Gen. S. B. Buckner. Mrs. Miller died in 1909, having survived two
children, and leaving four children. A brief record of the children that
reached maturity is as follows: Eugene Buckner Miller, is a prosperous farmer
of Daviess County; Lucile A., who died in 1918, was the wife of Frank C. Malin,
a lawyer of Ashland; Reuben A., Jr., is general agent for the Erie Railroad, at
Dallas, Texas. Wilbur
Kingsbury Miller, the youngest child, followed in the footsteps of his father
and is a prominent Owensboro attorney. He graduated in the academic course from
the University of Michigan, in 1915, and in law in 1917. He had been admitted
to the Owensboro
bar in 1916, and is securely established in his profession. In 1917 he married Miss
Marie Louise Hager, of Ashland. During the World war Wilbur K. Miller served
six months in the Field Artillery Training School at Camp Taylor, Louisville,
and was honorably discharged after the armistice. He is a member of the
American Legion.
RODNEY C. REID is one of the younger
men with large responsibilities in the business affairs of Ohio County, was
formerly a merchant and banker, and is now vice president and assistant manager
of the Rockport Coal Company, one of the largest producing companies in Western
Kentucky. The Reids are Scotch-Irish and the family are of old Virginia stock. Mr.
Reid's grandfather was a native of Virginia, and became a pioneer in Ohio County,
Kentucky, where he lived out his life. His son, Mosby James Reid, was born in
Ohio County in 1844 and gave his time and attention to farming until he came to
Rockport about 1875 and thereafter conducted a flourishing general merchandise
business until he retired in 1916. He died at Rockport in March, 1918. He was a
democrat in his political affiliation and a member of the Methodist Episcopal
Church, South. Mosby J. Reid married Nettie Miller, who was born near Hartford,
Kentucky, in 1862, and is still living at Rockport. She is the mother of six
children: Mabel, wife of L. D. Smith, a locomotive engineer living at
Hodgenville, Kentucky; W. G. Reid, a locomotive engineer
with headquarters at Central City; Cora, of Rockport; M. B. Reid, a machine
runner for the Rockport Coal Company; Rodney C.; and Margaret, wife of P. O. McKinney,
a coal inspector for the Ford Collieries Company, living at Oakmont,
Pennsylvania. Rodney C. Reid was born at Rockport, January 31, 1888, and up to
the age of twenty attended the grammar and high schools in his native town and
also received some
valuable training in his father's business. From 1909 to 1912 he was assistant
buyer in the cutlery department of the Belknap Hardware Company of Louisville.
From 1912 to 1914 he was associated with his brother, W. G. Reid in the
mercantile business at Rockport
and from 1914 to 1917 was assistant cashier of the Rockport Deposit Bank. Since
then he has been actively identified with the Rockport Coal Company, serving as
secretary and treasurer until April, 1920, when he was made vice president and
assistant general manager. The company's offices are at Central City. The
company's mine No. 1 which
has a capacity of 800 tons of coal production per day is at the north edge of
Rockport, and its 150 employees are under the direct supervision of Mr. Reid. The
company's mine No. 2 at Centertown, when fully developed, will have a capacity
of 2,000 tons per day, which will make it one of the largest producers in Kentucky.
Mr. Reid has acquired considerable real estate at Rockport, but he and his
family live with his mother on Main Street. He was a leader in local war
activities in Ohio county, exerting himself to the extent of his ability in the
purchase of Government securities and assisting
in building up patriotic sentiment wherever his influence reached. Mr. Reid is
secretary and treasurer of the Rockport graded school board and for two years
was clerk of the town board. He is a democrat, a trustee of the Presbyterian
Church, and junior deacon of Rockport Lodge No. 312, F. and A. M. In November,
1918, at Louisville Mr. Reid married Miss Elizabeth Kevil, daughter of A. B.
and Bessie (Jackson) Kevil, residents of Rockport, where her father lived a
retired merchant. Mrs. Reid, who is a graduate of Logan College at Russellville, is the mother of
one daughter, Martha, born December 14, 1919.
GEORGE ROWE SMITH, who in a few years
has gained a creditable position in the Lexington bar, started his career as a
coal miner, following that occupation while paying his way through college and
university. He was born at Central City, Muhlenberg County, Kentucky, January
16, 1890, a son of George and Martha E. (Rowe) Smith, residents of Central
City. His father was born at Edinburgh, Scotland, was educated in Edinburgh
College, learned the art of sculpture, and was twenty-two years of age when he
came to the United States. His home has been at Central City, Kentucky, since
1885, and he is still engaged as a farmer and merchant. He is an elder in the
Presbyterian Church and in politics a republican. Martha E. Rowe was born in
Ohio County, Kentucky. She is the mother of six children: Helen D., wife of
John Neil; Mabel, wife of Victor Lawton; Henry, who died in infancy; George R.;
Emma, wife of A. B. Christian; and Martha M., wife of A. B. Hotchkiss. George
R. Smith during his boyhood at Central City attended public schools. His father
was not a man of wealth and he could not command the funds to take him
regularly through college. At the age of fifteen he went to work as a coal
miner, and continued at intervals in that work until he was past twenty. While
in the mines he utilized all his spare time in study, and his example was not
only profitable to himself but inspired an ambition for learning in some of his
fellow workmen as well. As a coal miner he paid his way through the University
of Kentucky, maintaining a high standing in his classes and taking a part in
athletic affairs as well. He graduated in 1915 with the LL. B. degree, and
since then has been in active practice at Lexington. He is a member of the law
firm Smith & Reynolds, with offices in the Trust Building. Mr. Smith is a
member of the Lexington Bar Association and the Kentucky Bar Association, is a
democrat, and is affiliated with Central City Lodge No. 673. F. & A. M.,
and the Knights of Pythias. November 27, 1915, he married Ella M. Clark, a
native of Rockcastle County, Kentucky, oldest of the six children, five of whom
are still living, of Granville W. and Maggie (Ballard) Clark. Her father is a
Fayette County farmer, a member of the Christian Church and in politics a
republican.
JAMES HENRY THORPE, M. D. It is not
always easy to discover and define the hidden forces that move a life of
ceaseless activity and large professional success; little more can be done than
to note their manifestation in the career of the individual under consideration.
James Henry Thorpe has long held distinctive prestige in a calling which
requires for its basis sound mentality and rigid professional training and thorough
mastery of technical knowledge, with the skill to apply the same, without which
one cannot hope lo rise above the mediocre in administering to human ills. James
Henry Thorpe, of Owensboro, one of the most eminent members of the medical
profession in Northwestern
Kentucky, was born on his father's farm near Pleasant Ridge, Daviess County, on
the 5th day of October. 1875, and is the eldest of two children who blessed the
union of Terry and Elizabeth Ann (Bennett) Thorpe, the other child being a
brother, Terry.
The father also was a native of Daviess County, the son of Terry and Polly E.
(Howard) Thorpe. The Thorpes were among the pioneer settlers of Daviess County,
the first member of the family lo settle here having been Mr. Thorpe's
great-grandfather, whose
given name was John, and who, in company with a Negro slave named Squire,
walked all the way from their former home in South Carolina to Kentucky,
hunting as they came. Elizabeth Ann Bennett was born in Ohio County, Kentucky,
and was a daughter of Joseph and Ann Elizabeth (Huges) Bennett. James H. Thorpe
was reared on the paternal homestead, where during the summer months he aided
his father in the farm work, while during the winters he attended the public
schools of Pleasant Ridge. When eighteen years of age he began teaching school,
and during the following three years he alternately taught and attended school.
Having determined to devote his life to the practice of medicine, in 1896 he matriculated
in Barnes Medical College at St. Louis, Missouri,
where he was graduated in April, 1899, with the degree of Doctor of Medicine.
Immediately thereat thereafter Doctor
Thorpe located at Pleasant Ridge and practiced his profession for about two
years, when he moved to Utica, Daviess County for four years and then to Beech
Grove, McLean County. In 1913 Doctor Thorpe, desirous of a larger field for
practice, moved to Owensboro, where he has since remained and where he has
built up a large and representative patronage, covering a wide radius of
surrounding country.
Since locating at Owensboro he has limited his practice to diseases of the ear,
eye, nose and throat, in which he has gained a widespread reputation because of
the splendid success which has crowned his efforts. Doctor Thorpe did
post-graduate work in 1909
at the Post-Graduate Hospital, Chicago, and also at St. Louis in 1912, while in
1913 he made special preparation for his present work in the Ear, Eye, Nose and
Throat Hospital, Chicago. The doctor is a member of the Owensboro City Medical
Society, the Daviess
County Medical Society, the Kentucky State Medical Society and the American Medical
Association. In 1912, while residing at Beech Grove, he was elected president
of the McLean County Medical Society. He is a member of the staff of the
Owensboro City Hospital, instructor in ophthalmology, otology, rhinology and
laryngology in the Nurses Training' School, ophthalmologist for the Welfare
League, consulting surgeon to Mary
Kendall Home, and attending specialist in the United States Public Health
Service. In September, 1899, Doctor Thorpe was married to Georgia Boston, of
Beech Grove, and they have a daughter, Llma Anitra, who is now a student in the
University of Kentucky. Doctor Thorpe is a Baptist and Airs. Thorpe is a member
of the Christian Church. Fraternally he is a member of the Ancient Free and Accepted
Masons and the Independent Order of Odd Fellows. In his chosen field of
endeavor Doctor Thorpe has achieved more than ordinary success, and his eminent
standing among the leading medical men of his section of the state is duly
recognized and appreciated. In addition to his creditable professional career
he has proved an honorable member of the body politic,
rising in the confidence and esteem of the public, and in every relation of
life he has upheld the dignity of true manhood.
Source:
History
of Kentucky, Vol. 5
By: William
Elsey Connelley and E. M. Coulter
Published
1922 by The American Historical Society
REGINALD V. BENNETT, principal of the
Lindsay-Wilson Training School at Columbia, and a clergyman of the Methodist
Episcopal Church, South, is one of the
scholarly men and earnest prelates of Kentucky, who both by precept and
example, is exerting a strong influence for good on his generation. He was born
at Ceralvo, Ohio County, Kentucky, March 9, 1885, a son of Sam P. Bennett, and
grandson of Timothy Bennett, who was born in Virginia in 1827, and died at
Centertown, Ohio County, Kentucky, in 1908. Coming to Kentucky in young
manhood, he settled in Ohio County, developed
a farm, was married to Miss Martha Tichenor, a native of the county, and both
rounded out their useful and honorable lives upon their farm. The Bennetts came
to the American Colonies from Scotland and settled in Virginia. Sam P. Bennett
was born near Rockport, Ohio County, Kentucky, and has spent his life in Ohio County
with the exception of the six years he lived at Louisville, Kentucky. He has
been an extensive farmer, and is still engaged in that calling, living on his
fine farm at Narrows, Kentucky. While he was at Louisville he was in the employ
of the Illinois Central Railroad Company, but found that he preferred an
agricultural life and so returned to Ohio County. While he has always voted the
democratic ticket, he has not been active in politics. The Missionary Baptist
Church holds his membership and he has always been a strong supporter
of it. Fie is equally zealous as a Mason. His wife was Miss Naomi Shultz before
her marriage. She was born near Hartford, Kentucky, in 1861, and died at
Narrows, March 25, 1907. Their children were as follows: Clarence S., who is an
electrical engineer of Portland, Oregon, is with the General Electric Company; Reginald
V., who was second in order of birth; Joseph B., who is a druggist of Cairo,
Illinois; Arthur R., who is chief engineer of the United States Shipping Board
of New York City, is a veteran of the World war, in which he served as an
engineer on transports and crossed the ocean fourteen times; Carl W., who is professor
of agriculture at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, is also a veteran of
the World war, in which he served as a member of the Coast Artillery; and
Roswell, who is now a student at the Kentucky
State University at Lexington. During the World war he enlisted in the Aviation
Corps, and after being trained was sent overseas to England, which he had just
reached when the armistice was signed, so that he was not at the front. Mr.
Bennett attended the rural schools of Ohio County and Vanderbilt Training
School at Elkton, Kentucky, from which he was graduated in 1906. He then
entered the Vanderbilt University at Nashville, Tennessee, and was graduated
therefrom in 1912 with the degree of Bachelor of Arts and as a member of the
Phi Beta Kappa Greek letter college fraternity, which is an honorary fraternity.
In the meanwhile Mr. Bennett had begun teaching school, and was so engaged in
Ohio County during 1904 and 1905. During 1906 and 1907 he was professor in the
Vanderbilt Training School, and during 1908 and 1909 he taught in the Wilson
Training School of Fayetteville, Tennessee. For the subsequent two years he was
principal of the Franklin County High School in Tennessee. In 1912 Mr. Bennett
joined the Louisville Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, and
was sent to Corydon, Kentucky, as pastor of the church of that denomination in
that city, and remained there until 1916, when he was transferred to Beechmont
Church, Louisville, and remained there until 1918. In the latter year he was
elected principal of
the Lindsay-Wilson Training School at Columbia, and entered at once upon the
discharge of his duties. The school was established in 1903 and belongs to the Louisville
Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. The buildings are all
modern brick structures and are known as the Administration Building, the
Girls' Building and the Boys' Building. These buildings are in ten-acre
grounds, and are located at the eastern edge of Columbia. Mr. Bennett has six teachers
and 200 pupils under his supervision. A man of strong convictions, he prefers
to vote independently of party ties. A Mason, he maintains membership with
Columbia Lodge No. 96, F. and A. M. During
the late war he took an active part in the local war work, assisting in all of
the drives for the different purposes, bought bonds and stamps to the limit of
his means, and contributed very generously to all war organizations. On June
20, 1912, Mr. Bennett was married at Decherd, Tennessee, to Miss Augusta M.
Carpenter, a daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Carpenter, residents of Decherd,
Tennessee, Mr. Carpenter being a locomotive engineer for the Nashville,
Chattanooga & Saint Louis Railroad. Mrs. Bennett attended the normal school
at Winchester, Tennessee. Mr. and Mrs. Bennett have four children, namely:
Louise, who was born June 19, 1913, is a student of the Lindsay-Wilson Training
School; Jessica, who was born December 15, 1915; Reginald Victor, who was born
December 12, 1917; and Joel Samuel, who was born in 1920. Since Mr. Bennett has
assumed charge of the Lindsay-Wilson Training School this institution has been infused
with new life, and the progress has been rapid and commendable. Pupils from
this school have a high rating, and Doctor Bennett is constantly introducing improvements
in methods, for he is a very progressive man and is never content to rest upon
laurels already won, but is seeking new ones through continued study and effort.
His interests are centered in his work, although he takes his civic
responsibilities seriously
and strives to lend his influence to all moral reforms and uplift movements.
Personally he has a large following, and is recognized as one of the striking figures
in the educational and religious life of his part of the state.
HERMAN T. CARTER, M. D. During the late
war many of the members of the medical profession proved their sincerity, as
well as their patriotism, when, living up to the letter of the oath of
Hippocrates, they entered the medical department of the United States service.
It made no difference to these devoted men that some of them were beyond the
limit set by the draft. They knew that the soldiers would need their services
more than any other citizens of their county, and, therefore, although many of
them had to make heavy sacrifices to do so, they cheerfully offered their
services to their Government and worked with unflagging energy both in this and
foreign countries to minister to the sick and wounded, and also rendered an
equally important service in investigation work carried on at that time. One of
these veterans of the mightiest conflict the world has ever known is Dr. Herman
T. Carter, physician and surgeon of Gilbertsville and one of the efficient
members of the Marshall County medical fraternity. Doctor Carter was born at
Spring Lick, Grayson County, Kentucky, September 13, 1877, a son of John S. Carter,
and grandson of Alfred T. Carter. The birth of Alfred T. Carter occurred August
6, 1813, in Ohio County, Kentucky, and it was his father who brought the family
into Kentucky, and was one of the pioneer farmers of Ohio County. Alfred T.
Carter died in his native county November 10, 1842, having devoted all of his
efforts to farming interests. He participated in the development of his
locality during his period, and was recognized as a man of sterling worth and reliability.
John S. Carter was born in Davis County, Kentucky, July 2, 1836, and his death
took place at Whitesville, Kentucky, June 26, 1919. Like his father and
grandfather, he had the love of the soil in his blood, and became one of the
most successful and extensive farmers of Davis County, where he continued to
reside until January 1, 1870, when he moved to Spring Lick, Grayson County, and
there, too, he was very active in agricultural matters, but in 1905 went back
to Davis County, and lived in retirement at Whitesville until claimed by death.
His final home was within three miles of the place on which he was born and
reared. A Jeffersonian democrat, he was stanch in his support of party
principles, and served very ably as city judge of Whitesville, which office he
was holding at the time of his demise. For sixty-four years he was a member of
the Missionary Baptist Church, which he served as a deacon for half a century,
and lived up to his conception of its creed. He was a man who took his
Christianity into his everyday life, and endeavored to act according to his
religion in whatever he undertook. He was a man of unflinching honesty, and
while he asked much of others he never demanded one-half as much from them as
he exacted from himself. For many years he maintained membership in the Odd
Fellows, and was much honored in the local lodge. The first marriage of John S.
Carter was solemnized with Miss Millie B. Harrison, October 7, 1858. She was
born in Davis County, Kentucky, April 15, 1840, and died in that county
September 5, 1866. They had four children, three who died in infancy, and Nancy
E., who first married Robert R. Proctor, a farmer, who died at Spring Lick,
Kentucky, and she then married John H. Heath, a blacksmith, who is also
deceased. On August 1, 1867, John S. Carter was married to Miss Delia D.
Chapman, who was born in Ohio County, Kentucky, April 23, 1845. She survives
her husband and is now living with Doctor Carter. They became the parents of
the following children: Jesse T., who was born November 11, 1868, died July 21,
1870; Susan G., who was born in Ohio County, Kentucky, November 11, 1868, died
there February 16, 1869; James, who was born September 4, 1870, in Ohio County,
resides at Whitesville, Kentucky, where he is a practicing physician and
surgeon, being a graduate of the Memphis Hospital Medical College at Memphis,
Tennessee, which conferred upon him his degree of Doctor of Medicine; Ira, who
was born in Ohio County, December 27, 1873, died in that county September 25, 1874;
Dr. Herman T., who was the fifth in order of birth ; Flora D., who was born in
Grayson County, Kentucky, October 1, 1879, married Claude C. Morrison, a traveling
salesman, and they reside at Elizabethtown, Kentucky; and Maggie J., who was
born in Grayson County October 16, 1883, married Ben J. McKinney, a traveling
salesman, and they reside at Eldorado, Illinois. Doctor Carter was accorded the
educational advantages offered by the rural schools of Grayson County and the
Spring Lick High School, but after a term at the latter he left and entered the
Hospital College of Medicine at Louisville, Kentucky, and was a student of that
institution for three years. He completed his medical course at the Memphis
Hospital Medical College at Memphis, Tennessee, and after a year there was
graduated, April 29, 1903, with the degree of Doctor of Medicine. On May 4 of
that same year he entered upon the practice of his profession at Gilbertsville,
where he has since maintained a general medical and surgical practice, with the
exception of six months when he was at Mound Valley, Kansas, during 1909-10. In
his political faith Doctor Carter is a democrat, having been brought up in
the doctrines so heartily espoused by
his father, and he is also following that a member of the Missionary Baptist
Church of Gilbertsville. A Mason, Doctor Carter belongs to Gilbertsville Lodge
No. 835, A. F. and A. AL, of which he was worshipful master in 1917. He also
belongs to Gilbertsville Lodge No. 345, I. O. O. F., Rosewood Camp No. 116, W.
0. W.; and Robinson Crusoe Camp No. 3516, M. W. A., of Gilbertsville.
Professionally he is a member of the Marshall County Medical Society, the
Kentucky State Medical Society, the American Medical Association and the
Southwest Kentucky Medical Association. For several years he has been on the
Gilbertsville Board of Education, and is now its treasurer. He owns his office
building and a modern residence on Brien Street. On November 4, 1903, Doctor
Carter was married at Gilbertsville to Miss Beulah E. Covington, a daughter of
Dan D. and Nancy E. (Ellis) Covington, both of whom are now deceased. Mr.
Covington was a pioneer merchant at Gilbertsville. By his first marriage Doctor
Carter had two children: Claudine, who was born September 28, 1905; and Lionel
C, who was born November 23, 1908. 611 April 14, 1912, Doctor Carter was
married at Gilbertsville to Miss Eureka Beasley, a daughter of J. B. and Lucy
(Stringer) Beasley. Mr. Beasley served in the Union army during the war between
the North and the South, and his health was so injured by his four years of
service that he received a pension from the Government. He is now deceased, but
his widow survives and lives with Doctor and Mrs. Carter. One child was born of
this marriage, Delia E., on March 13, 1914. On January 22, 1918, Doctor Carter
entered the medical department of the United States service and was commissioned
a first lieutenant. He was sent to Fort Riley, Kansas, and was honorably
discharged March 18, 1919. Doctor Carter has a real capacity for his calling,
and is a man who enjoys his work. He and his wife have many friends whom they
like to have about them, and are model host and hostess. Both as a physician
and a man Doctor Carter is accessible and sympathetic to those who seek his
help, and he is receiving an honorable reward for the services he has rendered
in both peace and war. He is a nobly gifted man, sincere and unselfish,
patriotic and courageous, and is proud of the fact that he was given an
opportunity to participate in the late War and of the wonderful response made
by his profession to the country's call.
CHILTON WALLACE ELLIOTT. The younger
business element of the thriving little city of Rochester, Kentucky, has a
worthy representative in Chilton Wallace Elliott, who within a short space of
time has established himself thoroughly in public confidence. A product of the
agricultural districts, in his former environment he came into contact with
matters that gave him a knowledge of connections affecting the milling
business, and during his connection with the Rochester Ice and Milling Company
he has used this information to good effect in his position as secretary and
manager. Mr. Elliott was born July 12, 1892, on a farm in Ohio County,
Kentucky, a son of Luther and Mary (Brown) Elliott, and a member of a family
which has been well and favorably known in Ohio County for several generations,
his grandfather having been a lifelong farmer in that county, although dying at
Hopkinsville. Luther Elliott was born in Ohio County in 1864, and throughout a
long and uniformly successful career has followed the pursuits of farming and raising
stock. At this time he is the owner of an extensive property, well improved and
highly cultivated, ships many cattle and hogs annually, and is accounted one
of the substantial agriculturists of his community, as well as a good and
dependable citizen. In politics he is a democrat, and his religious connection
is with the Baptist Church, of which he is an active and generous supporter.
Mr. Elliott married Mary Brown, who was born in 1866, in Arkansas, but reared
in Ohio County, and five children were born to them: Otie, who died young;
Hallie, the wife of Audrey Taylor, a merchant of Ohio County; Charles, a coal
miner of Muhlenberg County; Nola, who died at the age of eight years; and
Chilton Wallace. The education of Chilton W. Elliott was gained in the
rural schools of Ohio County, and until he was twenty-one years of age he was
associated with his father in the cultivation of the home farm. At that time he
went to Butler County, where he commenced farming on his own account, and this
enterprise engaged his attention until 1918, when he came to Rochester and
became manager and secretary of the Rochester Ice and Milling Company, a
position which he has held to the present time. His associates in this venture
are W. M. Brown, president, and Carl Willis, treasurer.
The flour mill, an up-to-date structure, is situated just off Main Street, and
its capacity is fifty barrels per day, while the ice manufacturing plant has a
daily capacity of five tons. In the performance of his duties with this concern
Mr. Elliott has shown a thorough
understanding of the business, good judgment, foresight and acumen, and has
so-deported himself in his various transactions as to gain the confidence of
his associates and the good will and respect of those with whom he has come
into contact in a business way. Mr. Elliott is a democrat and is rendering
Rochester valuable services in the capacity of member of the Board of Town
Trustees. His religious faith is that of the Christian Church. He resides in
his own home on Russellville Street, one of the comfortable residences of
Rochester, in which town he has formed and held many friendships. Like other
loyal and public-spirited citizens, during the World war he gave freely of his time
and means in supporting the various movements inaugurated for the support and
relief of America's fighting forces, and all worthy enterprises in times of peace
have also met with his approval and cooperation. Mr. Elliott married in 1912,
in Ohio County, Kentucky, Miss Nannie Tanner, daughter of Will and Novella
(Brown) Tanner, farming people of this county who reside at Rochester. One
child has come to Mr. and Mrs. Elliott: Barbara, born April 11, 1913.
JOHN FRANKLIN HOOVER. Some of the most
representative business men of this part of Kentucky are located at Dawson
Springs, finding in this city excellent opportunities for the development of
their faculties and securing a fair share of prosperity. One of them is John Franklin
Hoover, manager of the City Water Company and Ice Plant, who is recognized as one
of the experts in his line and a citizen of marked public spirit. He was born
at Livermore, McLean County, Kentucky, July 28, 1872, a son of George Burdett Hoover,
and a grandson of Richard Hoover, who was born in Virginia and died in Ohio
County, Kentucky, in 1883. He was a farmer by occupation and the first of his
family to come to Ohio County. George Burdett Hoover was born in Ohio County, Kentucky,
in 1839, and died at Livermore, Kentucky, in 1881. Reared and educated in Ohio
County, he became a farmer of that region, but later moved to Livermore and
embarked in a mercantile business, which occupied him until his death. Both in
his native county and at Livermore he supported the candidates of the
democratic party, and be was equally earnest in his connection with the
Methodist Episcopal Church of both places, having early joined that
organization. He married Susan Simmons who was born in Ohio County, Kentucky,
in 1843, and died at Dawson Springs, Kentucky, in 1912, surviving her husband
for many years. Their children were as follows: Vollie T., who died at
Louisville, Kentucky, in 1918, was in the employ of the American Tobacco
Company; Maude, who married a Mr. Ratterree, a druggist of Louisville; John Franklin,
who was the third in order of birth; Belle, who married C. B. Long, a retired
merchant of Madisonville, Kentucky; and Georgia, who married Dr. C. A. Niles, a
physician and surgeon of Dawson Springs, a sketch of whom appears elsewhere in
this work. John Franklin Hoover attended the public schools of Livermore until
he was sixteen years old, and then left school and came to Dawson Springs,
arriving here in 1888. For a time he did whatever work he found to do, and later
became a dealer in real estate, buying realty
and holding it until be could sell at a profit. In 1918 he became
superintendent of the City Water Company, and still holds that position, his
offices being located on Railroad Avenue, at Sycamore Street. The company
supplies Dawson Springs with water and man-ufactured ice, and Mr. Hoover
superintends the operation of both plants. In
addition to his duties as superintendent Mr. Hoover has numerous realty
holdings, including his substantial modern residence on Franklin Street, which is
supplied with city water, electric lights and other improvements, five
dwellings, a business block on South Alain
Street, and in partnership with Dr. C A. Niles owns sixty vacant lots in the
city. He also has an interest in the Tolo Water Company's building and the company
itself, and he is a stockholder and secretary of the City Water Company. A
democrat, he served as a member of the City Council for several terms, and is
active in his party. Fraternally he belongs to Dawson Lodge No. 628, A. F. and
A. M. During the late war Mr. Hoover was one of the most zealous workers in
behalf of the cause, and bought bonds and subscribed to
the various organizations to the utmost extent of his means, and did every-thing
within his power to aid the administration in carrying out its policies. In
1898 Mr. Hoover married Miss Cora Simpson, at Carmi, Illinois. She was a
daughter of Mr. and Mrs. John M.
Simpson. Mr. Simpson is now deceased, but was a farmer of White County,
Illinois. His widow, who survives him, is residing at Carmi, White County, Illinois.
The first Mrs. Hoover was a college graduate. She died at Carmi, Illinois, in
1903, having borne her husband one son, John Franklin, Jr., who died at the age
of ten weeks. In November, 1912, Mr. Hoover married at Jeffersonville, Indiana,
Miss Stella Pearl Dishman,
born in Marshall County, Kentucky. She was graduated from the public schools of
her native county and attended its high school course. Mr. And Mrs. Hoover have
one child, Gene, who was born February 11, 1920. Having lived at Dawson Springs for
so many years, Mr. Hoover naturally is interested in it, for he has assisted in
its development and has been instrumental in bringing about many improvements, both
as a private individual and as a public official.
JESSE ROBSON JOHNSON. No class of men
are more independent than the agriculturalists, especially in these days when
telephones and automobiles connect with centers
of industry and culture, farms of outlying districts and afford opportunities
for development and social intercourse as well as methods of speedily transacting business.
One of the men of Daviess County who has won his place among the successful
farmers of Kentucky, is Jesse Robson Johnson. He was born in Ohio County,
Kentucky, March 7 1862, a son of Thomas L. and Margaret (Murray) Johnson.
Thomas L. Johnson was born in Ohio County, Kentucky, July 25, 1834, a son of
James and Lucinda (Taylor)
Johnson, who were also natives of Ohio County. On January 19, 1858, Thomas L.
Johnson and Margaret Murray were married. She was born near Bloomfield, Nelson
County, Kentucky, September 30, 1836, and died at Owensboro, April 11, 1911.
Mrs. Johnson
was a daughter of James Murray, who lived and died in Nelson County, Kentucky.
Both Mr. and Mrs. Johnson were earnest members of the Baptist Church. They had
the following children born to them: Alberta, Lizzie, Jesse Robson, James
Murray, Allen, Blanche Lou, and Clarence B., the last three deceased, and Nina.
After their marriage Mr. and Mrs. Johnson settled on a farm in Ohio County,
Kentucky, near the Daviess County line. Here Mr. Johnson was engaged in
farming, and prospered. Later he became a tobacconist at Whitesville. In time
he moved his business to Owensboro, but subsequently went back to Ohio County. Once
more he became a resident of Owensboro, and there he died March 9, 1903. Jesse
Robson Johnson was reared on his father's farm and with the exception of
fifteen years when he was in business at Owensboro, he has been entirely occupied
with agricultural matters. About 1905 he bought his present valuable farm, near
Owensboro, and here he lives, his eldest sister being with him, neither of them
having married. He has a beautiful residence and grounds, and his premises show
that the owner takes a pride in having everything in fine order. Since buying
this farm he has made many improvements upon it, and it would be difficult to
find one in a more highly developed state. Both Mr. and Miss Johnson are held in
high esteem in the neighborhood where they have lived for so many years. Their
interests are all centered here, and they take pleasure in supporting local movements,
and enterprises, and are rightly numbered among the leading people of their
township.
ERNEST NEWTON has been one of the chief
business men and citizens of Earlington for the past twenty years, and is the
present postmaster of that important business and industrial center of Hopkins
County. Mr. Newton was born in Ohio County, Kentucky, October
12, 1878, of English ancestry. His family first settled in Virginia, and came
to Kentucky in pioneer days. His father, Isaac Newton, was also born in Ohio
County in 1836, was reared and married in that locality, and was a graduate in
medicine from the
University of Louisville. He practiced his profession at Buford in Ohio County
until 1884, and in that year removed to Clarksville, Arkansas, where he continued
his able work as a physician and surgeon until his death in 1900. He was a
Confederate veteran, having
served as a surgeon in the Southern army. He was a very devout Christian, an
active member of the Missionary Baptist Church, a democrat and a Mason. Doctor
Newton married Jennie Hinchee, who was born near Hartford, Ohio County,
Kentucky, in 1854, and is now living at Fort Smith, Arkansas. She is the mother
of five children: Rosa, wife of C. H. Flynn, in the restaurant business at Fort
Smith, Arkansas; Ernest; James H., a locomotive engineer living in Texas;
George, a farmer near Fort Smith; and Edwin, salesman in a general store at
Fort Smith. Ernest Newton was about six years of age when taken to Northwestern
Arkansas, attended the rural schools of Johnson County and graduated in 1896 from
the Clarksville High School. The following four years he worked at Webbers
Falls in old Indian Territory, first as a ranch hand and later as clerk in a
dry goods store. In 1900 Mr. Newton returned to his native state, and for about
a year clerked in a store at Owensboro. He has been a resident of Earlington since
the spring of 1901. The first eighteen months here he was manager of the
grocery store of John M. Victory. He then set up a shop as a general blacksmith
and wagon maker, and has developed a very prosperous business in that line,
still owning the shop on West Main Street. Mr. Newton was appointed postmaster
of Earlington after a competitive examination, and entered upon his official
duties for a term of four years February 1, 1919.
He also served as city judge of Earlington two years. He is a democrat, is
chairman of the Board of Stewards of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, is
past chancellor commander of Victoria Lodge No. 84, Knights of Pythias at
Earlington, and a member of
Eureka Camp No. 25, Woodmen of the World, at Madisonville. Mr. Newton got out
and worked and took the lead in securing Earlington's quota in the several
campaigns for funds during the war, and spent his own personal resources and
credit in the purchase of
bonds and war savings stamps. Mr. Newton owns a comfortable home on West Main
Street in Earlington. He married in this Hopkins County town in May, 1902, Miss
Nannie Stokes, daughter of Judge A. J. and Fannie Stokes. Her mother is still
living at Earlington. Her father, the
late Judge Stokes, was city judge of Earlington and for many years was head
carpenter for the St. Bernard Mining Company and one of the early settlers of
Earlington. Mr. and Mrs. Newton have three children: Louise, born in 1003, and
Virginia, born in 1906, both students in the Earlington High School; and
Earnest, Jr., born in 1914.
WARREN PEYTON, superintendent of
schools at Beaver Dam, taught his first country school twenty-five years ago,
and except for the intervals while be was acquiring and finishing his own
education has had an almost continuous association with educational work and is
consequently well known over the state and has filled some very responsible positions
in the schools of different town's and communities. Mr. Peyton was born on a
farm near Leitchfield in Grayson County November 28, 1877, and is a descendant of
Daniel Peyton, a Virginian who fought as an American soldier in the
Revolutionary war and for his services received a grant of land from Virginia
in Kentucky, which was then part of the Old Dominion. He came West to take
advantage of this land grant, and thus became one of the pioneer farmers of
Grayson County. His son, Elijah Peyton, grandfather of Warren Peyton, was born
in Grayson County in 1832, and spent nearly all his
life there as a farmer. Late in life he moved to the vicinity of Rockport in
Ohio County, where he died in 1917. He married Mary Jane Pierce, who was born in
Ohio County in February, 1833, and is still living, at the age of eighty-seven,
near Rockport. Allen
Peyton, father of Professor Peyton, is still living on his farm in the western
part of Grayson County, and was born on a farm adjoining his present homestead in
1854. His well directed energies over a period of more than forty years brought
him substantial success in his home community. He is a republican and a member of
the Baptist Church. Allen Peyton married Nancy Heady, who was born near
Owensboro in Daviess County in 1854. Warren is the older of their two children.
Their daughter, Mary, is the wife of James F. Cooksey, a farmer on a place
adjoining her father's farm. Warren Peyton during his youth lived on his father's
farm, attended the rural school of Grayson County, and after he began his
career as a teacher he graduated in 1900 from Hartford College in Hartford,
Kentucky, and in 1904 received his A. B. degree from the National Normal
University at Lebanon, Ohio. In 1915 for further work he was granted the degree
Bachelor of Science by Peabody College at Nashville. His first school was in a
country district of Grayson County, where he taught in 1896. He continued
country school work
six years, and in 1902 became assistant principal of the grade and high schools
at Leitchfield. From 1906 to 1910 Mr. Peyton was county superintendent of
schools of Grayson County. From 1911 to 1918 he was principal of the high
school at Utica in Daviess County, and then for two years was principal of the
high school at Fordsville in
Ohio County. He took up his duties as superintendent of schools at Beaver Dam
in September, 1920. The schools of Beaver Dam have a scholarship enrollment of
250, and he has a staff of eight teachers under him. In January, 1920, Mr.
Peyton began a term of four years as a member of the State Board of Teachers Examiners.
For ten years he has been active in the meetings and committee work of the
Kentucky Educational Association.
He was a leader in Ohio County during the World war, assisting in the sale of
Government securities and the raising of funds for various auxiliary purposes
through the schools and among all classes of citizens. Mr. Peyton was made a Mason
at Leitchfield
in 1906, and is now affiliated with Beaver Dam Lodge No. 420, F. and A. M., and
is a member of J. O. Davis Chapter No. 32, R. A. M., at Owensboro. January 1,
1907, at Louisville, he married Miss Beatrice McCabe, daughter of Barney and
Margaret (Ryan) McCabe. Her mother lives at Leitchfield, where her father, a
retired farmer, died. Mrs. Peyton is a graduate of the Bowling Green Business
University. They have one child, Tennyson, born January 4, 1908.
COLEMAN TAYLOR. A lawyer splendidly
equipped for his work, Coleman Taylor gained prestige throughout Logan County
by reason of his natural talent and acquired ability
in his profession. He is present county attorney and in a few years has won the
appreciation of older members of the bar and a satisfying private practice. Mr.
Taylor was born at Greenville in Muhlenberg County, Kentucky, January 13, 1892.
This branch of the
Taylor family were Colonial settlers in Virginia from Scotland. His
grandfather, John Taylor, was born in Culpeper County, Virginia, in 1811, and
at an early date settled in Western Kentucky in Daviess County, where at one
time he owned twenty-five hundred acres
of land, cultivated by numerous slaves. He died in Daviess County in 1897. E.
W. Taylor, father of Coleman Taylor, was born in Owensboro, Kentucky, in 1855,
was reared in that city, married at Hartford in Ohio County, lived there for a
year as a stock dealer, after which he returned to Owensboro. For two years his
home was at Greenville in
Muhlenberg County, and while there he did an extensive business as a stock
dealer, buying and selling horses for the East St. Louis market. For many years
until 1917 he was connected with the wholesale business of P. R. Lancaster at
Owensboro, and then retired
to his farm two miles south of Russellville, where he lives today. Besides operating
his own place of a hundred fifty acres he manages the three hundred acre farm
of his son Coleman. He has had a successful business career and is still
practically in his prime. E. W. Taylor is a democrat. He married Sallie Al. Daniel,
who was born at Carrollton, Kentucky, in 1861. Her father was the late Rev.
James S. Daniel who for fifty-two
years was an active minister of the Methodist Episcopal Conference of the
Louisville District. Coleman Taylor is the oldest of three children. His sister
Eva lives with her parents. Samuel died in Logan County in 1917 while a student
of law in his brother's office. Coleman Taylor was educated in the public schools
of Russellville and attended Bethel College until 1910 He entered the
profession only after a period of self supporting work and experience that in
itself constituted a splendid education. For a year after leaving college he
drove an express wagon in Russellville. He then became a railway express
messenger for eight months with a run from Russellville to Owensboro and from
Bowling Green to Memphis. Another year he spent in the Russellville office of
the Louisville and Nashville Railroad. He then became stenographer and law
student in the office of S. R. Crewdson, was admitted to the bar in 1915, and
since that date has been steadily gaining favor for his abilities in civil and criminal
practice. His offices are in the Edwards Building on Alain Street. Mr. Taylor
served as official court reporter for the Seventh Judicial District comprising Logan,
Todd, Muhlenberg and Simpson counties in
1915 and 1916. In 1917 he was elected county attorney and began his official
term of four years in January, 1918. He is a member of the Kentucky State Bar
Association, an attorney for the Southern Deposit Bank at Russellville and the
Lewisburg Banking Company at Lewisburg, Kentucky. During the World war he was
government appeal agent for the local draft board, and to this and other war
work he gave freely of his time and means. Mr. Taylor is a democrat, is
treasurer of the Russellville Baptist Church, senior warden of Russellville Lodge
No. 17, A. F. and A. M., member of Russellville Chapter
No. 8, R. A. M., Owensboro Commandery No. 15, K. T., Louisville Consistory of
the Scottish Rite, and Rizpah Temple of the Mystic Shrine a Madisonville. He is
also Past Chancellor Commander of Amelia Lodge No. 56, Knights of Pythias.
Reference has
already been made to the fact that he is a farm owner, his place of three
hundred, acres being four miles south of Russellville. He also has one of the most
desirable and attractive modern homes in the county seat. February 24, 1916, at
Clarksville, Tennessee, Mr. Taylor married Miss Clara B. Manning, daughter of
W. J. and Agnes (Dugan) Manning, residents of Clarksville, where her father is
a retired road building contractor. Mrs.
Taylor is a graduate of a seminary in Georgia and also of the noted finishing
school, the Ward-Belmont College of Nashville. Mr. and Mrs. Taylor have one son,
Manning, born September 6, 1920.
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