City of Kirksville
William Thomas Baird
19 Aug 1835 – 3 Mar 1912
Kirksville banker WT Baird, a native of Carroll County, KY, came to Kirksville in March 1857. He met Martha C Hannah not long after his arrival and the couple married in 1858. William taught school and clerked in a store for a time, then was clerk of the local branch of the Bank of St. Louis from 1859-1865, before beginning his 41-year association with “Baird’s Bank.” He held numerous public offices over the years, including Kirksville Board of Education, City Treasurer, County Treasurer, and Treasurer of the First District Normal School. [Violette; KDE Obit]
Conrad Bornemann
9 Aug 1829 – 21 Mar 1908
Conrad Bornemann, a native of Pattensen, Hanover, immigrated to the United States prior to the Civil War and served with the 26th Wisconsin Infantry during that conflict. He moved to Kirksville in 1870 and opened a merchant tailor shop which was located for many years on the north side of the square. Conrad married Mrs Arthusia (Sloan) Cail in 1871 and the couple had one son, Julius Conrad, who followed his father into the tailoring trade. [GAR Application; KDE obits]
John Calvin Carothers
23 Feb 1849 – 6 Jan 1929
Businessman and long-time public official, John C Carothers, came to Kirksville from Canton, MO to attend the First District Normal School in 1870 – and stayed. His various business interests included Parcels & Carothers Mercantile in the 1870s, Carothers & Greene Hardware in the 1880s and an abstract/loan/insurance agency in the 1890s. He also held the positions of Adair County Clerk, 1879-82, Kirksville City Clerk at various times for terms totaling 20 years and Public Administrator, 1923-28. He left this office Dec 31, just a few days before his death. He and Mary Elizabeth Parcels were married in 1872. [Goodspeed; KDE obit]
Michael G Clem
22 Oct 1813 – 23 Feb 1906
Michael Clem, a native of Hocking County, OH, moved to a farm on the Chariton River in Adair County in 1841. He operated one of the first grist mills on the river until 1885 when he retired and moved to Kirksville. He was elected County Judge in 1878 and served one term. Mr Clem and his wife, Malinda Ellen Pullens, also from Hocking County, were the parents of three sons and seven daughters. [note: Mr Clem’s YOB is variously reported as 1813 & 1814 and his place of birth as Hocking & Licking County.] [Violette; Graphic obit]
Solomon Conder
18 Jan 1843 – 19 July 1936
Farmer Solomon Conder, originally from Owen County, IN, moved to Novelty, Knox County, MO in 1870. He had served 3 years in the 97th Indiana Infantry during the Civil War and was active in both the Novelty and Kirksville posts of the Grand Army of the Republic. He was Post Commander at Novelty before living in Kirksville for a few years in the 1890s. Solomon and his first wife, Mary E Rawley, were the parents of two children, John & Nancy. After Mary’s death, he married widow Martha (Childress) Long. He died of heatstroke at age 93 at home in Novelty. [Directories; MO Death Certf; GAR; Find-a-Grave.com]
Josiah W. Davis
5 Oct 1840 – 24 Feb 1920
JW Davis, originally from Clay County, IN, was a Schuyler County, MO farmer & teacher who enlisted in Company B, 21st Missouri Infantry during the Civil War and fought at the Battle of Shiloh. He began his ministry with the Disciples of Christ in 1868, and moved to Kirksville in 1884 as pastor of First Christian Church, 1884-85. He was later elected Adair County’s Representative to the Missouri House for two terms, 1886-89. He and Catharine M Vanhoutin of Edgar County, IL married about the time he left the Army in 1866. [1stCC History]
James Montgomery DeFrance
12 Sept 1826 – 28 Aug 1900
Between the ages 20 and 40, James M DeFrance, of Mercer County, PA, attended college in Pennsylvania, worked as a logger in Wisconsin, was a land agent in Missouri, and ranched in Colorado before settling in Kirksville. He arrived here in 1866 and opened a law practice, from which he retired in 1880. He also purchased several blocks of houses in the southeast quarter of the city and an undeveloped square block used by the public and known as DeFrance Park. James and his first wife, Mary E Halliburton of Milan, MO, were the parents of a son and daughter. [Regents]
George W Denniston
1 May 1844 – 11 Dec 1918
GW “Doc” Denniston, moved to Adair County from New Bethleham, PA around 1875. He was the proprietor of Denniston Agricultural Implements just north of the Kirksville square during the 1890s but moved to Neosho, MO in the early years of the 20th Century. Doc and his wife Mary, who died before he left Kirksville, are buried in the city’s Forest-Llewellyn Cemetery. [KDE Obit; F-L]
Andrew Ellison
6 Nov 1846 – 27 Jun 1902
Andrew Ellison was born in Monticello, MO and raised in nearby Canton. After reading law with his father, he moved to Kirksville in 1867 and opened a law office with his brother, James. In 1876, he was appointed Circuit Judge of 27th Judicial District to fill an unexpired term and was subsequently elected for four additional terms, retiring in 1899. He also served on the Normal School Board of Regents, 1875-91. “Meadow View”, the home of Judge Ellison and his wife Julia M Hatch at 1107 E Illinois, was one of the many houses destroyed by the tornado of April 1899. [Violette; Regents]
George E Englehart
18 Dec 1868 – Mar 1963
George Englehart moved to Adair County from Lee County, IA with his parents, Frederick & Mary Jane (Reesman) Englehart when he was about 4 years of age. In the 1890s, George and his brother William were partners in Englehart Bros Real Estate & Insurance agency and George sang tenor with a group known as the Lyric Quartet. He moved to Texas with his wife Georgianna (Imbler) and their two young daughters after the turn of the ceuntry then settled in Portland, OR by 1920. [Federal Census; Directories; SSDI]
William Fred Englehart
22 Aug 1866 – April 1963
WF Englehart came to Adair County from Lee County, IA with parents Frederick & Mary Jane (Reesman) Englehart as a young boy. He was in partnership with his brother George as Englehart Bros Real Estate & Insurance in the 1890s, during which time he also served first as Deputy then, for 4 years, as County Tax Collector. After leaving office, he earned a Doctor of Osteopathy degree and moved to St Louis in 1903 to begin his practice. William married Mrs Fannie Shackelford after the death of his first wife, Viola Eliza Wilcox. [Who’s What; Missourians; SSDI]
William Henry Foncanon
22 Feb 1842 – 8 Dec 1905
WH Foncanon, a native of Logan, OH, was a Corporal in Company D, 17th Ohio Volunteer Infantry during the Civil War. He and his wife Mary M Seward moved to Missouri in 1867 and purchased a stock farm in the southern part of Adair County near Millard. They left the farm in 1891 and moved to Kirksville to build their retirement home. [GAR Application; KDE Obit]
John W Gill
12 Feb 1830 – 31 Jul 1915
Sarah M (Samuels) Gill
5 Aug 1846 – 28 Jul 1911
John, a farmer from Ohio, and his wife Sarah, a native of Indiana, moved to Adair County around 1857. They were retired and living in Kirksville by 1892 and both were buried at Kirksville’s Forest-Llewellyn Cemetery. We have no further information on them at this time. [F-L; City Directories]
Peyton Foster Greenwood
12 Feb 1840 – 6 Apr 1918
PF Greenwood came to Adair County with his family from Sangamon County, IL, as a 12 year old boy. He grew up on his father’s farm in Salt River Township and began teaching in the rural schools at about age 17. He also began reading law on his own and was admitted to the Bar in 1866. In 1872 he moved to Kirksville and practiced his profession until 1901 when he retired and moved to a farm just north of town. For many years, his office was above First National Bank, south side of the square. He and Julia Ann Bryan married in 1864 and were the parents of eight children. [Violette; KDE Obit]
Charles A. Hamilton
1 Jan 1861 – 7 July 1944
Charles Hamilton was a Knox County, MO farmer and school teacher until he moved to Kirksville in 1893. For the next four years, he owned a building & loan/insurance agency then, in Oct 1897, was appointed Kirksville Postmaster. He reopened the agency when he left the Post Office in Mar 1901 and continued in the business until he moved in Dec 1913. He later settled in Joplin. Charles and Julia Chadwick married in 1888 and were the parents of five. After her death he married Maggie Englehart. His brother Warren was also a Kirksville resident. [Violette; Journal; MO Death Certf]
Warren Burton Hamilton
15 July 1869 – 2 Aug 1911
Warren B Hamilton, younger brother of Postmaster Charles Hamilton, was a traveling salesman for the Frey Stationary Co of St Louis for several years before organizing Kirksville’s State Building and Loan Association in the early 1890s. He married Mae DeWitt of Kirksville in 1893. Although he earned degrees in law and osteopathy he never actively practiced either profession; he did, however, use both in his position as Business Manager and Secretary/Treasurer of the American School of Osteopathy. [Violette; Walter]
Arthur G. Hildreth
13 Jun 1863 – 21 Feb 1941
Dr Hildreth, an Adair County native, was a member of the first graduating class of the American School of Osteopathy in 1894, and from that time until his death, was affiliated with the school in some way or another. Over the years he was instructor & Dean, a legislative lobbyist for legal recognition of the discipline and founder/director of the AT Still Surgical Sanitarium in St Louis and the Still-Hildreth Sanitarium in Macon. He was also the Adair County Representative to the Missouri Legislature for two terms, 1900-04, and State Senator for the 9th District two terms in the 1920s. [Walter; KDE obit]
Samuel M Link
28 Apr 1837 – 1 Sep 1904
Samuel Link was born in Carrolton, IL and moved to Colorado for several years as a young adult. He came to Kirksville in 1867 and was a retail merchant for a while before becoming Clerk, then President of First National Bank, a position he held from 1884 until his death. Link married his cousin Mary Agnes Link in Illinois in 1861. [Violette; Citizens]
John M. McCall
16 Dec 1844 – 21 June 1924
Attorney John McCall was born in Brown County, OH and came to Missouri a few months before enlisting in Company F, 39th Missouri Volunteer Infantry in the fall of 1864. After his discharge, he farmed a few years in Knox County then studied law and was admitted to the Bar in 1875. He moved to Kirksville in 1883 where he practiced law until forced into semi-retirement after a stroke in 1916. He was elected Knox County Prosecuting Attorney for two terms, 1879-81, and Mayor of Kirksville for one term, 1909-10. McCall was married first to Mary J Hickman of Knox County; after her death he married Mrs Mary (Gilmore) Greiner of Kirksville. [Violette; KDE obit]
John H. Morris
11 Dec 1836 – 2 Feb 1909
JH Morris, Kirksville’s first photographer, moved here from his native Orange County, VA in 1862. He married Frances “Fannie” Tull of Kirksville in 1868 and the couple had two children, Emery & Zena. After selling his photography studio to his brother-in-law, he owned a dry goods store at Queen City in Schuyler County until he retired in the late 1890s. He then returned to Kirksville and dabbled in several businesses including real estate and sewing machines. [Journal & Graphic obits, directories; Morris Family Bible]
William S. Murphy
4 Sept 1858 – 9 May 1925
William Murphy came to Adair County from Taylor County, WV with his first wife and young family when he was about 30 years of age. A carpenter by trade, he was a building contractor and owner/operator of the Kirksville Planing Mill at the corner of Washington & Main, near the Wabash Depot. He was married three times, to Mary E Waldron, Lucy O Gardner & Marvin Wilhelmenia Quattlebaum, and was the father of at least nine children. [Violette; KDE obit]
Arthur Patterson
29 Oct 1869 – 27 May 1937
Arthur Patterson was a Kirksville native and son of Swedish immigrants Charles & Christianna (Lovell) Patterson. As a young man, he was owner/manager of Patterson Fruit Farm, the business started by his father at the south edge of town in the 1850s. (The family home and a great deal of the orchard were destroyed in the Kirksville tornado of April 1899.) After completing a degree at the American School of Osteopathy in the 1890s, Arthur left Kirksville and at the end of his life was living and working in Wilmington, DE. He suffered a fatal heart attack while traveling by train to a church meeting in Columbus, OH. [Federal Census; KDE obit; OH Death Certf]
John L. Porter
14 Sep 1834 – 6 Feb 1924
John L Porter, a native of Gettysburg, PA, was raised in Jefferson City, MO and came to Kirksville as a young man. Although primarily a real estate agent and developer, he was also involved in numerous business enterprises, including a telegraph line construction company, a freight line, retail clothing and grocery stores, as well as being founding President of the Porter Coal & Mining Co and the Pennsylvania & Missouri Coal & Mining Co. His business properties in Kirksville included the Porter & Ivie blocks (the latter named for his wife Mary E Ivie) at each end of the south side of the Square and the Porter Flats at Main & Harrison. [Violette; KDE obit]
Philip Joseph Rieger
14 Sep 1834 – 6 Feb 1924
PJ Rieger moved to Adair County from Peoria County, IL with his parents in 1880. He attended the Normal School for a while then taught school several years before running for County Court Clerk. He was elected and served 1891-95, during which time he read law with Judge Andrew Ellison. He was admitted to the Bar in January ’95, and was almost immediately elected to serve a term as City Attorney before entering private practice. He stepped into that position again in 1909 to complete his predecessor’s unfinished term. PJ and his wife, Nevada McCoy, lost their home in the April 1899 tornado. [Violette; KDE obit]
Richard Major Ringo
5 Feb 1834 – 29 Jan 1909
Richard Ringo came to Adair County from Clay County, IN as a child and was raised on a farm near Kirksville. He was elected County Clerk in 1859 and after completing six years in that office, opened a mercantile store which he operated for about eight years. He organized the Kirksville Savings Bank in 1873 and remained an officer until his death, serving first as Cashier then President. Richard and Quintilla Tennessee Haynes married in 1869; they built a beautiful home where Cumberland Academy once stood (later the site of Veterans Memorial Park). [Violette; KDE obit; Banks]
Clarence A Robinson
28 Jun 1858 – 2 Mar 1923
CA Robinson, a native of Winchester, VA, was a successful dry goods merchant in Kirksville for over forty years. The Steer, Robinson & Co Mercantile, later Clarence A Robinson & Co, was located on the west side of the Square from the early 1880s until his death from injuries received in a gardening accident in 1924. Clarence and his wife Grace Caldwell were the parents of three sons. [KDE obit]
Andrew Taylor Still
6 Aug 1828 – 12 Dec 1917
Andrew Taylor Still, the father of Osteopathy, was born in Lee County, VA and moved to Kansas in 1853. He studied medicine under his father and became a practicing physician. When the Civil War broke out, he enlisted and served as hospital steward and officer in three Kansas units. In the early 1870s he developed the concept of osteopathic healing and moved to Kirksville, MO in 1875 to open a practice. He founded the American School of Osteopathy here in 1892. Still was married twice, first to Mary Margaret Vaughan who died in Kansas, then to Mary Elvira Turner. Four of his children, including son Harry M, trained as osteopaths under his instruction. [Still Museum]
Harry Mix Still
26 May 1867 – 28 Jul 1942
Harry, son of Andrew Taylor Still and a native of Baldwin, KS, was in the first graduating class of the American School of Osteopathy in 1894. He was Vice President of ASO for a time then practiced in numerous cities around the country before retiring due to ill health in 1907. He then returned to Kirksville where he was President of the Citizens National Bank, 1907-42, and was a co-founder of numerous area businesses, including Kirksville Power & Electric Light Co, the Travelers Hotel, Kirksville College of Osteopathy & Surgery (successor to ASO), and the Still-Hildreth Sanitarium in Macon. Harry was married to Nannie Miller of Kirksville. [Violette; Regents]
Thomas E. Sublette
9 Dec 1853 – 7 Sep 1931
Thomas Sublette, a resident of Adair County from the age of one, grew up on the family farm near Sublette, the town named for his father. After graduating from the First District Normal School in 1878, he moved to his native St Louis County for five years to teach school. He returned home in June 1883 intending to farm but purchased the Kirksville Weekly Graphic instead and went into the newspaper business. He remained publisher/editor of the Graphic until his death. Thomas and Kate Florence Funk married in 1893 and were the parents of four daughters. [Violette; KDE obit]
Jesse Coleman Thatcher
21 Dec 1820 – 23 May 1899
JC Thatcher, a native of Bourbon County, KY, was raised in Calloway County, MO then moved to Adair County in 1846, making him one of Kirksville’s earliest residents. He owned and operated a mercantile store for nearly 30 years then, after retiring from that business around 1873, ran a successful insurance agency until his death. Thatcher was first married to Mary Baker Griffith of Calloway County and after her death to Mrs Eliza (Sappington) Carter. [Review; Democrat obit]