Eisenbarger, Martin

Martin Eisenbarger was born in 1813 in Pennsylvania and died May 8, 1872 he was married to Martha M. Stettler about 1838.  Martha M. Settler was born March 10,1818 in Pennsylvania and died April 8, 1902 at the age of 84 years.  Martha's mother was Susanna, who was born in 1787 in Virginia and died sometime after 1850.

Martin and Martha moved from Lancaster Pennsylvania to Terrytown Indiana in 1852 and then moved on to Missouri in 1861 during the Civil War.  Upon arriving in Missouri they settled in Harrison County on a small farm located about 7 miles Northeast of Martinsville, Mo.  They are both buried at the Magee Cemetery which is also located Northeast of Martinsville, Mo.

source:  family papers of Jewell Eisenbarger
submitted by: Melody Beery mbeery@grm.net

PROMINENT PIONEERS
Transcribed From:
 HISTORY OF NORTHWEST MISSOURI
EDITED BY: WALTER WILLIAMS
ASSISTED BY:  ADVISORY AND CONTRIBUTING EDITORS
COPYRIGHT: 1915
submitted by: Melody Beery
mbeery@grm.net


DANIEL S. ALVORD

who died at his home in Bethany, October 10,1900, was the son of a Baptist minister.  At the age of twenty he decided to adopt the profession of law and was admitted to the bar in Carthage, Illinois, in 1858.  During the war he served in Company E, 146th Illinois Infantry.  he came to Missouri in 1865, first locating at Chillicothe, then in Bethany.  He was prosecuting attorney from 1867 until 1877.  Mr. Alvord was a member of G.A.R. and I.O.O.F. He was one of the county's ablest legal practitioners and was an entertaining and public spirited citizen.

JUDGE ITALUS M. CURRY

was born in Indiana in 1842.  He came to Eagleville in 1875 and lived there until his death, June 14, 1813.  He was a member of the County Court of Harrison County for four years and left a clean record.  He was a member of the G.A.R.

transcribers note:  Judge Italus M. Curry is buried in the Masonic Cemetery in Eagleville, Mo.  his death date is listed June 14, 1913


COL. DAVID J. HEASTON

died at his home in Bethany July 21, 1902.  He was born in Champaign County, Ohio, May 22, 1835.  In 1858 he was admitted to the bar and licensed to practice law in the Circuit Court at Winchester, Indiana.  He came to Bethany, Harrison County, in 1859.  He was elected judge of the Probate Court of Harrison County in 1861.  He was a clear, terse, and energetic writer and at different times contributed to the newpapers of the county.  In 1862 when the enrolled militia of the county was organized, in response to the call of the Government, he was elected captain of the first company organized and when the enrolled militia of the was formed in the Fifty-seventh Regiment, Eastern Missouri Militia, he was commissioned colonel of the same.  He was always an earnest and zealous supporter of the democratic party.  In 1878 Colonel Heaston was elected to the state senate by a large majority in the Fourth District.  He was well known throughout the state as a Mason.  He was a member of the Christian Church.

JACOB NOLL

died at his home in Bethany, August 17, 1910, in his seventy-ninth year.  He was born in Germany in 1832.  He came to the United States and made his home until 1857 in Illinois, where he followed his trade, stone masonary.  He came to Bethany in 1874 and continued in the brick business for a number of years, then engaged in the grocery business.  He was a republican, a member of the G.A.R. having served from 1862 until the close of the war in Company A, Twenty-seventh Missouri Volunteer Infantry.  He was identified with the Catholic Church.

W.H.SKINNER

who on May 13, 1909 was elected department commander of the G.A.R. died at his home in Bethany February 2, 1914, in his seventieth year.  He was elected mayor of Bethany in 1883, judge of the county in 1890, serving two terms; prosecuting attorney of the county in 1886.  he was a charter member of Lieut. T.D. Neal Post, G.A.R.  At the time of his death he was on the staff of department commander, serving as judge advocate.  Mr. Skinner is said to have done as much to get old soldiers' pension claims through as any man in the county.

JOHN TAGGART

born in Ireland in 1828, died at his home near Bethany, August 23, 1913, in his eighty-sixth year.  He was a democrat of the Jeffersonian school.  Next to the family Bible, he esteemed and venerated the democratic platform.  He was elected state senator in 1886 and reelected for another term of four years, was a member of the Methodist Church and had been an Odd Felllow for more than sixty years.

JOSEPH WEBB

died near Mount Moriah December 4, 1913, in his ninety-fourth year.  He had been a resident of Harrison County more than fifty-seven years.  At the age of fourteen he rode horseback from Wayne County, Pennsylvania, to Missouri.  he was a prominent Mason and at one time was one of the largest land owners in the county.




Thompson, Lorenzo Dow

Transcribed From:
 HISTORY OF NORTHWEST MISSOURI
EDITED BY: WALTER WILLIAMS
ASSISTED BY:  ADVISORY AND CONTRIBUTING EDITORS
COPYRIGHT: 1915
Submitted by:  Melody Beery
mbeery@grm.net


Lorenzo Dow Thompson was the first representative in the General Assembly of Missouri from Harrison County.  Thompson achieved fame earlier in life by defeating Capt. Abraham Lincoln in a wrestling match.  In conversation at Bethany, the county seat of Harrison County, Gen. Henry Cadle added new details to the famous story and to the account of Thompson's life.

Thompson emigrated from Illinois to Harrison County, Missouri, and was elected its first representative in the General Assembly in 1846, and was re-elected in 1848.  He was also a member of the first grand jury of Harrison County.  Politically he was called an anti-Benton democrat.  Positive in all his convictions, he was called eccentric toward the end of his life, but all who knew him testify that he was able, upright and a good neighbor and citizen.  In 1875 he died indigence, at the age of sixtyfive years, and his body lies in Oakland Cemetery, six miles north of Bethany.

An old resident of Bethany, E.L. Hubbard, now ninety-one years of age, told General Cadle that he sold Mr. Thompson "the first suit of store clothes."  It was in this suit that he made his first appearance in the Legislature in 1846.  Mr. Hubbard says that Thompson was a powerful speaker of rough and ready sort, with but little education, and was a powerful man physically, as Abraham Lincoln found him in wrestling with him.

General Cadle has furnished an account of the wrestling match, in which Capt. Abraham Lincoln was defeated by Private Lorenzo Dow Thompson.  The match was celebrated the state over long before Lincoln became famous.  Historians have said that Lincoln claimed that the day he was elected captain of a company of sixty-day volunteers, in the Black Hawk war, was the proudest day of his life.  Lincoln said he was then out of a job, and enlistment in Governor Reynolds militia to remove Black Hawk and his band from Illinois soil, "dead or alive" appealed to his love of adventure. He enlisted with sixty-seven other Illinois men in a militia company in Sangamon County.  Lincoln was elected their captain on the 21st of April, 1832.  Thus organized the company was marched to Beardstown to be sworn into the service, and then towards Rock River, where Captain Lincoln was to meet Zachary Taylor, Jefferson Davis, William H. Harney, Albert Sydney Johnston and others who were to be prominent figures in American history.  Near Beardstown, the companies of Captain Lincoln and Capt. William Moore from St. Clair County came upon a camping ground simultaneously, and for its occupancy a strife arose.  It was suggested that Captain Lincoln and Captain Moore settle the matter by a wrestling match.  But as every rule of wrestling forbade a contest so unequal, Captain Moore who declined, suggested the selection of a man to represent each company.  That appeared fair enough, and Captain Lincoln selected himself to represent his company, while Captain Moore asked his brother, Jonathan Moore, orderly sergeant, to make the selection.  The latter knew his business, selecting as Captain Lincoln's antagonist Lorenzo Dow Thompson of St. Clair County.  Honathan Moore refereed the match, which was to consist of the best two in three falls.  He tossed up a coin, winning choice of the "holts" for Thompson who chose "side holts."  Lincoln's was "Indian holt"  There was much betting on the result;  horses, pay rolls and reputations were risked.  To the surprise of Captain Lincoln and his company, in the first round Thompson threw the captain upon the ground.  This, in the presence of a few friends would have been dreadful, but for Abraham Lincoln, captain of the company, the most famous wrestler, to be thus beaten surrounded by an army was a catastrophe.  His friends shouted: "That's only one fall, while two more are due."  Captain Lincoln returned to the wrestling with the remark, "Now Mr. Thompson, it's your turn to go down."  Once more the legs of the valiant captain rose in the air, and both men fell to the ground in a heap.

"Dog fall," yelled Lincoln's men.

"Fair fall," retorted Moore's men, but Lincoln, disgruntled and defeated though he was..in one fall at least...was a good loser.  Springing to his feet before the referee could act, he exclaimed:  "Boys, the man actually threw me once fairly, broadly so, and his second time...this very fall....he threw me fairly, though not apparently so."  That settled the matter, and the frankness of the speaker saved him his reputation, although his men lost all of their valuable property.

Prof. Risdon Marshall Moore, then of McKendree College, called in 1860 upon Mr. Lincoln at the latter's house in Springfield with a delegation of college men.  Professor Moore was introduced as "of St. Clair county."  During the conversation which followed, Mr. Lincoln asked:  "Which of the Moore families do you belong to?  I havde a grudge against one of them."  Professore Moore replied:

" I suppose it is my family you have the grudge against, but we are going to elect you president and call it even."

General Cadle had in his library at Bethany notes of this wrestling match and a biographical sketch of Lorenzo Dow Thompson, who is yet well remembered by many of the older citizens of Harrison County.


STEWART, JAMES ALEXANDER

James Alexander Stewart was born September 8, 1834 in Pittsburg, PA, the son of Henry Stewart and Ruth (Castor) Stewart.  Henry Stewart was born Nov. 8, 1798 and died Jan. 12, 1871, buried at Van Buren, Iowa.  Ruth (Castor) Stewart was born in 1801, married Henry Stewart June 7, 1821. They were the parents of Marcus B.,James Alexander, Mary, Rebecca, Clark, Henry and Castor.  James Alexander migrated to Fort Madison Iowa in the year 1855, it is not known if Henry Stewart migrated to Iowa at the same time.  James Alexander married Melissa Elizabeth Pooler, the daughter of Anthony and Thankful Pooler.  Melissa Pooler was born June 11, 1837 in Ohio.  James and Melissa were married February 25, 1857 in Des Moines County, Iowa.  James Alexander migrated to Missouri sometime after 1871. It is believed that Ruth (Castor) Stewart moved to Missouri at the same time, dying on the trail to Mo.  but there is no proof of this. 

James and Melissa were the parents of Thomas Henry, Ruth Elizabeth, John Valiant, Cynthia Ellen, James A., Nancy Florena, Rebecca A. (Jane), Ida Mae, Katie Curilla and Lula May.  Thomas Henry moved to Canada, John Valiant remained in Harrison County and married Latitia C. Eckard, Cynthia Ellen married Siegel Maddy, remained in Harrison County, Mo and is buried in the Logsdon Cemetery.  James A. married Lillie Rupe and moved to the Dakota's, Nancy Florena, never married and would stay with various relatives or if someone was sick and in need of care she would stay with them.  My grandmother, Clara Fish, often told me about Aunt Nan and the big trunk she lived out of.  Rebecca A. (Jane) married Charles Solomon, Ida May married Ulysses S. Geyer and is buried in the Logsdon Cemetery, Katie Curilla married Henry Franklin Smith and was the mother of an infant son (deceased), Clara (Smith) Fish, (this writer's grandmother), Lorence E. Smith, Lee A. Smith, Artie M. Smith.  Lula Mae, born 1880, died 1881 was the youngest child of James Alexander and Melissa E. Stewart.

Source:  Personal papers of Clara E. Fish
submitted by:  Melody Beery
mbeery@grm.net


Dr. James Lynn Downing

Dr. Downing was born in Pennsylvania of Scottish-Irish parents.  His parents moved to Ohio when he was two years old.  His father was a carpenter and painter by trade and the son learned and followed this trade.  In the spring of 1853 when he was nineteen years old he married Mary M. Hurd and they moved to Iowa.

Here he studied law and qualified to practice.  He brought his family to Eagleville, Mo., May 11, 1860 and here he continued to practice the profession of law while studing medicine under Dr. H.J. Skinner for three years.  He abandoned the practice of law for the medical service in 1864.

When he and his wife came to Eagleville they settled in a little home which was to be their place of abode as long as they lived.  Eight children were born to them.  Those who lived to maturity were: Laduke, Bertha, Benjamin, Jennie, Ida, Ursula, and "Hun".  One by one they left for homes elsewhere and once more the mother and father found themselves alone in the quiet little home which they came to love more and more.

When the doctor became to feeble to make the long drives, he stayed by his medicine case, doctoring a little here and there, until the death of his wife April 15, 1913.  From that time he began decling and died two years after her passing.

Dr. J. L. Downing was known all over Harrison county as the ever ready doctor, the benefactor to humanity. There was never a night too dark or cold, no snow too deep, the read to muddy or slick or waters too high but what, if the call came, Dr. Downing went.  He often said on the darkest bad night, he felt sure of a call to Hatfield or Blueridge, and he went. No thought of pay ever kept Dr. Downing from a sick bed.

Dr. Downing was well respected by all who knew him. Dr. and Mrs. Downing are buried in the Masonic Cemetery, Eagleville, Harrison County, Missouri.

source: excerpt from Eagleville Memories 1851-1969 by Elsie Herron,
transcribed by: Melody Beery

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