the city a young man without capital, embarked in merchandising, laid
the foundation for a business career, and is now one of the leading real
estate men of Northwest Missouri. His administration as mayor of
Excelsior Springs is remembered gratefully by the citizens, and as
executive of the city he inaugurated many improvements which have
helped to increase the fair fame of Excelsior Springs.
Mr. Bates represents one of the old families in Clay County. The
family has lived here through three generations, the first having come as
pioneers, the second having carried on the development through the
later decades of the last century, and Mr. Bates himself represents the
third, and his position in the community adds to the reputation for
progressiveness and enterprise which have long characterized the name.
A. M. Bates was born in Washington Township of Clay County, June
12, 1876. He was a son of Charles F. Bates, who was born in Ray
County, Missouri, October 30, 1815, and is now living on his home-
stead two and a half miles north of Excelsior Springs. Charles F.
Bates was a son of William and Serilda (Nowland) Bates, the former
of Virginia and the latter of Tennessee, who came as early settlers into
Ray County, where the former died in 1884 at the age of sixty-five,
while the grandmother is now living at Excelsior Springs at the advanced
age of ninety years. Charles F. Bates married Elizabeth Miller. She
was born in Ray County, three miles northeast of Excelsior Springs,
March 21, 1819, and is still living. Her parents were William Andrew
and Sallie (McKee) Miller, the former of North Carolina and the lat-
ter of Kentucky. They came to Ray County about the same time as the
Bates family. Charles F. Bates and wife were the parents of ten chil-
dren, all of whom are living as follows : Robert L., of Excelsior Springs ;
A. M. and Ava E.. twins, the latter the wife of Freeman Furman, of
Excelsior Springs; L. E., of Excelsior Springs; Lucy, at home; Sallie
Shoemaker, a widow living at Excelsior Springs; William, of Excelsior
Springs; Ella, at home; and Frank, of Oklahoma. Charles F. Bates
grew up in Ray County, was married there, and then moved to a farm
five miles north of Excelsior Springs, and in 1873 came to his present
location, which is the old Miller homestead. That home has been occu-
pied by the family for more than forty years, and was originally entered
directly from the Government by the great-grandfather of A. M. Bates,
Frederick Miller, who died on the farm in May, 1872, at the age of
seventv-eight.
1400 HISTORY OF NORTHWEST MISSOURI
A. M. Bates grew up on a farm, received his early education in the
country schools, and lived at home until twenty-one. With money
supplied him by his grandfather Bates, he then came to Excelsior Springs
and made his first business venture in the purchase of a meat market,
which he conducted for some time, and thus paved the way for a larger
career. He and his brother R. L. Bates then bought a grocery store,
and conducted a successful partnership for six years, at the end of
which time the brother acquired the entire stock. Since 1900 Mr.
Bates has been successfully engaged in the real estate business. He
has platted and sold three additions to Excelsior Springs, and also
owns a large amount of farm land in both Kansas and Oklahoma, and
operates a large stock feeding farm in Oklahoma. Mr. Bates was one
of the organizers of the First National Bank of Excelsior Springs,
served as its first president, and is still a member of its board of
directors.
In 1898 Mr. Bates was first elected to the office of mayor of Excel-
sior Springs, served for two years, and after that term was in the
office as alderman for four years. In 1912 Mr. Bates was again the
choice of the citizens for the office of mayor, and has led the city gov-
ernment and cooperating associations of citizens in the movement for
the making of Excelsior Springs a greater and better city. His service
as mayor was concluded in the spring of 1914. Mr. Bates is affiliated
with the Masonic Order, the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, the
Modern Woodmen of America, the Knights of Pythias and the Benevo-
lent and Protective Order of Elks. In politics he has always allied
himself with the democratic party.
On January 16, 1895, he married Sarabe McGlathlin, who was born
at Brookfield, Missouri, in 1871, a daughter of John and Irene (Cris-
field) McGlathlin, who came to Excelsior Springs in 1881, where her
father was in the monument business and later real estate dealer. He
died July 8, 1914, at the age of seventy-eight, while her mother passed
away in 1906. To the marriage of Mr. Bates and wdfe have been born
four children: Grace, Eugene, Harry and Donald.
Joseph Rea. No publication purporting to touch consistently the
history of Andrew County could justify its functions were there failure
to pay a tribute of honor to the late Judge Joseph Rea, farmer, banker,
lawyer and probate judge, for he left a deep and benignant impress upon
the annals of this county, which represented his home from his boyhood
days until his death, which occurred on the 28th of February, 1914.
The judge was a scion of one of the most honored and influential pioneer
families of Northwest Missouri, and in his sturdy physical and mental
makeup he represented the best of the fine Scotch and Welsh strains of
ancestry.
Judge Rea claimed the old Hoosier State as the place of his nativity,
but was a lad of six years at the time of his parents' immigration to
Missouri. He was born in Ripley County, Indiana, on the 13th of No-
vember, 1837, the second in order of nativity of the two sons and eight
daughters of Jonathan and Lurana (Breden) Rea, the former of whom
was born in North Carolina on the 26th of October, 1805, and the latter
of whom was born in Kentucky, on the 7th of August, 1813, their mar-
riage having been solemnized in Indiana. Of the ten children, all attained
to years of maturity and reared children of their own, with the exception
of one daughter, who died in infancy. The first to die of those who thus
reached mature age was not summoned to the life eternal until thirty-
seven years after the death of the parents, each of whom was forty-seven
years at the time of death and both having expired from attacks of
J
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UtLX*.
HISTORY OF NORTHWEST MISSOURI 1401
pneumonia. That the second generation gave prolific progeny to the
family line is evidenced by the statement that Judge Rea had nieces and
nephews to the number of sixty-four. Jonathan Rea was one of the
sterling pioneers of Andrew County, Missouri, where he developed a farm
from the primitive wilds and where both he and his wife continued to
reside on their homestead until the close of their lives.
Judge Joseph Rea was reared to the sturdy discipline of the home
farm and while assisting in its work and management during the years
of his youth he attended the district schools during the winter terms and
thus laid the foundation for the substantial superstructure of knowledge
which made him in his mature years a man of strong intellectuality and
distinctive judgment. After the death of his father, in February, 1854,
he continued to remain on the old homestead with his mother and sisters
until the devoted mother likewise passed away, in February, 1861, the
family having become scattered after that time. Thereafter Judge Rea
remained on the old home farm with William Pettyjohn, who had rented
the property, and while actively concerned with the work and manage-
ment of the place, he devoted as much time as possible to the study of
law, the reading of which he had previously prosecuted under the able
preceptorship of Judge William Heren, of Savannah, judicial center of
the county, this ambitious work having been prosecuted when he was
also attending the school conducted by Prof. George W. Turner.
At the inception of the Civil war Judge Rea took a decided stand for
the Union and became a member of the state militia, and after his mar-
riage, in 1862, he soon subordinated his personal interests to enlist in
the Fifty-first Missouri Volunteer Infantry, in which he rose from the
position of private to the office of first lieutenant of Company B. He
also served as assistant quartermaster and for a period of about two
months was in charge of the Gratiot Street military prison, in the City of
St. Louis. He continued in service until the close of the war, and there-
after he continued to be identified with agricultural pursuits and stock-
growing in Andrew County during the remainder of his active career,
besides which he was engaged in the practice of law for a long period of
years and gained prestige as one of the well fortified members of the bar
of this part of the state. For twenty-four years he was the popular
candidate presented by the democratic party for the office of probate
judge, for which he was nominated for six consecutive times and to which
he was elected three times. In each instance of election he had antici-
pated defeat, and the anomalous condition was that at the time of each
defeat he had anticipated victory. He served, and with characteristic
loyalty and ability, three terms as judge of the Probate Court. Judge
Rea was a man of forceful personality, inflexible integrity in all of the
relations of life, and generous and considerate in his intercourse with his
fellowmen, his strong mind and resolute purpose making him well
equipped for leadership in public thought and action and his very nobil-
ity of character gaining and retaining to him the confidence and high
regard of all with whom he came in contact. He was a man of dignified
presence, more than six feet in height and weighing about two hundred
and twenty-five pounds in the prime of his life. Sincere with himself
and others, he demanded a reason for the faith that was to be adopted
by him, and though he ordered his life on the highest plane of integrity
and honor he did not become formally a member of any religious organ-
ization until about fifteen years prior to his demise, when he united with
the Christian Church, of which he ever afterward continued a zealous and
earnest member, his widow being one of the venerable and revered pio-
neer women of the City of Savannah. Judge Rea was a brother of Hon.
1402 HISTORY OF NORTHWEST MISSOURI
David Rea, who was elected a member of Congress from the then Ninth
District of Missouri in 1872, as candidate on the democratic ticket, and
who was twice re-elected. Hon. David Rea entered the Union army at
the beginning of the Civil war and rose to the rank of lieutenant-colonel
of a Missouri regiment.
In October, 1862, was solemnized the marriage of Judge Rea to Miss
Sarah A. Muse, who was born in Fleming County, Kentucky, on the 27th
of July, 1844, and who Avas five years of age at the time when her parents,
the late Henry and Mahala Muse, came to Missouri and established their
permanent home in Andrew County, within whose borders she has con-
tinued to reside to the present time. Judge and Mrs. Rea became the
parents of nine children, of whom the eldest is Judge James M., who is
now serving as judge of the Probate Court of Andrew County, a position
in which he is admirably upholding the high prestige of the name which
he bears, individual mention of him being made on other pages of this
work; Jonathan H. remains with his widowed mother in Savannah;
Thomas B., who resides at South Omaha, is United States livestock in-
spector of Nebraska ; Claude is a resident of Edmonton, British Columbia,
where he is identified with the wholesale grocery business ; Ida is the wife
of Henry S. Rector, a successful farmer near Tonganoxie, Leavenworth
County, Kansas; Earl is a farmer and representative citizen of Saline
County, Missouri, his homestead farm being situated two miles north of
Marshall; Ellen, under the administration of her eldest brother, is the
efficient and popular clerk of the Probate Court of Andrew County;
Bettie died in 1903, at the age of twenty-five years; and Frank H. is
special agent at Kansas City, Missouri, for the Home Insurance Com-
pany of New York.
James M. Rea. In an office that was signally dignified and honored
by the services of his father, Judge Rea is maintaining the same high
standard of efficiency and is one of the able and popular executives of
the government of his native county. He is a son of the late Judge Joseph
Rea, to whom a memoir is dedicated on other pages of this work, so that
in the present article it is unnecessary to offer further review of the
family history, though it may consistently be said that few names have
been more prominent and represented greater influence in this history
of Andrew County than that borne by him who is now serving as judge
of the Probate Court of the county and who is known as a citizen of high
civic ideals, as well as a man of broad mental ken, well fortified convic-
tions and unquestioned integrity of purpose.
In what is now known as the Fisher farm, about two miles northeast
of the Village of Rea, named in honor of the family, Judge James Muse
Rea was born on the 26th of August, 1863, a scion of one of the sterling
pioneer families of Andrew County. He is the oldest of the children of
Judge Joseph Rea and Sarah A. (Muse) Rea, the latter of whom main-
tains her home at Savannah, the judicial center of the county, the death
of her husband having occurred on the 28th of February, 1914. He
whose name initiates this article has been a resident of Andrew County
continuously from the time of his birth, save for an interval of one
year, during which he was identified with the cattle business in Oklahoma
and Indian Territory, in 1881. He attended the public schools of his
native county until he had completed the curriculum of the Savannah
High School, and in fitting himself for the profession in which his father
achieved distinctive success, he entered the law department of Cornell
University, at Ithaca, New York, in which he was graduated as a member
of the class of 1892 and with the degree of Bachelor of Laws, his admission
HISTORY OF NORTHWEST MISSOl'RI 1403
to the Missouri bar having been recorded in the year prior to his grad-
uation. He engaged in the practice of his profession at Savannah and
built up a substantial and representative law business, to which he con-
tinued to devote his undivided attention until his election to the office
of Judge of the Probate Court, in 1910. His father held this important
office for three terms and for the same was virtually the "perpetual
candidate ' ' of the democratic party, and he himself has given an adminis-
tration marked by great circumspection and care, so that the many
important interests presented for adjudication in his court have been
handled most efficiently and to the satisfaction of those concerned.
Judge Rea has been unswerving in his allegiance to the democratic
party and has been one of its influential figures in his home county. He
has been a student of economic and governmental affairs, both local and
generic, and has never lacked the courage of his convictions. In 1912
he circulated in Andrew County a petition in support of the initiative
policy, to enable the people to adopt by vote or to defeat by the same
process the single-tax policy, of which he is a stalwart advocate. He
realized fully that the idea was one that was distinctly unpopular among
the farmers and that his advocacy would possibly lose to him the political
support of many of the sterling husbandmen of the county, but he held
principle above personal advancement and lived up to his convictions.
In the election of 1914 he was defeated at the polls on aocount of his
convictions as to single taxes, but throughout the campaign no other than
high encomium as a man and an officer were heard against him.
On the 2d of June, 1910, was solemnized the marriage of Judge Rea
to Miss Nellie Barr, daughter of Boyd and Mary Jane (Jenkins) Barr,
honored pioneers of Andrew County, and the one child of this union is a
winsome little daughter, Blanche, who was born on the 2d of January,
1913.
Jeremiah H. Bryan. The remuneration of an active, useful and
helpful career is an honorable retirement from labor and a season
of rest in which to enjoy the fruits of former toil. The individual who
through consecutive endeavor, resolute purpose, sound judgment and
unfaltering energy achieves success in the active affairs of life is
eminently entitled to a period of leisure in which to carry out his
individual desires and indulge those tastes from which he has been
formerly withheld by the strenuous duties of business life. For more
than forty years Jeremiah H. Bryan was prominently identified with
the agricultural interests of Northwest Missouri, and his career was an
honorable one, in which his indefatigable labor brought him a hand-
some competence that now enables him to put aside the heavier burdens
and find pleasurable recreation in his home and among his numerous
friends.
Mr. Bryan was born in Greene County, Virginia, December 18, 1840,
and is a son of Robert and Lavina (Ganes) Bryan. The family origi-
nated in Scotland and its founders in America settled in Culpeper
County, Virginia, from whence Allen Bryan, the great-grandfather of
Jeremiah H., enlisted for service in the American army during the
Revolutionary war. Allen Bryan married a Miss Kendall, who was
of English birth, and among their children was Jerry Bryan, the
grandfather of Jeremiah H., who served valiantly as a soldier during
the War of 1812 as a lieutenant. Robert Bryan was born in 1817, in
Greene County, Virginia, grew to manhood in that vicinity, and in that
county he married Lavina Ganes, who was born at Dayton, Rocking-
ham County, in 1814. He then went across the line into Rockingham
1404 HISTORY OF NORTHWEST MISSOURI
County and there engaged in farming during the remainder of his life,
and passed away at Dayton, aged sixty-five years, while the mother
reached the advanced age of ninety-three years. They were faithful mem-
bers of the old Baptist Church which was built in 1802, of chestnut logs
and afterwards weatherboarded, and which is still standing as one of the
old historical landmarks near Culpeper Courthouse. Of the eight chil-
dren in their family, seven grew to man and womanhood, and four are
living at this time : Jeremiah H. ; Robert, a resident of Roanoke, Vir-
ginia ; George, who resides at Dayton, Virginia ; and Joe M., who lives
at Warrensburg, Missouri.
Jeremiah H. Bryan was reared in Rockingham County, Virginia,
and received his education in the public schools, upon his completion of
the curriculum of which he learned the trade of carpenter. He was
thus engaged and in his twenty-first year when the war between the
South and North broke across the country in all its fury, and young
Bryan, casting his sympathies with his state, offered his services to the
Confederacy and was accepted as a member of Company I, Seventh
Regiment. Virginia Cavalry. His subsequent services in the ranks of
the Gray covered a period of three years, three months and twenty days,
and ended only when he was paroled at the time of General Lee's sur-
render at Appomattox. Mr. Bryan's military record is one of which
any soldier might well be proud, his engagements including such famous
and sanguinary battles as Gettysburg, Second Manassas, Harpers Ferry,
and all the engagements in which the greatly beloved "Stonewall" Jack-
son took part ; the battle of Sharpsburg, where he acted in the capacity
of courier for "Marse" Lee, Port Republic, where he acted in the same
position for General Jackson, Brandy Station, Spottsylvania, Cedar
Mountain and Petersburg, surely names to thrill the hearts of the brave
boys who fought under the Bonnie Blue Flag. Mr. Bryan's service was
filled with escapades and exciting adventures, and during his service
around Washington he swam the Potomac River five times. He was
also a. member of the party which slipped around in Grant's rear, at
Sabona Church, capturing and running off 2,489 head of cattle, in
spite of the Union general's 250,000 men. He w T as twice wounded by
saber cuts, one across the back of his hand and the other across his
forehead.
When the fortunes of war resulted in the fall of the Confederacy,
Mr. Bryan returned to his home, and for three months was engaged in
teaching subscription school. Following this he resumed the trade of
carpenter, at which he worked until 1868, but the stirring experiences
of army life had bred in him the desire for more activity and excite-
ment than could be furnished amid the environments of his home, and
he finally left the parental roof and started for Barton and Saline coun-
ties, Missouri, working at his trade and looking for a suitable place to
locate permanently. He returned home for Christmas, 1868, but in
the following spring returned to Missouri, and April 11, 1869, arrived
at Richmond, Ray County, where he purchased eighty acres of land
just to the north. He continued to work at his trade and to cultivate
this land until 1874, when he traded this property for eighty acres of
raw land, which is his present home. Here he settled down permanently
to farming, although he continued to work at his trade until some fifteen
years ago, and it is doubtful if there is a farm in Ray County that does
not bear some evidence of his skill as a builder. From time to time he
has added to his holdings, and with each purchase has cleared and im-
proved the land, even to the planting of shade and fruit trees, and at
present his holdings include 500 acres in Ray County, 100 acres in Car-
HISTORY OF NORTHWEST MISSOURI 1405
roll County, Missouri, and 500 acres in Texas. His buildings are of the
most modern architecture and substantial construction, his improve-
ments are the best to be obtained, and on his Texas property he has
recently erected a pumping station worth $7,000. Everything he owns
has been accumulated through the medium of his own efforts, and it is
reasonable to believe that a better example of self-made manhood could
not be found. Of recent years he has retired from the active work of
the farm, which he has turned over to his sons and son-in-law, although
he still takes a keen and active interest in the operation of his land
and through his experience and good judgment aids in making it one
of the most productive tracts in this part of the state. In business and
social circles Mr. Bryan is held in the highest esteem; his name is an
honored one in the commercial and financial world, and his word is
considered as good as any parchment. He has taken a wholesome pride
in the advancements which have marked his community's progress and
development, to which he has contributed by his activities in the business
world and as a co-worker in movements for the public welfare. • A life-
long democrat, he has had no desire for public life, but is always ready
to bear his share of the responsibilities of good citizenship. He is a close
relative of William Jennings Bryan. The family is connected religiously
with the Baptist Church.
On April 24, 1867, Mr. Bryan was united in marriage with Miss
Mary Frances Fridley, who was born in Rockingham County, Virginia,
July 26, 1847, and to this union there have been born five children, of
whom three are living: Jerry N., born March 1, 1877, who is carrying
on farming in Ray County, Missouri ; John Robert, born Octoher 15,
1881, a graduate of the University of Missouri civil engineering depart-
ment, who is now county surveyor for Jackson County, Texas ; and Mary
Ida, born August 20, 1884, who is the wife of William S. Mayers, living
on the home farm in Ray County, and has one child.
Irving Miller. Although the well-directed activities of Irving Mil-
ler in Northwest Missouri belong to the past rather than the present,
for he is now a resident of Kansas, they were such as to make his name
well known and highly esteemed in business circles of Richmond and
Brookfield, where for some fourteen years he was the proprietor of a
clothing establishment. A man of excellent business ability, he bears
a high reputation both in his old and new localities, and as a citizen has
at all times shown himself helpful and public-spirited. Mr. Miller is a
native son of Clay Comity, born at Liberty, November 26, 1864, his
father being the Hon. Robert Hise Miller, Platte County's "grand old
man," a review of whose career will be found on another page of this
work.
Mr. Miller was reared at Liberty, and received his primary educa-
tion in the graded schools, following which he became a student at Wil-