always ready to guard the peace and security of the homes in this sec-
tion of the state. Harmon Nolan was a man of fine character, and while
he started life with nothing except willing hands, he at one time owned
320 acres in the home place, eighty acres in section 16, another eighty
northwest of the home, and some forty acres besides that. He also at one
time owned 160 acres in Kansas. Politically Harmon Nolan was an active
democrat, and his son affiliated with that party until his recent change,
as a result of his mature judgment, to the republican ranks. Mr. Nolan
has done his part in public affairs, and for forty years has served as a
member of the local school board. He is a member of the Christian
Church. Both parents now rest in the Nolan graveyard, on the opposite
side of the road from the son's home, and altogether there are about a
hundred interments in that cemetery.

Richard Wornall. Few names have been longer, more prominently
and more worthily identified with the annals of Missouri 's history, than
that of Wornall, and the earliest pioneer of that name came to Missouri
in 1844, landing at the foot of Main Street on the 12th of April, at what
was then known as Westport Landing.

For many years previous Richard Wornall had been a successful
farmer in Shelby County, Kentucky, and was looked upon as one of the
leading representatives of this all-important and basic industry. It was
but laudable ambition that prompted in him the desire to achieve afflu-
ence and a position of social and commercial priority, but the speculative
enterprises in which he embarked resulted disastrously and entailed such
pecuniary loss and financial embarrassment that he found it necessary
to dispose of his fine landed estate in order to pay his indebtedness and
preserve his unsullied reputation for integrity and honesty, his character
having eminently justified his reputation. With undaunted courage, he
came to Missouri and set to himself the work of retrieving his fortunes in
a new community and under conditions that typified the pioneer epoch in
the history of this commonwealth.

On the confines of what is now Kansas City he purchased land at five
dollars an acre, and this property is now appraised at almost fabulous
valuation, as may well be understood. At the time of his removal to this
state his family consisted of his wife and their two sons, John B. and
Thomas, a daughter, Sarah E., having died at the age of fourteen years.
Both Richard Wornall and his wife continued to reside on their Jackson
County homestead until her death; he then returned to Kentucky and
two years later remarried and continued to reside here, Winchester,
Clark County, until his death in 1864.

Of his two sons who came to Missouri, his youngest son, Thomas, did
not long survive his mother, dying with pneumonia only a few years after
their landing at Kansas City.

John B. Wornall was born in Clark County, Kentucky, on the 12th
day of October, 1822, and was a son of Richard and Judith Wornall.
Richard Wornall removed with his family from Clark to Shelby County,
Kentucky, in 1824, and purchased a farm four miles north of the historic
old town of Shelbyville. This fine old homestead was near the old Burke
Baptist Church, and in the services conducted in this somewhat primitive
edifice John B. Wornall gained his early impressions of the spiritual
verities and planted the seed of that deep Christian faith that guided and
governed his entire life thereafter. He was further fortified for char-
acter building through the counsel and admonition of parents of deep



HISTORY OF NORTHWEST MISSOURI 1523

religious convictions and high sense of duty and responsibility, the gentle
consideration and intrinsic piety of the devoted mother having left a
gracious and abiding influence upon the lives of her children who ever
accorded to her the utmost filial love and solicitude while she was living
and revered her memory after she had passed forward to the "land of
the leal." John B. Wornall became a man of broad information, wide
intellectual ken and mature judgment, but his education was gained
largely through self-discipline and active association with men and af-
fairs, for in the days of his boyhood and youth the scholastic advantages
afforded in the vicinity of his home were very meager, there having been
no academy or other institution of higher learning within many miles
of the old homestead plantation in Kentucky, where conditions were still
to a large extent those of the pioneer days. After having resided for
nineteen years on the Shelby county farm, John B. Wornall came with
the family to Missouri and established a home in Jackson County, within
whose limits is situated Kansas City, which metropolitan community
was then represented by an obscure village known as "Westport
Landing. ' '

On the 12th of June, 1850, Jno. B. Wornall, who was a young man
at the time of the family removal to Missouri, was united in marriage
to Miss Matilda Polk, daughter of William Polk, of Kentucky, and she
died within a year after their marriage, leaving no issue. On the 20th
of September, 1854, was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Wornall to
Miss Eliza S. Johnson, daughter of Rev. Thomas Johnson, and of the six
children of this union two are living, Frank C. and Thomas J. Mrs.
Wornall was summoned to the life eternal July 5, 1865, within a short time
after the birth of her son Thomas J. Wornall, to whom a later sketch
is dedicated, and later John B. Wornall wedded Miss Roma Johnson, a
daughter of Reuben Johnson, of Howard County, Missouri. Of the three
sons born of this union, one died in infancy, and the two surviving are
John B., Jr., and Charles Hardin. Mrs. Wornall survives her honored
husband and still resided in the beautiful old family homestead, at Sixty-
first Street and Wornall Road, Kansas City.

John B. Wornall was ever the zealous supporter of the cause of popu-
lar education and his influence in all the relations of life was benignant
and pervasive. He was a patron of the arts and sciences and he held
the highest of civic ideals, the while his inspiring faith was one of liber-
ality in both action and financial co-operation. He was for more than a
quarter of a century a member of the board of trustees of William Jewell
College, at Liberty, the judicial center of Clay County, and for more
than twenty-eight years of this period he was president of the board,
besides which he contributed $10,000 as an endowment fund for the
institution. Neither from choice or inherent predilection was Mr. Wor-
nall a practical politician, but his ability and many sterling qualities
so commended him to his fellow citizens that he was not permitted to
escape official preferment. In 1869 at the democratic convention for
the Fourteenth senatorial district, then comprising Cass, Bates and Jack-
son counties, he was nominated by acclamation for representative of the
district in the state senate, to which he was elected by a large and grati-
fying majority and in which he served four years, his record having
been in every respect admirable and marked by evidences of his earnest
wish to foster the best interests of the state and its people. He was not
a brilliant speaker but was looked upon as one of the most reliable, sub-
stantial and far-sighted members of the deliberative body of the legis-
lature. In his speeches on the floor of the senate and his utterances in
the councils of the committee room he was invariably direct and sin-
cere, resolute in his upholding the principles and measures which his



1524 HISTORY OF NORTHWEST MISSOURI

judgment approved, and never compromising with a signally acute con-
science for the sake of expediency. About the time of the close of his
senatorial career, Mr. Wornall 's name was prominently brought forward
in connection with the candidacy for governor of the state and though
the overtures made in this direction came from strong and influential
sources he insisted upon withdrawing in favor of another candidate,
Charles Hardin, his bosom friend, for the distinguished office.

In 1872 Mr. Wornall was elected president of the Kansas City Na-
tional Bank, and he retained this post until the institution resigned its
charter and closed its business. He was instrumental in organizing the
Bank of Kansas City, now incorporated as the National Bank of Kansas
City, and of this institution he was president for many years prior to his
death. In 1872 and 1873, as a mark of respect and as indication of his
influence and high standing in the Baptist Church, he was twice and
successively elected moderator of the Missouri General Association of this
denomination, this being the highest honor conferred by that body. For
eleven years he served as moderator of the Blue River Association of his
church, in which he was ever a zealous and devoted member. Within the
climacteric period of the Civil war Gennison and 1,400 of his men took
possession of the home of Mr. Wornall, both the farm and the residence,
and in this occupation by military forces the family were deprived of
the use of all save one room of the house. Mr. Wornall was informed that
on Saturday morning he would be shot, and the intervening four days
he and his devoted wife passed in prayer to the Throne of Grace. Gen-
nison finally sent for Mr. Wornall, on Saturday morning, and after
cursing him with noteworthy fluency said to him : " I came to kill you
but why in hell I can % I don 't know. Pray your God for me, ' ' follow-
ing with the statement that if Mr. Wornall would go with him and figure
up the damages done by the invader and his men everything would be
paid for in gold. This generous recompense was made and Mr. Wornall
even had to intervene, and beg clemency for a private who had shot a
pig the same morning and whom Gennison had threatened to execute.

Secure in the high regard of all who knew him, a man of lofty ideals
and noble character and one whose career was marked by large and
worthy achievement, Hon. John B. Wornall passed to his reward on the
24th of March, 1892, shortly after he had passed the psalmist's allotted
span of three score years and ten.

Thomas Johnson Wornall, the subject of this sketch, was born at
Ninth and Main Streets, Kansas City, Missouri, on the 28th day of June,
1865. He was a son of John B. Wornall and Eliza Johnson Wornall, and
in 1869 his parents moved to where the Densmore Hotel now stands,
between Ninth and Tenth on Locust Street, so far out that their friends
talked of their then being in the country. In 1876 the family moved to
what was known as the Stockdale Farm, or more generally known as the
Wornall Farm. He was reared on this farm, educated at the country
school nearby, and after having attended high school at Eleventh and
Locust, in Kansas City, for a year and a half, started into William Jewell
College in 1882.

After four years at William Jewell College, he was married on the
19th of May, 1886, to Miss Emma Lee Petty, only child of L. T. Petty,
a widower living eight miles northeast of Liberty, and half way between
that and Excelsior Springs.

Mr. Petty came from that sturdy Virginia stock, and immigrated by
land with his mother, two brothers and three sisters — two brothers having
preceded him. Mr. Petty having lost his wife some eight years previous,



HISTORY OF NORTHWEST MISSOURI 1525

and having but one child, it was deemed best for all concerned that Mr.
Wornall quit the old home and move over here, which he did.

Out of the union of this family were born four children, but Lindsay
P. died in infancy. Thomas J. Jr., attended school in the country, also
the high school in Liberty, and graduated from William Jewell College
in 1910. He was married on October 30, 1911, to Miss Floy Crews of Lib-
erty, Missouri, and they have a girl and boy, Sue Melva and Lindsay
Petty, and are residing at present on part of the old farm, known as
the "George Petty Farm." A daughter, Lucy Lee Wornall, was born
on the 4th of September, 1891, and died in January, 1906, passing away
in her fifteenth year. She was by nature one of the sweetest children that
ever lived, uniting with the Baptist Church when she was nine years of
age, and through her sweetness of character, leading both her brothers
to Christ before she was called to her Heavenly Home. She was a nat-
ural musician, and while never taking lessons, had composed over forty
pieces before her death. Their next child, Richard Bristow Wornall, Avas
born the 26th clay of November, 1893. He attended Liberty High School,
two years at William Jewell, one year at Culver, and one year of mining
engineering at Rolla, and is now taking a four year course in agriculture
at the University of Missouri at Columbia.

Mr. Wornall naturally loving agricultural pursuits, and especially
the raising of fine stock, and showing the same, has spent the greater part
of his life in these pursuits.

In 1897, having disposed of his cheaper cattle, he started in to build a
herd of Shorthorn cattle, the equal to any in the world. As a steer
feeder, previous to '96, he had topped Chicago market nine years out of
ten, and using the same judgment in picking his breeding herd, he en-
tered the show ring in 1899. And in 1899 and 1900 won first in herd over
Shorthorns and all other beef breeds, Grand Champions for two years at
Iowa, Minnesota, Milwaukee, Indiana, Illinois, St. Louis, and American
Royal, without a single defeat in a two years' unbroken record that has
never been equaled before or since.

He continued in the show ring until he dispersed his herd in 1906,
winning more than his share of the premiums wherever shown. In 1897
he helped form the Association of Fair Managers, he having in 1902
been chosen secretary and general manager of the American Royal Live
Stock Show. This association of fair managers is composed of repre-
sentatives from every state fair and national exposition, including five
in foreign countries. Mr. Wornall has held the position of chairman
of the executive committee two years, vice president two years, and
president two years.

While not caring especially for politics, except to help his friends,
yet in 1905 he was unanimously nominated, and the republicans refusing
to nominate anyone against him, was unanimously elected to the senate
from the Fifth district.

He was appointed, by Governor Dockery, chairman of the Junketing
Committee, and afterwards appointed chairman of Appropriations Com-
mittee, a distinguished honor, since the same had never before been held
by a new member. He was chairman of the Inauguration Committee of
the induction of Governor Folk to his seat. He was the author of the
Wornall Demurrage Bill, which sought to give the farmers and grain
men more time to unload their grain, but at the same time prohibiting
them from using railroad cars as warehouses. This bill was the hardest
fought of any in the three sessions of the Legislature by Senator Wornall,
and was the first anti-railroad bill passing the Missouri state senate in
sixteen years. His interest in agriculture led him to look after the needs
of the experiment station at Columbia, and he increased their appropria-



1526 HISTORY OF NORTHWEST MISSOURI

tion from $45,000, the session previous, to $187,000, and through his
efforts both the agriculture building at Columbia, costing $100,000, and
the college gymnasium, costing $70,000, were the direct results.

His ability as an organizer was shown in the passage of the appro-
priation bills in the senate, with but one dissenting voice, and that on a
clause of militia, in forty-five minutes, appropriating over nine million
dollars. But the absolute fairness to each institution was the cause.

After his term in the senate had expired, and refusing to again stand
for election, he was importuned by friends all over the state to permit
the use of his name for that of governor, but having served, as he con-
sidered, his duty to his state, and having had the extreme pleasure of
occupying the same seat as his father, he desired no further honors.
However, Governor Hadley honored him by appointing him one of the
curators of the Missouri State University. He was chosen on the Exec-
utive Committee at the School of Mines, Rolla, and served as chairman
and was chosen a member of and chairman of the Executive Board at
Columbia, and served in that capacity until the close of his term.

The most signal honor that has been paid him was being chosen
unanimously as member of the Executive Committee, and then as chair-
man of the Conference on Education in Missouri, Secretary of Agricul-
ture Houston being one of the vice presidents, and Dr. A. Ross Hill, of
Columbia, another.

Mr. Wornall has been one of four delegates-at-large for sixteen years
to the National Association of Stockmen, the most powerful organization
of its kind in existence.

These honors have come to him unsought, but he has put forth his
best efforts in every way to serve at the best of his ability, and the results
can show for themselves.

In 1901, with two friends he visited Europe and brought all the
champion Shorthorns home with them, which sold in the sale ring in
Chicago on November 7th of that year, making an average of $1,122.00,
being the highest average of any breed since the New York Mill Sale
of 1872.

He is at the present time living in Liberty, Missouri, where they
moved in 1901 for the education of their children.

John Richard Webb. In the person of John Richard Webb is found
a sample of that material which has brought Harrison County into the
limelight as a prosperous agricultural center. Endowed with more than
average ability and backed by shrewd business judgment and determina-
tion, this progressive farmer has worked his way to the ownership of a
handsome property, located two miles south of Mount Moriah, which he
is devoting to cattle feeding and the growing of horses, mules and hogs.

John R. Webb is a son of the late Joseph Webb, and now occupies
the old Webb homestead on which he was born March 8, 1866. He re-
ceived his early education in the district schools and this was supple-
mented by attendance at Grand River College, now Gallatin College,
which was then situated at Edinburg. When he finished school he re-
turned to the homestead, and soon thereafter embarked upon a career of
his own on a quarter-section of his father's estate, his subsequent success
in life having been made as a cattle feeder and a grower of horses, mules
and hogs. As a shipper he has used the railroad to some extent, and as a
trader he is known widely all over the county. He has added some
twelve hundred acres of land to his original holdings, the chief of which
tract or tracts is a grass farm, his plan being to grow and buy young
stock that will become ready for shipment off his pasture land. In 1914



HISTORY OF NORTHWEST MISSOURI 1527

Mr. "Webb replaced the old home which had been erected by his father
with a more pretentious and modern structure, suggestive of the bunga-
low, with six rooms and closets, and including bath and running water,
with all other modern improvements.

Mr. Webb was married in Harrison County, Missouri, April 22, 1893,
to Miss Dora Weathers, a daughter of William H. and Ellen (McKinley )
Weathers, the latter the daughter of an Illinois family. Mr. Weathers
came from Toledo, Illinois, where he was born, to Missouri prior to the
outbreak of the Civil war. His family comprised the following children :
Mollie, who became the wife of James S. Graham, of Bedford, Iowa;
Hannah, who became the wife of Bud Ferguson, of Gilman City, Mis-
souri ; Dora, born November 30, 1869, and now the wife of John R.
Webb ; Ida, who became the wife of D. Plank, of Bolton, Missouri ; Etta,
who became the wife of Anderson Foster, of Bolton, where her parents
now reside; Alonzo, also of Bolton; and Frank, who is a resident of
Blue Ridge, Missouri. To Mr. and Mrs. Webb there has been born one
daughter, Catherine Marie, born September 23, 1897, who is now the
wife of Clay Criger.

Mr. Webb's political affiliation is with the democracy, his father
having belonged to that party, but his only activities are as a voter at
elections. He has, however, taken an interest in those things which have
affected his community, and may always be depended upon to support
beneficial movements and enterprises. His long residence in this vicinity
and his wide business connections have given him an extensive acquaint-
ance, and he is universally known as a man of integrity and high princi-
ples. With his family, he is identified with the Baptist Church.

. — ^ Richard Franklin Craven. Forty-two years ago, when he first
came to Gentry County, Richard Franklin Craven was the happy pos-
sessor of $24 in cash and a two-year-old colt. These were his material
possessions, but far more valuable than either were his ambition, his
determination, his indomitable spirit and his intense energy, charac-
teristics which have since combined to form the medium through which
he has worked out his success. Today he is one of the most sub-
stantial of Albany's residents, possessed of a handsome competency and
the esteem and respect of his fellow-citizens, and a short review of his
career should be of interest to every admirer of American self-made
manhood.

Mr. Craven was born October 16, 1854, in Ray County, Missouri, and
is a son of Dr. Franklin and Annie (Campbell) Craven, and a grandson
of Richard Franklin Craven, who reared a large family. Franklin
Craven was born at Knoxville, Tennessee, April 19, 1817, and died in
Missouri, November 23, 1901. He was not an educated man, being unable
to either read or write, came to Missouri in young manhood and devoted
himself to agricultural pursuits throughout his career. His title of
"Doctor" was given him merely because he was the seventh son of his
parents. He and his brother Wyatt were soldiers in the Mexican war,
while Joel and John Craven were other brothers who reared families in
Ray County, Missouri. ' ' Dr. ' ' Franklin Craven was married in Tennes-
see to Miss Annie Campbell, who was born in Indiana, and she died in
1857. leaving the following children: James, who died in Ray County,
Missouri, leaving a family ; Nancy, who became the wife of John Craven ;
Wyatt, who spent his life in Ray County; Clementine, who became the
wife of John Metcalf and lives at Syracuse, Kansas ; Jerre, a resident of
Bates County, Missouri ; Elizabeth, who became the wife of A. W. Wyman
and spent her life in Ray County, owning Excelsior Springs, which was
opened up on their farm ; Jackson, who died as a young man ; Henley,



1528 HISTORY OF NORTHWEST MISSOURI

who passed away in early life ; Hulda, who married James Grace and
died in Gentry County, Missouri ; Julia, who married Doctor Kelley and
died in Kansas City, Missouri ; and Richard Franklin, of this review.
Franklin Craven was married the second time to Mrs. Narcisis Wilson,
and they became the parents of three children, namely : John F. Craven,
0. W. Craven and Anna Craven.

Richard Franklin Craven grew up at Excelsior Springs where he
resided until about nineteen years of age, when he came to Gentry
County. His education was of the ordinary kind, finishing at a four-
months' term in Gentry County, the best he ever had. He was brought
up on a farm and that vocation he took up when a man, and has continued
to be engaged in tilling the soil to the present time. When Mr. Craven
began life independently he settled at Siloam Springs. He had worked
for an uncle to secure the cash and colt before mentioned, and these con-
stituted his capital when he faced life on his own accord. Mr. Craven
had made up his mind to leave the old home where some turmoil and
discord had resulted from the coming of a stepmother and subsequent
children, and also because he had awakened to the fact that his social
companions at home were not the most desirable. He came to Gentry
County because his brother and sister lived here, and with the latter he
located for a time, and in that locality was married. With his young wife
he started to keep house in the most primitive manner, aided by good
friends, and for several years was a renter, but soon gained a place of
his own and his substantial building toward the top continued from year
to year. Hard work stared Mr. and Mrs. Craven in the face from the
start, but they accepted the challenge, fought hard and held fast until a
condition of financial independence came to them. Mr. Craven bought
his first land, a tract of forty acres, near Siloam Springs, and to this he
added until he had gathered 160 acres of timbered bottom, as tine soil