activities were discovered, and her life was so threatened that her parents
forbade her continuing this work. She has been very prominent and
active in the work of the Women's Relief Corps, at King City, and
for three years has served as senior vice president thereof. Various
other social activities have attracted her attention, she being treasurer of
the Women's Missionary Society and past matron of the Eastern Star,
at Whitesville, and for years she has been a generous and helpful factor
in the work of the Methodist Episcopal Church South. Two children
were born to Mr. and Mrs. Bulla : Julian, born December 11, 1870, resid-
ing on a farm in Gentry County, Missouri, married Sarah Hensen, of
King City, and has four children — Louise, Maude, Glenn and Clyde;
and William H., born May 6, 1872, residing on the home farm in Andrew
County, married Clara C. Peters, and has two children — Alice Virginia
and William Henry.
Gilbert McDaniel. A career of business efficiency and success that
marked him out as one of the ablest men of Andrew County was termi-
nated with the death of Gilbert McDaniel at his home in Savannah,
December 6, 1912. A man of sterling character, he was honorable in
business, stanch in his friendship, sincere in his religious profession and
true to every trust, and with his passing an entire community was
bereaved.
Gilbert McDaniel was born on a farm near Whitesville in Andrew
County, February 26, 1857, and was in his fifty-sixth year when death
called him. His parents were John and Mary (McClanahan) McDaniel,
natives of Tennessee. His father moved from Tennessee to Cooper
County, Missouri, and married there, and later moved to Andrew County,
one of the early farmer settlers of this section. Gilbert McDaniel lost
his mother when he was about three years of age, and was reared by a
stepmother who was in every sense a true mother to him. In 1865 the
McDaniel family moved to a farm south of Savannah.
Gilbert McDaniel spent all his career in Andrew County, attended
the district schools as a boy, and completed his education in the State
Normal School at Kirksville. For several years he was active as a teacher.
In all his varied relations and activities he displayed a personality, a
genius for making friends, and an integrity which entitled him to the
thorough confidence of all who knew him. In 1905 Mr. McDaniel became
cashier of the Exchange Bank at Savannah, an institution which had been
organized in 1902. Within the few years that covered Mr. McDaniel's
connection with the institution it rose from a place among the smaller
financial establishments of Andrew County to first place among the
HISTORY OF NORTHWEST MISSOURI 1659
county 's banks, and it is said that the efficient management of Mr.
McDaniel and his popular qualities and standing in the community had
more to do with the prosperity of the bank than any other one factor.
Gilbert McDaniel was affiliated with the Masonic Order. There were
many tributes, sincere and admiring, paid to his memory at the time of
his death, and a brief characterization that sums up some of his especial
qualities is contained in the following resolution from an order of which
he was a member : ' ' His genial personality and superior ability in busi-
ness relations and his optimistic and comforting greetings to acquaint-
ances and friends will be treasured by each and the memory of him
will never perish nor the results of his good deeds diminish. He always
kept his own troubles to himself, for those about him were never asked
to share them, but he was ever ready to help and disperse the burdens of
others and was generous to a fault to his friends and his family. ' '
In 1879 the late Mr. McDaniel married Jennie Ham. She was born
in the Province of Ontario, Canada, eighteen miles north of Kingston,
August 21, 1852, a daughter of Simeon and Eliza (Scott) Ham, both
natives of Ontario. When she was fourteen years of age her parents
moved to Missouri in 1866, locating near Mexico, and she finished her
education in the Kirksville Normal School. For ten years she was a suc-
cessful teacher in the schools of Andrew County, where her father spent
his last years as a farmer. Mrs. McDaniel survived her husband. She
was the mother of eight children, and two of them, Paul and Mabel, died
in infancy. The surviving children are : Lawrence, Mrs. W. T. Fling,
Mrs. Carl Gee, John, Mary and Allen. The son Lawrence was educated
at Savannah and in the law department of the University of Missouri,
and is now a successful attorney at St. Louis, having been recently
honored by selection as one of the assistants to the circuit attorney of St.
Louis County. He has been active in democratic politics, and his pro-
fessional work gives promise of a brilliant career. The daughter Clara,
now the wife of Walter T. Fling, a Savannah jeweler, was graduated
from the Savannah High School and from Howard Payne College, and
also took a business course in Drake University at Des Moines. Mildred
G., the wife of Carl Gee, a well known farmer north of Savannah, is also
a graduate of the Savannah High School. The son John graduated
from the Savannah High School, took a course in agriculture at the
University of Missouri, and is now a successful and scientific farmer
on the old homestead, comprising 100 acres, six miles south of Savannah.
The daughter Mary is a graduate of the Savannah High School, of the
Scarrett Bible and Training School at Kansas City, and is now taking
the medical course in the State University, preparatory to a career as a
missionary. The son Allen is a boy of exceptional talent in music and
is a student at the American Conservatory in Chicago.
Grover C. Sparks. That a young man should be elected to the
important office of prosecuting attorney of Andrew County when but
twenty-seven years of age argues forcibly for his possession of ability
in his profession and for the confidence in which he is held by his fellow-
citizens. Such is the record of Grover C. Sparks, who was the incumbent
of this office from 1912 to 1914 and whose services have firmly established
him as one of his county's most efficient and popular officials. Mr.
Sparks is a native of this county, having been born on his father's farm
in Jackson Township, five miles northwest of Savannah, November 27,
1885, and is a son of William and Sarah A. (Bohart) Sparks.
William Sparks was born near Covington, Kentucky, and about the
year 1860 migrated to Platte County, Missouri, from whence he came to
Andrew County six years later. He was engaged in agricultural pur-
1660 HISTORY OF NORTHWEST MISSOURI
suits in Jackson Township throughout the remainder of his career, and
died in 1890, when about thirty-eight years of age. Mrs. Sparks was
born on a farm five miles northwest of Savannah, Missouri, a daughter
of William Bohart, a pioneer of Missouri, who came from Indiana to
Holt County in 1856, and in 1860 removed to Andrew County, where
both he and Mrs. Bohart passed away. Mrs. Sparks still survives her
husband and makes her home seven miles east of Savannah. She has
been the mother of two children : Lulu, who is the wife of Charles Beaty,
of Helena, Andrew County; and Grover C.
Grover C. Sparks was reared on a farm until sixteen years of age,
in the meantime securing his primary education in the district schools
of Empire Township. Following this, he attended the academy at
Hiawatha, Kansas, from which institution he was graduated with the
class of 1907, and at once took up the study of law. After some prepara-
tion he entered the State University of Missouri, and in 1911 graduated
and was given his degree of Bachelor of Law. Being admitted to prac-
tice in May of that year, he at once opened an office at St. Joseph, but
subsequently removed to Savannah, and this city has since been his field
of activity and the scene of his success. His ability was soon recognized,
and in November, 1912, he became the candidate of the democratic party
for the office of prosecuting attorney. In spite of the fact that Andrew
County ordinarily goes republican by a majority of 400, Mr. Sparks
secured the election by a plurality of 310 votes. His services in this
capacity have entirely vindicated the faith reposed in him by the people.
He is a member of various organizations of his profession, and stands
high in the esteem of his fellow-practitioners. Fraternally, Mr. Sparks
is connected with the local lodges of the Masons and the Independent
Order of Odd Fellows. Aside from the duties of his profession and his
office, he has taken much interest in the cause of temperance, and has
been active in movements promising its advancement.
On December 20, 1913, Mr. Sparks was married to Miss Lillian Dan-
forth, of Warrensburg, Missouri, daughter of J. S. Danforth. Mr. and
Mrs. Sparks are consistent members of the Baptist Church.
George Grant Tedrick. One of the newer towns of Daviess County
is Altamont, which measured by progress and not by years is one of the
live and prosperous communities of Northwest Missouri. From the time
the village was a collection of homes around a couple of stores and
general shops to the present George G. Tedrick has been a factor in local
enterprise. Mr. Tedrick is now proprietor and editor of the Altamont
Times and a large dealer in and shipper of produce, and in the latter
relation has been known to the farmers and citizens of this locality
for twenty years.
George Grant Tedrick was born on a farm one mile southwest of
Gallatin in Daviess County, October 6, 1869, a son of John H. and
Rebecca (Shaffer) Tedrick. His father was born in Maryland, April
10, 1839, a son of Jacob Tedrick, a native of Germany, who in 1839
moved from Maryland to Ohio, where he followed farming. Rebecca
Shaffer, who was born in Ohio, was the daughter of Colonel George
Shaffer, a native of Germany, who commanded a regiment in the Ameri-
can army during the war with Mexico, but whose permanent vocation was
a minister of the German Lutheran Church. He attained the age of
ninety-four, while his wife lived to be ninety-two. John H. Tedrick
also made a military record. He was with the Union army during the
Civil war for about three years, being a member of the Forty-eighth Ohio
Infantry. After the war he spent a year in Daviess County, Missouri,
then went back to Ohio and married, after which he returned to this
HISTORY OF NORTHWEST MISSOURI 1661
county as his permanent home. He first bought an improved farm a
mile southwest of Gallatin, where his son George was born, but later
sold it and bought eighty acres still further southwest of town. There
he and his good wife have lived for thirty-eight years, and the original
farm has been materially increased in acreage and general improvement.
He is a republican, and with his wife a member of the Christian Church.
They are the parents of four children : George G. ; Eva, a teacher in the
Maysville High School; Jessie, wife of Wood Snyder, of Altamont;
and Winniefred, now a student in the State Normal School at War-
rensburg.
George G. Tedrick was well educated, first in the country schools, then
in the Gallatin High School, and completed a commercial course in
Kidder Institute. His first vocation after leaving school was to teach
for three years in the country districts of Daviess County, and there are
a number of men and women in this part of Missouri who recall his work
with them as an instructor.
In February, 1894, Mr. Tedrick joined his fortunes with the new
Town of Altamont, which had begun to grow around the station of the
Rock Island Railroad, but still had only two stores and a few dwellings.
There he opened a meat market and began handling local produce, buy-
ing from the farmers and shipping to the city markets. He has since
disposed of his market, but his place is the headquarters for produce, and
in the past twenty years he has shipped many hundred carloads out of
Altamont. In 1912 Mr. Tedrick bought the plant of the Altamont Times,
and has since given much of his attention to making that a successful
and influential journal, telling the news of this locality and working as
a medium for the improvement of all local interests. It has a weekly
issue, and a wide reading public. At the present time Mr. Tedrick is
ably assisted by his son, who is becoming proficient as a compositor and
in the general management.
In April, 1895, Mr. Tedrick married Miss Addie Martin, a daughter
of Thomas A. Martin, one of the Daviess County pioneers. They have
two children : Orson, now with the Altamont Times ; and Orlo, in school.
Mrs. Tedrick and the older son are members of the Christian Church.
Mr. Tedrick is an Odd FeUow and a republican, and has served as a
school director and a member of the town board. He is a quiet, modest,
unassuming citizen, a good business man, and has many loyal friends
in this part of Missouri.
Prof. W. F. Null. Missouri Wesleyan College, at Cameron, Clinton
County, has been exceptionally fortunate in securing for its teaching
force men of unquestioned talent and capability, prominent among its
present corps of instructors being Prof. W. F. Null, who for the past
seventeen years has rendered this institution most efficient service. A
Missourian by birth, he was born, October 3, 1871, in Maryville, Nodaway
County, and was there brought up and educated.
His father, George W. Null, was born in Pennsylvania, but came
when young to Missouri to live, locating at Maryville. He subsequently
purchased land, and for many years was extensively and successfully
engaged in agricultural pursuits, including general farming and stock-
raising. In 1861, at the outbreak of the Civil war, he enlisted in the
Union army, and having reenlisted at the expiration of his term served
until 1866. He took part in many engagements, at Fort Donelson
being severely wounded. He married, at Maryville, Lydia More, a native
of Iowa, and to them nine children were born, four sons and five
daughters. One of the sons, Rev. Charles W. Null, is pastor of the
Methodist Episcopal Church at San Jose, California, and another son is
1662 HISTORY OF NORTHWEST MISSOURI
connected with the Government service. The parents were both active
members of the Methodist Episcopal Church.
After leaving the public schools of his native town, W. F. Null com-
pleted the literary course at the Maryville College, and later entered
the University of Chicago, from which he was graduated with honors,
receiving also the degree of A. B. Professor Null spent the next two
years as a teacher in the public schools, and then, in 1897, accepted his
present position with the Missouri Wesleyan College, his long service as a
member of its faculty bearing evidence of his genuine worth as an
educator.
On October 14, 1901, Professor Null was united in marriage with
Miss Chloe Herrick, a daughter of C. I. and Frances (Lyon) Herrick,
and a relative of General Lyon, commander of a Michigan regiment, who
was killed in the engagement at Willow Creek, Missouri, in 1861. Fra-
ternally the professor is a member of the Independent Order of Odd
Fellows. Religiously he is a valued member of the Methodist Episcopal
Church, in which he has held most of the official positions, and has like-
wise served as superintendent of its Sunday school. Professor and Mrs.
Null are very genial, pleasant people, and at their hospitable home,
No. 423 South Church Street, take much pleasure in entertaining their
many friends.
W. H. Weightman. Active manager at Mound City for the Farmers
Mutual Insurance Company of Holt County, W. H. Weightman has been
for several years successfully engaged in the real estate and insurance
business at Mound City, and is one of the substantial business men of
the county. Mr. Weightman has been identified with public affairs, has
had a varied but generally successful career, has been a farmer and
stock raiser, and was also one of the county's teachers.
W. H. Weightman was born near Mound City in Holt County, Mis-
souri, September 7, 1871, a son of William and Henrietta (Noland)
Weightman. Mr. Weightman grew up* in the country about Mound City,
attended the public schools there, and finished his education in Avalon
College at Avalon in Livingston County. With the conclusion of his
formal education Mr. Weightman returned to the farm, and combined
farming and teaching for a number of years. With the exception of a
few years spent in the West, Mr. Weightman has had his home in Holt
County all his life. After retiring from the farm Mr. Weightman
engaged in the real estate business at Mound City, and has made a
specialty of placing loans on country real estate, and represents several
insurance companies, and has executive control of the Farmers Mutual
of Holt County.
Mr. Weightman married Eliza Anna Aude, daughter of William C.
Aude. Her father was one of the early settlers of Holt County, and
prominent as one of the organizers of the Mound City Bank. Her mother
was a native of Holt County. Mr. and Mrs. Weightman have three chil-
dren: Lorna, Esther and William R., all of whom were born in Holt
County.
Mr. Weightman 's public carer has included some important service.
From 1901 to 1905 he was assessor in Mound City, and is now a member
and treasurer of the school board. Politically he is identified with the
progressive movement in national politics. Mr. Weightman has taken
thirty-two degrees in Scottish Rite Masonry and is also affiliated with the
Independent Order of Odd Fellows and the Modern Woodmen of
America. His church, where he and his family worship, is the Methodist
Episcopal.
HISTORY OF NORTHWEST MISSOURI 1663
Charles M. Childers. The community about Maitland knows
Charles M. Childers, not only as a man who from small beginnings has
subdued to cultivation many acres of fine farm land in that vicinity,
but also a progressive citizen and factor in public improvements. He
has spent more than thirty years in this locality, and while gaining a
comfortable share of material prosperity has won the confidence of his
friends and neighbors.
Charles M. Childers was born in Gallia County, Ohio, October 18,
1861, a son of John H. and Sarah A. (White) Childers. The mother
died in Gentry County in September, 1907. There were in the family
seven sons and one daughter, named as follows: Clara, who married
George Crawford ; Charles M. ; John W. ; William A. ; James J. ; Joseph
F. ; Louis E.; and Luke F., who is an instructor in the Agricultural
School of the University of Missouri.
The family moved from Ohio to Missouri in 1865, when Charles M.
was about four years of age. They first settled in Gentry County on a
farm, and lived as renters for two years until the father bought the
eighty acres which comprised the homestead in which the children grew
to maturity. It was unimproved land, and the first habitation of the
Childers family in Gentry County was a log house, erected by the father.
The land was unfenced, and there was practically nothing in the way of
improvements. It was prairie land, and after he had broken and culti-
vated it for several years the father replaced the original buildings with
more modern and comfortable structures, and by additions had in time a
large and valuable farm.
Charles M. Childers grew up in Gentry County, attended the country
schools for his education, and at the age of seventeen left home and
struck out for himself. He came to Holt County, and found his first
employment with John Foster, for whom he split rails and chopped
wood for his board. In the following spring he went to work for N. F.
Murray, and was with that employer for about three years. Later he
worked for Bob Patterson and Freeman Libbie.
About 1882 Mr. Childers married Jessie J. Murray, a daughter of
his former employer, N. F. Murray. He came with his bride in March,
1882, to his present farm, which at that time comprised eighty acres.
It was all prairie land without a stick of timber on it, and as his first
home he put up a rude two-room frame house, constructed of plain
boards without any paint, and at one side he had a small shed covered
with straw for his stock. He faced a situation that would discourage
many of the young men of the present generation, but he went ahead
with the spirit of the true pioneer, broke up his land, fenced it, and
in a short time his neighbors began to speak of him as a prosperous
young farmer. During his early years there his first wife died, and
their only child Effie lived less than a year. About six years later Mr.
Childers married Elizabeth Hamm, a daughter of Andrew J. Hamm.
By this marriage there are four children : Hazel A., Esther C, Bryan 0.
and Robert C, all of whom were born on the present farm.
Mr. Childers is now the owner of a fine estate, all improved, of 220
acres, and the land and its group of substantial buildings are the chief
measure of his labors and prosperity during the past thirty years. He is
affiliated with the Masonic fraternity at Maitland. Active in politics,
he is the present chairman of the democratic committee, and has been
especially prominent in the matter of educational affairs, having served
on the district school board for sixteen years. His home district is made
up of four former districts, and the fight for consolidation of these small
districts into one central school was led by Mr. Childers about sixteen
years ago.
1664 HISTORY OF NORTHWEST MISSOURI
William H. Hockridge. Six decades have passed since the Hock-
ridge family found a home in the new country of Harrison County.
They took up land from the Government, contributed their share to
material progress and betterment in this locality, and have always been
identified with the good citizenship of the community. William H. Hock-
ridge is a native of the county, a member of the second generation of the
family, and is well known both in Bethany and in Adams Township,
where he has his farm on rural route No. 7.
William H. Hockridge was born in Adams Township. March 8, 1864,
and spent his youth on land that had been entered by his father from the
Government, in township 62, range 27. He is of English descent, his
grandfather having been an English sea captain.
Nelson A. Hockridge, his father, was born in Oneida County, New
York. January 1, 1830, and is now living retired at a venerable age in
Bethany. In the early '50s he joined a caravan at Detroit whose destina-
tion was Missouri, and in the course of the journey became acquainted
with the Hart family, also of the party. They came through Iowa, and
while in that state he married Maretta G. Hart, daughter of James Hart
and a native of Jefferson County, New York. On reaching Harrison
County he entered land, improved it, and made it his home until moving
to Bethany. His life was one of quiet industry and success in business,
as a farmer and stockman. He always fed his grain to his own stock,
and in the early days drove his cattle across country to distant markets,
and with the building of the Rock Island Railroad sent them to Chicago.
His prosperity enabled him to buy other lands, and his home farm com-
prised 210 acres. His first house was of frame, in which his children
were born, but in the eourse of years many better buildings have taken
the place of those in use during his active career.
Nelson A. Hockridge had gained nearly all his education by attend-
ing a night school. He has been a great reader, and is informed on topics
that do not usually come within the range of most men. His industry
was noteworthy, and his knowledge and practice of the stock business
thorough, and it is said that no one in this section marketed better
cattle than his and made a better success of the industry. He was a
frugal liver, and kept his accounts as strictly as a merchant. He retired
from the farm to Bethany in 1888. Politically his course has been as a
voter in the republican ranks. During the war he was in the militia,
being out three months, first in Captain Howe's company and then in
Captain Frisbey's company. He was one of the charter members of the
Fairview Church. His wife died in May, 1900, and their children were :
Lizzie, wife of George W. Barlow, of Bethany ; Emma, who died in
Harrison County as the wife of Frank Nally ; and William H.
William H. Hockridge was reared on the farm where he was born,
received his education in a country school, and has spent all the years
of manhood in farming, though other interests have come into his life.
He is now a stockholder in the Bethany Printing Company and of the
Citizens Bank of Gilman City. After his marriage he located on a farm
in Sherman Township, but subsequently removed to his present place in