souri, and Effie Craig Butts, who died December 25, 1914. The parents
were active members of the Christian Church, in which the father served
as an elder, and was also affiliated with the Masonic order and the Inde-
pendent Order of Odd Fellows.
Dr. 0. 0. Meredith received his education in the public schools, spent
a year in the University of Missouri at Columbia, and previous to taking
up the practice of medicine was for one year connected with the depart-
ment of instruction in histology at the Eclectic Medical University of
Kansas City, Missouri. Doctor Meredith took the full course in the
medical college, and since graduating has devoted himself untiringly to
the interests of his medical clients.
In 1905 Doctor Meredith married Maud Foreman, a daughter of
John P. Foreman. Doctor Meredith is affiliated with the Independent
Order of Odd Fellows, and is also a member of the Caldwell County
Medical Society, the Missouri State Medical Association and the Eclectic
State and National Medical Society, as was his father. He is and has been
local registrar for preservation of vital statistics in registration district
No. 94, Caldwell County, since 1910. He is a man of athletic build, has
great vitality and energy as well as skill for the prosecution of his duties
as a physician, and is one of the studious and hard-working members of
the profession.
Taylor Edward Stone. A resident of Harrison County since 1871,
Taylor E. Stone came to this section of Missouri as a poor man,
and his achievements of the past forty years are measured in the
accumulation of a handsome farming estate, a beautiful city home at
Bethany, where he has lived since 1900, and by valuable service to both
the church and civic affairs of his home community.
Taylor Edward Stone was born in Licking County, Missouri, July
3, 1847. His father was Edward Stone, who came from Maryland and
died in Ohio in 1862 at the age of one hundred and four years. He
served as a soldier during the War of 1812 and afterwards in the Black-
hawk war. As a result of his military experience he received three
wounds. The Federal Government granted him a land warrant for his
services during the War of 1812, but it was never commuted into land,
and no trace of the document is now to be found. Edward Stone was
three times married, and there were children by all the wives. His last
wife was Mary Ellen Morris, who died in 1859 and is buried beside
her husband at Hanover, in Licking County, Ohio. Her children were :
Mary, who married John Harper; Lila, who married Burr Beard;
Thomas, of Knox County, Ohio; Frank N., of Cleveland, Ohio; Taylor
1348 HISTORY OF NORTHWEST MISSOURI
E. ; Jesse, of Licking County, Ohio. By his former marriages Edward
Stone had children named as follows : John, George, Theodore and Ivan,
who spent their lives in Ohio; Jennie, who married Andrew Thomp-
son; and Henrietta, who was the wife of George English.
Taylor E. Stone was left an orphan during his boyhood, and reached
maturity with only a country school education ; he learned no trade,
and industry has been the key with which he has unlocked the door
to prosperity. Before reaching his majority he went away from home
to enlist in the Union army, and in 1864 became a private in Company
G of the One Hundred and Ninety-seventh Ohio Infantry, under Captain
Owens and Colonel Austin. His regiment was used chiefly for guard
duty, at Baltimore and Washington and in the State of Delaware, being
stationed at cities in the guarding of bridges, and at the close of the
war Mr. Stone was at Dover, Delaware. On returning home from the
army, he began work as a farm laborer at daily wages, and continued
in that way until 1871, when he started west. A railroad took him as
far as Osceola, Iowa, and as there was no railroads in Harrison County,
Missouri, at that time, he came overland to join some friends in that
locality. Here he easily found work on farms, though the wages were
low, a dollar a day being a big price for labor at that time. Land in
Harrison County at that time sold for $2.50 to $25 an acre, depending
upon improvements. Mr. Stone located in Clay Township, began as a
renter, and finally bought land in township 66 of range 26. It was
unimproved, and Mr. Stone erected his first house with lumber hauled
from Princeton. That was the nucleus around which he has since
accumulated the possessions which mark him, as one of Harrison
County's thrifty and substantial citizens. In that vicinity he still owns
his quarter section of land, and lived there and engaged in general
farming and stock raising until his removal to Bethany in 1900. Dur-
ing the time his home was in the country, Mr. Stone assisted in the
organization of a Presbyterian church in that community. In Bethany
Mr. Stone has a splendid home, with large grounds.
During the past fourteen years he has been very active as a citizen
of Bethany, and is now in his fourth term as an alderman. During the
eight years of his service all the important public improvements have
been instituted at Bethany, including paving, installation of water-
works and the removal of the plant from its old location, the laying
of concrete sidewalks all over the town and many other improvements.
When the Roleke administration came into power the municipality was
issuing scrip to discharge its obligations, but the city is now practically
out of debt, and in the meantime a large amount has been expended in
local betterment. Mr. Stone takes much interest in Grand Army mat-
ters, is an active member of the T. D. Neal Post, has attended the
national encampment of the order, and in his home post has done much
committee work in preparing for soldiers' reunions. He is affiliated
with all branches of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, is a past
grand of the lodge, is a member of the Knights of Pythias, and is
assistant scout master of the boy scouts. His political action has identi-
fied him with the republican party. Mr. Stone is one of the leading
laymen in the Presbyterian Church, and one of the elders in the Bethany
Church. He has been a member of the Presbytery and has attended
the synods, and was a delegate to the convention at Decatur, Illinois,
where the union of the old school and the Cumberland churches was
consummated.
In April, 1871, Mr. Stone married Miss Jennie Cullins, daughter
of an Ohio settler. Mrs. Stone died in Bethany without children.
HISTORY OF NORTHWEST MISSOURI 1349
On December 29, 1907, he married Mrs. Hattie Hohr. Mrs. Stone is a
daughter of William A. and Emeline Templeman, and represents two
of the distinguished families of Northwest Missouri.
William A. Templeman, who was born in Fauquier County, Vir-
ginia, February 14, 1835, was brought to Harrison County, Missouri,
as a child. His father, Thornton Hume Templeman, came to Missouri
during the decade of the '40s and located at Bethany in 1853. Thorn-
ton H. Templeman was a native of Virginia, and a son of Fielding
Templeman, who was of Scotch ancestry. Thornton Templeman mar-
ried Harriet Holmes in Stafford County, Virginia. On locating at
Bethany he engaged in the dry goods business, and was postmaster of
the town before and during the war. First a whig, he later entered the
republican party, and his religious affiliation was with the Christian
Church. His death occurred in 1874, and his devoted companion in
the- home and in church work followed him a few years later. Their
children were : William A. ; Sarah A., who married William Collier and
died in Bethany; Frances, who married Joseph Collier, and is now
Mrs. William Gale of Bethany; Mildred, married Jefferson Nordyke
and died in Bethany.
William A. Templeman acquired his education in the Bethany
schools, and had his early experience in business in the store of his
father. He afterwards acquired the store and was a merchant here for
a number of years. He finally moved out to Colorado, and followed
merchandising and mining at Leadville, and on his return to Bethany was
a real estate man until his retirement. William A. Templeman con-
ducted one of the early newspapers of Bethany, having been editor
of the Bethany Union during the Civil war. He was a war democrat,
and was enrolled with the state militia, and on one occasion accom-
panied his company to Chillicothe to defend that town against threatened
trouble. He served in the office of county collector and throughout his
active career was one of the leading men of Bethany. He was an elder
in the Disciples Church and superintendent of its Sunday school.
William A. Templeman was married August 9, 1855, to Miss Emeline
Allen. Their children were : Mrs. Rosa A. Vandivert, now deceased ;
Mrs. Judge Wanamaker, of Bethany; John Allen, of Austin, Texas;
Harriet, wife of Taylor E. Stone; Nancy, who died in childhood; Mrs.
Emma Oxford; William Thornton, of Bethany; and Marian, wife of
Virgil Yates of Bethany.
Mrs. William A. Templeman was a daughter of the Rev. John S.
Allen, and mention of his name recalls one of the most noted pioneer
families of Northwest Missouri. He had come into this section when
a number of the present counties were under the jurisdiction of Daviess
County. Rev. John S. Allen was born in Overton County, Tennessee,
June 26, 1814, a son of William and Mary (Copeland) Allen, Overton
County farmers. John S. was one of a family of thirteen children, and
judged by the standards of the time possessed a liberal education. In
1832 he left Tennessee, settled in Illinois, and in Woodford County of
that state married Nancy Childress, who was born in Kentucky, Novem-
ber 4, 1813. From Illinois Reverend Allen was one of the leaders in a
party of pioneers who came to Harrison County at the beginning of
civilization in this section. The other members of that caravan were :
John W. Brown, Thomas Tucker, Thomas Brown, W. R. Allen, C. L.
Jennings, Ephraim Stewart and A. A. Allen, the last named being un-
married. These families all settled near Bethany, and gave their char-
acter as industrious, moral and religious people to the community. In
this new country Reverend Allen soon constituted himself a leader not
1350 HISTORY OF NORTHWEST MISSOURI
only in his church but also as a citizen and business man. He was
a strong Union sympathizer and attended the secession convention of
Missouri as a delegate, where he used his influence to keep Missouri
from joining the Confederacy. He was a democrat in politics. The
work of this devout man was felt everywhere, both in Harrison and
adjoining counties in the early days. His voice was raised for God
throughout all these counties, and those converted under the spell of
his preaching numbered legion. In business affairs he was a merchant,
and was one of the organizers and for twenty years president of the
First Bank of Bethany. John S. Allen's family comprised the follow-
ing children : Mrs. William A. Templeman, who was born in Woodford
County, Illinois, March 22, 1837, and grew up in the pioneer com-
munity of Bethany; James R., who died in Bethany; Mrs. Dr. King
of Bethany; Mrs. Elizabeth Roberts of Bethany; and Willard Cass,
who died in Bethany.
Thomas Jefferson Flint. An honored resident of Bethany, where
he lives retired, Thomas J. Flint has spent the greater part of seventy
years in Northwest Missouri, mainly in Daviess and Harrison counties.
He knew this country when it was a wilderness, and few men still liv-
ing have so broad a scope of experience and recollection in the things
that made for development and history in this fair portion of Missouri.
He has been a teacher, a soldier, a county official, a farmer and a
merchant, and in the manifold relations of a long life has steered a
course directed by the positive and high-minded qualities of his
character.
Thomas Jefferson Flint was born in Franklin County, Indiana,
August 4, 1835. His grandfather, John Flint, was an Englishman, and
with four brothers came to America about 1788, his settlement being
in Maryland, while the others located in other colonies. He was a
sailor, and was lost at sea while his family were living in Maryland.
By his marriage to Temperance Humphrey he had the following chil-
dren: John, who was lost at sea with his father ; Dorcas, who was born
in 1795, married Samuel Davis and died near Mexarville, Indiana;
Thomas, born in 1798, came to Missouri and settled on a farm in Har-
rison County in 1838, was one of the first officials in Bethany when
it was founded and later county clerk of Harrison County, and died
on his farm here, but was buried in the McCleary Cemetery in Daviess
County, where his brother George also rests; George, whose career is
the subject of the following paragraph; Maria, born in 1804, married
about 1822 Oliver Thurston and died near Mexarville, Indiana, in 1868 ;
Joseph H., born in 1807, was a Baptist preacher and physician, and
spent many years at Ottumwa, Iowa, where he died.
Rev. George Flint, whose name deserves remembrance among the
pioneers of Northwest Missouri, was born in Maryland, July 19, 1801.
After the death of his father his mother brought her family to Hamilton
County, Ohio, where she died about 1820. The circumstances of his
youth in a new country and with a meagemess of family resources left
him little opportunity for gaining an education, and his regular school-
ing was confined to three months. His studious nature and ambition
for a life of usefulness enabled him to overcome this handicap, and in
time he became a man of intellectual attainments far above the average.
By the light of a fire kindled by hickory bark, he studied arithmetic,
grammar, geography and some history, consuming the contents of the
limited store of books which he could buy or borrow, and eventually even
entered the field of the classics, and was able to read both Greek and
HISTORY OF NORTHWEST MISSOURI 1351
Latin. Both in early and later life he taught many terms of school,
chiefly in the country districts. His talent as a conversationalist and
public speaker led him into the ministry. As an illustration of his
familiarity with the Bible, it is recalled that he once repeated from
memory the whole of Paul's letter to the Hebrews, thirteen chapters.
He was never identified with any secret order. In politics, before the
war, he was a democrat, and in 1860 voted for Stephen A. Douglas for
president, as did his sons, but his next ballot went to Mr. Lincoln,
and his sons followed his example.
Rev. George Flint brought his family out to Missouri in the early
'40s, and entered land in Daviess County. About 1844 he opened a
store on his land in Washington Township and continued as a merchant
until 1849. Soon afterward, selling his farm, he moved to Saline
County, and while there lived in the Town of Miami and was an active
preacher. He organized the Christian Church at Arrow Rock and
preached in Brunswick. While in Daviess County he organized a
church in the Ford Schoolhouse, and the society afterwards erected a
house of worship at Coffey. Soon after the close of the Civil war the
Rev. Mr. Flint moved to Coffey, then an inland village, and remained
there until his death, September 21, 1871.
The maiden name of the wife of this early Missouri divine was
Nancy Foster, of Hamilton County, Ohio. Her father, who was born
in 1776, moved from Kentucky to Ohio, subsequently to Indiana and
finally to a farm in Missouri, where he died in 1850. He married Rachel
Thomas, who died in 1854. The Foster children were : Elizabeth, who
became the wife of Ancel Terry and died near Coffey, Missouri ; Rachel,
who married Thomas Flint and died in Harrison County, Missouri;
John, who spent most of his life near Bethany as a farmer; Nancy
Flint ; Nelson, who started from Daviess County to California in 1849,
but died en route while near Cheyenne, Wyoming; and Thomas, who
crossed the plains to California in 1850 and spent the rest of his life
in and about Sacramento.
The Rev. George and Nancy Flint's children were: William F.,
born April 4, 1828, in Hamilton County, Ohio, spent his life largely as
a teacher and farmer, and also during the war served in the Missouri
State Militia and afterward for a year was captain of Company F of the
Forty-third Missouri Infantry; he married Mary Ann Ford, and left
eight children. Rachel Temperance, born September 7, 1830, married
John R. Maize, and died near Bethany in 1892, leaving seven children.
Louisa Ann, born November 23, 1832, married Alanson Alley, and died
near Bethany, July 12, 1874. The next in order of birth is Thomas J.,
of whom more is given in following paragraphs. Maria R., born January
13, 1838, married Isaac N. Thomas and died in Bethany, October 25,
1869. John Logan, born July 10, 1840, was a volunteer soldier of
Company D of the Twenty-seventh Missouri Infantry, from which he
was discharged for disability, in 1888 went to California, and now
lives at Fowler. Andrew S., born September 21, 1842, in the flush of
young manhood entered Company D of the Twenty-seventh Missouri
Infantry, and died during the siege of Vicksburg. Asby C, born
December 27, 1844, married Harlan T. Gerrish of Patoka, Illinois.
Larkin S., born March 1, 1847, during the last year of the war served
as fifer in Company F of the Forty-third Missouri Infantry, and is now
a farmer near Bethany.
The preceding account shows that Thomas Jefferson Flint comes of
a family with excellent characteristics. His own career has been in
keeping with his inheritance. He was about old enough when the family
1352 HISTORY OF NORTHWEST MISSOURI
moved to Missouri so that the journey left some impression on his boyish
memory, and he grew to manhood in Daviess County, and attended the
country schools. Later he was in the Bethany schools when Judge
Howell was a teacher. At the age of eighteen he himself was recruited
for service in the schoolroom, at wages of $15 a month. His first term
was taught in the Glover School, now the Maize School. It was a log
house, with mud-and-stick chimney and a big open fireplace into which
the big boys rolled the logs on cold winter days. School was called at
8 in the morning. Everything went by a code of rules, tacked up on
the wall where all could see, and one of the Monday morning duties was
the reading aloud of these rules for the guidance of the scholars. Boys
and girls were not permitted to play together, a situation that prevailed
when Mr. Flint and his wife were schoolmates together in Daviess
County. The rules also forbade whispering, skating, snowballing and
wrestling, scuffling and fighting.
Mr. Flint abandoned the schoolroom and went from Daviess County
into the army. In September, 1861, he enlisted in the Missouri State
Militia in Captain Broomfield's company of six months' militia. The
company marched out a few times during the following winter, but never
came in sight of the enemy. In September, 1862, he enlisted in the regu-
lar service, in Company D of the Twenty-seventh Missouri Infantry,
under Capt. "William A. Talby and Col. Thomas Curley. He and his
comrades were rendezvoused and drilled at Benton Barracks in St.
Louis, and in January, 1863, proceeded to Rolla. There Mr. Flint was
discharged after having contracted pneumonia, resulting in bronchitis.
He came home to resume work in the schoolroom, and in the spring be-
came a pupil again in the Bethany schools. In July, 1864, he reenlisted,
entering Company F of the Forty-third Missouri, and was discharged
June 30, 1865. His regiment was in no engagements during this time
and was kept on duty in its home state.
After the war Mr. Flint resumed teaching, and his last school was in
the summer of 1868 in the Marlar district. About this time he became
active in local politics, and after one term as treasurer of Daviess County
was elected sheriff, serving four years. It was while he was in the
office of county treasurer that the James boys killed Capt. John W.
Sheets, mistaking him for Major Cox, whom they sought to kill to
avenge his act in slaying the notorious Bill Anderson. At that time
Mr. Flint was a Gallatin merchant, and had the county safe in his store
there. He witnessed the flight of the bandits after they had completed
their act of venegeance and had taken some of the funds of the local
bank. After leaving the sheriff's office he resumed merchandising at
Gallatin and was associated with John J. Broadbeck until 1882, when
he left Missouri and located at Great Bend, Kansas. Besides keeping
a store, he also did farming and proved up on a claim in Ness County.
His home was in Great Bend for twenty years, and in the meantime
he made two trips to California, visiting his brother. His return to
Missouri was in 1904, and since then his home has been in Bethany,
and he has been retired from active business.
On September 4, 1859, Mr. Flint married Miss Lydia A. Adams, a
daughter of William and Elizabeth (Beall) Adams, her father being a
farmer from Henry County, Indiana. Mrs. Flint was the third of four
children. At Great Bend, Kansas, Mr. Flint married for his second
wife, on March 28, 1883, Mrs. Lucretia E. Crail, a daughter of Ruel
and Mamie (Thomas) Nimocks, the former an Ohio man. Mrs. Nimocks
was a cousin of Mr. Flint 's mother. The Nimocks children were : Mrs.
Flint, born December 8, 1842 ; George, who was a Union soldier from
HISTORY OF NORTHWEST MISSOURI 1353
Iowa, and died at Great Bend in 1902 ; Albert, of Barton County, Kan-
sas; Link, of Vesalia, California; Frank, of Ottumwa, Iowa; Clara, who
lives in Eldon, Iowa; Mrs. Vina Foster, of Eldon; and Mrs. Lucy
Cramer, of Eldon. Mrs. Flint died August 27, 1903. On November 9,
1904, he married for his present wife, at Bethany, Mrs. Sallie A.
Zimmerlee, a daughter of Milton and Emily (Jones) Higgins. Her
father came from Clarksburg, Indiana, to Daviess County, Missouri,
where Mrs. Flint was reared. By her first husband, Edward Zimmerlee,
she had the following children: Emily, wife of Charles Barnes, of
Bethany ; Mattie, wife of William Hill, of St. Louis ; Maud, who married
D. W. Coe, of New York City; and Katherine, wife of George H.
Pannell, of Los Angeles.
Mr. Flint has always acted with the republican party, and while in
Kansas was active in the party. He was a delegate to the congressional
convention at St. Joseph when Mr. Parker was nominated by the repub-
licans of this district. He belongs to the Christian Church, in which
he has served as elder.
John Louis Cole. Half a century of honorable business activity
and citizenship comprises a record such as any man should be proud
to possess. It was nearly fifty years ago when John L. Cole of Bethany,
then a young man, with hardly a dollar to his name, and with only
manual labor as his dependence, came to Harrison County and began
a career which has since brought him a generous success so far as his
own material means are concerned, and has also identified his name with
much that is profitable and worthy in the community. His career has
in it much of encouragement for those who begin life under a handicap,
and in the face of difficulties that discourage those lacking in self-
reliance and industry.
John Louis Cole was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, January 6, 1843, a
son of Jacob and Mary C. (Smoker) Kohl. His father was a Pennsyl-
vania German, and spelled his name in the true German manner. The
mother was a native of Germany. Both the parents died of the cholera
scourge at Cincinnati in 1849, and they left the following children:
Sophia, who married Charles Lowe and spent her life in Indianapolis;
Caroline, who married Henry Anderson and also lived in Indianapolis;
Mary C, who became the wife of Dr. Samuel E. Strong and died at
Ironton, Missouri; John L. ; and Dr. William C, who at the time of
his death was a physician at the Hospital for the Insane at Jacksonville,
Illinois, and left two children.
After the death of his parents John L. Cole, then six years of age,
was taken into the home of comparative strangers, and until eighteen
years of age lived with Noah Boyce in Morgan County, Illinois. He was
still under age when the Civil war broke out. In 1861 he enlisted, and
was assigned to Company I in the Fourteenth Illinois Infantry. He
joined his command at Rolla ; Missouri, whither it had gone to the front.
His first captain was Captain Mitchem and later Capt. Ernest Ward.
The first colonel of the regiment was John M. Palmer, a distinguished
Illinoisan, and later Colonel Cam and finally Col. Cyrus Ball com-
manded the regiment. The regiment went into Southern Missouri to
reinforce General Lyon's army at Wilson Creek, but did not reach the
battleground to participate in that crucial engagement, and the troops