TEMPLEMAN J. HUTCHINSON. The farming community of Ozark County, Missouri, has no abler representative than Mr. Hutchinson, who is the owner of a fine farm of 230 acres on North Fork. This place his father settled on when it had only a few acres cleared, but under the thrifty and energetic management of the present owner it has been put in an admirable state of cultivation, and is now justly considered one of the best farms on the creek. Mr. Hutchinson was born in Grainger County, Tennessee, May 27, 1828, a son of Jeremiah and Susan (King) Hutchinson, natives of the Old Dominion, where they were also reared and married, and from which State they removed to Grainger County, Tennessee, soon after the celebration of their nuptials. They resided in Tennessee until about 1854, when they went by wagon to Van Buren County, Arkansas, and some years later took up their residence in Ozark County, Arkansas, and on the farm on which they first settled here the mother still resides at the extreme old age of nearly one hundred years. She has been a member of the General Baptist Church for a great many years, and is perhaps the oldest pioneer in the county. The father died when the subject of this sketch was a small lad, he and his worthy wife having become the parents of four children: Templeman J.; Perry, who went West about 1857, and a few years later wrote home while en route to Mexico with a wagon train, but as nothing has since been heard of him he is supposed to be dead; Matilda (deceased) was the wife of William Hutchinson, who died while serving in the Federal Army; and John, a farmer of Ozark County, Missouri, was a soldier for six months during the latter part of the war, being a member of Company 1, Forty-sixth Missouri Infantry.
Templeman J. Hutchinson has been familiar with farming from his earliest boyhood, but the advantages for an education which he received in his youth were of the most meager description, for his father died when he was young, and, being the eldest of the family, he was obliged to assist his widowed mother in every way that he could. In August, 1861, he joined the Home Guards, with which he served until October, when he became a member of Company F, Twenty-fifth Missouri Infantry, under Col. John S. Phelps, and was at Springfield and Rolla for about six months, being then discharged at the former place on account of ill health. He returned home, and after sufficiently recovering he joined the Seventy-third East Missouri Militia, with which he served one and one-half years as a scout in Missouri and Arkansas. In November, 1864, he joined Company B, Sixteenth Missouri Cavalry, and operated in Missouri and Arkansas until the close of the war, taking part in numerous skirmishes. He received his final discharge at Springfield May 12, 1865, after four years of faithful service for his country, and then returned to his home in Ozark County, and once more took upon himself the duties of civil life. He is considered one of the prominent and substantial farmers of the county, being honest, industrious and enterprising, and devotes much attention also to the raising of stock, in which he has met with excellent success.
In September, 1865, he was married to Elizabeth, daughter of Noel N. and Lucy Hutchinson, natives of Virginia, whence they removed to Grainger County, Tennessee, and shortly before the war came to Ozark County, Missouri, the father’s death occurring here in January, 1888. During the latter part of the war he was for about six months a member of Company 1, Forty-sixth Missouri Infantry. His widow survives him at the age of seventy-five years, and she is, as was her husband, a member of the Regular Baptist Church. They became the parents of ten children. Mrs. Hutchinson, wife of the subject of this sketch, was born in Virginia, and, like her parents and husband, is a member of the Regular Baptist Church. Mr. Hutchinson belongs to Robert Burns Lodge No. 496, of the A. F. & A. M., at Gainesville, and politically he has been a life-long Republican, although he has never in any sense of the word been a politician or an aspirant for official honors. All enterprises of a worthy nature have found in him a warm supporter, and the esteem of all his acquaintances is accorded him.