Biographical Sketch of Jeremiah C. Cravens

This gentleman was born in Saline county, Missouri, February 18th, 1838. He is a son of Dr. John Cravens, who for many years was the peer of the finest physicians and surgeons of the State. They are of Virginia ancestry, Jeremiah’s grandfather, Dr. Joseph Cravens, being for many years a leading physician of Rockingham county, Virginia. Jeremiah C. graduated from the Missouri State University in the class of 1860, taking the degree of Bachelor of Arts. The civil war breaking out soon after leaving school, he cast his lot with the fortunes of the Confederacy, and followed its flag until … Read more

Biography of Ransom D. Blades, Sr.

This old settler and prominent citizen is the son of Edward and Ellen (Maynar) Blades, and was born in McMinn county, Tennessee, January 29, 1821. He was the second child and oldest son. His parents were natives of North Carolina, but moved to Tennessee shortly after their marriage. In 1836, when Ransom was fifteen years of age, they came to Greene county, Missouri, and settled on section 10, township 28, range 24. Then that part of the county was settled by only two or three families, and to the southwest of them there were no neighbors nearer than forty miles. … Read more

Biography of Dr. Beverly A. Barrett

Dr. Barrett is the son of John S. and Margaret (Patterson) Barrett, and was born in St. Genevieve county, January 8, 1826. The father was also a physician, was a Virginian, and emigrated to this State in 1811, and was a member of the first Missouri General Assembly. Beverly A. was the sixth child of a family of ten children, and had the advantages of a common school education in his native county, subsequently attending a seminary taught by Fox and Davis at Fredericktown  He began the study of his profession in 1845, and after two years’ close application to medical … Read more

Biography of Dr. Thomas Jefferson Bailey

Dr. Bailey was a native of Kentucky, born in Lincoln county, January 17, 1803, whith his father, John Bailey, had removed with his family from Virginia. There the father died, and Thomas J. grew up to manhood. He read medicine at Danville under the able preceptor ship of Drs. Smith and McDowell, till he was prepared for practice. Prior to removing to Missouri, in 1828, he married Miss Harriet Sproul, a native of the same county as himself. He settled first in Ralls county, this State, where he practiced medicine till 1837, removing thence to Springfield, when that town was a mere … Read more

Biography of Thomas Edward

Thomas Edward, Shoemaker. It is the object of this volume to set forth the lives of working men who through industry, perseverance, and high principle have raised themselves by their own exertions from humble beginnings. Raised themselves! Yes; but to what? Not merely, let us hope, to wealth and position, not merely to worldly respect and high office, but to some conspicuous field of real usefulness to their fellow men. Those whose lives we have hitherto examined did so raise themselves by their own strenuous energy and self-education. Either, like Garfield and Franklin, they served the State zealously in peace … Read more

Biography of James Garfield

James Garfield, Canal Boy. At the present time, the neighbourhood of Cleveland, Ohio, the busiest town along the southern shore of Lake Erie, may fairly rank as one of the richest agricultural districts in all America. But when Abram Garfield settled down in the township of Orange in 1830, it was one of the wildest and most unpeopled woodland regions in the whole of the United States. Pioneers from the older states had only just begun to make little clearings for themselves in the unbroken forest; and land was still so cheap that Abram Garfield was able to buy himself … Read more

Biography of Jean Francois Millet

Jean Francois Millet, Painter. There is no part of France so singularly like England, both in the aspect of the country itself and in the features and character of the inhabitants, as Normandy. The wooded hills and dales, the frequent copses and apple orchards, the numerous thriving towns and villages, the towers and steeples half hidden among the trees, recall at every step the very similar scenery of our own beautiful and fruitful Devonshire. And as the land is, so are the people. Ages ago, about the same time that the Anglo-Saxon invaders first settled down in England, a band … Read more

Biography of William Herschel

William Herschel, Bandsman. Old Isaac Herschel, the oboe-player of the King’s Guard in Hanover, had served with his regiment for many years in the chilly climate of North Germany, and was left at last broken down in health and spirits by the many hardships of several severe European campaigns. Isaac Herschel was a man of tastes and education above his position; but he had married a person in some respects quite unfitted for him. His good wife, Anna, though an excellent housekeeper and an estimable woman in her way, had never even learned to write; and when the pair finally … Read more

Biography of John Gibson

John Gibson, Sculptor. In most cases, the working man who raises himself to wealth and position, does so by means of trade, which is usually the natural outgrowth of his own special handicraft or calling. If he attains, not only to riches, but to distinction as well, it is in general by mechanical talent, the direction of the mind being naturally biased by the course of one’s own ordinary occupations. England has been exceptionally rich in great engineers and inventive geniuses of such humble origin–working men who have introduced great improvements in manufactures or communications; and our modern English civilization … Read more

Biography of George Stephenson

George Stephenson, Engine-Man Any time about the year 1786, a stranger in the streets of the grimy colliery village of Wylam, near Newcastle, might have passed by without notice a ragged, barefooted, chubby child of five years old, Geordie Stephenson by name, playing merrily in the gutter and looking to the outward eye in no way different from any of the other colliers’ children who loitered about him. Nevertheless, that ragged boy was yet destined in after-life to alter the whole face of England and the world by those wonderful railways, which he more than any other man was instrumental … Read more

Biography of Thomas Telford

Thomas Telford, Stonemason High up among the heather-clad hills which form the broad dividing barrier between England and Scotland, the little river Esk brawls and bickers over its stony bed through a wild land of barren braesides and brown peat mosses, forming altogether some of the gloomiest and most forbidding scenery in the whole expanse of northern Britain. Almost the entire bulk of the counties of Dumfries, Kirkcudbright, and Ayr is composed of just such solemn desolate upland wolds, with only a few stray farms or solitary cottages sprinkled at wide distances over their bare bleak surface, and with scarcely … Read more

Merrill Coburn

6. MERRILL3 COBURN (Richard2, Merrill1) was b. Feb. 12. 1820, a twin brother of Mitchell; m. Nov. 9. 1847, Susan S. Fellows of Cornish, dau. of John and Temperance (York) Fellows, b. Aug. 14, 1821, and d. March 12, 1905, in Reading, Vt. He d. July 5, 1882. Children: i. A child, b. and d. same day, July 9, 1849. ii. JOHN M., b. Dec. 9, 1850; d. Feb. 10, 1852, iii. ELLEN A., b. Oct. 2, 1853: d. July, 1882. iv. RICHARD P.. b. Oct. 2. 1855. v. FRANK F., b. Feb. 11. 1860: d. March 3. 1860. vi. … Read more

Stillman Coburn

5. STILLMAN3 COBURN (Richard2, Merrill1) was b. Feb. 15, 1816; m. May 20, 1840, Martha W. Mathews. b. Nov. 8, 1815, d. Aug. 29, 1889. Always res. on or near the Flat. He was a blacksmith. He d. March 17, 1875. Children, all b. on the Flat: i. MARTIN VAN BUREN, b. June 11, 1841; m. Dec. 24, 1863. Julia Sanderson of Weathersfield, Vt. Four children. He d. July 29, 1900. ii. ESTELLE H., b. May 30, 1843: m. Sept. 5, 1865, Barney Barker, then of Hanover. Res., Rutland, Vt. Three children. iii. LUETTE L., b. July 28. 1845; m. … Read more

Richard Coburn

4. RICHARD2 COBURN (Merrill1) was b. Oct. 21, 1785; m. first, Nov. 4, 1809, Sally French of Wallingford, Vt., b. in 1756, and d. May 11, 1849; m. second, Nov. 20, 1849, Lucy Mathews of Cornish, b. April 22, 1813. After Mr. Coburn’s death, she m. June 8, 1870. Dea. Arunah Burnap of Cornish and d. June 4. 1893. Mr. Coburn was a farmer and lived east of the Flat; a devoted Baptist. He d. Sept. 17. 1863. Children, all by first wife: i. NELSON, b. Dec. 27, 1810: m. studied medicine; practiced some years in Croydon; afterwards rem. to … Read more

Simon Coburn

3. SIMON2 COBURN (Merrill1) was b. May 25,1780; m. -, Ruth Eaton, b. in Haverhill, Mass., May 24, 1781, and d. in Cornish April 8, 1857. He was a farmer and d. Dec. 19, 1863. They lived many years in Salem and afterwards in Pelham and settled in Cornish about 1820. Children, all except the last one b. before coming to town: i. ABIGAIL, b. in Salem, Aug. 22, 1803; m. Feb. 14, 1826, Amos Kelley. Eleven children. (See Kelley.) She d. Feb. 15, 1878. ii. MARY, b. July 8, 1805, in Salem; m. Nov. 28, 1825, Moses Austin, Jr. … Read more

Phinehas Coburn

2. PHINEHAS2 COBURN (Merrill1) b. Sept. 6, 1778; m. April 14. 1803, Hannah French of Cornish, dau. of Ephraim and Comfort (York) French, b. June, 1778. It appears that they settled in E. Wallingford, Vt., as several of the family were reared there. The record of their children is deficient in order and in dates, so the arrangement may not be correct. The following has been obtained: i. PHEBE AMANDA, b. July 28, 1804; m. first -, Ara Bailey and had three children. He d. -. She m. second, -, Pratt and had one dau., Imogene; m. third, April 25, … Read more

Merrill Coburn

1. MERRILL COBURN came from Dracut, Mass., date uncertain, and settled in that part of Grantham afterwards annexed to Cornish. He was b. May 17, 1753; m. -, Abigail . b. July 12, 1751, and d. Jan. 4, 1848. It is said he was a soldier of the Revolution, probably from Mass. He d. in Cornish Nov. 8, 1842. Children: 2. i. PHINEHAS, b. Sept. 6, 1778. 3. ii. SIMON, b. May 25, 1780. iii. SABRA, b. Jan. 2, 1782; m. Nov. 22, 1809, Edmund Hardy. She d. March 15, 1847. iv. ANNESS, b. Nov. 28, 1783. 4. v. RICHARD, … Read more

Daniel Coburn

DANIEL2 COBURN (Asa1) was b. March 16, 1789; m. first, Oct. 22, 1807, Sabra Follett, b. 1787 (?), d. March 26, 1820, aged 33; m. second, Oct. 10, 1821, Mrs. Lois Woodbury, wid. of Isaiah Woodbury, who had d. Nov. 16, 1819, aged 33. Children, both by first wife: i. MELANCY, b. Sept. 17. 1808. ii. LEVI FOLLETT, b. Feb. 7, 1811.

Asa Coburn

2. ASA COBURN, JR., b. March 2,1787; m. Jan. 2, 1810, Sally Page of Cornish, dau. of Joshua and Marjorie ( ) Page, b. April 17, 1785. Their children were: i. ESTHER PAGE, b. Aug. 4, 1810. ii. CHARLOTTE, b. Feb. 7. 1812. iii. ALMIRA, b. Dec. 15, 1813.

Asa Coburn

1. ASA COBURN, b. -; m. first, -, Letta , b. -. She d. in 1789; m. second, -, Mary -, b. -; d. Oct. 1, 1807. Children by Letta, b. in Grantham and Cornish: i. ROBERT, b. April 9, 1783. ii. DANIEL, b. Feb. 23, 1785; d. young. 2. iii. ASA, JR., b. March 2, 1787. 3. iv. DANIEL, b. March 16, 17S9. Children by Mary: 4. v. THOMAS, b. Sept. 9, 1790. vi. MANLY, b. Aug. 26, 1792; m. March 19. 1815, Sally Follet. vii. LETTA, b. Aug. 26, 1798.