SAMUEL G. MCCRACKEN. Among the active and energetic business men of Ozark is Samuel G. McCracken, grain dealer and grocery merchant. He has acquired an enviable reputation as a business man and citizen, and well deserves the large competency he has acquired by honest methods and strict business integrity.
The McCracken family is of Scotch-Irish origin and the first members of this family to come to America settled in Tennessee, where they were esteemed as honorable and upright men and women. Thomas McCracken, grandfather of our subject, was born in Tennessee, as was also Nathaniel McCracken, the father of our subject, whose birth occurred in Williamson County in 1813. The latter married Miss Arissa Cates and our subject was one of the children born to this union.
Samuel G. McCracken was born in Hickory County, Missouri, March 30, 1851, and there remained until ten years of age, attending district school and assisting on the farm. The breaking out of the Civil War interrupted his studies at the above mentioned age, but he remained in his native county until after the war, when he entered the high school at Bolivar. Two years later he entered Drury College, when it was first opened in 1871, and passed three years in that well-known institution of learning. After leaving college he was employed as shipping clerk by J. M. Doling, grain merchant, and remained with him two years.
During his college days he married Miss Mary J. Rountree, a native of Tennessee, born November 25, 1855, and the daughter of George W. and M. J. (Reggs) Rountree. Mr. Rountree died in Tennessee during the war, and his widow, also a Tennesseean, is living in Springfield. She afterward married a Mr. Pate, a minister in the Christian Church at Springfield. By her first union she became the mother of two children: Mrs. McCracken and A. J., and to the second marriage were born two children: Robert L., who is employed in the manufacture of tobacco, and Corda J., who married A. Davidson, of Springfield. After clerking two years for Mr. Doling our subject became a partner in the grain and mercantile business with this gentleman and in 1880 built the first grain and store building in that place. They continued in business there until 1882 and then moved to Sparta, Christian County, where they built an elevator and for some time were engaged in buying lumber, building houses, handling live stock, carrying on a store and buying and shipping cord-wood.
Mr. McCracken remained in Sparta until 1878 and then moved to Springfield, where he purchased property. Since that time he has made his home there and at Ozark. He came to Ozark and purchased an interest in the Schmook Milling Company and he is now secretary of that company. He is also engaged in buying grain and is making a success of all his enterprises. Mr. McCracken is a gentleman in the prime of life and one who commands the respect of all by his upright principle and courteous bearing. He is a Mason, a member of United Lodge No. 5 at Springfield, and he and wife are members of the Christian Church. They have no children of their own, but have reared two boys (Robert A. and Samuel L.), who were orphan children of Albert McCracken. These children are enterprising young men and both are in the employ of S. H. Horin in the ice factory at Springfield. In politics Mr. McCracken is a Republican and is deeply interested in political matters as well as in all public enterprises. He is a pushing, enterprising man, the kind that build cities, make railroads, etc., and no one is more highly esteemed. He is now interested in the milling, grain and wood and lumber business and to some extent is operating in real estate, buying and selling on his own account. A large amount of land in Christian County belongs to him and in the buying of grain he does an annual business of about $30,000 a year. The McCracken family is one of the oldest in the Ozark Region. Our subject’s parents are still living in Hickory County and have been married for fifty-five years. They reside on the old place where they first settled in 1833.
