Free Missouri Historical Newspapers Online
This page represents 37 free historical newspapers spread out over the state of Missouri since its founding into the 1900’s. All of them have at least a partial online representation.
Read MoreLocation: Boonville Missouri
Biography of Matthew Talbott
Matthew Talbott, of England, had a son named Hale, who was born in December, 1754. He married Elizabeth Irvine, who was born in September, 1778. Their children were Christopher, Thomas, William, David, Elizabeth, Polly, Nancy, Sophia and Jane. Mr. Talbott emigrated to the Territory of Missouri in 1809, with his eldest son, Christopher, and two Negro slaves. They cleared a small farm on Loutre Island, and raised a crop of corn and vegetables. The following year (1810) the rest of the family came out and settled at their new home. Mr. Talbott brought to Missouri seventy-six fine mares, from which he raised horses for the Western and Southern trade. During the Indian war he kept the greater portion of his stock on the opposite side of the river, where they could not be molested by the savages. Christopher Talbott married Susan Parrish, by whom he had Hale, Jr., Thomas, John, James, William, Matthew, Susannah, Martha, and Mary A. Major Thomas Talbott, the second son, was a roving, fun-loving youth. On one occasion his father sent him for some apple barrels, and gave hint the money to pay for them. He was gone about a month, and came back without the barrels or the money. In 1828 he made his first trip to Santa Fe. He was afterward employed by the government as Indian agent, and while acting in that capacity...
Read MoreBiographical Sketch of Luther C. Challis
Perhaps Luther C. Challis, nearly forty years a citizen of Atchison, is best known as a pioneer railroad man. He was born in New Jersey January 26, 1829, and for some years before moving West was engaged in business in Philadelphia and Boonville, Missouri. In 1855 he located in Atchison and joined his brother as one of the first merchants of that town. He afterward became a banker, and maintained a profitable ferry across the Missouri River until the building of the bridge in 1875. Mr. Challis was elected to a seat in the Territorial Council of 1857-58, made vacant by the resignation of Joseph P. Carr in January, 1858. He is generally conceded to be the father of the Central Branch of the Union Pacifie Railroad, having framed the bill to authorize its construction, secured its passage, and negotiated the treaty with the Kickapoo Indians for securing its right-of-way through their territory. Mr. Challis was also one of the incorporators of the Atchison & St. Joseph Railway, the first railroad built in the state, and one of the founders of the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe. He died in Atchison, July 26,...
Read MoreBiography of William Horner Cocke
With various corporate interests William Horner Cocke has been closely associated, these various business enterprises benefiting by the stimulus of his industry, keen sagacity and capable management. He has made for himself a most creditable position in business circles and since 1908 has been president and general manager of the Commercial Acid Company which in 1918 became the Southern Acid & Sulphur Company of St. Louis, while with various other concerns he is also associated as stockholder or official. He was born in City Point, Virginia, September 12, 1874. His father, Henry Teller Cocke, was born in Prince George county, Virginia, October 5, 1841, and came of English ancestry, the family having been founded in Surry county, Virginia, in 1684. Representatives in the direct line remained In Prince George county, which was formerly a part of Surry county until William H. Cocke left Missouri in 1894 or for a period of two hundred and ten years. They were always prominent in the social and political life of Virginia. Henry Teller Cocke served for four years with the Prince George Cavalry of the Confederate army and in days of peace devoted his time to farming and merchandising. He married Elizabeth Welsh Horner in December, 1870. She was born April 3, 1848, at Warrenton, Virginia, and was also of English lineage, the Horners having first settled at Port Tobacco, Maryland, but...
Read MoreBiography of William Peyton Waggener
William Peyton Waggener, only son of Hon. Balie Peyton Waggener, had followed in the footsteps of his father in the profession of law, and had attained enviable rank and prominence in the profession at Atchison. He was born at Atchison June 18, 1870, and grew up in his native city, where he attended the public schools and St. Benedict’s College. In 1887 he graduated from the Military School at Boonville, Missouri, and for two years was a student in Midland College at Atchison. He then entered the law office of his father and after a careful preparation was admitted to the bar in September, 1890. He too was only twenty years of age when licensed to practice, the age at which his father had been admitted. During 1893-95 he served as general attorney of the Kansas City Northwestern Railroad Company. Since February, 1917, he had been general counsel for this railway. In 1910 he succeeded his father as general attorney of the Missouri Pacific Railway for Kansas. Much of his time had been taken up with business affairs and he was formerly president of the Exchange State Bank and is now its vice president and director. He is also a director of the Kansas Life Insurance Company. Mr. Waggener served as county attorney of Atchison County from 1900 to 1903, and for one term was a member of the city council. His law...
Read MoreBiography of George Ainslie
Hon. George Ainslie is a western man by birth, training and choice, and possesses the true western spirit of progress and enterprise. He belongs to the little group of distinctively representative business men who have been the pioneers in inaugurating and building up the chief industries of this section of the country. He early had the sagacity and prescience to discern the eminence which the future had in store for this great and growing country, and, acting in accordance with the dictates of his faith and judgment, he has garnered, in the fullness of time, the generous harvest which is the just recompense of indomitable industry, spotless integrity and marvelous enterprise. He is now connected with many extensive and important business interests, is one of the leading lawyers of Boise, and is a recognized leader in Democratic circles in Idaho. A native of Boonville, Missouri, he was born October 30, 1838, and is of Scotch descent. Several of his paternal ancestors served in the British army as members of Scotch regiments, and the grandfather and an uncle of our subject both held the rank of colonel. His father was also an officer in the army and was a graduate of Edinburg University, where he won a gold medal on the completion of his course. He was admitted to the bar in his native land and licensed as an advocate....
Read MoreBiography of William H. Baugh, M.D.
Dr. Baugh is the well known physician and druggist of Shoshone, and has a wide acquaintance throughout southern Idaho. A native of Missouri, he was born in Boonville, July 28, 1864, and is of German lineage. His paternal grandfather removed from one of the eastern states to Indiana, and there the Doctor’s father, Henry Clay Baugh, was born and reared. In 1860 he removed to Missouri and married Elizabeth Steger, of that state. He had previously crossed the plains to California, where he had engaged in mining with fair success. After his return to Missouri he engaged in stock raising until 1874, when his life’s labors were ended in death. He died of pneumonia when forty-eight years of age, and his wife passed away in 1880. They were both members of the Methodist church and people of much worth. They left six children. Dr. Baugh, the eldest of the family, spent his youth in the state of his nativity, and acquired his medical education in the Missouri Medical College, at St. Louis, where he was graduated in the class of 1891. For two years he practiced in that state and then came to Idaho, forming a partnership with Dr. Smith, at Mountain Home. On leaving that place he took up his abode at Shoshone, and from the beginning has enjoyed a large and lucrative practice, extending over a radius...
Read MoreBiography of Charles Squirrel
Among the progressive and capable young business men of Bartlesville is numbered Charles Squirrel, a native son of the state, who is the owner of a good farm in Washington county and also has valuable oil interests. He was born at Matoka, September 11, 1896, his parents being Mr. and Mrs. William Squirrel, both of whom were Cherokees. When but a year old he was left an orphan and was adopted by Mrs. Walter Brown when eight years of age, his education being acquired at St. Joseph, Muskogee, Oklahoma, in the Webb school at Bellbuckle, Tennessee, and in Kemper Academy at Boonville, Missouri. When nineteen years of age he left school in opposition to the wishes of his guardian, who refused to render him any further assistance, and he has since been dependent entirely upon his own resources for a livelihood. He is a young man of marked business ability whose efforts are resultant factors in whatever he undertakes, and he is thoroughly familiar with the oil industry, while. he also is a successful agriculturist. He is now the owner of a farm of eighty acres and receives large royalties from his oil leases, his business affairs being most judiciously managed. On the 8th of July, 1916, Mr. Squirrel was united in marriage to Miss Edna Swinney, a daughter of E. E. and Barbara (Kent) Swinney, farming people of...
Read MoreBiography of Hon. John S. Phelps
The prominence, both State and national, of this most distinguished citizen of Greene county, may well serve as a reason why this sketch is given at greater length than that of other citizens mentioned; however, even this is but the merest outline of a life whose long public service makes up a history which would require a volume in itself, if given in a matter anything like that merited by the distinguished subject. John S. Phelps is the son of Elisha Phelps, and was born in Simsbury, Hartford county, Connecticut, December 22, 1814. The father, Elisha, was a lawyer of great prominence in that State, who served his fellow citizens in the Legislature, in State offices, and three terms in the national Congress. Noah Phelps, father of Elisha and grandfather of John S., was a captain in the Revolution and a most successful scout and spy. He was one of the “committee of safety” that planed the capture of Ticondero. Like his son and grandson, he, too, served the people in legislative and other capacities of public trust. Mr. Phelps was reared in his birthplace, receiving his education in the public schools and in Washington (now Trinity) college at Hartford, completing his course there in 1832. Subsequently, he studied law under his father for three years, and was admitted to the bar on the twenty-first anniversary of his birth....
Read MoreRecent Posts
