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CHAPTER   TWENTY

 

ELROD BISHOP BREEDEN

 

FAMILIES

While the early history of the Elrod family is not cer­tainly known, it is reasonably sure that they were a part of the great stream of emigration that moved, first west through Tennessee, then north through central Kentucky to The Falls of the Ohio, now Louisville, thence scatter­ing north and west from the north bank as their individual fancy dictated. No less than ten families of Elrods lived in North Carolina in 1790, and since none are listed in South Carolina and Virginia, the above supposition is quite likely to be correct. Something over a hundred years ago our branch of the family had covered a good part of the distance here, and were then living in Law­rence County, Indiana, some seventy-five miles northwest of Louisville. Their old home there is now the center of the area from which Bedford building stone is shipped all over the world.

 

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Thomas Elrod, the first of the family to arrive, came here with his family in the early forties. Members of this family later intermarried with the Moon family, also from Lawrence County, who came here at or about the same time. There may have been blood relationship be­tween the families even earlier. They settled in present Sinful Bend where both sets of ancestors lived out their lives and died, and where many of the third and fourth generations of their descendants still live. The best au­thority is that the Thomas Elrod family consisted of sev­en children, as follows: Sarah Ann married Preston Moody. They lived a num­ber of years in this county, but later moved to Joplin where they both died and where their descendants, if any, likely still live. Relatives here have entirely lost track of them.

 

Ellen married a man named Hinchey, and died early in life, leaving one child, Mary, who was raised by relatives. She married William Duke and died young, but whether or not she left descendants is not known. Duke later mar­ried the widow of James Bishop and moved to Oklahoma, where he still lived as late as eight years ago.

 

Martha Serilda, another daughter, will be found in this chapter under her married name, as the wife of John Bishop.

Still another daughter of Thomas Elrod whose given name has not been preserved married a man named Cunningham, and both she and her baby were drowned at the Boudreaux Ford on the Gasconade. Their bodies were re­covered at Indian Ford and were buried on the river bank on the east side, just below the old ford. Their bones were washed out of the grave into the river during a rise in the last few years.

 

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Wash Elrod, son of Thomas, grew to manhood in this country. He enlisted in the Union Army at the beginning of the Civil War in which he served nearly its full length. He was single at the time of his enlistment and never thereafter lived in this county, settling in Illinois after the close of the war, where he spent the remainder of his life. He married and raised a family, but relatives here have no knowledge of them.

 

Thomas Benton Elrod, son of Thomas, was born in Lawrence County, Indiana, September 27, 1843. He came to Missouri about 1845, grew to manhood in this county, and in 1867 married Matilda Slater. Not very long afterward they settled at the mouth of Long Creek, still known as the Bent Elrod place and now owned by his son Allen. Here he spent the remainder of his life and died Septem­ber 13, 1926. He was the father of two children, T. J. (Jeff) and Bertie by the first marriage. Bertie, now wife of Norris Huckins, lives at Sedalia; Jeff, who married Lou Armer, died in 1937 in this county, leaving his widow here and five children, of whom Elsie, Dora, Evelyn, and Ira live in St. Louis; all are married, but the married names of the girls have not been received; Arvil, the fifth child, single, lives in this county with his mother.

 

Thomas Benton Elrod's second marriage, on March 12, 1884, was to Sarah, daughter of Charles W. Given, who survived him some three years, dying about 1929. The eight living children of this marriage are: Flore E., wife of Hal Picker; Bertha, wife of John Whalen; Delphia, wife of James V. Finn; W. H.: R. N.: E. E.; Allen; and Boley Elrod, of whom all but Mrs. Whalen and Mrs. Finn live in this county. The Whalens live in St. Louis County and the Finn family at Rolla. Leonard Elrod, born

 

 

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December 14, 1896, died July 1, 1916, single.

 

Hattie Serilda, the remaining child of Thomas B. Elrod by his last marriage was born November 16, 1884. She was married October 30, 1904, to Ellis Bray and died Febru­ary 27, 1923. The six children of this marriage, all of whom live in this county, are: Anderson; Ruby, wife of Noah Finn; Ellis; Blanche; Olive; Jewel; and Lillian Alene Bray.

 

The birth and death dates of C. J. (Jackie) Elrod have not been received. He was born probably in Indiana, and was married here February 2, 1855, to Scianna, daughter of John H. and Judith Moon. She was born in Indiana Au­gust 29, 1838, and died November 28, 1919. They lived most of their married lives, and C. J. Elrod probably died, at the place on the old Vienna and Lanes Prairie road still known as the Elrod Spring in the Bend. It is thought that Mrs. Elrod died at the home of her son, C.J. Elrod Junior also in this county. Thirteen children were born of this union, of whom three died in infancy, five died after reaching maturity, and five are still living. The living are: Nannie, wife of W. W. Palmer who lives on Spring Creek in this county; Judith whose first husband was John Huckaby and who is now the widow of Logan Weaver in Harrisburg, Illinois; George whose wife was Rebecca, daughter of Elijah Jones at the Bowles place on Lane's  Prairie (George and Judith are twins); Colonel, who married Gertie Fann, lives in the Bend; and Jacob, the youngest, who married Mary, daughter of Jerry Jones of Monett, Missouri. The five who have passed away leav­ing families are: Joseph, William, John M., Ellen, and T. B. Elrod Junior.

 

Joseph Elrod married Elizabeth, daughter of Elijah Jones, and until the time of his death something like twen­ty years ago the family lived on Wolf Creek in the Bend on the farm where his widow continued to live until her marriage to Moses Hull. She is now Mrs. Calvin Breeding

 

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Junior. Seven children of Joseph and Elizabeth Elrod lived to maturity: Fannie died single, and Mamie died af­ter her marriage to a man named Hall, in Oregon; she left one son, Ivor. The five living children are: Sallie, wife of Adam Backues, and Laura, wife of Ernest Mat­thews, both of this county; Rebecca, who married in St. Louis, and W. J. who also lived there; Emeline also mar­ried a Hall. Both she and Ivor live in Oregon.

 

William Elrod has also been dead more than twenty years; his wife was Martha, daughter of Joseph Shockley. They lived their entire married lives in this county. Four children were born of this marriage: Dora, now wife of Joseph Wolf, Gus, Eugene, and Alpha, all live in St. Louis. Alpha is also married, but her married name is not known. After the death of William Elrod his widow mar­ried Charles Burrows; she died March 29, 1918.

John M. Elrod married_______Smith, who survives him. Of their seven children only two are now living: Ida, wife of James Heck, lives at Belle, and Georgia, wife of Fred Luster at Vienna. Della, William, and Arvil died single; Nellie, wife of Frank Lehnoff, left one son, Ches­ter, now of Belle. Oscar E. Elrod, who married Roxie Bailey, died in 1936, survived by his widow and their three children, Wandelia, Clarence, and Leslie--all of whom live in this county.

 

Ellen Elrod married James Porter and spent most of her married life in Phelps County where she died. The two children born of this marriage yet live in that coun­ty. Mamie is now Mrs. Freshour; Sarah's married name is not known to relatives here.

 

Thomas Benton Elrod Junior was born December 18, 1855, and died October 6, 1926. He was married Septem­ber 21, 1879, to Casandra Copeland who was born August 1, 1859, and died March 11, 1929; both were born and

 

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spent their entire lives in this county, where he was widely acquainted by reason of spending almost his entire adult life as a minister in the Baptist Church. In addition he was for many of his later years Chaplain of the Ma­sonic Lodge at Vienna. The five living children of this marriage, all of whom live in this county, are: Leona, wife of Thomas Shanks; Clara, wife of Paul Stockton, and the three sons, Tony, Epley, and Edgar. The two de­ceased children are: Mary E., who was born in 1888, mar­ried February 15, 1906, to Joseph S., son of C. C. Myers, and died December 17, 1918. She was the mother of five children, of whom two, Columbus and Mildred, died sin­gle; Clint and Loyd live with their father in Oregon, and the daughter, Beulah, is married and lives in northern California; her married name is not known; Bessie, the other deceased child, married Joseph Pohl; her birth and death dates have not been received. Two children living to maturity were born of this marriage; the daughter, Ida, is now Mrs. Ernest Hefti of Vienna; the son, Warren, lives at Lanes Prairie.

Nancy Elrod, daughter of Thomas, married Elwood Moon. They lived on the Moon place in the Bend for sev­eral years after their marriage, afterwards moving to Arkansas where they both died. One son, Wood Moon, lives in this county. Two of the children, John and Jane, died single. The other two daughters, Judith who married Al Smallwood, and Amanda, wife of John Cochran, also moved either to Arkansas or south Missouri many years ago, and relatives here are not in touch with any de­scendants they may have had.

 

Lucinda Elrod, daughter of Thomas, married William West. They also lived in this county a number of years after their marriage, and their five children, Mary Ellen, Caroline, Lydia, Thomas, and James, were all born here. The children were all single when the family moved to the Indian Territory some fifty-odd years ago. Their

 

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marital status and descendants are not known to relatives here. One of the children, James West, was here on a visit something like ten years ago, at which time he lived in Picher, Oklahoma.

 

As already noted, Massey Bishop was born in north­western North Carolina, and came here with his wife from Roane County, Tennessee, where some, and possibly all, of his four children were born. They lived a considerable time on the Maries, and later in the Long Creek neighborhood, where both he and his wife died. Only a few of the older birth, death, and marriage dates have been pre­served, most of them having been lost, together with the family Bible, on a trip to Oklahoma some years ago.

 

Of the four children of Massey Bishop, his son, Tracy, died at the age of twelve; his daughter, Mary, married Samuel Allen and lived most of her married life at Cham­ois, both she and her husband are long since dead, leav­ing two sons and a daughter, William, James, and Alice Allen. William lives in Chicago, and James now or for­merly worked on a railroad in Texas; Alice married and lived her short married life near St. James, dying in childbirth with her child.

 

James Bishop, the third child, married Amanda, daugh­ter of Vincent Stewart, and died early in life, leaving his widow and four children. The widow later married Wil­liam Duke here, and after some years moved to Oklahoma, where she died. So far as known, her second husband is still living. James Bishop was the father of four children, of whom three, James Junior, Eva, now Mrs. Gray, and Jessie, whose married name is not known, live at Castle, Oklahoma. Mary, the fourth child, has been dead a num­ber of years. She married Joseph Stockton Junior and her descendants will be found under that name.

The remaining and probably the oldest child was John

 

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Bishop, who was born in Roane County, Tennessee, April 22, 1836, and who died here May 4, 1884. He was married here some time in 1858 to Martha Serilda, daughter of C. J. (Jackie) Elrod, who was born in Lawrence County, In­diana, October 3, 1840, and survived her husband until November 12, 1921. Some years of their married life were spent in Pettis County, but they lived most of it in Sinful Bend, where John Bishop was not only an extensive farmer, but also, in partnership with H. E. Given, was a large tie dealer at a time when all ties made here (and most of the pine lumber sawed on Piney) were rafted to Gasconade City at the mouth of the river. His widow later married Charles W. Given, but no children were born of this marriage.

 

John and Serilda Bishop's four children who are living are: Virginia Ellen, wife of J. R. Copeland near Vienna; Henry B. who operates stores at St. James, St. Clair, and Sullivan and lives in St. James; Missouri; widow of John Burton Copeland (which see) lives at Granite City, Illi­nois; and David B. (Bert) at Okemah, Oklahoma. The three deceased children of John Bishop are: James Dolph, John Bunyan, and Adam Bishop.

 

James Dolph Bishop, the oldest of John's sons, was born in this county July 17, 1859, and died in Osage Coun­ty June 8, 1931. He was first married March 11, 1880, to Mary Victoria, daughter of Charles W. Given, who was born here March 30, 1860, and died in this county April 17, 1903. J. D. Bishop was in turn a farmer, tie dealer, merchant, hotel man in this and Osage counties, but was retired at the time of his death. The seven children born of this marriage, all yet living, are: Mrs. W. J. Brandon of Dora, Colorado; Mrs. Tony Hutchison near Vienna; Mrs. Ernest Cabe in Oregon; Mrs. H. M. Cabe of Seminole, Oklahoma; Mrs. John Little (who, as Blanche Bish­op, taught several successful terms in the Vienna school) of Wichita, Kansas; John W. Bishop of Pharaoh, Oklahoma;

 

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and Ernest F. Bishop of Granite City, Illinois. J. D. Bishop remarried after the death of his first wife, but no children were born of the latter union.

 

John Bunyan Bishop, born March 16, 1868, married Effie, daughter of W. C. (Clayt) Jones, and Adam Bishop, born in 1870, married her sister, Maud Jones. Both broth­ers have died in the last ten years. The families moved to near Okemah, Oklahoma, something like thirty years ago, and Mrs. Bunyan Bishop and a majority of the children still live in or near there. Mrs. Adam Bishop is now Mrs Edward Moss of Forest City, Missouri. Bunyan's children are: Mabel (who died in infancy), Jessie, Otto, Belvia, Clinton, Clayton, Marie, and Margaret; the married names of the daughters have not been received.

 

Adam Bishop's living children are: Roy, Adelbert; and Mrs. Minnie Longwill, a widow of Okemah, Oklahoma; and Raymond of California; Arlena, wife of Talbert Elliot, died early in life leaving three children: Talbert, Vivian, and another daughter, all of whom now live in California with their father. Two other children of Adam and Maud Bishop died in infancy.

 

No doubt the relationship between the Breeden and Bishop families was well known to the older members who came here, but these pioneers are now three genera­tions away from the older ones now living here, and the kinship is more or less guesswork. Henry Bishop of St. James and his sister, Mrs. J. R. Copeland of Vienna, who are probably better acquainted with the details than any other members of the families feel sure that their grandmother, the first wife of Massey Bishop, was a Forrester, and was a sister of Aunt Kate Forrester, who died here at the advanced age of one hundred seven, sin­gle, (a married woman who looked over these notes says that the fact that she was single probably added fifty years

 

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to her life!). They feel sure, also, that John Breeden's second wife was also a Forrester, and a sister of the first. These two, with Aunt Kate Forrester, were sisters of the older members of the family of that name who settled here about 1825.

 

Mrs. Bishop was three times married, Massey Bishop being her third husband. Her first marriage in Tennessee was to a man named Edgman, and the one child of this marriage, Houston Edgman, later accompanied his mother here. Her second marriage was to a Trammell, also in Tennessee. Alex Trammell, who also came here, was the only child of that marriage. Houston Edgman went from here to California and never returned. Alex Trammell lived the remainder of his life and died here, single. It is thought that he did not come here with the rest of the fam­ily, but came some time later.

 

All of these families came here from around Kingston, Roane County, Tennessee, but both John Breeden and Mas­sey Bishop were born in northwestern North Carolina. The birthplace of the Forresters, who were only one gen­eration away from Ireland, and of the Trammells is not known. The Bishop and Breeden families came here in 1842; the Trammells came later. The Forresters came here many years before that, possibly as much as twenty years before, and most of the available information con­cerning them will be found in the chapter on The First Settlers.

 

We do not know the Bishop history back of Massey Bishop, but we have a reasonably sure guess as to the name of the ancestor of the Breeden family, for only one man of that name lived in the section from which they came. The name does not appear in the early records in either North or South Carolina, and in only one instance in Virginia, Elijah Breeden living in Green Briar County in that state and appearing in the tax records of that county

 

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in the period from 1783 to 1786. Green Briar at that time embraced most of present Virginia and West Vir­ginia between the Blue Ridge and Cumberland mountain chains. Since moving to Tennessee was along the line of least resistance--simply going farther up the valley, which would have taken him through northwestern North Carolina--it is more than likely that he was the ancestor of the John Breeden who came to this county some fifty odd years later. There is a tradition of an early day Breeden in this section named Elijah, and it could have easily have been that the Virginian of that name came here with his son, but we do not know this to be true.

 

John Breeden, the ancestor of all the local family of that name, came here from near Kingston, Roane County, Tennessee, probably with Massey Bishop, about the year 1842. He was at that time living with his second wife, who was probably a Forrester, and the fact that her relatives had lived here for many years likely influenced their choice of location. Very little is known of their life here except that they lived mostly along the Maries, and both he and his wife are probably buried at the Vaughan Cem­etery.

 

The only child of the first marriage of John Breeden of whom we have any record in Joseph Frost Breeden, who was a grown man and married to Margaret Williams be­fore his father left Tennessee. He continued to live there for some time, but later came to Missouri settling near Joplin in Jasper County. Here his two sons, Louis Roland and John Williams Breeden, were born in 1842 and 1846 respectively. Two daughters, Hannah and Sarah, were al­so born to them. In 1854 the Joseph Breeden branch of the family joined the others in Maries County.

 

It is not definitely known whether Joseph Breeden's first wife died before or after they came to this county, but if she came here she did not live long for soon after his

 

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arrival he was married to Mary, widow of Lunsford L. Davidson and daughter of Daniel Boone Wherry. One daughter was born of this marriage who is now, or rec­ently was, Mrs. Quincy Harmon of Cleo Springs, Okla­homa. Joseph Breeden died here in the early part of 1875, and soon after his death his widow and their daughter, together with her two sons by her first marriage, moved to the Indian Nation, where they thereafter made their home. Joseph Breeden's two daughters by his first mar­riage died of typhoid fever within a week of each other, before reaching maturity; they are buried in the Vienna Cemetery.

 

Louis Roland Breeden, son of Joseph, served the dur­ation of the war in the Union Army. After the war he married Elizabeth Malissa, daughter of Thomas Forrester. Little is known of their family except that they had at least one son, A. D. Breeden, now living somewhere in south Missouri. Roland Breeden died in the Little Maries in 1879, and is buried at the Crismon Cemetery. His wid­ow later married 'Spoon' Johnson.

 

John Williams Breeden, the remaining child of Joseph Frost Breeden to live to maturity, was born in Jasper County, Missouri, February 6, 1846, and came here with the rest of his father's family in 1854. He was big enough to 'make a hand' before the war, taking part in the cattle drives Herman and John Felker and others were even then making to north Missouri. Having attained sufficient age, he enlisted in the state troops during the latter part of the war and served thirteen months, being on duty in Jefferson City the night President Lincoln was assassinated. He was married to Cordelia, daughter of Robert and Nancy Tyree Rowden (who was born here December 28, 1851) in the Methodist Church at Bloomgarden Novem­ber 14, 1869, probably by Reverend J. M. Johnson.

 

For more than twenty years thereafter they made their home on the Little Maries near Brinktown where most-probably

 

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all--of their children were born. They sold out about 1890 and located on a large farm on the upper Roubideaux near Cookville in Pulaski County. Here they made their home almost forty years until their advancing age made conducting the farm a burden. They moved to Lebanon about 1927, where Mr. Breeden died March 22, 1930; his widow survived until August 17, 1933.

 

Two of their twelve children, Margaret and Eusevia, died in infancy; another son, Robert, died September 29, 1907, leaving one child, now Mrs. Leia Greer of Denver, Colorado. The nine living children are: Clinton and Charles R. at Waynesville; George at Cookville; Joseph at Emporia, Kansas; Mrs. Robert Skidmore, Mrs. Dolly Haynes, Mrs. Nina dark, and Mrs. Livella Singleton at Lebanon; and Mrs. Eva Sullins at Crocker. John Breeden was a member of the Masonic Lodge, probably at Dixon, for a great many years before his death.

 

John Breeden and his second wife, believed to have been a Forrester, were the parents of five children liv­ing to maturity: Nancy married Thomps Crawford, and if they had any children no record of them has been found. Hannah married Sam Woolsey. They lived for a time in the Bloomgarden community, where he was either killed or died during the Civil War. They were the parents of two children, and old people believe that both the children and their mother died not many years after the war. The third sister married William Helton, and her descendants will be found under that name. The two remaining chil­dren of the second marriage were Abraham R. and Wil­liam Breeden.

Abraham R. Breeden, son of John, was born in Roane County, Tennessee, Feburary 18, 1838, and came to this state with his parents and the Bishop family when a small child. He grew to manhood in the Stony Point vicinity, and was married there to Nancy, daughter of Isaac Helton. He lived in that neighborhood during the lifetime of his

 

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first wife. After her death he married Nancy Copeland, daughter of William Shockley, after which he moved to a farm west of the Maries on the old Jefferson City road, and later to the Rader vicinity. Here he died January 13, 1919; his second wife survived him only a short time. His five children by his first marriage, all still living, are: John R. and Stephen at Union; William at Washington; and Jesse at Guion, Arkansas; and Mary, the only daugh­ter, married George Eads. Her descendants will be found under that name. Her present home is in St. Louis.

 

Of the eight children born of the second marriage, two died in infancy and two after reaching manhood. The four living are: Lou, wife of Jesse Ross in Shannon County; and G. A. (Add), Joe, and Martha, wife of Ed Doyle, of the Little Flock community in this county. John Breeden mar­ried Jessie High, and died in Jefferson City some years ago. He is survived by his widow and their four children, Lester, Dorothy, Ruth, and Paul, all of that city. Thomas R., the remaining son, was born December 12, 1882, and died October 10, 1931, at LaMine, Missouri, where he worked for the Missouri Pacific Railroad many years. He was married June 15, 1914, to Virgie Hamilton of LaMine, and is survived by his widow and one daughter, Annetta, both of whom now live in St. Louis.

 

William Breeden grew to manhood in this county and spent most of his adult life here. He married Louisa J., daughter of Isaac Helton, and for a time lived on Fly Creek southwest of Vienna, but later moved to the present Venus neighborhood. Some forty years ago they moved to Shannon County, where he spent the balance of his life and where he and his wife died. Of their ten children, all born in this county, eight are still living. They are: Isaac, Lewis, and Laura, wife of John Stephens, all of Shannon County; John in Texas County; Martha, wife of James Stokes, in Oklahoma; Waldo and Millie, widow of William Nelson (see Eads) now Mrs. Rawlingson, in California;

 

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and Amanda, wife of William Hickam, of the state of Washington.

 

Jane and Ellen, the two remaining children, are dead. Jane married Albert Copeland, and her descendants will be found under that name. Ellen married Isaac Ready, and both she and her husband died at Eldon, to which place they moved not long after the Rock Island railroad was built through. Her children living to maturity are: Thom­as, Granville, Henry, and Wilford Ready. Tom lives in Sedalia; the addresses of the others are not known here, but some of them are believed to live in Kansas.

 

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