Maude I McCollum

http://www.struckbylightning.org/news/sbl20082704090154_walterpolly...

William Shakespeare McConnell (April 6, 1823-June 2, 1889)

In a family of farmers, William S. McConnell became a businessman, politician and attorney who played a pivotal role in Missouri's aborted attempt to secede from the Union in 1861.

In the 1850 census, at the age of 26, William S. was still living at home with Walter and Polly, listed in a handwritten note as a "student at L.," or law. Law schools didn't exist then, and prospective lawyers simply studied the law, usually under the guidance of a practicing attorney. In June 1852, the Greene Co. Circuit Court ordered that E.B. Boon and William S. McConnell be permitted to sign the roll of practicing attorneys.

William S. moved to Cassville the same year, when he also was admitted to the bar in Barry Co. He was married to Caroline Burton Lock (March 9, 1828, TN-March 12, 1908, Vivian, SD) in Cassville on March 13, 1853 by the Rev. George K. Porter. Caroline first wed young Rueben/ Ruban Richard Lock, on Jan. 28, 1849 in Barry Co.; the whereabouts of her son by that marriage, James M. Lock (1849), has not been determined.

Caroline's parents, John O. and Mary Burton, came to Missouri before 1837 from Alabama via Arkansas; they soon literally became the seat of government in new Barry Co. Through 1844, the Barry Co. courthouse had been located at the tiny village of McDowell in the north, but after Lawrence Co. was lopped off that year, citizens petitioned to move the courthouse south to the more central location that became Cassville. The home of Caroline's father was designated as the new courthouse; it stood on what became the Crystal Springs Trout Farm. Burton's close ties to the court crowd, while William practiced law there, no doubt accounted for his acquaintance with the young widow Caroline.

William served as administrator of his oldest brother's estate in 1853, after Alexander was struck by lightning in the fields west of Nixa. William also returned to administer his father's estate in 1854.

William S. bought his first town lot in Cassville in 1854, the forerunner of numerous town-and-country additions to his estate.

He was elected to the Missouri House of Representatives on Aug. 1, 1860 and took office that December. William originally helped stall resolutions that would have clarified the state's intentions on secession, and he voted for a plan to provide for a nonbinding referendum on secession along with his cousin, Rep. Marcus Boyd of Greene Co. William S. ended up voting for the final bill to establish a constitutional convention on secession, which Gov. Claiborne Jackson signed on Jan. 21, 1861.

The General Assembly served without major incident until March 1861 when it adjourned, but Gov. Jackson — who had been elected on a pro-Union ticket — called it back into session in May to discuss the arming of a state militia to protect Missouri's interests against Union troops in St. Louis.

On May 10, the General Assembly approved a resolution in unanimous opposition to the actions of Gen. Nathaniel Lyon (who was killed in August at the Battle of Wilson's Creek near Republic) but still provided for the state to be loyal to the Union; McConnell and Boyd were among the "ayes." The governor and other state officials then deserted the capital, believing they would be taken prisoner if Lyon's or other federal forces took Jefferson City.

That July also saw Confederate Gen. Gideon J. Pillow of Maury Co., TN invade Missouri through Arkansas. Pillow was the cousin of William S.'s sister-in-law, Matilda Edwards (Mrs. John W.) McConnell of Porter Township. (The Christian Co. McConnells nevertheless enrolled in the pro-Union Home Guards and later the 72nd Regiment of the Enrolled Missouri Militia, although their service records reflect no keen yearning for action.)

Gov. Jackson, ousted in July by a constitutional convention that declared Hamilton Gamble his successor, ordered the legislature to assemble in Neosho on Oct. 21. No record of the House session in Neosho has been preserved, although the conclave adjourned to Cassville, where a resolution of secession was adopted in both chambers. The legislature was to meet again in New Madrid, but the plans collapsed after the flight and then death of Jackson. The Confederacy quickly recognized Missouri's secession, but the state had come under Union military government for all practical purposes.

Former state Sen. Emory Melton's notes on Barry County history show that when the General Assembly was seated in Cassville, William S. refused to attend the session and provide a quorum; he later attended, but wouldn't vote. For his role, he was charged with treason and taken into custody by pro-Union legislators later. (Official histories of the era conflict on William's role, although it was strategic; he is claimed to have been both pro- and anti-secession.) He was acquitted with the help of counsel from J(I).W. Boon, who succeeded McConnell as state representative from Barry County.

McConnell's Southern leanings were clear, as was his ambivalence to act. William practiced law in southwest Missouri during the Civil War and deigned to represent Southern sympathizers — which helped cost another local attorney his life. William named a son born in 1861 after up-and-coming Confederate Gen. Stonewall Jackson. Living nearby, too, in Pierce Township, Stone Co., was first cousin William Alexander McConnell, whose Maury County, TN brothers all volunteered for Confederate service; one died in an Indianapolis Union prison camp.

For William S.'s legal work, he was placed under house arrest from 1862 to 1864 in Cassville by Union forces; he advised one rebel to flee Missouri, but the defendant chose to stand trial and was executed. William S. also owned an inn in the tradition of his great-grandfather William in Salisbury, NC — McConnell's Hotel — that was appropriated in the war for use as a Union field hospital. (General orders seldom allowed the outright, long-term appropriation of property belonging to pro-Union residents; foraging on rebel sympathizers' possessions was encouraged.)

The next records on William S. McConnell suggest that by 1870 he had become or remained well-to-do, despite the ravages of the war and house arrest. The census showed him as a 47-year-old druggist with $8,000 in real estate and $3,500 in personal property in 1870. Also living with the family were Mollie Burton, 16, a sister of Caroline; Virginia Parr/Farr, 16, "a domestic servant" from Arkansas; and David A. Parks, 21, a black farm laborer, also from Arkansas. William S. regained control of his hotel after the war because he is listed as a hotel keeper and farmer in 1880.

Barry County records show that after a physician registration law was passed in 1873, William signed up, although it is unclear whether he registered as a doctor or, in an ancillary provision of the law, as an apothecary or druggist.

In his final years, William was among the most prosperous and influential members of the Cassville community, living in a pocket of wealth in an area that still bore the scars of the late war. He and Caroline had not fared so well as parents, losing two daughters as infants. In 1880, the couple was living in their large Cassville home with son S.L. and daughter Maud along with Susan Ivy, a cook at the hotel; Benjamin Cooper, a farm worker; and John Ireland, a stable worker at the hotel.

William died on June 2, 1889, two days after writing a will that named his widow Caroline and son-in-law Ambrose Hunter Wear as executors of the extensive estate. Caroline was left with large farms around Cassville as well as five town lots, personal effects and equipment, and a team of work horses.

Son W.A.S., called Shakespeare, inherited farms totaling 160 acres, including the subdivision of Jumping Jack Heights in Cassville. Daughter Mary Ona Wear, by then living in Springfield, got two Cassville lots; she and her husband were already well positioned.

Son S.L. received 80 acres in farm ground north of Exeter, and daughter Maude was left four town lots in Cassville along with livestock. In February 1890, the executors sold one lot, with the store houses on it, for $800, which more than covered the estate's debts.

William lies in Cassville Cemetery. Caroline joined her daughter Maud and son-in-law Charles Leroy McCollum and died in South Dakota in 1908.

William and Caroline had at least these children:

O William A.S. or William Alexander Shakespeare McConnell, known as "Shakespeare" (1856), married Cora Hilburn of Barry Co. on Dec. 24, 1874

O Mary Ona McConnell (1858-March 1896) on March 9, 1879 married Ambrose Hunter Wear

O Stonewall L. (1861).

O Maude I. (Dec. 13, 1866, Cassville-June 24, 1924, Chamberlain, SD), who married Charles Leroy McCollum

O Carrie M. (1869-1870), who died as an infant and is buried in Cassville Cemetery.

O Catherine Jane McConnell Butler (1827/8-by 1865) Of the McConnell descendants in the Butler line:

• Samuel Walter Butler (July 15, 1854-June 24, 1943) . . .

• James W. Butler (c. 1857) died after 1860 in Missouri as a youth.

• George Washington Butler Jr. (April 7, 1860-March 9, 1942) . . .

Name Mccollum
Gender Female
Birth Date 09 May 1891
Birthplace Ithaca, Richland, Wisconsin
Race White
Father's Name Charles L. Mccollum
Father's Birthplace Wisconsin
Mother's Name Maud Mcconnell
Mother's Birthplace Missouri
Citing this Record

"Wisconsin, Births and Christenings, 1826-1926," database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:XRKW-63B : accessed 4 August 2015), Mccollum, 09 May 1891; citing Ithaca, Richland, Wisconsin, reference item 3 p 375; FHL microfilm 1,305,150.

Name Mccollum
Gender Female
Birth Date 22 Jul 1894
Birthplace Ithaca, Richland, Wisconsin
Race White
Father's Name Charles L. Mccollum
Father's Birthplace Wis.
Mother's Name Mary Mcconm...
Mother's Birthplace Mo.
Citing this Record

"Wisconsin, Births and Christenings, 1826-1926," database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:XR5Q-QMB : accessed 4 August 2015), Mccollum, 22 Jul 1894; citing Ithaca, Richland, Wisconsin, reference pg195 cn1980; FHL microfilm 1,305,151.

http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~richlandwi/Sexton...

MCCOLLUM, Maude I. McCONNELL 1867 1924 12-13-1867 06-24-1924 D-R03

Married Charles LeRoy McCollum on February 6, 1889.
Daughter of William S. & Caroline (Burton) McConnell.