HISTORY OF CLAY COUNTY                      230


flouring mill was built, with the capacity of from four to six bushels an
hour, and operated by himself and Ransler Horton, up to about the time
of the Civil war.
    At the age of about forty years he became a member of the Mission-
ary Baptist church, to which society he was ardently attached, and was
heard to say at difterent times that, in order to keep his church dues
promptly paid up, he caught coons and sold the skins as a source of cash.
In 1848, the year after his retirement from the sheriff’s office, he entered
the ministry and was ordained at the annual meeting, September, 1850,
Wilson Trent being moderator, and Henry Grim clerk. For nearly half
a century Mr. Cooprider labored faithfully in the cause of the gospel un-
til compelled by failing physical powers and almost total loss of sight to
desist and retire from the field of active work. During the time of his
ministry he was called to the charge of numerous flocks, and repeatedly
to the same congregation, with the very remarkable record of having
been the pastor of Good Hope church, his home congregation, for twenty-
seven years consecutively. Aside from his regular pastorates he was
frequently engaged in protracted meetings at various points, and under
his ministrations many were persuaded and added to the church. His
usual mode of travel to his appointments was on foot. At the time of
ministering to the Friendly Grove congregation he had to cross Eel river,
when there were no bridges nor ferries. To meet this contingency he
improvised a rude water-craft by laying three rails side by side and lash-
ing onto them by the use of paw-paw, or elm-bark, two or three chunks.
On this he embarked and by use of a pole pushed across the stream. On
some occasions his raft would he missing, swept out by a freshet or other-
wise taken away, when he had to resort to the alternative of swimming the
stream. At such times he took off all his clothing, which he bundled up
in the smallest possible compass and tied onto his back to keep it dry.
For a number of years he was moderator of Curry’s Prairie Association,
in which position he acquitted himself acceptably and with credit to him-
self and the association.
    Through all these years of preaching he never demanded, nor would
he accept any pay for his services. There was no such word as “salary”
in the vocabulary of his church relationship and dispensation. To this
invariable rule of his life and practice there were but two exceptions, if
exceptions they might be called. Having, on one occasion made known
his want of a bushel of timothy-seed, a good brother of his flock procured
it for him and ever refused to accept any pay for it. At another time,
while holding a series of meetings in the border of Owen county, having
accompanied father and mother Morris home for the night and taken off
his boots to warm his feet by the cheerftil old-fashioned fireplace, the
good sister seeing his big toe protruding through a hole in his sock,
straightway went and presented him a pair of new woolen socks, knit by
her own deft hands.
    As an example of the public spirit, earnestness and vigilance of the
man, it is known that in 1884. at the age of seventy-two years he
tramped over a large area of Eel river and Big creek bottoms to make a
survey and map of the lands subject to overflow, as the basis on which to
appeal by petition to the state legislature for an appropriation of $40,000
for their reclamation. Accompanying this petition was a statement show-
ing that within a reasonable period of years the taxes accruing to the
state, on the increased assessel valuation of these reclaimed lands and
their products, would more than reimburse and compensate for the loan.