Caldwell County MO Archives History .....HIGGINS AND THE HINES FAMILIES IN HAMILTON IN  
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Karen Walker khw4@yahoo.com September 8, 2008, 4:15 pm

THE HIGGINS AND THE HINES FAMILIES IN HAMILTON IN THE SIXTIES AND SEVENTIES
	Narrators:  Mrs. Minnie Ogden, Sara T. Haggerty and Others

     It is hard to find families much older than the Hines and the Higgins 
families in Caldwell county.  Old Wesley Hines entered land in Rockford 
township 1836 before the county was organized and his family being large 
married into other early settler's families.
     Wesley himself married Elizabeth Davis, only sister of A.G. Davis, 
founder of Hamilton, back in Howard county 1818 and possibly it was thru him 
that her two brothers came here:  Albert G. and Thos. Coulson Davis.
     Wesley Hines' daughter Matilda married Major Thos. Higgins who was later 
both prominent in Caldwell county and in Hamilton.  Major Higgins took up 
prairie land in this county 1844 and the other settlers called him all kinds 
of a fool for choosing the prairie rather than timber.  He later came to 
Hamilton and put in the second lumber yard, site of the Tooley mill.  His home 
was directly east of it and for years it stood there, site of the present 
Tiffin building.  Then it was moved into the south east end of town and is the 
Mrs. Minnie Morris cottage.  Mr. and Mrs. Higgins had no children, so they 
took two of their brother's children into their home; Susie (McCromick) and 
Wesley Hines.  The latter married Ella Dunn, a teacher here, who was reared by 
Mr. Lavilla Aiken.  Marion Hines another nephew also stayed with them some 
time and had control of the Higgins lumber yard so much that it was often 
called the Marion Hines Lumber Yard.  Marion Hines' first wife with her babe 
are buried in the old cemetery at Hamilton, while he is buried in the New or 
Highland.  His second wife was Ella Griffith, a high school teacher here with 
Prof. Ferguson.
     Another daughter of old Wesley Hines married Humphrey Beckett who settled 
about 1839 in the vicinity of Mirabile as a very early settler.  These early 
Becketts are buried in the old Hines cemetery, in Rockford township, where 
also Wesley Hines the first is buried with his wife.  One of Wesley's sisters 
married a Beatty and a young man Beatty of this marriage was the first person 
killed in the county, at a county election.
     Then Wesley Hines the older, had a son John of Polo who has quite a 
number of descendants alive.  Mattison Hines went to Oregon and his progeny 
never returned.  The father of Wesley Hines, the younger, Susie, and Marion 
was Francis M. who did not live long after the children were born.
     Interview  1934.

Interviewer's note:  It was the pleasure of the interviewer to help dig out 
the grave slab of old Wesley Hines in Hines cemetery after it had been covered 
with dirt for many years.  He died in the late fifties.


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