Caldwell County MO Archives History .....THE KEMPERS WERE PIONEERS. 
************************************************
Copyright.  All rights reserved.
http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm
http://www.usgwarchives.net/mo/mofiles.htm
************************************************

File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Karen Walker khw4@yahoo.com August 30, 2008, 4:14 pm

THE KEMPERS WERE PIONEERS.
	Narrator:  Claud S. Kemper of Cameron, Missouri

     A family tree faultlessly executed shows the arrival of John Kemper 
Colonist in America in 1714 and John Henry my great, great great grandfather 
arrived in the Old Dominion in 1730.  
     My father John Quincy Adams Kemper was born in Garrard County Kentucky 
January 3 1826.  He was the son of Thornton B. Kemper of Fauquier County 
Virginia.  J.Q.A. came to Missouri in 1850 by boat from Lexington Kentucky to 
Lexington Missouri.  On leaving the boat at Lexington Missouri he sought a way 
to get to Mirabile.  A freight hauler told him he could ride on the 
wagon "down hill."  He accepted and made his way from the Missouri River to 
Mirabile riding down hill and walking up.
     In 1851 he married Adalaide Smith the daughter of Lieutenant Governor 
Smith.  "Governor Smith" as he was called came to Missouri from Columbiana 
County Ohio to Missouri in 1832 on a tour of inspection, finally moving to the 
State in 1844.  He bought a farm lying partly in Rockford and Mirabile 
Townships.  He had brought a large bunch of sheep from Ohio to this farm and 
was known as the "Sheep Raiser Smith" in that part of the county.  Gov. Smith 
was State Representative from Caldwell County in 1853 and also in 1862 and 
1864.  Was Lieutenant Governor of Missouri 1864-1868 and United States 
Marshall 1869-1877.
     My Mother and Father located on a farm in the Plainview neighborhood in 
Clinton County just over the Caldwell County line a mile or so.  They were the 
parents of eleven children, three girls and eight boys.  My Mother died in 
1874, leaving a house full of children.  The oldest daughter married R.D. 
Paxton the year following mothers death, so it became sister Betty's 
(Elizabeth) duty to raise the big bunch of boys.  She was very young for such 
an undertaking but she stayed at home and took good care of us until we all 
had homes of our own.  She also cared for father till his death.
     My father enlisted as a Union soldier in the Home Guards at Mirabile; 
being in only a few months.  The older children can recall the fears and 
horrors of the war.
     Father was an excellent carpenter in his day.  He did a great deal of 
building in and around Mirabile, records show that he built one of the oldest 
churches in the county at Mirabile.
     The children all attended country school at Plainview and went to church 
at the Brookyn church between our home and Lathrop.  This old church has just 
recently been torn down.
     Interview  August 1934.


File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/mo/caldwell/history/other/kempersw89gms.txt

This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.org/mofiles/

File size: 3.1 Kb