Biographical Sketch of Dr. John W. Armstrong, Camden County, Missouri

>From "History of Laclede, Camden, Dallas, Webster, Wright, Texas, 
Pulaski, Phelps and Dent Counties, Missouri" The Goodspeed Publishing
Company, 1889.
**********************************************************************

Dr. John W. Armstrong (deceased).  The Armstrong family first became
represented in the United States a short time previous to the Revolu-
tionary War, and were of Anglo-Saxon origin.  The great grandfather,
James Armstrong, located in Fauquier county, Va., and there his son,
Mason Armstrong, was born.  The latter came to Kentucky with two of his
brothers, Roland and James, about 1810, and here they married and sett-
led down to tilling the soil, but Mason remained single until after the
War of 1812, in which struggle he took an active part under General
Harrison, and then returned home and married Mary Crook, who was born
in Madison county, Ky., and was a daughter of John Crook and a sister
of Maj. Crook.  Mason Armstrong was a minister of the Methodist Episco-
pal Church, and died in 1856, at the age of seventy-two years.  His son
James M. Armstrong, was born in Kentucky, and graduated from the Tran-
sylvania Medical College, of Lexington, Ky., in the spring of 1844, and
in 1855 came with his family to Missouri and located in Elston Station, 
Cole county, where he resided until the breaking out of the late Civil
War, when he enlisted as a surgeon in the service and served until the
close.  He then returned to his home, and located with his family at
Sarcoxie, where he died in March, 1884.  His wife, whom he married on
October 27, 1837, and whose maiden name was Mary J. Searcy, was also
born in Kentucky, and is an active worker in the Methodist Episcopal
Church, South.  Dr. John W. Armstrong, is the eldest of their ten
children, and was born in Kentucky on the 26th of September, 1838, and
there resided until 1856, when he came to Missouri with his parents and
located on a farm.  He attended school at Liberty and Danville, Ky.,
and was a close student all his life, and wrote a biography of the
Armstrong family, which is considered quite valuable.  He became 
eminent in his professional career, and was a man of decided mental
endowments, being the editor and publisher of the Rustic Stoutland,
which paper he also founded.  He removed his machinery to Linn Creek,
thence to Lebanon, but the paper still retains its original name.  The
first paper was issued on the 14th of June, 1873.  He was a man of very
active habits, and owing to his excellent judgement was a man of 
influence wherever he resided, and was alike esteemed for his social
and business qualities.  In the fall of 1860 he came to Camden county
to practice medicine, but in 1862 enlisted in the Confederate army, in
the Trans-Mississippi Department, Company K, Sixteenth Missouri Infan-
try, as a private, and made an honorable and faithful soldier.  July 4,
1863, he was wounded at Helena, Ark., which finally resulted in his
death October 28, 1884, at the age of forty-six years, one month and
two days.  August 27, 1865 he espoused Miss Lucy E. Dodson, at Bonham,
Texas, but she was born in Camden county, Mo., on the 30th of January,
1844.  (The sketch of her father, Dr. Dodson, appears in this work.)
To their union the following children were born: James W., Joseph S.,
Mary Ella (Sellers), Benjamin A., John R., Charles H., and Elizabeth D.
Mrs. Armstrong lives on the home place with her family, and is an 
active member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and owns over 600 
acres of valuable land, about 200 acres of which are well under culti-
vation.

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