Biographical Sketch of W. M. Wolfenbarger, Johnson County, Missouri,
Jackson Township.

>From "History of Johnson County, Missouri," by Ewing Cockrell,
Historical Publishing Company, Topeka, Cleveland, 1918.
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W. M. Wolfenbarger, a late prominent resident of Jackson township whose
life was devoted to the pursuits of agriculture, was one of the success-
ful and enterprising men of Johnson county, a citizen worthy of special
mention in a work of this character.  Mr. Wolfenbarger was a native of
West Virginia.  His ancestors were early settlers in that state and
wealthy planters.  W. M. Wolfenbarger was a son of John Wolfenbarger,
who was engaged in farming in West Virginia until just before the out
break of the Civil War, when he moved with his family to Missouri and
settled on a farm near Odessa.  He was a man of great industry and with
the assistance of his sons cleared and improved and developed his tract
of land until in due time he was the owner of one of the most valuable
farms in his township.  He was not only one of the leading citizens of
his community but also one of the most forceful factors in all that 
concerned the material improvement of the county.  At the homestead of
the Wolfenbargers near Odessa, W. M. Wolfenbarger spent his boyhood
days.  Reared on the farm, his early life was much life the life of the
average youth in the country, each day spent in assisting his father 
and attending to the duties which fall to the lot of the boy on the 
farm.  Mr. Wolfenbarger, the subject of this sketch, was born in 1842.
He was a young man at the time of the beginning of the Civil War.  On
the day the battle of Lonejack was fought, he enlisted with the Con-
federates and from that day served faithfully and well until the close
of the conflict under "Fighting Joe" Shelby in General Price's division.
W. M. Wolfenbarger saw four years of active service in the Confederate
army and came out without one scratch.  He returned to his father's 
farm after the war had ended and remained on the home place until the
time of his marriage in 1868.  In 1868, the marriage of W. M. Wolfen-
barger and Margaret Rhea, daughter of Archibald Rhea, a well known and
prosperous pioneer of Fayette county, was solemnized.  To this union
were born eight children, all of whom were reared to maturity and are
now living: John W., Mrs. Mary J. Cobb, Archibald, Mrs. Cordelia Hoover,
Frederick, Harley, J. C., and Mrs. Bertha McEwen, of Odessa, Missouri.
With the exception of the youngest child, Bertha, all the children are
residing near Pittsville, Missouri.  A small cabin home was built by
Mr. Wolfenbarger on his farm of one hundred five acres in Jackson town-
ship in 1881 and there all the children were born.  He had little 
assistance in the way of capital when he began farming for himself, but
by industry, economy, and well directed efforts he became in time
prosperous and under his management his country place developed into
one of the finest farms in the township.  Genial and companionable, Mr.
Wolfenbarger possessed the faculty of making and binding to him warm
personal friends.  The high standing he had attained in the social and
industrial circles of Johnson county was indicative of a still greater
and more influential career, when death came in 1915.  John Wolfen-
barger, the eldest son of W. M. Wolfenbarger, now has charge of the
farm.  He is an intelligent agriculturist and has had excellent success
with stock and grain raising since assuming the management of the home
place.  In the autumn of 1917, he harvested three hundred fifty bushels
of wheat, four hundred bushel of oats, and ten tons of hay.  He has 
planted forty acres of the farm in wheat.  In addition to general farm-
ing, Mr. Wolfenbarger is engaged in stock raising to a certain extent
and has a large number of Red Polled cattle and Poland China hogs. 
W. M. Wolfenbarger belonged to that large and honorable class of yeomen
who, by deeds rather than words, did so much to develop the resources
of Johnson county.  He was long a man of influence in his community and
by a life exceptionally free from faults wielded an influence for good
upon all with whom he came in contact.  Time in its fight will soon
leave the history of Missouri's pioneer days to the memory of the 
children of the brave, noble men and women who rescued the prairie and
forests from the domination of the Indians and Nature and transformed
the inhospitable region into flourishing cities, towns, villages, and
fertile farms.  The story would be incomplete had the reader not access
to the biography of W. M. Wolfenbarger.

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