Ray County, Missouri Biographies - Samuel TARWATER (b. 1806)

Source: History of Ray County, MO, published St. Louis: Missouri Historical Company, 1881.
pages 656-657.


Samuel TARWATER

Samuel TARWATER was born in Tennessee in the year 1806. His parents removed to Ray
county, Missouri, in the autumn of 1861, and settled among the Pottawattamie Indians, who swelt
in this county. They endured al the privations and hardships incident to pioneer life. Our subject
remained at home with his parents until he was eighteen years of age and then began working for
himself. He was married in the year 1824, to Miss Polly Broadhurst, by Rev. W. Turnadge. The
lived happily together for a quarter of a century, and then Mrs. Tarwater died, and in 1852, Mr.
Tarwater was again married to Mrs. Elizabeth Orphet. After seventeen years of wedded life, she,
too, died. Mr. Tarwater was married the third time in 1869, to Miss Sarah E. Mills. She lived only
about two years after her marriage, and Mr. Tarwater was left alone by death the third time. His
fourth marriage was with Mrs. Malinda E. Brown. She died two years after her marriage and our
subject was for the fifth time married May 15, 1881, to Mrs. Mary A. Scott, the daughter of
Thomas and Psyche Keeny. Her father was a native of North Carolina and her mother of
Tennessee. Mrs. Tarwater was born March 20, 1831, in this county. Mr. Tarwater is the father of
nine children by his first marriage, seven by the second and one by the third marriage. Of these,
only three of his first wife’s and three of his second wife’s children and the one of the third wife
are now living Mr. Tarwater is one of the oldest and best citizens of Ray county. As early as the
age of eighteen years he engaged in numerous skirmishes with roving bands of hostile Indians,
who, not infrequently raided the settlements for purposes of theft or murder. He was also engaged
in the Heatherly and the Mormon wars. In a fight with Mormons on Crooked river, two of them
attacked him at once with corn knives and nearly cut him to pieces. He received a terrible gash in
the skull, through which the brain was plainly visible, was cut about the throat and one terrible
blow across the face severed the jaw bone and destroyed all the upper teeth. From the effects of
these wounds, Mr. Tarwater was compelled to keep his bed nearly six months and has never,
entirely recovered, for the wound on his head affected his memory and the injury to his mouth
caused an impediment in his speech. Samuel Tarwater, now venerable with nearly four score
years, has been closely identified with and assisted in the progress of Ray county from an almost
primeval wilderness to her present proud position of wealth and population in the front ranks of
the sisterhood of counties that go to make up the grand old commonwealth of Missouri.

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