Biographical Sketch of Col. William Lavender Lyles, Texas County, MO

>From "History of Laclede, Camden, Dallas, Webster, Wright, Texas,
Pulaski, Phelps & Dent Counties, Missouri, from Earliest Times to the
Present" Published by Goodspeed Publishing Company, 1889.

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Col. William Lavender Lyles, late editor and proprietor of the Mountain
Howitzer, of Salem, and now of the Houston Herald, was born in Newberry
District, S. C., in 1829, being the son of Robert and Jane (Lavender)
Lyles, both natives of Newberry District, S. C., born in 1776 and 1786,
and died in 1847 and 1857, respectively.  Robert Lyles was the son of
Ephraim Lyles, who was a Revolutionary soldier.  Robert Lyles was twice
married, and Col. William L. Lyles was the eldest child by the second
marriage.  He remained at home as long as his father lived, and in 1849
he and his mother and sister moved to Pickens County, Ala., and the 
following year to Chickasaw County, Miss.  Here he purchased land, and
followed farming until the breaking out of the late war.  In the fall
of 1861 he raised Company B, Twenty-fourth Mississippi Regiment, was
elected captain of the same, and served until the close of hostilities.
He was at Shiloh, Perryville, Corinth, Resaca, Murfreesboro, Kenesaw
Mountain, Atlanta, and at Jonesboro, where he was shot in the neck,
which disabled him for years, not being able to eat food for seven 
days.  He was at the hospital at Griffin, GA., but was not paroled 
until the surrender.  At Dalton, GA., he was promoted to the rank of
lieutenant-colonel.  After the war he engaged in merchandising at West
Point, and in 1867 he went to Oxford, Miss., where he remained until
1873, and then moved to Salem.  He here followed merchandising a short
time, and in 1878 was elected to the position of circuit clerk and
ex-officio recorder of Dent County, serving four years.  The subse-
quent four years he was in the real estate business, and in 1886 he
established the Mountain Howitzer, editing its columns until recently.
On the 24th of January, 1889, Col. Lyles sold this paper to Mr. John
C. Pugh, and purchased the Houston Herald of Mr. Beauregard Ross, of
Houston, MO., and took charge of the same February 10, 1889.  His motto
is: "My gun is the Press; my ammunition, Truth, Justice, Morality and
Democracy, deliberately aimed."  His journal is a newsy, bright sheet,
and has a good circulation.  Col. Lyles is a true Christian gentleman,
and an esteemed citizen.  During the years 1870 and 1872 he was a mem-
ber of the State Legislature of Mississippi.  In 1853, previous to the
war, he married Miss Elizabeth P. Kilgore, who was born in Greenville
District, S. C., in 1834.  They have three children: Pleasant L.,
Edgar K. and Cecil E.  Col. Lyles is a member of the Masonic fratern-
ity, is a Democrat in his political views, casting his first president-
ial vote for Pierce in 1852, and he and wife are members of the Baptist
Church, of which he is a deacon.

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