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Below is a family biography included in History of Kentucky, Edition 1 by J. H. Battle, W. H. Perrin and G. C. Kniffin and published by F. A. Battey Publishing Company in 1885.  These biographies are valuable for genealogy research in discovering missing ancestors or filling in the details of a family tree. Family biographies often include far more information than can be found in a census record or obituary.  Details will vary with each biography but will often include the date and place of birth, parent names including mothers' maiden name, name of wife including maiden name, her parents' names, name of children (including spouses if married), former places of residence, occupation details, military service, church and social organization affiliations, and more.  There are often ancestry details included that cannot be found in any other type of genealogical record.

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JOSEPH C. DUPOYSTER, Ballard County, one of the leading citizens of Wickliffe, was born February 25, 1838, in Pulaski County, Ill., and is the first of seven children—two now living—born to Thomas and Elizabeth (Echols) Dupoyster, natives of Sumner County, Tenn., and Georgia, respectively. His father was a son of Thomas Dupoyster, a native of North Carolina, who settled in Johnson County, Ill., in 1832; he was a Methodist minister, and married a Miss Veech, also a native of North Carolina, of French and English, German and English extraction respectively. Subject’s mother was a daughter of Jesse and Sally (Elliott) Echols, of Welsh and Irish origin, and natives of Virginia and Georgia, respectively. Our subject’s grandfather Echols and brother were settlers of Union County, Ill., about 1812, when Illinois was a territory, and were sent to the first legislature ever held in the State. His parents settled in Illinois in 1833; his grandfather was a colonel in the Revolution, and after the war a part of his family were scalped by the Indians. The father of our subject was in the Black Hawk war, and was also a boatman on the Mississippi River. He was also a member of the Thirty-first Illinois Infantry, under Col. John A. Logan, during the late war. Joseph C., with his parents, in 1849 moved to Dyersburg, Tenn., thence to Hot Springs, Ark., where they remained one year; thence to Mississippi County, Mo., where subject’s father was engaged in farming, merchandising and keeping wood yard. In 1858 they moved to Ballard County and settled at Fort Jefferson, where the father had purchased 1,000 acres of timber. He died in 1863, aged fifty-one years, his wife having met her death by drowning in the Ohio River, at Cairo, on her return from a visit to her son, who was a prisoner of war at Camp Douglas, Chicago, in 1862. Joseph C. Dupoyster has always been engaged in earning a living on a farm, and in the mercantile and milling business up to the present day. He and his brother, Benjamin S., are the only living members of the family, and are the possessors of 4,000 acres of land in Ballard County, nearly all timber and subject also owns an interest in a saw-mill; his possessions he has accumulated by his own industry. He is also the owner of Island No. 1. On this island he was first married, October 30, 1850, to Miss Maud J. Whitaker, of Ballard, native of Muhlenburg County, and this union was blessed with the birth of one child, now dead. His wife died January 22, 1862, and February 25, 1863, he married Rebecca S. Scott, a native of Scott County, Ky., and daughter of Noah and Lucy (Ford) Turk, natives of Kentucky, of Irish and English origin; had born to them three children, Dalva D., Ruelva A. (deceased), and Joseph B. Mr. Dupoyster is a Mason, and assisted in laying out Wickliffe. Mr. D.’s youngest brother, Thomas Carlin Dupoyster, was in the Confederate Army from May, 1861, until he was killed in September, 1864.

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This family biography is one of 186 biographies included in the Ballard County, Kentucky section of The History of Kentucky, Edition 1 published in 1885 by F. A. Battey Publishing Company.  For the complete description, click here: History of Kentucky, Edition 1

View additional Ballard County, Kentucky family biographies here: Ballard County, Kentucky Biographies

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