My Genealogy Hound

R. M. Brashear, a prominent farmer and stock grower, was born in 1846, in Salt River Township, Adair County. He is the son of William G. (deceased) and Rosa Brashear, the former a prominent citizen of the place that bears their name. William G. Brashear was a man of temperate habits, a firm believer in the religion of Jesus Christ, but bold and aggressive for all public improvements, and all kinds of educational facilities. So thoroughly was he impressed with these ideas, that he gave up a portion of his own dwelling, to be used as a school-house, free of charge, by his own and his neighbors’ children, until such time as a school-house could be built in the neighborhood. His advanced ideas for a number of years were combated by slower going settlers, but time developed the correctness of his views. He was called speculative or visionary by many who knew him, and this to a limited extent was true, and was the cause of his financial embarrassments later in life. His confidence in men to whom he took a fancy was unbounded; on one occasion a young Kentuckian came into the neighborhood, to whom he became greatly attached, and upon a very short acquaintance he turned over to the Kentuckian a very good stock of goods and fixtures, and accepted his word for pay, the result of which was that his confidence in this case was misplaced; this was but one incident in his eventful life. No man ever lived in Adair County who took a greater pride in its rapid development, settlement and improvement than did William G. Brashear. He was never too busy to go and show a stranger Government land, where he could secure a home. No man took greater pleasure than he in the moral and intellectual advancement of the children and young people of his acquaintance, and to them his were always words of encouragement and praise. His greatest aim in life was to be aboard the car of progress, and had others of the pioneer citizens possessed more of this spirit in the fifties, the community would doubtless have been better off today. R. M. Brashear was educated chiefly in the district schools of this county, and during the war served in the State Militia. He was married in 1873 to M. J. Montgomery, a native of Wapello County, Iowa, and afterward continued to reside on the old home place. After the completion of the Quincy, Missouri, & Pacific Railway he donated part of his land for a depot, side tracks, etc., which were the foundation of the present thriving village of 500 inhabitants, which took its name in honor of our subject. In 1882 he moved to his present home, of 200 acres, adjoining Kirksville on the east. He has had a family of three sons and three daughters, but his eldest son, William M., is now deceased. Mr. Brashear is one of the leading farmers, and is well known as a stock grower.