My Genealogy Hound

Moses Isenhower is one of Barton County’s most successful farmers and stockmen. He was born in Cocke County, Tenn., in 1823, and is a son of Martin and Catherine (Null) Isenhower, who were born in North Carolina, and were of German and Swiss descent, respectively. Their parents emigrated to America before the Revolutionary War, the paternal grandfather, George Isenhower, serving as a private throughout that struggle, and was present when Cornwallis surrendered. Adam Null also served in that war. Martin Isenhower was born in 1776, and died in 1876, at the age of 100 years. His wife was born in 1774, and died in 1874, making her 100 years of age also at the time of her death. They lived together as husband and wife for seventy-nine years, and were the parents of eleven children, ten of whom lived to be grown, and four are living at the present time: George, who resides in Owensburg, Ind., and is a farmer and Methodist minister, and is seventy-two years of age; Moses, the subject of this sketch; David, who was born in 1825, and lives in Cocke County, Tenn., engaged in merchandising; and Simon, who also resides in Cocke County, Tenn., and resides on the farm and in the house in which he was born in 1830. Here his father settled in 1820, the old homestead consisting of about 500 acres. The members of the family who are dead are: Elizabeth, who died in Indiana in 1888, at the age of seventy-five years; John, who died in Benton County, Mo.; Coonrod, who died in Cocke County, Tenn.; and Noah, who died in Boone County, Ind. Moses Isenhower began working for himself at the age of twenty-one years, and, after farming on his own land in Tennessee for eight years, he sold his farm and moved to Indiana, purchasing a partially improved farm in Boone County. At the end of four years he moved to Fannin County, Texas, where he bought 260 acres of land, which he was engaged in tilling for four years, then sold out and bought a farm of 320 acres in Bosque County, Texas, on which he resided eight years. During his residence here he served two terms of two years each as county judge of Bosque County, and here he remained during the late war. He was detailed by the governor of Texas to run a tan-yard, and was the only man who had a permit in the State. After the war he came to Barton County, Mo., and bought 320 acres of land at six dollars per acre, besides eighty acres of timber land. His farm is now worth thirty dollars per acre, and only a few years since he refused forty dollars per acre. He also owns some lots in Zodiac, at the Zodiac Springs. He was married in May, 1844, to Miss Catherine Bird, and by her became the father of fourteen children, seven of whom are living: Simeon, who is judge of Barton County; Elizabeth, wife of James Winters, of Springdale, Washington County, Ark.; D. F., who is a farmer of Barton County; Ellena, wife of James Winkle, a farmer of Stone County, Mo.; Rosetta, wife of Samuel Wooldridge, a farmer of the county; Mary, wife of Jacob Dresler, also a farmer of the county; and Charlotte, wife of Walter Masters, teacher and farmer, of Vernon County, Mo. Mr. and Mrs. Isenhower are members of the Lutheran Church, and are now residing on a farm of eighty acres near Milford, where Mr. Isenhower gives a great deal of his attention to raising carp, a large pond of six acres being stocked with these fish. Out of a small pond he has caught and sold, in the last three years, over $200 worth of fish. He has only been in the business about five years, but has now 10,000 or 12,000 carp. He contemplates making more ponds, amounting in all to about ten acres. On his farm is valuable building stone and mineral deposits.