My Genealogy Hound

C. H. R. Handcock, senior member of the firm of Handcock & Pyle, dealers in lumber and contractors and builders, of Union, Franklin Co., Mo., was born in London, England, July 14, 1834, son of Frederick and Harriet (Rains) Hand cock, both natives of England. The father was a watchmaker by trade, and died in the year 1839. The mother is now living in London, England. Our subject was reared and educated in England. At the age of fourteen he began learning the carpenter’s trade, at which he served an apprenticeship of seven years. At the age of twenty-one he enlisted in the army corps, and was attached to the miners’ and sappers’ corps, organized by Sir Joseph Paxton, for the Crimean War. He went direct to Balaklava, and thence to the seige of Sebastapol. He served for eighteen months, and then returned to England and worked in the Scott-Russell ship yard, where the “Great Eastern” was built. In September, 1856, he immigrated to Canada, where he remained one year, and then moved to Minnesota. He remained here eighteen months, took out his citizen’s papers, and then removed to St. Louis, where he engaged in the carpenter’s business. In 1863 he returned to England, and, at the expiration of eleven months returned to St. Louis, and in 1876 removed to De Soto, Jefferson Co., Mo., where he engaged in farming for one year. He then moved into the City of De Soto, and began contracting, and remained there for eleven years, during which time he erected the city school building, at a cost of $17,000, and most of the business houses of that place. In September, 1887, he opened a lumber yard in Union, Mo., and also does a general contracting business. He owns several houses and lots in De Soto, and a fine farm of 280 acres in Jefferson County. In 1884 he returned to England, on a visit to his aged mother, and remained two months. In 1859 Mr. Handcock married Miss Sarah I. Davis, a native of Warrenton, Mo., and to them were born two children, one living. This wife died about 1868, and in 1869 he married Miss Martha A. Armstrong, of St. Louis, Mo., who bore him eight children, all living.