My Genealogy Hound

ANDREW W. St. JOHN, editor and publisher of the Press, Carthage, Missouri, was born February 29, 1840, in Chautauqua, New York, It will be noticed that Mr. St. John has had but few birthdays for a man of his age. His father, Andrew J. St. John, was born in 1816 in New York, and died in 1848, having followed mercantile pursuits in Jamestown, New York. The subject of our sketch was twice married; first to Helen H. Hunt, in September, 1862, who was born in New York in 1842, and married in Minnesota. She died January 5, 1870, at Carthage, Missouri, leaving two children, Virgil W. and Nellie G. He was married again in July, 1870, to Emma Potter, who was born in Center county, Pennsylvania, August 4, 1846. Her two children’s names are Edwin, who died in August, 1878, and Royal R. Mr. St. John enlisted from Minnesota in the Fifth Minnesota Infantry, serving four years, assisting part of the time in the quartermaster’s department. When quite young he came to Wisconsin, living at Beloit and Burlington. In 1857 he removed to Minnesota, and became a citizen of Freeborn county, residing there some ten years. Here he was elected sheriff after he returned from the war. Among some of his war exploits was the participation in the siege of Vicksburg, and many of the hottest battles up to the surrender of General Lee. His health was much impaired from exposure during the war, and he still suffers from its direful effects. Mr. St. John came to Jasper county, Missouri, in the fall of 1867, and now resides in the suburbs of Carthage, his home comprising a fine garden spot of eight acres. The estate formerly contained about forty acres, which he devoted to gardening and mostly to all kinds of fruits and berries, of which he sold great quantities and used an abundance, devoting his entire time and attention to horticulture. He raised at one time eighty-five bushels of strawberries from half an acre of ground. This is one of the finest fruit farms in Jasper county. Having disposed of most of his homestead, in 1882, he became an equal partner and editor with Joshua Bodenhamer in the Press. This is one of the leading weekly papers in Jasper county, independent in politics, though advocating the principles of the Greenback party. Mr. St. John organized the first Greenback club in Southwest Missouri, in 1874. In 1875 he attended the national Greenback convention at Cleveland, Ohio, which organized the Greenback movement, and was also a delegate to the Greenback state convention which convened at St. Louis. Mr. St. John is one of the most widely known and influential men of the Greenback party in the Southwest, is favorably known in Jasper county, and is always in the van of any movement of general interest, and all public enterprises for the universal good of man.