My Genealogy Hound

JAMES A. WESTFALL, farmer and stock-raiser, section 14, post-office Carthage, was born in Ohio, April 12, 1840, and ten years later immigrated with his parents to southwest Missouri, and settled at Fidelity, Jasper county, where his father died in 1861. Our subject’s early years were spent in going to the common schools and working at the carpenter’s trade. He was married in Jasper county, June 2, 1861, to Miss Rachel Tareltown, a native of Illinois. Mr. Westfall was a Union man; witnessed the battle of Carthage in 1861, and shortly afterward started for Illinois, getting as far as Springfield, Mo,, when he found it would be dangerous to attempt further travel in that direction, and returned to Jasper county. In February, 1862, he went to Ft. Scott, Kan., where he enlisted in June of that year in Company H, of the Sixth Kansas Volunteer Cavalry; went immediately into service, and participated in many battles, skirmishes, etc. He was mustered out in Arkansas in June, 1865, and returned to Ft, Scott, Kan., where he remained until September of the same year; he then returned to Jasper county and engaged in farming near Center Creek, where he lived six years. He sold out and went to Arkansas in 1871, and not liking the situation, returned the same year. He bought the farm upon which he now lives in 1882, which consists of 160 acres of good land, seventy acres of it improved. His family consists of five children and his mother-in-law, a well preserved lady at an advanced age. Mr. Westfall is a hard-working man and a good citizen.