My Genealogy Hound

Judge William B. Blankinship was born in McMinn County, Tenn., August 31, 1832, and is the son of Isom and Delilah (Holmes) Blankinship, natives of North Carolina and South Carolina, respectively, the father born in 1812 and the mother in 1808. They were married in North Carolina, and after a time removed to Tennessee. In 1843 they started by ox team for Missouri, where they arrived after a journey of two months, camping on the way, and drew up on Spring River, in Lawrence County. In the winter of 1846 they started for Texas, but after getting as far as what is now Buffalo Township, in Newton County, Mo., they concluded to stop and locate. The father entered 160 acres of land, partly wooded and partly prairie, and here he resided until 1856, when he sold out, and bought land in Lost Creek Township, where he remained until his death, which occurred in January, 1860. He was a Democrat in politics. His widow is still a resident of Newton County, Mo. They were the parents of eleven children, seven now living: Abigal (wife of F. M. Thompson), Judy (wife of Curtis Sparling), William E., John, Isom Jackson and Francis Marion (twins), and Missouri (wife of George Patton). William E., our subject, was fourteen years of age when the family moved to Newton County, Mo. He was here reared to manhood, and March 5, 1850, he married Miss Sarah Ann De Moss, a native of Indiana, and the daughter of John and Mary (Burns) De Moss. She died at Springfield, Mo., February 22, 1863. To this marriage were born six children, four now living: William, Nelson B., Mary Jane (wife of James Flaith) and Frances (wife of Marcellus Rogers). In the spring of 1852 Judge Blankinship went overland to the Pacific coast. He traveled through Oregon and Washington Territory during the summer, and worked in the mines during the winter of 1852-53. He then went to California, and worked in the mines there until the fall of 1856, when he returned home by way of the isthmus. Judge Blankinship married, February 24, 1865, his present wife, Mary A. Hensley, daughter of Thomas and Julia Ann (Barker) Blanchard (both deceased), natives of Virginia. Following named children were born to this marriage: Tennessee (wife of Fred S. Nunn), Julia (wife of Curtis Roark), John, Edward and Oscar. The Judge cast his first presidential vote for Bell and Everett, the Whig presidential candidates, and was afterward identified with the Republican party, but he is now out of politics, though his sympathies are with the Greenback ticket. He was for six years judge of the county court, and has acted as justice of the peace nearly ever since reaching manhood. He has also held the office of township clerk under the township organization law. He is a member of the Christian Church, and is an elder in the Hottel Springs congregation. Judge Blankinship was in the Government service, in the quartermaster department, from August, 1862, until the close of the war, and was stationed at Springfield.