My Genealogy Hound

WILLIAM M. BOUCHER, proprietor of the Franklin Hotel, at Cowan, Tenn., was born in Randolph County, Mo., February 2, 1825. His father, Robert Boucher, was born about 1795, in Madison County, Ky., where he was reared. He then went to Howard County, Mo., in 1818. He married Elizabeth Willcockson, in 1821, and then removed to Randolph County, Mo., where he died in 1871. The mother was born in Clark County, Ky., in 1805 and died in Randolph County, Mo., in 1867. These were parents of twelve children. William M., our subject, at the age of twenty-one, entered Masonic College, Missouri, and attended one term. In 1850 he went to California and engaged in gold mining three years. Returning home, he married Sophia Darby, in 1853, and followed farming until 1870, with the exception of a few months, near the close of the war, when he was drafted and assigned to Company I, Sixth Missouri Infantry, joining his company at Washington, he was sent to Louisville and thence to Little Rock, where he was mustered out of service. In 1871 he moved to Huntsville, Mo., where he remained six years and thence immigrated to Franklin County, Mo., where he has since lived. Mr. Boucher has a family of three children now living, there having been eight born to his marriage. In 1884, Mr. Boucher opened up the Franklin Hotel, in the building which was built by Drs. Sloan and Williams, at a cost of $6,000, for that purpose. By the hospitality of both Mr. and Mrs. Boucher, the Franklin Hotel has gained no little fame along the Nashville, Chattanooga & St. Louis Railroad as a first class hotel. Mr. and Mrs. Boucher are members of the Missionary Baptist Church.