My Genealogy Hound

DAVID S. PLAIN is a self-made and self-educated man, and owes to himself the success he has achieved in the battle of life. He is engaged in farming and stock-raising on his desirable homestead, comprising eighty acres on section 12, township 44, range 29, Johnson County. From a very early age much responsibility was thrown upon his shoulders, and he was inured to the duties of farm life while yet a mere boy. In 1874, he and his wife came to visit their eldest daughter, who is married and living in Cass County, Mo. Taking a great liking to the state, Mr. Plain returned home, sold his farm and bought one hundred and twenty acres in Cass County, subsequently adding thereto another tract of forty acres. In 1888 he sold the place and removed to his present home, where he intends to remain permanently.

A son of David and Sarah (Gish) Plain, our subject was born February 27, 1824, near Greenville, Muhlenberg County, Ky. His mother died when he was only two weeks old, and at her request he was taken into the family of Samuel Short, with whom he continued to live until reaching his majority. When he was a lad of eleven years, or in 1835, the family moved to Sangamon County, Ill., and settled in what was then a new country, only a few pioneers having located along the edges of the timber. Mr. Short bought a farm on the prairie and set young David to work breaking the ground and driving four yoke of oxen. He was a very strict and stern taskmaster, and denied his young charge many of the privileges that commonly fall to the lot of young people. The boy had but little chance to obtain an education, but he was faithful to his employer and did as well as he could until the summer after he was twenty-one years old, when he decided to embark in business on his own account. Renting land from Mr. Short, he raised a crop, and thus was encouraged to go forward.

September 4, 1845, David Plain and Elizabeth Roach were united in marriage. She was born April 14, 1823, in Christian County, Ky., being a daughter of John and Dorothy (Utley) Roach, who moved to Sangamon County, Ill., about 1836. For a number of years Mr. Plain rented land, and by the help of his wife managed to lay by a sum of money each year, and at last invested this money in eighty acres of wild land. He made and hauled the rails with which it was divided into fields, and after a time sold that property, buying a similar tract, which he also improved and sold. Eater, buying one hundred and sixty acres, he engaged in the cultivation of this tract until 1874, when he moved to this state.

Ten children were born to David S. Plain and his wife. Emily J., born February 8, 1847, married W. A. Lowdermilk, February 26, 1877, and now lives in Macoupin County, Ill.; Miranda, born June 12, 1848, married Thomas R. Stroud, May 11, 1870, and lives at Latour; Jesse S., born February 20, 1850, was married, September 16, 1873, to Fannie Bryant; Samuel S., born December 17, 1851, married Mattie Jernigen, September 3, 1872, and lives on a portion of his father’s farm; America R., born February 24, 1854, became the wife of W. C. McGlothin, December 24, 1873, and is a resident of Latour; David E., born November 20, 1855, and now making his home in Latour, was married, in 1876, to Elizabeth Butler; Charles, born October 1, 1857, died at the age of two years and six days, October 7, 1859; Eliza I., born November 5, 1859, is the wife of Charles Scholl, of Index, Cass County; Mary C., born December 26, 1861, married Lysander West, and lives in this county; and Margaret M., born May 4, 1864, married William Holcomb, of Cass County. Mr. Plain has twenty-six grandchildren. The first Presidential vote of our subject was cast in 1848, and since that time he has been a loyal supporter of the Democracy.