Tehama
County
Biographies
JOSEPH MCCOY
About the time that Daniel Boone with his sturdy following of
frontiersmen crossed the mountains from Virginia into the then wilderness of
Kentucky, the McCoy family became established in the heart of the blue grass
region, one mile from the present village of Jacksonville, in what is now
Bourbon county. The founder of the family in Kentucky
was originally from North Carolina and had made Virginia his home for some time
before seeking the larger outlook of the undeveloped trans-mountain region.
From his Scotch forefathers he had inherited thrift, honor and perseverance,
and these availed much in his efforts to subdue the wilderness and make a home
for his family. Among his children was a son, Duncan, a native of the Old
Dominion, but a resident of Kentucky from boyhood and during maturer years a pioneer of Brown county,
Ohio, where he died at an advanced age. In his family there was a son, Martin,
who went to St. Louis with Mr. Sublet of the Missouri Fur Trading Company and
for several years engaged in trapping and hunting on the frontier and on the
Yellowstone river. During one of these expeditions, about 1825, he was in a
party of fifteen hunters, all of whom were massacred by the Indians.
The second son of Duncan McCoy was
Joseph, born near Paris, Bourbon county, Ky., June 6,
1794, and during boyhood an apprentice to the carpenter’s trade in Lexington.
March 5, 1816, he was united in marriage with Mary Ann Lewis, who was born in
Bourbon county, Ky., January 30, 1795, and was the
youngest of the three children born to the first marriage of Higgins Lewis, of
Fayette county, Ky. Of the second marriage of Higgins Lewis there were two
sons, Leo and Jesse Lewis, who were successful farmers and business men of
their day and locality. Shortly after their marriage Joseph McCoy and wife rode
on horseback from Kentucky to St. Louis, then a French trading post giving no
indication of its present commercial greatness. The first frame house in the
town was erected by Mr. McCoy and years afterward the city trustees had a
reproduction made of the house in an oil painting, now exhibited in the rooms
of the St. Louis Historical Society. In the possession of L. L. McCoy there is
now a deed bearing date of April, 1817, and conferring upon Joseph McCoy the
title to a block of land in St. Louis.
After some years in St. Louis, about 1821, Joseph McCoy moved to a farm
fifteen miles west of that city and there resided until the fall of 1831.
Franklin county, Mo., was his next location and there he and William G. Owens,
whose land adjoined his own, laid out and founded the town of Washington, fifty
miles west of St. Louis. In the spring of 1835 he sold that property and
removed to Lewis county, but remained there only one
year. During the fall he purchased a tract of raw land in Clark county Mo.
(then a part of Lewis county), and in the spring of 1836 removed his family to
the new location. When Clark county was organized he
was chosen its first treasurer and the first county court was held at his
house. While living there he was bereaved by the death of his wife, August 9,
1839, and a few years later he returned to St. Louis. During the Mexican war he
was employed by the United States government to buy mules and horses for the
army, a responsible task which he discharged with the success born of wide
experience. In the fall of 1849 he went back to Clark county
and there passed his remaining years, carrying on farm pursuits, also engaging
in the breeding of fine horses which he shipped to New Orleans. To all
acquaintances he was known as Captain McCoy, his title having been earned
through his service in command of a cavalry company during the early history of
Missouri. In politics he was a Jeffersonian Democrat of the stanchest
type, yet he had no taste for public affairs; had he been so inclined, without
doubt he would have attained national prominence, for he was endowed with
unusual ability, tact, discretion and sagacity. His death occurred December 7,
1870, and he was laid to rest in the Wolf graveyard near the Clark county
homestead.
In the family of Captain McCoy there were four children: Lewis died when
sixteen months old; Eliza Jane, who became Mrs. McWilliams, was born July 16,
1819, and died July, 1903, at Red Bluff, Cal.; Rebecca, who became the wife of
Galen Clark, died many years ago; and Joseph is the subject of this article.
Galen Clark is still living at the age of more than ninety years and is one of
the most interesting men in the Yosemite valley and,
indeed, in all California. He was the discoverer of the Mariposa grove of big
trees and guardian of Yosemite valley and Mariposa
grove for twenty-four years. The younger of the two sons, Joseph, Jr., was born
in St. Louis, Mo., March 24, 1823, and became an extensive farmer and large
stock dealer in Clark county, Mo., being one of the very first to engage in
raising full-blooded, high-grade Shorthorn Durham cattle. In all of
northeastern Missouri no one dealt so extensively in cattle as did he, and his shipments were made to Illinois feeders, also to
Chicago and eastern markets. During the Civil war the duties of his business
obliged him to ride all over that country and to carry thousands of dollars in
his saddlebags with which to pay for the stock he would buy, but in spite of
contending elements on every hand he was never molested nor arrested by either
side, a fact which bears testimony to the confidence reposed in him by Federals
and Confederates.
At Mount Sterling, Ill., December 18, 1845, Joseph McCoy married Miss
Jane McKean, who was born in Londonderry, Ireland, June 15, 1824, and was the
daughter of Alexander and Rosemary (Young) McKean, also natives of Ireland. The
McKeans owned a large estate in Londonderry, but it
was inherited by the older brothers of Alexander and he therefore sought a livelihood
across the ocean, settling in Pennsylvania in 1830. With him came his wife and
their daughters, Jane, six years old, and Eliza, then four years of age. After
three years in Philadelphia Mr. McKean removed to Kentucky and became
interested in the building of turnpike roads. As early as 1835 he became a
pioneer of Mount Sterling, Brown county, Ill., where
he acquired large landed interests and became interested in the building of the
early railroads in Illinois. After the death of his wife he made his home for a
time in Clark county, Mo., with an old friend, Mr. Lapsley, who was proprietor of a hotel. It was while the
daughter Jane was attending school there that she formed the acquaintance of
Joseph McCoy, whom she married soon after leaving school. Her death occurred
September 2, 1871, at the Missouri homestead.
After the death of his wife Joseph McCoy spent the winter in California
and traveled extensively through the state, where he made a careful study of
climate, soil and possibilities. Particularly was he impressed with the upper
Sacramento valley as a stock country. On his return he
urged his sons to remove to the west, where he believed young men of industry
and intelligence had more favorable opportunities than in the regions further east.
So greatly was he charmed with the Pacific coast country that he offered to pay
the expenses of his sons for a year in California while they were selecting a location. The result was that Galen C. and Leo L. accepted
his proposition and identified themselves with the stock interests west of the
Rockies, while later two other sons also removed to the west. The father for a
few years continued the stock industry in Missouri, then sold out, retired to
California, and died at Red Bluff, January 1, 1900. A man of exceptionally
attractive qualities, he was foremost in the citizenship of his locality in
Missouri and was known and honored for hundreds of miles in every direction
from is home. Those in need were never refused a
helping hand by him. Religion and charity found in him a generous supporter.
Educational work he fostered with all the strength of his forceful nature.
Together with a neighbor, George K. Biggs, he founded Pleasant Hill Academy in
Clark county Mo., and for several years the two men contributed most largely to
the payment of the teachers and the other expenses connected with the school
management.
The family of Joseph McCoy consisted of seven children. A complete
account of the eldest son, Galen Clark, follows this sketch; Rosemary, who
became Mrs. Baxter, a widow, resides in Idaho; Leo Lewis and Alexander McKean
are both mentioned on another page in this work; Solon is an extensive
stock-raiser at Mountain Home, Idaho; Adrian H., now a merchant at Cuthbert,
Ga., was for many years an influential and successful cattlemen in the
Panhandle of Texas; during his residence there he accomplished much in behalf
of the cattle interest of Texas, organizing the cattlemen, and securing the
passage of laws enforcing the registration of brands and the appointment of
inspectors in the large cattle markets. The youngest son, Mortimer W., a
resident of Indianapolis, acts as state agent for the Bankers’ Life Insurance
Company of Indiana.
Transcribed By: Cecelia M. Setty.
Source: "History of the State of
California and Biographical Record of the Sacramento
Valley, Cal.," J. M. Guinn, Pages
419-423.
The Chapman Publishing Company, Chicago, 1906.
© 2017 Cecelia M. Setty.
Golden
Nugget Library's Tehama County Biographies