My Genealogy Hound

John Quinn was born July 27, 1823, in Franklin County, Ky. His father died when our subject was but a week old, and two weeks later the mother also died. About the same time his grandfather, Benjamin Quinn, and eight of his thirteen children died. Our subject was one of a family of five children, who were left helpless, the eldest one being only ten years of age. They were taken in charge by their maternal grandfather, Rev. Mordecai Baulware, who thought it best to go to another country with his own large family, now increased by the addition of his daughter’s children. He disposed of the principal part of his own and his grandchildren’s property, and moved to Missouri in 1825, settling seven miles north of Palmyra, Marion County. He entered part of the land where our subject now resides, in 1828. Mordecai, the eldest brother of our subject, settled on this land in 1837, and two years later, in August, he married. He died in January, 1840. Our subject lived with his grandfather until fourteen years of age, and as there were no schools in this new country, the grandfather would teach school during the winter in his own house, and the neighbors’ children attended free of charge. From the age of ten to seventeen our subject attended school most of the time, living one year with his brother, Mordecai, and two years with his uncle, Hon. John N. Boulware, now of Clark County. In 1842 our subject went to Wisconsin, and tried his luck for three years in the lead mines, meeting with only moderate success. In 1845 he located where he is now residing, and in 1849 he went to California, and joined his brother, Franklin, who had been a resident of that State for seven years. In 1852 he returned to his farm, and in September, 1853, he married Miss Margaret A. Murrell, the eldest daughter of Abner Murrell, a native of North Carolina, but a pioneer of Lewis County. Two children, James A. and Mary A., were born to our subject’s marriage. Mary A. died in infancy. James A. lives with his father, and has charge of the farm, which consists of 600 acres, and all the business. He has been married nine years.