My Genealogy Hound

Hon. Joseph S. Plummer, prosecuting attorney of Barry County, Mo., was born in Ashe County, N. C., in 1836. He is the son of Samuel and Mahala (Reeves) Plummer. The father, who was of Irish extraction, was born in North Carolina in 1812, and was a farmer and local minister of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. Mahala Reeves was of Scotch descent. She was born in 1816, and died in November, 1887. She was the mother of eight children, of whom six are living; they are John C. (a farmer and stock raiser of Ashe County, N. C.), Rebecca (wife of Samuel Caldwell, of Alleghany County, N. C.), Joseph S., Jesse R. (a farmer of Ashe County, N. C.), Lucinda (Mrs. John Curley), Jane (Mrs. W. A. Hall) and George W. (a farmer, residing in Texas). Joseph S. acquired his early education in the common schools and at Wilson’s Creek Academy. In 1858 he came to Newton County, Mo. and the following year became a disciple of Blackstone. Soon after, however, he transferred his attention to the medical profession, and entered a medical college in Cincinnati, Ohio. From 1866 to 1868 he practiced medicine in Texas. In the latter year he located in Barry County, Mo., and took up the legal profession where he had dropped it ten years before. He was very successful, and in 1876 was elected prosecuting attorney. In 1879 he was appointed journal clerk by the Legislature, and in 1886 was again elected prosecuting attorney. Dr. Plummer is an excellent lawyer, a logical debater and a forcible speaker, and is highly respected, both as a citizen and as an official. He was married in July, 1860, to Paulina Walker, a daughter of Dr. John W. Walker, of Carthage, Mo., and a native of Carroll County, Ark. To them have been born eight children, four living: Jefferson D., John W., Mary J. and Mildred M.