My Genealogy Hound

Dr. John W. Armstrong (deceased). The Armstrong family first became represented in the United States a short time previous to the Revolutionary War, and were of Anglo-Saxon origin. The great grandfather, James Armstrong, located in Fauquier County, Va., and there his son, Mason Armstrong, was born. The latter came to Kentucky with two of his brothers, Roland and James, about 1810, and here they married and settled down to tilling the soil, but Mason remained single until after the War of 1812, in which struggle he took an active part under Gen. Harrison, and then returned home and married Mary Crook, who was born in Madison County, Ky., and was a daughter of John Crook and a sister of Maj. Crook. Mason Armstrong was a minister of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and died in 1856, at the age of seventy-two years. His son, James M. Armstrong, was born in Kentucky, and graduated from the Transylvania Medical College, of Lexington, Ky., in the spring of 1844, and in 1855 came with his family to Missouri and located in Elston Station, Cole County, where he resided until the breaking out of the late Civil War, when he enlisted as a surgeon in the service and served until the close. He then returned to his home, and located with his family at Sarcoxie, where he died in March, 1884. His wife, whom he married October 27, 1837, and whose maiden name was Mary J. Searcy, was also born in Kentucky, and is an active worker in the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. Dr. John W. Armstrong is the eldest of their ten children, and was born in Kentucky on the 26th of September, 1838, and there resided until 1856, when he came to Missouri with his parents and located on a farm. He attended school at Liberty and Danville, Ky., and was a close student all his life, and wrote a biography of the Armstrong family, which is considered quite valuable. He became eminent in his professional career, and was a man of decided mental endowments, being the editor and publisher of the Rustic Stoutland, which paper he also founded. He removed his machinery to Linn Creek, thence to Lebanon, but the paper still retains its original name. The first paper was issued on the 14th of June, 1873. He was a man of very active habits, and owing to his excellent judgment was a man of influence wherever he resided, and was alike esteemed for his social and business qualities. In the fall of 1860 he came to Camden County to practice medicine, but in 1862 enlisted in the Confederate army, in the Trans-Mississippi Department, Company K, Sixteenth Missouri Infantry, as a private, and made an honorable and faithful soldier. July 4, 1863, he was wounded at Helena, Ark., which finally resulted in his death October 28, 1884, at the age of forty-six years, one month and two days. August 27, 1865, he espoused Miss Lucy E. Dodson, at Bonham, Texas, but she was born in Camden County, Mo., on the 30th of January, 1844. [The sketch of her father, Dr. Dodson, appears in this work.] To their union the following children were born: James W., Joseph S., Mary Ella (Sellers), Benjamin A., John R., Charles H. and Elizabeth D. Mrs. Armstrong lives on the home place with her family, and is an active member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and owns over 600 acres of valuable land, about 200 acres of which are well under cultivation.