My Genealogy Hound

Capt. Edward T. Herndon, president and superintendent of the Meramec Iron Mining Company, was born in Virginia in 1831, and when six years old was brought to Missouri and reared near Jefferson City. His education was limited, and at the age of ten years he began clerking in a store, being afterward employed as a steamboat agent at that city for many years. From that he rose to be clerk on a boat, then was a pilot, and filled the position of captain for about nineteen years. Leaving the river, he purchased a farm which he conducted until the breaking out of the war; and in 1869 he superintended the construction of the Lewis Blast Furnace near St. Louis, which he ran for three and one-half years. He was next engaged in superintending the work in the extensive coal fields in Illinois for a time, and in 1878 assumed the duties of his present position. He planned all the mechanical constructions about the bank, without the assistance of an engineer, and superintends all the details of the work of the company. His first wife was Sarah E. Lewis, and their two children, Edward L. and Jennie L., are graduates of the best educational institutions of the country. After the death of his first wife Mr. Herndon married Rebecca T., daughter of Capt. C. C. Cook. Two children have blessed the last union: Christopher C. and Grace. Mr. Herndon is a member of the Methodist Church, and in politics, a high-tariff Democrat. His father, Dr. James Herndon, was born in Virginia as was also his mother, Ann S. (Estes) Herndon. In the family were nine children. The parents died in Callaway County, Mo., he at the age of eighty-four years, and she aged seventy-nine years.