My Genealogy Hound

J. P. Wiseman, an enterprising farmer of Canaan Township, was born in Bourbois Township, in 1841, and is the youngest of six children born to Jonathan and Eleanor (Fitzgerald) Wiseman. The father was, perhaps, born in Virginia, and the mother in Kentucky, in 1811. The latter went with her parents to St. Louis County, was married there, and a few years later she and husband moved to Gasconade County. The mother died when the subject of this sketch was eleven days old, and the father died on the Mississippi River when he was sixteen years old. Young Wiseman was reared by his uncle, Fieldon Phelps, of St. Louis County, but who afterward removed to Franklin County, and when Josephus was about six years old removed to Canaan Township, where the latter received a very limited education. During Price’s raid through Southeastern Missouri he was captured in Franklin County, and imprisoned at Rock Island, Ill., over four months. After the war he remained with his uncle until 1872, when he married Miss Margaret, daughter of Rev. William and Virginia Bridges, natives of Virginia, who came with their, parents to St. Louis County, but afterward went to Franklin County, where they were married, and where they still live. Mr. Bridges has been a Baptist minister for nearly thirty years. To Mr. Wiseman and wife were born five children, viz.: F. William, Fannie L., Tallitha V., Leslie P. and Hattie O. Since his marriage Mr. Wiseman has lived on his farm four miles northeast of Owensville—118 acres in the home place and eighty and forty in other tracts. He is a Democrat in politics, and cast his first presidential vote for Seymour in 1868. He is a member of the Masonic fraternity of Cedar Lodge, No. 37, at Owensville, and of Owensville Lodge, No. 878, A. O. U. W.