My Genealogy Hound

JESSE THACKER, hardware merchant, Carthage, Missouri, was born in Indiana, March 20, 1818, and reared in Illinois. At the age of eighteen he began learning the carpenter trade. Having attained his majority he was married to Miss Margaret T. Blake, of Scott county, Illinois, who died July 27, 1857. Mr. Thacker then moved to Jacksonville, Morgan county, Illinois, where he remained about two years, for the benefit of school privileges. While there he was married to Mrs. Jane Truesdale. He engaged in farming quite extensively, and also dealt largely in banking, merchandising, stock, and land, entering some l,300 acres of land in Illinois. During the late war he was called to fill the position of deputy provost marshal for four years. In 1866 he came to Jasper county, Missouri, where he bought a large farm one and a half miles northeast of Carthage, upon which he resided until 1875. This farm comprises some 600 acres, with a fine two-story stone residence, and other improvements. His entire real estate possessions amount to about 4,000 acres in this county. In 1873 he built the large, two-story, brick block on the north side of the square, where he opened a large stock of hardware. He has been quite extensively engaged in different branches of business, always with good success. He owns an interest in valuable mining lands in Jasper county, which are being extensively worked. Mr. Thacker’s second wife died October 16, 1878. His family is now composed of five children. He and wife were members of the M. E. Church for many years, but more recently he has joined the band best known as the Holiness People. Mr. Thacker is not rich to himself alone. He recently bought a church property and offered it to the use of Christian people. He began life with his hands and heart as capital stock, and by energy, thrift, and perseverance has become one of the solid, substantial business men of Carthage. He has always been a man of liberality as well as business enterprise, and now that his hair has grown silvered with age he can look back over a long and well spent life of usefulness.