My Genealogy Hound

William M. Martin, one of Knox County’s enterprising farmers, is a native of Scotland County, Mo., where he was born April 11, 1855, and is the third of nine children born to Samuel G. and Hannah L. (Turner) Martin, natives of Ohio, where they were reared and married, residing near Janesville until about 1850, when they immigrated to Scotland County, Mo., and settled on a farm near Arbela, where they remained until the spring of 1864, then moving to Knox County, locating on a farm, where they lived until the spring of 1868; then removed to the farm where they resided until their deaths, in 1878 and 1870, respectively. Our subject attended the common schools of Scotland and Knox Counties, and, at the age of sixteen, left home and began working by the month on farms, which he continued to do five years, and then married and moved upon the farm he still owns, situated in Section 23, Township 61 north, Range 13, where he remained until 1884, then moved to an adjoining farm, which he had also purchased, and which he has since been engaged in improving. He also makes a large quantity of sorghum molasses. His wife was Sarah M., daughter of William and Mermelia (McLaughlin) Musgrove, and was born in Spencer County, Ky., coming to Missouri with her parents when an infant. At the time of her marriage with our subject, in 1875, she was a widow with two children: Sherman N. and William L. Oliver. Our subject is an energetic, public-spirited young man, well liked and respected by the community, and his fine farm, excepting forty acres, and now consisting of 200 acres, is the result of his own industry and economy. He is a Democrat, and cast his first presidential vote for Samuel J. Tilden, in 1876. Mr. Martin, his wife and step-children are members of the Methodist Episcopal Church South.