My Genealogy Hound

John M. Quinn, a successful agriculturist of Laclede County, was born in County Tyrone, Parish of Cookstown, Ireland, February 22, 1817, being the son of Edward and Catherine (McCloskey) Quinn, natives of the same parish. The former was a school-teacher by profession, and passed an examination by the board of excise, and but for his death would have received a government appointment. John was reared and educated with his mother’s family (they being manufacturers and exporters of linen cloth), and was apprenticed to them to learn the manufacture of linen cloth, subsequently making alternate trips to Glasgow and Edinburgh, Scotland, in their interest, between 1836 and 1844. In the spring of the latter year he took passage at Liverpool for America, landing at New York twenty-eight days afterward, but after a short time in that city followed up his determination to come west by going via the Hudson River to Albany, and thence on rail to Buffalo, the rails of the road at that time being wooden, covered with hoop iron—a decided contrast to the appointments of today. In October he started for Chicago, taking a lake boat, but the first night out a hurricane so disabled the craft that it was necessary to put in port for safety. The trip was later successfully accomplished. About this time political feeling was at fever heat, and no little excitement attended the contest between Clay and Harrison. Chicago was then a mere hamlet, and before long Mr. Quinn went to Joliet, Will Co., Ill., taught school one year, and then returned to Jersey City, N. J., where he remained a short time. In February, 1845, he set out for Little Rock by way of New Orleans, resuming teaching in the former city in the Old Academy, but owing to sickness he returned to Jersey City, later entering the employ of a New York publishing house. In 1849 he married Miss Bridget Reynolds, by whom he had five children: Frank, John, James, Mary E. and Anna Teresa. From 1849 until 1856 Mr. Quinn was occupied in merchandising in New Brunswick, N. J., then accepting a position as shipping clerk in the New York Custom-house under Schell, then collector of customs, which position he left in 1861, and from that time until 1866 gave his attention to stock-raising in Wilmington, Ill. In August of this last mentioned year he started for Southwest Missouri overland, and after traveling in an emigrant wagon over 400 miles arrived at Lebanon September 1. For three months he lived in a camp, being obliged to haul the timber for his house a distance of sixty miles. Mr. Quinn, though now in his seventy-first year, is remarkably well preserved for a man who has passed through the many hardships he has. In July, 1887, he had the misfortune to lose his life companion. He was initiated into the Odd Fellows Lodge No. 6, I. O. O. F., in New Brunswick, N. J., in 1853, and is now one of the prominent citizens of Laclede County. His attention is directed to stock and fruit-raising, and at this he has been quite successful.