My Genealogy Hound

Benjamin Kirk, one of the old settlers of Newton County, Mo., and now a resident of Seneca, was born in Kentucky March 15, 1821, and is the son of William H. and Elizabeth (Depew) Kirk, both natives of Kentucky. When Benjamin was a lad of about twelve or thirteen, his mother died. His parents had removed to Shelby County, Ind., when he was an infant, and there he remained until eighteen years of age, when he removed to Morgan County, in the same State, with his father. In the fall of 1841 he left Indiana and came by team to Missouri, reaching Newton County after a journey of four weeks’ duration. He located in what is now Seneca Township, on the south side of Burkhart Prairie, taking up sixty or seventy acres of land, which he improved. When the railroad was built through the county his land fell to the railroad and he had to purchase it from them, at the rate of $2.50 per acre. Besides that land he had forty acres more. In August, 1841, before leaving Indiana, he married Miss Mary Durham, who died in Newton County. To them were born five children: Nancy Ann (deceased), William (residing near Saratoga Springs), Margaret Jane (wife of Thomas Allen), Eliza (wife of Hardy Vaughn) and an infant, unnamed (deceased). Mr. Kirk took for his second wife Mrs. Rebecca Jane (Anderson) Deweese, widow of John Deweese. By this union six children were born, three now living: Daniel Marion (deceased), George Washington (deceased), Thomas Benjamin (deceased), Elijah, Osgood and Lillie. Mrs. Rebecca Jane Kirk had three children previous to her marriage with Mr. Kirk, viz.: Emily E. Snider (the eldest), living in Seneca, Mo.; Enoch A. Deweese, in Seneca Township, and Ellen Ball, in Kentucky. Mr. Kirk is a member of the Baptist Church, of which he has been deacon for twenty-five years, and is a Republican in politics. When Mr. Kirk first came to Missouri he experienced all the privations incident to pioneer times, was obliged to go many miles to mill, raised their own cotton to make the material for their clothing, and for a Sunday gown the female portion of the house mixed a little turkey red with the white. Mr. Kirk always found the Indians reasonably honest neighbors.