My Genealogy Hound

Hon. John Bryant Cole, attorney, and representative of Barton County, was born in Kanawha County, W. Va., October 29, 1854, and is the son of Samuel and Mary F. (Kennett) Cole, and grandson of John B. Cole, who was an extensive planter of Virginia, and who was the owner of many slaves, but freed them all before the war. He was of English descent, was in the Revolutionary War as commissary agent for the colonies, and was a man of education. He was a natural artist. His wife was a relative of Gen. Stark, of Revolutionary fame, and was of Scotch descent. Samuel and Mary F. (Kennett) Cole were married in Kanawha Valley, where they lived until 1866. In early life the father was a river pilot on the Kanawha, Ohio and Mississippi Rivers. In 1866 he and his wife moved to Scotland County, Mo., and in 1883 to Lamar, where they are still residing, he in his seventy-second year, and she about sixty. In their family were six children, three sons and three daughters. Hon. John Bryant Cole, the second child of the above-mentioned family, received his literary education in the district schools of Virginia, in T. J. Musgrove’s private school at Alexandria, Mo., and at the Missouri State University, graduating from the Normal course in 1874. For about seven years he taught school, spending his leisure hours in the meantime in reading law under Judge Ben. E. Turner, of Kahoka, Mo. He later turned his attention to editing newspapers, ran the Kahoka Gazette a year, and then the Kahoka Democrat two years. In 1881 he graduated from the law department of the Missouri State University, when he came to Lamar, opened an office, and continued alone in the practice of the law until 1888, when he formed a partnership with Capt. R. J. Tucker. He was nominated by the Democratic Convention for representative without opposition. His work while in the Legislature aimed at the general good of the commonwealth, rather than his personal aggrandizement, and his efforts to avoid useless expenditure of public money. His efforts in revising the statutes to remove the disability of married women, and to establish a Normal school at Lamar, Mo., deserve special mention. October 5, 1884, he married Miss Bettie F. Musgrove, of Clark County, Mo., and the daughter of Prof. T. J. Musgrove. To this union were born two children: Eldon R. and Mattie, the latter deceased. Mr. and Mrs. Cole are members of the Baptist Church. He is a Democrat in politics, and is one of the leading attorneys at the Lamar bar.