My Genealogy Hound

Freeman D. Waters, postmaster and general grocer and provision merchant, at Kimmswick, was born near the same in 1840, and is the son of Capt. George W. and Letitia (Israel) Waters, natives of Massachusetts and Philadelphia, Penn., respectively. The father was reared principally in New York, from which State he was admitted as a cadet to West Point Military Academy, and after finishing at that institution was assigned to the Sixth Regiment, commanded by Col. (afterward Gen.) Albert Sidney Johnston, and was assigned to the Western plains, where he was married in 1830. He remained in the service as captain until about 1837, when he located near Kimmswick, in Jefferson County, and here spent the remainder of his life engaged in agricultural pursuits. About 1838 he was appointed county surveyor, and served several years. In 1846 he was elected to the Legislature, which office he held at the time of his death, which occurred in 1847. He was of the Puritan New England stock, and a son of Amos Waters, who was also a native of Massachusetts, but moved to New York when the Captain was but a boy. The mother of Freeman D. was born in 1801, and died in 1885, in Jefferson County. She was a member of the Presbyterian Church. Freeman received his education at Kimmswick and at private schools in St. Louis County, and finished at the city schools at Buffalo, N. Y., in 1856 or 1857. From 1861 to 1863 he was a merchant at Bailey Station, and then for several years, until 1867, was clerking at Sulphur Springs, and in the meantime operated a store at Meramec Point, in Illinois, for some time. In 1867 he engaged in mercantile pursuits at Kimmswick, but was soon after made railroad agent and postmaster at that place, holding the former for seventeen years, and the latter office, at different periods, for thirteen years, the last since 1886. From 1878 to 1882 he was justice of the peace, and for twelve years has been notary public. Since about 1880 he has been in the grocery and provision trade. Although he has no children of his own, he takes a deep interest in the cause of education, and has for some years been a member of the school board. He is an earnest worker for the Democratic party, and his first presidential vote was cast for McClellan, in 1864. During the war he was a member of Company B, of the Enrolled Missouri Militia. In 1880 he was a delegate to the State Convention, and is a man much esteemed and respected by all who know him. Mrs. Waters is a member of the Presbyterian Church, and one of the leading teachers of the Sunday-school of that church.