| Notes |
- http://www.archive.org/stream/cornetjosephpars01burt/cornetjosephpars01burt_djvu.txt
From the Encyclopedic History of St. Louis. COLONEL CHARLES PARSONS, President of the State Bank of St. Louis. Colonel Charles Parsons was born at Homer, Cortland Co., N. Y., January 24, 1824. He received an academical education at Gouverneur and Homer, N. Y. After spending several years as a clerk in his father's store, in a bank, and as a partner in a commercial house in Buffalo, N. Y., he removed to Keokuk, la., in 1851, where he established and continued for years a successful banking business. On the breaking out of the rebellion, he volunteered, was made captain, and, because of his superior business abilities, was placed in charge of army rail and river transportation at St. Louis, a position which he filled with such eminent success that he was promoted to the rank of lieutenant-colonel. Near the close of the war, he was made cashier of the State 164 Savings Association, now the State Bank of St. Louis, of which he was elected president in 1870, making his entire term of service in the bank to the present time, thirty-three years. The success of his administration is most conclu- sively and concisely shown by the fact that for all these years the bank has never failed to make a dividend of at least five per cent, semi-annually, and for the last twenty- three years has made one of eight per cent, semi-annually, and has, in addition, accumulated during these thirty-three years, a surplus of more than $1,100,000. While amassing a reasonable fortune in his long and active business life. Colonel Parsons has disbursed of his income with liberality and a most catholic spirit, by aiding charitable, religious, and educational institutions, at times in large sums. Colonel Parsons's remarkable success has resulted not more from a natural taste for banking than from his thorough study, accurate knowledge, and comprehensive views of the principles governing commercial and financial affairs, combined with the liberal spirit with which he ever meets and treats private and public interests. The high esteem in which he has been held in financial circles is shown by the fact that for twenty-two years he was annually elected president of the St. Louis Clearing House, was for some years president of the American Bankers' Association, was selected to preside over the World's Congress of Bankers and Financiers at the Chicago Exposition in 1893, and that his name has been often mentioned as a suitable candidate for Secretary of the Treasury, and would, it is believed, have been pressed, but for Colonel Parsons's own opposition thereto. In 1892, when there was much public excitement in regard to city finances, owing to a large defalcation, Colonel Parsons consented at the solicitude of many prominent citizens, regardless of party, to accept temporarily the position of City Treasurer, which office he resigned as soon as full investigation could be made, the books put in proper condition, and a new treasurer elected. Colonel Parsons has been, and still is, president and director in many railroads and other public and charitable institutions, taking an active part and im- pressing his own personality thereon. There are few men who are more consulted or whose opinions upon public and financial questions are held in as high esteem. Nor is Colo- nel Parsons merely a business man. Possessing by nature a refined taste, he has during his active life gathered one of the most valuable collections of paintings and other works of art in our country, obtained during repeated visits to Europe and in a trip around the world made in 1894-5, a 165 very interesting account of whicli last trip was published in a volume for private circulation, showing close and accurate observation of men and affairs. In politics, Colonel Parsons has been a strong Republican, occupying a prominent position in party councils and con- tributing liberally for the success thereof. He is also a member of the societies of the Grand Army of the Eepublic, the Loj-al Legion, and the Army of the Tennessee. Colonel Parsons was married in 1857 to Miss Martha Pettus, a member of one of the old well-known families of St. Louis. She died in 1889, leaving no children. Extract from a speech by Colonel Parsons at the Cale- donian Society dinner, in St. Louis, November 30, 1897. " Perhaps, as I represent the New England Society this evening, as its former president, you would like to hear something of the Yankees and how they lived sixty and more years ago, when I was a boy; in the changes that have and are taking place nowadays, we are all getting to be different from what we were; even the Japanese are putting on breeches and coats and discarding their queues and kiminos. More's the pity. They will become poor Europeans and lose the originality and unique character, as well as genuine art, they once possessed. " Well, in my youth, among the Yankees in New England and New York, people were mostly connected with some church, and, generally, business ceased on Saturday night at sundown. Everything ended save works of necessity and mercy. The good orthodox people insisted that the warrant for commencing Sabbath on Saturday night was from the Bible, where it says: ' The evening and the morn- ing were the first day.' Our evenings of Saturdays were spent in learning the Sabbath-school lessons, the catechism, and singing. Ten o'clock Sunday morning was church time, and all who were not ill or too old or too young went to meeting, as it was called. We spoke not of the church as a building, but of the meeting-house. Then came the service; first, the invocation, the Bible reading, the singing, the long prayer, another singing and the sermon, which last was not, perhaps, as long as the Scotch ones; yet it did not lack in that respect. Then Sabbath school of half an hour, after which our lunch, and about one o'clock again another service. The farmers took lunch in summer on the grass around the house; but at other times in the house. It was not customary formerly to have fires in the meeting- house. It was thought best to keep warm by spiritual heat, and the first introduction of stoves was, in many cases, opposed very strongly. In one instance, several ladies fainted 166 the first Sunday after the stoves were put up, but, to their mortification, learned afterward that there were no fires that day in them ? a plain case for faith doctors. The second Sabbath service was like the first, and at its end we went home with the opportunity before us to come again in the evening. Many people had only cold food on the Sabbath. Occasionally some good people had a warm supper, however, and mine were of that sort. When the sun went down, all restraint was thrown off and the solemnity and seriousness that for twenty-four hours had marked every face was succeeded by gayety or great cheerfulness. It was said that even the dogs knew the difference between Saturday and Sunday nights and showed it by jumping and frisking on the latter, instead of lying quietly around as on the former. Sunday was indeed a day of rest for everything, and it was made more so by penal enactments. Indeed, it was said that in Connecticut they whipped the beer for working on Sunday. Travel was not thought proper, except to go to meeting or for the doctor, and as to any amusement, it was not to be tolerated or even thought of. I am told that the same rule existed in Scot- land formerly, and it may yet. The great infiux of foreign continental population in New England has changed all greatly there. " In those old days every one worked who was old enough to do so. The farmer rose at 5 a. m. and, after feeding and watering his horses, cows, etc., ate the breakfast that his industrious wife had prepared; he was then ready to go out on his farm to work, or in winter perhaps out in the forest chopping the trees, eating a cold lunch, perhaps of salt pork, uncooked, with bread and cold potatoes. I have seen them doing this, and they said that the fat pork with a little vinegar was excellent; the best sauce was the appetite. I have known these farmers to draw cord wood three or even four miles to town and sell it for 75 cents a cord and take their pay in goods at the store, and sometimes the merchant who bought it would only give dry goods, as the merchants then made greater profits on those than on sugar, tea, etc. There was no eight-hour law then in town or country; people worked early and late as long as they could find anything to do, leaving time for eating, drinking, and sleeping. Crime and criminals were not much known in the country or country villages; no one had time to con- coct villainy. " My father was a merchant, and as soon as his boys were old enough we had our share of work, at first in weeding the garden, bringing in wood, later in cutting wood for the 167 use of the house. I well remember my young-er brother and myself, he at eleven and I at thirteen years of age, cut- ting in spring forty cords of four-foot wood in three parts, splitting it fine, and piling high in the woodshed adjacent to the house, so as to be convenient for the days when great snows should fall and the thermometer get down to twenty and forty degrees below zero, sometimes. Perhaps this training is the reason why I am alive now at the age of seventy-three. As a special encouragement, we got a note drawing seven per cent, interest for such work at twenty- five cents a cord. I remember collecting mine after it had outlawed. Then a little later I learned to get up at 5 o'clock to go to the store, open it, sweep out, and light the fire before breakfast, at 6 or 6.30. After an academic edu- cation, I went off one November for a trip to the South, only receiving from my father money to get away, and none to return with. In nine or ten months I returned, bringing home some $50 more than I took away with me, which I handed my father; besides having traveled in three-fourths of the United States and spending some time in Cincinnati, Charleston, Richmond, Thiladelphia, and New York, with the ever pleasant memory of ten days in Washington in 1842, when John Tyler was President; Millard Fillmore at the head of the Ways and Means Committee, in which capacity he passed the tariff of 1842. One Saturday, then, I was kindly introduced on the floor of the House by a friend of my father's, and also introduced personally to the President, Secretary of State, Daniel Webster, John C. Calhoun, John Quincy Adams, and Francis Granger. I was telling the above circumstance in my life to a friend, and he said it was not right that I should have given this surplus over what I received to my father; but it was the rule then that a boy's services belonged to his father until he was at his majority, and it was the almost universal custom for boys to work at home until then, and I think it was right. I was only too well pleased to get this leave of absence and to earn the amount of my expenses, returning all I made over that. Why should not a boy pay back by his labor some of the cost of his rearing? In Japan it is deemed a religious duty for a child to take care of the parents at a certain age, and the rich and poor recognize it not as a labor, but pleasure, and expect the retiring from trade of the parent, and all care then to fall on the son. The care of parents was also as customary in old times in Scotland. If our youths were made to do more physical work in youth, they would be stronger, healthier, and the better for it. Our New England fathers lived well, only the food was 168 plain. All through the country the bread was mainly made of com and rye meal, mixed, and, while not quite so palata- ble as wheat, yet without doubt it was more healthy ; there was plenty of beef and pork, mutton and chickens, apples and other fruits, and honey, besides nuts in the woods, to say nothing of the turkey and supposed-to-be-unhealthy pies. The New Englander then made no objection to all sorts of fun and sport in reason ? the husking bee, spelling school, where all stood up to be spelled down by the most capable; the town and baseball games, skating, and sliding on the ice; in fact, every athletic or proper indoor sport that did not endanger life or limb, I don't believe they would have tolerated the ball games we now have, where there is constant danger to the players. Certainly our Yankee forefathers were not the sad and morose people some conceive them to have been. They had a rough time in settling a new country, when there were no steamers or railroads, when it was a six-days' journey from New York to Boston by land, and life presented its serious side to them. They feared God, and wished to do their duty and get on in the world, and so educate their children that they should do the same. They were not so anxious to get office, either, then as now. One of my early ancestors in Springfield, Mass., petitioned the Town Meeting to be released from all town offices for a year, and on payment of twenty shillings his request was granted. He was not anxious to be in the push, or in any sort of combine. My friends, in many respects we have not improved on these people,"
Death Notice:
Homer NY Republican 1903-1906 - 0475.pdf
http://fultonhistory.com/Newspapers%2021/Homer%20NY%20%20Republican/Homer%20NY%20Republican%201903-1906/Homer%20NY%20Republican%201903-1906%20-%200475.pdf
CHARLES PARSONS
DEAD IN ST. LOUIS.
Was Born In Homer In 1824 and
Was the Olsest Banker In St. Louis .
A press dispatch from St. Louis under
date of September 17th says:
"Charles Parsons, who was born in
Homer, N. Y., January 24, 1824, is
dead. He was the oldest banker in St.
Louis, president of the State National
Bank, aud founder of a hospital. He
was a grandson of Captain Charles Parsons
of the Continental army."
Mr. Parsons was a relative of the late
Manley Hobart.
Cemetery:
http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GSln=parsons&GSfn=charles&GSbyrel=all&GSdy=1905&GSdyrel=in&GSob=n&GRid=46398259&df=all&
|
The H600 Project Genealogy DB
1824 - 1905 (81 years)