settle

JOHN L. SETTLE

John L. Settle, jeweler and stationer of Fredericktown, was born in Madison County, Mo., in 1861 and is the son of Henry and Mary Jane (Graham) Settle, and grandson of William Settle, who was a native of Murfreesboro, Tenn., born in 1809. He came to Missouri in 1833 and after living one year in Bollinger County, moved to Madison County, and here in 1835 he and C. T. Graham erected a small church, now known as Big Creek Baptist Church. William Settle was ordained minister in 1839 and was soon appointed American Baptist Home Mission secretary as missionary of Southeast Missouri and North Arkansas. He labored in this good cause for five years, and while thus employed lived in Ripley County. In 1855 he became a missionary of the Southern Baptist Convention, through the Baptist Convention of Southeast Mo. in 1868 he became pastor of Castor Church at Marquand and at Marble Hill. In 1870 he organized a church at Fredericktown and died the same year. Carter T. Graham, maternal grandfather of the subject of this sketch, was born in Tennessee in 1800 and came to Madison County in 1822. He was a Baptist Minister and was called the "farmer preacher." He died in 1861. Henry Settle was reared in Madison County, on a farm, and was married in 1860. He afterward located near the old homestead where he remained until the spring of 1865, when he moved to Ironton and engaged in merchandising, but died the same year while in the prime of life. His wife was bone in Madison County, Mo., in 1842 and was of Irish descent. She was the daughter of Rev. Carter T. Graham, who was a Baptist minister, as before mentioned. Mrs. Settle was the mother of three children: John L., Newton G., and H. Maggie (wife of John T Bruce). John L Settle remained on the farm until eighteen he went to Fredericktown and attended the high school at that place for two years. The following two years he attended William Jewell College at Liberty, Clay Co., Mo. At the age of twenty-one he entered the teacher's profession and taught two terms, one in Madison County and the other in Scott County. In 1885 he and J. L Woolford became partners in the jeweler and stationer line in Fredericktown, and at the end on one year Mr. Settle sold his interest and went on a tour through the West "sight seeing" until he grew weary of this, when he returned to his birthplace and purchased the stock of Mr. Woolford. Since January, 1888, Mr. Settle has been conducting the business o his own responsibility. He was married January 31 of the same year to Miss Callie McCreary, a native of Tennessee, born in 1868, and the daughter of Robert McCreary. Mr. Settle is a Prohibitionist in his political views and he and wife are members of the Missionary Baptist Church.