Bates County Biographies
INNIS, John B.
Summit Township John B. Innis was born in Ripley County, Indiana, May 5,
1833. James Innis, his father, was born in Pennsylvania in November, 1787, and
married Miss Rachel Blunk, of the same state. John B. was raised on a farm and
received a common school education. He was married in Ripley County, March 29,
1855, to Miss Mary Paugh, a daughter of Isaac Paugh, also a native of Ripley
County. She died August 3, 1863, leaving five children. Mr. Innis was married
again in Ripley County, November 19, 1864, to Miss Mary Johnson, a daughter of
David Johnson. In September, 1865, he moved from Indiana to Missouri, and first
located in Benton County, from whence in about one year he came to Bates County.
He bought his present farm in the fall of 1871, and moved upon it the following
spring. Mr. Innis has eighty acres of land, which he improved himself, and owns
one of the best orchards in the county, containing fortyfive acres. He has forty
acres in an apple orchard and five acres in other fruits, consisting of peaches,
cherries, pears, plums, etc. He resides on section 16. He is Republican in
politics, and was elected justice of the peace of his township in the spring of
1874, and has since been re-elected twice, holding the office six years in
succession. He is a member of the Patrons of Husbandry. Mr. Innis has six
children living, three of whom are by his first marriage: Robert E., Squire,
Mary Olive (now Mrs. R. Johnson); Eliza Ann, Charles E. and John I. Innis.
(History of Bates County, Missouri, 1883)
IRISH, Thomas
Osage Township - Thomas Irish, editor of the Mining Review, was born in
Northumberland County, Ontario, Canada, May 20, 1842, and was the third son of
Dr. Peter Irish, whose father, Eldridge Irish, was a United Empire Loyalist, of
Revolutionary times. He was obliged to leave Vermont and seek refuge in Canada,
on account of his loyalty to King George III. The mother of Thomas Irish, Esther
Stanton, was born in New York State, and was a descendant of Thomas Stanton, one
of the early settlers from England in 1640, and many of whose descendants are
prominent characters in the history of this country, such as General Phineas
Stanton, of the war of 1812, and Edwin M. Stanton, secretary of war during the
Rebellion. Thomas Irish, one of a family of ten children, was educated at the
Brighton Grammar School and the University of Victoria College, Cobourg. In 1865
he was articled as a law student in the office of William Kerr, Queen's Councel,
Cobourg, and was afterwards in the office of the Honorable Kenneth Mackenzie,
Queen's Counsel, Toronto, and on the 11th of February, 1868, he passed his
examination at Osgoode Hall, Toronto, and was admitted a member of the Law
Society of Upper Canada. In January of 1869, he came to Illinois, and on the
29th day of May in that year, passed his examination before the Circuit Court of
Kane County, and was admitted to the bar of Illinois, receiving his certificate
from the judges of the Supreme Court of the state. In the fall of 1869, Mr.
Irish went to Southeastern Kansas, and formed a co-partnership with J.S. Waters,
prosecuting attorney of Labette County, and with him established the Labette
County Sentinel, and afterwards, in 1871, had the entire editorial management of
the Sentinel, which was published as an independent paper. In 1877 he removed to
Carroll County, Missouri, and published the Norborne Independent for three
years, but on account of the malaria of the Missouri bottoms and his declining
health, sold his paper, and learning of the new town of Rich Hill, and being
confident of its future prospects, established the Mining Review, a live
Democratic newspaper, in October, 1880, in that town, which has met with perhaps
better success than any local paper ever established in the state. Mr. Irish is
an excellent newspaper man, and has done much to make known the advantages of
Rich Hill, and has labored incessantly for its advancement and material
prosperity. Going to the town soon after it was laid out, he has become
thoroughly intimate with its present conditions; has witnessed its wonderful
growth and understands its wants and necessities for the future. Rich Hill is as
much indebted to Mr. Irish, for its present success, as to any man who was not
one of its original founders. (History of Bates County, Missouri, 1883)