John was the son of Joseph Frost Breeden and Margaret Williams. He was born in the Turkey Creek area in what was Newton County, Missouri and is now Jasper County. By 1850 his family had moved to Maries/Osage Co., Missouri.

In the Civil war he was a private in Capt. J. M. Dennis' Osage & Maries Co. V.M.M.. He enrolled on Feb. 14th, 1865 and was relieved on July 12th, 1865. The obit below states that he was a Confederate veteran but that must be wrong. After the War he was in the 5th Mo., Militia for 1866.

He married Cordelia Rowden on Nov. 14th, 1869 at Bloomgarden in Maries Co., Missouri.

Obit: Maries County Gazette, March 26th, 1931:

"Monday morning we received a telephone message from Mrs. Sullivan (sic - Sullins)that her father John Breeden had passed away at the home of his daughter at Lebanon. Interment was made in the Cookville Monday afternoon at 2 O'clock. He was a veteran of the Civil War on the Confederate side (?) and was 84 years old. He was married to Miss Cordelia daughter of Robert Rowden of Vienna. He was a leading citizen of Maries and Pulaski Counties His many kind acts and deeds will long be remembered."

(Thanks to Vienna Tyson)

Obit: Richland Mirror, Mar. 26, 1931,

"Obituary

Mr. J. W. Breeden, son of Joseph and margaret Breeden, was born Feb. 6, 1846 on a farm in Jasper county near Joplin, Mo., then known as Turkey Creek, and died in Lebanon, Mo., March 21, 1931, at the home of his daughter, Mrs. I. W. Skidmore.

At the time of the Civil War he was called into service, serving as Home Guard. Here he served thirteen months and was on guard at Jefferson City, Mo., the night that President Abraham Lincoln was assasinated. After peace was declared he returned to Vienna, Maries county, Mo.

He was then maried to Miss Cordelia Rowden, daughter of the late Robert M. Rowden and Nancy Ann Tyree Rowden, Nov. 14, 1869 in the Methodist Church at Bloom Garden; six miles south of Vienna. They lived on a farm on Little Maries Creek for nearly twenty-one years. In the year 1890 they moved to a farm at cookville, Pulaski county, where they lived until a short time before his death, when he went to Lebanon where he died...

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