Son of Julia Ann McCready & Samuel Anderson Megown, husband of Mary Eleanor Conn

Acknowlegment to the Ralls County Historical Society for the following:

JUDGE JOHN MEGOWN; NO. 22"RALLS CO. TIMES" JUNE 21, 1901

The value of a good book and the love of reading, like the duration of time, are beyond computation. The influences that grow out of reading good literature may never die, but widen and deepen as time rolls on. The reading of "Weems' Life of Francis Marion," "Marshall's Life of Washington," and "Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress" gave to Mr. Lincoln the inspiration of patriotism and lofty ideal that ever after marked his great career. Many a young man has taken heart and bravely faced a frowning fate from the soulful reading of these and other immortal books.
To the reading of "Weems' Life of Marion" by John Megown, when a struggling man with nothing about him to aid or assist youthful ambition may, in a great measure, be attributed the success afterwards reached in making him one of the best informed and practical minded men in Ralls County.
On the 18th day of February 1834, in the City of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, John Megown, the subject of this sketch was born. His parents were natives of the Quaker State, and his father of Irish descent. His great grandmother on his father's side was a cousin of the immortal young Irish patriot, Robert Emmett, who gave up his life in the struggle of Ireland in 1798 for freedom. No nobler sacrifice on the altar of liberty was ever offered up nor holier eulogy of its cause than the burning words of Emmett in the dock with Lord North's sentence of death and quartering in his (***); and wherever a drop of his blood is found, no matter how much diluted, every true Irishman will venerate it next to that of her who gave him birth. To be related to poor Ireland's greatest hero is no little honor, and to our good, old friend, in whose veins course some of the blood of her murdered patriot, I reverently pay that meed of homage due from a son of one of that heroic race, and who hopes to see the day when the epitaph of Robert Emmett may be written and the Green Isle of the Ocean take her place among the Nations of the earth.
In 1836, Samuel Megown, his father, came to Missouri, thought the young state a desirable place to live and raise his family and sent for them. They came the following year by water and landed at Marion City. This place had been laid out by Dr. Ely, a noted preacher, one McKee and Wm. Muldrow, a few miles above Hannibal and was meant by its founders for a rival city to the latter, but the great flood of 1836 swept most of it away and wrecked the prospects of its growth. It has long since passed into memory only. A little after landing there the family moved up Big Creek, this county, and the elder Megown began the making of brick. This useful occupation the father followed until late in life and taught his first born, John, the same trade. Different moves about the county were made and at each place the manufacture of brick was industriously followed and nearly all of the old stately brick houses and churches built in this county and Pike nearby, were out of material his hands shaped and prepared for use. Samuel Megown died but recently, having reached his 90th year. Of those who came west to join husband and father in 1836, our friend and his venerable mother are the only ones living. In the schools scattered about the county, few and far between John Megown received his education. Jerry Johnson taught the first school he attended in an humble cabin on the farm now owned by Henry Lennox, west of New London. Of his schoolmates in that school he can only recall as living Mrs. Charles Carter and John R. Barkley, at Bethel church. Butler Brown taught awhile and the boy attended when spared from home. Thus as best he might together with assiduous effort at home he mastered the elements of a well rounded and practical English education until he felt that he was competent to conduct a school himself.
In 1851, the family went back to Pennsylvania, but remained there but a short time. A near relative had died there, and the chills and fever being very bad here in the West, his mother wished to return to her native heath; hence the removal East. Out among the farmers the boy John went to work. His father was a partial cripple; John was the main stay of the family and realized that all looked longly to his efforts for support. Twenty-five cents per day, from that in 62 1/2 in harvest time were the wages paid good farm hands and this didn't suit the boy John a bit. Here he could earn any day 50 cents, and in harvest $1.25, hence he urged the return to Missouri. While in Missouri he had earned the price of a pony, which he afterwards sold for $25 and had saved the money. Now it was needed and freely spent for passage of family and freight of the little effects back to this state. On reaching St. Louis John made an effort to get work, but the city was in the mist of a cholera plague and business at a standstill. The family came to Hannibal and then to a house on the Jerry Vardeman place west of New London. The people were somewhat afraid of the newcomers, they having been exposed to the dread disease but after a while work was had and the slim fortune of the family slightly mended. On Judge J.M. Smith's place a large brick kiln was burnt and sold for $200 to William K. Biggs. A little tract of land belonging to John R. Barkley was bought for $150, $50 down and time given for the balance. To this little home, the first they could call their own, the Megown family went. Seventy-six acres of land with a little money ahead gave the family to hope again, but in an unguarded moment, some time before, the father had endorsed a friend who later fled the country and left the debt for the surety to pay. It was paid, however, by Mr. Megown though to do so greatly depleted their little store. At the age of 18 he taught school, receiving his first employment as a teacher from James N. Smith and Levi Keithly, trustees of the rude old log schoolhouse in the district known now as the Webster, in Center Township. He taught there three months for the sum of $45 and board around among the patrons of the school. Prior to his engagement he had not seen the edifice into which he was to go as master. The Board said, "It was in need of some repairs which would be attended to." On the morning of the opening John entered and found the floor of loose laid boards warped and open, the "chinkin'" out between the logs, and loft and roof open to the skies. The stove was like the building, very much dilapidated, and it took the greatest care to keep the little ones committed to his keeping from freezing during the long school hours then required to be spent in teaching. But though young and inexperienced with all the surrounding difficulties he taught a good school with full satisfaction to the patrons. Later he taught several terms at Frankford with marked success.
While thus engaged and at all opportune times he read law, having a love for the profession whose object and purpose is to hold up the hands of Justice that right may prevail in the affairs of men. In 1857 John Megown was admitted to the bar by Judge John T. Redd. The next year he was married to Mary E. Conn, daughter of James W. and Lydia C. Conn, and with his young wife moved to Frankford in Pike County, and opened an office. From the start he had a good practice and was in fair way to do well but the typhoid fever broke out in that place and became epidemic in extent. The young wife fell a victim to the prevailing disease and longed to be back close to mother. He came to New London and again went to teaching school as an immediate means of reviving his financial affairs.
In 1860 he was appointed Assistant U.S. Marshal and as such ordered to take the census of Ralls County which work he performed in a very creditable manner. In 1861 he was appointed county assessor by the county court to fill a vacancy occasioned by the failure of Christy Gentry to qualify. In 1866 he was elected to this office and served the county as such for two years. In 1870 he was again called to the public service, this time as Judge of Probate and occupied the office for 19 years.
It is said that in the course of a generation all the property of the county passes through the Probate Court. The rights of widows and helpless orphans are there to be guarded as well as the rights of creditors. The careful, hard-earned gatherings of the dead are to be passed to the proper channels with sacred regard for justice and economy. The petition calls for the most careful consideration of the law and right that no wrong be done the living nor the dead. In the discharge of these solemn duties Judge Megown made a record free from censure and abounding in honorable parts.
To the marriage above referred to there were born eleven children, six boys and five girls and all are living save one who died in infancy. Jas. S., the eldest, in business in New London, John E., Cashier of the Ralls County Bank, Catherine, wife of Howard Swigert, Susie, wife of R.H. Womack, on the editorial staff of the Kansas City Times, Sarah Lizzie, single and at home with her parents, Preston W., farmer, Gay B., a student of veterinary medicine and surgery, Julia B., stenographer for a large lumber firm in St. Louis, Mary J., wife of R.E. Mayhall and Benton B., assistant cashier in the Bank with his brother.
In 1856 Judge Megown cast his first vote for president, and it was recorded for the bachelor president, James B. Buchanan. In 1860 he hesitated long before making a choice. He had carefully watched the trend of public affairs and was a Democrat of the strictest sort. The views of Kentucky's great leader, John C. Breckenridge, and the platform of the party whose candidate he was more nearly coincided with his ideas of a party policy, hence his vote for Breckenridge and Dane.
He took no part in the War of the Rebellion, and afterward when a sweet winged peace spread her gentle wings over a reunited people he resumed the practice of law and has followed this honorable profession, when not engaged in public service, to the present. During this time he has been engaged in many of the important suits in this and other courts. In law he has always been regarded by the public and his brethren at the bar as a safe and painstaking advocate. Whatever he undertakes is pushed with a thorough knowledge of the law in the case. It can truthfully be said of our friend that nothing but the most rigid honesty and fair dealing has marked his course. He stoutly maintains the position that a man can be a successful lawyer and at the same time preserve and ever promote all the qualities that combine in the perfect gentleman and honorable citizen.
In connection with his law practice he has farm interests and owns a good body of land east of New London. On his land is found a fine spring popularly regarded as possessing great curative power for many diseases. To this spot the public go and have all three years as freely as to one's own property, easy access being provided by the Judge for himself and all who wish to partake of the pure bubbling fountain of the world's best drink.
Of late the Judge has been in poor health but it is to be hoped that his usual stout and robust constitution will overcome the temporary indisposition and give him back the full vigor and blessings of the best of health.
The wife of his youth is still by his side and has all the years of their wedded life been to him a sustaining comfort. There is no earthly estimate of the blessings that attend the homes where wife and mother guard the portals with love and devotion. The ten children who lovingly call her mother are all devoted to father, mother and one another, thus making an ideal home.
All his life he has ever been a lover of good books, and has in his library one of the best collections of law and miscellaneous works in New London, in matters pertaining to the early settlement and growth of the county no man within its borders is better authority. All the old landmarks of title and early settlement are familiar matters of knowledge with the Judge. With his extensive reading one of the best of memories has kept pace and been ever ready to answer the calls of the minds.
In 1878 he wrote a brief history of Ralls County for publication in Edwards Bros.' Atlas of the county and this article is the most authentic and extensive of any we have on the subject.
(An addition provided 3/14/02 by Virgil Megown, Judge John's grandson, advised that son Gay B.'s full name was Gay Bird Megown)