1882 History of Linn County, Missouri

BIOGRAPHY

FRANCIS MARION BOLES                                           Lotus Creek Twp., and Linneus: 429

   This outline presents another name of a county officer who was to the manor born.

     Mr. Boles is the son of James R. and Elizabeth (Cook) Boles, and he was born in Yellow Creek township two miles north of St. Catherine, on the eighth day of December, 1843.  The father came to Linn county from Kentucky in October, 1840,and settled on the farm where Marion was born.  The latter grew to manhood in Linn county, and here received his education.  The civil war came on when Marion was about eighteen years old, and he entered the Union service in Company I of the Twenty-third Missouri Volunteer Infantry regiment commanded by Colonel Morton, and company by Marion Cave.  His regiment was assigned to the Fourteenth Army Corps, commanded by Jefferson C. Davis.  Mr. Boles saw the most of his service in Georgia and the Carolinas, and was in Sherman’s “March to the Sea” and the battles therein.  He was in the service from August, 1862, till the close, and was mustered out at Washington, and disbanded at St. Louis.  After making a short western tour he returned to Linn county, and has been here constantly since that time, farming in spring and summer, and teaching in winter, till he was elected constable of Locust Creek township in 1872.  For eight years he served as constable, and six years of the time he was deputy, under Sheriffs Chesround and Phillips.  Mr. Boles received the nomination for sheriff on the Democratic ticket in 1880m and at the ensuing election was duly elected over his Republican and Greenback competitors.  Mr. Bole’s efficient service had rendered him quite popular as a deputy, and he was complimented by many votes from all parties, and out ran his ticket by nearly three hundred, receiving a majority of three hundred and twenty-seven. 

     Mr. Boles was married on the twenty-ninth day of September, 1878, to Miss Ella Crowley, daughter of Charles Crowley, deceased.  They have one daughter.

     Mr. Boles belongs to the Masonic and Odd Fellows’ orders at Linneus.  Politically he is a Democrat, and cast his first presidential vote for General George B. McClellan, while still in the service, at Kingston, Georgia.  There were but two others of his company who voted as he did, it being by no means popular to support any Democrat.  Mr. Boles has proved an efficient officer, and at this writing his term is unexpired.

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Transcribed, in total, by kkfitch © 2010.  All Rights Reserved.