Leonard WEST

                      [stewart download.FTW]

Texas County Missouri Heritage - Vol. 2, p. 867 (Texas County Missouri
Genealogical and Historical Society - 1989)

                  Job West Family

Job West came to Texas County by wagon train in 1868, from Marshall, NC,
where he was born in 1812.   Two of his sons fought
in the Union Army and two for the Confederacy.

Job had 19 children - 9 by his first wife, Juliana Bryan, and, after her
death, 10 by his second wife, Rebecca Pressley.

After the Civil War closed, some families that had been pro-union found
themselves not well accepted by their Carolina neighbors.  They decided to
establish new homes in Missouri.

Four of Job's children (William, Lewis, Nelson and Jane) came on the wagon
train and six more were born in MO.  The trip required more than 2 months
of traveling, including 4 days and nights on the Ohio River.

Job bought 80 acres in the Solo area and homesteaded 80 more.
His 9 children by Juliana Bryan were: Mary, William, Zachariah, George,
Andrew Jackson, Leonard, Lewis, Nelson and Jane.  His 10 children by
Rebecca Pressley were Julia Ann, Robert, Lauretta, Benjamin, Laura, Joseph,
Abraham, Palestine, Mary and Mary's twin.

Job's father (Leonard West) was from Ireland.  He and his wife (Polly
McCoy) had 7 children.

Job's first wife was Juliana Bryan.  On her side of the family were some
prominent persons, including Daniel Boone (who married Rebecca Bryan) and
later, Williams Jennings Bryan.  Juliana's mother and father (Judith Peek
and Lewis Bryan, Jr.) were married in the middle of the road, on horses, not
unusual in those days.

Job West's genealogy contains many "old time" names, such as Jemima, Rhoda,
Cordelia, Andrew Jackson, Lafayette, Benjamin Franklin and George
Washington.  One of his 2 sets of twins was named Abraham and Palestine.

Job's oldest son was William Benton - often called "Uncle Billy" in his
later days.  He was a corporal in the Union Army.  He was born in NC in
1836.  He married Martha Dalton.

Once, when the Union Army was close to his home, he was granted a
brief leave, slipped through the Confederate lines and could see from a
nearby hill his wife and their two small children in their yard below.
He could not go down, because there were many Confederate troops in the
town.  He never saw Martha and his small daughter again, because they died
before the war ended.  Their young son George was on the wagon train to
MO.

In MO, William farmed and taught a subscription school.  He married one of
his students, Nancy Blankenship.   They bought a farm and built a home in
the Elk Creek community.  Their children: Susan (who died when a
teenager), Allie West Dickenson, Julia West Parker and a fourth, who died in
infancy.

William and Nancy moved to Houston and built a home on South King St. in
1890 - a home now owned by Mayor Mel Flowers.

Job, his wife Rebecca, their daughter Jane and Jane's baby are buried on the
farm where they originally settled.   William and Nancy
West, their 2 months old baby and their daughter Susan are buried in
New Hope Cemetery near Solo.

The West's in Texas County have long been known as people who are
industrious and who rate high in integrity.

Submitted by Helen Parker Hall, Maurine Parker Grammer and Chester West
Parker.