John Young, P. O., Slater. Son of Henry and Margaret Young, of Montgomery county, Missouri, where he was born May 13, 1831, and assisted his father on his farm until he was twenty-two years of age, when he went to Monroe county, and remained a short time; then to Glasgow, and then to Independence, Missouri, engaged mostly as a farmer. In 1856 he farmed on the land on which a portion of Kansas City now stands. In the fall of that year he went south, and thirty miles southwest of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, engaged in setting out and raising cypress timber. From there, after three years, he went to the Sabine river, Texas, and from there made a trip to Liverpool as a sailor. On his return, engaged in making a levee on the Wachita river, Arkansas; then up the Mississippi river to Minnesota; returned to Quincy, Illinois, and farmed one year in Illinois. In 1860 he came to Saline county, rented a farm of Rev. P. G. Rea for one year, and then, in the spring of 1861, bought land and improved it. In August, 1861, he enlisted in a Saline county company for the Confederate army, and was in the battles of Lexington, Pea Ridge, Corinth, Iuka, Grand Gulf, Baker’s Creek, and at the siege of Vicksburg, where he was paroled and sent to Demopolis, Alabama; was there exchanged; rejoined the Confederate army under Gen. Johnston, in north Georgia, and was at the battle of Atlanta, and there wounded, the second time, with a piece of shell. Surrendered in April, 1865, with Gen. Johnston’s army in North Carolina. In the summer of 1865 he returned to Saline county, and bought the land on which he now resides. January, 1868, he married Miss Sarah Ellen Gwinn, daughter of William A. and Sarah Gwinn, of this county. They have four children: Orlando, Otho, John, and Allen G. Is a member of the Christian Church.
