Page:History of Southeast Missouri 1912 Volume 1.djvu/719

 PILSTORY OF SOUTHEAST MISSOURI 633 Volunteers, commanded by Colonel Frank P. Blair, in April, 1861. Company A was commanded by Captain L. E. Konieuzeski. The enlistment was for ninety days, and up- on its expiration Mr. Vitt returned home. He served in and around the St. Louis ar- senal and marine hospital — -Meramec Station on the jMissouri Pacific Railroad and Rolla, at that time the terminus of the Southwest- ern Branch, now the Frisco Railway. He witnessed the capture of General Frost's Confederate Camp Jaelison at St. Louis by General Lyon, on May 10, 1861, which event saved St. Louis to the Union. From August, 1861, until some time in 1864 Sir. Vitt re- mained out of the zone of hostilities, working in his father's mill. In that year he enlisted in the Forty-seventh Missouri Infantry, com- manded by Colonel Thomas C. Fletcher, afterward governor of the state. Until May, 1865, Mr. Vitt was in active service in the war. His company helped to build the fort at Pilot Knob, Missouri, and after General Sterling Price's raid they were sent up the Missouri river on a boat with a detachment of artillery, to prevent the crossing of bands or independent companies from the north side of the river to join Price's army. His regiment was subsequently ordered into Ten- nessee, when General Thomas at Nashville called for aid. Before the Forty-seventh reached that point, Thomas had cut Hood's army to pieces, so that the services of the regiment were diverted to other points in Tennessee, where it did active military duty until the spring of 1865, when it was ordered home to be mustered out at Benton Barracks, St. Louis. Resuming business as a civilian, Mr. Vitt assisted his father in the mill until tlie fall of 1866, when he engaged in the stove and tin- ware business in Union. He learned the tin- ners' trade and followed that business until May, 1868. At that time his father decided to retire and Alfred A. and his brother Her- man W. purchased the mill. In 1880 he be- came sole proprietor and has since conducted the business. Other matters have claimed his attention in the ensuing forty odd years, among which was the organization of the Citizens' Bank of Union. Mr. Vitt was the first president of this bank; later he acted as its cashier from January 4, 1910, to March 1. 1911, and is still a member of the board. In politics Mr. Vitt has. like his distin- guished father, always acted with the Repub- licans, of which party he has been an hon- ored and prominent figure, being twice chosen chairman of the Republican County Committee. He has been mayor of Union and has represented his county 'in the general assemblies of 1907 and 1909. During his first term he was a member of the committee on private corporations and that of claims, local bills and miscellaneous business. In the second session he was a member of the committee on roads and highways, wills and probate law and private corporations, and chairman of the committee on labor. The legislation towards good roads claimed Mr. Vitt's special interest and the measures passed during his service in the legislature are ^now bearing fruit. Another of Mr. Vitt's achievements was the bill empowering counties to levy a special tax for the erection of a court house or other public buildings without resorting to bonded debt, inasmuch as he was the author of the bill, now a law in Missouri. On March 5, 1866, Mr. Vitt was married to Miss Mary Jane White, a daughter of John White, who came to Missouri from Pennsyl- vania. Mrs. Vitt's mother was Elizabeth Ferguson. Mrs. Vitt died February 10, 1886. Of the children born to the subject and his wife, Fred married Miss Caroline Pisane and resides in Union; Jessamine is JMrs. J. W. Ream, of Portland, Oregon; iIary M. married Edward Muench, of Union, where Gertrude E. (Vitt) Shelton also makes her home. One son, Tracy G., is dead; the others are Eugene B., a locomotive engineer of St. Louis, Missouri; and John T., a civil engineer, now at Evansville, Indiana, in the employ of the C. & E. I. Railroad Company. Mr. Vitt is a Knight of Pythias and a Mason, and has served as a delegate to the Grand Lodge of both orders. Well informed and unusually interested in the general wel- fare of the community, which he has served in such varied capacities, Mr. Vitt is a worthy representative of an admirable race. He is hale and hearty and very active for one of his years. F. G. Clippard. The postmaster and mer- chant farmer of Leopold is a Missourian and the son of Missourians. He was born in Bollinger county, in 1854, his parents being G. W. and Sorintha Clippard. Like most of the district's prominent citizens, Mr. Clip- pard spent his early life working on his