Page:History of Southeast Missouri 1912 Volume 1.djvu/766

 668 HISTORY OF SOUTHEAST MISSOURI eral years under the firm name of Caneer Brothers, he being manager of affairs. In 1904: the Caneer Store Company was in- corporated, with a capital of fifty-two thou- sand dollars, and is now doing an immense business, its trade extending not only throughout the southern portion of Dunklin county, but over a large i^ortion of Arkansas. This business was founded by J. I. Caneer, who at the inception of the town of Senath established the first mercantile house in the place, it being a small building, sixteen by twenty-four feet. He began on a modest scale, and afterward enlarged his stock and his operations. In 1891 Mr. J. I. Caneer be- came sole proprietor of the business, which increased so rapidly that more commodious quarters were needed, and he erected a large frame building, which soon proved none too large for his extensive trade. In 1898 he with his two brothers, W. T. Caneer and A. A. Caneer, engaged in business together under the firm name of Caneer Brothers, "W. T. Caneer becoming manager of the store and A. A. Caneer, bookkeeper, collector, etc. Mr. J. I. Caneer, who had been instrumental up to that time in the upbuilding of the busi- ness, simply holding a third interest in it. Mr. J. I. Caneer was a man of wonderful resources, and in addition to having man- aged a business amounting to about fifty thousand dollars a year had also made much money in the buying and selling of lands, and is now living retired in Los Angeles, California, although his financial interests are mainly in Missouri, as he retains an in- terest the Caneer Store Company and owns upward of a thousand acres of land in Dunk- lin county. The Caneer Store Company is owned mo.stly by Senath people, and has the fol- lowing named gentlemen as officers : A. W. Douglass, president ; E. Baker, vice-presi- dent ; A. T. Douglass, secretary; xV. A. Caneer, treasurer ; and W. T. Caneer, Jr., general manager. The store building which the firm occupies has a hundred feet front- age, and is one hundred and fifteen feet deep, a part of it being two stories in height, and in addition has outside warerooms. The Company carries ou a general supply busi- ness, handling tools and implements of all kinds, its stock being valued at thirty-two thousand dollars, while its sales in this line amounts to upwards of one hundred thou- sand dollars annually. The firm likewise handles hay, feed and cotton, buying and ginning about fifteen hundred bales of the latter production each year, its sales from cotton exceeding one hundred and twenty- five thousand dollars a year. Mr. W. T. Caneer is also interested in ^Missouri lands, Caneer Brothers owning large tracts that are under cultivation and are highly productive. He is also a stock- holder and the vice-president of the Citizens' Bank of Senath. He is a stanch Republican in polities, and fraternally is a member of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows and of the Woodmen of the World. Mr. Caneer married, in 1903, Kate Law- son, a daughter of the late iloses Lawsou, of Kennett, who was for many years a prom- inent attorne.v and county official of Dunk- lin county. ^Irs. Caneer passed to the higher life November 19, 1909, leaving no children. Peter R. Conr.d traces his ancestry in a direct line back to the Revolution. He is the son of David, son of Peter, son of Rudolph, son of Peter, who probably came to America from Prussia about 1750. Rudolph and his brother Jacob went from the neighborhood of Ilarrisburg, Pennsylvania, to Lincolnton, North Carolina, during the Revolutionary days. Both brothers were soldiers in the Revolutionary war and probably witnessed the battle of Cowpens, accounts of which have been handed down to the children of the third and fourth generation; how the men rode two by two to battle under the gal- lant General Greene. Rudolph Conrad was three times married. His first marriage was with a Miss Schuford. The issue of this union was one child, Daniel. By his union with Miss Shell, Rudolph had five children, Peter, Jacob Lewis, Mary (Kline), Susan (Baumgarten) and Charlotte (Plott). His third marriage was to Miss Stockinger, and their children were John Lewis, Ephraim, Rebecca, Elizabeth. Peter, the paternal grandsire of Peter R. of this sketch, married Sarah Abernathy, of North Carolina, and came to Missouri in 1820. David Conrad, the father of Peter R., was the oldest of his seven children. The others were Elizabeth, Jacob, William, Clarissa, George and Martha. The Conrads are a re- markably long-lived race and all these chil- dren except David and Martha lived to be over eighty. The latter died at the age of seventy-five and the former in 1890, at seventy-nine. George is supposed to be still