Page:History of Southeast Missouri 1912 Volume 1.djvu/771

 HISTORY OF SOUTHEAST MISSOURI 671 with Prohibition tendencies. He has never been ambitions for public office of any de- scription but has served with efficiency as a member of the board of school directors. In their religious faith he and his family are devout members of the Methodist Episcopal church. Mr. De Guire is strictly a self-made man, having himself built the ladder by which he rose to affluence. All his business dealings have been characterized by fair and honorable methods and as a citizen he com- mands the unalloyed confidence and esteem of his fellow men. Samuel Boutin. If those who claim that fortune has favored certain individuals above others will but investigate the cause of success and failure, it will be found that the former is largely due to the improvement of opportunity, the latter to the neglect of it. Fortunate environments encompass nearly every man at some stage of his ca- reer, but the strong man and the successful man is he who realizes that the proper mo- ment has come, that the present and not the future holds his opportunity. The man who makes use of the Now and not the To Be is the one who passes on the highway of life others who started out ahead of him, and reaches the goal of prosperity in advance of them. It is this qualit.y in Samuel Boutin that has made him a leader in the business world and won him an enviable name in con- nection with contracting and building affairs at Cape Girardeau, where he is recognized as a citizen whose lo.yalty and public spirit have ever been of the most insistent order. Samuel Boutin was born in "Windham county, Vermont, on the 19th of Jul.y, 1852, and he is a son of Joachim Boutin, who was born at Point Levis, Canada, the date of his nativity having been 1804. The grandfather of him to whom this sketch is dedicated im- migrated to America from his native land of France in the latter part of the eighteenth centui-y. After being reared and educated in Canada Joachim Boutin came to the United States, locating in the state of Ver- mont, where he turned his attention to agri- cultural operations. In 1826 was recorded his marriage to Miss ]Iartha Warner and to them were born ten children, of Wliom Sam- uel was the seventh in order of birth and five of whom are living at the present time, in 1911. The father was summoned to the life eternal in the year 1879 and the mother passed away in 1883. In the public schools of his native state of Vermont, Samuel Boutin received his ele- mentary educational training. In 1872, at the age of twenty years, he decided to seek his fortunes in the west and in that year es- tablished his home at Hampton, Iowa, where he became interested in the contracting and building business, being associated in that line of enterprise with his brother, C. W. Boutin, until 1887. In the latter year he removed to Center-ville, Iowa, where he was superintendent of bridge-building for the Keokiik & Western Railroad Company for the ensuing fourteen years. In 1901 he went to Gary, Oklahoma, where he was general road- master for the Choctaw & Northern Railroad for about one year, at the expiration of which he came to Cape Girardeau to accept a posi- tion as superintendent of bridges and con- struction work on the St. Louis & Gulf Road. In 1903 his territory was extended over the third district of the Frisco system and he remained with that road until March, 1905, at which time he went to Muskogee, in the Indian Territor.A', where he was roadmaster over the Midland Valle.y. In September, 1905, he returned to this cit.y, where he was employed as general foreman by the Frisco system to build the Chaffee yards. In 1907 he was in Georgia with the Fall City Con- struction Company and soon thereafter was forced to give up railroading on account of the impaired condition of his health. In 1908 he came back to Cape Girardeau and here opened offices as contractor and builder. He has been eminently successful in this line of enterprise and by reason of his extensive experience has won renown for the excellent quality of his work. At Hampton, Iowa, in the year 1874, Mr. Boutin was united in marriage to Jliss Julia Crawford, who was born in Canada, a daugh- ter of William Crawford. Mr. and Mrs. Boutin are the parents of four children, con- cerning whom the following record is here offered. — Maud is the wife of C. R. Porter, a prominent lawyer and politician at Center- ville. Iowa; Lottie is now Mrs. A. S. Duck- worth, her husband being engaged in the lumber business at Cape Girardeau ; Ralph G. is a dentist by profession and is engaged in that work at Harper. Kansas ; and Charles W. is auditor for the Bell Telephone Com-