NOTE: I have no connection, no further information and am not seeking additional information. 11285 FAYETTE CO – WILLIAM CASWELL PREWITT – Prewitt, Ellis, Prewitt, Harrison, Dudley, Gentry 12285 Pike County Missouri History, Des Moines, Iowa; Mills and Company, 1883. pp. 588-9. William Caswell Prewitt. This gentleman, for many years a citizen of Pike county, is a native of Fayette county, Kentucky, where he was born on the 29th of October, 1808. His father was Vaul Allen Prewitt and his mother’s maiden name was Mildred Ellis. Both his grandfathers, Robert Prewitt and Capt. William Ellis, were natives of Virginia, and both had been soldiers in the War of the Revolution and had fought to secure the independence of the American Colonies. In 1795, some years after peace had been proclaimed between Great Britain and the United States, and when we were no longer a dependency of England but a free and independent people, they left Virginia and removed with their families to the state of Kentucky and settled in Fayette county where they continued to reside during the remainder of their lives. The subject of our sketch, having before lost his parents, emigrated to Missouri in October, 1829, when he was but twenty-one years of age, and invested his limited means in land in Lincoln county and near the town of Auburn, where he continued to reside for ten years, devoting himself to farming and the constant improvement of his property. At this time he sold his farm for what was then regarded as a very high price, and bought a small tract of land two miles south of Clarksville in Pike county. To this place he moved in 1839 and commenced, as before, to improve his land and to better his surroundings. Here he still resides, but the little tract has grown into an immense farm and the small cabin into a palatial residence. Mr. Prewitt was engaged in the mercantile business in the town of Clarksville from 1840 till 1843 when he sold out his business and again addressed himself to the duties of the farm. In March, 1845, he was married to Martha C. Prewitt, daughter of Robert C. Prewitt of Lincoln county. At this time Mr. Prewitt was in the thirty-seventh year of his age, and had been a housekeeper fifteen years, while his wife was almost a girl, being at the time of her marriage a little less than seventeen years of age. To these parties five children have been born, of whom only one, William C. Prewitt, Jr., survives. The father of Mr. Prewitt, and also his wife’s father, who were brothers, were Kentucky volunteers in the War of 1812 and served in the army of the northwest under General Harrison. The former, Vaul Allen Prewitt, was adjutant of Colonel Dudley’s Regiment and was captured at Dudley’s defeat near Fort Meigs on the Maumee River, and after being stripped by the Indians of all his clothing except his pants and shirt, was thrust with some five hundred others into the famous Bull-pen where they received much severe treatment, until the interferences of Tecumseh put a stop to the cruelty of the savages. Robert C. Prewitt had been captured, before his brother, at the River Raisin. He entered the army before he was eighteen years of age and claimed that on account of the difficulty of getting supplies to the army he suffered more from hunger than from all other causes. William C. Prewitt, our subject, has long been actively engaged in successful farming, while the profits arising from his business have been cautiously and safely loaned, until at this time the accumulations have been such that he is known to be the wealthiest citizen of Pike county. To his honor be it said that no man who knows him could be induced to believe that he has ever made a dollar by any other than the most honorable means, and that he would scorn to take advantage of either a man’s ignorance or necessities in order to gain for himself any pecuniary advantage. Within the last few years Mr. Prewitt has made very considerable investments in real estate in the state of Colorado, where he spent several years with his sick daughter, Mrs. Mattie C. Gentry, wife of R. T. Gentry, who died in September, 1881, at the homestead in Pike county, Missouri. Mr. Prewitt, while he has been generally successful, and has succeeded in amassing a fortune largely in excess of that of a majority of the most successful business men even in the money centers of the country, has also, in various ways, during a long and active business career, sustained losses that aggregate a large sum of money. But losses can no more depress him than the constant accumulation of wealth can make him either selfish or vain. Under all circumstances he is the same cheerful, urbane, and dignified Christian gentleman. He is hospitable alike to the rich and the poor, while his generosity is exhibited in the quiet and unostentations [sic] manner in which he contributes to all charities and especially to the necessities of the poor and the unfortunate. KYBIOGRAPHIES Archives: http://archiver.rootsweb.com/th/index?list=kybiographies KYRESEARCH: http://boards.rootsweb.com/localities.northam.usa.states.kentucky.tips/mb.ashx