# ID: I54668314
# Name: William Duncan CHRONISTER
# Given Name: William Duncan
# Surname: Chronister
# Sex: M
# Birth: 5 Sep 1824 in Cape Girardeau Co., MO? 1
# Death: 1914 in Current River Township, Shannon Co., Mo
# Change Date: 3 Nov 2000
# Note:
Most of the children named were taken from a Chronister family bible, copyrite date of 1826. It was difficult to make out the names of some of the children because words had an extra 'e' added to them. Another name was on the pages but I don't know if she is a child or another relative. Laccy Ann Chronister appears at the end of a handwritten message by William Chronister.
When William was very young he moved with his family to Ripley County, Missouri. When he was 16 the family moved to Newton and Jasper County in Missouri. William's older brother, John, had moved there several years earlier. In about 1845, William and his older brother, James, moved back to Logan Township in Reynolds Co, Missouri, not far from where they grew up in Ripley County.
In 1860, the county erected the first and only jail ever built in the county. Hewn white oak logs, twelve inches square and eighteen feet long were used in its construction. Holes were bored from top to bottom through the logs at each corner and one inch rods held the corners firmly together. The floor and ceiling were made of the same materials as the wall and steel grates were put in for windows. The inside of the walls were sealed with white oak lumber and the whole surface filled with large nails. The jail was put up for the county by William Reese, who for many years lived on Brushy Creek in this county.A young man by the name of Buckner of Iron County was the first man confined in the jail. Young Buckner had been indicted in Iron County for killing his father, and had been moved to this county on a change of venue. The next man placed in jail was William Chronister of this county. He was charged for cutting and wounding, with intent to kill a man by the name of Stegall who lived, at that time, on Logans Creek about one mile west of Ellington in this county. (The jail account was taken from the Reynolds County Court Archives.)
In 1861, William enlisted in the Confederate Army and served for 4 years during the Civil War. He served as a Corporal in Company "A" of Clardy's Missouri Volunteer Calvary (the"Registered Record Ex-Confederate 1913" is on file at the Adj.Gen. Office in Jefferson City, MO). It should also be mentioned here that William's older brother, James, served in the Union Army in Arkansas, thus proving the tradition that the Civil War matched brother against brother. In 1865, at the end of the Civil War, William was Imprisoned in Jacksonport, Arkansas,where he was later paroled on June 5th of that year and returned to his family in Reynolds County, MO. A couple of years later he moved to Current River Township in Shannon County, MO.William's second wife Sarah died sometime during the 1870's.William then married a third time to Matilda, who was born Julyof 1832. William spent the remainder of his life in the CurrentRiver Township.
William and Mary are buried next to each other at Cars CreekCemetary in Ellington, Missouri
**NOTE: James Gordon Chronister, Great Grandson of William Duncan, has put a stone at the grave site of William Duncan and Mary, his wife. The stone says that William died in 1904, but he has since found out that the date of Williams's death should have been 1914.