Biographical Sketches
Lobb Community
Fisher, Waller, Law, Lobb,
Crenshaw, Bowlin, Nowlin, Shrank,
Crow, Yeager, Noland, Horn,
Lowe, Crump, Dalton and Tyer
From "Jackson County Pioneers" by Pearl Wilcox, written 1975.
In 1820, the year Missouri became a state, ADAM & LETTY FISHER and their family came from Kentucky. He was born in 1782 in Danville and served in the War of 1812. Adam's first wife was NANCY EDWARDS WALLER whom he married in 1813; she had died before he came to Missouri. His second wife was LETTY JONES LAW. With the Fishers came the AQUILLA LOBB family, the A. L. H. CRENSHAWs, the JAMES R. BOWLIN's, and the JAMES F. NOWLINSs, all families from Kentucky or Virginia.
They first arrived at "Big Spring" (Independence) and continued in a southeasterly direction along the Indian Trial, through dense forests, to their prospective home locations.
Adam Fisher, with the aid of slaves, cleared his homesite and built a house, blacksmith shop, and gristmill (present location would be north of Truman Road on the J. P. Jones Road). The first home was stone, 18 feet square, with ashes and sand used for mortar, and a clapboard roof. Later, Fisher built a 2-story log house 20 feet west of the stone house. He died in 1860, before the Civil War. After the war, GEORGE W. FISHER, a son, built a new house that stood for many years on the farm. (Adam Fisher was the great-grandfather of MRS. JAMES W. SHRANK of Independence).
In the fall of 1830 there arrived JACOB & AGNESSA CROW and their children. The youngest child, John, was just old enough to toddle about his mother's heavy homespun skirts as she tended the campfires. The Crow family set up camp about 100 yards from the new Aquilla Lobb home, and a short distance east of the Little Blue River.
Both families worked hard, with timber to cut, fuel to store, and cabins to built. The tang of wood smoked filled air, with the smell of boiling pork fat being rendered into lard. Mrs. Crow leaving her campfire, walked to the Lobb cabin, leaving her baby fast asleep. In a few minutes a terrified cry was heard that sent the parents of Aquilla Lobb running to the campfire. The found that little John had upset a kettle of boiling fat upon himself, causing his death in a short time. A slave was summoned and a little grave was dug not far from the immigrant trail. This was the beginning of the present Lobb Cemetery. (To go to the Lobb Cemetery, take the first road south of Lobb Church on No. 7 Highway to Lobb Cemetery Road, and follow the winding road to the cemetery.) Since that first grave, heavy timber has been cleared away and a rock wall built, that encircles a part of the expanding burial ground. There is the tombstone of John Crow and many other quaint stones of the first pioneers in the community.
The Reverend CORNELIUS YEAGER and his family came to the community and located on a farm later owned by OSCAR NOLAND on Holke Road. In this home, the Reverend WILLIAM HORN in 1834, organized the Little Blue Cumberland Presbyterian Church, named because of its prominent hillsite overlooking the Blue Valley. At the organization meeting there were five charter members: Aquilla Lobb and his wife, Reverend Yeager and his wife, and a Negro. This organization later became the Lobb Cumberland Presbyterian Church, which celebrated its 100th anniversary in 1934.
Others to unite with the church were JOHN LOWE and JACOB CROW families. "Uncle Jake", as he was called, became famous as an exhorter of the Bible and a leader among the pioneers. Their first meetings were held in the homes and afterwards in a schoolhouse on the DANILE CRUMP farm (later owned by HARLEY LOWE). The first church was erected in 1854, and the present church about 1894.
In 1852, when the REVEREND JAMES GRISBY DALTON took charge of the congregation, there were 50 members. Six years later, the membership had increased to 200, under his able pastoring.
Mr. Dalton, born June 7, 1824, in Virginia, came in 1852, shortly after being ordained a minister. During the Civil War he lived, temporarily, in Nebraska City. After the war, he returned and married MISS LUCY J. CRUMP, on November 30, 1865. She was a daughter of SAMUEL CRUMP of Independence. They were the parents of three children, Samuel G., Mary Elizabeth and Paulina Agnes.
Miss Mary and her sister Paulina (TYER) retained vivid memories of the Lobb Church. As small children they would watch the proud ladies display their new clothes. According to Mary, this was how the church acquired the nickname, "The Shakerag Church". She never heard the story that the name grew out of the practice of flying a white rag from the spire of the church to announce church services, as told by some.
The Dalton home was just as much a church as it was a home. Mary related: "Father would be marrying people at all times of the day. They would come by horseback, wagon, or even on foot. Once, when I was a girl, and Paulina was a baby in a cradle,
Father married a couple while holding his Bible in his hand and rocking the cradle with his foot".Reverend Dalton served for 50 years in the Lobb Church, and community, and died August 7, 1910; his wife died in 1931.
This page was last updated August 2, 2006.