Auxvasse Review, June 1906,
Auxvasse, Callaway, Missouri

Mrs. M.A. Dawson Dead

Mrs. Mary ann Dawson, born in Albemarle county, Virginia, October 29, 1820, died in Fulton, June 24, 1906.

These words chronicle the passing away of one of the oldest residents of Callaway county, one of the pioneers who passed through the varied experience of frontier life when the six-horse wagon, the log house, the well sweep, the tallow-dip, and the ready rifle were familiar to all, and and lived on into that period marked by the frame or brick house, the electric light, the palace car, the telephone and all the necessities of today which in that older day would have been deemed pure luxuries.

Mrs. Dawson was the daughter of John B. Herring and Maria, his wife. With her parents she made the overland journey from Virginia to this county in 1832, being at that time about twelve years of age. Fulton then extended from Stinson Creek to the court house square. The family made their first home in what is now the old Gerhardt residence, south of the creek. Later they moved to a farm north of the John Maloney farm, a few miles northwest of town.

On October 20, 1842, she married Robert M. Dawson. Their children numbered nine, three of whom died very young. Five children survive: William H. Dawson of this city, Mrs. Elizabeth Baskett of St. Louis, Mrs. Martha G. Franklin, of Fulton, at whose home the aged mother spent her declining years, James Allen Dawson, and Benjamin Y. Dawson, of this county. Mrs. Susan J. Nichols, one of the daughters, died in 1889.

Mrs. Dawson united with the Richland Baptist church under the ministration of Rev. Noah Flood, about sixty years ago, and ever lived a consistent and earnest Christian life.

At the residence of Mrs. M.G. Franklin, on Court street on Monday afternoon at 3:00, funeral services were conducted by Rev. G.H. Swift, pastor of the Baptist church, assisted by Rev. W.W. Stoddard, of the Presbyterian church, and Rev. C.W. Collett, of the Methodist church. The remains were laid to rest in the new cemetery. One by one the pioneers are crossing over to the other side.