Rufus James Lackland, 1818–1910

Rufus James Lackland was born 8 July 1818 in Poolesville, Maryland, son of Dennis and Eliza Appleby Lackland. They moved to St. Louis in 1835, and he found employment in the store of Mullikin and Pratte. In 1837, he became a clerk on the steamer Clyde and other steamboats until 1847, when he became a partner in the wholesale grocery house of William Morris & Co., in 1861, continued as Lackland & Christopher, and later R. J. Lackland & Sons. In the late 1850s, he owned the steamboat, R. J. Lackland until it was captured by the Confederacy in 1861 and sunk.

On 2 August 1840, he married Mary Susannah Cable in St. Louis. She was born on 6 August 1822 in New York and died on 12 December 1866 in St. Louis. He married on 26 January 1869, Caroline (Elliott) Kasson, daughter of William Greenleaf Elliott and Margaret Dawes. She was born on 8 March 1830 in Washington, D.C. and died on 1 August 1892 in St Louis. Her first marriage in 1851 to John Adam Kasson, a lawyer and state representative from Iowa, ended in divorce. Rufus Lackland adopted her daughter, Emma Cushman Kasson, born in 1855.

Rufus J. Lackland lived on Broadway in St. Louis City until 1859 when he built a large home at 1623 Locust Place where he lived until his death. He was an early investor and trustee of the Boatmen’s Bank, becoming its president in 1871, a position he held until he was ninety years old. He died on 28 February 1910 in St. Louis.

Rufus Lackland and Mary Susannah Cable had the following children:

• • Edgar Conrad Lackland, born 25 May 1843, St. Louis, died 16 August 1911, in Atlantic City, New Jersey.
  • Rufus James Lackland Jr., born 8 June 1844, St. Louis, died 15 June 1910.
  • Frances “Fannie” Lackland, born 25 September 1846, in St. Louis died 11 March 1907. She married Theodore Thompson Taylor on 12 May 1868 in St. Louis. He was born on 16 April 1833 in Pennsylvania and died on 23 July 1899 in St. Louis.
  • Lamartine Lackland, born 25 September 1846, died 6 April 1909 in Audrain, Missouri.
  • Morrison Lackland, born 27 December 1849, died 9 February 1914 in Mexico, Missouri. He was a farmer and never married.
  • Sarah Lackland, born in December 1853 and died on 5 June 1913 in St. Louis. She married Thomas James Scott on 15 February 1871 in St. Louis. He was born in 1851 in Ray County, Missouri, and died on 19 June 1922 in St. Louis.
  • Elliott Lackland, born in 1854, died on 3 January 1864 in St. Louis.
  • Mary S. Lackland, born 6 December 1856, died after 1905, married 21 April 1881, John T. Trezevent, born about 1855, in Tennessee, a prominent banker in Dallas, Texas.
  • Margaret Daisy Lackland, born October 1857 in St. Louis, died 26 August 1927. She married Halsey Cooley Ives.

(Source: Thomas J. Scharf, History of St Louis City and County, 1883, Vol. II, pgs. 1401 and 1402.)

Written by Patricia A. Andersen
January 2021

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Last Modified: 18-Nov-2021 14:18