James L. Edelen, of township 47, range 7, has lived in St. Charles County since 1859. He has many interesting reminiscences of life in the West in early days, when wild game was so abundant on these prairies that it was nothing unusual to go out before breakfast and shoot three or four deer.
The birth of our subject occurred in Prince George’s County, Md., March 16, 1824. His parents were Aloysius and Myra (Mudd) Edelen. The family circle included three sons and five daughters. Louise, the only one besides our subject now living, resides with him. She has been three times married (being now the wife of Zimri Beek), and has two living children. Aloysius Edelen came on a prospecting tour to this state in 1835, arriving in St. Louis May 8. At that time he could have bought land in desirable localities for $7 an acre. He remained for a year on a rented farm in Pike County, and from there removed to Lincoln County, where he bought three hundred and twenty acres. To this he afterward added one hundred and sixty acres, which he entered as a homestead, and also an eighty-acre claim, which he bought from a man who had previously taken it up from the Government. His death occurred in 1853, at the age of fifty-six years. After the demise of his first wife, in her forty-seventh year, he wedded Miss Elenor Kirley, who bore him four children. Virginia, the only survivor of the family, is the wife of Frank Kirkpatrick of St. Charles.
James L. Edelen was reared under the parental roof, and, as his father had plenty of slaves in his boyhood days, his time was passed in play and in attending the common schools. Until he had passed his twenty-first birthday he was never required to do a day’s work, but when it became necessary he did not falter, but accomplished whatever he undertook. On New Year’s Day, 1849, he married Catherine, daughter of James and Elizabeth (Jaynes) Mudd. Mrs. Edelen is one of twelve children, of whom six others survive, namely: Samuel, Nicholas, Patrick, Robert, Linton and Sidney. Robert is a practicing physician in St. Charles.
The year before his marriage our subject bought a piece of land, some eighty acres, to which he removed to begin housekeeping with his bride. There they remained for two years, at the end of which time Mr. Edelen sold out and invested the sum realized therefrom in a farm of three hundred and twenty acres. This place he operated for five years, and then disposed of it to good advantage. In 1859 he removed to St. Charles County, where he has since made his home.
To the union of Mr. And Mrs. Edelen were born twelve children, as follows: James and Horace, deceased; Anna S., who married C. G. McKnight, and has three children; Catherine O., wife of William Stonebraker, by whom she has two children; James A., who married Miss Jennie Mudd, and has two children; Alonzo, who wedded Miss Annie Meyer, and is the father of five children; William, deceased; Norman; Florence, wife of A. N. Bullitt, and the mother of two children; Oakley, who married Miss Cecila Carroll, and has one child; and Clarence and Clara (twins), both deceased.
Both our worthy subject and his wife came from families who have in most instances been noted for their longevity. The grandparents of Mr. Edelen on his father’s side, Joseph and Alsey Edelen, of St. George’s County, Md., lived to be ninety and seventy-five years of age, respectively. The maternal grandparents of Mrs. Edelen, Thomas and Allie Jaynes, reached the ages of eighty and fifty years respectively. Her father, James Mudd, arrived at the very old age of ninety-six years. Mr. and Mrs. Edelen have lived lives of temperance and usefulness, and though well advanced in years, are wonderfully well preserved, being still active both in body and mind. Politically Mr. Edelen is identified with the Democratic party.
Portrait and Biographical Record of St. Charles, Lincoln, and Warren Counties, Missouri; Chapman Pub. Co., Chicago, 1895, pgs. 174-175.