The prosperity of Stoddard county depends in large measure on its agricultural element, and one of the representative exponents of the great basic industry is J.B. Chasteen, whose well improved and valuable farm is situated about four miles west of Bloomfield. He is a man of good citizenship, interested in the progress of the whole community and doing all in his power to advance the same. He belongs to a family which has long lived in this locality and his birth occurred on the farm adjoining the one he now owns, his birthplace being situated only about half a mile from his present home. The date of advent up this mundane sphere was July 14, 1849, and his parents were John and Sarah (White) Chasteen, both natives of Tennessee, where they married. They came to MO in 1846-1847 and bought property three miles west of Bloomfield, on the Poplar Bluff Road(Greenville Road.) There the father remained until his demise, which occurred in 1863, at his home, his death being an outcome of the Civil War. The Federal soldiers had captured him and taken him to Bloomfield, where he was kept over night. In the morning he was set free, but was killed while on the road home, being shot when half way from town. The deed was supposed to have been in retaliation for imagined grievances--"bushwhacking." His sons-in-law and relatives were in the Confederate army. He left a widow and seven children, with but one son, N.C. being old enough to help. N.C. Chasteen is the present county judge.

John B. was only about fourteen years of age at the time of his father's death. The mother kept her little brood together on the farm, and this able and courageous woman died just about the time the children reached maturity. Soon after the father's being taken away, the older brother, N.C. married and found the responsibilities of his own household's support all he could shoulder. The stock and feed had been taken by marauders during the war as there was no arguing with necessity Young J.B. found it incumbent upon him to take the head of the family. He had only a one-horned steer for his farming operations and later, securing a horse, he worked them separately, doing his cultivating with the steer, hitched single. When harvest time came. he had sufficient extra grain to sell to a retired soldier. At the age of eighteen years Mr. Chasteen took as his wife Martha Jane Proffer, the daughter of Peter Proffer of the same vicinity- Peter Proffer and his brother Moses were pioneers of the neighborhood and were well known, the family having come from Cape Girardeau before 1846, and both brothers spent the remainder of their lives in Stoddard county, where Martha Jane was born. After the death of his wife. Peter Proffer spent his last years at the home of his son-in-law, Mr. Chasteen.

J.B. Chasteen, with a capital of nothing at all at this marriage set up for housekeeping. From his father's estate he received forty acres in the woods, and upon this tract his present home is situated. In those early days he built a log cabin and began the great task of clearing his land, and to make an immediate living he worked out by day. He had but one horse and worked with him for eight years, putting fifteen acres into cultivation. And after all the work of clearing he got nothing from the heavy timber. He lived in the log cabin for ten years, but eventually success crowned his well-directed industry and a fine house took the place of the cabin, and most of the forty acres were put into cultivations.  In course of time he bought another forty acres, at six dollars an acre, pay about half in cash, with the remainder at ten percent interest. He gradually bought other stock, including a yoke of oxen. and in a comparatively short time had improved his additional tract and put it into cultivation.    He has in later years added to his land from time to time until he owns one hundred and ninety-two acres, his farm being one of the best hereabout. His farm is divided into two parts and has two sets of buildings. In the breeding of high grade cattle he has had the greatest success and is noted for his registered Berkshire hogs. His home is a well-built, attractive abode. In evidence of the success with which he has labored for the improvement of his holding is the fact that the land he bought for six dollars an acres will now sell for seventy-five. His own concerns have ever been so engrossing that he has had neither time nor inclination for public, although he is a loyal Democrat and interested as a voter in public matters. He built his present home twelve years ago, this standing on the site of the old log cabin in which the happy, though hard early years were passed.

THE END.

(Robert Douglas, THE HISTORY OF SOUTHEAST MISSOURI, 1912)