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John L. Weaver, farmer and ex-sheriff of Jefferson County, Plattin Township, 

was born in the same in 1844, and is the youngest of four children born to 

John W. and Isabella (Morris) Weaver.  The father was born in Cape Girardeau 

County in 1811, and when about twenty-one years of age came to Jefferson 

County.  He was married about 1834, and spent the remainder of his life near 

the line of Ste. Genevieve County, where he died in 1880.  He was a man of 

considerable prominence, very generous, and a man of many friends and no 

enemies.  He was for many years justice of the peace, giving good satisfaction.  

He served on several important commissions, and assisted in assessing the 

damages for the Iron Mountain Railroad.  He was a prominent Mason, charter 

member of Joachim Lodge, which he was instrumental in organizing, it being 

the first lodge in Jefferson County. Both he and wife were members of the 

Baptist Church. Mr. Weaver was an exhorter and an active church worker. His 

father, John Weaver, was a German, and an early settler of Cape Girardeau when
the country was a part of the Louisiana Territory.  He followed keelboating to 

New Orleans, settled at Charleston, Mississippi County, before the town was 

laid out, and owned the land upon which the town is now situated.  The mother 

of John L. was born in Missouri, and died in 1857; she was her husband's senior 

by a few years.  Mrs. Weaver came to Missouri with her mother, her father 

having died in Maryland.  He was a soldier in the Revolutionary War. The subject 

of this sketch was educated in the pioneer style log school houses, dirt floors, 

slab seats, etc.  In 1861 he served six months under Col. J. Thompson, in the 

Confederate army.  In 1870 he married Miss Eddy A., daughter of Felix G. and 

Martha Poston, of Ste. Genevieve County, where the father is still living and 

where Mrs. Weaver was born.  Four children, three of whom are living, were born 

to Mr. Weaver's marriage:  Della K., Mattie I., and Olive P.  Mr. Weaver lived 

on his farm, on the Mississippi River, one mile below Rush Tower, until 1876, 

when he was made deputy sheriff under John Williams, and served in that capacity 

for two years. He also occupied that position under T. J. Jones nearly four years, 

and during that time was public administrator, and was appointed to fill the 

unexpired term of Sheriff Jones.  In 1882 he was elected to the office, which he 

held for two years.  He remained in Hillsboro until 1886, when he returned to 

Rush Tower, and in 1887 to his present farm (two miles below Rush Tower) of 250 

acres, 150 bottom land, all the result of his own labor, working for $6 per month 

when a young man, and working from sun to sun.  He is a Democrat in politics, and 

his first presidential vote was for Horatio Seymour, in 1868.  He is a member of
the A. O. U. W., and his wife is a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church.