More On Charles Scudder

(Charles Scudder), city treasurer of St. Louis, is one of the city's representative men, and through the changes of many years he has been identified with its growth and history in various ways. He is of that virile Kentucky stock which has played such a conspicuous part in the development of America, and is himself a native of that State, having been born at Mayslick, Mason county, November 1, 1833.

His father, Charles, was a native of New Jersey, while his mother, Mary (Hood), came from Virginia. His father was a physician, and when the subject of this sketch was two years old, he emigrated to Indiana, removing from that State to St. Louis in 1837. His three sons, John A., Charles and Wm. H., all became leading citizens and successful men of this city. Wm. H. is now dead. John A. is very wealthy, while Charles is rising toward the zenith of a most active and honorable career.

The latter was educated in the public schools of the city, which he attended until he was seventeen years old, being at one time a pupil of the late Colonel David H. Armstrong, who was, as we have already seen, a teacher in the first public school opened in St. Louis. When he left school he entered a retail dry goods store as clerk, but the work proving not to his taste, he secured a position as a clerk on a steamboat, and this was the beginning of a most eventful career on the river, whose trade was then at its greatest activity.

He next became the captain of a Keokuk boat, then became identified with the Lower Mississippi and the Missouri river trades. Throughout the war he had charge of a boat store at Cairo, and at the end of the contest returned to St. Louis and became indentified with Messrs. Griswold and Clement in the management of the Lindell Hotel. The arrangement continued for twelve years, or until 1888, when he was elected to the office of public administrator on the Republican ticket. The next public trust conferred on him was the one he now holds as city treasurer, to which he was elected in 1893.

He has proved in every capacity that he is a citizen who can be trusted, and that his fellow citizens have not erred in conferring honors upon him. Mr. Scudder was married in 1860 to Miss Sarah V. Rogers, of Marion county, Missouri. Nine children have been born to them, eight of whom are still living.

-From Old and new St. Louis by James Cox