WILLIAM H. VIVION

(From the History of Callaway County Missouri, 1884, page 852-853)
Transcribed by Kris Breid, 17 August 2005

WILLIAM H. VIVION, farmer and stock raiser. The Vivion family of this country, branches of which are to be found in several States, is from England, but has been settled in America since long prior to the Revolution. The English Vivions—and there are two ways of spelling the name there, i.e. Vivion and Vivian, both claiming the same original ancestry, however, --boast one of the most ancient and honorable lines of descent in Europe. They claim to be descended from the celebrated Viselli family of Italy, which rose to distinction in the time of the Roman republic. The earliest representive of this family was Visellins, the great rhetorician, mentioned by Quintilion in his Institutes of Oratory (Book IX. Chap. II., 100), and other distinguished members of the family are mentioned by Cicero, Horace, Valerins, Maximus, Tacitus and other Roman authors. In modern Italy, Viviani of Florence, born A.D. 1622, the great mathematician and pupil of Galileo, is believed to represent the same Roman gens. So in Germany, Vilmar the eminent author of our own time, is reckoned as a descendant from the same common stock. And in France there is Vivien the celebrated painter of the seventeenth century. In England, Richard H. Vivian, perhaps the most brilliant military officer of the British army in his time (1775-1842), and are others too well known to require mention. But whatever may be the antiquity of the family makes but little difference so far as the present short sketch is concerned, for this has to do with William H. Vivion only. Nor is it of any concern to Mr. Vivion himself to trace out his ancestry. A plain, common-sense man, and an American in the truest sense of the word, he cares nothing for ancient descent and claims—
“No dusty monument;
No broken images of ancestors
Wanting an ear or a nose; no forged tales
Of long descents to boast false honors from.”

So far as his own family is concerned, it is of Virginia ancestry, his grandfather, Milton Vivion, having been a native of the Old Dominion. The grandfather early settled in Kentucky, where he reared his family and lived until his death. John G. Vivion, a son of his, and father of William H., was born and reared in Clark county of that State. He married Miss Rebecca Robinett of Bourbon county, and in the fall of 1825 removed to Missouri, settling in Boone county. He died there in 1875 at the age of seventy-five years. He had two uncles also who came to the State—Harvy, who settled at Fayette, Howard county, and Flavel, who settled at Dover, in Lafayette county. John G. Vivion’s wife, formerly Miss Robinett, was of French descent and the family in this county, we believe, is originally from Maryland. Sketches of this family will be found elsewhere in this volume. She died in 1843. Her husband was married a second time before his death, but no issue followed. Of her family of children, eight grew to maturity: John M., who died in early manhood, in 1852; William H., the subject of this sketch; Louisa M., who married J. M. McKim, and died in 1878; Mary E., now Mrs. W. A. Hamilton; Robert R., now of Boone county; David R., of this county, Sallie A., now Mrs. Boone, of Boone county, and Irvine C., also of that county. One other, James H., died young.

William H., was born in Boone county, on Cedar Creek, just across the Callaway line (his father’s farm being in both counties) on the 9th of February, 1827. He was reared there and educated in the common schools, and in 1850, then twenty-three years of age, he went to California, but returned in 1851. On the 28th of October, 1852, he was married to Miss Mary C. Shaw, and the same fall he settled on a farm in Bourbon township of this county (Callaway) where he lived, successfully engaged in farming, for seventeen years. During this time his wife died, April 7, 1863.

Four years afterwards, February 6, 1867, he was married to a Miss Rebecca M. Grant, born in Marion county, March 11, 1837, and a daughter of Colonel Grant, afterwards of Jackson county. In 1869 Mr. Vivion bought the land on which he now resides, to which he removed and on which he improved his present farm. He has 700 acres in his tract, including one of the largest and best stock and grass or hay farms in the county. He has made the stock business a specialty for years, including the mule trade, and has been abundantly successful. In late years, however, he has not been interested in the mule trade, but has been trading in cattle. He has a family of four children: John M., Norton M., in business at McCredie, Maggie S., recently graduated at the Synodical Female College, and William S. Mr. Vivion has been a member of the Masonic order since 1857. His wife is a member of the Presbyterian Church.

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