St. Clair Wilburn, farmer and stock raiser.  Mr. Wilburn, himself a 
time-honored old citizen of the county, comes of one of the pioneer families 
of this section of the State.  His parents, John and Mary (Curtiss) Wilburn, 
immigrated to Missouri from Tennessee in 1816 and settled in Montgomery 
county.  Subsequently they removed to Boone county, and in 1828 became 
residents of Callaway county, where they lived for many years.  They were 
one of the worthy families of Callaway county, and are remembered by all old 
settlers still surviving as hospitable, kind neighbors.  St. Clair Wilburn, 
the subject of the present sketch, was born while his parents lived in Boone 
county, on his father's farm, eight miles north of Columbia, on the 27th of 
December, 1820.  Eight years of age when the family removed to Callaway 
county, he was therefore principally reared in the latter county.  In 1841, 
then having attained his majority, he entered the land across the county 
line in Audrain county where he now resides.  He soon began the improvement 
of a farm on this place, and on the 30th of July, 1845, was married in 
Callaway county to Miss Susan, a daughter of Noah Coil, of Shamrock.  From 
the time he first came on to his present farm, now over forty years ago, he 
has continued to make it his home, and has added to his original tract of 
land until his possessions aggregate 400 acres.  Having been all through 
life a man of hard work, sober habits and reasonably economical, the fruits 
of the forty harvests he has reaped have made him one of the substantial 
tax-payers of the county.  In the respect and esteem of those among whom he 
has lived so many years none stand higher.  After a long and happy life of 
about thirty-five years, his good wife was at last taken from him by the 
decree of death.  She breathed her last on the 7th of March, 1880.  They 
were blessed with a family of fourteen children:  Robert, now of Texas;  
Noah, John, William, Margaret A., George O., Charles, James (deceased), 
Chesley T., Mary, Edgar, Bertha, Banks and Caroline.  Mr. Wilburn has always 
given more or less attention to stock raising, having a surplus every year, 
almost, for the general markets.