Benjamin B. Frazer

Benjamin B. Frazer was born March 15, 1826, at Shippensburg, Pennsylvania. In 1845, at the age of nineteen, he moved to Clark County, Ohio, and in the following year, 1846, he came to St. Joseph in the employ of William Sloan for the purpose of selling goods. He soon decided to move to Weston, which at that time was the leading town on the Missouri River. He remained there two years, then exchanged his goods for cattle and drove them to Philadelphia for sale. He returned to a job in the commissary department at Fort Leavenworth for a short time and then was employed by Charles A. & Elias Perry in their store in Weston.

In 1854, when he was twenty-eight, he joined Mr. B. Brown in buying the land and laying out the town of Brownville, Nebraska. There he remained two years, operating a store and selling lots. In 1856 he moved to Oregon, Holt County, where he was elected mayor. The town of Oregon had been started on an old Indian trail, but as steamboat traffic on the Missouri River developed, it was necessary to start the town of Forest City on the river, three miles to the west. In 1857 the tract on which Forest City was located had been purchased by a group of men of St. Joseph and Oregon. They were: Thomas E. Tootle, Milton Tootle, Joseph W. Tootle, William G. Fairleigh, Abram Nave, James McCord, Richard E. Turner, Hiram Patterson, Levi Zook, and William Zook.

Forest City was a busy place in the 1850s. The Missouri River steamboat traffic was heavy, with daylight service between St. Joseph and Omaha. The exports from Forest City were hemp and hogs. The Forest City Monitor of March 10, 1859, carried the following advertisements:

“We will pay the highest market price in goods and money for

IOOO HIDES

and all the furs and pelts that can be brought to our store at the sign of the Elephant.

TOOTLEs & FAIR LEIGH”

'NAVE, TURNER & CO.

Dealers in Hemp, Bacon, and Country Produce, and

Steamboat Agents

"Two-story brick warehouse fitted up with two hemp presses and are prepared at all times to bale hemp, receive and sell goods or produce on commission.

'Groceries of the best quality-Sugar, Molasses, Starch, Star Candles, Pepper, Ginger, Soda, Madder, Young Hyson Coffee, Salt, Soap, Vinegar, Spice, Saleratus, Indigo, and Alum, Gunpowder and Imperial Tea. Our stock of Iron and Steel is full and complete.”

As the Civil War came on, business in northwest Missouri was demoralized, so in the fall of 186I Frazer and R. E. Turner loaded a dozen oxen- and mule-drawn wagons with merchandise which they took to Denver, Colorado, for profitable sale. In the fall of 1862 Frazer returned to his old home in Pennsylvania for a visit and while there met Miss Annie Eliza Sterrett whom he married in January 1863. Frazer was in business in Savannah with Abram Nave and in Forest City with John S. Brittain, the firm being known as Frazer, Brittain & Company, dealing in general merchandise.

In March 1864 a partnership was formed by R. E. Turner, H. L. Williams, J. M. Frazer, and B. B. Frazer. Turner and J. M. Frazer established a wholesale grocery firm in St. Joseph, while Williams and B. B. Frazer carried on the general merchandise business at Forest City. Similar businesses in which Mr. B. B. Frazer was interested were operated at Craig and Maitland, Missouri. In 1865 B. B. Frazer moved his family to St. Joseph.

In 1867 the town of Forest City suffered a blow from which it Was never to recover: the channel of the Missouri River, over night moved about two miles west-removing the reason for the town existence. In 1868 the railroad line between St. Joseph and Council Bluffs was completed, but before that time all settlements north of St. Joseph depended on river boats or horse-drawn stages. The stage route starting in St. Joseph went through Savannah, Oregon, Forest City, North Point (Mound City), Big Spring (Craig), Hamburg, and Council Bluffs. The passenger fare from Forest City to St. Joseph was $2.50 and to the Bluffs, $8.00.

In 1869 the firm of Frazer & Brittain expired and B. B. Frazer withdrew, leaving the business in Forest City to be carried on by John S. Brittain and Jacob M. Ford.

The business in St. Joseph grew so rapidly that it was taken over by the new firm of Turner, Frazer & Company. From 1870 to 1879 B. B. Frazer was head of the queensware business of Frazer & Douglas in St. Joseph, and from 1873 he was president of the Frazer & McDonald Bank in Forest City. Mr. Frazer was one of the most active businessmen in St. Joseph, being interested in the Letts-Frazer Shoe Company, the St. Joseph Plow Company, Turner-Frazer Mercantile Company, and the Burgess-Frazer Iron Company. In 1889 Mr. Frazer and Charles L. Wiehl organized The Park Bank at Tenth and Penn Streets and Mr. Frazer was president of the Bank until his death.

Mr. Frazer's home was at 2604 Pacific Street and at his death on August 30, 1899, he was survived by his widow, four sons, and a daughter.