The experience positioned him to receive the nomination as the Democratic candidate for state representative from Pike County. His humorous letter gave the young lawyer one last attack on his opponents. Henderson dropped out of the race after a few months “in pure deference” to the “worthy men” of “advanced age and numerous wrinkles” who remained in the field. The twenty-three-year-old announced his candidacy for the position of Pike County clerk in 1847. Henderson entered Missouri politics almost immediately after he relocated to Clarksville. After three years of reading legal texts, he passed the bar exam and began work as a lawyer in Clarksville, Missouri. Teaching school in Prairieville left John with enough free time to study law. Murray, encouraged Henderson to take up teaching. After a year of formal studying, his instructor, Samuel F. In 1843, at the age of nineteen, he moved to Prairieville in Pike County, Missouri, to attend school. Records do not show who cared for the orphaned children, but the impoverished couple left a small estate to help with their support.ĭespite his early setbacks, Henderson managed to obtain a modest education. Their deaths left twelve-year-old John as the eldest of his surviving siblings. Unfortunately, both James and Jane died four years after their arrival.

Hoping to find greater success in the West, James moved his family to Lincoln County, Missouri, in 1832.

The Henderson family had trouble making a living as farmers, in part because they owned no slaves. His parents were James and Jane Dawson Henderson. “John Brooks Henderson was born on November 16, 1824, in Pittsylvania County, Virginia, near the village of Danville.

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