Rev. Joseph C. Hembree was born in Buncombe County, N. C. in 1841. He is the son of Davis and Adaline (Miller) Hembree, natives of South Carolina and Buncombe County, N. C., respectively. In 1815 Davis Hembree�s parents located in Rutherford County, N. C., where he received a fair education.

He was married in 1835 after which he located on a farm in that county. His wife was born in 1814, and died on November 16, 1887, having reared ten children.

In 1885 the parents removed to Bollinger County, Mo., where Davis Hembree still resided with his children. Joseph C. Hembree received a good education in the public schools and by private study at home.

He enlisted in the First Regiment United Stated Volunteers, being assigned to Company F. He was sent to Milwaukee, and from there to the seat of Indian trouble in Dakota; from thence to Fort Fletcher, Kas., and later to Fort Leavenworth where he was discharged in 1866, when he returned to North Carolina.

In 1859 he married Charity Webb of Tennessee, by whom he has four children: Effie L., Joseph P., Ella M. and Hattie L. He was engaged in teaching school and farming in North Carolina and Tenneessee from 1850 till 1871, when he removed to Bollinger County, Mo., and settled on a farm near Marble Hill.

The previous year he had entered the ministry, and was ordained in 1873 at Flat Woods Baptist Church and he continued preaching and teaching until September 1886, when he entered the Cape Girardeau District missionary work, having charge of Cape Girardeau and Perry County. He has a well improved farm of 128 acres in Bollinger County, but now resides in Longtown, Perry County.

He has traveled through the greater part of the United states and a part of Mexico, and is a member of Marble Hill Lodge No. 298, A. F. & A. M.

The Goodspeed Publishing Company compiled a series of histories of various counties in the U.S. in the late 19th century. The information in the History of Southeast Missouri, published in 1888, was provided by the contemporary residents of Perry County and her neighboring counties. The biographies are a valuable source of genealogical information, despite a few minor inaccuracies. We are glad to present the transcribed biographies here for anyone researching Perry County's history.