John Cardwell Bull (1812 - 1898)

Eliza Sprigg Payne (1819 - 1905)

John Cardwell Bull's father, Robert Bull, was born in Thomastown, County Kilkenny, Ireland, and left with his brother in 1796 to come to America.  They arrived in Baltimore, where Robert was apprenticed to a cordage manufacturer.  He learned the trade well, became superintendant of the plant, and eventually moved to Kentucky where he established the cordage manufacturing firm of Simon Welch & Co.  On 1 February 1810 Robert was married to Martha O'Kelly Cardwell in Shelbyville, Kentucky.  (There is a strong family tradition that martha's mother, Sarah McGehee, was descended from Scotland's notorious Rob Roy, but that is another story.)  John Cardwell Bull was their second child, born in Shelbyville in 1812.  He grew up there and was first married to mary Tandy in 1833, but she died only two years later.  After his wife's death, John left Kentucky, living in Vicksburgh, Mississippi, but returned home when his father became fatally ill.  Back in Kentucky, he married again.

His second wife was Eliza Sprigg Payne, the daughter of John Payne, who had been admitted to the Kentucky Bar in 1809, and his wife, Letitia Whiteman.  She was born at their large home on the bank of the Ohio River in Augusta, Kentucky, on 20 February 1819.  Just before her twenty-first birthday, on 15 January 1840, she married John Cardwell Bull in her home town.  Their travels during the early years of their marriage can be traced through the places of birth of their children.  Their first son was born in December of 1840 in Vicksburg, Mississippi.  Their next two children were born in Augusta, Kentucky, in 1843 and 1845.  Next, another son was born in Shelbyville, Kentucky, in 1847.  And in 1850, their first daughter was born in St. Louis, Missouri.

When he moved to St. Louis in the late 1840's, John C. Bull established himself in the business of manufacturing rope and bagging.  He was a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church for seventy-three years.  John C. Bull died in St. Louis on 13 March 1898 at the age of 85.  His death was noted in an article in the St. Louis Globe newspaper the following day.  At the time of his death he had been a resident of the city of St. Louis for over fifty years.  Eliza died in St. Louis  in her 85th year on 22 January 1905.