James Moranville was born in Perry County, Mo., in 1853, and is a son of Jerome and Elizabeth (Hayden) Moranville. Jerome Moranville was also born in Perry County, Mo., in 1825.

His father, John B. Moranville, was a native of France, who was born in 1790, and sent to America in 1804. He was educated in Baltimore, Md., by his uncle, John Francis Moranville, who was a Roman Catholic priest. After finishing his education he was bound to some monks to learn a trade. They took him to St. Louis, Mo., where he learned the carpenter trade, remaining with the monks until he was twenty-one years of age.

About this time, the Black Hawk War broke out, and he enlisted, and served a few months, after which he came to Perry County, Mo., and commenced work on St. Mary�s Seminary, which was then in process of erection. He soon after married and settled on the farm now owned by Vincent Seemes, being one of the first Frenchmen to locate in the county. He died in 1872? He married Susan Manning, a native of Maryland. Her father, Joseph Manning, was born in Baltimore, and was a son of Mark Manning, a direct descendant of Lord Baltimore.

Joseph Manning came to Perry County about 1802, and settled on the farm now owned by C. J. Pecaut. Susan Moranville died in 1860?, and was the mother of nine children by her marriage with John B. Moranville, Jerome being the fourth child. By a previous marriage with Thomas Seemes, another pioneer settler of Perry County, she was the mother of two children.

Jerome grew to manhood on his father�s farm, and in 1852 married Elizabeth Hayden, who was born in 1828 on the farm where she now lives. She is a daughter of Thomas Hayden, a native of Ireland, who came to America and located in Perry County about 1820. Jerome Moranville and wife have three children, James, Thomas, and Mary, a sister of Charity in a convent in New York.

Jerome Moranville is a highly esteemed citizen and a successful farmer. He has resided on his present farm for the past thirty-six years. His son, James, married Rosa T. Dean. She and her husband are members of the Catholic Church. He is a Democrat in politics.

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.