Family moved to Foster, Bracken County, Kentucky, in 1843 and then to Effingham County, Illnois. In 1859 moved back to Kentucky when his mother died in a859. Later that year he followed two of his brothers (J. W. and Drury) to Missouri, settling in Utica. Soon John and a friend, George Stone, rented land from George’s father and grew tobacco. Being a Southern sympathizer, John left missouri in 1862 to avoid the Union draft and returned to Kentucky where in 1863 he was appointed a deputy sheriff in Grant County, Kentucky. Later, when his brother was elected as state legislator, making John immune from the draft, John return to Utica.