Centennial history of Arkansas, Part 17

Author: Herndon, Dallas T. (Dallas Tabor), b. 1878
Publication date: 1922
Publisher: Chicago, Little Rock, The S. J. Clarke publishing company
Number of Pages: 1172

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A. C. Tennant was educated in the country schools and was but a youth of fifteen years when the Civil war broke out which caused the closing of many schools and thus curtailed the educational advantages of Mr. Tennant and others in the neighborhood. The first school that he ever attended was held in one of the old-time log buildings with mud and stick chimney and slab seats. Following his father's death he inherited a part of the old homestead, which he afterward sold and later purchased his present farm. comprising one hundred and seventy acres of land. On this he has erected a beautiful frame residence, comfortable, commodious and tasteful in its arrangements. He devotes his attention to the raising of corn, oats and other grains and also fruit, having an orchard of twenty acres. He produces some of the finest apples raised in this section of the state and his ability as a horticulturist is widely recognized. He has also made a specialty of raising mules and the various branches of his business are proving to him a gratifying source of success.

On May 19, 1872, Mr. Tennant was married to Miss Mary E. Gray, who was born in Washington county, Arkansas, a daughter of Sanford F. and Elizabeth Gray, both of whom were natives of Tennessee, where they were reared and married. They came to Washington county in early life and here Mr. Gray followed the occupation of farming throughout his remaining days. He and his wife had a family of ten children, but only three are living: Mrs. Anna Simpson, a resident of Washington county; Mason F., living in Dodge City, Texas; and Mrs. Tennant. Three sons of the family were killed or died during the Civil war and two of these were wounded at the battle of Prairie Grove, dying from the effects of injuries there sustained.

Mr. and Mrs. Tennant have a family of eight children: Fannie, the wife of R. L. Garrison, who works in a planing mill at Spokane, Washington; Eva, at home; Edna, the wife of Walter Carl, a merchant of Prairie Grove; Lizzie, at home; James H., a carpenter of Fullerton, California; Thomas S., a resident of Oakland, Washington, where he is employed in ship building; Walter, at home; and Clara Schaffer, who died of influenza in 1919. Mr. and Mrs. Tennant are widely and favorably known in this section of the state. He is a democrat in politics and has served as constable and as a member of the school board. Fraternally he is a Mason, belonging to lodge and chapter and he has served as senior warden and as master in the lodge. He also served as king in the chapter and is recognized as a faithful follower of Masonic teachings. Both he and his wife are devoted members of the Presbyterian church and are highly esteemed by all who know them.

JUDGE FOSTER O. WHITE.

Judge Foster O. White, now occupying the bench of the county court of White county and making his home at Searcy, was born in Bald Knob township, this county, July 5, 1882. He is a son of H. C. and Cassie (Guthrie) White and a grandson of James White, who was a native of Alabama and there also owned and operated an extensive plantation, having a number of slaves. He lost everything, however, during the Civil war. He had two sons in the service, Bud and Perry, and the latter died of measles while held a captive. Bud was wounded in the leg and body and this rendered him a cripple for life. James White bought six hundred and forty acres of land near Judsonia, White county, Arkansas, which he had to clear, as it was then covered with timher. The place is now known as the Jim White farm and is mostly devoted to the cultivation of strawberries. He died in 1887 at the age of sixty-five years. The maternal grandfather was Samuel Guthrie, who was born in White county and became a farmer and prominent stock raiser, devoting his entire time to that business. One of the great-grandfathers of Judge White was Samuel White, who was born in Georgia and became the first connty judge of White county, Arkansas, settling here among the pioneers. He held four sessions of court per year and received a salary of but fifty

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dollars per year. While he held court at Searcy he made his home at Clearwater and in addition to serving in public office he engaged extensively in farming, remaining in White county to the time of his death.

The father of Judge White of this review was born in Alabama, October 7, 1851, and removed from that state to White county, Arkansas, in 1871, when a young man of twenty years. He followed farming and also engaged in construction work on the Iron Mountain Railroad from Newport to Texarkana, Arkansas, assisting in building all of the bridges. He, too, became actively interested in agricultural pursuits, pur- chasing land which he had to clear the timber from. In those days turkey, deer and wild g me of other kinds were plentiful and he has lived to witness many chinges wrought by time and man as the work of development and transformation has been carried steadily forward. He has devoted his life to general farming and stock raising and he now lives with his son, Judge White. His wife, who was born in White county, died at the comparatively early age of thirty-eight years. They were the parents of ten children, nine of whom are living: William H., of Little Rock, who is a train conductor on the Iron Mountain Railroad, having been in the service since 1900; Foster O., of this review; M. S., a bridge foreman on the Memphis division of the Iron Mountain Railroad; K. H., a locomotive engineer on the Missouri Pacific road; Eurah, who is the wife of Walter Mclaughlin, a farmer of Bald Knob township; Samuel, a conductor on the Iron Mountain Railroad, serving on the Memphis division; Rose, a bookkeeper with the Arkansas Electric Appliance Company of Little Rock; Dock, a brakeman on the Memphis division of the Iron Mountain Railroad; Mamie, the wife of Earn Cholendt, a brakeman on the Arkansas division of the Missouri Pacific; and one child who died in infancy. The mother was a member of the Baptist church, while Mr. White belongs to the Christian church and in politics has always been a democrat.

His son, Judge White, was educated in the public schools of his native county and remained on the home farm to the age of eighteen years, when he, too, began railroading, entering upon an apprenticeship in the bridge and building department of the Iron Mountain Railroad. He served in this way for six years and was connected with rail- roading altogether for about ten years. He then returned to Bald Knob township, where he began contracting on his own account, carrying on a general contracting business in White and adjoining counties. He was thus active until 1918, when he was elected county judge, taking the office in January, 1919. So creditable has heen his record on the bench that he was reelected for a second term without opposition. His decisions are strictly fair and impartial and his course has been a highly creditable one.

Judge White was married to Miss Elva L. Baker, who was born in White county, Arkansas, a daughter of Joseph Baker, who was one of the builders of the Iron Mountain Railroad and afterward ran trains over that line until 1892. He then turned his attention to farming and is now living with Judge and Mrs. White. This worthy couple have become the parents of six children: Lillian, Willie Maude, Foster O., Lorraine, H. C. and Opal, all at home. The parents are members of the reorganized church of the Latter-Day Saints, in which Judge White has served as elder and as president of the Bald Knob branch, also filling the office of branch elder. Fraternally he is con- nected with the Masonic lodge, with the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, with the Ancient Order of United Workmen and also with the Railroad Bridgemen, being one of the pioneers in the Brotherhood of Railroad Car Men. His has been an active and useful life and the sterling worth of his character has placed him high in the regard of his fellow townsmen.

HARVEY C. COUCH.

On the stage of business activity Harvey C. Couch occupies a central position. He may well be termed one of the captains of industry of Arkansas, by reason of the extent and importance of the interests which he controls, being now the president of the Arkansas Light & Power Company, making his home at Pine Bluff. The story of his career is the record of steady progression at the hand of one who has been master of himself and his environment, who has recognized and directed the develop- ment of his own powers and who has utilized his opportunities for the advancement of public welfare, as well as the attainment of individual prosperity. Mr. Couch is a native of Arkansas and his life record indeed reflects credit upon the history of the state. He was born at Magnolia, August 21, 1877, and is a son of Thomas G. and Manie (Heard) Couch. The Couch family is of Welsh extraction but was early established on American soil and several representatives of the family served in the colonial army during the Revolutionary war. Early representatives of the name settled in Virginia

HARVEY C. COUCH

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and others took up their abode in Georgia about 1810. The grandfather of Harvey C. Couch in the paternal line was a lieutenant in the Confederate army and his three brothers also served with the southern forces. The great-grandmother in the paternal line was in her maidenhood Rebecca Pierce, a relative of the distinguished Bishop Pierce. The first of the Couch family to come to Arkansas was William Couch, who with his four sons removed from Thomaston, Upson county, Georgia, to this state, arriving in the year 1853. The Heard family, of which Harvey C. Couch is a representative in the maternal line, comes of Scotch lineage and was early established in the vicinity of Augusta, Georgia. Thomas Heard, the grandfather, was a lieutenant colonel in the Confederate army and in days of peace devoted his life to the medical profession, prac- ticing in Georgia. He married Martha Cavin, who with her children came to Arkansas. settling in Magnolia, where she conducted one of the early inns of that locality. Gov- ernor Heard also came of the same ancestral line. Thus the natal strength of Welsh and Scotch blood flows in the veins of Harvey C. Couch, although the long connection of the families with the United States establishes them firmly as one hundred per cent American.

Harvey C. Couch, at the period when most boys are attending school, was earning his living by working on the hillside farm of his father in Columbia county. It was not until he had reached the age of seventeen years that he was able to attend school. other than the very poor rural schools of Columbia county. Although the family was in straitened financial circumstances, the parents made an effort to give each child some little opportunity of attending school but this chance did not come to Harvey C. Couch until 1894, when as one of his biographers said: "He entered the Magnolia public school, only to find himself embarrassed and almost discouraged from the fact that the other pupils of his age were so far ahead of him. This was really the turning point in his life, however, and Couch gives full credit to a country school teacher for whatever success has been his. It happened that this forty-dollars-per-month school teacher had recently graduated from college and, having been compelled to work his own way through school, had a sympathetic feeling for boys who had not had a fair chance. Through the advice and assistance of this young school teacher, who helped him during school hours and evenings, Harvey Couch was able to carry two grades at once, and at the end of the session had a general average of ninety-seven, being the highest in the school. The school teacher has succeeded along with Couch and while the former pupil is now head of one of the largest corporations of its kind in the entire southwest, the former country teacher is now governor of the great state of Texas-Hon. Pat M. Neff." Two years covered the entire period of Mr. Couch's school training, for serious illness in the family made it necessary for him again to con- tribute to the support of the household and he obtained a clerkship in a drug store in Magnolia at fifty-five cents per day. With his entrance into the business world he realized how necessary and how valuable is an education for young men who wish to succeed, and after seeing an advertisement in a magazine concerning a cor- respondence school he began studying through that method, notwithstanding his hours in the drug store were from 6:30 in the morning until 10 o'clock at night. He com- pleted the correspondence course and successfully passed a United States government examination for railway mail clerks with such a high rating that he was immediately given a position and sent to St. Louis. The other mail clerks had considerable fun at the expense of the "green" country hoy, but he applied himself with such diligence and capability to his tasks that after a short time he was made clerk in charge, thus being promoted ahead of those who had found him amusing by lack of his experience of city life and customs.

After a time Harvey C. Couch was transferred to a run between Memphis and Texarkana, where he became greatly interested in the building of a long distance telephone line along the right-of-way of the Cotton Belt road. From early boyhood he had been interested in things mechanical and he evolved the idea of establishing a telephone system in some small town. He had no time on his run between Memphis and Texarkana, however, to visit the smaller towns in search of a favorable location to launch such an enterprise and he, therefore, sought a transfer to a little run between McNeil, Arkansas, and Bienville, Louisiana, the latter place being a village of six hundred population without telegraph or telephone service and with only one mail a day. He paid the sum of fifty dollars to the clerk on that run to make the exchange and this practically exhausted his savings. After considerable persuasion he induced the· village postmaster to assist him in promoting a telephone line but as neither of them had any capital, they sold coupons for telephone service in advance and thus succeeded in raising one hundred dollars. Wire was purchased on sixty days' time from a hardware traveling salesman with whom Mr. Couch had long been acquainted and their one hundred dollars was invested in the construction of twelve miles of tele- phone line between Bienville and Arcadia, trees being used for the poles. The

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receipts during the first two months were only sufficient to pay for the wire but after that they began to build additional lines through the means of selling service coupons in advance. The business grew rapidly and at the end of the first year the country postmaster "decided that the plan of extensions would eventually bust the whole concern" and he sold out to Mr. Couch, accepting his note for one thousand dollars. It was then that Mr. Couch secured the cooperation of Dr. H. A. Longino of Magnolia, who made an investment of fifteen hundred dollars in the enterprise and loaned Mr. Couch an equal sum. The turning point was thus passed and within eight years Mr. Couch sold the business to the Southwestern Bell Telephone system for more than one million, five hundred thousand dollars. Naturally while engaged in the develop- ment of this mammoth enterprise Mr. Couch was also studying the question of other public utilities and believed that success could be won in combining various public utilities into one immense business enterprise. Accordingly he interested his asso- ciates in the electric light and power business, purchasing the plants at Malvern, Arkadelphia, Camden and Magnolia and organizing them into the Arkansas Light & Power Company. His vision reached a practical fulfillment when at the end of the first year it was learned that the gross income amounted to seventy-five thousand dollars, while in 1920 it was in excess of two million dollars. At the beginning the largest engine in use was one hundred and fifty horse power, while today the largest owned by the corporation is eighty-five hundred horse power. The Bankers Trust News in a biography of Mr. Couch, speaking of his business career, said: "From the four plants originally owned, the Arkansas Light & Power Company, with its allied cor- porations, has grown to be one of the largest of its kind in the entire southwest and supplies light and power to more than one hundred thousand people, including not only the third largest city in the state of Arkansas but thousands of families in the rural districts. The largest unit of this great company is located at Pine Bluff and cost in excess of one million dollars. From this one plant alone is supplied light, power, water and transportation to the people of Pine Bluff; and light and power to the citi- zens of Altheimer, Wabaseka, Humphrey, Stuttgart, DeWitt, England, Sherrill, Tucker, Lonoke, Carlisle, Scotts, and even to the Dixie Cotton Oil Mills of North Little Rock, as well as to more than two hundred rice irrigation wells, cotton gins, cotton oil mills and other industries in the surrounding country. Over the four hundred and seventy-five miles of copper strands radiating from the central stations of this com- pany is sent the energy utilized to produce, manufacture, mill or mine practically every need of man; rice, cotton, corn, wheat, cottonseed oil, water, lumbrw, coal, steel, and even-buttons. The latest acquisition of this company was the Picron power plant, erected by the government in East Little Rock during the war. This company also operates many independent plants all over the state, and it is the intention of Mr. Couch to eventually connect all of these plants into one great system, building very large modern power houses that will enable his company to place these modern con- veniences where they may be available to hundreds of thousands of Arkansas people who do not now have such advantages. Starting without an education, without resources, and practically without friends, it occurs to me that the secret of the success of H. C. Couch lies in his determination, honesty, and the happy faculty of making friends of all those with whom he comes in contact. Through all his busi- ness life he has had the implicit confidence of business men and banks, and has successfully weathered many financial storms, and he is perhaps better known today in the great financial centers of the east than any other Arkansas man. In 1906 a railway mail clerk, today president of one of the largest corporations of its kind in the southwest, director in two of the leading banks in the state of Arkansas, and interested in many other financial enterprises-Can you beat it?" Mr. Couch has been the president of the Arkansas Light & Power Company throughout the period of its existence and the success of the undertaking is the direct outcome of his en- terprise, his far vision, his progressiveness and his indefatigable energy.

In his home life, too, Mr. Couch is most happily situated. He wedded Jessie John- son, a daughter of W. M. Johnson of Athens, Louisiana, and five children, four sons and a daughter, have been horn of this marriage: Johnson, Harvey, Kirke, Catherine and Verne. Mr. Couch is a Mason, belonging to the blue lodge, chapter and con- sistory and also to the Mystic Shrine. His interest in the moral development of the community is shown in his membership in the Methodist Episcopal church, South, in which he is serving as a steward, and in the fact that he is a state trustee of the Young Men's Christian Association. He is likewise a member and chairman of. the board of directors of the Henderson-Brown College and is president of the Chamber of Commerce at Pine Bluff, while during the war he served as United States fuel ad- ministrator for Arkansas. He has ever been actuated by a most progressive spirit and he erected the first radiophone broadcasting station in Arkansas at Pine Bluff, giving regular radiophone programs. Any feature of stable progress and improve-

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ment elicits his attention and wins his support, especially if it contributes to the gen- eral upbuilding and advancement of the community. He is one of the most prominent residents of Pine Bluff and his labors have always been of a character that have advanced the public welfare as well as his individual interests. He may well be called a human dynamo, a captain of industry, or any other term that indicates wonderful creative power intelligently directed. The point is that he started out with almost every handicap but he has arrived and is today accounted one of the foremost busi- ness men in his native state.

GEORGE W. BARHAM.

One of the prominent and successful attorneys of Blytheville is George W. Barham, who has engaged in the general practice of his profession here since 1919. He was horn near Hornersville, Dunklin county, Missouri, on the 25th of February, 1876, a son of Jonathan R. and Mary E. (Hickman) Barham. On the paternal side he is of English and Scotch descent, while his mother's ancestors came from Ireland. The father, J. R. Barham, whose demise occurred in 1907, at the age of sixty-four years, was for many years prominent in the public life of Missouri. He was horn in South Carolina, but reared in Tennessee, where he received his education and enlisted from that state for service in the Confederate army in the Civil war, during which he served as a lieutenant of cavalry. Directly after the war he came to Mississippi county, Arkansas, and resided here until two years later, when he came to Missouri and engaged in black- smithing and wagon-making, also farming, near Bloomfield, that state. He achieved substantial success and was soon called to public office, being elected sheriff of Stoddard county in 1888. He was active in that capacity four years, at the termination of that time taking over the office of county collector for a like period. He was one of the public-spirited and progressive citizens of the community in which he resided and was an influential factor in the upbuilding of both the county and state. His demise, on July 24, 1907, caused a feeling of deep bereavement to sweep the communities in which he was so well known. At Union City, Tennessee, soon after the Civil war Mr. Barham was married to Miss Mary E. Hickman, who survives her husband and is living in Bloomfield, at the age of sixty-eight years. She was born and reared in Tennessee. To the union of Mr. and Mrs. Barham ten children were horn, five boys and five girls, and four of the boys and three of the girls are living.

In the acquirement of his education George W. Barham attended the common schools of Bloomfield, Missouri, and after graduating from the eighth grade he became assistant in his father's office. He was active in that capacity for four years when he became deputy in the collector's office, the collector being his father, and at the termination of that time he hecame bookkeeper for the Goff Mercantile Company of Desloge, Missouri. He remained with that concern until 1902, when he became traveling salesman for the Nicholas Sharff & Sons Grocery Company of St. Louis, an association he maintained until 1907. He then assisted in the organization of the Norwine Coffee Company of St. Louis, serving as vice president and a director until 1912, when he severed his relations with that firm and took up the study of law, attending night school at the City College of Law, and during the day working as assistant sales manager for D. A. Blanton & Company of that city. The LL. B. degree was conferred upon him in 1916. He came to Mississippi county and located at Manila, where he practiced with substantial success until 1919. In that year he came to Blytheville and he has practiced here since, having built up an extensive and lucrative clientage, handling much important litigation before the courts. His practice has been chiefly civil. Since coming here he has gained for himself an enviable position among the leading attorneys of the county and has made many stanch friends.

Mr. Barham has been twice married. His first marriage was celebrated at Bloom- field, Missouri, on the 27th of December, 1897, when Miss Anna Casey, a daughter of J. J. and Mollie Casey, prominent residents of that community, became his wife. She was the granddaughter of Zadoc Casey, one of the well known charcters in the Black Hawk war. To the union of Mr. and Mrs. Barham two children were born: Earl Bruce, twenty years of age, who is now attending the Morgan School, Petersburg, Tennessee, is in his junior year and is completing a literary course; and Gladys May, seventeen years of age, is attending the junior high school at Blytheville. Mrs. Barham's demise occurred on the 12th of February, 1907, when she was in her twenty-fifth year. At Farmington, Missouri, on the 4th of May, 1912, occurred the marriage of Mr. Barham to Miss Lula M. Conts, a daughter of J. D. and Mary E. Conts, well known residents of that community. To the second union one child has been born, which died in infancy

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Centennial history of Arkansas, Part 17

Author: Herndon, Dallas T. (Dallas Tabor), b. 1878 Publication date: 1922 Publisher: Chicago, Little Rock, The S. J. Clarke publishing company Number of Pages: 1172

Author: Herndon, Dallas T. (Dallas Tabor), b. 1878
Publication date: 1922
Publisher: Chicago, Little Rock, The S. J. Clarke publishing company
Number of Pages: 1172