USA > Arkansas > Historical review of Arkansas : its commerce, industry and modern affairs > Part 27
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CHARLES W. SMITH. For the past three decades has Judge Charles W. Smith been engaged in the practice of law in Arkansas. five years at Eldorado, Union county, and the remainder of the time at Camden, Onachita county, where he has resided since 1894. His prominence as a legal practitioner extends far beyond the limits of Ouachita county, and he holds prestige as one of the leading attorneys in this section of the state.
Judge Smith was born in Union eonnty, Arkansas. on the 20th of June. 1854, and he is a son of Joel Smith, whose birth occurred in Wilcox county, Alabama, on the 3d of April, 1818. Joel Smith came to Arkansas with his parents in 1829. at which time he was a lad of eleven years of age. The first night after their arrival in this state the Smith family camped near where Junction City now stands. on the site of a recently abandoned Indian village. Subsequently location was made on the "Flats." three miles southwest of Eldorado, where they
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remained a few years and whenee they later removed to a traet of land seven miles south of Eldorado, where a permanent home was estab- lished. On that plantation Joel Smith lived and died and there the sub- ject of this review was born and reared. The place is now owned and occupied by the children of Joel Smith. Prior to the Civil war it com- prised some three or four thousand acres of land and at the close of the war about forty slaves were liberated. The father was a man of considerable wealth and in addition to his extensive plantation interests he owned and conducted at different times several general stores-one at Eldorado, one at Blanchard Springs and one on his own estate. In August, 1837, was solemnized the marriage of Joel Smith to Miss Mary MeLelland, who was born and reared in Hempstead county, Arkansas. To this union were born twelve children, seven of whom are living in 1911. The father was summoned to the life eternal on the 2nd of Sep- tember, 1883, and his cherished and devoted wife, who long survived him, passed away on the 13th of September, 1910, at the venerable age of eighty-nine years.
Judge Smith was reared to the sturdy discipline of the home plan- tation and his early education consisted of such advantages as were afforded in the public schools of the locality and period, this training being later supplemented by a course of study in Washington & Lee University, at Lexington, Virginia, in which well ordered institution he was graduated as a member of the class of 1879, with the degrees of Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Laws. He inaugurated the practice of his profession at Eldorado, Union county, Arkansas, in 1880, and in that place served for four years, with efficiency, as county and probate judge. In 1886 he was elected judge of the Thirteenth judicial eireuit of Arkansas and was four times re-elected to that office, remaining in tenure thereof until 1906. During sixteen years of that period he was also chancellor. Judge Smith has been the attorney in many important litigated eases and he holds a rare reputation as judge, very few of his decisions having ever been reversed. He is a man of straightforward and honorable principles and his entire career will bear the searchlight of fullest investigation. In polities he endorses the cause of the Demo- cratie party, in the local councils of which he has even been an active and interested factor and he is affiliated with various professional and fraternal organizations of representative character. He and his wife are devout members of the Presbyterian church, and they hold a high place in the regard of their fellow citizens.
On the 5th of December, 1894, was solemnized the marriage of Judge Smith to Miss Sula Dunn, a daughter of James S. Dunn, a pio- neer settler in Calhoun county, Arkansas. To this union has been born one son, Randolph T. B. Smith, who is now twelve years old.
FRED W. SNETSER. Noteworthy among the brainy, energetic and enterprising men of Lee county who have achieved success in journal- istic fields is Fred W. Snetser, widely and favorably known as editor and proprietor of the Marianna Index, a bright and newsy sheet, with an extensive circulation. Born in Ohio, he was brought by his parents to eastern Arkansas as a child, and was here bred and educated.
Spending his early life in White and Woodruff counties, Mr. Snet- ser served an apprenticeship at the printer's trade in Searcy, where he became familiar with every branch of the "art preservative." In 1896 Mr. Snetser purchased from Frank P. Ake the Marianna Index, which was established in 1874 by Thomas & Benham, and has since been one of the popular Democratie papers of Lee county. Under its present
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management this paper exerts a wide influence, giving to the reading publie the latest news in a condensed form and intelligent views of the world's doings, Mr. Snetser's expressed opinions on current events being full of wisdom and thought.
Mr. Snetser is also an able business man as well as an influential journalist, being a stockholder in the Bank of Marianna and in the Marianna Wholesale Grocery Company. A talented and accomplished musician, he is a skilful cornet player, and is musical director of the Marianna Commercial Club band, a musical organization in which the city may well take great pride.
ELAM H. STEVENSON, M. D., a well known physician and one of the organizers and twice president of the Arkansas State Eclectic Medical Association, was born near Pulaski, Giles county, Tennessee, and was there reared and given his primary education. He studied medicine in the Eclectic Medical Institute at Cincinnati, Ohio, where he was graduated with the class of 1879. He began the practice of his profession in Shelby county, near Memphis, Tennessee, and in 1880 removed to Beebe, Arkan- sas, where he practiced in association with his father-in-law, Dr. Wyatt Slaughter, till 1882. In 1883 Dr. Stevenson took up his residence at Fort Smith, where he won great success.
In 1880, in the office of Drs. Slaughter and Stevenson at Beebe, he and Dr. Slaughter and Dr. Pruett of Russellville, Dr. Park of Cabot, Dr. John S. Eastland of Judsonia, and Dr. M. F. Dumas of Bald Knob organized the Arkansas State Eclectic Medical Association. Dr. Steven- son has been twice chosen to its presidency and three times to its secre- taryship. There are now about two hundred and fifty eclectic physicians in the state, and about one hundred and fifty of them are enrolled in this association, which is in a flourishing condition. Dr. Stevenson is a mem- ber and an ex-president of the Arkansas State Board of Medical Ex- aminers representing the Eclectic school. He is a Past Grand Master of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows of the Grand Lodge of Arkansas.
Dr. Stevenson is president of the board of trustees of the Central Methodist Episcopal church South, of Fort Smith, which position he has held by repeated re-election since the organization of that body. He was a leading spirit in founding the church and one of its constituent members. Mrs. Stevenson was Miss Martha C. Slaughter, who was born and reared in Shelby county, Tennessee. She is a daughter of Dr. Wyatt Slaughter, mentioned above. Dr. Stevenson's son, Dr. J. Eugene Steven- son, is associated with him in the practice of medicine. There are also two younger sons-Wyatt and Vincent Stevenson.
GEORGE W. HAYS. Possessing veritable legal talent and high men- tal attainments, George W. Hays, of Camden, has acquired distinction as one of the leading members of the Arkansas bar, and is widely and favorably known as judge of the Thirteenth Judicial Circuit. A native of Onachita county, he was born September 23, 1863, six miles south of Camden, on the farm of his father, Thomas Hays, and there grew to manhood.
Thomas Hays was born and bred in Alabama, and as a young man embarked in agricultural pursuits in Mississippi. Not entirely satisfied with his prospects in that state, he came, in 1840, to Onachita county, Arkansas, in search of a favorable location. Buying land south of Cam- den, he continued his career as a farmer, and there resided until his death, in 1873. He married Mrs. Parthena Ross, a native of Kentucky, and of the six children born of their union Judge Hays was the second in succession of birth.
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Obtaining his rudimentary education in the public schools of Ouachita county, George W. Hays subsequently began his preparation for a legal career at Washington & Lee University, Lexington, Vir- ginia. He afterwards continned the study of law at Camden, Arkansas, in the office of Gaughan & Sifford, and after his admission to the bar, in 1894, remained in their office for three years, gaining valuable knowl- edge and experience. Opening an office of his own in 1897, he con- tinued the practice of his profession alone for some time, winning suc- cess, his patronage becoming extensive and lucrative. Permitting his name to be used as a candidate for the county judgeship in 1900, he was elected, and after serving ably for two terms in that capacity resumed his legal practice. In 1906 Judge Hays was elected circuit judge, and at the expiration of his term was re-elected to the same office without opposition, and is now serving his second term as judge of the Thir- teenth Judicial District.
The judge is prominent in various fraternal organizations, being a member of the Knights of Pythias, the Woodmen of the World, the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, and belonging also to the Masonic Order, a member of the lodge and chapter, and belonging to the Order of the Eastern Star.
Judge Hays married, February 26, 1895, Ida V. Yarbrough, of Ouachita county, and they have two children, George Grady and Wil- liam Francis.
JUDGE JOHN NEWTON TILLMAN, president of the Arkansas State University at Fayetteville, is counted among the state's most valuable and progressive men. An eminent representative of the bench and bar, his eloquence and fearlessness have made him the invincible champion of various good causes, such as prohibition, law enforcement and the best available education. By the circumstance of birth this gentleman is a native of Missouri, being born near Springfield, that state, December 13, 1859. His father, Newton J. Tillman, was born near Shelbyville, Tennessee, in 1833, and passed his life as a farmer. The latter was a man of good education, active mentality, and he was an influential citi- zen of his day and locality. During the Civil war he was a soldier of the Confederacy in the army of General Price, his conscientious conviction of the supreme right of the states to sever their union with the national government leading him to give his influence and support to the lost cause. He served in the Trans-Mississippi department and was seri- ously wounded in battle. He was a member of the Christian church, and he died in Washington county, Arkansas.
Newton J. Tillman was a son of Samuel Tillman, of North Caro- lina, and the scion of a family prominent in the annals of the Revolu- tionary war. One of his remote forbears was the ancestor of the Till- mans who have made the name famous among American statesmen, jurists and educators, serving in the halls of congress, in university work, on the bench and in the gubernatorial capacity. Testimony, ample and conclusive, of the Colonial origin of the family is preserved in records in the archives of the Carolinas. Newton J. Tillman married Mary Mullins, a daughter of Judge Thomas Mullins, who was a jurist of Washington county for many years after the period of the Civil war. He, as well as his father, was born within the borders of North Caro- lina. Mrs. Tillman passed away in 1877, and her husband followed her to the Great Beyond in 1896, having survived her for almost a score of years. The children of their union were Judge Tillman, whose name initiates this review; Annie, a teacher in the public schools of Fayette-
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ville, who married Francis M. Boyd; Emma, who became the wife of Fred Rotan ; and Samuel Tillman, who died in young manhood.
Judge Tilhnan's parents removed to Fayetteville, Arkansas, when he was a child and he received his early education in the public schools and supplemented this with attendance at the University of Arkansas, from which institution he was graduated in 1880. He received the de- gree of Bachelor of Latin Letters and his first adventure as a wage earner was as a teacher in the public schools of Washington county. He continued in that pedagogical capacity three years, and for the years included between 1881 and 1883 was county examiner of teachers in Washington county. While teaching he pursued the study of law, which his natural proclivities had led him to adopt as a life profession, and ere he had abandoned his other profession he was admitted to the bar, in February, 1883, before Judge Pittman.
Judge Tilhnan began his eminently ereditable public life as a county officer of Washington county, being elected circuit clerk in 1884 and serving four years in that office. In 1888 he was elected to the state senate and served four years, advocating means and measures favorable to the University and by his elever statesmanship securing the repeal of some of the laws which hampered the growth of the school. From 1893-5 he was a trustee of the University and as such showed rare executive ability which commended him to the trustees as a proper head for the chief institution in the educational scheme of the state.
Following his service in the state senate Judge Tillman was elected prosecuting attorney for the Fourth Judicial District and filled the office from 1892 to 1898. In the following year he was made judge of the Fourth Judicial Circuit and during his term he rendered valuable service to his state by his enlightened interpretation of the laws and by his vigorous and effective stand for the enforcement of the laws against crime. The liquor laws of the state were strongly upheld and the illicit traffic in whiskey in his circuit was broken up. He is the author of the decision which declared the holding of a Federal license prima facie evidence of guilt and sufficient to warrant indictment of the holder as a violator of the law, which decision was upheld upon appeal to the higher courts.
After leaving the bench Judge Tillman took an active part in the creation of prohibition sentiment and made many speeches and ad- dresses in behalf of prohibition temperance and clean living. In addi- tion to his many other attainments he is a practical orator, schooled in all the principles of platform address, rich and fluent of speech and possessing the rare ability to baptise himself in his subject and carry his audience with him to each climax. He has lectured extensively on Chautauqua and Lyceum courses in Arkansas and adjoining states. IIe is also a writer of taste and talent, and as a welcome contributor of fie- tion io high class magazines his pen is kept busy. Few men have a more varied pulpit for the dissemination of enlightened and progressive opinion than he-being equally far-reaching through the press, the platform, and a great educational institution.
Judge Tilhuan accepted the presidency of the Arkansas Univer- sity in 1905, and he brought to the institution the rare gift of great executive ability, native enthusiasm and all the ripe experience of a scholar and publie man. In a word, the notable achievements of his administration are the development of the college of agriculture: the raising of the entrance requirements; and the abolition of the prepara- tory department. He found the University a "preparatory school" and he made it a real university. During his regime there has been a large
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increase both in the faculty and in the enrollment, the former growing from forty-six in 1904 to ninety in 1908, in the same time the attend- ance increasing from eight hundred and ten to eleven hundred and sixty- three. He has greatly popularized and extended this institution of learning and made it one of the greatest in the South.
On March 4, 1885, Judge Tillman was united in marriage to Miss Tempy Walker, daughter of Martin K. Walker, who was a brother of Chief Justice Walker of the Supreme Court of Arkansas. Their chil- dren are John W., Frederick A. and Kathleen. Their residence in Fay- etteville is the abode of refinement and hospitality and the center abont which the social life of the student body and faculty revolve.
Judge Tillman is affiliated actively with all the chief educational movements of his state and the nation. He is a member of the State Teachers' Association and of the National Educational Association. He is likewise a member of the executive committee of the National Asso- ciation of State Universities, a most important organization. He is a prominent and popular figure in the Masonic world, being a member of the Blue Lodge ( Washington No. 1), the oldest lodge in the state, and he belongs to Far West Chapter, No. 1. He is affiliated with the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, subordinate and "eamp," and is supreme representative of the Grand Lodge. Knights of Pythias, of Arkansas. In the matter of religious convietion he is a member of the Baptist church and is a trustee of the Fayetteville congregation. Politi- eally he is a member of the Democratic party.
It is in the concensus of opinion that President Tillman is a strong executive, one of the University's great presidents. In him is found a splendid commingling of the praetieal and the ideal. which has already worked wonders for the institution at whose head he has been for many years. The honor of being chosen for the presidency of an alma mater in which he had always displayed an active and loyal interest was nn- expected and unsolicited. In 1907 the University of Mississippi eon- ferred upon him the degree of LL. D.
REVEREND J. WADE SIKES. A prominent figure among the substan- tial and revered citizens of Benton county, Rev. J. Wade Sikes, of Rog- ers, belongs to the pioneer class, and his name is inseparably interwoven with the history and development of this part of the state. Sincerely devout in his convictions and a zealous worker in the Master's vineyard, his infinence has been potent and effective in the making of a righteous citizenship, his entire life having been lived in true accord with his professions of Christian fellowship. For upwards of forty-five years he has taught the word of God and preached the Orthodox faith, and now, when the shades of night are gathering gently about him, he is spending his closing years in sweet content among his friends, whose number is limited only by the boundaries of his broad acquaintance. Ile was born October 2, 1828, in Perry county, Alabama, eighteen miles North of Selma, a son of Robert Sikes.
Ilis paternal grandfather, Thomas A. Sikes, was born of English parentage. They immigrated to the United States in Colonial times and he served as a soldier in the Revolutionary army, assisting the colon- ists in their struggle for independence. Ile subsequently married a fair Freneh lady and settled in Tennessee, where both spent their remaining days, his death oeenrring in Rutherford county, and hers in Bedford eonnty. They became the parents of nine children, as follows: Jessie. Jonas, John, Robert, Susan, who married JJames Rogers; Rebecca, who
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became the wife of Josiah Springer; Elizabeth, who married a Mr. West; Pollie, who married James Harrison; and one other daughter.
Robert Sikes was born in 1793, in Tennessee, on the parental home- stead. Succeeding to the occupation of his father, he was employed as a tiller of the soil during his active life, living in Perry county, Alabama, until the death of his wife, in 1836, when he returned to Tennessee. He afterwards took up his residence in Arkansas, and died at the point where Rogers is now located, in Benton county, in 1856. He married Elizabeth Bledsoe, who died in Perry county, Alabama, in 1836. To them five children were born, as follows: Benjamin F., who died in Rogers, Arkansas, was for many years one of its leading citizens; Sa- mantha, deceased, married first Kenneth Deason, second a Mr. Bray, and married third Steve Adkinson; Rev. J. Wade, the special subject of this personal review; T. W., now living near Rogers; and Martha, wife of John L. Booth, deceased.
J. Wade Sikes spent the days of his hoyhood and youth in Bedford county, Tennessee, where he had but scant educational advantages, gain- ing a portion of his knowledge by the light thrown from cedar wood burning in the cheery, old-fashioned fireplace of pioneer days. By sturdy application to his books he attained sufficient proficiency to en- able him to take his plaee as an instructor in the schoolroom, a profes- sion which he followed a few years, in the meantime attending for a few months the Unionville Academy.
In 1853, when in the prime of a vigorous manhood, Mr. Sikes, in company with his father, his brother Benjamin, and a cousin, Thomas Sikes, journeyed overland from Tennessee to Benton county, Arkansas. All but he returned a short time later to their old home. He remained, and, finding the door of opportunity open to him in a professional capacity, he gathered together a few pupils for a term of subscription school in the old Jefferson school house, one and one-half miles east of Bentonville. He subsequently taught for a time at the Shelton Acad- cmy, in Pea Ridge, but was afterwards there engaged as a merchant and a farmer. In the late "fifties," during the excitement caused by the finding of gold at Pike's Peak, Mr. Sikes formed one of a party raised in Benton county to go across the plains to that Eldorado. He took with him several cows, with which he expected to coin money as a dairyman, but on reaching Fort Dodge, Kansas, the little band found so many re- turning from the Peak with discouraging reports of the situation there that the company, in spite of the protests of Mr. Sikes, decided to aban- don the trip and return home.
At the outbreak of the Civil war Mr. Sikes joined Company D, Second Arkansas Mounted Rifles, under Captain Arrington and Col- onel McIntosh, and served under command of General Mccullough. During the first year he aeted as orderly sergeant of his company with- out being appointed, and met his first baptism of fire at Wilson Creek, near Springfield, Missouri. His next fight of note was at Elkhorn ( Pea Ridge), in a contest which was a "home and fireside" eontest with him, as it took place on ground which he had called his home for years and which was participated in by many of his neighbors as well as by him- self. Mr. Sikes was subsequently promoted to the rank of lieutenant, and later in the war was commissioned as captain. The whole command was transferred east of the Mississippi river and sent to Kentucky under command of General E. Kirby Smith. His regiment fought in the bat- tle of Richmond, but Lieutenant Sikes missed the fight at Murfrees- boro, having heen detailed from his company to return home with money for the families of the enlisted soldiers. Afterward, while before
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Chickamauga, he was detailed to command a guard to the tunnel through which General Longstreet's Army corps was to pass under the mountain, and reached the field of carnage just after the famous battle had ended.
The Confederate forces began a stubborn retreat toward Atlanta in the spring of 1864, and for upwards of three months fighting was an every-day affair. The nearer to Atlanta the Federals pushed the fiercer grew the fighting, and the "stubborn retreat" became "Southern resistance." On July 20, 1864, in a charge of the Federal entrench- ments, Lieutenant Sikes displayed marked daring and bravery by grasp- ing the regimental colors as they were falling from the hand of a wounded comrade and planting them upon the works of the enemy. at the same moment perceiving a Federal gun leveled at him, the gun, however, for some reason failing to lay him low. Eight days later, while fighting on the left of the city, a rifle ball entered the Lieutenant's left arm and shattered it, compelling, in the field hospital that day, ampu- tation of the arm above the elbow.
Upon that fateful day the slaughter of men of the Second Arkan- sas was great and comrades were being piled up, awaiting surgical and spiritual attention. Lientenant Sikes, although himself awaiting his turn at the operating table, found work to do in behalf of comrades whose lives were going out. In looking after the spiritual needs of the company, even while his arm was still dangling from his shoulder, he became an intercessor before the Throne of Grace in behalf of the men dying about him, appealing fervently to his Maker that those who died, as it were, upon the field of battle. might find peace and welcome with their Lord. Among those mortally wounded that day was Colonel Smith. Being advised that he had but a short time to live, the Colonel, too, raised his voice in appeal to his companion, asking the Lientenant to pray for him and to comfort him in his passage through the valley of death. Having had his arm amputated, Lieutenant Sikes was in the hospital at Macon, Georgia, until able to travel. He started homeward, but encountered such difficulties in getting through that he did not reach Benton county until June, 1865.
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