USA > Arkansas > Historical review of Arkansas : its commerce, industry and modern affairs > Part 39
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To the high school at Jamestown is Albert Sims indebted for his edneation, and after finishing his studies therein he began his activi- ties in the actual world of affairs as a teacher in the common schools. Ile followed the work for five years .- from the age of sixteen to twenty- one,-and for two years during that period was county examiner of Independence county. In 1904 he coneluded his very satisfactory serv- ices as a pedagogne and aceepted the deputyship under County Clerk Burton Arnold, and in evidence of the strong hold he had gained upon popular confidenec and esteem he was two years afterward cleeted county clerk. Ile was re-elected again in 1908 and served. in all, four years.
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On May 30, 1909, Mr. Sims became a recruit to the ranks of Bene- diets, Miss Annie Woods, daughter of Newton Woods, becoming his bride at Conway, Arkansas. Mr. and Mrs. Sims have one child, Char- lotte Evelyn, born on the 17th day of August, 1910.
In his fraternal affiliations Mr. Sims is a Mason, a member of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows and of the Knights of Pythias. In the latter order he represented his Lodge and he is a past chancellor of the Batesville lodge. He is past noble grand of the Odd Fellows, has been a representative to Grand Lodge and was appointed a member of the board of trustees of the Odd Fellows Orphans' Home. He is very popular and prominent in fraternal eireles.
DR. MOSBY C. WEAVER, of Batesville, was for many years identi- fied with the medical profession of Arkansas, and after nearly ten years of strenuous activity he abandoned it for a commercial career. He is the proprietor of one of the extensive general merchandise houses of Batesville and has other important mercantile interests tributary to the city.
Dr. Weaver was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, July 31, 1855, and accompanied his mother to Batesville four years later and in this town his early life was passed. His father was Abram Weaver, a native of Chester Valley, Pennsylvania, a gentleman of splendid education, a practitioner of the law and a business man of varied affairs. During the war of the rebellion he resided in Memphis, Tennessee, but he was Union in sentiment despite his Confederate surroundings. He was a lawyer by profession and while in Memphis he practiced his pro- fession and at the same time engaged also in real-estate dealings. In post-bellum days he removed to Pocahontas, Arkansas, and there became identified with the real estate and milling business. He married Miss Mary Burton in Philadelphia, a danghter of Dr. Philip P. Burton. one of Batesville's first settlers. He was also one of the pioneers of Little Rock, in which city he passed away.
Abram and Mary (Burton) Weaver were the parents of the fol- lowing children: Burton, who died in Pocahontas, Arkansas, in 1874, unmarried ; Robert P., who resided in Batesville, Arkansas; Seldon, who was killed while a Confederate soldier under General Hardee dur- ing the Civil war: Abram B., who died in 1887 in Batesville, the father of a family; Emily S., wife of I. N. Reed, of Batesville: George M., who passed away in Batesville in 1881: Roy S., deceased in 1892; and Dr. Mosby C., of this review. Dr. Philip Burton, maternal grand- father of the subject, came to Arkansas from near Norfolk, Virginia. abont the year 1844, and settled first in Batesville, where he practiced medicine for some years. He removed to Little Rock before the war came on and he was a conspicuous and even spectacular figure in the life of that city during his lifetime. He was a man of strong and positive conviction, especially upon the question of disunion, and he took no step toward personal restraint in expressing his sentiments toward those of other opinion. All during the progress of the war his an- tagonism of Federal interests was ferocious, and the sallies he directed toward his foes were always accompanied by a display of verbal pyrotechnics. Ifis rhetorical volleys went through the air like cannon balls and his very words seemed like elub; thrown at his antagonist. Only his age saved him from violence at the hands of those whom he incensed with his political eloquence, which was as sincere as it was effective. As may be inferred, he owned slave property, but while he inveighed against the powers that destroyed the value of it, he seemed
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not to regret when slavery was finally abolished. He lived ten years after the war and died at the age of seventy-five years. Four of the sons of his daughter Mary fought under the flag of the Confederaey.
Abram Weaver, father of Dr. Weaver, took no aetive part in the events of the Civil war. If he felt seriously upon politieal questions it was in the role of a philosopher. He died in the Reconstruction period and before the chaotic conditions incident to the rebellion had been returned to order. He was born in 1809 and died at Pocahontas, at the age of sixty-seven years, his wife having preceded him to the Great Beyond by several years, she passing away in Batesville May 12, 1867.
While a youth Dr. Mosby C. Weaver worked in the postoffice in Batesville and he spent the two years, 1873 to 1875. as a student in St. John's College in Little Rock. He was attracted toward a medieal career and prepared himself for the same, being graduated from the Lonisville Medieal College in 1877. He first located in Green Briar Valley, near Batesville, and there engaged in practice until January 1. 1879, At that date he removed to Elizabethtown, Kentucky. but re- mained there only for the brief period of six months. He then returned to Arkansas, settling in Jamestown, and in that place terminated his career in the medieal profession in the year 1888.
Dr. Weaver was deeoyed from his profession, perhaps. as a result of his maiden efforts as a merchant. He engaged in the business in Jamestown in 1883. So congenial did his commercial activities prove that five years later he sold his praetice to Dr. F. E. Jeffrey and gave his whole time thereafter to a commercial life. In January, 1906, he removed to Batesville and organized the Weaver-Dowdy Company, joining Mr. R. A. Dowdy in the venture and opening an establishment which carries a stock worthy of the up-to-date department store.
The Weaver-Dowdy Company is a corporation capitalized at $25,000, with Dr. Weaver as president, and George E. Hogan as see- retary and treasurer. He has several other interests of large seope and importanee, being president of the Weaver Mereantile Company, of Jamestown, Arkansas, which has a capital of $20,000. The Board of Trade of Batesville has honored Dr. Weaver by making him its pres- ident. He is also a director of the First National Bank of the place in which his interests are eentered and a director and member of the executive committee of the Mississippi Valley Life insurance Com- pany, of Little Rock.
In polities Dr. Weaver is a Demoerat and when an active partiei- pant in party affairs attended loeal and state conventions and helped make eounty officers, congressmen and governors of the commonwealth in his eapaeity as delegate. Fraternally he is a Master Mason and an Elk.
On December 23, 1878, Dr. Weaver married in Batesville, Miss Theodora Albert, daughter of Rev. Charles H. Albert, first reetor of the Episcopal church in Batesville after the war. The children of Dr. and Mrs. Weaver are Alberta and Nellie, the latter the wife of Dr. W. H. Craig, of Batesville.
JOE MI. GRAY, secretary and treasurer of the Northern-Yeatman Wholesale Grocery Company at Batesville, is one of the leading young business men and prominent citizens and is distinctly entitled to rep- resentation in the compilation. While, as a prosperous business man, he has given elose attention to his private affairs, he has never forgotten or ignored the bond of common interest which should unite the people of every community and he has always been ready
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to promote progress in every line. Mr. Gray is a native of Pulaski eounty, Arkansas, where his birth occurred July 3, 1878. When ten years of age his parents removed to Cabot, Lonoke eounty, where he was educated in the public schools and reached man's estate. Before beginning life he attended Key's Business College at Little Roek and opened his commercial eareer as a clerk in the general store of D. C. Butler, at Malvern, Arkansas. A year later he became identified with the Farrell Lumber Company, at Farrell, Arkansas, where he assumed charge of their commissary for four years and made himself gen- erally useful in a elerieal way. It was in 1904 that he first became a eitizen at Batesville. Shortly after his arrival he found employment with the White River Grocery Company and remained with it as office man for six months. Subsequent to this he went to Pfeifer, Arkansas, where he made his first independent business venture as the proprie- tor and manager of a general merchandise concern. In November, 1909, after several years of successful operation of this business, and the attainment of a vast amount of useful experience as a factor in the commercial world, he disposed of his interests at Pfeifer and return- ing to Batesville, whose eharms and attractions had ever remained vivid within him, bought out W. C. Northern, of Northern & Yeatman, and became an active part of the concern.
The name was changed to The Northern-Yeatman Company and the same was incorporated in January, 1910, with a capital of $20,000, the personnel of its officers being R. C. Dorr, president : G. E. Yeatman, vice-president : and Joe M. Gray, secretary and treasurer. This large and substantial coneern maintains a foree of traveling salesmen and eovers a territory wholly in Arkansas and directly tributary to Bates- ville. Its management is in the hands of men of commercial experi- ence and admittedly advanced methods, who have kept a barometer of the commercial pulse and witnessed a constant growth and satisfac- tory business from year to year.
Mr. Gray is the scion of a family which has existed in Arkansas for a good many years. He is the son of Joseph B. Gray, an agricul- turist whose demise occurred in Jacksonville, Arkansas, in 1885. He was born in Pulaski county, Arkansas, in 1845: received a limited public schooling, and at the time of the great civil confliet he served the canse he believed to be just as a private in the Confederate army. The grandfather was William Gray, a Bear state pioneer, who was an exponent of the great basic industry of agriculture and whose death oceurred in Pulaski county, long the scene of his activities. He reared nine good eitizens to maturity, namely: Joseph B., father of the sub- ject ; William, Samuel, Newton, Henry, John, Mrs. Ann Hardeastle, and the Misses Marie and Hettie Gray.
The maiden name of the mother of him whose name initiates this review was Maggie Fewel, she being a danghter of William Fewel, of South Carolina. She is a native of South Carolina, and at the pres- ent time this estimable lady is a resident of Cahot, Arkansas. Mr. Gray's brothers and sisters are James B. and B. A. Gray, of England, Arkansas; Lula, wife of G. E. Yeatman, of Batesville; Mary, wife of L. E. Farrell, of Farrell, Arkansas; and Bess. now Mrs. S. S. Beaty, of England, Arkansas.
On June 6, 1905. Mr. Gray beeame a reernit to the ranks of the Benedicts, the young woman to become his wife being Miss Orin Gist, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Byron Gist, of this city. This union has been blessed by the birth of two little daughters, -Mary and Elizabeth.
Were he otherwise disposed. the strenuous demands of the busi-
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ness in which Mr. Gray is engaged preelude the possibility of his en- gaging sueessfully in polities. He gives to this department of society only the interest of the intelligent voter, his proelivities being with the Demoeratie cause. His fraternal affiliation is with the ancient Masonic order. The home of Mr. and Mrs. Gray is one of the attractive domi- eles of Batesville, and they are aetive in the best social life of the place.
HENRY C. WADE. A publie-spirited and influential citizen of Batesville, Henry C. Wade, the present postmaster of the city, is per- forming the duties imposed upon him by the Government in a manner reflecting the highest eredit upon himself and with an ability and fidelity that has proven him eminently worthy of the position. A son of W. Harvey Wade, he was born December 18, 1866, in Hardin county, Tennessee, but was brought up and edueated in Independence county, Arkansas.
Ilis grandfather, Samuel Wade, a pioneer settler of Hardin county, Tennessee, was a farmer by oeeupation, and during the Civil war served in the Union army. He married Mary Peaeoek, and to them eleven children were born, as follows: Boaz and Henry, who served as Federal soldiers in the Civil war; Naney, wife of Clem Howard; Bettie, who married George West: Rhoda, who became the wife of Wade B. Me- Asland; Mary, who married John White; Jane, wife of Henry Creve; W. Harvey ; James; Riehard; and Samuel.
Born in Hardin county, Tennessee, in 1841, W. Harvey Wade there received a praetieal common school education and a good training in agriculture. Soon after taking upon himself the responsibilities of a married man he came to Arkansas in search of a place in which to make a permanent location, and after a brief stay in Stone eounty settled in Independence county, not far from Batesville, where he has sinee been engaged in general farming. He married Mary Jane Me- Cullough, who, left an orphan in childhood, was reared by an uncle, William Childress, of Dallas, Texas. Seven children blessed their union, namely: Samuel G .: Henry C., with whom this brief biographical sketeh is principally coneerned : William, deceased : James, engaged in farming in Independenee eounty: Early, assistant postmaster at Batesville; Albert M. ; and Edna, wife of C. E. Lehman, of Independence eounty.
Acquiring a liberal education at Arkansas College, Henry C. Wade began his aetive career as a farmer. At the end of ten years he em- barked in the stoek business, likewise becoming interested in a saw mill, and continued his operations sneeessfully until entering the Government service, on January 19. 1910, when he sueeeeded William P. Jones, the former postmaster of Batesville. Mr. Wade is identified with various business organizations, being a stoekholder in the Jones Investment Company, a corporation dealing in real estate and live stock: holding an interest in the Wade-Osborne Company; and being one of the stockholders of the Citizens' Bank and Trust Company, all of Bates- ville. True to the political faith in which he was reared, Mr. Wade is a Republican. Giving sneh time, only, to loeal polities as seems necessary as a loyal citizen, he has responded from time to time to the demands of his party, serving as a delegate to Republican conventions, in the state meetings mingling with the moulders of Republiean senti- ment thronghont Arkansas. He has also performed much good eounty committee work and advised in local campaigns. Fraternally he belongs to the Independent Order of Odd Fellows; to the Woodmen of the World and to the Royal Areanum.
Mr. Wade married. August 21, 1887, Maggie E. Winters. a daugh-
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ter of John and Nancy (Southard) Winters, who came from Illinois to Arkansas and located on a farm in Independence county. Mr. and Mrs. Wade have five children, namely : Vietor, Ernest, Cecil, Mark and Marvin.
FRANKLIN A. GRAY, M. D. There is no calling in which a man can exereise his energies that is more taxing and demands closer attention than the practice of medicine and surgery. Then too, he must possess an adaptability that understands readily the mental as well as the phys- ical conditions which he meets in the sick room, and he must moreover possess a love of his work for its own sake aside from any remunera- tion which it can bring. A wide and varied preliminary training is demanded and the years must be filled with study and investigation in order to keep abreast with the progress which is continually being made by the medical fraternity. Dr. Franklin A. Gray, M. D., of Bates- ville, is one of the younger physicians and surgeons of Independence eonuty, in the Hickory Valley community, in which he was born Decem- ber 19, 1877, and his brief career indicates that he is a representative of the profession of the best type. The work of the farm provided a sphere for his youthful activities and the common schools laid the foundation for a liberal education. He then entered the University of Arkansas and concluded his literary studies in the junior year of the Fayetteville Institution.
With his eyes set upon a more distant goal of the medical pro- fession Dr. Gray became a teacher in the country schools of Indepen- dence county, and during the three years he followed this work he pro- vided himself with funds with which to take his course in medicine. He chose the Memphis Hospital Medical College for his alma mater and graduated from that institution in 1905. He then located at Pig- gott, Arkansas, where he practiced for three years, then removing to Cave City, where he practiced for a similar period. He then came to Batesville and highly recommended by his previous career, he has in a very short time won the enthusiastic confidence and esteem of a large following. He opened a sanatorium in connection with his practice, this also enjoying prestige among such institutions.
In preparation for his work here the enterprising Doctor pur- chased the building and grounds of the Presbyterian church and re- modeled the structure into rooms convenient for surgical and clinical work, office and reception room, equipping the institution with hydro- therapeutic, electric light baths, hot air baths, electrie massage and statie and X-ray machines, with a proper force of trained nurses as a necessary adjunet to the sanatorium.
Before locating in Batesville, Dr. Gray took a post-graduate course in the Chicago Polyelinie, one of the leading and recognized institu- tions of the United States for post-graduate work, and he affiliates with both the Independence county and the Arkansas State Medical Societies and holds membership in the American Medical Association.
Dr. Gray is a son of James B. H. Gray, of Hickory Valley, who has the somewhat unusual distinction of having four sons engaged in the practice of medicine in Independence county. The elder gentleman was born in North Carolina, and in 1850, accompanied his parents to Arkansas and has passed his life up to the present time in Hickory Valley. His father was John Gray, who died on his farm near the Valley in 1879, at about the age of seventy-five years. The grand- mother's name was Greene and she was a native of the old Tarheel state. Among the subject's paternal uncles and aunts were the fol-
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lowing : Elisha, who served in the Confederate army, passed his life near Hickory Valley and died there in 1909, at the age of seventy- seven years; Keziah, who became the wife of a Mr. MeGee and resides at Batesville, Arkansas; S. Romulus, of Leshe, Arkansas; and Intitia, wife of William Brewer, now deceased. James B. H. Gray, the youngest child of his parents, is a Confederate army veteran : is a modest farmer and has spent many years as a Methodist Protestant minister in the local work of the church. Being born a generation too early, Rev. Mr. Gray missed the modern opportunity for an education and came to mature years with only a smattering of the knowledge which the state provides for the modern youth. However, he has done much to make up the deficiency by courses of reading and study, and as teacher and spiritual advisor his endeavors are of the most valuable and eonseien- tious sort.
In 1876 Rev. Mr. Gray married Miss Susan Wooldridge, daughter of Robert Wooldridge, who eame as a pioneer from Virginia to Inde- pendence county, Arkansas. Mrs. Gray was born in this county in 1846, and is the mother of Dr. Franklin A., of this notice: Dr. Wesley Gray, of Sidney, Arkansas; Dr. Fred Gray, of Hardy, Arkansas; Dr. Robert, of Newport, Arkansas: and Henry Gray, a farmer of Hiekory Valley. All the brothers of the profession are alumni of Memphis Hospital Medical College and all but Dr. Frank were graduated the same year.
Dr. Frank Gray was married in Cave City. Arkansas, April 17, 1907, to Miss Mollie Laman, a daughter of John W. Laman and his wife, Ann Brewer, who had five other children, namely: Charles, Lee, William, Coy and John, Mrs. Gray being the third in order of birth. Mr. Laman is a merehant and stockman and was born in Independence county, Arkansas. The children of Dr. and Mrs. Gray are Laman and Evalee.
Dr. Gray officiates as examiner for several fraternal societies, of which he is a member,-namely, the Modern Woodmen. the Yeomen and the Maccabees, and he also affiliates with the time-honored Masonic order and the Knights of Pythias.
CONSTANT P. WILSON. A representative of prominent pioneer fam- ilies of western Arkansas, Constant Perkins Wilson is a man whose staneh devotion to duty and intrinsic loyalty to the best interests of the state have made him a potent factor in all matters pertaining to the general welfare. His extensive and varied interests have developed in him a keen instinet for business and unusual executive ability. In addition to a fine farm which he owns and operates on the Arkansas river he is a member of the wholesale liquor firm of Harper & Wilson, and is also an important factor in the development of a traet of one thousand acres of rich coal lands in Scott county, Arkansas.
A native son of Arkansas Mr. Wilson was born in Sebastian county, on the 30th of May, 1854. He is a son of Thomas E. and Mary A. (Dil- lard-Stevenson) Wilson, the former of whom was born at Russellville, Logan county, Kentucky, and the latter in Virginia. Thomas E. Wilson came with his father, Samuel Wilson, to Russellville. Kentucky, and he came to Sebastian county, Arkansas, in the year 1834, two years prior to the admission of Arkansas to statehood. He was numbered among the pioneers in this part of the state and after engaging in planting for a time became a sutler and sold goods to the United States army, and to the Indians, continuing as such for a number of years, first at Fort Smith and later at Fort Gibson, in the Indian Territory. A few years
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before his death Thomas E. Wilson removed from his farm in Sebastian county to Fort Smith, where he passed the residue of his life, his demise having occurred on the 12th of September, 1879. On his mother's side, Constant P. Wilson, of this review, is of still earlier ancestry in Western Arkansas. She was Mary Ann Dillard, a daughter of Major John Dillard, a United States Army officer, and a granddaughter, on her mother's side, of William Moore, who came to the vicinity of the present site of Fort Smith, about the year 1818. William Moore settled with his family at what has ever since been known as Moore's Rock, on the Arkansas river, about eighteen miles below Fort Smith, and there they lived the typical life of the pioneer. The Moores manufactured leather with rude equip- ment of their own devising and, taking it on the long river journey to the city of New Orleans, there exchanged it for various staple articles re- quired by the family. William Moore was a native son of Virginia, where the family was one of prominence in the early colonial epoch of our national history. The Moores were noted not only for their hardihood and bravery as pioneers in a new and unexplored country but also for their old-time culture, education and excellent intellectual endowments. Mary A. Dillard, at the time of her marriage to Thomas E. Wilson, was the widow of Major Stevenson, an officer of the United States army, their marriage having been solemnized at Fort Smith.
The various representatives of this family, known by the names of Moore, Dillard and Wilson, have all been possessed of strong characters and have been eminently successful in the various walks of life, many hav- ing achieved wealth and prominence, and all of them, by their marriages have been connected with the best families. They were especially in- fluential in the early progress and development of western Arkansas and there held prestige for their fine intellects and intrinsic loyalty to all matters touching the general welfare.
Constant Perkins Wilson was reared to maturity on the farm on which occurred his birth, the same being located a short distance northeast of what is now the city limits of the city of Fort Smith. This splendid coun- try estate has been in the family for three generations and is now owned by Mr. Wilson, of this review. It is beautifully located on the Arkansas river and is specially notable for its fine horses, cattle and hogs. While he gives a general supervision to the work and management of the farm he maintains his home and business headquarters in the city of Fort Smith, where he is a member of the firm of Harper & Wilson, wholesale liquor dealers. He and his partner, George O. Harper, also own and are developing a thousand acres of rich coal land in Scott county, Arkansas, this being one of the largest and most promising coal propositions in the state.
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