USA > Arkansas > Historical review of Arkansas : its commerce, industry and modern affairs > Part 42
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Sheriff Thornton is a native of Barber county, southern Alabama, his birth having occurred on the 27th day of January, 1873, and his parents being John H. and Mollie ( Anderson) Thornton. The father was born in North Carolina and during his lifetime resided in several South- ern states. In his earlier years he took up his residence in the Cotton state and removed thence to Shelby county, Texas, in the year 1877, when the subject was a child about four years of age. After residing there for eleven years the family decided upon a hazard of new fortunes in Ar- kansas, and came here in 1887, locating in Polk county, where the father engaged in the harness and saddle business at Dallas, the old county seat of Polk county. John H. Thornton was summoned to the Great Beyond in 1898, but the mother is still living, a resident of Mena. This much respected lady is a native of Alabama.
Sheriff Thornton has grown up with the modern development of Mena and Polk county, with the manifold interests of which he has been thoroughly identified since becoming of age. As a very young man he won the confidence of the people, which he continued to hold, and in 1906 he was elected and served four years as county treasurer, his tenure of office ending in the fall of 1910. He was then elected to his present posi- tion of sheriff and tax collector and, as said before, has proved himself a thoroughly efficient and very popular official.
Sheriff Thornton has also become quite widely known as a breeder of fine horses, particularly of trotting stock. He is the owner of "The Nubian," a blooded trotting stallion, which he has raised from a colt and which has won numerous prizes on the racing circuits.
On the 27th day of December, 1895, Mr. Thornton was united in
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marriage to Miss Lena Fish, who was born in Polk county, on the 2nd of August, 1875, the daughter of Jack and Pinkie Fish, the former one of Polk county's most prominent farmers. Mrs. Thornton is a grand- daughter of A. D. Flynn, a pioneer settler of Polk county and one of its first sheriffs. Mr. and Mrs. Thornton have one daughter, Irene Thorn- ton, who was born to them on the 5th day of November, 1896. Irene, like her father. though quite young, takes considerable interest in all matters, and is a student, housekeeper and horseman.
REUBEN W. ROBINS. A representative member of the bar of the younger generation in Conway, Faulkner county, Arkansas, is Reuben W. Robins, who was born in this place on the 21st of May, 1883, and who is a son of John W. and Minnie ( Freeman) Robins the former of whom is deceased and the latter of whom now maintains her home at Conway. The father was born in Shelby county, Tennessee, whence he came to Faulkner county, Arkansas, locating at Conway. in the year 1880. Ile was for several years in the lumber and saw-mill business in this section, but about 1893 he engaged in the newspaper business, as editor and published of the Log Cabin, at Conway, this paper being now the Log Cabin Democrat, and run under the general management of Frank Robins, a brother of Reuben W. Frank Robins has figured promin- ently in connection with the publie affairs of Conway, having served several terms as mayor of the city. The Log Cabin was founded by Opie Reade. John W. and Minnie Robins became the parents of four children, of which number Reuben W. was the second in order of birth.
Mr. Robins, the immediate subject of this review, was reared to maturity in Conway, to whose public schools he is indebted for his early educational training. He attended Hendrix College and pursued the study of law in the law department of the University of Arkansas. Ile also studied law under the preceptorship of Judge Sam Frauenthal, in Conway, the latter being now associate justice of the Supreme Court of the state. Mr. Robins was admitted to the bar at Conway in 1904, and he immediately initiated the practice of his profession in this city, being a partner of his former preceptor, Judge Sam Frauenthal, the business being conducted under the firm name of Frauenthal & Rob- ins. In politics Mr. Robins is a staunch advocate of the principles of the Democratic party, and though he has never shown aught of desire for political preferment he takes a lively interest in local af- fairs, doing much to advance the general welfare of the community. He is affiliated with various professional and fraternal organizations. He was married in 1909 to Miss Beatrice Powell, of Tennessee.
MRS. CLEMENTINE BOLES. The name of Mrs. Clementine (Watson) Boles is one to which great honor attaches in the community in which she is best known and in which she stands as one of the fairest ornaments of Arkansas womanhood. In culture, spirit and charm she is representative of the women of the South ; she comes of a line of soldiers and patriots and distinguished men and women, and she is prominent in several or- ganizations whose raison d'etre is to perpetuate the glory of those brave Americans who gave their lives to a cause.
Mrs. Boles represents one of the early families of Arkansas and she has been a resident of Washington county since 1853. Her father, William A. Watson, brought the family to the state in 1847 and estab- lished himself at Van Buren, where he engaged in merchandising, his death occurring there in December, 1852. He was born in Bedford county, Virginia, in 1807, was a son of Joseph Watson, a planter and a
Mas, Christiana Crews Malson
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soldier of the Revolutionary war. The ancestry of Joseph Watson, the subjeet's grandfather, was of Scotch and Irish amalgamation, his for- bears beginning the American history of the family in Virginia during our Colonial infaney. Joseph married Rhoda Palmer and their children were William A., the father of our subject; Sarah, wife of Matthew Carson; and Elizabeth, who became the wife of a brother of Matthew Carson.
The maiden name of Mrs. Boles' mother was Christiana Long Crews, a noted musician, and in her time the most famous pianist in Virginia. She was a daughter of Thomas Crews and Sarah Penn Crews. The lat- ter's parents were Gabriel and Sarah (Callaway) Penn, and Sarah was a daughter of Colonel Richard Callaway, of Bedford county, Virginia, a man very prominent in his day. Gabriel Penn was one of that splen- did galaxy of Virginia colonists who were the pride of the Old Dominion. He was by profession a lawyer and became King's attorney for Am- hurst county. In the momentous year 1775 he became a member of the Committee of Safety for that county and also in the year in which echoed the first guns of the Revolution he was made paymaster of his district and captain of a company of militia organized in that county for defense against the encroachments of Great Britain. He was also a veteran of the French and Indian wars, having served in that confliet under Colonel William Byrd, of the First Virginia Regulars. The Crews were partiei- pants in the Bacon rebellion. Gabriel Penn was a first cousin of John Penn, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. He was a man of property, a large slave owner and a "gentleman" in the ac- ceptance of the word in that day and this.
Looking further into the history of Captain Penn it is found that he was born in Virginia, July 17, 1741, a son of Robert Penn, kinsman of William Penn, the founder of Philadelphia. His mother was Mary Taylor, a daughter of John and Catherine (Pendleton) Taylor, whose ancestors came from England as early as 1650. Captain Penn married in September, 1761, and his death occurred in 1798. Colonel Callaway, his father-in-law, was born in 1719 and married in 1740. In the French and Indian wars he rose from a sergeancy to bear a commission as major of a regiment. In 1775 he migrated to Kentucky and there his daugh- ters, Elizabeth and Frances, together with Jamima Boone, were captured by the Indians in 1776, but were retaken the next day by Daniel Boone, which stirring and romantic incident has furnished an important narra- tive in Cooper's novel. "The Last of the Mohicans."
William A. and Christiana Watson were the parents of the follow- ing children: William Albert, who passed the major portion of his life in Washington county. Arkansas, and died in 1902, leaving a family; Sarah Virginia, who married David R. Barclay, one of the leading lawyers of St. Louis, Missouri, and died the next year at the very dawn of a useful life; John Garth, who died unmarried: Francis Gardner gave up his life to the cause of the Confederacy; Clementine W. was the next in order of birth; Joseph was a Confederate soldier and died unmarried in Houston, Texas; Charles Robert aided the South as a soldier in the Confederate army and died in Alabama in 1898: Thomas Crews died in childhood; and the youngest member of the family, Edmund Penn, is a lawyer in Bentonville, Arkansas.
Mrs. Clementine Boles was born in Botetourt county, Virginia, but did not pass much of her life in that state, her father bringing his family to Arkansas when she was a child. Fayetteville was the scene of the roseate days of her childhood and in the chartered schools she
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received her education. Her father's death and various changes in the household made her her mother's devoted companion and she remained with that admirable lady until her death in 1872. On June 19, 1877, she married Thomas Davis Boles, their union being celebrated in St. Paul's Episcopal church in Fayetteville. Mr. Boles' family came origin- ally from the eastern shore of Maryland and like so many of the Line state's people they emigrated to Kentucky and selected Bourbon county for their home. It was there that Mr. Boles was born. He was reared and educated in Kentucky and Missouri, and was a resident of Missouri during the stormy days of the Civil war, but came to Fayette- ville soon after its termination and here engaged successfully in mer- chandising. He was a man who enjoyed high standing both as a citizen and in the commercial world. To him and Mrs. Boles three children were born, but all died in infancy, and he, himself, passed away in Jannary, 1883.
It is by no means a matter for surprise that Mrs. Boles, back of whom extends an ancestral history so distinguished and romantic, should take an active interest in patriotie work. She is a member of the Daughters of the American Revolution and of the Daughters of the Confederacy, being an officer of Mildred Lee chapter of the latter or- ganization and an active participant in its affairs. She was a director of the Jefferson Davis Monument Association of Arkansas, and is state director of the Arlington Memorial Association, which has for its object the erection of a monument at Arlington, near Washington, D. C. She is a member of the Mary Fuller Percival Chapter of Daughters of the American Revolution at Van Buren, Arkansas, and has been a delegate to the national conventions of these orders. She participates in their deliberations with eloquent and convincing address and discus- sion and delights in encouraging the movement to preserve the history of the brave and noble deeds of Southern manhood and womanhood, who suffered for a lost cause and aided by sacrifice in liberating the nation from the thralldom of Great Britain.
COL. JAMES ROBERT WAYNE. Measuring the prominence which Colo- nel James Robert Wayne, late of Little Rock, attained as a successful and wealthy planter and a citizen of influence, he was a splendid repre- sentative of the self-made men of Arkansas, he having begun on the lower rung of the ladder of prosperity and steadily pursued his way upward, his unflagging industry and persisteney of purpose conquering all obstacles. He was born July 16, 1851, in Alabama, but when he was four years of age went with his parents to Fayetteville, Tennessee, where he grew to manhood. He came of distinguished Revolutionary stock, and from his great-grandfather on the paternal side. General Anthony Wayne, more familiarly known as "Mad Anthony Wayne," inherited an intrepid spirit of energy and courage that were truly remarkable, win- ning him triumph often-times over seemingly insurmountable difficulties. His capacity for work from youth up seemed inexhaustible, while his energy and success in accomplishing things were especially noteworthy.
When a young man Mr. Wayne spent a short time in Texas. Soon after his return home to Fayetteville, his parents both died, their deaths occurring within the brief space of four months. He was then a beardless youth of nineteen summers, and the oldest of a family of ten children, whose support he at once assumed. Deciding to locate with his younger brothers and sisters in Arkansas, he arrived in Little Rock in 1870, the trip hither practically exhausting every penny he had. Providing an abiding place for the family, he went to work with a will, working at the
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carpenter's trade during the day and unloading cotton from steam boats in the evenings. Subsequently Mr. Wayne took contracts for clearing timber from plantations in Pulaski county, and so vigorously prosecuted that work that he had soon accumulated quite a little sum of money, which became the nueleus of his future fortune.
On marrying, Mr. Wayne purchased land near Plum Bayou and began the improvement of a farm, embarking in what proved to be exceedingly profitable agricultural operations. He afterward bought other land, be- coming the owner of several valuable plantations, mostly in Pulaski county, one of them, lying about five miles from his original purchase, having been his home for a number of years, and being still in the possession of the Wayne family. He spent the closing years of his life in Little Rock, his death occurring at his home, 601 East Fifteenth street, January 28, 1911. He was a patriotie eitizen, proud of his distinguished ancestry, number- ing among his most highly prized treasures the sword that "Mad An- thony" Wayne, the brave hero of Ticonderoga, wore in battle. Two of Mr. Wayne's brothers are living, Elisha Wayne and Ben Wayne.
Mr. Wayne married, in 1875, Sophia Elizabeth Core, who was born in Pulaski county, Arkansas, a daughter of Hugh Core, a successful farmer and stockman, who was born in England and came with his parents to Arkansas in the forties. Three children were born of the union of Mr. and Mrs. Wayne, namely: J. Robert Wayne, M. D .; Harry Wayne, and Wallace Wayne, all of Little Rock.
J. ROBERT WAYNE, M.D. Other men's services to the people and the state can be measured by definite deeds. by dangers averted, by legislation secured, by institutions built, by commerce promoted. The work of a doctor is entirely estranged from these lines of enterprise, yet without his capable, health-giving assistance all other accomplishments would count for naught. Man's greatest prize on earth is physical health and vigor. Nothing deteriorates mental activity as quickly as prolonged sickness- hence the broad field for human helpfulness afforded in the medical pro- fession. The successful doctor requires something more than mere technical training-he must be a man of broad human sympathy and genial kindli- ness, capable of inspiring hope and faith in the heart of his patient. Such a man is Dr. J. Robert Wayne, physician and surgeon at Little Rock and one of the honored members of his profession in the state of Arkansas.
Dr. Wayne was born at the Wayne plantation in Pulaski county on the 3rd day of December, 1883, his parents being Colonel James Robert and Sophia Elizabeth (Core) Wayne. The former, one of the most ad- mirable and interesting of the citizens ever known to this locality was an extensive planter and was only recently summoned to the Great Beyond, his death occurring January 28, 1911. Colonel Wayne came of a most dis- tinguished family and was a great-great-grandson of General Anthony Wayne, the hero of Ticonderoga and Stoney Point, and thus in the veins of the subject flows patriotic blood. More extended mention is made of the distinguished father of the subject, his biographical sketch appearing on other pages of this work devoted to representative men of Arkansas. On his maternal side he comes into contact with English stock, his grand- father, Hugh Core, having come to this country from Great Britain when a boy, accompanied by his father, who was in quest of the much vaunted American opportunity and independence. They arrived in the early '40s and located in the Bear State, where Hngh developed into a successful farmer and stoekman. Dr. Wayne is one of three sons born to Colonel and Mrs. Wayne, the others being Harry and Wallace both of Little Rock.
It was the pleasant fortune of the young Robert that a part of his youth was passed amid the free and wholesome rural surroundings of his
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father's great plantation. He received excellent educational advantages, his preliminary mental discipline being secured in the grammar school at Little Rock. He subsequently was matriculated at the University of the South at Suwanee, Tennessee, and received the degree of Master of Arts from that institution in 1903. In the meantime a long gathering ambition to become a member of the medical profession had reached the point of crystalization and to prepare for his professional career Dr. Wayne entered Rush Medical College of Chicago, from which he took a post-graduate degree with the class of 1906, taking during the same time post-graduate work in Northwestern University. In the year 190? he taught pathology and bacteriology in the College of Physicians and Surgeons in Little Rock and also was graduated with the class of that college in the same year. By no means one content "to let well enough alone," he then took a post-graduate course in the New York Post-Graduate Medical School ; in the following summer received a post-graduate degree from the Medical College of Harvard University in Boston; and also attended the tuber- culosis camp of the Massachusetts General Hospital. Evidently resolved to avail himself of the advantages of all sections of the continent, he also took post-graduate work in the city of Montreal. Returning to Little Rock he soon became successfully established in the general practice of his profession in this city, and his splendid training and natural gifts constituted an equipment which gave him almost instant recognition as one of the ablest young representatives of his profession in the state. To a name already well and favorably known, owing to the standing and achievements of his father, he has added Instre on his own account. He is prominently identified with those organizations designed to bring into close, congenial and mutually helpful association the members of the profes- sion-the County, State, and American Medical Associations-and he is likewise affiliated with the International Congress on Tuberculosis.
Although devoted heart and soul to the profession which he has elected as his own, Dr. Wayne is by no means forgetful of the highest duties of good citizenship and stands over ready to give heart and hand to all meas- ures likely to result in civic benefit. Ile is loyal to the tenets of Democratic party and is sufficiently active and strenuous in his advocacy of all good causes to resemble his gallant ancestor, "Mad Anthony" Wayne, one of the greatest and most inspiring of American heroes who surveyed great tracts of country ; was a legislator and statesman ; fought hostile Indians and negotiated treaties with them; won victories, suppressed mutinies and acted as commander-in-chief of the army in the Revolution; his career as a soldier and officer being one of the most active and triumphant chronicled upon the pages of the nation's history.
On July 11. 1904. Dr. Wayne married Miss Mabel Cook, of Little Rock and they have one child, Eloise,
HIRAM DUDLEY GLASS. The career of Hiram Dudley Glass, senior member of the real estate and insurance firm of HI. D. Glass & Company, of Harrison, has been marked by consecutive endeavor and definite results. Ile is one of the essentially representative men of the place and is one who has been loyal to all of its best interests. So it is but consistent that he be here accorded recognition among the other leading citizens of this constantly advancing center. Mr. Glass was born at Ripley, Tennessee, September 12. 1849, and there came to maturity. Even as a boy he had some informal introduction to commercial life as an assistant in his father's store. Ile attended the public schools and subequently attended the University of Mississippi and Eastman's Business College at Pough- keepsie. New York. He had serious thought of taking up a mercantile
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career, and shortly after attaining his majority embarked in the same at Ripley, Tennessee. He abandoned this occupation for a year or so after leaving his native heath, but later resumed it in Harrison, Arkansas, and for six years was enrolled among the merchants of this place.
The identification of Mr. Glass with Arkansas dates from the year 1897. For two years prior to coming to the state he had made his resi- dence in St. Louis, Missouri, and there he first became acquainted with the real estate business. When he abandoned the mercantile business in Harrison he again turned his attention to real estate and insurance and he is now the head of the well-known firm above mentioned. The office in which he is situated is on the second floor of the building he erected as a business house, one of the permanent structures on the east side of the square. This modern and well equipped building and his handsome and commodious residence mark his connection with the substantial improve- ment of Harrison. In the conduct of his business, however, he has by the excellent and progressive methods followed contributed in a ma- terial way to the development and upbuilding of the place, particularly by the handling and improving of many important properties.
On both sides of his family Mr. Glass is connected with two sources of excellent Tennessee stock. His father, Hon. P. T. Glass, was con- gressman from the Ninth district of Tennessee and was for many years connected with state politics as a Democrat. He was born in Culpeper county, Virginia, in 1824, and was the son of Dudley Glass, a Virginia planter. Dudley Glass took as his wife Nancy Carr, and their children were Thomas, Dabney, Dudley, John, Presley T., Sarah, who became the wife of William Martin, and Elizabeth, who married Jeptha Rogers, of Tennessee. P. T. Glass was liberally educated and prepared himself for the profession of law, but was led away from it early in life. He engaged in merchandising in Ripley, Tennessee, having come from the Old Dominion as a young man, and he followed the business successfully for many years. Shortly after attaining his majority he acquired a taste for politics and, easily winning the favor of the county, he was indorsed by the "young crowd" of his county as a candidate for the Lower House of the Legislature and defeated Emerson Etheridge, one of the leading figures in Democratic politics of the state. In 1884 he received the nomi- nation of his party and became a candidate for a seat in the House of Representatives of the United States Congress. He was again pitted against his old opponent, Etheridge, who had become a Republican and headed the ticket of that party for the same office. Mr. Glass stumped the district and, as before, victory perched upon his standards. In 1886 he was again elected and thus for four years the national assembly was his home. He was an able statesman and the air of debate was native to him. He was one of the stanchest and most convincing of Democrats, and he also enjoyed additional prestige as a veteran of the Civil war, having served in the militia of Tennessee as Colonel (this prior to the great strug- gle between the states), and later he gave important service in the com- missary department of the Confederate army, with the title of major. It was but natural that these circumstances should add to the confidence and popularity he enjoyed in his district, and he proved a strong man during the first Democratic administration after the war.
Hon. Mr. Glass married Miss Sarah C. Partee, a daughter of Colonel Hiram Partee, a Southern gentleman of the old school and a man of property, including large planting interests and many slaves. Colonel Partee was born in middle Tennessee and was a militia commander before the war. His wife was Luama Cherry, daughter of Daniel Cherry, and their children were Charles C .; B. Frank; Mrs. Glass : Mrs. Narcissa Clay ;
Vol. III-19
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Mrs. Laura Oldham; and Mrs. Frances Oldham. Mrs. Glass died in 1851, and the only surviving heir of her marriage with Mr. Glass was Hiram Dudley, the immediate subject. The Hon. Mr. Glass married as his second wife Miss Maria Partee, a cousin of his first, and one child was born of this union, Ada, wife of J. C. Nixon, of Conway, Arkansas. The subject's father passed away in 1902, while residing at Ripley Tennessee.
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