USA > Arkansas > Historical review of Arkansas : its commerce, industry and modern affairs > Part 51
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Charles Minor Taylor was born in Clark county, Kentucky, on the 27th of November. 1834, and was summoned to the life eternal at his home in the city of Little Rock, Arkansas, on the 15th of April, 1905. He was a son of John P. and Rachel ( Martin) Taylor, the former a scion of the well known Taylor family of Virginia, with whose history the name became identified in the Colonial epoch, being related to the prominent Pendleton and Minor families of Virginia. The father of Dr. Taylor was a prosperous agriculturist and representative citizen of Kentucky, and there continued to reside until his death. as did also his wife. After due preliminary discipline Dr. Taylor entered Tran- sylvania University, at Lexington, Kentucky, where he completed his educational work along purely academie lines and where one of his fel- low students was Justice John M. Harlan, at the present time a member of the Supreme Court of the United States. In preparation for the work of his chosen profession he entered the Louisville Medical College. in which excellent institution he completed the preseribed course and was graduated with the degree of Doctor of Medicine. He initiated the practice of his profession in the state of Missouri, whence he came to Arkansas several years prior to the inception of the Civil war. In 1858 James Buchanan, president of the United States, appointed Dr. Taylor to the office of surgeon of the government marine hospital at Napoleon, Arkansas, and he continued to serve in this capacity until the war was precipitated between the North and South. By early training, natural sympathy and personal sentiment he could not do other than give hus
Contarles
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support to the cause of the Confederate states, and he forthwith resigned his federal office to enter the southern service, as surgeon in the Con- federate ranks. From duty at Napoleon he was finally assigned to the position of post surgeon at Little Rock, and his ability and devotion later led to his promotion to the responsible and exacting position of surgeon and medical director of the general hospitals of the Trans- Mississippi Department of the Confederacy. His duties in this eonner- tion ealled him throughout the various fields of military activity west of the Mississippi river and he had a large number of assistants under his supervision. The strength and fidelity of the man were significantly shown in this important service, to which he continued to give his atten- tion until the close of the great fratricidal confliet.
After the war Dr. Taylor returned to Little Roek and resumed the practice of his profession, in which his snecess and popularity were tantamount to his fine technical ability. He finally retired from the work of his profession and removed to his plantation at South Bend, Lineoln county, where he continued to reside until 1892, when he re- turned to Little Rock, in which city he lived virtually retired until his death. He was one of the most extensive planters in the state and was indefatigable in his efforts to develop the magnificent agricultural re- sources of Arkansas, as well as to further its material advancement and social prosperity along other lines. He was one of the splendid eiti- zens of the state that so long represented his home and he gave to its services the fullest of his fine intellectual, moral and physical powers, as he was ever ready to extend his influence and co-operation in sup- port of all measures and enterprises projected for the general welfare of this favored commonwealth, whose every interest lay close to his heart and whose people owe to him a perpetual debt of gratitude. He was chosen president of the Arkansas board of commissioners at the South- ern Exposition held in the city of Louisville, Kentucky, in 1883, and in the following year had the further distinction of representing his state as commissioner to the World's Industrial and Cotton Centennial Ex- position, held in New Orleans. In each of these connections Dr. Taylor labored unceasingly to give to Arkansas a proper representation, and he gave not only of his time and energy but also of his financial resources to promote the work. It was mainly due to his efforts that the state seeured ereditable exploitation in each of these expositions. In this con- neetion the Arkansas Democrat of June 18, 1885, spoke of him in the following appreciative words. "The state of Arkansas owes a debt of gratitude to Dr. Charles M. Taylor which ought to be requited in a proper manner. Through his able, zealous and patriotie services in be- half of Arkansas at the Louisville and New Orleans expositions Dr. Taylor has greatly endeared himself to all public-spirited citizens. He has negleeted his own vast private interests while in the service of the state and he worked on in the line of the duties assigned to him, even when suffering severely from ill health. His invaluable serviees to Arkansas should never be forgotten." In 1887 Dr. Taylor was ap- pointed, by the governor, a member of the board of trustees of the Arkansas Industrial University, and he retained this position for sev- eral years, with marked benefit to the university and its expanding in- terests and facilities.
Dr. Taylor never blazoned his good deeds before the world. but was rather one of those who "do good by stealth and blush to find it fame." llis benevolences in a private way were large and unostentations, and the true indication of the strong and brave were shown in his "remen- bering those who were forgotten" and those who sit in darkness. Courtly,
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he gained the respect of all who came within the immediate sphere of his influence, and he was admired most by those who knew him best. In politics he never wavered in his allegiance to the Democratic party, he was affiliated with the United Confederate Veterans' Association and other representative social organizations, and his religious faith, deep and abiding, was that of the Episcopal church, of which his widow is a member. The family home has ever been known for its gracious and cultured hospitality, and within its precinets Dr. Taylor found his great- est solace and satisfaction, while its intimate relations were of the most ideal order. Concerning him the following appreciative statement was made in a Little Rock paper at the time of his demise: "No one who knew Dr. Taylor could say that chivalry had passed away or that courtesy was dead."
There can be naught of impropriety in perpetuating in this memoir the following estimate voiced in a letter written to Mrs. Taylor by W. E. Hemingway at the time of her husband's death :
"It was my privilege to present to the Democratic state convention of 1888 the name of Dr. Taylor for election as a delegate to the na- tional convention. I made no set speech, but in few and plain words told why I thought he should be selected. What I said outlined the estimate I then had of him. Longer acquaintance and more knowledge of him confirmed me in it. It was, in brief, that he was the model eiti- zen, possessing the graces of culture and refinement and the sterner qualities of industry and thrift, good judgment, high purpose and ex- alted pride. That he illustrated the dignity and virtue of the accom- plished gentleman and successful administrator, pursuing the walks of private life; and that if sent to represent the state in a gathering of the nation's representatives he would present to the convention the ideal of Southern manhood-a type too seldom seen but all the more esteemed. More than twenty names were presented, from which four were to be chosen. Dr. Taylor was elected on the first ballot, and that was at a time when the people of the state chose to represent her the flower of her citizenship, as was shown in the selection of such men as Judges Rose and Coekrill.
I have thought it might not be improper for me to write you of this incident and of the part I was permitted to have in it as the best assurance I could offer of my condolence in your loss. I can imagine no greater loss than your children sustain in losing such a father at a time when they are too young to know and remember him as he was; but it more than compensated in the heritage of his name and example."
Dr. Taylor was twiee married. His first wife, Mrs. Irene (John- son ) Jordan, died in 1878, leaving one child, Maude Taylor, now Mrs. John MeClintock, of Kentucky. On the 9th of January, 1895, at "Dun- reath," the country estate of the bride's parents in Clark county, Ken- tueky, where she was born and reared, was solemnized the marriage of Dr. Taylor to Miss Julia Prewitt, who survives him and who still main- tains her residence in the beautiful family homestead in Little Rock. Mrs. Taylor is a daughter of Richard Hickman Prewitt and Elizabeth HInme (Sheffer) Prewitt. The former is now deceased. The paternal grandfather of Mrs. Taylor was General William Prewitt. His wife, Catherine (IHickman ) Prewitt, was a daughter of General Richard HFick- man, who secured his title through effective service as an officer in the war of 1812, and was lieutenant governor of Kentucky with Governor Isaac Shelby. General Iliekman's wife was Lydia (Calloway ) Tiek- man, and she was a girl at the time of her parents' removal to Ken- tueky with Daniel Boone. Her father, Colonel Calloway, was killed by
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the Indians on the "dark and bloody ground" of the old Blue Grass state. Mrs. Taylor's mother was a granddaughter of Jacob Hughes, who was a native of Kentucky and who became a prominent and in- fluential citizen of that state. His home was near Lexington, Ken- tueky, and he was president of the First National Bank of Lexington for a number of years prior to his death. Dr. and Mrs. Taylor became the parents of two children. Elizabeth and Charles Minor, both of whom remain with their widowed mother.
JOHN HENRY PERRY. A resident of Arkansas since 1903, John Henry Perry, of Siloam Springs, has exemplified in his various ac- tivities that spirit of intense earnestness that makes the useful man and valued citizen in any progressive community. He was born, April 20. 1869, in Clarence, Shelby county, Missouri, a son of Oliver Com- modore Perry.
Richard R. Perry, Mr. Perry's grandfather, was born in West Vir- ginia in 1804. Following the emigrant's trail westward in 1828, he settled in Shelby county. Missouri, on the frontier and from the wild land cleared and improved a good farm. Enlisting as a soldier in the Confederate army during the Civil war, his active service was begun and completed at the battle of Pea Ridge, where he received a wound that crippled him for life. Returning to his home in Shelby county, he there spent the remainder of his eighty-two years of earthly life, his death, in 1886, being caused by an accident. He married, in Missouri, Virginia Sultzer, and to them six children were born, as follows: John, Joseph, Oliver C., Mattie, Lila and Virginia.
Oliver C. Perry was born in Jefferson township, Shelby county, Missouri, in 1846 and grew to manhood on the parental homestead. Selecting farming as his life ocenpation, he met with success in his agricultural labors, becoming an extensive landholder in Clarence, Mis- souri, where he is now living retired from active pursuits, enjoying a well deserved leisure. His wife, whose maiden name was Ellen Ran- dall, was born in Missouri, a daughter of J. B. Randall, the descendant of a Welsh family that settled in Maryland on coming to the United States to found a home. Of their union six children were born, namely : John Henry, the special subject of this brief sketch; Emma, wife of J. R. Gaines, of Las Animas, Colorado: Orie, wife of Rev. E. G. Phil- lips, pastor of the Mission church at Hannibal, Missouri; James F., of Shelby county, Missouri, who married Alice Bishop; Leo, who married N. P. Turner and lives in Raton, New Mexico; and Harry, of Clar- ence, Missouri.
Having acquired a practical education in the public schools, John Henry Perry left home as a boy of seventeen years, and during the following two years was clerk in a store at Clarence, Missouri. Making then a bold venture, he crossed the old-time "Great American Desert." going to Salida, Colorado, where he spent two years. Returning then to his old home, Clarence, Mr. Perry married and was there engaged in business for some time. In 1903 he came to Arkansas in search of a favorable location and for two years was engaged in mercantile pur- suits at Stuttgart. Selling ont his interests in that locality, he then established himself in the real estate business at Siloam Springs, deal- ing in and handling property both as a speculation and on commission. Organizing the Perry Realty Company, he was officially connected with it until late in 1910, when he disposed of his holding in the company and re-established himself in the business, chiefly as a real estate speen- lator. With the utmost faith in the future prosperity of the state, Mr.
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Perry has demonstrated that Arkansas is a place where profitable in- vestments are waiting for homeseekers of industry, and through his efforts many new settlers have located in the fruit and farming belt of this prodnetive land. He is also the president of the Bank of Com- merce, which was organized in February, 1911, and opened for busi- ness on May 15th following.
On December 23, 1890, Mr. Perry married Jennie E. Casler, a daughter of Frederiek and Catherine ( Hoosen) Casler, who reared three children -Emery E., of Clarence, Missouri; Mrs. Perry : and Frank, of Clarence, Missouri. Mr. and Mrs. Perry are the parents of four chil- dren, namely : Nellie, Joseph, Esther and Lewis. Fraternally Mr. Perry is a Royal Arch Mason, a member of Siloam Springs Commandery No. 15. K. T .; a member of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows; of the Woodmen of the World; and of the Knights of the Maccabees.
HON. ARLANDER DENSON DULANEY. A wide-awake, brain man, full of energy and of resources, Hon. Arlander Denson Dulaney, one of the leading lawyers of Ashdown, has been a resident of Little River county since 1896 and during that time has been active and influential in the establishment of beneficial projects and organizations, proving himself an enterprising and practical "booster." A native of Arkan- sas, he was born, in 1877, in Sevier county, a son of Rev. Thomas Du- Laney. a minister of the Baptist persuasion.
Rev. Thomas DuLaney was born in Alabama in 1831, but was brought up and educated in Itawamba county, Mississippi, his parents settling in that county in 1838. Manifesting strong religious tenden- cies in early life, he chose the ministry almost as a matter of course and in 1858 assumed the pastorate of a Baptist church. During the Civil war he enlisted in a Mississippi regiment and served as a mem- ber of the Confederate army until peace was restored. Coming to Arkansas in 1872. he has since been a resident of Sevier county, his home now being at Ben Lomond. His wife, whose maiden name was Amanda Cascy, was born in Georgia and died, December 24, 1907, in Sevier county, Arkansas.
After leaving the publie schools of Sevier county, Arlander D. DuLaney studied for two years at the University of Arkansas, in Fay- etteville. Subsequently he taught school eight years in Little River county, which has been his home for fifteen years. In 1905 he was graduated from the law department of the University of Arkansas and immediately began a successful career as a lawyer at Ashdown. In 1910 Mr. DuLaney formed a partnership with James S. Steel and J. S. Lake, becoming junior member of one of the strongest and best- known law firms of Arkansas, that of Steel, Lake & DuLaney, which has offices at Ashdown and at De Quecn and is carrying on an ex- tensive and prosperous business.
Active and prominent in publie affairs, Mr. DuLaney represented his distriet in the state legislature from 1902 until 1910, in the session of 1909 having been distinguished as the only member of the house that had served his constituents four consecutive terms as representative. While there he was a member of almost every committee of importance, during his last two terms serving as chairman of the Committee on Appropriations.
Mr. DuLaney is identified with various organizations, being vice- president of the Southern Realty and Trust Company, a stockholder in and attorney for the Arkansas Trust and Banking Company and vice- president for Little River county of the State Historical Commission.
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Fraternally he belongs to the Ancient Free and Accepted Order of Masons, to the Independent Order of Odd Fellows and to the Hoo Hoos. He is also a member and the secretary of the Ashdown Commer- cial Club.
Mr. DuLaney married Miss Nix E. Corbett October 6, 1909. She was born in Thornton, Arkansas, but was reared and educated at Tex- arkana.
LEE P. KEMPER is one of the progressive business men of Siloam Springs, being identified prominently with one of its largest enterprises. It is his record to have abandoned journalism, of which profession he was a well-known representative in Missouri and other states, for busi- ness, in which he has enjoyed the fullest measure of success. Glancing back along ancestral lines no farther, indeed, than two generations, we find him to be of German extraction, and in him is found corroboration of the statement that the United States owes to the great empire of Germany some of its most valuable citizens and that the vitality and stability contributed by this element in our national life cannot be over-estimated.
Mr. Kemper is secretary of the Benton County Hardware Com- pany of Siloam Springs and has resided in this city since 1895. He spent a brief time in Bentonville before coming here and in that place was associated with the old mercantile forerunner of the Benton County Hardware Company, having moved there in 1891 and having now passed twenty years in the mercantile business.
He was born in Benton county, Missouri, in 1864 and shares his birthday with the father of our country, his eyes having first opened to the light of day on February 22. His father was Valentine G. Kemper, a native of Tennessee, who engaged in agricultural pursuits during the course of his active years. He came to Missouri about 1840 and passed to the Great Beyond in Benton county in 1879, his years numbering sixty-seven at the time of his demise. The subject's grand- father, as before suggested, had come from the Fatherland, had hark- ened to the accounts of American opportunity and had crossed the sea to claim a share of it. Shortly after his arrival he located in the state of Virginia and there married and reared his family. Valentine G. Kemper took as his wife Sarah Holland, a daughter of Willis S. Hol- land. a Virginia physician who died in Marshall county, Missouri. Mrs. Kemper died in 1867. The children of this union were as follows : Sibbie, deceased wife of Jack Yeater: Cad C., deceased; Flora, who mar- ried Samuel D. Dutcher and resides in Terre Haute, Indiana; Willis H., of Topeka. Kansas; Minnie C., wife of Connelly Harrington, of Siloam Springs: Mary, wife of William A. Thompson, of Loveland, Colorado ; and Lee P., of this review.
Lee P. Kemper left the farm at the age of twenty to attend school in Cameron, Missouri, and at the conclusion of his school days he re- mained in that city and took work on the Cameron Observer, there en- gaging in his initial endeavors as a printer and a newspaper man. He spent several years in this field and engaged in the same line of en- deavor in Kansas. Colorado and Kansas City, Missouri, subsequently drifting back to northern Missouri. where he formed a partnership with Connelly Harrington, then proprietor of the Plattsburg Jeffersonian. Ile continued with this paper until his retirement from journalism and his adoption of a mercantile career, a step decidedly justifiable in view of subsequent financial results.
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Mr. Kemper was married in Springfield, Kansas, in June, 1889, the lady to become his wife and the mistress of his household being Miss Hattie Templeton, daughter of Alexander Templeton, a farmer and a eitizen whose interests were centered in Illinois. The children of this union are Grace and Kathleen, graduates from the Christian College at Camden Point, Missouri; Carmen C., Minnie and Willis T.
When Mr. Kemper abandoned the newspaper field he discarded active polities as far as voluntary participation in it is concerned, but he yielded under pressure to his nomination for mayor of Siloam Springs in 1906 and was elected. Under his energetie administration the mu- nicipality quite outdid itself in the matter of public improvements; the building of the bridge over Sager ereek, the filling up of the city park, the building of the steps up the hill at Twin Springs and the con- struction of some thirteen miles of conerete walk constitute some of the things which marked his administration as a suecess.
In his fraternal work Mr. Kemper has taken an active part as a Mason. He is past master of the Siloam Springs Blue Lodge, high priest of the chapter and is a past eminent commander of the Siloam Springs Commandery No. 15. To add to his distinctions he is past patron of the Order of the Eastern Star. Thus it will be seen that the ancient and august Masonie order has few more prominent and none more loyal sons. He spent six years as distriet deputy of the sixth district of Arkansas and was distriet deputy grand worthy patron of the Order of the Eastern Star for a similar period of years. He now serves the order as deputy-at-large for the state of Arkansas. In their religious affiliations Mr. Kemper and his family are members of the Christian church.
When he left the field of journalism Mr. Kemper beeame a mer- chant, as previously noted. Upon the formation of the company called the Benton County Hardware Company he was chosen its secretary and has ever sinee remained in this capacity. He assumed the office in the year 1895, and his sound business sense and fine executive capacity have amply contributed to the good fortune which has been the lot of the enterprise in question. His duties in this connection ocenpy him to the exelusion of other important matters, and his eommand is sub- ordinate only to that of the manager of the company.
DR. ABNER D. THOMAS. Of the late Dr. Ahner D. Thomas it has been said that through his contribution in the way of machinery for the development of the cotton industry he did more for that line of enter- prise than any man sinee Eli Whitney. Dr. Thomas was born at Oran, Onondaga county, New York, in 1839, and in the Empire state of the Union he received his early educational training. In 1859, when twenty years of age, he made the trip overland to the new Eldorado in Cali- fornia, where he remained for a period of several months. In 1863 he rame to Little Rock as surgeon of the Third Cavalry, a part of General Steele's army of oceupation. He had previously prepared himself for the profession of medieine at the Iowa Medieal College. After the close of the Civil war he located for practice as a physician and surgeon at Old Lewisburg, now Morrillton, in Conway county, Arkansas. where was solemnized his marriage to Miss Olivia Bently. In addition to the work of his profession he hecame an extensive cotton planter. His in- creasing interest in the latter line of enterprise led him to the devising of more improved and more efficient machinery for the handling and ginning of cotton and finally he gave up the practice of medicine alto- gether in order to devote all his time to the inventing and mannfaetnr-
DAS Thomas
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ing of cotton ginning machinery. In 1883 he located permanently at Little Rock, and here he established the Thomas Cotton Press Works, which later became the Thomas Manufacturing Company and which is now known under the name of the Thomas-Fordyce Manufacturing Com- pany, manufacturers of cotton gin and cotton compress machinery and equipment, one of the largest concerns in the South and the most im- portant industrial plant at Little Rock.
Dr. Thomas invented and brought into use the first device for tak- ing cotton out of the wagon into the gin by machinery, this superseding the old crude method of doing it by hand. He invented the first self- packing cotton press, which was the device that brought him national fame and which was the basis of the statement often made of him that he did more for the cotton industry than any man since the time of Eli Whitney. In 1890 he established the Thomas Cotton Mills and operated the same for three years. In 1905 he retired from active connection with the Thomas-Fordyce Manufacturing Company, which he had founded, and he then established another industry, the Thomas Gin Compress Company, which has since become the Modern Gin Compress Company. . Subsequently disposing of his interest in the latter concern, he devoted the remainder of his time, until his death, in inventing and perfecting a more highly improved cotton press, the work on which was interrupted by his death. which occurred on the 21st of December, 1909, at the age of seventy-two years. He died in consequence of an injury sustained just at the moment that he had perfected his last in- vention. For fully two score years he devoted the major portion of his time and attention to this work, and too much cannot be said in tribute to him from this point of view. He was a man of brilliant mental at- tainments, powerful inventive genins and indefatigable energy, and not only Little Rock, but the entire South, mourns his death. In politics he was a stanch advocate of the principles of the Republican party and in his earlier life he was an active and interested factor in public af- fairs. In the late '60s and early '70s he was a member of the Arkansas state Senate. Fraternally he was affiliated with the Knights of Honor and his religious beliefs coincided with the teachings of the Universalist church. Dr. Thomas married Miss Olivia Bently, a native of Conway county, Arkansas, and to this union were born four children.
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