USA > Arkansas > Historical review of Arkansas : its commerce, industry and modern affairs > Part 54
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Since his gradnation the Doctor has been actively engaged in the practice of medicine in Arkansas. He is still a close student and has kept in touch with the newer methods used by leading physicians and surgeons, in 1894 having taken a post graduate course in New York city, and in 1908 making a special study of the eye and ear in Chicago, Illinois. He is a member of varions medical organizations, belonging to the Benton County, the Arkansas State and the American Medical Associations.
Dr. Webster married, in Washington county, Arkansas, in July, 1883, Josephine Green, a daughter of Mrs. Rebecca Green, formerly of Honey Greve, Texas. Four children have been born to Doctor and Mrs.
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Webster, namely: Vashni, a member of a musical company now tour- ing the country; Irene; Ima; and Virginia.
The Doetor is a man of versatile talent, exceptionally endowed with perceptive and imaginative powers, and as an anthor has aequired a far more than local reputation, works in both prose and verse being prodneed by his faeile pen. A little book entitled "A Vision From the Wild" has been published by a New York firm, and is, as the Doctor announces, "in truth from the wilds; written by a man that roamed the wilds." A beautiful deseription of the cotting sun is given in a prelude to the work, running as follows
No man may pen the beanties of a sunset on the plain, Nor artist paint its splendor, all efforts are in vain ; It sinks to rest, beyond the hills, a burnished ball of gold, Leaving a beauteous trail of glory, twilight o'er the wold.
The sun-gleamed elonds reflected glow mellows the distant lea ; Behold a strange transfiguration, a green and waving sea, Ten thousand gold-tipped arrows, flung from the setting sun, Dance and quiver in gorgeous glory on the western horizon.
The fleeey elonds are mustered near the day-god's failing light, And the stars in timid grandenr steal out from silent night; Now the peneiled rays of glory are furled slowly in the west, Black night reigns victorious; the sun hath set to rest.
The recent aet of Congress in refusing a place in Statuary Hall to the bust of General Lee moved the Doctor to pen the following senti- ment in verse, and its merit speaks for itself :
A Tribute to the Memory of General Ice by One Who Wore the Blue.
The reveille is but a dream, The lond-mouthed cannon's still, Bayonets hath eeased to gleam, On the Southland's sunny hill.
Thy chiseled monument stands at home, Beneath our Capitol's high, proud dome; Thy glorious statne shall ever stand True emblem of happy and united land; Posterity will greet thy merited fame, Cherish and revere thine honored name.
Hath hatred left vile, blighting sear Upon true patriots who fought in war. Against a noble foe, where pure blood Joined kindred stream, brothers stood, In battle's obstinate and fierce array, One clothed in blue, the other in gray ?
Hail Chieftain of immortal fame ! Before thee, uneovered, low I how, True homage to illustrious name, Honored in the past, exalted now.
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Chief of an hundred battlefields, To ye a soldier's heart e'er turns, Hailing thee as leader, and yields Ye eomrade love that ever burns.
Ye stood as giant, born to lead, Thy country's hope, brave and true, To ye I grant a well-earned mead, Ye wore the gray, I wore the blue.
JOSEPH H. STANLEY. A rising young attorney of Little Rock, Joseph H. Stanley is well equipped by reason of his broad eulture and high mental attainments for his profession, and he has started out in life with bright prospects for a brilliant future in his legal career. The deseendant of prominent pioneer families on both sides of the house, he was born at Augusta, Woodruff county, Arkansas, a son of the late Major T. E. Stanley.
Born at Leighton, Colbert county, Alabama, T. E. Stanley became a student at the La Grange Military Academy, in Alabama, when a lad, and at the age of sixteen years left that institution to enter the Con- federate service. He enlisted in the Sixteenth Alabama Infantry, and for some time served as lieutenant of Company G. Coming to Arkansas in 1870, he took up his residence at Augusta. Woodruff county, where he praetieed law for many years, being one of the foremost members of the county bar. One of the representative and substantial eitizens of his community. he became very prominent in politieal eireles and made the race for Democratie nominee for governor of the state, running against Senator Berry. He was a whole-souled, kind-hearted man, warm- ly sympathetic, and his death, which occurred in 1904, while attending a reunion of Confederate soldiers at Nashville, Tennessee, was a eause of general regret. Major Stanley married Laura MeCurdy, who sur- vives him. Her father, the late Judge Isaae MeCurdy, was a prominent and wealthy pioneer citizen of Woodruff eounty.
Joseph H. Stanley was an ambitious student when a boy and re- eeived the highest educational advantages. IIe was prepared for col- lege at the Bingham Sehool, in Asheville, North Carolina, and in 1907 was graduated from the University of Arkansas. He then entered the Columbia University in New York eity, where he took a full course of three years, being graduated with the degree of Bachelor of Laws with the elass of 1910. A few weeks later, during the summer of 1910. Mr. Stanley established himself as a lawyer at Little Rock, opening offiers in the Southern Trust Building, and has thus far made rapid strides in his profession, having already secured a fair share of patronage.
CHARLES W. DUNLAP is the senior member of the firm of Dunlap & Son, real estate dealers and identified with the ranehing interests of Benton county. For twenty-four years he has been a factor in the de- velopment of this part of the state and the nature of his dealings and the extent in which he has dealt in land and in his specialties, horses and eattle, have made him the possessor of a wide and enthusiastic acquaintance. He has been identified with the West sinee 1880, in which year he left Elwood, Indiana, where his business career was in- augurated.
Mr. Dunlap is a native of the Hoosier state, which has been pro- ductive of so many eminent men in other fields as well as literary, his eyes having first opened to the light of day in Bartholomew county.
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Indiana, August 29, 1856. His father, Charles Dunlap, was a successful farmer and stock man who settled in that locality as an emigrant from Ireland. The father's birthplace was county Donegal, and its date the year 1801, and at about the time he entered his 'teens he ran away from home and sought the United States as a place to carve out his future. His father's name was John Dunlap and in later years, when he had established a comfortable home and competence, the subject's father brought his parents to the United States and gave them a happy haven in their declining years. It is a very unusual circumstance that both of them. lived to be more than a century old, the father living to the age of one hundred and eight years and the mother to that of one hundred and four. Among their children were the following named : Charles, John, James, William, Nancy and Jennie.
At the age of twenty-three years Charles Dunlap, Sr., took unto himself a wife, the runaway boy having grown to man's estate in the new country and having become sufficiently prosperous to warrant his establishing a home of his own. The young woman was Miss Mary Patterson, a West Virginian. They lived a useful and happy life to- gether, living to advaneed years. the wife passing away in the '80s and the husband in 1888, at the age of seventy-nine. They gave a number of sons and daughters to the state, as follows: Mary Jane, who married John Clayton; Elizabeth, who became the wife of "Dol" Bumpus; Ella, who married George Fridgeon ; Nancy, who married a Mr. Stewart, a wealthy Indianan, active in the life of Columbus and Elwood ; Rachel and Josie, who died unmarried; Charles W., of this review; and Alice, who died single.
Charles W. Dunlap received an education of a liberal character and finished his mental discipline at Hartsville College, Indiana. Beginning life as a farmer and stoekman, he abandoned these vocations in early manhood for a position as traveling salesman for a Cineinnati firm and remained in this association for four years. It was shortly after this that he came to the southwest and resumed the stoek business at Cimarron, Kansas. His father had acquired a ranch there while that state was still regarded as the frontier and they conducted it as a eattle and grazing venture until the winter of 1885, when the severe blizzards which devastated the southwest proved sadly destructive of their live stock and the business of the ranch was abandoned.
Leaving Kansas, Mr. Dunlap came to Benton county, Arkansas, and acquired ranch interests near Siloam. He has maintained these more or less extensively to the present and he has taken into associa- tion with him his son, Walter Dunlap, who owns a raneh situated near his father's. Before he became so thoroughly absorbed in the real estate business Mr. Dunlap devoted a great deal of his time and attention to horses, shipping the equine product of the Arkansas hills and vales to points in Texas. For twenty-two years Mr. Dunlap has handled real estate in Siloam Springs. He is a substantial property owner, has done a vast amount toward the material development of the city in the capacity of a builder and has proven his rank as one of the big sellers in the real estate field. He and his firm have advertised Benton county widely, and have not only been instrumental in introducing many im- provements, but have also brought many settlers to the state and par- ticularly to the county. In short the city of Siloam Springs has profited in no small degree from the presence of Dunlap & Sons within its pleasant borders. To them is due its poetie sobriquet, "the City of Fountains, " and they have given it fame as the favored spot where health may be found all the year 'round. Siloam Springs is located
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upon a rolling platean, two hundred and twenty-nine miles south of Kansas City, just over the crest of the Ozark range. It is twelve hun- dred feet above sea level, set amidst charming mountain scenery and fertile fields. It is a city of homes, scattered over so much territory that each elegant modern residence has generous surrounding grounds and cement sidewalks eenneet every part of the city.
Siloam Springs' business section is made up of modern brick and. stone business houses and stores, such as are rarely found in a city of its size. There are churches of many denominations, their edifices being indeed a eredit to a eity of ten thousand, and all are well supported. A splendid new central publie school building and a college with ac- eredited standing provide the higher educational institutions of the place. The eity owns its light and water plant, and the water supply is furnished by a spring just out of town. These, together with the manufacturing and other industries of the place, make up the substan- tial conditions to be found in the metropolis of the western part of Benton county.
Mr. Dunlap is not active in polities. He is a Democrat in the main issues of the party, but the "free silver" question eaused his allegiance to waver in 1896 and he voted for MeKinley for president.
On August 29, 1879, Mr. Dunlap married, at Elwood. Indiana, Miss Anna H. Hand, a daughter of Hiram Hand, an Englishman, who now resides with his daughter in Siloam Springs. Mrs. Hand, the mother, was Miss Mary Birdwell, of Houston, Texas, and six children were born of the union. Mr. and Mrs. Dunlap are the parents of a son and a daughter. The former, Walter H., is junior member of the firm of Dunlap & Son. He married Miss Claud Bryan, of Siloam Springs, a cousin of the silver-tongued statesman of Nebraska. The daughter. Miss Mary Dunlap, resides at home.
Mr. Dunlap takes much pleasure in his fraternal relations, which extend to the Independent Order of Odd Fellows and the Knights of Pythias.
LILBURN A. HOCKERSMITH. When the history of Saline county and her publie men shall have been written its pages will bear no worthier name and record than that of Lilburn A. Hoekersmith, ex-sheriff and ex-county elerk. It is generally agreed of this gentleman that the reputation he enjoys of having been one of the most faithful and effi- cient officials in both of the above capaeities that Saline county has ever had is well deserved.
This good citizen of Benton is a native son of the county. He was reared here, and has here spent his life. The date upon which his eyes first opened to the light of day was May 14. 1857, and the names of his parents were Tilford G. and Elizabeth (Wright ) Hoekersmith, and it was the former who was the first of the family to come to Arkansas. He had been born in Kentucky, but when of tender years went with his parents to Quiney, Illinois, and it was in 1847 that he first entered the pleasant borders of this state. He located upon a farm about one mile southwest of the present court house in Benton, and it was there that the son had his birthplace. The father passed to the "Great Beyond" in 1876 and the mother died in 1881. She was a native of Illinois, and was married to her husband while they were living at Quiney.
Mr. Hockersmith was the eighth in order of birth in a family of nine children. The public schools of Saline county afforded him educa- tional discipline and early in life he began to take an interest in public Vol. III-24
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affairs. His early days were passed in that serious and thoughtful time just succeeding the Civil war. He was too young to be an active factor in the war, but it was brought home to him by the fact that two of his older brothers, Alfred C. and Tilford Hockersmith, enlisted in the Con- federate service in the regiment going out from Saline county.
The subject has spent most of his active life engaged in farming, and he owns a good, highly cultivated property on the Saline river, about a mile and a half northwest of Benton. Here he engages in general agriculture, and is in the enjoyment of a competency. For six years he was county clerk of Saline county, following which, beginning in 1906, he served for four years as sheriff of the county. retiring from that office in 1910. He is an adherent of the policies and principles of the Democratic party, and a member of the time-honored Masonie fraternity.
Mr. Hockersmith chose as his wife Jessie Henderson, a native of Saline county and a member of a well-known pioneer family of the name. her father being Samuel T. Henderson. Mr. Hockersmith has one brother. Elbert Hockersmith, living in Florida, and two sisters. namely : Mrs. Sue Kinkead, of Benton, and Mrs. Cressida Finley, of Argenta, Arkansas.
CHARLES J. WILLIAMS is president of the Bank of Sulphur Springs, the owner of the Williams addition to the eity and man-of-affairs gen- erally. It was he who rejuvenated the little town after a lapse of four- teen years by the ereetion of a new house, the eentral figure of the group of homes fast clustering about the lake, which shines along the border of Sulphur Springs' beautiful park.
Seeking a elimate with more mildness than that of Northern Missouri, and at the same time a place where business opportunities seemed rife, Mr. Williams selected Sulphur Springs, Benton county, Arkansas, pur- chased a tract of land adjoining the park and platted eleven acres into town lots. During the past five years he has exploited this section as a residence place with admirable success. He came to Arkansas from Harris, Sullivan county, Missouri, where he had established a reputa- tion for himself as a breeder of blooded cattle and where he maintained prominent business connections for several years. He was born in Put- nam county, Missouri, July 29, 1868, and was educated in the public and high schools of Unionville. His father was Dr. Wright Williams, of Harris, Missouri, an Iowa man by birth and a practicing physician for fifty years. Dr. Wright was a son of Barstow Williams, who was the first white man to settle in Louisa county, Iowa, where he engaged in agricultural pursuits and where he continued to reside for more than sixty years. Dr. Williams married Miss Sarah Geisinger. a daughter of John Geisinger, a nurseryman by occupation and a Canadian by birth. Dr. and Mrs. Williams became the parents of the following children : Dr. William W., of Quincy, Illinois; Lillie A., who became the wife of W. H. Stephenson, of Eldon, Iowa: Ernest, of Harris, Missouri; Harry and Harlan, twins, the former a resident of Floris, Oklahoma, and the latter a resident of Newton, Missouri; and Charles J., the immediate subjeet of this sketeh.
Charles J. Williams, after due preliminary educational training, passed his youth as a elerk in a mercantile establishment, thereby famil- iarizing himself with the general merchandise business for a period of ten years, at the expiration of which he abandoned the business and initiated operations as a stoek-raiser, growing the Aberdeen Angus breed of cattle, a favorite blood of the Scotchman and of Scotland. He
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continued to be identified with that line of business until 1906, when he removed to Sulphur Springs, as previously noted.
Aside from his real estate holdings in Sulphur Springs Mr. Will- iams is financially interested in the Bank of Sulphur Springs, being one of its founders and being now incumbent of the office of president, besides which he is also a director. He has made judicious investments in Arkansas farm lands, improving some of the same and sowing to meadow after the manner of the thrifty farmer of his native state. In politics he aceords a staunch allegianee to the Republican party, and in a fraternal way he is affiliated with the Blue Lodge, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons, at Sulphur Springs, and he also holds membership in the Independent Order of Odd Fellows and the Knights of Pythias. Both he and his wife are members of the Eastern Star, and both are devout members of the Christian church, in the various departments of whose work they have been most active.
On the 6th of June, 1894, was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Williams to Miss Winnie Wood, a daughter of Thomas and Jerusha ( Harris) Wood. Thomas Wood is a son of Joseph Wood, who married Elizabeth Johnson and established himself in Putnam county, Missouri, as a pioneer. Mr. Thomas Wood is engaged in farming and stock- growing in Sullivan county, Missouri. Mr. and Mrs. Williams have one son, Thomas Wood Williams, who was born on the 4th of April. 1901.
WILLIAM BARKLEY ALEXANDER, one of the founders of one of the largest general merchandise coneerns in Pine Bluff, was born in Jef- ferson county, Arkansas, January 11, 1852, and died April 2, 1908. He was reared on a plantation, educated in the public schools and came to Pine Bluff at the age of seventeen years and began his active life as a clerk in a general store. Several years later he was able to buy an interest in the Gillespie Brothers Company, of which he was elected vice-president. In 1885 he was appointed by President Cleve- land postmaster at Pine Bluff. Four years afterward he resumed his connection with the Gillespie Brothers Company, in the management of which he was eonspicuous until 1897, when he and his brother or- ganized the firm of Alexander Brothers. In 1902 the coneern was in- corporated as the Alexander Brothers Company, and William Barkley Alexander was elected its president.
In April, 1899, Mr. Alexander was elected mayor of the eity of Pine Bluff, in which office he served with great ability and marked fidelity to the interests of the people for two years. He was elected one of the Arkansas state capitol commissioners by the legislature in 1903. He was the prime mover in the organization of the People's Sav- ings Bank and Trust Company and was its vice-president, and he was a director and vice-president of the Merchants and Planters Bank at the time of his death. He was an elder and earnest worker in the First Presbyterian church of Pine Bluff. He was an enthusiastic member of the Knights Templars and the Mystic Shrine.
Mr. Alexander married Miss Lutie Eddins, of Shelby county, Ten- nessee, daughter of Dr. B. H. Eddins, and they were the parents of three children-John G. Alexander, Lutie Alexander, at home. and William B. Alexander, Jr.
John G. Alexander, son of William Barkley and Lutie (Eddins) Alexander, was born at Pine Bluff October 18, 1876. He was edu- eated there and at Central University. Richmond, Kentucky. From the last named institution he was graduated with the degree of A. B. in 1896. TIe read law for a time and in 1897 became a bookkeeper
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in the employ of Alexander Brothers. In 1902, when the Alexander Brothers Company was incorporated, he became a stockholder in the concern and was elected its secretary. Upon the death of his father, in 1908, he inherited the latter's stock and became vice-president of the company. He is a member of the order of Woodmen of the World, of the Maccabees and of the Sigma Alpha Epsilon Fraternity. He inarried Miss Lou Reeder, of Piqua, Ohio, in 1900, and they have two children- Willeene and Joseph B. Alexander.
William B. Alexander, Jr., second son of William Barkley Alex- ander, was born at Pine Bluff September 4, 1886. He was graduated from the Pine Bluff high school in 1902, from the academic department of the Central University of Kentucky at Danville in 1905 and from the law department of the same institution in 1906. In September, 1907, he began the practice of law, with J. W. Crawford as a partner. May 20, 1909, he associated himself with Major N. T. White, the style of the firm being White & Alexander. He is an Elk, a Mason and a member of the Sigma Alpha Epsilon Fraternity.
JOHN W. FERRILL. Among the settlers of Independence county, Arkansas, of the year year 1859 was a family from Alamance county, North Carolina, representatives of which have contributed substantially toward the material welfare of this and Jackson counties. At the head of the somewhat generous allowance of children of the family was a boy of nine years of age, whose natural endowments were then in- mature and undeveloped, but which, as the result of fortuitons circum- stances, bounded forth in the early period of youth and formed a bul- wark of strength and courage in the re-establishment of the family credit and in the sustenance of the younger brothers and sisters. Though deprived of those advantages which the modern day contributes in the way of schools toward the making of men, he was endowed with traits which, as the events of his life have shown, supplemented the poverty of his early education, led him on to other victories and made him the author of blessings and happiness in places where before were gloom and despair. This family of ante-bellum settlers answered to the name of Ferrill and this boy was John W., whose name forms the caption for this article.
John W. Ferrill was born in Alamance county, North Carolina, the date of his birth being the 25th of September, 1850. He is a son of James W. and Edna Graham ( Fonville ) Ferrill, both of whom are now' deceased, the father having been summoned to the life eternal on the 26th of May, 1895, and the mother having passed away on the 5th of March, 1905. James W. Ferrill was an only son of John Ferrill and Barbara (Efland> Ferrill, whose marriage was solemnized in the year 1>11. The Eflands came to America from Holland. John Ferrill was a gallant and faithful soldier in the war of the Revolution, having en- listed as a member of Captain DeBellecour's company of Dragoons, under General Count Pulaski, on the 15th of June, 1779. He passed the remainder of his life in North Carolina. James W. Ferrill's father- in-law was William Fonville, who married Rachel Blanchard, a relative of Governor Graham of North Carolina. Mr. and Mrs. James W. Ferrill were the parents of eight children, concerning whom the following brief data are here incorporated-John W. is the immediate subject of this review : Oscar Winfield, who died unmarried: James Graham, of Bates- ville: Margaret A .; Caledonia, who is the wife of James T. Hall, of Springfield, Missouri: Albert Preston, of Grayson county, Texas: Miss Mary Leonora, of Springfield, Missouri: and Charles Newton, of Bates-
John M Ferrell
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ville, the maiden name of whose wife was Mand Reed. James Graham Ferrill married Irene Meeks Fletcher, and Albert P. Ferrill wedded Mamie Rutherford.
Owing to the family reverses during the Civil war and to the in- valid condition of his father after the close of the war, John W. Ferrill was forced to assume, in a large measure, the place of the latter as the earning power for the support of his parents and the younger children. In the home state of North Carolina the father had been a planter of considerable means, and on his immigration to Arkansas he brought with him an ample fortune, but the strennous war times quickly dis- sipated the Ferrill estate and but little was at hand that could be used as a lever for the alleviation of the family difficulties when young John W. took his place at the helm. Having ever in view the comfort and a rebuilding of the parental fortune, if possible, Mr. Ferrill consigned all his independent earnings to that purpose until he had attained to the age of twenty-eight years. Upon reaching his legal majority his father told him that all he eould do for him was to "give him the world to make a living in," but the young man preferred to remain at home and to help rear his younger brothers and sisters. From twenty-eight to thirty-two years of age, however, he began building for himself, but even at the time of his marriage his taxable property was not large. After his marriage he faeed another obstacle which to young men of today would have seemed mountain-high and as unscalable as the Alps. His father-in-law, Dr. Pickett, who had been one of the large planters of Jackson county, Arkansas, for a number of years, had met with vari- ons reverses and recovered from them, but in 1882 heeame so heavily involved that the loss of his third fortune was actually in view. To hold the Pickett plantation and great landed estate became the imme- diate problem of John Ferrill's future, and, encouraged by his young wife and blessed with abundant health, he undertook to run the planta- tion, which he freed from debt in the course of years, paying off the Doc- tor's obligations and thus rehabilitating the credit of another family in the state.
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