USA > Arkansas > Historical review of Arkansas : its commerce, industry and modern affairs > Part 9
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A boy of eleven years when he came with the family to Jackson county, Arkansas, John R. Loftin received a practical common school education. and began life as a wage-carner in a store, being employed as a clerk. At the breaking out of the Civil war, he promptly offered his services to the Confederacy, enlisting in Company G, First Arkansas Infantry, under Captain A. C. Pickett and Colonel Fagin, his regiment moving on to Mem- phis, where it awaited the movement that carried Arkansas out of the Union and added its chief strength to the Southern cause. The company left Jacksonport May 5. 1861, and with the regiment arrived in Virginia in time to take part in the first Manassas fight. after which an opportunity was offered all soldiers for enlistment for the war. and Mr. Loftin, with others, responded and was furloughed home. On his return the regiment was reorganized at Corinth. Mississippi, and the battle of Shiloh soon fol- lowed. Being here commissioned third lieutenant of his company, Mr. Loftin continued on duty throughout the next three years. Beginning with the battle of Perryville, he fought bravely at Murfreesboro, Chickamauga, Missionary Ridge, Chattanooga, and in all the general engagements and skirmishes of the Atlanta campaign, which lasted nearly a hundred days. From Atlanta he went back into Tennessee, accompanying Hood, who superseded General Joseph F. Johnston, to Franklin and Nashville. At the engagement in Franklin his division lost its gallant commander. General Pat Cleburne, while in Nashville the Confederate army was nearly an- nihilated, General Lowrey assuming command of the small remnant of Cleburne's army and joining General Johnston in North Carolina.
During his many years of exposure to danger, sometimes passing through an atmosphere almost too thick with bullets to breathe with safety, Mr. Loftin came off the field of blood and disaster at Nashville unscathed, but badly frightened. In that engagement the Federals, seemingly, were everywhere in evidence. Companies, regiments and commands were sur- rendering on every side, but John R. Loftin determined that no Federal prison should ever shelter him. There was nothing on earth that could save him, however, but his legs, and, his own testimony declares, that he made the best sprinting record of his entire life right there, and escaped. Prior to the battle, General Hood had promised that each soldier that came out of the scrimmage should have a furlongh home, and this blessed priv- ilege his foot race won for him. Before Mr. Loftin could again reach his command, after the expiration of his furlough, the war was closed.
Soon after the close of the conflict, Mr. Loftin was elected sheriff of Jackson county, but in 1866, in the early period of reconstruction, he was
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removed by the authorities, and he embarked in mercantile pursuits. When the period of reconstruction ended, he was again chosen sheriff of the county, and served from 1874 until 1882. Resuming then his agricultural opera- tions, he followed general farming, principally, until his final retirement, a few years since, becoming owner of farms and other lands of value in Jack- son county. In 1910 Judge Loftin was appointed justice of the peace by Governor Donaghy, and in September of the same year was elected to suc- ceed himself.
Politically Judge Loftin has ever been associated with the Democratic forces, and state conventions have known him as a delegate from Jackson county. He has had a personal acquaintance with many of the post-bellum governors of Arkansas, and in electing them to that high office has taken a modest part. The Judge joined the Masonic fraternity in 1865, and ha> taken the Blue Lodge and Chapter degrees. He has been president of Levee District, No. 2, since its creation.
Judge Loftin has been twice married. He married first, October 2, 1866, Elizabeth West, a daughter of William P. West, of Mississippi. She passed to the higher life in 1883, leaving four children, namely: John R .. Jr., a leading liveryman and stock dealer of Newport, of whom a brief per- sonal review is given elsewhere in this volume; Lucia G., wife of T. W. Shaver, of Little Rock; Samuel W., of Newport ; and Elizabeth, wife of W. D. Williams, of Newport. Judge Loftin married, in 1884, Mary Leech, who died November 10, 1906, leaving one daughter, Mamie, of Newport.
JOIN R. LOFTIN, JR. The business career of him to whom this sketch is dedicated has ever been characterized by persistency of purpose and a set determination to conquer all obstacles. His indefatigable energy and marked exeentive ability have been prolific of most gratifying results and it is with pleasure that his name is here included within the list of repre- sentative Arkansans. He has long been engaged in the livery business at Newport and is widely recognized as a man of loyal and public-spirited prin- ciples, although he could never be persuaded to accept political preferment of any kind.
John R. Loftin, Jr., is a son of John R. Loftin, the pioneer, old soldier of the Confederacy and magistrate of Newport, and he was born at Jack- sonport, Arkansas, on the 8th day of May, 1873. Ile attained to years of maturity in the vicinity of his birthplace, but his early schooling was of a somewhat intermittent character. Of nervons temperament and decidedly restless under indoor restraint, he sidetracked school as early as possible and as a young man turned his attention to the more practical affairs of life. His first employment was in the capacity of clerk in a store at Jack- sonport and early in life he became slightly interested in local politics. He soon abandoned politics, however, as unworthy the attention of a healthy intellect, and then turned his energies to farming, continning to be identi- fied with that line of enterprise for a period of five years, at the expiration of which, in 1904, he came to Newport, Jackson county, Arkansas, where he purchased a small livery business, the nucleus of his present extensive operations in that field. His first establishment consisted of a wooden barn with a few horses, but following his bent he soon began trading and traf- ficking in stock. Dealing in horses and mules offered the best opportuni- ties for his prowess and he soon built up a trade of no mean proportions. As his business developed he became a buyer abroad and shipped carload upon carload of mules to Newport from points in Missouri, disposing of them to the farmers in and about this city. Enlarging his territory, h- bought mules at distant points and shipped them to Memphis and St. Louis and in so doing gained an extensive acquaintance with dealers in those
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places. Of the quantities of mules and horses sold to planters in the viein- ity of Newport, in recent years, fully two thousand passed through his hands.
In 1906 Mr. Loftin lost his old wooden barn by fire and he then erected his present, fine concrete building, the same covering a tract of land one hundred by one hundred and forty feet of his quarter of a block of ground. It is interesting to note that around this barn centers the mart of the stock- market of the town. While his livery business was once his mainstay, it has now become a place of minor concern in the sphere of his activities. He still maintains a deep interest in farming and his unique personality places him in the field as a buyer for any animal that is offered for sale here. He taboos politics, brands it as a game more for the shiftless, crippled or aged than for the young and ambitious. His judgment of a man de- pends solely upon what that man does actually accomplish. He is a man not of words, but of deeds and his indefatigable industry is the secret of his rapid rise to a position of influence in the business world of this section of the state.
On the 15th of May, 1897, was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Loftin to Miss Julia Barnes, a daughter of Frank and Georgia (Crumble) Barnes. Mrs. Loftin is the only child of her parents. She is a woman of interesting personality and her gracious and sweet disposition has won to her a large circle of friends in this community. Mr. and Mrs. Loftin have one child, Lucia, whose birth occurred on the 28th of February, 1901. Religiously Mrs. Loftin is a staunch advocate of the doctrines upheld by the Presby- terian church.
Mr. Loftin exercises his franchise in favor of candidates representing the Democratic party at election time, but during the remainder of the year is non-partisan-just a plain citizen. In a fraternal way he is affiliated with the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks. He is broad- minded and liberal in his support of all matters projected for the general good and he is a citizen of worth and prominence at Newport.
JOHN P. PAUL. As secretary of the Arkansas department of the fra- ternal organization known as the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, John P. Paul has accomplished a most phenomenal work during the past decade. The numerical enrollment of the order from some four thousand members in 1900 to more than thirty-two thousand in 1911 and the raising of the order in the state from third to first place among the fraternities is bor- dering on the miraculous and can only be accounted for upon the theory of the injection of new blood and new methods into its management and the maintenance of a vigorous and unrelenting campaign.
John P. Paul was born at Dayton, Ohio, the date of his nativity being the 2nd of June, 1850. He is a son of Philip Paul, a German immigrant of the year 1842, who settled, as a youth of sixteen years, in Dayton, Ohio, and there passed the remainder of his life. His birthplace was in the prov- ince of Bavaria, Germany, and his vocation was a elerieal one in the office of the United States Express Company, in whose employ he continued for a period of twenty years. He married Miss Mary E. Rhine, of Dayton, and he was summoned to the life eternal in the year 1893, his cherished and devoted wife having passed away in 1888. The children born to this union were: John P., Mrs. Frederica Ayres, Mrs. Anna Smith, Otto J., Mrs. ('arl Mills, Mrs. Maggie Kramer and George E., all of whom are residents of Dayton, Ohio, except John P., of this sketch. John P. Paul received his preliminary educational training in the public schools of Dayton and when a lad of but thirteen years he became interested in river navigation. At that early age he became a cabin boy and he passed up slowly through the
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several grades of employment until he reached the rank of steward on the steamboat "Telegraph," plying between Cincinnati and Louisville. Sub- sequently he passed several months in a railroad construction camp at Evansville, Ind., where he served in the capacity of timekeeper and steward in the commissary department. In 1871 he located at Evansville, Indiana, where he applied himself vigorously to learning the art of photography. Too close application to that line of enterprise, however, impaired his health and as a result he was forced to seek out-of-door employment. At Evans- ville, then, he entered public service as a police officer and after seven years' identification with that department of the municipal government he retired as a lieutenant of the force.
In 1888 Mr. Paul decided to try his fortunes further west and accord- ingly he came to Arkansas, locating first at St. Paul, in Madison county, where he resumed the art of his earlier life until fortune favored him with a new calling and jostled him away from the camera and skylight for good. While a resident of St. Paul he was active in incorporating the town, was chosen its first mayor and served in that capacity with the utmost effi- ciency for three terms. In 1893 he was appointed, under President ('leve- land's second administration, as storekeeper and gauger for the Northwest Arkansas revenue district and soon thereafter he removed with his family to Sulphur Springs. He continued in the government service for a period of seven years and when he retired therefrom, in 1900, he assumed the responsibilities of his new office-that of secretary of the Arkansas branch of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows. While a citizen at Sulphur Springs he operated the Kansas City Southern Eating House and was there incumbent of the office of mayor for two terms. In 1907 he moved to Siloam Springs, Arkansas, and while there served one term as mayor and as president of the 10,000 club. He now resides at Newport, Jackson county, Arkansas.
Mr. Paul was made an Odd Fellow in Evansville, Indiana, in 1871. He passed the chairs of the lodge in that city and was instrumental in organizing the lodge at St. Paul, Arkansas, on the 20th of May, 1891, he being the only charter member of that lodge now living. He was chosen representative of the St. Paul lodge to the Grand Lodge of the state in the same year and again in 1892, in which year he was elected warden of the Grand Lodge. In 1893 he was elected deputy grand master and in the following year he passed to the grand master's chair. In 1896 and 1897 he represented the Grand Lodge in the Sovereign Grand Lodge of Odd Fellows and in the latter year was elected grand patriarch of the Grand Encampment of Arkansas. Later, in 1900, he was elected to his present office as grand secretary of the Grand Lodge of Arkansas. He is the oldest member of the board of the Odd Fellows' Orphans' Home, at Batesville, an institution established in 1898.
The history of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows in Arkansas begins with the year 1839, on August 12th of which year Far West Lodge, No. 1, was instituted at Little Rock. Until recent years its progress in the state has been slow, the masses not seeming to appreciate the advan- tages to be derived from the organization. During the past few years, how- ever, it has made a new departure and its recent growth in the state has become wonderfully rapid, the membership having been doubled during the past five years. During the years 1900 to 1910 the net increase in member- ship in Arkansas was 26,000. This remarkable advance is attributed solely to the wonderful influence and excellent management of its present secre- tary, John P. Paul, who assumed active charge of the affairs of the order in 1900. First of all, his whole being was permeated with the spirit of fraternity as exemplified through Odd Fellowship. His affiliation with the
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publie led him to the solution of the problem of handling men; of gaining their attention and awakening their interest upon a matter affecting their own welfare. These conclusions gradually matured into plans and methods, which the new grand secretary adopted, with the result that the order in Arkansas has had virtually an awakening that amounts almost to a new birth.
At Evansville, Indiana. in the year 1873, was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Paul to Miss Lizzie MI. Helbling, a daughter of Antone Helbling, who was born and reared in the Empire of Germany. Mr. Helbling came to the United States about the year 1854, and he was well known as a foundryman in Evansville for many years. Two children were born to bless this union : Mayme, and John P., Jr. The son married Lillian Noel, of Noel. Missouri, and he was killed in a railroad accident at Carl Junetion, Missouri, on the 3d of March, 1908. He is survived by a widow and daugh- ter, who reside at Pineville, Missouri. Mayme resides at home with her parents. In their religious faith Mr. and Mrs. Paul are devout members of the Christian church, in the various departments of whose work they are most active and zealous factors.
In his political adherency Mr. Paul is aligned as a stalwart in the ranks of the Democratic party and while he has never manifested partie- ular ambition for the honors or emoluments of public office he has been honored by his fellow citizens with election to various offices of trust and responsibility, as previously noted. He is a man of splendidly developed men- tality and broad human sympathy and as a citizen and official in the order of Odd Fellows he has attained to that degree of popularity which is ever indicative of sterling worth and unquestioned integrity.
LEE WORTHINGTON. Colonel Worthington has maintained his resi- dence in Arkansas during the major portion of the time for the past thirty years, and his home and business headquarters are now in the city of Hot Springs. He has been the most prominent and influential factor in connection with the development of the mineral resources of the state, where his interests in this line are now varied and of most important order, and he has otherwise shown his loyal interest in the promotion of those measures and enterprises that have conserved the material and eivie progress of this favored commonwealth. In the ex- ploiting of the mining industry in Arkansas he is consistently desig- nated as the pioneer, and he has shown marked initiative and eon- structive ability, the results of which are to be seen not only in his valuable holdings of mining property, but also in the industrial aetivi- ties promoted and fostered under his careful and discriminating ad- ministration. He is well known throughout the state and his status is essentially that of a representative eitizen and business man-one who commands unqualified popular confidence and esteem.
('olone] Worthington, who received his military title through his service as an offieer in the ever memorable Brooks-Baxter war, brought about by contending politieal forees in Arkansas in 1874, elaims the fine old Buckeye state as the place of his nativity, and he is a seion of a sterling pioneer family of that commonwealth. He was born at Washington, Fayette county, Ohio, on the 22nd of February, 1842, and is a son of J. J. and Catherine B. (Creamer) Worthington, both of whom continued to reside in Ohio until their death, the father having devoted the major part of his aetive career to education. Colonel Worthington was reared to adult age in his native state, to whose com- mon schools he is indebted for his early edneation. At the age of nine- teen years he left Ohio and set forth to seek his fortunes in the west.
Lee Worthing ton-
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He first came to Arkansas in the year 1870 and located in the city of Little Rock. During the long intervening years he has continued to regard Arkansas as his home, although he has in the meantime passed varying intervals outside of its borders. as he has been concerned in a specially active way with prospecting and the developing of mining enterprises in Colorado, New Mexico. Arizona and other sections of the west. In fact. the major portion of his active career has been one of close identification with mining interests. and he is a recognized author- ity in regard to commercial mineralogy. and mine development and engineering. as his experience has been exceptionally wide and diversi- fied. His most important mining interests at the present time are in Garland county. of which Hot Springs is the capital and metropolis. and in the adjoining county of Montgomery. The section thus desig- nated is the center of the richest mineral region in the state of Arkan- sas. Colonel Worthington here owns about twenty-two copper mines. known as the Worthington mines, and the same are located principally in Montgomery county, though the property extends over into the northwestern part of Garland county. The mines are located near the village of Cedar Glades. Montgomery county. The main shaft of the Worthington mines covers three claims and is six hundred feet wide by four thousand five hundred feet in length. The copper lode or vein has an average width of seven feet. Colonel Worthington initiated development work on this property in 1909 and operations are . ~ being carried forward with excellent returns. the ore averaging Alve per cent of pure copper. five dollars in gold and three dollars and sev- enty-five cents in silver to the ton as it comes from the mine. The splendid richness of the ore is well indicated by the figures just given. and the ore is unusually rich as compared with other of the great copper properties of the United States. The concentrates from the ore run twenty-nine per cent pure copper. In the development of this magnifi- cent property Colonel Worthington has been able to afford tangible evidence of the great hidden wealth that lies in the vicinity and that is destined to become one of the greatest of the natural resources of the state.
Colonel Worthington was likewise the discoverer and is the owner of a bed of pottery clay that is conceded by the highest authorities to be the greatest ever discovered in the world. This famous deposit tract is situated in Garland county. about eight miles due north of Hot Springs and near the village of Mountain Valley. It embraces four hundred and twenty acres. and from the beautiful white clay here secured is manufactured the finest of fancy white brick for ornamental architectural purposes. but is more especially adapted for pottery pur- poses. as from the clay, without the admixture of any other elements. is manufactured the most beautiful china and other pottery of all kinds. The product is susceptible of the most artistic tinting and glazing. and it permits the minimum of thinness and the most artistic shaping in the fine wares manufactured therefrom. The hill containing this great deposit reaches a height of four hundred and fifty feet, and the superficial dimensions of the bed are nine thousand by twenty-five hundred feet. The supply is practically inexhaustible and in the same is represented intrinsic valuation to the amount of millions of dollars. Clay from this great depository is sold by Colonel Worthing- ton to leading potteries and brick manufactories in various parts of the Union. the Chicago & Rock Island Railroad Company. realizing the great commercial value of the products. are now, 1911. contemplat- ing building a spur track from Hot Springs to the property-a dis-
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tance of eight miles, as already indicated. This provision will greatly facilitate the development and operations of the property, and the con- comitant industrial enterprise is one that is destined to angment greatly the commercial prestige of the state.
As a citizen Colonel Worthington is essentially liberal and pro- gressive, and he takes a specially lively interest in all that touches the advancement and prosperity of his home city of Hot Springs. He married Miss Emma Lock, of Covington, Tennessee, daughter of Hon. Benjamin Lock, of that place. Colonel Worthington and his wife are members of the Methodist Episcopal church.
JAMES T. HENDERSON. Inherent force of character, commendable am- bition and unremitting diligence are the secrets of Captain James T. Hen- derson's steady advance in the business world of Arkansas. He now occu- pies a leading place among the active and representative citizens of Jackson county, where he has resided since 1860. He came here with his bride that year from Giles county, Tennessee, where he was born on the 14th of Sep- tember. 1835. His ancestors were of the old school of planters. including his father and grandfather Henderson, who owned the labor which carried on their agricultural industry. The captain's father was Benjamin F. Hen- derson, born at Henderson, North Carolina, in 1807. He died in Giles county, Tennessee, in 1848. Thomas Henderson, grandfather of the cap- tain, lived to a grand old age, his lease on life carrying him past the first half of the nineteenth century and through the period of the Civil war, although he was born about ten years before the Declaration of Inde- pendence.
Thomas Henderson married Margaret Grigsby and to them were born the following children: Lemuel J .; James; Eliza, who married Samuel Clay : Rebecca, who became the wife of Dr. Massenburg : Benjamin Frank- lin, father of the subject of this review ; and Sarah and Margaret, who died unmarried. Benjamin Franklin Henderson married Nancy Blackwood, a daughter of James Blackwood, of North Carolina, who served in the war of the Revolution, in which he lost a leg. Nancy Henderson passed away in the year 1850, two years after the death of her husband. and she was the mother of four children, concerning whom the following data are here in- corporated : Captain James T., of this review ; Eliza, who married Robert Davis and who passed away in Jackson county, Arkansas, in 1891 : Emma, who is now Mrs. Robert Ladd, of Newport, Arkansas; and John C., of Auverne, Arkansas.
Captain Henderson received his preliminary educational training in the private schools of his native county and later supplemented the same by higher study in the schools of Lebanon, Tennessee. He was married at the age of twenty-five years and after that important event came at once to Arkansas, bringing his slaves with him and engaging extensively in grow- ing cotton in Breckenridge township, Jackson county. The outbreak of the rebellion almost put a ban on the profitable use of his plantation for the next four years, nothing being done save what the women, children and old men among the slaves could accomplish. But in the year 1866 Captain Henderson resumed planting under the new and changed conditions of labor, putting his employes either on the pay roll or the rent roll, and he reaped the richest harvest of any single year of his experience as a farmer. To particularize in this case, he raised eighty acres of cotton, gathered eighty-eight bales from it and sold what remained on the stalk for fifty-five hundred dollars. The war had stripped him of his stock and had exhausted his material resources otherwise, but this cotton crop raised his credit, as well as his spirits, and set him on the road to renewed prosperity.
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