Page 687-688
Jerry M. Ragsdill, intimately indentified with Houston Township as a farmer and citizen, was born in Perry County Ark Feb 7, 1849. His parents were Jesse Ragsdill and Susan Taylor, natives of Tennessee and Indiana, respectively. The father, also a farmer, of Irish descent, was among the early settlers of this county, having come here in 1840, and dying in October 1865. The mother is now living in Texas. They were married in 1842. There were eleven children in the family, five of whom survive: Jerry, James K, A.J., Josephine and Katie, all residing in Texas except Jerry. The subject of this sketch was the fourth child in this family and owing to the breaking out of the war, received no education. At the age of eighteen years, however, he gegan working on a farm by the month, cotinuing until about 1884, with good results. In 1874 he went to Texas and remained till 1879, returning then to Perry County, where he has 160 acres of land, inherited from his maternal grandparents; this is located on Arkansas River, and about seventy acres of it are under cultivation proving an excellent grain and stock farm and having upon it good improvements. Mr Ragsdill has been living where he now resides since 1885, there then being only sixteen acres of the land cultivated. In politics he is a Democrat having cast his first presidential vote for Horace Greeley. Though he believes in the Christian religion he is not a member of any church. His wife belongs to the Advent Church. Oct 26, 1884 he married Mrs Susan Brazil, a widow, with two sons: Morris P. and Deadalice. She was the daughter of Morris and Katie Borring, who came to Perry County in 1858, from Alabama. They have had three children; two are now living: Nellie Jane and James Grover. Mr Ragsdill's father served in the Federal army during the war, in Company C, Third Arkansas Regiment, for eighteen months as corporal and orderly sergeant.