Biographical and Pictorial History of Arkansas
Volume 1
By John Hallum - 1887

Judge Thomas Boles Biographical and Pictorial History of Arkansas - 1887 Judge Boles was born a farmer's son in Johnson county, Arkansas, July 16, 1837, and is of Norman-English extraction. A zealous biographer and enthusiastic genealogist of the family traces their advent into England as conquerors under William the Norman. The barons of Scampton and the lords of Swineshead in the county of Lincoln for seventeen generations figure conspicuously, dating back in this bailiwick to the reign of Henry III, and the biographer assures us that from another branch of the Boles family descended the Duke of Marlborough, John Boles, bishop of Rochester, William Boles, a naturalist, and Sir George Boles , lieutenant-general, who commanded a division under Wellington at Waterloo. The youth of Judge Boles was but a duplicate of that of the ordinary farm boy; he attended the old-fashioned log school-house at interval's when he could best be spared from the field, and in this way he aggregated twelve months' primitive schooling by the time he attained his twentieth year. But he had aspirations, a taste for books and literature, and became his own zealous educator at night after his day's work on the farm was over. In this way he qualified himself to teach the rudimentary branches of an English education, and for two years taught school, and read law during his leisure hours, and was admitted to the bar in 1859, at Danville, in Yell county, and located there. He served one year as deputy sheriff, and near two years as deputy clerk; was a Douglass democrat preceding Mr. Lincoln's election, but was a warm and zealous Unionist during the late civil war, and became captain in the Third Regiment Of Arkansas Federal cavalry, and figured conspicuously in the 10081 troubles and contests at the time. After the war, in politics he became a republican and an active supporter of Governor Clayton's administration. In 1865 he was elected judge of the fifth judicial circuit of the State, with but little experience as a lawyer and none as a judge, but it is due to him to say that he did not seek the office in those troubled and disjointed times; that he only consented to fill the office after urgent solicitation ; and that he was pleasant, courteous and affable on the bench, and filled the office with becoming credit and respect. In 1868 he was elected to the fortieth congress as a republican, and was successively elected to the forty-first and forty-second congress, and was an active supporter of his party during that stormy period. Arkansas, by reason of her relation to the rebellion, had been excluded from the benefits of an act of congress granting to the States lands to endow agricultural colleges. Judge Boles introduced and secured the passage of a bill in congress removing this restriction, and securing to Arkansas her proportion of the endowment college scrip. At the close of his congressional career he resumed the practice of his profession, and located at Dardanelle, and in 1878 was appointed, by President Hayes, receiver of the United States land office at Dardanelle. Governor Baxter tendered him the office of circuit judge of the fifth circuit, but he declined it. In 1882 President Arthur appointed him United States marshal for the western district of Arkansas, which position he held five years, disbursing for the government $300,000 annually. Since retiring from the marshal's office he has permanently settled in Fort Smith. Colonel Benjamin T. DuVal Biographical and Pictorial History of Arkansas - 1887 Colonel Benjamin T. DuVal was born in Boone county, Virginia (now West Virginia), 12st of January, 1827, of Huguenot descent; his father, Captain William DuVal, a native of Maryland, was a merchant and Indian trader, and in 1828 established a trading-post on the Arkansas river at Fort Smith, where he removed his family in 1829. Young Ben was educated in the primary and rudimentary branches of education at Fort Smith by private tutors, and was sent from thence at an early age to St. Joseph's College at Bardstown, Kentucky, where, at the expiration of three and one-half years, he graduated in his seventeenth year. After leaving college he returned to Arkansas, and for a while read law under Judge Jesse Turner at Van Buren. He next studied law under that profound scholar, profound lawyer, and great and brilliant man, General Albert Pike, at Little Rock, and under his guidance was admitted to the bar in 1847, but did not then enter on the practice of his profession. He acted as deputy United States marshal until some time in 1849, when he opened a law office in Fort Smith, where he has since continuously resided. In 1852 he was presidential elector on the democratic ticket, and as one of the three electors cast the vote of Arkansas for Franklin Pierce. In 1856 he was elected chief clerk of the lower house of the State legislature, and drew up, and by his influence secured the passage of the bill creating Sebastian county. In 1856 he took the stump against that short-lived political heresy, known as know-nothingism, and did good service at the funeral. In 1858 he was elected to the legislature as an anti-Johnson democrat, and on the resignation of Oliver H. Oats, was elected speaker of the house of representatives. In 1860, the electors of Sebastian county re-elected him to the legislature, and he was made chairman of the committee on Federal relations. In 1861 he was appointed paymaster-general of the Arkansas State troops. In 1862 he was appointed quarter-master on General Fagan's staff and staff and served in that capacity until the end of the war, and was in the engagements at Helena, Mark's Mill, Pilot Knob and engagements attending Price's raid into Missouri. After the war he opened a law office in New Orleans and practiced there one year, but became dissatisfied at the political outlook in Louisiana and came back to Fort Smith. In 1872 he was a candidate on the coalition ticket for attorney-general of the State and was elected, but was "counted out" by the radical party. In 1874 he was employed by the government to investigate frauds in Federal expenditures in the western district of Arkansas, and did his work well. He as frequently been appointed special supreme court judge, a very clear indication of his recognized legal attainments. Colonel DuVal is an active, sagacious, far-seeing politician, is always called into council by the democratic leaders, has frequently been prominently spoken of as a jurist fitted for a seat on the supreme bench, and as good senatorial material, but he cares nothing for office, is instinctively modest and retiring, and will not embark in contest for his individual promotion. He is both by blood and marriage, connected with many prominent men; his sister Catharine married Major Elias Rector, one of the most noted men of his day; his paternal aunt, Susan DuVal, married William Nesbit, member of congress from South Carolina; his paternal aunt, Julia DuVal, married Pierce W. Butler, governor of South Carolina; his cousin, Isaac H. DuVal, was a general in the Federal army and member of congress from West Virginia; his uncle, Edward W. DuVal, was Indian agent for the Cherokees a number of years; his father was a man of great energy and force of character. Hon. W. M. Fishback Biographical and Pictorial History of Arkansas - 1887 Hon. W. M. Fishback was born in Jefferson, Culpepper county, Virginia, November 5, 1831, and was classically educated at the University of Virginia. After leaving college he taught school and read law. In 1857 he left Richmond and came west, stopping in Illinois, where he remained one year prospecting for a suitable location to practice law. Here he met Abraham Lincoln, who became much attached to the young Virginia, and became his first client, by employing him to travel extensively over the State for the purpose of examining large bodies lands then under execution in the hands of the United States marshal to satisfy judgements in favor of Mr. Lincoln’s clients. This investigation was for the purpose of ascertaining how far the clients would be justified in bidding at the marshal’s sale. In November, 1858, the youth pulled up at Fort Smith, where he remained one month, taking in the situation, after which he pitched his tent in Greenwood and offered his services to the Public as a lawyer. Mr. Lincoln sent him his fee, and advised his return to Illinois as the more promising field. Judge Solomon F. Clark soon offered him a partnership, and they did a flourishing business until the junior was elected as a Union man to the secession convention in 1861. In 1882 his abilities were a flourishing business until the junior was elected as a Union man to the secession convention in 1861. Mr. Fishback, like a majority of the convention, was elected on the 18th of February, 1861, as a Union man; than a very large majority of the people of the State favored the perpetuation of the Union. But after Sumter was fired on all hope of saving the Union vanished, and secession swept the State like a cyclone. Mr. Fishback with Mr. Garland and other prominent men bent before the revolution and rode the tidal wave of secession, voting for it, and for the appropriation of millions of money to organize and put hostile armies in the field. In this he simply followed and voted with the majority from the beginning to the end of both sessions of that memorable convention. After the war opened in earnest, he left the State and went north. In 1864 he returned, locating in Little Rock, and edited a newspaper called the Unconditional Union, and on the 5th of May, in the same year, was elected by the Murphy legislature to represent Arkansas in the senate of the United States, with the Hon. Elisha Baxter as his colleague. They proceeded to Washington, but were denied admission, because the new constitution of that year had the Word “white” as a qualification for the electoral franchise. Being denied admission, he resigned his commission. In May, 1865, President Johnson appointed him United States treasury agent at Little Rock, an office fraught with vast power and discretion. Seizure, then, of a "rebels" property was, in a great majority of cases, equivalent to condemnation and forfeiture. In many thousands of instances in the south it was but the pretext and screen for unmitigated robbery. The "abandoned property act" poured in floods of thieves throughout the south, whose ravages were worse than wars and pestilence. The honest treasury agent was the exception and not the rule. The author was robbed of $6,000 worth of property, under the specious pretenses founded on this act, which was under lock and key when taken and never returned. Colonel Fishback stands out in bold contrast and relief as an honest officer, who used the vast power and discretion vested in him for the protection of the impoverished and helpless citizens, a fact which will always soften the rigor criticism and outweigh all his mistakes and foibles. He was elected to the legislature from Sebastian county ID 1872, but his bold and independent action and modes of thought were too imperious for the "Clayton curb," and, under the political form of legalized robbery then in vogue, he was not deemed eligible to the seat and was "beat in the count." ln 1874 he was elected to the constitutional convention which gave Arkansas her present constitution, and enfranchised her freemen who had so long been despoiled by a political oligarchy of thieves. He has always been popular with his fellow citizens of Sebastian county, who have known him longest and best. In 1876 they again elected him to the same office. In 1880 he was an unsuccessful candidate for governor. Conspicuous above all else in his legislative career is his long and successful fight to adopt what is known as "The Fishback Amendment" to the constitution, withdrawing from legislative consideration that portion of what is called the State debt, known as the Railroad Aid, Levee and bonds, all of which have been declared void by our supreme court. In 1880 Governor Garland, for the first and only time in his life, undertook to mold and lead public opinion in the rejection of the amendment. Fishback followed him with an array of unanswerable facts, which made him master of the situation, and drove Garland from the field before he had half canvassed the State. The plumage of the statesman gave way to the instincts of the politician, and the governor settled back into his normal quiescence. In 1885 Mr. Fishback was a candidate for the seat made vacant in the senate of the United States by the elevation of Mr. Garland to the cabinet, but Was defeated. He is an educated and polished gentleman, a fluent a close and plausible reasoner. But a competency and love of personal comfort has made him indolent in the prime of life, when his acknowledged talents ought to be worked to their normal capacity for the benefit of the public. He owned large interests in and around Fort Smith, which caught the recent boom, and his friends say he rode it at the flood Thomas C. Humphrey 1846-1937 Biographical and Pictorial History of Arkansas - 1887 Judge Humphrey was born on a farm in Logan county, Arkansas, December 20, 1846, the son of Hon. Charles Humphrey representative in the legislature from Scott county in 1840. When the late civil war commenced he was but fourteen years old, and had, up to that time, enjoyed but very limited facilities to acquire an education, all of his time after he was old enough to go to school being required on the farm. At the age of seventeen he volunteered his services as a soldier in the Confederate army, and served as such near two years, being discharged a few months before the surrender of the Confederate armies, because of physical disability occasioned by exposure in the army. At the close of the war he settled at Galla Rock in Pope county, and bent every energy and resource of his nature to acquire an education under very uninviting circumstances. He attended a common school five months in 1865, and advanced very rapidly; after this, necessity forced him to become his own tutor. He was soon able to teach a common neighborhood school, and in this way defrayed expenses and sustained himself; He read medicine under Doctors Talbot and Leith at Galla Rock, near two years, and then attended the Missouri Medical College in St. Louis two sessions, and graduated from that institution in 1869. Doctor Humphry practiced medicine about three years, and then abandoned that profession because he found it uncongenial to his taste, and removed to Judsonia and opened a drug store, which in turn grew monotonous, and he entered the political arena in 1874, and was elected to the legislature from White county, and did good service in the memorable session of 1874-5. Prominent in his legislative record was the bill introduced by him asserting and seeking to enforce the assumed right of the State to tax railroad lands, which became a law, and was very warmly and ably contested in the supreme court of the State and of the United States, the litigation resulting in sustaining the act. Whilst a member of the house he was often called to the chair to preside as speaker pro tem., and discharged the duties imposed by that office with marked ability. In 1876 he returned to Logan, his native county, and read law two years privately at his own home, and was admitted to the bar, but was not satisfied with his qualifications, and entered the post-graduate class of the law department of the University of Louisville, and at the end of one year graduated in that institution with the degree of doctor of laws, and was soon after admitted to the bar of the supreme court of the State. In 1879 he was appointed probate and county judge of Logan county, to fill an unexpired term of one year, and in 1880 was elected to that office by the people on the democratic ticket. In 1881-2 he owned and edited the Paris Express in the interest of the democratic party and the people. Judge Humphry has attained high masonic honors and promotion from the humblest position in subordinate lodges to the most worshipful grand master of the State. In the fall of 1886 he removed to Fort Smith, where he continues his professional pursuits. Thomas B. Latham Biographical and Pictorial History of Arkansas - 1887 Thomas B. Latham was born December 22, 1862, at Fort Smith, Arkansas, and is of English descent. his father was born in Virginia of an old colonial family who settled there long anterior to the revolution. His mother is a lineal descendant from the great orator and patriot, Patrick Henry. Mr. Latham's father settled at Fort Smith in 1849 and was a prominent citizen and useful, public-spirited man all his life. The young man obtained a good English education in the local schools of the city. After quitting school a eighteen years of age, he was appointed chief deputy clerk in the United States court for the wester district of Arkansas, and acted in that capacity for three years, and then as now enjoyed the confidence and esteem of Judge Parker of that court, and all other with whom he comes either in business or social contact. He borrowed books and read law carefully and assiduously about three years, and was admitted to the bar on his own motion in September, 1885. He has the courage of his convictions on all questions, and indulges a sovereign contempt for the policy-serving trimmer who never has or expresses an opinion until he first ascertains the views of the majority. An element of success is strongly indicated in the pertinacity with which he pursues an object once deliberately formed. Not long since a city bully presented an outrageous account against him for $30, pretendedly advanced to a laborer to whom Mr. Latham had given an order for $1.50. "I will pat the amount of my order and no more," he said, to which the blustering bully replied: "If you don't pay the $30 I will whip it out of you." "If you do I will give you $500. Where can I find you in ten minutes? Get ready. No bully can scare or run over me. I will be in front of your business house in ten minutes." All bullies are cowards and when they become alarmed fear unmans and makes cravens of them. Tommy (his pet name) went with his spurs on and paced up and down the pavement in front of the Craven's house for an hour, waiting for him to come out, but he was locked up in the counting-room trembling with fear and did not put in an appearance, preferring to let that engagement go by default. It requires a much higher order of courage to retract and apologize to one whom we have injured, than to fight of appeal to physical courage; the degree it measured by the distance between moral and physical agencies. Mr. Latham possesses the higher order of courage in a marked degree and gave practical illustration of it not long since in court in a contest between himself and the author. Hon. John B. McDonough Biographical and Pictorial History of Arkansas - 1887 J.B. McDonough was born November 24, 1858, in Caddo parish, Louisiana, of Scotch-Irish lineage on the father's side, and English on the mother's. In 1866 the family moved to Sebastian county, Arkansas. The early education of the boy was derived from his mother and father, who took great interest in him, and learned him to read and wright, and spell well before sending him to the common schools. In 1878 he entered the State University at Fayetteville, Arkansas, and remained there four years, graduating in 1882 with the first honors of his class; the faculty conferred on him the degree of bachelor of arts in 1884. In 1881 the faculty offered a gold medal prize for the best original oration, and threw open the doors of competition to both the junior and senior classes, Mr. McDonough being of the junior class, and to him the prize was awarded. He maintained himself and paid his own way at college by teaching during vacation intervals. After leaving the university he taught school two years at Buckner College, Sebastian county, and utilized all of his leisure time by reading law and reciting to himself. In November, 1884, he was licensed by the State courts to practice law, and in February, 1885, opened an office in Fort Smith. In 1886 the democratic party nominated Mr. McDonough, and elected him as one of the representatives from Sebastian county in the State legislature. The author, as one of his warmest and best friends, warned him against the often fatal delusion found in political life and aspirations; and he fears his young friend has made a mistake, but he promises to return to his office and abandon politics hereafter. He has a fine legal mind, and goes to the root of all questions he investigates; is patient and untiring in research; is a find reasoner; is logical and methodical in argument, without any effort or pretense to the ornate diction of the orator; is better adapted to the latitude of the chancellor and jurist than the popular forum of the fury. As a legislator he was a success, and made a good reputation. Thomas Marcum 1843-1915 Biographical and Pictorial History of Arkansas - 1887 Thomas Marcum was born September 13, 1843, in Breathitt county, Kentucky, in a stately mansion on his father's farm overlooking the Kentucky river. His paternal ancestors emigrated from England long prior to the Revolutionary war, and settled in Pennsylvania, and from thence some of them moved to the colony of Virginia. Many of them became soldiers in the Virginia Continental line in the war of independence, and achieved honorable distinction. His grandfather, Thomas Marcum, was the friend and companion of that noted explorer and pioneer Daniel Boone, with whom he crossed the mountains and settled in the fertile wilds of eastern Kentucky, where Alfred Marcum, the father of the subject of this sketch, was born in a block-house, amidst the exciting and stirring scenes of Indian warfare. His great-grandfather married a Cherokee lady of three-fourths Indian blood. His father was a self-made, self-educated man, and attained local eminence as a mathematician, physical giant and esteemed citizen. Mr. Marcum claims to have made a good hand on the farm until nineteen years old, but the assumption is uncorroborated, and without additional testimony I do not feel justified in embracing his conclusion on this point, on general principles--- such a rara avis is likely to be better at anything else than general farm work; in fact, and in the nature and fitness of things, it is almost certain that he was a conspicuous failure as a farm boy. In 1862, when he was eighteen years old, and six feel high, with a plug hat balanced on his head at an angle of thirty degrees from perpendicular, his father sent him on one of his finest horses in a hurry to a neighboring village on an errand, and never saw either him or horse any more until the war was over. He fell in with a recruiting officer for the Federal army, listened to the animating music of drum and fife until he was electrified, and he at once became a Federal soldier, and a good one, and was made first field sergeant because of his conspicuous height. The boy had plenty of the soldier's courage, and at the battle of Perryville was promoted to the ofiice of orderly sergeant for gallantry. In 1865 Governor Bramlett appointed him colonel of the Eighteenth Kentucky militia. After the war he attended the common schools of the vicinage, taught school awhile and educated himself, and is, in every sense of the term, a self-made man. He studied law two years, part of the time under the supervision of John H. Riddell, whose sister Kitty he afterward married. He was admitted to the bar at Jackson, Kentucky, in the fall of 1867, and was very soon afterward appointed circuit court clerk of Owsley county, to fill an unexpired term of two years. In 1869 he moved to Hempstead county, Arkansas, and for one year acted as prosecuting attorney pro tem. of the ninth circuit. In 1871 he moved to Fort Smith, where he has continued to reside, being chiefly engaged in the criminal practice in the Federal court. Mr Marcum has never been an office seeker, but is an enertic, effective and untiring worker for his brother democrats whenever his services are needed in the field or on the rostrum. When he is piloting a lawsuit through the legal breakers, no matter how desperate his cause may appear, his adversary may well be on the alert for a cyclone. To illustrate: The following episode occurred in the Federal court at Fort Smith in the fall of 1885, during the progress of an interesting trial. A Cherokee Indian defended by him was on trial, charged with the larceny of a very large fat pork hog. A large number of witnesses, of both sexes, were in attendance, and were about equally divided, for and against the prisoner. The parties were all from the neighborhood of Lightning Creek, in Going Snake district, Cherokee nation, and in general makeup and personnel appeared to be far above the average Indian. When the government concluded the evidence in chief the proof appeared to be overwhelmingly against the prisoner, and Judge Clayton, then district attorney, twirled his fob-chain and with a confident and complacent smile, said: "The government rests." At this juncture several attorneys, including the author, called Mr. Marcum aside, and very patronizingly advised him to withdraw the plea of not guilty, and throw his client on the mercy of the court. "B_d_m_d if I do," was the characteristic reply, "this is a case mistaken hog-identity." At this intimation we knew something racy was in reserve, and hung up our coats and laid down our papers, and telephoned the judge of the State court, then in waiting for us, that we were unexpectedly detained for several hours at the Federal court, and to pass our cases until we could get there. Mr. Marcum's mouth very much resembles Henry Clay's, but is somewhat larger than the noted vocal organ the distinguished Kentuckian carried through life. It is an important and accommodating factor, and readily responds in the affirmative when called to embrace either ear, and when truth and logic and law fail, this celebrated mouth often leads the forlorn hope and snatches victory from the over-confident adversary. Five good looking witnesses for the defense testified in Creek, through the medium of an interpreter, that the hog in question was twenty years old; that they had known him from the day he was pigged on Lightning Creek; that he was lean and lank, and was of that almost extinct species known as shad-bellies and razor-backs, with proboscis long, keen and sharp, so much so that he was often seen to poke it in the neck of a quart bottle and drink buttermilk therefrom; that the defendant killed the hog, not to eat or appropriate, but to rid himself of a long standing nuisance. The auditory was large, and, from the dignified judge to the humblest Indian in the room, was convulsed with laughter. After silence was partially restored, Mr. Marcum gave his facial ornament. a double shuffle, leaned over the table and said patronizingly to Judge Clayton: "The defense rests, judge; have you anything in rebuttal from Lightning Creek or Going Snake district ?" Judge Clayton tried to stem the roaring tide which had so unexpectedly set in against and overwhelmed him, but his effort was a futile as a whisper would have been to stay the tide of Niagara. Marcum's reply was the crystallization of satire, though he tried not to transcend the limits of serio-comic criticism. Verdict, not guilty. Every juror who sat in that case will admit today that he did not believe one word of "Marcum's testimony," as they put it, and will roar with laughter at the mere mention of the case. On another occasion in the State court he assisted the State's attorney in the prosecution of a Choctaw Indian charged with the commission of a felony, the crime depending (under the peculiar phraseology of the statute) on the Indian's knowledge and ability to understand and speak the English language. The author defended the Indian. Every detail going to make out the offense was clearly proved, except the Indian's knowledge of our language; that point was entirely overlooked by the prosecution. Mr. Marcum opened the argument by stating that he was embarrassed, greatly embarrassed, to divine or think of any defense whatever on which his hardy and robust friend could base a defense; that every fact was admitted, and nothing in extenuation or mitigation had been offered by the defense, and he facetiously said, "but there are exceptions and departures from all general rules, and it has been wisely said that "fools step in where angels fear to tread."I have offered to submit this case without argument; the offer was declined; no argument can be made, when, as in this case, law and fact are undisputed. If the gentleman does, or can, offer any thing worthy of consideration or reply, the prosecuting attorney will attend to it," and down he sat. Such an admixture of humor, spicy wit, bold and derogatory assumption was enough to stir up ridicule and sarcasm. And the author, in reply and defense, said: Burke never uttered a more profound aphorism than when he said "he who too hastily criticizes the follies and frailties of mankind blasphemies his God," and the squirrel-headed gentleman from the black-jack flats and whip-poor-will ridges of Kentucky shall have the benefit of the admonition ; and I am content to say that, at least on this occasion, he seems richly endowed in that unquestioned bliss which breeds and dwells in profound ignorance. I admit the force of the gentleman's quotation, and that it has been wisely said that "fools step in where angels fear to tread," but insist the jury shall make the application. I then read the statute, the peculiar phraseology of which had entirely escaped the gentleman's attention, and dwelt on the fact that the proof of the Choctaw's knowledge of the English language was conspicuously absent. This fell on my friend like a cyclone in a hay-field, and but for the frailty of juries and the versatility of his mind, he never could have recovered ; he was much agitated, and offered the prosecuting attorney $50 for his place in making the closing argument, which was granted, without reward. Then the author knew he would receive "a Roland for his Oliver." Mr. Marcum commenced his reply by saying, "my big-bellied friend from the pennyroyal regions of Tennessee has gone scalping through the black-jack flats of Kentucky where I was raised and has whooped me up very lively, he imagines. Now, gentlemen, you are honest, fair-minded men, and want nothing but what is right. Listen to me; I will put him to flight in two words;" at this he pulled out a one hundred dollar bill, and offered it to the author if he would upon honor state whether the Choctaw could speak the English language, and thus open up the proof for the benefit of the closing argument on a point fatal to the prosecution if the jury regarded the evidence. The proposition was declined ex necessitate rei, and the jury found from this circumstance that the Choctaw could speak English. Mr. Marcum is a very fine criminal lawyer, and when necessary in discussing either law or fact he is a close, logical and forcible reasoner, and he never tires his audience. But if the author were to say he knows nothing about civil law, simply because he never devoted his attention to that branch of law, he would resent and controvert the imputation, and for this reason we decline to discuss him in that light. He is brother-in-law to B. F. Rice, ex-United States senator from Arkansas, also to M. W. Benjamin, a prominent lawyer at Little Rock. All of these gentlemen married sisters - Misses Riddells of Kentucky. Wolsey Randal Martin 1865-1938 Biographical and Pictorial History of Arkansas - 1887 In the middle of the sixteenth century, under the lead and power of the Romish Church, religious fanaticism reared its remorseless head against Protestantism in France, and fed the flames of desolation and extermination against the resolute Huguenot, until emancipation was proclaimed by the first Napoleon. These persecutions for two and a half centuries robbed France of much of her best blood. In 1724 Louis XV issued a severe edict against the Huguenots, which drove thousands to seek asylum in foreign lands, and amongst them Louis Mantaigne (a name illustrious in the history and literature of France for three centuries and more), who came to the western world, and sought and obtained asylum in South Carolina. From this ancestry in the paternal line young Martin is descended; from the maternal line he inherits Scotch-German blood. W. R. Martin, the subject of this sketch, was born at Tuscaloosa, Alabama, February 6, 1865. There is something phenomenal and interesting in the brief history of this, the youngest man accorded place in this work, and the simple historic facts are all we offer to ward off criticism, should there be those who like to indulge the weapon. His father, John M Martin of Tuscaloosa, Alabama, is an eminent lawyer, ex-professor of law in the University of Alabama, and was a member of the forty-ninth congress from Alabama; was fifteen years a member of the Alabama legislature, and was speaker of the senate. His mother, Lucy G., is the daughter of that eminent jurist, Judge E. W. Peck, who presided on the supreme bench of Alabama for twenty years, and then resigned the office because of the infirmities of age. His paternal grandfather, Joshua L. Martin, was governor of Alabama, and declined to become a candidate for a second term, that he might accept a nomination for congress, to which he was elected, and died from sunstroke, before the expiration of his term, quite a young man. His accomplished mother took charge of his early education, and at the age of fourteen he was fully prepared to enter the State university. But the laws of that seat of learning did not admit of matriculation until the candidate for university honors was eighteen years old. To meet the necessities of this special case the regents of the university, after thorough examination, repealed the statute, and made an exception, for exceptional reasons, to the general law, in favor of the young candidate. He remained at the university four years, and graduated with distinguished honors in 1882, receiving the degree of bachelor of arts. Without spending any time in recreations, immediately after graduation he repaired to the University of Virginia, and attended a course of law lectures, that year, under that celebrated jurist, John B. Minor. In 1833 he entered the law department of the University of Alabama, and by extra exertion graduated in one instead of two years, and received the degree of bachelor of laws. After graduating in the law department of the university, he applied to Justice Stewart, of the supreme court, for license to practice law, and was examined and pronounced qualified by that jurist, but he was then only nineteen years old, and minority presented the only disqualification. Judge Stewart's sympathies were moved for the young man, and of his own motion he prepared a petition to the legislature of Alabama, then in session, representing the facts, and asking the passage of a law removing the disabilities of the young man, and the act was passed. Immediately after the removal of his disabilities, his father gave him his inheritance and took him into partnership but after the father's election to congress, the son removed, in the fall of 1885, to Fort Smith, Arkansas, and has settled with us permanently. I have always had a passion for brilliant, worthy young men, and in more than thirty years' experience at the bar have not knowingly wounded the sensibilities of one. These little kindnesses to young men have often brought rich rewards in the shape of retainers, to aid them in matters of moment, where they needed assistance. Hon. C.B. Neal Biographical and Pictorial History of Arkansas - 1887 Hon. C.B. Neal was born on a farm the 10th of January, 1829, in Anderson county, east Tennessee, and followed agricultural pursuits until he attained his majority. He acquired a common-school education at intervals when not engaged on the farm. After attaining his majority he spent two years at college, and mastered a good education in the English branches. At the end of his collegiate course, financial embarrassment led him to temporarily embrace the occupation of school-teaching for a small monthly salary, an occupation followed by a great number of men early in life as a stepping-stone, and by many who afterward became greatly distinguished. From the school-room he went to the accountant's desk in the office of clerk and master in chancery, one of the best preparatory schools to entering the legal profession. Here he assiduously cultivated that system and method his responsible position imposed, and became deeply impressed with the conviction that method is the first law of business as well as of nature. East Tennessee at that time contained many lawyers of great ability, and the arguments of some of these distinguished men over exceptions to his reports as master in chancery first impaired an impulse and then a settled conviction to embrace law as a profession. Such resolve, coupled with a well-organized and disciplined mind, will make a good lawyer. Where these great primal elements unite in the same man, no ordinary impediment will cut him off from success. In 1856 he admitted to the bar in east Tennessee. In 1860 he located at Greenwood, in Sebastian county, where he has remained ever since in the practice of his profession, save the interval when the courts were closed during the war of the Rebellion. In 1862 he was elected to the legislature from Sebastian county, and again in 1864. Although not an active combatant in the field, he was intensely southern in his views, and aided and abetted his native south, and abided her fortunes, and when she went under in the tremendous conflict, he did not, like Longstreet and Mosby and men of that stripe, turn on his countrymen by joining the dominant party, that thrift might follow disgraceful fawning. Of all the contemptible objects the war produced it was the Confederate parasite who joined the conquering northmen to raid and pillage the scanty resources of his distressed and fallen countrymen. Some of these monstrosities, after willing a glorious name in the Confederate service, have sold and peddled it for pottage. The man who turns traitor is, nevertheless, an Arnold, whether it be in field or cabinet. Mr. Neal owned valuable slave and other property, all of which perished with the Confederacy. Lee's surrender found him on Red river, Louisiana, without a dollar to defray his expenses back to Greenwood. To overcome this financial embarrassment he opened an office where the disaster overtook him, and practiced law there until the next year, and then returned to Greenwood. In 1871 he was elected to the legislature from Sebastian the third time. Less than one-third of that body were democrats. This minority, under the lead of Mr. Neal, soon broke the radical majority in the lower house, and obtained control of it, and passed articles of impeachment against Powell Clayton, governor, and John McClure, chief justice. McClure was tried and acquitted by the republican senate. Mr. Neal conducted the impeachment trial before the radical senate in behalf of the house of representatives, and, although a partisan tribunal acquitted the defendant, the moral effect of the trial before the bar of public opinion was great. He has the courage of his convictions, and is fearless in maintain what he conceives to be right, and in denouncing that which is wrong. He is a fine judge of human nature, and always displays this ability in the selection of juries, before whom he is powerful. He is a good lawyer, and acts in the management of a case on the principle that lawsuits are won in their preparation before the trial court commences. Thomas P. Winchester 1850-1920 Biographical and Pictorial History of Arkansas - 1887 Thomas P. Winchester was born in Sumner county, Tennessee, September 13, 1850, at Cragfont, the palatial seat of his grandfather, General Winchester, of historic fame, who was the friend and bosom companion of General Jackson. Hon. George W. Winchester, his father, was a lawyer, polished orator and gentleman, universally esteemed. The civil war closed all the schools in middle Tennessee, and interrupted the young man's education during the period it lasted, and to this another great added financial distress and wrecked fortunes was the universal inheritance of the southern people in the memorable decade succeeding the civil war. This threw the young man entirely on his own resources for an education, and he went to work resolutely to overcome the obstacles in his way, and in doing so displayed a moral heroism worthy of success. On the borders of his grandfather's estate was located Rural Academy, an institution loved and famous in its day for imparting ripe scholarship. (The author was educated at Wirt College, only four miles distant from this famous academy, and was a frequent visitor at that seat of learning for several years.) To this institution young Winchester resorted after the war, and taught the junior classes, to pay his way through the senior department, and thus acquired a good education in the English branches. His father, shortly after the war terminated, moved to Memphis, Tennessee, and thither the son resorted, and read law one year under his father, preparatory to entry at a law school. In 1871, 72 he attended the law department of the University of Virginia, and in the fall of 1872 was, at Memphis, admitted to the bar, where he practiced his profession continuously until June, 1880, when he moved to Fort Smith. He is a pronounced and fearless leader in the temperance cause, and fearlessly proclaims his sentiments on all subjects of public interest; is equally zealous and efficient in Sabbath-school and church polity, being an active steward in the Methodist church. He is a good lawyer, safe adviser, warm and open-hearted friend, and fearless enemy.