Parson Asa Deloiser Evans
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Soldier and Circuit Rider
By W. ROSS BERRY
Asa
Delosier Evans was born in Tennessee on January 22, 1838.
He was the son of John Evans and Elizabeth W. Spencer, who were
married in Maury County, TN on January 13, 1830. The Evans’
were a large family of possibly seventeen children, according to
family tradition.
About 1845 the family moved from Tennessee to somewhere in
Mississippi, and stayed for about nine years. About 1856
John Evans died, and soon thereafter, the family moved to
northeast Arkansas. By the time of the 1860 Greene County,
AR census enumeration, the Evans family was living in Concord
Township, near Oak Bluff. At that time Elizabeth was 48
years old, and was head of household. She had five boys and
two girls at home, besides two Evans men, aged 27 (who might also
have been her sons). One of these men was listed as a
"Methodist minister".
Asa, and at least one of his brothers, fought in the Civil War.
Military records from the National Archives in Washington, D.C.
tell that Asa first entered Confederate service on June 26, 1861
and was a private of Company "E", 5th Regiment Arkansas
Infantry. He enlisted for a period of "one year".
On Dec. 28, 1861 he was paid out, and papers say that he had been
"Discharged on the 16th of Dec., 1861 by order of Gen’l
Hardee, full particulars given".
On April 17, 1862 he re-enlisted at Oak Bluff, AR as a Private,
in Company "L". Soon all the men in Co. "L"
were transferred to Co. "A". The next papers say
that on Dec. 3, 1862 he "deserted". (No reason was
given for this desertion). On April 7, 1863 he again
enlisted, and papers say: "Joined from desertion,
April 7, 1863. On July 10, 1863 he again deserted, while
"on a march from Helena, Ark., near Cane Creek", with
Capt. Rogan’s Regiment.
Reading some history of the Civil War gives a little insight into
reasons for desertion. The book, "The Confederate
Reader", by Richard B. Harwell says, "Desertion was a
serious problem in both the Union and Confederate armies.
In the Confederate Army particularly, where enlistments had been
lengthened and men were long separated from their homes, extended
absences without leave were commonplace. To aid in planting
or harvesting a crop, to alleviate family crisis, or simply to
renew home ties, men often left the camps without the formality
of permission. Most of them returned after a suitable lapse
of time - sometimes to be punished, but about as often, to be
accepted back into their former status without too much
questioning."
When the war ended in 1865, Asa was taken prisoner by the Yankee
victors and kept for 16 days. At the end of that time he
was "paroled at Wittsburg, Arkansas, on May 25, 1865".
(Wittsburg was the county seat of Cross County, near Wynne, the
present county seat). At the time of his parole he was
"II Sergeant" in Company "B", Davies
Battalion, Arkansas Cavalry. His parole papers give this
description of him: "Age 27, eyes blue, hair auburn,
complexion fair, height 5’ 9", born in Tennessee".
Asa’s great-granddaughter, Alice Evans Wilson, of Marmaduke,
AR told me a story that was handed down to her. She said
that Asa and one of his brothers were in combat against the
Union army, somewhere in Southeast Missouri. They were
being pursued and fired upon when Asa’s brother was hit and
fell off his horse next to Asa. Asa couldn’t stop
because the enemy was still pursuing him. He managed to get
away, and returned the next day to look for his brother’s
body, but could not find it. At a house near the
battlefield, Asa found two women who acknowledged that they had
found his brother and had buried him. They took Asa and
showed him the grave, and thus seeing it he was appeased.
He did not try to move the body. When the war ended,
Asa went back to Rector and continued to live in the area for the
rest of his life. He never liked to talk about his wartime
experiences. He became a Methodist/Cumberland Presbyterian
preacher and was known as Parson Evans.
Small congregations could not afford to pay a full-time preacher,
and there were not enough ministers to supply the need, even if
they could. So Asa traveled to different areas of
northeast Arkansas and southeast Missouri, by horseback, in order
to preach where he was needed the most. He was what was
then known as a "Circuit Rider".
His circuit was the "Gainesville Circuit" which, among
others, included the Pleasant Grove Methodist Church in Greene
County. Each church would have only one meeting a month,
and the fifth Sunday was a Special Day.
Ministers did not rely on contributions from their churches for
their livelihood. Asa farmed and taught school the
three months of winter. He also taught singing schools, and
adult reading and mathematics classes, to supplement his meager
preaching salary. Nannie Ira Berry Holder has written about Asa (her
maternal grandfather): "Books were expensive to a
preacher who got fifteen dollars a month for teaching a one-room
school with thirty, or maybe fifty children for three months out
of the year; and whose congregation did well to give him two
dollars with a night’s lodging and food for his horse, for
his preaching. The people in the home area shared
garden and field products, when the Parson’s crops were not
so good."
There was a time when the Methodist Conference sent Asa to preach
in the Ozark mountains in the northwest part of the state.
The family had to travel there with him, to stay for a certain
period of time, before they finally were sent back to the
Gainesville Circuit, and to their old neighborhood.
In a letter that Asa wrote his daughter Willie Evans Berry, dated
January 28, 1896 he said: " I went to Knobel the second and
reorganized the C. P. Church. I am to preach for them until
Spring presbytery. I am employed as Pastor for Marmaduke
until fall.
The Greene County Historical Society published a booklet in 1972,
in which it is said that they have records showing that "A.
D. Evans" was pastor of "the Cumberland Presbyterian
Church in 1896 when the group held services in the schoolhouse at
Marmaduke." The account goes on to say, "Their
strength in Marmaduke was never sufficient to support the
building of a church. When the group disbanded many of them
joined the Methodists."
It is not certain when Asa first married, but judging from the
ages of his children in the censuses, it is assumed that he
married soon after returning from the war. He married
Marcianna "Shannie" Whitaker, the daughter of
William Bradford Whitaker and Elizabeth Simmons. She had
been born in Wayne County, TN on Sept. 7, 1846, and had traveled
to Greene County, AR with her parents about 1856. Shannie
died in 1880 after bearing at least six children.
Eventually Asa married, for the second time to, Cordelia Cannon
Pickens Myers. They had three boys: John Delosier Evans (md.
Viola Fielder), James Archibald Evans, and Hampton Evans (died
young).
On May 24, 1905 Cordelia Evans applied for a pension as
widow of a Confederate veteran. The application states that
Asa D. Evans died on July 17, 1896 at St. Francis, Clay County,
Arkansas. She stated: "I have since remarried".
Asa’s grave was known by the family to be at the Pleasant
Grove Cemetery, in the Hopewell community, in Greene County, but
the grave was unmarked for over eighty years until Alice Evans
Wilson applied for a bronze marker from the Veteran’s
Administration. In the spring of 1981, she along with her
cousin, Mary Berry Laffoon and her husband Guy Laffoon (of
Paragould, Arkansas) placed the marker on his grave.
Homer Berry, of Rector (a grandson of Asa Evans), provided
information about the burial place of Asa’s first wife
Marcianna. He said she was "buried at Liberty Hill
graveyard, grave unmarked".
ABOUT MARCIANNA WHITAKER EVANS: Marcianna Whitaker (sometimes
spelled Marcia Ann) was born in Wayne County, TN on Sept 7, 1846.
Her nickname was "Shanny". Her father was William
Bradford Whitaker (1811-1870) and her mother was Elizabeth
Simmons, who was born in NC (date unknown), the daughter of John
Simmons, a native of Scotland.
About 1866 the oldest child of Asa Evans and Marcianna Evans was
born. She was Elvira Evans (who married Bud Lamb). Then
followed twins, John and Nancy Alice "Nannie" (md.
Calvin Thomas) Then came Willie Ruhamah (who married Whit
Throgmorton and Young Henry Berry). Then Edward Absolum (md.
Margie French and Altha Staggs), followed by Emma May (md.
Robert Wooten).
Marcianna Whitaker Evans died in 1880 at the age of 34.
When the census had been taken earlier that year she was yet age
33, and her children were ages 14, 11, 8, 4, and 1.
Note from Ross Berry: Asa and Marcianna Evans were my great-grandparents,
being the parents of Willie Evans Berry, my father’s mother.