Scott County Arkansas Biographies

GOODSPEED BIOGRAPHIES
Contributed by Charlene Holland

Biographical & Historical Memoirs of Western Arkansas
The Southern Publishing Company, Chicago and Nashville, 1891.

R. P. DICKENS

R. P. Dickens is a gentleman of substantial worth, residing in Scott County, Ark., and all his farming operations have been carried on according to the most advanced and progressive ideas, and have resulted to his own good, and to the benefit of those with whom he has come in contact. He was born in Tennessee May 7, 1839, and, at the age of eight years came to Arkansas with his parents, Richard and Mary Jane Dickens, and having been brought up to a farm life, he determined to make that his calling through life, and accordingly at the age of twenty-one years, purchased some land in Faulkner County, of this State, and began immediately to put it in good farming condition. After remaining on this farm for twenty years, he sold it and came to Scott County, Ark., purchasing his present farm of 140 acres, 8.5 acres of which are in a good state of cultivation, and nicely improved with good farm buildings of all kinds. Although his orchard is small, his trees are well selected, and bear well. His land yields an average amount of cotton, corn and oats, and in 1889 he established the first and only tannery in the western part of the State, which he has worked very successfully, finding a ready sale for all the leather he can produce. His intention is to enlarge the business at no distant day, and then will give the greater part of his attention to that work. He was married at the age of twenty-three years, but after a wedded life of seven years his wife died, leaving him with four children, the eldest three of whom are married. He was again married, but his second wife lived only about fifteen months, and he next espoused Miss Mary Douglas, their union resulting in the birth of three children. The family attends the Christian Church, of which Mr. and Mrs. Dickens are members, and he is a Democrat, and belongs to the I.O.O.F. and the A.F. & A.M. fraternities. Mr. Dickens keeps fully apace with the progress of agriculture, and his place is one of the neat, comfortable homesteads for which this county is famous.