William Franklin Blythe

SOURCE: The Goodspeed Publishing Co., 1889
Contributed by Michael Brown
18 Oct 1998

---------------------------------------------------------------------- SEBASTIAN COUNTY
page 1291

Hon. William Franklin Blythe, judge of the Sebastian County Court, was born at Ripley, Tippah Co., Miss., March 7, 1851, and is of English and Irish extraction. His great-grandfather, Absalom Blythe, with two brothers, William and John, came to Virginia from England prior to the Revolution, and afterward removed to Georgia. The father of our subject, J. J. Blythe, was born in East Tennessee, and was a contractor and builder by trade. He married Miss Cleo Ussery, a native of Mississippi, and daughter of Shelby Ussery, who was the first representative of Tishomingo County, Miss., in the Legislature, [p.1291] and who represented his county until his death in 1851. W. F. Blythe attended school at Jacinto and luks, Miss., during his youth, and afterward taught school. Coming to Arkansas in 1876, he followed that vocation in Scott County, at Waldron, and began the study of law in 1880 at Clarksville, Ark. In the spring of 1882 (May) he was admitted to the bar, after which he settled at Fort Smith, and began to practice. During the same year he was elected justice of the peace, which position he has filled from that time until this year, when he resigned, having been elected judge of the county court. Judge Blythe was married at Ft. Smith, October 10, 1878, to Miss Linnah G. Barnes, a native of Mississippi, and daughter of William and Margaret C. Barnes. The former was killed during the war at the battle of Kenesaw Mountain, on the Confederate side. Mrs. Blythe is a member of the Baptist Church, and has two daughters, Cleo and Margaret. Judge Blythe belongs to the I. O. O. F., and is a Royal Arch Mason.