James W. Harper
SOURCE: The Goodspeed Publishing Co., 1889
Contributed by Michael Brown
18 Oct 1998
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SEBASTIAN CO
page 1324
James W. Harper, cotton dealer and real estate agent at Mansfield, Ark., was
born in Tennessee on the 15th of May, 1849. His parents, Blaney and Elizabeth
(Griffey) Harper, were born in the “Old North Carolina State” in 1816 and
1814, and died in 1882 and 1880, respectively. They removed from their native
State to Tennessee, thence to Arkansas in 1851, settling at Fort Smith, where
they remained one year, then moving twenty-five miles south, where he made his
home until his death. The father was a minister of the Gospel, belonging to the
Methodist Episcopal Church, and was a member of the Legislature, being elected
in 1867 for two years. He became the father of nine children, seven of whom
are living: Nancy B. (Mrs. Bruce), Jesse C., Samuel H., Joseph W., Lenora Ann
(Mrs. Ball), J. W., and Mary H. (Mrs. Gleason). James W. Harper spent his early
life in Sebastian County, and received his education in private schools. After
attaining his twenty-first birthday he began [p.1324] doing for himself, and
has been a contractor for twenty years and a merchant for four years. He lives
upon the old homestead, the present site of the town of Mansfield. He is a
stanch supporter of the Republican party, and is a member of the Methodist
Episcopal Church. In 1869 he was married to Miss Mary J. Dixon, a daughter of
William H. and Mida (Short) Dixon, of Tennessee. She was born in Arkansas in
1847, and became the mother of seven children: William B., George, Joseph L.,
Graham, Nora and Myrtle. One child, Freddie, is deceased. Mr. Harper's
grandfather, Haynes Griffey, was a soldier in the War of 1812.