Poinsett County, Arkansas

Biography

Tilman H. Peck

Source: Biographical and Historical Memoirs of Northeast Arkansas, Poinsett County; 1889 The Goodspeed Publishing Co.

T. H. Peck, through good management and energy, has become the owner of 180 acres of excellent land, of which about forty acres are under cultivation, and eighty are in timber land. He was born in Jefferson County, Tenn., in 1834, and is the eldest of a family of six children born to the marriage of William R. Peck and J. C. Arledge, the former a Tennesseean, and the latter a native of South Carolina. The latter attended school in Columbia, in her native State, being a schoolmate of Gen. Wade Hampton. The parents were married in the latter State, and in 1846 removed to Poinsett County, where they resided on a farm in Bolivar Township until their respective deaths, in 1846 and 1872. The early educational advantages of T. H. Peck were somewhat limited, as he remained faithfully by his mother, assisting her on the farm until he was twenty-five years of age. In 1869, he was married in Crittenden County, Ark., to Miss Mary M. Dean, a native of Mississippi, whose death occurred in 1870. she having borne Mr. Peck two children: William L., who is married and resides in the county, and George W. In the latter part of 1870 Mr. Peck was married, in Poinsett County, to Miss Mary S. Ware, of Middle Tennessee, but after bearing one child, Mary O., she died in 1873. He espoused his third wife, Miss Mary E. Allen, a native of South Carolina, in 1875. In 1861, Mr. Peck enlisted from Poinsett County in Company C, Capt. Benjamin Harris' Company, and was in the battles of Shiloh and Belmont, being wounded in the former engagement by a gun-shot. After serving one year, he returned to Poinsett County, and for some time was engaged in buying and selling land, but for a number of years has given his attention to farming. He is an active politician, voting the Republican ticket, and has served as magistrate of his township for seven years. He has always been deeply interested in schools, and for a number of years has been a member of the school board. He belongs to the Agricultural Wheel.