My Genealogy Hound

John R. Reed, farmer and ginner, Randall, Ark. This enterprising and much respected citizen owes his nativity to De Soto County, Miss., where his birth occurred, in 1840, and is the son of Arthur G. Reed, and the grandson of James Reed, who was probably born in North Carolina, and who came to Arkansas about 1848. The latter was a soldier in the Florida War, and held the rank of lieutenant. He died in Lonoke County, Ark., where his wife also received her final summons. He was of Irish descent, and was a member of the A. F. & A. M. Arthur G. Reed was born in North Carolina, in 1804, and was married in Mississippi, in, 1835, to Miss Elizabeth Robinson, a native of Alabama. They moved to Arkansas in 1846, and in 1847 to Prairie County, now Lonoke County, where they resided until 1856. They then moved to Cleveland County, where the father carried on farming. He assisted in removing the Indians from Mississippi to Indian Territory. Mrs. Reed died in 1858 and he in 1861. John Robinson, the maternal grandfather, was probably born in North Carolina, and moved from there to Alabama, Mississippi and in 1846 to Arkansas. He and wife died in Lonoke County, and all four grandparents lie buried in the same cemetery. Of the eleven children born to his parents, John R. Reed is fourth in order of birth. From the age of five years he was reared in the wilds of Arkansas, with very little schooling, and was married when nearly twenty years of age, in what is now Cleveland County, to Miss Amanda Favor, a native of Alabama, and the daughter of Joel and Elizabeth Favor, formerly of Alabama, but early settlers of Arkansas. Mr. Favor died in Cleveland County, in 1870, but Mrs. Favor is still living. Mrs. Reed died in 1870, leaving two daughters, and in 1874 Mr. Reed took for his second wife Mrs. Emily (Whitehead) Adams, a native of Mississippi, and the daughter of Charley and Malinda Whitehead, originally from North Carolina and Tennessee, respectively. Mr. Whitehead died in Mississippi, and his wife in Arkansas. Mrs. Reed’s death occurred in May, 1889. She was the mother of five children, one son and three daughters now living. In August, 1889, Mr. Reed married Mrs. Martha A. (Oaks) Gage, a native of Mississippi, and the daughter of Fletcher Oaks. Mr. Reed has lived on his present farm for five years, and has 320 acres in two tracts, 100 acres under cultivation. He is one of the prominent farmers of the county, and is also the owner of a gin, which he has operated for about ten years. He was about three years in the Confederate army, Company E, Twenty-sixth Arkansas Infantry, and operated in Arkansas, Louisiana and Texas, as teamster. He was home on a furlough at the time of the surrender. He is a Democrat in politics, and cast his first presidential vote for Horatio Seymour, in 1868. He is a member of the Agricultural Wheel, and in his religious belief has been a Missionary Baptist for eighteen or twenty years.