My Genealogy Hound

Dr. William T. Mebane, physician and farmer, Wynne, came originally from Greensboro, N. C, where his birth occurred in 1825. Dr. William T. Mebane was the son of Dr. John A. Mebane, who was a native of North Carolina. The father was for a long time a prominent physician in North Carolina and also a soldier in the War of 1812. He died July 11, 1864, at the age of seventy-three years. The mother (whose maiden name was Celia A. Sutton) was also a native of North Carolina. The paternal grandfather, Alexander Mebane, was a brigadier-general in the Continental army during the Revolutionary War. He was one of the founders of the University of North Carolina and served in the Congress of the United States up to the time of his death. Dr. William T. Mebane began attending school before he was five years of age and in 1846 graduated at the University of North Carolina and in 1851 from the Medical Department of the University of Pennsylvania. He then received a commission in the United States Navy but unqualified. Instead he returned to Greensboro and soon removed to a plantation given him by his father in Mississippi. In December, 1851, he settled on the western base of Crowley’s Ridge in St. Francis (now Cross) County, and here he purchased 730 acres, all wild land. He then began an extensive scale of clearing and improving and soon had a large tract under cultivation. In 1853 he was appointed postmaster and held the office (which was called Eureka) in his house until about 1876, when the name was changed to Mebaneville. Dr. Mebane has been the only postmaster in Cross County and is, therefore, the oldest postmaster in Eastern Arkansas. He at once began practicing medicine, which profession he has kept up through all these years; still rides some and does an extensive office practice. He has a good farm with 180 acres under cultivation and during all these years he has been an old landmark for Cross County. He was married in 1854 to Miss Lucy Antoinette Magette (daughter of Charles G. Magette, one of the old settlers in this section). The fruits of this union were seven children: Lucy S. (widow of J. W. Koonce), Charles M., Mary (wife of R. M. Smith), William Thomas (died April 11, 1884, at the age of twenty-four years), John Alexander (died October 14, 1866, at the age of three years), Robert Henry (died August 2, 1888, at the age of twenty-two years) and an infant daughter, unnamed. Dr. Mebane has practiced his profession in that State for many years, is educated and refined and has been a close student for forty years.