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Below is a family biography included in Biographical and Historical Memoirs of Drew County, Arkansas published by Goodspeed Publishing Company in 1890.  These biographies are valuable for genealogy research in discovering missing ancestors or filling in the details of a family tree. Family biographies often include far more information than can be found in a census record or obituary.  Details will vary with each biography but will often include the date and place of birth, parent names including mothers' maiden name, name of wife including maiden name, her parents' names, name of children (including spouses if married), former places of residence, occupation details, military service, church and social organization affiliations, and more.  There are often ancestry details included that cannot be found in any other type of genealogical record.

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Vinston S. Grisham was born in Tennessee on March 15, 1827, and is a son of Moses Grisham, of North Carolina, who participated in some of the early Indian wars under Gen. Jackson. He was reared in Northern Alabama, receiving a common-school education, and by contact with the business affairs of everyday life afterward acquired a valuable amount of general information. Being reared to the occupation of farming in his youth, he has made that his calling through life, and by keen business foresight and industry he has become the owner of 450 acres of valuable land, about one-half of which is in actual cultivation and improved. In 1848 he was married at Holly Springs, Miss., to Miss Christiana K. Dishough, by whom he became the father of eight children: William E. (now forty-two years of age), Elizabeth P. (deceased), Mary E. (aged thirty-eight years), Wilton T. (aged thirty-six), three having died in their infancy, Rebecca A. (aged twenty-five). Mr. Grisham was a participant in the Mexican War, and served under Jefferson Davis for twelve months, enlisting in 1846 in Company I, First Mississippi Infantry service, and was at the battle of Monterey. He was taken sick at this place, and after remaining in the hospital for six months he removed to New Orleans, where his company was disbanded in July, 1847. In the spring of 1862 he joined the Confederate army, and served under Gens. Forrest and Chalmers, and the first battle of importance in which he took part was at West Point, where Gen. Forrest’s brother was killed. He was next at Collierville, Tenn., in two battles at that place, then at Columbus, Miss., Fort Pillow, Tenn., where he acted as a sharpshooter, and lastly at Selma, Ala. Here he was paroled, after which he returned to his home in Mississippi, and made a crop, but becoming dissatisfied with the country on account of the scarcity of schools, and wishing to give his children good educational advantages, he determined to seek a more favorable location, and came to Drew County, Ark., where he proceeded to make a home for himself and family. He is a Democrat, a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and socially belongs to the A. F & A. M. His eldest son, William E., was married to Miss Eugenia Pruit, of Drew County, by whom he is the father of six children—three sons and three daughters: Wilton T. (married Miss Julia Lamb, a daughter of Thomas Lamb, by whom he is the father of nine children, two deceased, of the surviving ones are five sons and two daughters), Mary E. (became the wife of William H. Boyt, and removed with him to Texas in 1875, thence to Indian Territory, where he died, leaving a wife and five children to mourn his loss, five having preceded him, the eldest one living being a son of sixteen years), Elizabeth P. (was married to T. P. Howell, of Drew County, died on April 4, 1888, at the age of thirty-seven years; she was the mother of ten children, six of them having preceded her; she left a husband and four surviving children, the eldest being a daughter of twenty years. Soon after the death of Elizabeth, her mother, Mrs. Christiana Grisham, died October 5, 1889, at her home in Drew County, at the age of sixty-two years, leaving to mourn her irreparable loss a husband and four children, of whom, Rebecca, the youngest child, is living with her father and is still single).

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This family biography is one of 83 biographies included in Biographical and Historical Memoirs of Drew County, Arkansas published in 1890.  For the complete description, click here: Drew County, Arkansas History, Genealogy, and Maps

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