My Genealogy Hound

Edward Clingan is a farmer of Mine Creek Township. Hempstead County, Ark., and was born in what is now Bradley County, Tenn., in 1833, to James and Jane (Marbury) Clingan, being the fourth of their three sons and two daughters. He and his brother Jackson are the only ones of the family now living. The father and mother were born in Tennessee and North Carolina, respectively, were married in the former State, and there made their home until the father’s death, which occurred in 1830, his occupation through life having been that of a farmer. The maternal grandfather was probably born in Germany, and after coming to the United States, settled in Tennessee, where he followed the occupation of a teacher. Benjamin Marbury, the mother’s father was born in the Old North State, and from there moved to Tennessee, when Mrs. Clingan was a little girl, and in 1836 or 1837 took up his abode in Sevier County, Ark., where he farmed until his death, which occurred in 1838, of small pox. He was a deacon in the Missionary Baptist Church, and a worthy gentleman in every respect. His widow died in Howard County, in 1878, also a member of that church. The great-grandfather, Leonard Marbury, was a North Carolinian, and served seven years in the Revolutionary War. He came with a son to Sevier County, Ark., and here he and his wife died soon after. Edward Clingan’s mother is still living at the age of seventy-seven years. After her husband’s death, she was married a second time, her union taking place in Sevier County, John Jarman, a North Carolinian, born in 1790, becoming her second husband. He was an early settler of Southwestern Arkansas, and died in 1860. Their union resulted in the birth of three children, two of whom are living. Edward Clingan was reared on a farm in the wilds of Arkansas, receiving but little schooling, but at the age of twenty-one years he began farming for himself, and in June, 1861, he joined the State troops, and after taking part in the battle of Oak Hill, he joined Company H, Col. Pleasant’s regiment of Arkansas Infantry, and was in the fights at Cane Hill, Helena, Little Rock, Mark’s Mill, Mansfield, Jenkins’ Ferry, and was at Marshall, Tex., at the time of the surrender. He was married in 1866, to Louisa, a daughter of Presley and Mary Craig, South Carolinians, who, after their marriage, moved to Hempstead County, Ark., where the former died in 1881, and the latter in 1884, both Missionary Baptists, and the former a worthy tiller of the soil. Mrs. Clingan was born in South Carolina, and became the mother of two sons and three daughters. A few years after their marriage they removed to Howard County, but eight years later returned to Hempstead County, and for the past seven years he has been a resident of his present farm of 120 acres, two and one-half miles northeast of Nashville. He has always been a Democrat, Buchanan receiving his first vote for the presidency, in 1856, and he and his family belong to the Missionary Baptist Church, in which he is now a deacon. Jackson Clingan, his brother, is also a prosperous and enterprising farmer of Mine Creek Township, and was the third of his parents’ children. The educational advantages he received were very much like those of his brother, but by contact with the business affairs of this life, he is considered an intelligent and well-posted man. In 1853 Mary J., a daughter of John and Jane McClinton, of North Carolina and Virginia, respectively, became his wife. The former, with his parents, was one of the early settlers of Hempstead County, Ark., and here he was married about 1848, after which he removed to Texas, where he died in 1850, his widow’s demise occurring in Sevier County, after the close of the Rebellion. Her father, Benjamin Start, was a Virginian, who removed to Louisiana, and from there to Hempstead County, Ark., but died in Pike County, Ark. Mrs. Clingan’s paternal grandfather, John McClinton, was one of the very early settlers of Southwestern Arkansas, from North Carolina, and passed to his long home in Sevier County. Mrs. Clingan was born in Hempstead County, in 1833, and has borne her husband twelve children, eight sons and two daughters now living. Mr. Clingan has resided in his present neighborhood fifty years, being one of the oldest and most highly esteemed settlers of this region. He has lived on his present farm of 240 acres for some twenty years, and has about 100 acres under cultivation. He is a Democrat, a member of the A. F. & A. M., Pleasant Valley Lodge No. 30, and he and wife have been members of the Missionary Baptist Church since 1846. In February, 1861, he joined Company G, of the Trans-Mississippi Department, and surrendered at Marshall, Tex., in 1865, and returned home.