My Genealogy Hound

T. J. McClendon is a well-known farmer and nurseryman of Nashville, Ark., but his birth occurred in the State of Georgia in 1833, being the ninth in a family of fifteen children born to the marriage of Thomas and Sallie (Woodman) McClendon, natives, respectively, of South Carolina and Georgia, and early emigrants to Alabama, where they spent the remainder of their days, the father passing from life in 1856, and the mother in 1855. The subject of this sketch started for Arkansas in 1858, and after residing in Louisiana for a short time, he, in 1859, settled in Union County, where he bought 700 acres near Champagnolle, the most of which land he succeeded in clearing. In 1862 he laid aside his farming implements, to shoulder his musket, and enlisted with Capt. Bussey in the Fifteenth Arkansas Infantry, and was afterward with Price on his raid through Missouri. After the war he returned to Union County, and re-engaged in farming. He had been married in 1860 to Miss Carrie McCain, a daughter of John McCain, an early pioneer of the section, and after he and his wife had resided on their farm until 1873, they sold their property and came to Howard County, settling on a 160 acre farm near the town of Nashville, where Mr. McClendon soon had eighty acres in a high state of cultivation. He at once set out a vineyard and orchard, and was one of the first to introduce the cultivation of the grape in this section. He devotes ten acres to vineyard and ten to orchard, the varieties in the former consisting of Concord, Ives, Nortons, Cynthiana, Delaware, Hartford, Prolific and Lauppermand. His family consists of eight children living and one deceased: Adella (the wife of A. H. Little, died in October, 1887), Zella (is the wife of W. M. Potts), Richard C, James Thomas, William Jacob, Helen J., Sallie, Otis and Carrie. The family attend the Baptist Church, of which Mr. and Mrs. McClendon are members. W. M. Potts, their son in-law, was born in Mississippi in 1857, attended the common schools of that State, and, in 1875, came to Arkansas with his parents, settling in Sevier County. In 1888 he removed to Nashville, and became a salesman for Mr. McClendon, and, in December, 1888, was married to his daughter, Zella, by whom he has one child—a son—named Guy.