My Genealogy Hound

Thomas A. Futrall, A. M., principal of the Marianna Male and Female Institute, located at Marianna, Ark., is one of the most prominent educators in the South. He was born in the “Old North State,” in 1842, and was educated in the best schools of the East, having been at one time a pupil of the famous William J. Bingham. About the time he finished his academic course, in 1860, a war cloud appeared above the horizon, and very soon thereafter he joined the Southern army as a volunteer, and served with distinction as an officer of Gen. John R. Cooke’s North Carolina Brigade of the Army of Northern Virginia during the late war between the States. He took part in all the great battles in Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania, and was paroled with the remnant of Gen. Lee’s army at Appomattox Court House. At the close of the war he immigrated to West Tennessee, and established a classical and scientific school, which soon took rank with the best institutions of learning in the country, and gained for him a wide-spread reputation as a scholar and an educator, so much so, that in 1884 he was tendered his present position in the flourishing town of Marianna. Prof. Futrall has made this institution one of the most thorough and practical schools in the State, from which young men and women go out well prepared for the active duties of life. Beginning the work when comparatively young, Prof. Futrall has made teaching the business of his life, and has taught successfully for twenty-five consecutive years. In 1887, at the Chicago meeting of the National Educational Association of the United States, he was elected vice-president of the association, and was re-elected to the same position in Nashville, Tenn., in 1889, and is now,1890, manager for the association in the State of Arkansas. He is a quiet, courteous, thoroughly posted gentleman, a ripe scholar, and is familiar with the best methods of instruction. In 1867 he was married to Miss Emma R. Headen, of Chatham County, N. C. A young family of seven interesting children, four girls and three boys, gather around the hearthstone.