My Genealogy Hound

William Long is deserving the success which has attended his efforts throughout life, for it has been his aim to be upright and honest, and he has wronged no one but has aided many. He has always been frugal and industrious, these sterling qualities being inherited from his sturdy Scotch and German ancestors, and he is an acknowledged representative agriculturist of the county. He was born in White County, Ill., in 1830, and was the fourth of a family of seven children born to the marriage of Harbart Long and Mrs. Elizabeth (Rutledge) Peak, the former being born in North Carolina and the latter in South Carolina. The father was a sturdy tiller of the soil, and met his death by drowning in 1835, followed by his wife’s death five years later. Like so many of the substantial citizens of this county at the present time, our subject was initiated into farm life from the very first, and this has continued to be the calling to which his attention has been directed. He settled in the northeast part of Mississippi County in 1853, and first worked as a farm hand, and later rented ground for a few years. In 1860 he bought eighty acres in Chickasawba Township, near the present town of Blythesville, on which he began immediately to make improvements, and soon had a house built and a number of acres under cultivation, but the war interfered with his labors, for he was taken prisoner in 1864. After obtaining his release he entered the Confederate service, being a member of Capt. Sawyer’s company, Twenty-third Arkansas Cavalry, and was on scout and skirmish duty. Since the cessation of hostilities he has given his time to developing and improving his property, and has fifty of his 160 acres of land under tillage. His farm is very advantageously situated, about one mile from Blythesville, and can nearly all be cultivated. On it, at the present time, is a splendid orchard with many varieties of choice fruits. In 1877 he and T. P. Davis built a horse-gin which they operated one year, then an engine was put in, and the next year Mr. Long became proprietor of the property, which he has since improved and enlarged considerably. In the fall of 1888 he ginned 464 bales of cotton. He was united in marriage in May, 1857, to Miss M. A. Turpin, and their union was blessed in the birth of the following family: Mary E., wife of A. J. Nippin, of this county; Alice, who died at the age of three years; Hettie, who died in infancy; Martha Ann, Emma D., John H., and one that died in infancy unnamed. Mrs. Long is a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church. Mr. Long has inherited many of the sterling qualities of his father, and is in every way a conservative, public spirited citizen.