My Genealogy Hound

William Hooker. Among the many enterprises necessary to complete the commercial resources of a town or city, none is of more importance than that of the grocer, as he is one of the main factors in the furnishing of our food supplies. Prominent in this trade is Mr. Hooker, who has been established here in business since October, 1889, his stock of goods being valued at about $1,500. He was born in Shelby County, Tenn., in 1856, and is a son of Joseph W. and Fannie A. (Jones) Hooker, the former a Tennesseean and the latter a native of South Carolina. Their marriage took place at Memphis, and prior to the war they came to Arkansas, and opened a farm on White River. During the struggle between the North and South they returned to Tennessee, coming again to Arkansas after the war had closed. From that time until his death he kept a hotel at Clarendon, and in the latter years of his life also an eating-house at Brinkley, and one at Black Fish for the Little Rock & Memphis Railroad. He met a violent death, being killed in a railroad accident in 1879. He was a soldier for three years in the Confederate army, being a member of an Arkansas regiment. His widow survives him, and is a member of the Methodist Church. William Hooker is the second of seven children, three now living, and received his early education in the city of Memphis, his higher education being acquired in Leddin Commercial College. After clerking for nine years for Walker Bros. & Co., of that city, then the largest mercantile house in the South, he became a book-keeper for Saul Alinger, of Saulsbury, with whom he remained eighteen months, then clerked for Gunn & Black, until they sold out. During 1883 he associated himself with Louis Salinger, in the general mercantile business, continuing until 1887, then began trading in real estate. Mr. Hooker is a Democrat politically, and has shown his approval of secret organizations by joining the Knights of Honor and the Knights and Ladies of Honor. On March 12, 1887, he was married to Emma, a daughter of John A. McDonald. She was born in Jackson County, Ark.