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Below is a family biography included in Biographical and Historical Memoirs of Nevada County, Arkansas published by Goodspeed Publishing Company in 1890.  These biographies are valuable for genealogy research in discovering missing ancestors or filling in the details of a family tree. Family biographies often include far more information than can be found in a census record or obituary.  Details will vary with each biography but will often include the date and place of birth, parent names including mothers' maiden name, name of wife including maiden name, her parents' names, name of children (including spouses if married), former places of residence, occupation details, military service, church and social organization affiliations, and more.  There are often ancestry details included that cannot be found in any other type of genealogical record.

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Thomas J. Watts is a prominent farmer and merchant of Taylor Township, Nevada County, Ark., and also postmaster at Delta. He was born October 6, 1857, in Nevada County, on the estate upon which he now resides, and received a business education in the country schools at Falcon, and later attended Homer College, at Homer, La. He commenced life for himself in 1879, giving his attention to farming for a time, and in 1881 engaged in a mercantile line in company with two brothers, John C. and Monroe. They built a store upon the old homestead, and opened up a stock of general supplies. The partnership continued until August, 1883, at which time the subject of the sketch sold out his interest to the other brothers, and going to McNeil engaged in the mercantile business with A. B. Murphy, but in 1886 he returned to the old place of business and purchased the store from his brothers, being at the present time the sole proprietor of same. He has prospered in his business, and is an influential citizen of the district in which he lives. He is a son of Thomas and Elizabeth E. (Godbold) Watts, natives of Georgia and South Carolina, respectively. The father was born March 14, 1810, and is a son of Jeremiah and Agnes Watts, both of English descent. He was a farmer and merchant, having moved to Alabama when quite a young man, where he engaged in the mercantile business at Snow Hill, also at Lowndes County, Ala. He afterward moved to Arkansas in 1847, locating on the farm on which the subject of this sketch now lives, entering a tract of wild land, which was then in Ouachita County, then in Columbia, and now Nevada County. Mr. Watts died on this plantation, June 20, 1860. He was twice married, first in 1834, to Miss Jennie Rabb, and afterward to the mother of the subject of this sketch, and to them were born the following children, viz.: John, May R., Rachael A., Mary, Monroe, Thomas J. and Elizabeth. Annanias Godbold was born October 14,1788, a son of Jesse and Elizabeth (Evans) Godbold. The great-grandmother of the subject of this sketch, Elizabeth Godbold, was a daughter of Thomas Evans, and of Welsh descent. Rachael (Perry) Godbold, wife of Annanias Godbold, also grandmother of the subject of this sketch, was born December 25, 1791, and daughter of Lemuel and Margaret (Daugherty) Perry. The Perry family is of English descent, and the Daugherty family of Irish descent.

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This family biography is one of 96 biographies included in Biographical and Historical Memoirs of Nevada County, Arkansas published in 1890.  For the complete description, click here: Nevada County, Arkansas History, Genealogy, and Maps

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