My Genealogy Hound

Prof. W. A. Garner, druggist, Stephens, Ark. Among the most important as well as popular drug stores in Stephens is that of Prof. W. A. Garner, which contains every requisite and convenience in this line of business and has the reputation of being one of the best and most reliable in town. Prof. Garner was born in Darlington, S. C., on February 20, 1833, and is the son of Charles W. Garner, and grandson of William Garner. The great-grandfather, John Garner, was a native of North Carolina, and was a soldier in the Revolutionary War under Gen. Sumter. C. W. Garner was born in South Carolina on May 28, 1810, and lives at Stephens, and is one of the best preserved octogenarians in Arkansas. He was married in 1832 to Miss Winifred Parrott, a native of North Carolina. She was a daughter of Ben J. Parrott, whose father, John Parrott, served through the Revolutionary War under Col. John Washington. After finishing his collegiate education at Trinity College, North Carolina, in 1856, the Professor was elected principal of the Summerton Institute, S. C, which he conducted two years, during which time he was happily married to Miss Mary McCallum, of Bishopville, Sumter District, S. C, who also was a cultured accomplished teacher, and shoulder to shoulder with her husband has grown gray in the training of no less than 6,000 of the youths of South Carolina, Tennessee and Arkansas. Her reputation as a teacher is no less distinguished in Arkansas than her distinguished ancestors, the McCallums, Henegans and Harllees, as politicians and statesmen of South Carolina. In 1860 Prof. Garner was elected president of Hickory Plain Institute, Prairie County, Ark. In 1862 he left his school in charge of his accomplished wife, shouldered his musket and served in the Twenty-fifth Arkansas Regiment, Confederate army till the battle of Murfreesboro, in which he was severely wounded. At the surrender he was acting as post quartermaster at Mount Lebanon, La. Having been paroled by Gen. Camby at Shreveport, La., he returned to his home and took charge of his school which Mrs. Garner had successfully kept up during the entire war. Prof. Garner has devoted his time since the war in the education of the youths of Arkansas, until the last year. Prof. and Mrs. Garner have five children living: Ida (the eldest, the widow of the late Rev. J. J. Jenkins, of the Little Rock Conference, lives in Stephens), Leila (wife of Prof. R. M. Hammock, of Mount Holly, Ark.), Emma, Annie and Jennie, (who are conducting a school at Stephens, Ark. These accomplished young ladies are laying the foundation for an institution of a high grade of learning.