My Genealogy Hound

William Rose, an old resident and substantial farmer of Searcy Township, was born in Jackson County, Ohio, on January 7, 1817, being one of eleven children born to William and Mary (Atkins) Rose. William Rose, Sr., was a native of Montgomery County, Va., and moved with his parents to Ohio when a small boy. He was reared, married and died there in 1879. He was of English-Irish descent and his wife a direct descendant of the Germans, and died when William, Jr., was a boy. Our subject received his education in the schools of Ohio, and, when twenty-one years old, immigrated to St. Francis County, Ark., where he rented land until 1847, at that time purchasing 160 acres, on which he lived until 1870, when he came to Phillips County, settling on his present farm. This place consists of 440 acres, with 200 acres under a fine state of cultivation, and the improvements, which are numerous, show him to be of an industrious and enterprising spirit. In 1889 Mr. Williams erected a steam cotton-gin, at a cost of $1,500. His farm, situated eighteen miles southwest of Helena, is well adapted to the growing of grain, hay and cotton. He is also engaged in stock-raising, a profitable source of income. Mr. Rose was first married in St. Francis County, in 1843, to Miss Marian Castile, a native of that county, who died in 1847, having borne two children, now deceased. Mr. Rose was again married in 1850 to Miss Augustine Forbes (a cousin of the former wife). She died in 1864, and of five children born to their union only one is now living: Margaret F. (the wife of F. M. Cox, residing in Lee County). In 1865 Mr. Rose married Mrs. Emily Brown (nee Brown). His fourth wife was Martha Brown, a native of Mississippi, and who has two children by her former marriage: John L. and Carrie. Mr. Rose is a Democrat politically, having cast his first vote for President James K. Polk. He is a member of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, and a quiet, law-abiding citizen.