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Below is a family biography included in Biographical and Historical Memoirs of Saline County, Arkansas published by Goodspeed Publishing Company in 1889.  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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A. J. Lancaster, farmer and stock raiser of Beaver Township, was born in the southern part of Illinois, February 25, 1830, and is the eldest in a family of thirteen children born to Jesse and Mary (Woods) Lancaster. Jesse Lancaster was a native of Tennessee and his wife of Illinois. They were married in the latter State, and when A. J. was only one year old moved to Missouri, but after a residence of two years, came to Arkansas, settling in Izard County. Mr. Lancaster followed the occupation of farming until his death in 1850, his wife surviving him till 1863. Both great-grandfathers were in the War of 1812. Of the thirteen children born to Mr. and Mrs. Lancaster, only five are living: Allen P., Jesse, Greenbery, Charlotte (Halpain) and A. J., the subject of this memoir, who was reared and educated in Izard County, remaining there until his eighteenth year, when he engaged in farming for himself. In April, 1851, he was married to Miss M. Williams, a native of Missouri, and a daughter of one of the early settlers of Izard County. After his marriage he continued farming in Izard County for three years, when a determination to travel for a time led him to explore the South and especially Texas, but he concluded at last that there was no place like the State of his adoption. On his return he located in Saline County, and has since been a resident of this part of the county. In 1856 he came to Beaver Township, and entered eighty acres of land at 12 1/2 cents per acre, clearing and improving about twelve acres. He afterward sold that and purchased the farm where he now lives. This farm consisted of eighty acres partly improved, and at the present time he has forty acres under cultivation. When Mr. Lancaster took up a home in Beaver Township, it was very thinly settled and game was plentiful. The inhabitants were obliged to depend on their own resources for clothing, and had to go twenty miles to mill. Little Rock was the nearest market, it being at that time a very small village, and Indians were numerous. When the war was proclaimed Mr. Lancaster joined the Eleventh Arkansas Regiment (Col. Smith) in July, 1861, and participated in the battle of Tiptonville and fight at New Madrid. In the year 1862 he was captured and kept a prisoner of war at Camp Douglas, Chicago, for some months, finally joining the army at Vicksburg, Miss. At Port Hudson in the spring of 1863, he was wounded and from that time was in a great many skirmishes until the close of the war. He was at home on a furlough when the surrender was made, so never received his discharge. By his first marriage two children were born: Ambrose (married, living in Union Township) and Susan (Richey, in Beaver Township). Mrs. Lancaster died in 1853, and in 1854 Mr. Lancaster was married to Narcissa A. Wills, a native of Saline County. To this union six children have been born, three of whom lived to be grown: Benjamin, Jessie Rutha and Berris. Mrs. Lancaster’s mother, Mrs. Rutha L. Mills, is the daughter of Mathew Carroll, a farmer of South Carolina, where she was born about 1807. Mrs. Mills is at present enjoying very good health for a woman of her age, and expresses a desire to go back to the land of her childhood. She has been a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church for sixty years, and is now living with her children. Mr. and Mrs. Lancaster are members of the Methodist Episcopal Church, in which the former has been steward. He is a member of Ionic Lodge No. 374, A. F. & A. M.

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This family biography is one of 100 biographies included in Biographical and Historical Memoirs of Saline County, Arkansas published in 1889.  For the complete description, click here: Saline County, Arkansas History, Genealogy, and Maps

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