Benton Co., AR - Biographies - Rev. Peter Carnahan

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SOURCE: History of Benton, Washington, Carroll, Madison, Crawford,
Franklin, and Sebastian Counties, Arkansas. Chicago: The Goodspeed 
Publishing Co., 1889.
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Rev. Peter Carnahan, who resides one mile east of Bentonville, Ark., is a native 
of Washington County. Ark., born in 1838 at Cane Hill. He is a son of Samuel and 
Mary (Pyeatt) Carnahan and grandson of Rev. John Carnahan, who was a South 
Carolinian, a Cumberland Presbyterian minister and an immigrant to Tennessee in 
1800. Eleven years later he moved to Arkansas Post, and a year later went to 
pulaski County. He was the first Protestant minister in the State of Arkansas. 
His son, Samuel, was born in South Carolina in 1794, and made his home with his 
father until 1827, when he moved to Cane Hill, Ark., where he passed the 
remainder of his days. During the time he was living at Crystal Hill his father 
moved back to Tennessee, but after Samuel moved to Cane Hill his father made his 
home with him. Samuel Carnahan died in 1867. He was the owner of 500 acres of 
land at the time of his death. His wife was of French descent, born in South 
Carolina in 1797, and died in 1879. She was a daughter of Jacob Pyeatt, and 
became the mother of twelve children, nine of whom are living, Peter Caruahan, 
our subject, being the eleventh child. He was reared on his father's farm, and 
was attending the Cane Hill College when the war broke out, and he immediately 
espoused the cause of the Confederacy, serving as third lieutenant of Capt. 
Buchanan's company. In 1862 he enlisted in Company B, Thirty-fourth Arkansas 
Regiment of Infantry, and was elected [p.818] second lieutenant of the same, and 
after the battle of Prairie Grove was promoted to adjutant, holding the latter 
position until the close of the war. He participated in the battles of Oak Hill, 
Prairie Grove and Jenkins' Ferry. After the war he returned home and farmed on 
the old homestead until 1870. He was ordained a minister of the Cumberland 
Presbyterian Church in 1866, and was given charge of a church at Pleasant Hill 
and one at Cincinnati, Ark. In 1870 he was called to Bentonville to take charge 
of the church at that point, and was pastor of the same for fourteen years. 
During this time he also had charge of the Mt. Vernon congregation, on Pea 
Ridge, which charge he still retains. In 1884 the Bentonville congregation was 
divided, and Rev. Carnahan took charge of the new congregation, known as Wood's 
congregation, the church being about two miles east of Bentonville. In June, 
1862, Mr. Carnahan was married to Martha J., daughter of Rev. John Buchanan, one 
of the pioneer Cumberland Presbyterian ministers of Washington County, Ark., and 
by her became the father of six children: Stella (wife of D. C. Lewis), Otho, 
Edgar, John Hurley, Harry Pyeatt and Earl. He has a good farm of ninety-four 
acres, and is a Democrat and an Ancient member of the Masonic fraternity. He is 
noted for his many Christian virtues, and the fact that he has been eighteen 
years the pastor of the same two congregations speaks volumes in his praise. 
his first presidential vote was cast for Breckinridge in 
1860.