Biography of A W Gills, Clay Co, AR

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From: 
The Goodspeed Biographical and Historical Memoirs of N. E. Ark.
Biographical Information.

A. W. Gills, one of the most thorough going, wide-awake business men of this
section of the county, and a genial, pleasant gentleman, is a native of Fulton
County, Ky., and came with his parents, who were natives of Virginia, to what is
now Clay County, Ark., at the age of nineteen years. They settled near his
present residence, where the mother died in 1870, and the father two years
later. Later A. W. Gills purchased this farm. In addition to his agricultural
interests he also erected a cotton-gin, and about the 1st of October, 1886,
commenced ginning cotton, with a capacity of nine bales per day. In September of
the same year he started a stave factory and corn mill, all of which he now runs
with steam under the same roof, the stave business being the principal industry,
the factory having a capacity of 8,000 staves per day. He regularly employs from
thirty to thirty-five men and ten teams. This has been the means of building at
least half a dozen houses in his neighborhood. He still carries on his farm of
180 acres, which he has well supplied with good stock. Mr. Gills was married in
1882 to Miss Claude Gwin, whom he met in Missouri, and whose parents are now
living there. He is a member of the Masonic fraternity, being attached to the
Eastern Star Lodge, and is also a member of Chalk Bluff Lodge No. 72, I. O. O.
F., and of the K. of H. In politics he votes with the Democratic party.