Biography of John Balinga - Conway Co, AR

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Submitted by: Cathy Barnes <bbarnes@cswnet.com>
        Date: 21 Jun 1998
Copyright.  All rights reserved.
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SOURCE: Biographical and Historical Memoirs of Western Arkansas.
Goodspeed Publishers, 1891.

page 45

John Balinga, one of the most practical, successful and enterprising farmers and
stockmen of Union Township, owes his birth place to near Montreal, in the
Province of Quebec, in the Dominion of Canada, and was born December 30, 1836,
His mother died when he was yet almost in infancy, and left him to grow to
manhood and even pass his natural life without any knowledge of his mother's
name. John Balinga's father, Joseph Balinga, was also a native of the Province
of Quebec, where he still lives at the ripe old age of about 94 years. His
occupation has been that of a house carpenter. In religion he was a Catholic and
probably sprang from some of the sturdy, honest and industrious early French
settlers of his native country. After Mr. Balinga married his second wife his
children were to some extent thrown under the control of a step-mother, which
proved not altogether agreeable for the children, and young John was apprenticed
to learn the harness trade, and that not being satisfactory to him he soon
after, when but 13 years old, left home and native land and went to Vermont
where he worked at his trade a short time, after which he engaged in farming. In
about the year 1858 Mr. Balinga was married to Miss Salina Marthell, who was
born at Ste. Marie, in the Province of Quebec, but removed to Vermont with her
parents, who afterward returned to Quebec, where they made their future home.
Mr. and Mrs. Balinga are the parents of twelve children, of whom three sons and
five daughters still survive. Mr. Balinga lived in Vermont till 1872, when he
removed to Rhode Island, where he was engaged in hauling lumber, etc., till
1880, when he immigrated to Conway County, Arkansas, where he has since made his
home, and is already fully identified with the interests of the county. The next
year after his arrival in Conway County he settled about four miles west of
Springfield, where he has a good upland farm of 160 acres. When the farm fell
into his hands it was all a wilderness with the exception of a few acres, but he
now has about sixty acres under a good state of cultivation with a good variety
of fruit. In religion Mr. Balinga still adheres to that of his ancestors, and
his family hold membership at Morrilton. Mr. Balinga is strictly a self-made
man, his schooldays not exceeding a few days.