Biography of J. M. Evans - 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 65

J. M. Evans, a planter by occupation and a prominent citizen of Morrilton, was
born in Conway County in 1839; was the third in a family of eleven children born
to Leroy Pope and Margaret (Henry) Evans. Leroy Evans came to Arkansas in 1822
with his parents; father was born November 23, 1812, and settled four miles
southeast of the present site of Morrilton. He was then a boy of 11 years of
age. His father, Pope, was a pioneer to this county from Alabama, where his
children were born near the present sight of Huntsville. The grandfather died
after a short residence here, and the family were mostly under the charge of
Leroy, our subject's father. He cleared up much land, and gradually accumulated
quite a fortune. He married July 16, 1835, Margaret Henry, born in this county
April 26, 1818, and daughter of James Henry, one of the earliest pioneers to
Conway County. Four sons of this union are still living, all in this county:
James, our subject, Wm. A., Peter H. and Lee G. Leroy Evans, was always an
active and moral citizen, a church member for years, and one of the substantial
men of his time. He died December 18, 1885; mother still resides on the old
homestead two and a half miles from Morrilton. Her husband was a large land
owner, and cleared about 200 acres in the river bottom, where he had erected a
good home and lived till about 1830, when he bought the farm of 80 acres where
Mrs. Evans new resides. There he erected a good house for that day and time, and
cleared some 30 acres of land. He lived on this place till his death. Our
subject was reared on the farm, attended the private schools of the county till
the outbreak of the war, when he enlisted in the first company raised in this
county and left Lewisburg for the front, May, 1861; was organized as Company I,
1st Arkansas Mounted Riflemen, Col. Churchill, and Capt. Laswell. Was in the
battle of Oak Hill. Mo., where he was slightly wounded; then at Pea Ridge or Elk
Horn, in Arkansas; later in the spring of 1862, was transferred across the
Mississippi River, and at Corinth, Miss., reorganized. Then went to Tennessee
and was sent on the Kentucky campaign under Gen. Kirby Smith; fought at
Lexington, Lawrenceburg, Ky., and Murfreesboro, Tenn. Then in all the battles of
Johnson's retreat from the rear of Vicksburg to Jackson, Miss., after the fall
of Vicksburg; then, under Bragg, in the battle of Chickamauga, where he had
thirty-two bullets shot through his clothing and was wounded through the
shoulder. Notwithstanding this wound, he remained in camp, and was soon engaged
in the battle of Dug Gap, where this regiment held the Gap against Hooker's
entire corps; after this fight retreated to Resaca; at New Hope Church, where a
bullet shattered his arm at the shoulder, and entered his body where it still
remains. After this wound, his arm was amputated at the shoulder, and after a
month in the hospital and another month with a friend in South Carolina, he
crossed the Mississippi River, and went to Texas, where he remained till the end
of the war. He then came home and in 1872-3-4 engaged in business at Lewisburg.
He then returned to the farm four miles below town in the bottoms, where he
resided till January 1, 1890, when he removed to Morrilton. He owns a good farm
of 106 acres, 70 acres in the bottoms in cultivation, on which is a good house
and other improvements, with as good land as there is on the Arkansas River. He
has rented this land and is living in retirement now. Mr. Evans was married
September 16, 1883, to Miss Sallie F. Miller, a native of this county, and
daughter of Thomas C. Miller, who came here when a young man. To this union have
been born two children, James T., born June 22, 1884, and Esther Ethel, born
July 12, 1886. Family are members of the M. E. Church, South.