Biography of Samuel J. Hastings - 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 73

Samuel J. Hastings, another prominent farmer of Woolverton Mountain,
in Lick Mountain Township, was born in Maury County, Tennessee, in
1851, July 13th. His parents, Samuel E., and Martha (Flowers)
Hastings, were natives respectively of Maury and Bedford Counties,
Tennessee. Married in Maury County, and when Samuel J. was a boy they
removed to Perry County, Tennessee, where Mrs. Hastings died soon
after. Mr. Hastings married again and removed to McNairy County,
thence to Mississippi, thence back to McNairy County, and in 1882 came
to Conway County, but is now a resident of Faulkner County, and is
about fifty-eight years old. He served nearly all through the
Confederate army in a Tennessee regiment; was captured at Port Hudson,
and served a long time in a Northern prison. He is a Methodist and
a son of Josiah Hastings, who removed from McNairy County, Tennessee,
to Randolph County. Arkansas, about 1853. He died there during the
war; a farmer and mechanic and distiller. His father was one of two
brothers who emigrated from England and settled in North Carolina.
Grandfather, Josiah Flowers, was a farmer of Bedford County,
Tennessee, where he died. The subject of this sketch is the elder of
two children. The sister is Mrs. Sarah M., widow of William H.
Pritchard (deceased), of Perry County, Tennessee. From seven till
about fifteen years old Mr. Hastings was reared by an uncle,
William Flowers, in Perry County, Tennessee, but at fifteen began for
himself as a farm hand. He was married in Henry County. Tennessee, in
1869, to Martha Woolverton, a daughter of William L. Woolverton, whose
sketch is in another part of this work. Mrs. Hastings was born in
McNairy County, Tennessee, and is the mother of eight children.
After marriage Mr. Hastings lived in the Counties of Henry, Perry and
McNairy till 1880, when he came to Conway County, Arkansas, and the
year following purchased his present farm of 200 acres, with now about
sixty acres cleared. All but about fifteen acres he has cleared
himself. Politically, he is a Democrat, and is a member of the F. A.
M., Flat Woods Lodge, No. 428, in Wayne County, Tennessee. He and wife
are both. Missionary Baptists in good standing.