Biography of J. C. Steele - 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 110

Esquire J. C. Steele, a popular citizen and one of the substantial
farmers of Union Township, was born in Marshall County, Miss., in
July, 1843. His father, Robert N. Steele, who was a son of Ninnian
Steele who was a farmer of Alabama, where he died about the year
1851, was a native of Alabama, but was married in Tennessee to
Hannah Hervey, who was a South Carolinian by birth. In 1849 Mr.
Steele journeyed to Texas to look for a more suitable location, and
while there died of that dreaded disease, cholera. In 1860 the
family removed to Conway County, where the mother died the following
year, 1861. She was a faithful member of the Methodist Church for
many years.

Esquire Steele is the youngest but one in a family of ten children.
He was reared to manhood on a farm, receiving his education at North
Mt. Pleasant (Miss.) Male Academy. He came with the family to Conway
County, and engaged as a clerk at Portland till July of 1861, when
he joined Company A, Fourteenth Arkansas Infantry, but after the
reorganization at Corinth, in 1862, he served in Company D, Twenty-
first Arkansas, as sergeant; and fought at Iuka, Corinth, Port
Gibson, Champion and Black River Bridge, etc; and, after the fall of
Vicksburg, he joined the Tenth Arkansas Cavalry, and was with Gen.
Price on his celebrated raid through Missouri. He was captured at
[p.110] Kansas City, but soon after made good his escape. He
surrendered with his command at Jacksonport, Ark., in June, 1865,
after four long years of conflict.

His first marriage occurred in Arkansas County in 1866, to Mary
Davis, a daughter of John and Hamilton Davis, She was a native of
Mississippi and died in 1868. Mr. Steele was again married in 1873.
this time to Miss Lizzie, a daughter of Jonathan and Frances Norton,
who died in Yell County when Mrs. Steele was a small child. She was
born in Tennessee. To this latter union have been born five
children, of whom three daughters survive.

Mr. Steele returned to this county in 1869, and in 1877, purchased
his present farm, which then had about ten acres cleared. He now has
about sixty acres under cultivation, 120 acres in the entire farm,
which is the fruits of his own labor. He served three years as
Justice of Peace, his last term expiring in 1886. He is a member of
Howard Lodge, No. 253, A. F. & A. M., at Plummerville, and he and
wife are Methodists in good standing. Politically, Mr. Steele is a
Democrat and is ever ready to assist in any worthy enterprise.