Biography of James F. Cross - Craighead Co, AR

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Submitted by: Unknown < >
        Date: 26 Sep 1998
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SOURCE: Biographical and Historical Memoirs of Northeast Arkansas.
Goodspeed Publishers, 1889.

page 326

James F. Cross is a substantial and public spirited citizen of
Craighead County, and has a large, well improved farm of 120 acres,
about three miles from Jonesboro. He was born in Shelby County, Tenn.,
July 29, 1840, and is the son of B. F. Cross, a native of Giles County.
Tenn., and a substantial farmer of that State. In 1844 the father came
to Craighead County (then Poinsett), and located near Greensboro, where
he bought eighty acres of land, and engaged in farming for several
years. Ten or twelve years later he came to Jonesboro Township, where
he rented land until his death, in 1877. He was a member of the Sons of
Temperance at an early day, and was honored by local offices in Powell
Township. His wife, Mary (Hannah) Cross, was a native of North
Carolina, and six children blessed their union, five sons and one
daughter. Of these, James F., J. H. and Benjamin R. are the only
survivors. The mother died in this township in December, 1887, aged
about sixty-seven years. All his life James F. Cross has been a
resident of the same settlement in Craighead County, excepting the four
years of the late war. In 1861 he entered the Confederate service,
enlisting in Company I, Thirteenth Arkansas Infantry, and served four
years and seventeen days. After the war he bought eighty acres of his
farm, and has since added forty. April 23, 1869, he married Mary J.
Higginbotham, a native of Poinsett County, Ark., and daughter of
Franklin and Nancy (Edwards) Higginbotham, residents of this township.
Five children have been born to this union: William Thomas (deceased),
John Franklin, Mary Melvina, Stephen Lafayette and Jodella. Mr. Cross
has all his life been an energetic and industrious man, and though he
received no education in his childhood, has been a successful farmer,
and accumulated a valuable property. He has been a member of the
Masonic order, and is a Democrat.