Biography of William D. Safley - 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 353

William D. Safley is well known and highly respected throughout Buffalo
Island Township as one of its worthy and intelligent citizens, public-
spirited and of sterling integrity. He was born in Stanley County, N. C.,
in 1851, and is a son of William B. and Mary Ann (Biles) Safley, natives
of North Carolina, where they were reared, educated and married. In 1859
they came to East Tennessee, locating on a farm in Cocke County, where he
died, but not until after espousing the Southern cause, and serving
valiantly in the Confederate army. The mother and family came to
Craighead County, Ark., in 1869, and located in Powell Township, where
they remained for several years. In 1881 Mrs. Safley started for Oregon,
where she died the day after reaching Eugene City, May 22 of the same
year. She was a member of the Baptist Church, and well liked by all who
knew her. Mr. and Mrs. Safley were the parents of nine children, all of
whom lived to maturity, and eight of whom are still living. They were
Mrs. Sarah E. Jackson (deceased), Thomas F., Mrs. Mary L. Heritage,
Alexander W., William D. (the immediate subject of this sketch), Julius
H., Mrs. Rebecca E. Cox, Mrs. Margaret A. Yarbrough and Mrs. Edosia J.
Hawthorne. William D. is the fifth child, and has made his home in this
State since 1869. When twenty-four years of age he chose as his life
companion Anna E. Stoddard, a native of this State, who died March 16,
1888, leaving a family of five children: David E. (deceased), Sarah M.,
Joseph F., Rosa Lee and Lillie May. Mr. Safley has since married Mrs.
Sarah E. Meachiem, nee Foster, a native of Tennessee, who was the mother
of two children by her former marriage. One of them, Willie, is deceased;
the other, James E., lives with his parents. Mrs. Safley is a zealous
member of the Methodist Episcopal Church. Mr. Safley made a trip to
Oregon and other points in 1888, and has seen a great deal of the world.