Biography of William Y. M. Wilkerson - 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 362

Rev. William Y. M. Wilkerson, a minister of the Christian
denomination, and deputy clerk of Craighead County, was born in Lawrence
(now Sharp) County, Ark., in 1844, and is a son of Purvey Wilkerson, a
native of North Carolina. The father was reared in Illinois, but came to
Arkansas in 1836, and married while here, returning the same year to
Illinois, where he remained for six years. He then returned to Arkansas,
locating in what is now Sharp County, where he improved a large farm, on
which he resided until 1863, when he again returned to Illinois. Three
years later he started to return to his home in Arkansas, but, before
reaching here, died in Perry County, Mo., November 24, 1866. He was
devoted to the cause of his Master, and was a deacon in the Baptist
Church. The mother is an estimable lady, and still resides in Sharp
County, of which she is a native, born in 1821. Our subject and Benjamin
W. are the only survivors of the family of seven children. William Y. M.
has spent all but five years of his life in this State, and in his youth
attended school and assisted on the farm. In the War of the Rebellion he
served in the Union army, enlisting first in the Third Missouri Militia,
and later in the Fourteenth Missouri Volunteers. He saw much active
service, and was slightly wounded at Licking, Mo. After the surrender he
went to Franklin County, Ill., and attended high school one year, when he
returned to Arkansas, and followed farming and school teaching until
1884, when he was elected deputy clerk, to which office he has since been
three times elected. He is a Republican in polities, but stands so high
in popular favor that he has been four times elected in a county where
there are twenty Democrats to one Republican. Mr. Wilkerson was married
in 1876 to Miss Morrilla T. Herren, a native of Alabama, and to this
union have been born five children: Rebecca E., Henry M., William A. W.,
James B. P. and Clarkie G. Mr. and Mrs. Wilkerson are members of the
Christian Church, and he has been an ordained minister of that
denomination since November 20, 1870. He professed religion in 1860, and
since that time has given twenty years to the ministry of the Gospel. He
located in this county in 1880, and, through his kindness to the poor,
thoughtful consideration of his fellow-men, [p.362] fervent piety and
devotion to his Master's cause, he has won an enviable and lasting
popularity.