Crawford Co., AR - Biographies - Rev. Dr. Elisha M. Lowrey

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SOURCE: History of Benton, Washington, Carroll, Madison, Crawford,
Franklin, and Sebastian Counties, Arkansas. Chicago: The Goodspeed 
Publishing Co., 1889.
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Rev. Dr. Elisha M. Lowrey, a Missionary Baptist minister, physician 
and surgeon of LaFayette Township, was born in Franklin County, Ga., 
in 1828, and is a son of Amos and Eliza Ann (Albrighton) Lowrey, 
natives of Wilkes County and Franklin County, Ga., respectively. They 
lived in Franklin County until 1835, and then went to what is now 
Gordon County, and later to Cobb County, where the mother died in 
1860. Mr. Lowrey afterward married, and moved to DeKalb County, where 
he died in 1879, aged eighty-seven. He was a farmer by occupation, and 
had belonged to the Methodist Church from childhood. For several years 
he served as justice of the peace. The grandfather, Elisha Lowrey, was 
born in South Carolina, of Irish parents, and died in Georgia. He was 
a soldier in the War of 1812. Prior to the Revolution three brothers, 
Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego Lowrey, came to America from Ireland, 
and served in the above war. Meshach, the great-grandfather of our 
subject, settled first in South Carolina, but afterward went to 
Virginia. He was a minister in the Hardshell Baptist Church many 
years, and Dr. Lowrey remembers hearing him preach on the one hundred 
and sixth anniversary of his birth. Dr. Lowrey is the third of a 
family of seven children, and received his early education in an old 
log house, with a dirt floor and a fire in the center of the room. 
When seventeen years old he married Dorcas E., daughter of James and 
Rachel Stewart, of Cherokee County, Ga., who died in 1854, leaving 
three children, two of whom are living. In 1856 he was married a 
second time, Julia Ann, daughter of Moses M. and Elizabeth Ann 
Cantrell, becoming his wife. Her parents were born in South Carolina, 
but her birth-place was in Forsyth County, Ga. She has borne eight 
children, of whom six are living. After studying medicine four years 
our subject attended the Macon (Ga.) Botanic School, from which he 
graduated in 1859, although since 1854 he has practiced medicine with 
success. When ten years old he became a convert in the Methodist 
Church, and at the age of sixteen was licensed to preach, which he did 
for fourteen years. He then united with the Missionary Baptist Church, 
was immediately ordained, and has since been an earnest worker in that 
church, [p.1169] preaching with good results in his various places of 
residence. He preached and practiced medicine in the neighborhood 
where he was reared until the year 1870, when he came to Crawford 
County, and until 1880 lived upon forty acres of his present farm, 
which is situated five miles south of Mountainburg. He then engaged in 
the drug business at Alma until 1884, after which he lived in Choctaw 
Nation two years for his health. Since that time he has lived on the 
old place, which now contains 160 acres. He is widely and favorably 
known as a minister and physician, and in 1887 established a drug 
store at Graphic, which is now in the charge of one of his sons. 
During the war he served six months as surgeon in the Eighth Georgia 
Battalion. Since 1871 he has belonged to the Masonic fraternity, and 
is now a member of the Graphic lodge. His wife is a member of the 
Baptist Church, but was formerly a Methodist. 

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