Crawford Co., AR - Biographies - John R. Meadors *********************************************** This file was contributed for use in the USGenWeb Archives by: The Goodspeed Publishing Co Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgenwebarchives.org *********************************************** ---------------------------------------------------------------------- SOURCE: History of Benton, Washington, Carroll, Madison, Crawford, Franklin, and Sebastian Counties, Arkansas. Chicago: The Goodspeed Publishing Co., 1889. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- John R. Meadors was born in Whitley County, Ky., October 7, 1826, and is a son of Jacob M. and Jane W. (Harman) Meadors. The former died in 1871 aged seventy-three, and the latter at the age of seventy-one. [See sketch of G. W. B. Meadors.] Jacob M. was a son of John Meadors, whose father was Jason Meadors. The latter married a Miss Mobley. John Meadors' wife was Delila Jones. and Jacob M. married Jane W. Harman, a daughter of Valentine and Sarah (Baken) Harman. The father of the latter, Thomas Baken, was a captain in Washington's army, and was killed in a duel with John Brown in South Carolina. In 1845 John R. Meadors married Susanna, daughter of Nathan [p.1174] Moore, who was the son of Thomas and Delila (Williams) Moore, natives of South Carolina, who went to Tennessee in 1825, and the same year settled in Whitley County, Ky. In 1856 they moved to Crawford County, Ark., where the father died in 1865 aged eighty-eight, the mother in 1877 aged seventy-three. Mr. Moore has been a class leader in the Methodist Church sixty years, and his wife had been a member for a long time. To the union of our subject and wife sixteen children were born, five sons and three daughters now living, and all married and residing in this neighborhood. In 1851 Mr. Meadors came to this county and purchased of the Little Rock & Fort Smith Railway a portion of his present farm, his deed, dated September 8, 1859, being the first issued by them. He has since added to his possessions until now he is one the largest landholders in the county, owning 500 acres of good land, which is the result of his industry and business ability. He is a Republican now, but previous to the war was a Democrat. He is a leader of his party in this vicinity, and with the exception of six years has served continuously as justice of the peace since 1864. Since 1866 he has been postmaster of Belmont Post-office, and for nearly six years after 1868 was associate judge of the county court. He has never served on a petit jury, but has probably been on more grand juries, in both the federal and circuit courts, than any other man in the county. In May, 1878, a mercantile store, which he had been running, was burned, but in 1887 he again started a store on his farm, and is now doing business upon the old site. He is a public-spirited man, a member of the Farmers' Alliance, and himself and wife belong to the Christian Church. ----------------------------------------------------------------------