Crawford Co., AR - Biographies - R. C. Oliver

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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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R. C. Oliver, merchant and farmer, was born October 17, 1825, in Roane 
County, Tenn., and is a son of Eli and Aspasia (Ellis) Oliver, natives 
of the same State. In 1832 the parents removed from Tennessee to 
Washington County, Ark., and in 1842 came to Crawford County, where 
they died in 1846 and 1855, respectively. They reared a family of 
twelve children. two of whom now farm in Crawford County. The 
grandfather was John Oliver, and his wife, Julia, died in 1840. Our 
subject picked up what education he could, considering there were no 
public schools in those days, and at the age of twenty-one began to 
farm on his own account. In 1857 he married Mrs. Ellen (Redman) 
Behethland, a daughter of Hosea and Catherine (Barker) Redman. This 
lady died in 1864, and the following year Mr. Oliver married Mrs. 
Narcissa (Foster) Hargrove, daughter of Hocket and Zelika (Turner) 
Foster, and a native of Missouri, born in 1833. Mr. Oliver has three 
children, two sons and one daughter. Although he began life a poor 
young man, he has been successful in his farming and mercantile 
investments, until he now owns 800 acres of land, about half of which 
is under cultivation. He also has a grist and saw-mill and cottongin, 
and deals some in stock. In politics he is a Democrat, and his first 
presidential vote was cast for Lewis Cass in 1848. 

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