Crawford Co., AR - Biographies - John H. Polly

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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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John H. Polly was born in Mississippi County, Mo., in 1840, and is a 
son of John and Mary (Hall) Polly, natives of Pennsylvania County, 
Va., where they were reared and married. About 1834 the father crossed 
the Blue Mountains in an ox-cart with his wife and family and located 
in Mississippi County, Mo. He then immigrated to Madison County, where 
his wife died when our subject was a small boy, after which he went to 
Wayne County, settling in Greenville, and again married. After running 
a hotel and blacksmith store some years at that place he moved upon a 
farm ten miles distant, and lived until his death. John H. is the 
yonngest and only living child of a family of eight, and losing his 
father when he was about nine he was reared by his brother-in-law, 
Zedakiah Bedwell, in Greenville, receiving but little schooling. When 
he was twelve years of age his brother-in-law gave him a horse, which 
he sold, and with the money purchased an interest in a grocery house 
at Marble Hill. Two years later he started a general mercantile store 
in Wayne County, and two years after that engaged in the mercantile 
business at Poplar Bluff with increasing success until the war. He 
then sold out, and returning to Greenville, farmed one season, and 
then in 1862 enlisted in the Confederate army, in Capt. Holmes company 
of [p.1186] infantry. A few months later he was transferred to Company 
C. of Col. Reeves' regiment of Missouri cavalry, serving as sergeant-
major, and being paroled as quartermaster at Jacksonport. Ark., at the 
close of the war, under Jeff. Thompson. He participated in a number of 
skirmishes, and did duty in Missouri and Arkansas. He then passed a 
year at Poplar Bluff engaged in blacksmithing, and also a year in 
Greenville. In 1869 he removed to Washington County, Ark., and since 
1871 has been a resident of Prairie Township, Crawford County. He 
farmed exclusively until 1877, but since that time has been employed 
by the Singer Sewing Machine Company as agent and collector of 
Crawford and Franklin Counties. He is a man of good business ability, 
and although he began life for himself a poor boy now owns eighty 
acres of land and is a well-to-do man. He is a Democrat, and from 1882 
until 1886 served as deputy sheriff. In 1860 he married Hannah, 
daughter of Thomas and Lucinda Hopkins, natives of North Carolina, who 
were married in Missouri. The father died when Mrs. Polly was but a 
girl, but the mother resides upon the old homestead in Wayne County, 
Mo. Mr. and Mrs. Polly are Methodists and the parents of six children, 
all save one now living. Mr. Polly is a member of the Pleasant Hill 
Lodge No. 233, A. F. & A. M. His first presidential vote was cast for 
Seymour in 1868.

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